个人使用防护口罩防"非典"知识问答

2003年曾一度肆虐我国的传染性“非典”病毒的传播,迫使很多人都不得不选择使用个人防护口罩来降低受传染的危险,尤其是在疫情集中的广州、北京等城市。事实上,最直接受“非典”病毒威胁的人群,是在医院工作的广大一线医护人员,由于他们密切接触“非典”病原,受传染的机率比其他人群高许多,因此,正确选择和使用适合的呼吸防护用品及其他个人防护用品,已经成为抗击“非典”的一线医护人员有效保护自身、降低传染率的关键环节之一。过去,我国在医院内使用呼吸防护口罩作为预防呼吸性传染病的预防措施,并不普遍。在“非典”之前,我国并没有医用…     

提高交通安全——实现智能汽车的研究

主要介绍了通过智能汽车的研究 ,提高城市交通安全的必要性 ;综述了发达国家关于智能汽车研究的现状与趋势 ,并通过国外智能汽车发展的趋势 ;进一步论证智能汽车的研究是汽车工业发展的方向 ,也是提高交通安全的重要手段之一。此外 ,论文提出利用模式识别技术的智能汽车的结构框架 ;指出神经网络方法应用与模式识别技术结合的优势。最后 ,论文在阐述我国需要发展智能汽车的同时 ,提出应结合中国国情相应研究相关理论 ,为今后的实施奠定基础的近期目标 ,并提出展望     

浅谈如何做好班组安全教育

班组是企业最基层的单位,是企业安全管理的前沿阵地,是搞好企业安全生产的基础。班组安全管理是一项系统工程,需要班组安全教育、安全生产、劳动保护,工业卫生、安全检查等多环节多方面的努力。其中,班组安全教育对于班组安全管理而言,是前提和基础。     

浅谈如何提高海外突发事件应急能力

本文根据近期国际安全局势变化,海外工程项目社会安全风险不断加大,结合公司应急处置经验,从提高海外突发事件应急能力入手,从五个方面进行了分析:一是提高应急预案针对性、操作性和实用性;二是加强出国人员安全培训;三是加强中国"走出去"企业间交流合作;四是加强同驻外领事馆联系;五是加强同当地政府、部落、居民的联系取得多方帮助。     

如何应对职工“习惯违章”思想

众所周知,不少事故的发生都是一些看似细小的问题或违章没有引起足够重视而造成的,事故的发生往往是没有养成良好的安全习惯和“本能反应”,没有改掉习惯性违章造成的。习惯性违章是指在日常的生产、生活中,为求方便,已经习惯了的潜意识违章行为,是一种长期的习以为常的受心理定势支配的行为方式。     

Risks older drivers pose to themselves and to other road users

Problem

Studies have shown that older drivers have high death rates and lower rates of involvement in crashes that kill others; but most studies have not considered drivers' responsibility for their crashes, and many have considered only one particular measure of risk.

Method

This study examines risks that drivers of various ages pose to themselves and to others on per-driver, per-trip, and per-mile bases, taking responsibility for crashes into account, using United States fatal crash data from 1999 through 2003 and travel estimates from 2001.

Results

Relative to other age groups, drivers aged 85 and older face the highest risk of their own death, whereas teens pose the greatest risk to passengers, occupants of other vehicles, and non-motorists.

Discussion

The oldest drivers pose more risk to other road users than middle-aged drivers do; the degree of their excess risk depends strongly upon how risk is measured.

Impact on industry

These results demonstrate the importance of keeping clear the meaning and implications of various risk measures.     

A multi-criteria approach to screening alternatives for converting sewage sludge to biodiesel

