Assessing the Synthesis of BIM Technology and Irish Construction Sector Health and Safety: Using 3D Immersive Environments to Improve Awareness of Risks and Hazards on Building Sites

Ireland is currently on an upward slope in a boom period in the construction industry and it is inevitable that workforce numbers will increase. A n ew approach at engaging field workers in health & safety awareness is critical to maintaining the downward trajectory in fatality and accidents, as the numbers emplo yed in the construction industry increase. As modelling software use in design development and delivery becomes more prevalent , it enhances the designer’s ability to anticipate, spot and foresee hazards and risks in the design . The hypothesis of this paper is that the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) can increase the awareness of construction workers to site risks and educate them on H ealth and Safety (H+ S). In creating an immersive 3d model experience with embedded or linked H+S regulatory information, codes of practice and general Health and Safety Authority (H SA guidance, it is purposed that individuals can engage with a virtual environment containing simulated hazards and guidance on the control or mitigation of these hazards. This 3d environment will be referred to as the H+S BIM Module (HSBIMM) in this document. The framework for implementation of the HSBIMM is founded upon the critical review of the standard theories and inherent assumptions contained within existing peer reviewed literature. This study is a step forward in linking BIM and Irish H+S standards. The mixed methodology used shows simplistic methods for dev elopment of a strategy for use in H+S that benefits greatly by BIM incorporation

Accident Rate as a Measure of Safety Assessment in Polish Civil Engineering

Civil engineering is characterised by high volatility with respect to working conditions, which are the source of many threats to worker life and health and contribute to high accident rates. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the phenomenon of accidents in Polish civil engineering and define the direction of changes that should occur in the safety area. The studies included in this research covered the years 2004–2018. The following indicators were used to assess the accident rates: (1) The total number of persons injured in workplace accidents and this total divided into fatal, severe, and minor accidents; (2) indicators of frequency of accidents in total and this total divided into minor, severe, and fatal accidents; (3) and an indicator of the severity of accidents. From the analysis of statistical data for the years 200–2018, the changes in accident rate parameters demonstrate the continuous improvement of workplace safety in the Polish civil engineering sector. From the analysed data from the 15 years, a clear decrease in the value of the applied indicators is apparent, including both the number of people involved in accidents and the frequency and severity of accidents

Modeling an ontology on accessible evacuation routes for emergencies

Providing alert communication in emergency situations is vital to reduce the number of victims. However, this is a challenging goal for researchers and professionals due to the diverse pool of prospective users, e.g. people with disabilities as well as other vulnerable groups. Moreover, in the event of an emergency situation, many people could become vulnerable because of exceptional circumstances such as stress, an unknown environment or even visual impairment (e.g. fire causing smoke). Within this scope, a crucial activity is to notify affected people about safe places and available evacuation routes. In order to address this need, we propose to extend an ontology, called SEMA4A (Simple EMergency Alert 4 [for] All), developed in a previous work for managing knowledge about accessibility guidelines, emergency situations and communication technologies. In this paper, we introduce a semi-automatic technique for knowledge acquisition and modeling on accessible evacuation routes. We introduce a use case to show applications of the ontology and conclude with an evaluation involving several experts in evacuation procedures. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Research on E-Learning in the Workplace 2000-2012: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Literature

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A study protocol for establishing the use of electronic personal dosimeters in Portugal

