Organizational policy and other factors associated with emergency medical technician seat belt use

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to determine factors associated with seat belt usage among Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). METHODS: As part of biennial re-registration paperwork, nationally registered EMTs completed a survey on the safety and health risks facing Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers. Respondents were asked to describe their seat belt use while in the front seats of an ambulance. They were categorized as "high" in seat belt use if it had been more than a year since they had not worn their seat belt or "low" in seat belt use if they had not worn their seat belt at least once within the past 12 months. A logistic regression model was fit to estimate the association between seat belt use, organizational seat belt policy, type of EMS organization worked for, EMT certification level, and the size of community where EMS work is performed. RESULTS: Of the 41,823 EMTs that re-registered in 2003, surveys were received from 29,575 (70.7%). A significant interaction between organizational seat belt policy and type of EMS organization was found to exist. Participants reporting no organizational seat belt policy had lower odds of seat belt usage when compared to individuals that do have a seat belt policy. Odds Ratios ranged from 0.20 (95% CI 0.10-0.40) for military organizations to 0.59 (95% CI 0.38-0.93) for private EMS organizations. Paramedics and those working in rural areas also had lower odds of seat belt use. CONCLUSION: Several factors were found to be associated with seat belt usage among EMTs while in the front compartment of an ambulance. However, it appears that only one, organizational policy, is a modifiable characteristic.     

Post-license education for novice drivers: evaluation of a training programme implemented in Spain

INTRODUCTION: This study evaluated the implementation of a second phase training program for novice drivers in Spain, which puts the primary focus of the training on the higher hierarchical levels of driver behavior. METHOD: Two hundred and sixty-three participants took part throughout the study, which was implemented as an experimental design with the test and control groups assessed before and after the one day safety training. Measurement of the impact of the training program focused on the participants' self-evaluation and self-reporting of some driving behavior indicators related to accident risk. RESULTS: Data analysis showed a change in the expected direction in the scale related to the skills for careful driving, but not for the other four scales considered. A feedback survey about the training course offered some important input for evaluating the organization, contents, tuition, and results of the three parts of the training program (discussion group, on-road and track training) as reported by the participants in the test group. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS: The results of the experiment show that using a one day driver safety course, it is possible to change some of the drivers' evaluations connected to safe driving style into safe direction. The follow-up period was exceptionally long (9 months) and the design (randomly divided experimental and control groups with before and after measurements) was reliable. More effort should be devoted to improving the on-road part of the training, which was often perceived as a typical driving lesson rather than a feedback drive. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: The findings suggest consideration of a mandatory 2nd phase driver training programme as a means to raise awareness of the full range of risks encountered by novice drivers, and as already introduced in 5 EU countries: Austria, Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg and Switzerland.     

餐饮废油均相法制取生物柴油研究进展

阐述了餐饮废油(WCO)制备生物柴油的均相催化方法,介绍了餐饮废油生物柴油的特性和排放性能,并展望了生物柴油生产的发展趋势.     

Photovoltaic-thermal (PV/t) panel to minimize electrical and air conditioning energy consumption of a typical office in Beirut

A combined photovoltaic–thermal (PV/t) panel is proposed to produce simultaneously electricity and heat from one integrated unit. The unit utilizes effectively the solar energy through achieving higher PV electrical efficiency and using the thermal energy for heating applications. To predict the performance of the PV/t at a given environmental conditions, a transient mathematical model was developed. The model was integrated in a heating application for a typical office space in the city of Beirut to provide the office needs for electricity, heating during winter season, and dehumidification and evaporative cooling during the summer season. To minimize the yearly office energy (electrical and heat) needs, the PV/t panel cooling air flow rate and the dehumidification regeneration temperature were determined for opimal unit operation. Thermal energy savings of up to 85% in winter and 71% in summer were achived compared to conventional systems at a payback period of 8 years for the panels.     

城市能源利用与环境保护的综合管理初探

能源短缺和环境污染已成为中国推行全面协调可持续发展的重要制约因素,作为能源消耗的主体和环境污染的控制重点,在城市层面推动能源发展战略的转变和强化环境保护是发展的基本要求.鉴于能源与环境之间的高度关联性,在管理方面要求对能源发展和环境保护进行统筹考虑和综合管理,充分强调能源经济效率和环境制约因素在能源发展中的作用.通过制定合理的产业能效标准和排放绩效标准,为城市经济、能源和环境的可持续性发展提供科学性、系统性决策支持.     