The search for cheaper feedstock for use in the production of biofuels such as biodiesel has turned attention to various forms of waste products including animal fats, waste oils and now lipids in sludge. With the potential of obtaining sludge at a reduced cost, free, or possibly with incentives, sewage sludge is being investigated as a potential feedstock for biofuel production. For the extraction of oils from the sewage sludge and the subsequent processing, there are various alternatives that should be designed, analyzed, and screened. In developing and screening these alternatives, it is necessary to have a consistent basis for comparing alternatives based on key criteria. While most of the design studies focus on techno-economic criteria, it is also important to include safety metrics in the multi-criteria analysis. In this work, a detailed economic analysis and a safety evaluation are performed on a process involving extraction of triglycerides and fatty acids, pre-treatment of fatty acids (direct conversion to biodiesel), and transesterification of triglycerides to biodiesel. Four solvents, toluene, hexane, methanol and ethanol, are individually used in the extraction process. The resulting triglycerides and fatty acids from each extraction are modeled in the pre-treatment process. ASPEN Plus software is used to simulate the detailed process. Economic analysis is performed using ASPEN ICARUS, and scale-up of a previously analyzed process is used to estimate the cost of the biodiesel portion of the process. A new safety metric (referred to as the Safety Index “SI”) is introduced to enable comparison of the various solvent extraction processes. The SI is based on solvent criteria as well as process conditions. A case study is presented to demonstrate the insights and usefulness of the developed approach. The results of the techno-economic analysis reveal that of the four solvents used for the initial extraction, hexane and toluene were least costly (2.89 and 2.79 $/gal, respectively). Conversely, the safety analysis utilizing the SI reveals that methanol and ethanol are the safer solvent options. The issue of cost/safety tradeoffs is also discussed.     

Factors contributing to US chemical plant process safety incidents from 2010 to 2020

Process safety incidents can result in injuries, fatalities, environmental impacts, facility damage, downtime & lost production, as well as impacts on a company's and industry's reputation. This study is focused on an analysis of the most commonly reported contributing factors to process safety incidents in the US chemical manufacturing industry. The database for the study contained 79 incidents from 2010 to 2019, partly investigated by the Chemical Safety Board (CSB). To be included in the study, the CSB archive of incident investigations were parsed to include only incidents which occurred at a company classified as 325 in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), assigned to businesses that participate in chemical manufacturing. For each incident, all of the identified contributing factors were catalogued in the database. From this list of identified contributing factors, it was possible to name the ‘top three’ contributing factors. The top three contributing factors cited for the chemical manufacturing industry were found to be: design; preventive maintenance; and safeguards, controls & layers of protection. The relationship between these top contributing factors and the most common OSHA citations was investigated as well. The investigation and citation history for NAICS 325 companies in the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) citations database was then analysed to assess whether there was any overlap between the top reported contributing factors to process safety events and the top OSHA citations recorded for the industry. A database consisting of the inspection and citation history for the chemical manufacturing industry identified by NAICS code 325 was assembled for inspections occurring between 2010 and 2020 (August). The analysis of the citation history for the chemical manufacturing industry specifically, identified that the list of the top contributing factors to process safety incidents overlapped with the most common OSHA violations. This finding is relevant to industry stakeholders who are considering how to strategically invest resources for achieving maximum benefit – reducing process safety risk and simultaneously improving OSHA citation history.     

一起起重机电气故障引发的钩头坠落事故剖析

某厂电炉分厂发生一起起重机钩头坠落事故。经分析 ,该事故是由电气故障引起的。提出了防范措施     

Perils of using speed zone data to assess real-world compliance to speed limits

Objective: Real-world driving studies, including those involving speeding alert devices and autonomous vehicles, can gauge an individual vehicle's speeding behavior by comparing measured speed with mapped speed zone data. However, there are complexities with developing and maintaining a database of mapped speed zones over a large geographic area that may lead to inaccuracies within the data set. When this approach is applied to large-scale real-world driving data or speeding alert device data to determine speeding behavior, these inaccuracies may result in invalid identification of speeding. We investigated speeding events based on service provider speed zone data.

Methods: We compared service provider speed zone data (Speed Alert by Smart Car Technologies Pty Ltd., Ultimo, NSW, Australia) against a second set of speed zone data (Google Maps Application Programming Interface [API] mapped speed zones).

Results: We found a systematic error in the zones where speed limits of 50–60 km/h, typical of local roads, were allocated to high-speed motorways, which produced false speed limits in the speed zone database. The result was detection of false-positive high-range speeding. Through comparison of the service provider speed zone data against a second set of speed zone data, we were able to identify and eliminate data most affected by this systematic error, thereby establishing a data set of speeding events with a high level of sensitivity (a true positive rate of 92% or 6,412/6,960).

Conclusions: Mapped speed zones can be a source of error in real-world driving when examining vehicle speed. We explored the types of inaccuracies found within speed zone data and recommend that a second set of speed zone data be utilized when investigating speeding behavior or developing mapped speed zone data to minimize inaccuracy in estimates of speeding.     

