海洋陆源污染的产生原因与防治模式

海洋陆源污染是陆域经济社会活动行为及其对海洋生态环境造成的负面影响进而出现的污染性问题。累积性的陆源排污不仅会对海洋环境容量造成不良影响,同时也会对海洋自净能力造成减弱影响,不利于沿海地区的经济发展。目前,关于海洋陆源污染问题的防治工作刻不容缓,本文就从多个方面进行统筹规划与科学部署,通过深入掌握海洋陆源污染的具体成因,提出了针对性防治模式,以期为相关人员提供一定的借鉴价值。     

基于新常态下环境监察执法的难点和重点分析

随着社会经济的发展和人民生活水平的日益提高,广大人民对环境的要求也达到了一个新的高度。在新常态下,如何加强环境监察执法力度与效率、高效解决环境问题、改善生态环境,成为普遍关注的问题。本文从当下环境监察执法工作中的重点与难点出发,分析了新常态下的环境局势,并给出了几点新常态背景下高效开展环境监察执法工作的措施,以期能够改进环境监察执法现状,促进环境问题的早日解决。     

甜菜制糖生产废水提标改造设计分析

食品废水处理对我国的经济发展以及环境业提高具有重要的推动作用。本文以某制糖厂为例,对甜菜制糖废水处理站的提标改造工程进行详细分析,在此基础上进行合理设计。     

2004—2017年浙江省较大以上生产安全事故统计分析

为充分探究浙江省生产安全事故发生规律,以2004—2017年浙江省生产安全事故为研究对象,从事故发生的时间关系、区域分布、行业分布、事故类型分布等方面对全省总体、工矿商贸领域、化工领域、典型危险作业4个分类的较大以上事故特点进行了剖析研究;并从政府监管的角度,提出事故防范的措施和建议。     

Improving pedestrian safety using combined HOG and Haar partial detection in mobile systems

Objective: The objective of this study is to develop a novel algorithm on a mobile system that can warn drivers about the possibility of a collision with a pedestrian. The constraints of the algorithm are near-real-time detection speed and a good detection rate.

Method: Histogram of gradients (HOG)-based detection is widely used in pedestrian safety applications; however, it has low detection speed for real-time systems. Hence, it has no direct usage for mobile systems. In order to achieve near-real-time detection speed, partial Haar transform predetections are applied to an image before HOG detection. The partial and HOG detections are merged and a score-based confidence level is defined for the final detection phase. In this way, the outcome is prioritized and different warning levels can be issued to warn the driver before a possible pedestrian collision.

Results: The proposed algorithm provides an increase in detection speed (from 46 to 76 fps) and detection rate (from 80 to 91%) with respect to HOG-based pedestrian detection. It also improves confidence of the results by multidetection merging and score assignment to detections.

Conclusions: Performance improvement of the algorithm is compared with respect to state-of-the-art detectors/algorithms. Based on the detection rate and detection speed performance, it can be concluded that the proposed algorithm is suitable to be used for mobile systems to warn drivers about the possibility of collision with a pedestrian.     

Assessing disabling and non-disabling injuries and illnesses using accepted workers compensation claims data to prioritize industries of high risk for Oregon young workers

Introduction: Young workers are especially vulnerable to occupational injuries and illnesses. There is a continued need to investigate injury burden among young workers across demographics and industry to inform targeted interventions. Workers compensation (WC) claims are important for quantifying work-related injuries and illnesses, however published studies have focused on disabling claims. This study extended previous research on Oregon young workers by including the most recent WC claims data to identify patterns of injury and high risk industries. Methods: We obtained all accepted disabling claims (N = 13,360) and a significant portion of non-disabling claims (N = 24,660) on workers aged 24 years and under from 2013 to 2018. Claim count, rate and cost were calculated by year, age, gender, industry, and injury type. A prevention index (PI) method was used to rank industries in order to inform prevention efforts. Results: Average annual disabling and non-disabling claim rates were 111.6 and 401.3 per 10,000 young workers. Workers aged 19–21 (disabling: 119.0 per 10,000 and non-disabling: 429.3) and 22–24 years (115.7 and 396.4) and male workers (145.3 and 509.0) had higher claim rates than workers aged 14–18 (80.6 and 297.0) and female workers (79.8 and 282.9). The most frequent injury types were “struck by/against” (35.6%) and “work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs)” (19.5%). High risk industries included agriculture, construction, and manufacturing for both genders combined. For female young workers, the highest risk industry was healthcare. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the added value of non-disabling WC claims data. Using both disabling and non-disabling data and PI method, agriculture, construction, manufacturing and healthcare industries were identified as priority workplaces to prevent common and costly injuries among Oregon young workers. Practical Applications: While the industries identified are considered hazardous for all workers, findings in this study can guide targeted research and prevention efforts specific to young workers.     

