Integration of computerized operation support systems on a nuclear power plant environment

Automation of certain tasks in a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) control room is expected to result in reduced operators’ mental workload, which may induce other benefits such as enhanced situation awareness and improved system performance. The final goal should be higher level of operational safety. Thus, recent works are increasingly assessing automation. The LABIHS compact NPP simulator, though, still operates under strictly manual printed hard-copy procedures, despite of the fact that the simulator incorporates several advancements in design of digitalized Human–System Interfaces (HSIs). This work presents the development, implementation and integration of selected components to achieve increased level of computerized/automated operation of the LABIHS compact NPP simulator. Specifically, we discuss three components: (i) Automatic Plant Mode Detection, (ii) Automatic Alarm Filtering, and (iii) Computerized Procedures. Each one of these components has to be carefully designed/integrated so that one can avoid the undesired effects of some known implementations of automated systems on NPP, such as the reduction in the operator's system awareness, an increase in monitoring workload, and the degradation in manual skills, which could lead to automation-induced system failures

The Effects of Holistic Coping Strategies on Perceived Stress and Absenteeism in Hospital Nurses

The demanding work environments of professional nurses often contribute to high levels of stress that impact their professional practice and well-being. Although there is a significant amount of research regarding stress and absenteeism, a gap in the literature exists about the effects of holistic coping strategies on nurses\u27 perceived stress and absenteeism. Based on the biopsychosocial model, the purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate effects of holistic coping strategies on perceived stress and absenteeism in 128 hospital nurses. An online cross-sectional survey design used the Perceived Stress Scale-10 to measure nurses\u27 perceptions of stress. The independent grouping variable was self-reported use of meditation, massage, or exercise. Absenteeism data were collected using nurses\u27 attendance records provided by the hospital nursing administration office. Multiple linear regression analysis and t tests were significant for increased absenteeism with the use of meditation, but showed no change in absenteeism with massage or exercise. There was no significant relationship found between use of massage, meditation, or exercise, and perceived stress. Consideration of these findings may be of interest to hospital administrators in addressing perceived stress and absenteeism in nursing personnel. Positive social change is achieved for society, community, and the individual by preventing burnout and by addressing the financial and attendance issues related to nurse shortages in hospitals

Nineteenth Annual Conference on Manual Control

No abstract availabl

A quantitative service evaluation of a telephone outreach initiative to enhance the uptake of NHS Health Checks

A Quantitative Service Evaluation of a Telephone Outreach Initiative to Enhance theUptake of NHS Health ChecksNikki Coghill, University of BathProblemThe NHS Health Check programme aims to identify cardiovascular (CV) risk in those aged 40-74, withthe goal of reducing cardiovascular events and health inequalities.CV incident is higher in lowersocioeconomic and ethnic minority groups. Invitations for a Checks are usually made via letter.However, research has indicated that telephone and verbal invitations increase likelihood ofattendance. To address this and encourage the above groups to better engage with NHS HealthChecks we adopted a novel approach compared to the usual invite. Our aim was to determine theefficacy of a targeted telephone outreach service for inviting patient from ‘hard to reach groups for anNHS health Check, in general practices located in the most deprived areas of Bristol.ApproachUsing a quasi-experimental approach, 12 general-practices self-selected to use the telephoneoutreach initiative (intervention). Specially trained, community-link workers contacted patients, andconducted aspects of the Check by phone. Following this, patient’s were invited to completeremaining aspects of their Check at their general-practice. Five practices acted as a control, using aletter, opportunistic or telephone call invitations; with no aspect of the Check being conducted duringthe telephone call. Primary outcome: Compare the rate of uptake of an NHS Health Check in thetarget population, in GP practices using the telephone outreach initiative, with the rate of uptake incontrol Secondary outcomes: Investigate the relationship between attendance and patientdemographics (age, gender, IMD and ethnicity) in the target population. Descriptive statisticscharacterised populations and binary logistical regression tested associations between attendance fora health check and population characteristics.FindingsUptake was 24% and 35% in intervention versus control practices. Missing data precluded inclusionof ethnicity in regression models. Intervention practices were more successful at attracting ethnicminority patients to complete their Check (25.6%) compared to control practices (7.2%). Inintervention practices after controlling for age, gender, IMD quintile and telephone-call outcome, agewasn’t a significant predictor of attendance; compared to women, men were significantly less likely tocomplete their Check (OR 0.75 95% CI 0.58 to 0.98); IMD was a significant predicator of attendancewith those in the fifth IMD quintile being less likely to attend compared to those in the first IMD quintile(OR 0.64 95% CI 0.50 to 0.82).ConsequencesDespite this initiative being offered by the most deprived practices in Bristol, it attracted the leastdeprived patients. However, intervention practises were more successful at attracting patients fromethnic minorities. We only evaluated the first nine months of the initiative. Previous novel initiativesencouraging uptake of Health Checks, in Bristol, have shown a lagged adoption. Feedback onimprovements, based on recommendations from this evaluation, may result in enhanced uptake fromthe intervention as it further embeds within practice