疫情下的工伤认定——访中国医疗保险研究会副会长陈刚

2020年1月23日,是武汉市"封城"的日子。同一天,人力资源社会保障部、财政部、国家卫生健康委下发了《关于因履行工作职责感染新型冠状病毒肺炎的医护及相关工作人员有关保障问题的通知》(人社部函[2020]11号)(以下简称"11号文"),为危难时期奋战在一线的医护及相关工作人员,吃上了一颗"定心丸"。     

Tracking traffic citations through court adjudications to posting to public driver records

Research has shown that one of the best predictors of a driver's future crash risk is the number of prior moving traffic violations (e.g., speeding). Public driver records are used by government and nongovernment users to assess drivers' future crash risks. However, the adequacy of such records may be compromised by deficient recordkeeping systems and by court-based diversion programs (e.g., probation before judgment, traffic school election) that allow drivers presumed guilty to avoid convictions in court and posting of the violations to their driver records. Using a case study approach in four jurisdictions in three states, citations issued for traffic violations were tracked through court adjudication to placement on driver records. Individual court case records and driver history records were reviewed. The percentages of citations issued that appeared on driver records were 58-87% for moving violations, 30-94% for driving while impaired (DWI), and 67-95% for occupant restraint violations. Diversion programs were a significant factor in two states, where 21% and 35% of moving violation citations resulted in diversions. Almost all court convictions in each jurisdiction were recorded on driver records, but few citations resulting in diversions were recorded. Thus, diversion programs in some jurisdictions substantially reduce the utility of public driver records as reliable indicators of prior traffic violations and future crash risks. Recordkeeping inefficiencies and errors were less important factors in this study.     

Dynamic approach to risk management: Application to the Hoeganaes metal dust accidents

Several major accidents caused by metal dusts were recorded in the past few years. For instance, in 2011, three accidents caused by iron dust killed five workers at the Hoeganaes Corp. facility in Gallatin, Tennessee (USA). In order to prevent such accidents, a dynamic approach to risk management was defined in this study. The method is able to take into account new risk notions and early warnings and to systematically update the related risk. It may be applied not only in the design phase of a system, but also throughout the system lifetime as a support to a more precise and robust decision making process. The synergy of two specific techniques for hazard identification and risk assessment was obtained: the Dynamic Procedure for Atypical Scenarios Identification (DyPASI) and the Dynamic Risk Assessment (DRA) methods. To demonstrate its effectiveness, this approach was applied to the analysis of Gallatin metal dust accidents. The application allowed collecting a number of risk notions related to the plant, equipment and materials used. The analysis of risk notions by means of this dynamic approach could have led to enhanced hazard identification and dynamic real-time risk assessment. However, the approach described is effective only if associated to a proper safety culture, in order to produce an appropriate and robust decision making response to emerging risk issues.     

Safe storage of selected fuels with regard to their tendency to spontaneous combustion

European standard EN 15188 is dedicated to the assessment of the tendency of solid flammable substances to spontaneous combustion. Fossil fuels and biofuels that substitute them are a frequent reason of fires caused by spontaneous combustion. Even though having different properties, both types of fuels can be assessed according to this standard by the method of the determination of the dependency of self-ignition temperature against the ratio of volume to surface area of geometrically exactly defined solid body, or based on the theory of thermal explosion according to Frank-Kamenetskii. The comparison of calculated values confirmed the agreement of both methods results, and the tendency of fuels to spontaneous combustion can be assessed by them.     

A novel method to apply Importance and Sensitivity Analysis to multiple Fault-trees

The unavailability/frequency analysis of critical failure states of complex industrial systems is normally conducted by using the Fault-tree methodology. The number of Fault-trees describing the system is given by the number of system’s failure states (i.e. Top-events). For each Top-event characterised by unacceptable occurrence probability, some design improvements should be made. Importance and Sensitivity Analysis (ISA) is normally applied to identify the weakest parts of the system. By selecting these parts for design improvement, the overall improvement of the system is made more effective. In current practice, ISA is normally applied sequentially to all Fault-trees. The sequence order is subjectively selected by the analyst, based on several criteria as for instance the severity of the associated Top-event. This approach has the clear limitation of not ensuring the identification of the most cost-effective design solution to improve safety. The present paper describes an alternative approach which consists of concurrently analysing all relevant system’s Fault-trees with the objective of overcoming the above limitations and to identify the most cost-effective solution. In addition, the proposed method extends the ISA application to “over-reliable” system functions, if any, on which the reliability/maintainability characteristics of the involved components can be relaxed, with a resulting cost saving. The overall outcome of the analysis is a uniformly protected system, which satisfies the predefined design goals. A point to note is that the overall cost of the analysis of the proposed approach is significantly lower if compared with the sequential case.