ABSTRACT
We obtained cross-sectional repeated measures self-report survey data on workplace safety and health and wellness from newer, early-to-mid-career New Jersey (NJ) secondary or high school (HS) teachers supervising work-based learning on- and off-campus in specific career clusters within career-technical-vocational education. This cohort study in the 2021-2024 school years (SYs) is a unique opportunity. It immediately proceeded the 2019-2021 SYs. Due to COVID-19, most 2020 2nd semester (3/18-6/30/2020) and 2020-2021 SY in-person classes went online;extracurricular activities were cancelled or substantially altered for online/virtual substitutes;and, no-to-little in-person HS teaching and off- or on-campus activities. Upon return 8-9/2021, classrooms, labs, shops, etc. were cleaned. Data suggested risks of human exposure to chemical agents from cleaning, disinfecting and sanitation consumer products use, given concerns about viral (and bacterial) loads collecting and potentially remaining on frequently contacted surfaces. We present study design, recruitment data, and selected survey content responses from ongoing research 2021-2024. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Governments of different countries and healthcare organisations working in various areas face enormous challenges when trying to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and protect employees, their families and communities. Workplaces can be high-risk environments in terms of the virus outbreak and transmission. This paper aims to disclose the ways for workplace safety improvement in dentistry in the context of COVID-19. The authors present the theoretical model of workplace safety improvement with regard to COVID-19 infection prevention and control measures. The expectations, fears and tasks of dental employees at their workplace in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated based on the systematic literature review and the qualitative empirical study conducted in Lithuania. The study disclosed that unmet employee expectations could lead to different kinds of fear;the most common sources of anxiety are linked to a higher risk of getting infected, a lack or misuse of protection measures and inadequately performed work. Occupational risks are closely related to the components of a workplace system. Therefore, it is important to apply a holistic approach to improve workplace safety, enhance work performance and minimise the negative effects on an employee, an organisation, a patient and a society. © 2022 R. Čiutienė et al.
ABSTRACT
Auditing is one of the most important stages in evaluating the effectiveness of an Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS), which is also recognized as a Knowledge Management System (KMS). According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the audit process is part of the evaluation element, where the auditor must evaluate the OSH performance. The traditional audit might not be able to be conducted due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Movement Control Order (MCO) scenario, therefore the remote audit is being viewed as a viable solution to ensuring the audit process continues. The solution could also be utilized beyond the pandemic period as it may become one of the effective method for the audit process. The paper describes how the OSHMS can be remotely audited utilizing Mixed Reality (MR) applications in a design thinking manner. To test the approach, preliminary data was collected in an OSH office. The findings of this paper will aid stakeholders in the relevant context in making investment decisions for digitising their OSH audit process in order to create a future-ready ecosystem. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The decision-making situations of the construction workforce have been drastically altered since the outbreak of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The new situation, where decision-makers strive to promptly respond to the unprecedented crisis to sustain essential construction operations without compromising the safety and health of workers, implies the presence of an availability heuristic. An availability heuristic has the potential to bring unconscious, systematic errors to the decision-making process. This study creates a decision-making experiment to empirically examine the presence of an availability heuristic and the effectiveness of a corresponding mitigation strategy in construction workforce decision-making under COVID-19 uncertainties. The experiment was conducted among students in the construction program from April 2021 to May 2021. Results show that students tend to support the management improvement ideas that fall into their most familiar fields. Providing information on other options against the option with the easiest recalled instances has been proven effective in terms of reducing the presence of the heuristic. Moreover, the results show that the presence of the heuristic is robust and unspecific to the level of education and years of work experience. The primary contributions of this research are (1) identifying the presence of the availability heuristic in construction workforce decision-making under COVID-19 uncertainties, (2) testing the effectiveness of a mitigation strategy against the availability heuristic, (3) bridging the rational decision-making with actual choices, (4) introducing the approach of decision-making experiments for future studies in construction engineering and management (CEM), and (5) suggesting an integrated perspective taking advantage of both positivism and constructivism for CEM decision-making. It is anticipated that policy makers can benefit from this study by enhancing the understanding of construction workforce decision-making amid a pandemic. This enhanced understanding can help to design effective strategies to promote the normal operation of the essential construction industry and ensure the safety and health of approximately 7.6 million employees in the construction industry during the COVID-19 pandemic and similar crises in the future. © 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
ABSTRACT
Ozone is a highly effective and broad-spectrum non-residual gas disinfectant.The global COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected public safety and health, and low concentrations of ozone can inactivate the novel coronavirus.The negative ion generator is a safe and efficient method to generate ozone.Through corona discharge on the needle plate, an ion current can be formed between the needle-plate electrodes and a certain concentration of ozone can be released.In the research on the relationship between the electrode-to-plate distance and ozone release in the negative ion generator, different experimental observations show contradictory results, making the theoretical explanation very difficult and complicated.As the needle-to-plate electrode distance increases, the continuous exponential decreasing trend of ozone emission rate changes to a non-continuous step-wised decreasing pattern, which is defined as the Quantum Ozone Emission Effect (QOEE).The QOEE was observed in all negative ion generators when the plate material was aluminium, stainless steel, yellow brass, or copper.The observed quantum ozone emission effect in negative ion generators may be related to the gas ionization potential of the oxygen molecule and to the electron avalanche theory.The quantum effect of ozone emission is a manifestation of the quantum behavior of the microscopic electron world in the macroscopic world.The ozone emission quantum effect provides a novel technical method for measuring the microscopic properties and corona discharge characteristics of materials. © 2022, Editorial Department of Journal of Xidian University. All right reserved.