A quantitative service evaluation of a telephone outreach initiative to enhance the uptake of NHS Health Checks

A Quantitative Service Evaluation of a Telephone Outreach Initiative to Enhance theUptake of NHS Health ChecksNikki Coghill, University of BathProblemThe NHS Health Check programme aims to identify cardiovascular (CV) risk in those aged 40-74, withthe goal of reducing cardiovascular events and health inequalities.CV incident is higher in lowersocioeconomic and ethnic minority groups. Invitations for a Checks are usually made via letter.However, research has indicated that telephone and verbal invitations increase likelihood ofattendance. To address this and encourage the above groups to better engage with NHS HealthChecks we adopted a novel approach compared to the usual invite. Our aim was to determine theefficacy of a targeted telephone outreach service for inviting patient from ‘hard to reach groups for anNHS health Check, in general practices located in the most deprived areas of Bristol.ApproachUsing a quasi-experimental approach, 12 general-practices self-selected to use the telephoneoutreach initiative (intervention). Specially trained, community-link workers contacted patients, andconducted aspects of the Check by phone. Following this, patient’s were invited to completeremaining aspects of their Check at their general-practice. Five practices acted as a control, using aletter, opportunistic or telephone call invitations; with no aspect of the Check being conducted duringthe telephone call. Primary outcome: Compare the rate of uptake of an NHS Health Check in thetarget population, in GP practices using the telephone outreach initiative, with the rate of uptake incontrol Secondary outcomes: Investigate the relationship between attendance and patientdemographics (age, gender, IMD and ethnicity) in the target population. Descriptive statisticscharacterised populations and binary logistical regression tested associations between attendance fora health check and population characteristics.FindingsUptake was 24% and 35% in intervention versus control practices. Missing data precluded inclusionof ethnicity in regression models. Intervention practices were more successful at attracting ethnicminority patients to complete their Check (25.6%) compared to control practices (7.2%). Inintervention practices after controlling for age, gender, IMD quintile and telephone-call outcome, agewasn’t a significant predictor of attendance; compared to women, men were significantly less likely tocomplete their Check (OR 0.75 95% CI 0.58 to 0.98); IMD was a significant predicator of attendancewith those in the fifth IMD quintile being less likely to attend compared to those in the first IMD quintile(OR 0.64 95% CI 0.50 to 0.82).ConsequencesDespite this initiative being offered by the most deprived practices in Bristol, it attracted the leastdeprived patients. However, intervention practises were more successful at attracting patients fromethnic minorities. We only evaluated the first nine months of the initiative. Previous novel initiativesencouraging uptake of Health Checks, in Bristol, have shown a lagged adoption. Feedback onimprovements, based on recommendations from this evaluation, may result in enhanced uptake fromthe intervention as it further embeds within practice