Evolution of working conditions under the impact of ICTs

IntroductionInformation and communication technologies (ICTs) play a major role in the current evolution of work. They are both a great tool for emancipating human beings from the most tedious and most dangerous tasks and an effective vector for intensifying work.MethodsOn the basis of three foresight exercises carried out in recent years and by describing concrete examples of work organizations, the authors highlight the main possible trends for the changes to come.ConclusionsThey conclude on a few general principles that could allow the establishment of a win–win policy.     

Insight into the safety distance of ground and underground installations in typical petrochemical plants

Petrochemical plants are continuously turning into large-size corporations, the installations of facilities show a developing trend from ground to underground because of the difference in land using rate. In this regard, the safety distance of petrochemical equipment buried in both ground and underground cases were investigated based on risk assessment. As a case study, gasoline tank and LPG tank set on the ground and underground are singled out to compare the risks involved. The research showed that the setting case of installation had a great influence on safety distance. Two cases have 80% reduction of equivalent safety distance compared with the rest of the cases. It was found that when the gasoline storage tank was placed underground alone, the PLL value decreased by 36.7%. Only LPG tank was placed underground, and the PLL decreased by 6.33%, and the gasoline and LPG storage tanks were placed underground simultaneously, the PLL value declined by 42.3%. Thus, the layout of plants could be further optimized, which can greatly improve the performances of land use efficiency and safety. In addition, this paper, the selection of embedding methods and the sensitivity of underground case to overpressure was resumed from two aspects: soil properties and burial depth. For the soil properties, it was found that the water saturated sandy soil with high air content and the low density unsaturated sandy soil had better effects on weakening overpressure. Such properties are particularly beneficial to reducing the occurrence rate of accidents. In terms of burial depth, it can be observed that as the burial depth was changed from 0.5m to 1.1m, the value of overpressure has dropped dramatically. When the burial depth was 2m, the damage to personnel and buildings has been greatly reduced beyond 2m from the explosion center.     

Inhibiting effects by Fe2O3 on combustion and explosion characteristics of ABS resin

The global increase in the use of, and reliance on, plastics has prompted the demand for acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resin in various fields. With this increased requirement, numerous failures have occurred in the ABS process. Those incidents, resulting from electrostatic discharge, powder accumulation, heat accumulation, construction sparks, and plant fires, have caused dust fire and explosions.In this study, the ABS resin was gleaned from the site and tested for its explosion parameters, including minimum ignition temperature of dust cloud (MIT_C), minimum ignition energy (MIE), and minimum explosion concentration (MEC). To improve loss prevention in the manufacturing process, ferric oxide (Fe₂O₃) as an inert additive was added in the ABS powder. According to the MIE test, Fe₂O₃ has an apparent inhibiting effect on dust explosion for the ABS dust. With the proportion of Fe₂O₃ increased from 25 to 50 mass% in ABS, the MIE increased from 67 to 540 mJ. The explosion tests via 20-L apparatus indicated that Fe₂O₃ mixed with ABS could not increase the MEC significantly. However, the explosion pressure dropped by increasing in the ratio of Fe₂O₃ in ABS. This inerting strategy of ABS was deemed to substantially lessen the probability and severity of fire and explosion.     

Assessment of the effect of technical and management characteristics on the frequency of release from piping: An application to a gas storage facility

The assessment of the frequencies of release from piping due to losses of containment is an essential step in the preparing Safety Reports, drawn up as required by the so-called “Seveso” Directive. These are usually calculated starting from the frequencies of random rupture included in international databases and are not plant-specific, furthermore, the quantification of the effect of the safety management system of the facility is not easy. A simple and flexible approach quantifying technical and management characteristics of the plant has been proposed by Milazzo and co-workers in 2010; it is based on the modification of the frequency taken from literature, through the use of the percentages of failure causes actually possible in that plant, and the judgment about their management. The data about the failure causes are taken from the literature and modified by using corrective factors to adapt them to the industrial context. To make possible the application of the method to a large number of major-hazard industry types, some aspects of the approach needed to be improved; these have been identified during a development project coordinated by RINA Consulting, on behalf of Saipem, with the collaboration of the University of Messina. The improvement of the approach focused on two main points, the development of a method to calculate the corrective factors for the failure causes associated with corrosion and erosion phenomena and the strengthening of the methodology for the formulation of the judgment about the safety management. This paper illustrates the fully improved method, as well as an application to a typical gas storage plant.