ABSTRACT
Indonesia is one from many countries that is struck by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Indonesia still needs to recover from economy crisis caused by the pandemic. Indonesia’s evolvement can be seen from their development in their infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Occupational Safety and Health (OHS) Management System is a crucial part of the contractor organization’s management system that is used to implement and develop OHS policies in all of the existing development project. In this research study, it will discuss about the application of OHS management systems in high-rise building projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. The result from the analysis and calculation in this research are compared with the Minister of Public Works Regulation No. 9/2008 regarding the Management System and Work Safety and the Instruction of the Minister of PUPR No. 2/IN/M/2020 concerning about the Protocol to Prevent the Spread of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the implementation of construction services. In its implementation, the OHS Management System is divided into 3 important parts, namely the Implementation and Operation of OHS Activities, OHS Evaluation/Inspection and OHS Management Review. The implementation of OHS Management System during the COVID-19 pandemic in high-rise building was obtained 77.09% (Good Enough). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
With the spread of the COVID-19 over the globe, it has conducted a large amount of misinformation and fake news on social networking sites. In this situation, when true and accurate information is necessary for public safety and health, fake news related to COVID-19 has spread rapidly, even quicker than the truth. Rational confusion can be caused by this fake news and put people's lives in danger during times like the COVID-19 pandemic. We used the COVID-19 Fake News dataset to conduct a study to compare the effect of various machine learning-related approaches. We looked at different traditional machine learning models and deep learning language models for detecting fake news and compared their results in multiple ways. We discovered that LSTM and similar neural network models are the most effective at detecting fake news, especially with large datasets. We are confident that our benchmark study will assist the research community and various news blogs/sites to choose the best fake news detection algorithm. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) is a collection of interconnected or interacting elements that work together to define and implement Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) policies and objectives. Employers must guarantee that this system is effectively implemented to safeguard employees from hazards in order to attain those goals and eliminating work-related injuries, illnesses, diseases, incidents and deaths by using the guideline given by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as well as the Department of Safety and Health (DOSH) of Malaysia. Auditing is among the vital process in analyzing the performance of OSHMS. The audit process is part of the evaluation element, as described by ILO where the auditor needs to evaluate the OSH performance. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation, the traditional audit could not be conducted, thus the remote audit is considered to be a viable option to ensure the audit process continues. Therefore, this paper intends to understand how the OSHMS especially in the university context can be remotely audited using Mixed Reality (MR) applications through a review of the literature. The findings indicate appropriate contexts of discussion for the study and also identified MR technology namely the 360-degree panoramic view technology that could be further studiedThe paper's contribution is a better knowledge of the OSHMS remote audit process through the usage of MR applications in a specialized setting. The findings of this study would be beneficial to the stakeholders in the relevant context particularly in the university in their investment decision-making for a future-ready ecosystem by digitising their enterprises. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Key Actions Necessary to Optimize Energy and Facilities Management Performance Post Covid-19 • Re-evaluate supply chain and procurement processes/protocols • Re-evaluate supplier/vendor relationship expectations • Evaluate facilities and real estate requirements • Develop additional benchmarks for monitoring Building Quality, Safety and Health • Evaluate and introduce new technologies • Identify communication opportunities and technology requirements • Identify health and wellness opportunities and implement where appropriate • Identify communications/collaboration opportunities with customers, service providers and leadership • Identify enhanced sanitation, sterilization and quality enhancements • Develop enhanced real estate design/layout and space planning process © 2021 AEE World Energy Conference and Expo 2021. All rights reserved.