Formalising Human Mental Workload as a Defeasible Computational Concept

Human mental workload has gained importance, in the last few decades, as a fundamental design concept in human-computer interaction. It can be intuitively defined as the amount of mental work necessary for a person to complete a task over a given period of time. For people interacting with interfaces, computers and technological devices in general, the construct plays an important role. At a low level, while processing information, often people feel annoyed and frustrated; at higher level, mental workload is critical and dangerous as it leads to confusion, it decreases the performance of information processing and it increases the chances of errors and mistakes. It is extensively documented that either mental overload or underload negatively affect performance. Hence, designers and practitioners who are ultimately interested in system or human performance need answers about operator workload at all stages of system design and operation. At an early system design phase, designers require some explicit model to predict the mental workload imposed by their technologies on end-users so that alternative system designs can be evaluated. However, human mental workload is a multifaceted and complex construct mainly applied in cognitive sciences. A plethora of ad-hoc definitions can be found in the literature. Generally, it is not an elementary property, rather it emerges from the interaction between the requirements of a task, the circumstances under which it is performed and the skills, behaviours and perceptions of the operator. Although measuring mental workload has advantages in interaction and interface design, its formalisation as an operational and computational construct has not sufficiently been addressed. Many researchers agree that too many ad-hoc models are present in the literature and that they are applied subjectively by mental workload designers thereby limiting their application in different contexts and making comparison across different models difficult. This thesis introduces a novel computational framework for representing and assessing human mental workload based on defeasible reasoning. The starting point is the investigation of the nature of human mental workload that appears to be a defeasible phenomenon. A defeasible concept is a concept built upon a set of arguments that can be defeated by adding additional arguments. The word ‘defeasible’ is inherited from defeasible reasoning, a form of reasoning built upon reasons that can be defeated. It is also known as non-monotonic reasoning because of the technical property (non-monotonicity) of the logical formalisms that are aimed at modelling defeasible reasoning activity. Here, a conclusion or claim, derived from the application of previous knowledge, can be retracted in the light of new evidence. Formally, state-of-the-art defeasible reasoning models are implemented employing argumentation theory, a multi-disciplinary paradigm that incorporates elements of philosophy, psychology and sociology. It systematically studies how arguments can be built, sustained or discarded in a reasoning process, and it investigates the validity of their conclusions. Since mental workload can be seen as a defeasible phenomenon, formal defeasible argumentation theory may have a positive impact in its representation and assessment. Mental workload can be captured, analysed, and measured in ways that increase its understanding allowing its use for practical activities. The research question investigated here is whether defeasible argumentation theory can enhance the representation of the construct of mental workload and improve the quality of its assessment in the field of human-computer interaction. In order to answer this question, recurrent knowledge and evidence employed in state-of-the-art mental workload measurement techniques have been reviewed in the first place as well as their defeasible and non-monotonic properties. Secondly, an investigation of the state-of-the-art computational techniques for implementing defeasible reasoning has been carried out. This allowed the design of a modular framework for mental workload representation and assessment. The proposed solution has been evaluated by comparing the properties of sensitivity, diagnosticity and validity of the assessments produced by two instances of the framework against the ones produced by two well known subjective mental workload assessments techniques (the Nasa Task Load Index and the Workload Profile) in the context of human-web interaction. In detail, through an empirical user study, it has been firstly demonstrated how these two state-of-the-art techniques can be translated into two particular instances of the framework while still maintaining the same validity. In other words, the indexes of mental workload inferred by the two original instruments, and the ones generated by their corresponding translations (instances of the framework) showed a positive and nearly perfect statistical correlation. Additionally, a new defeasible instance built with the framework showed a better sensitivity and a higher diagnosticity capacity than the two selected state-of-the art techniques. The former showed a higher convergent validity with the latter techniques, but a better concurrent validity with performance measures. The new defeasible instance generated indexes of mental workload that better correlated with the objective time for task completion compared to the two selected instruments. These findings support the research question thereby demonstrating how defeasible argumentation theory can be successfully adopted to support the representation of mental workload and to enhance the quality of its assessments. The main contribution of this thesis is the presentation of a methodology, developed as a formal modular framework, to represent mental workload as a defeasible computational concept and to assess it as a numerical usable index. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a modular framework built upon defeasible reasoning and formalised through argumentation theory in which workload can be optimally measured, analysed, explained and applied in different contexts

The Impact of Self-Efficacy, Commitment, and Coping on Occupational Strain in Non-Managerial, Non-Professional Employees

The current study explored the effects of moderators, self-efficacy and commitment, and mediators, problem-focused coping (strategies used when changeable conditions exist, thereby resulting in the employee taking action [Folkman & Lazarus, 1980]) and emotion-focused coping (perception that conditions are not changeable and emotions are regulated in a variety of ways versus taking action [Folkman & Lazarus, 1980]), on predicting psychological and physical occupational strain in non-managerial, non-professional employees. Ninety-three shift workers in a 24/7 call center from one division of a transportation company located in the western United States participated in the study. The first research objective was to examine the individual contributions of self-efficacy, organizational commitment, and coping strategies on predicting levels of psychological and physical strain. The next objective was to understand how the combined contribution of moderators and mediators might predict strain outcomes. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to explore five hypotheses. Lastly, using correlation analyses the relationships between commitment and problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies were investigated. Important findings were revealed by the results of the study. Self-efficacy significantly predicted both strain outcomes with higher self-efficacy predicting lower psychological and physical strain. Organizational commitment and emotion-focused coping also significantly predicted strain. As organizational commitment increased, psychological and physical strain decreased. Increases in emotion-focused coping strategies predicted increases in both strain variables. Problem-focused coping strategies failed to reach significance in predicting psychological or physical strain. The combination of self-efficacy, commitment, and coping strategies significantly predicted both occupational strain outcomes. Finally, there was a significant, negative relationship between commitment and emotion-focused coping strategies. As commitment increased, emotion-focused coping decreased in this sample. The current study has extended empirical understanding of the individual and combined effects of self-efficacy, commitment, and coping strategies on psychological and physical strain in a population largely overlooked by the literature, non-managerial, non-professional employees. Additionally, the current study investigated organizational commitment using a unique population and in combination with other known moderators and mediators of strain

The effect of functional role on language choice in newspapers.

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