A risk assessment model to measure the difference in worker injury risk between corn and biofuel switchgrass production systems

Keeping workers safe presents a continuing challenge in the agricultural industry. Risk assessment methodologies have been used widely to better understand systems and enhance decision making with a goal of reducing injuries and fatalities. This research applies probabilistic risk assessment to human safety in two agricultural production systems, taking into account uncertainties such as equipment variation, working schedules, and weather conditions. A comparative model was developed because it can be scaled up or down based on available data and allow inputs from categories defined broadly or specifically as necessary. In this model, risk is calculated by multiplying the probability of exposure to a hazard and the probability of injury, given that an exposure to the hazard has occurred. The probability of injury and exposure values are derived from the USDA Census and from the Survey and Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 12 states in the Midwest for each year from 1996 to 2011. The exposure and injury data were used to build probability distributions that were randomly sampled using a Monte Carlo simulation. The output of the simulation demonstrates that corn has a higher risk of worker injury than biofuel switchgrass over a ten year period in the Midwest. A Monte Carlo simulation and a sensitivity analysis were run to determine the greatest contributing factors to worker injury risk within each production system. Harvest operations in both corn and biofuel switchgrass production systems were determined to be the greatest contributing factor to worker injury risk

Discovery of the Higgs Boson, Measurements of its Production, and a Search for Higgs Boson Pair Production

This document chronicles the discovery of the Higgs boson and early measurements in the diphoton decay channel. Particular attention is paid to photon identification, to the coupling of the Higgs to the vector bosons, and to differential cross sections of the Higgs boson. As these measurements yielded good agreement to the predictions of the Standard Model, an additional search is performed, for Higgs boson pair production in the γγbb final state. The dataset used represents 5/fb of proton- proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and 20/fb of collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded by the ATLAS experiment at CERN\u27s Large Hadron Collider in 2011 and 2012

Simulating sensorimotor systems with cortical topology

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references.Not availabl

A lock shielding door handle that sits flush to the case

This lock shielding handle will sit flush with its casing until presented with a key fob specific to that handle. The handle will then push out and extend uncovering the cylinder lock, and allowing conventional entrance into the household

Transforming the effectiveness and equity of a psychological therapy service: a case study in the English NHS talking therapies program

To work with a psychological therapies service to implement a recovery plan, as required by a government body, aimed at improving patient outcomes (effectiveness) and decreasing practitioner variability (equity). A case-study utilizing components of a learning health system, including nationally mandated patient outcome data, comprising three 18-month phases: (1) retrospective baseline; (2) improving patient outcomes (management-led); and (3) reducing practitioner variability (clinician-led). Primary analyses focused on 35 practitioners (NPR = 35) who were constant across the three phases and their patients in each phase (NPA = 930, 1226, 1217, respectively). Reliable improvement rates determined patient outcomes and multilevel modeling yielded practitioner effects. To test generalizability, results were compared to the whole practitioner sample for each phase: (1) NPR = 81, NPA = 1982; (2) NPR = 80, NPA = 2227; (3) NPR = 74, NPA = 2267. Ethical approval was granted by the Health Research Authority. Patient outcomes improved in successive phases for both the core and whole practitioner samples with the largest impact occurring in the management-led intervention. Practitioner variability decreased in successive phases in both the core and whole practitioner samples except in the management-led intervention of the whole sample. Compared with the management-led intervention, the practitioner-led intervention yielded a decrease in practitioner effect exceeding 60% in the core sample and approaching 50% in the whole sample. The implementation of multiple components of a learning health system can lead to improvements in both the effectiveness and equity of a psychological therapy service

Senior Recital

List of performers and performances