半导体企业的EHSMS评价体系研究

为了给员工提供安全、环保、健康的工作环境,半导体制造企业必须建立环境管理和职业健康安全管理体系(EHSMS).为此,评价EHSMS运行的有效性、完整性以及合法性就显得十分重要.本文在分析半导体企业污染物影响环境和健康基础上,建立了EHSMS评估体系.为了实施EHSM评估系统,方便半导体企业用户使用,提出了一套EHSM评价系统的计算机软件解决方案.     

Moving FOCUS – The Fire Service Organizational Culture of Safety survey – From research to practice

Introduction: FOCUS, the Fire Service Organizational Culture of Safety survey, has evolved from a research to practice enterprise within the United States fire and rescue service. The FOCUS tool was developed through a FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Research & Development grant. Then it moved to practice in the field. To date over 35,000 firefighters have participated. A current FEMA Fire Prevention & Safety grant can support FOCUS assessment in up to 1,000 fire departments, with the potential of nearly 120,000 respondents. With each funding cycle, the goal of the FOCUS program is to grow and measure its research to practice impact. Methods: We describe how FOCUS safety culture results are disseminated to fire service stakeholders. By utilizing customized reports and a training curriculum we demonstrate how FOCUS is moving research to practice by: (1) illustrating how survey results can be delivered effectively to practitioners, (2) providing examples of how fire departments are using results, and (3) sharing the reactions of the fire service to the FOCUS instrument, reports, and our flagship data training curriculum – Culture Camp. Results' Conclusions: Qualitative and quantitative data are analyzed to demonstrate the impact and acceptance of the FOCUS report and Culture Camps. Stakeholders reflect on the report and the experience of having quantitative safety culture data. Culture Camps are evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively using a matching game exercise, pre/post-test, a fire department teach back, and a Qualtrics evaluation. Practical Applications: Traditionally, the fire service has focused on reducing negative safety outcomes. FOCUS is helping shift their attention further upstream in the prevention pathway through the measurement of important organizational outcomes. The research to practice evolution of the FOCUS program may hold utility for other occupational groups when considering how to steadily move occupational health and safety research to practice in the field for measurable impact.     

System safety assessment using safety entropy

Safety assessment has a primary role in hazardous operations. Most studies on safety assessment focus on risk and accident modeling, in which safety is absent. These top-down methods are highly dependent on the occurred accidents to establish accidental scenarios, which may make the assessment approach lagging behind the evolving modern systems. Moreover, this “special to general” logic is scientifically suspect in safety assessment. There is a call for the development of safety assessment methods in the presence of system safety to complement risk-focused safety analysis. These methods should provide a framework based on a bottom-up approach to examine system safety from the operational perspective. This paper has attempted to provide a potential solution. In particular, a novel concept of safety entropy is proposed to integrate with The Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM), which is used to form the qualitative understanding of a system. A formula consisted of safety entropy, functional conformability, and system complexity has been established to determine the spontaneity of the safety state-changing process. The proposed method is applied to the safety assessment of a propane feed-control system. The results show the applicability of the method. Nevertheless, the model still needs to be further improved to fulfill better support for safety-related decision problems.     

Risk assessment and risk reduction of an acrylonitrile production plant

Reducing accident occurrence in petrochemical plants is crucial, thus appropriately allocating management resources to safety investment is a vital issue for corporate management as international competition intensifies. Understanding the priority of safety investment in a rational way helps achieve this objective.In this study, we targeted an acrylonitrile plant. First, Dow Chemical's Fire and Explosion Index (F&EI) identified the reaction process as having the greatest physical risk. We evaluated the severity of accidents in the reaction process using the Process Safety Metrics advocated by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS); however, this index does not express damages a company actually experience. To solve this problem, we proposed a new metric that adds indirect cost to CCPS metrics. We adopted fault tree analysis (FTA) as a risk assessment method. In identifying top events and basic events, we attempted to improve the completeness of risk identification by considering accidents from the past, actual plant operation and equipment characteristics, natural disasters, and cyber-attacks and terrorist attacks. Consequently, we identified the top events with high priority in handling because of serious accidents as fire/explosion outside the reactor, fire/explosion inside the reactor, and reactor destruction. The new CCPS evaluation index proposed in this study found that fire and explosion outside the reactor has the highest severity. We considered the creation of the fault tree (FT) diagram of the top event, estimating the occurrence probability, and identifying the risk reduction part and capital investment aimed at risk reduction. As an economically feasible selection method for risk reduction investment, using the difference in loss amounts before and after safety investments indicated investment priority.