Funding: This research is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia 2022.01888.PTDC.Introduction: The rising incidence of skin cancer over the years has made it a significant public and occupational health issue. However, skin cancer is highly preventable, mainly through reduced exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR), which can be achieved by a variety of individual and collective protective measures and interventions. The relative risk associated with different patterns of exposure to solar UVR differs for the subtypes of keratinocyte cancers (KC). Specifically, whether the exposure is intermittent or continuous, and occurs in an occupational or leisure/recreational setting. The main aim of the study using this protocol is to contribute to raising public and policy awareness on solar UVR-inflicted occupational skin cancers in Lisbon. This will be achieved by performing direct measurements of the solar UVR dose received by outdoor workers using a digital platform. Results will likely contribute to further understanding the risk estimates for keratinocyte cancer estimations in this population. Methods: A prospective observational study will be conducted in Lisbon, Portugal. Personal electronic dosimeters (GENESIS-UV system) integrated with a digital platform will be used to assess occupational solar UVR doses of gardeners, masons, and gravediggers of the municipality of Lisbon. Two hundred and ten outdoor workers will be selected to wear the dosimeter for 1 month each, between April and October during their daily working hours. A digital web-based platform that offers private access to information through dashboard visualization will provide information for the outdoor workers and facilitate communication with the participants. Discussion: The expected results of the overall proposal comprise the occupational solar UVR doses, expressed in standard erythemal dose (SEDs) per day of outdoor work for 7 months. Study data will provide outdoor workers with information on their personal solar UVR exposure during their working hours and an estimate of their risk of developing skin cancer. It is expected that the occupational solar UVR doses of the outdoor workers in Portugal will be above the threshold of 1 to 1.33 SED/day, due to the latitude of Lisbon and the nature of the occupations. The results prospectively should flow into the design of adequate prevention campaigns for skin cancer in outdoor workers.publishersversionpublishe

Developing a system for health and safety enhancement and automation in construction sites

The construction industry forms an important element within the economic activities and is known to be challenging and dangerous. Erroneously construction site accidents were accepted as unavoidable. The existing work health and safety protocols goals were not to cut risk but to provide risk assessment by understanding the types of risks associated with various activities and setting out rules and procedures to manage them and cut their impact. This study attempts a proactive approach to construction site health and safety by anticipating the hazards associated with a planned daily work activity and providing on site the relevant training and safety instructions. This was achieved by integrating the project’s digital design with site images processing and analysis. Digital image processing applies signal processing algorithms to images and videos resulting in extracting useful information from them. An essential and critical issue in the field of computer vision is the object’s recognition methods which should be capable of finding the partial occlusion of objects. Knowledge management systems archive and locate the required information and make it available to the relevant destination quickly and efficiently. It can also provide access to information in other construction sites and to the design team. This management system helps to save the gained experience and make it available to the project or other similar projects. The Building Information System was introduced as a system in which the objectives of this study can be incorporated leaving the door open to incorporate other project management activities. The possible solutions for the identified health and safety business problem were analysed in order to arrive at the best solution suitable to the objectives of the study. The end users ‘needs obtained from the distributed questionnaire and the project’s functional requirements were considered in order to create a model that will achieve their goals in an efficient manner. An activity diagram and a user case diagram based on the UML language were generated. Based on them a computerized model (CONSTRUCTION AUTOMATA) was developed to identify risks associated with specific work activities and provide the relevant safety instructions and training to mitigate them. The model automatically produces safety reports to record and serve as a knowledge management base for future reference thus eliminating possible human errors. The computer program was tested with available site images from an existing project and it proved to deliver its outputs according to its design. The developed model was then demonstrated to a selected group of relevant professionals and was seen to score well with ease of use mark of (6.17) and effectiveness as a health and safety tool mark of (6.37) out of a total mark of (10)

Low-cost sensors technologies for monitoring sustainability and safety issues in mining activities: advances, gaps, and future directions in the digitalization for smart mining

Nowadays, monitoring aspects related to sustainability and safety in mining activities worldwide are a priority, to mitigate socio-environmental impacts, promote efficient use of water, reduce carbon footprint, use renewable energies, reduce mine waste, and minimize the risks of accidents and fatalities. In this context, the implementation of sensor technologies is an attractive alternative for the mining industry in the current digitalization context. To have a digital mine, sensors are essential and form the basis of Industry 4.0, and to allow a more accelerated, reliable, and massive digital transformation, low-cost sensor technology solutions may help to achieve these goals. This article focuses on studying the state of the art of implementing low-cost sensor technologies to monitor sustainability and safety aspects in mining activities, through the review of scientific literature. The methodology applied in this article was carried out by means of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and generating science mapping. For this, a methodological procedure of three steps was implemented: (i) Bibliometric analysis as a quantitative method, (ii) Systematic review of literature as a qualitative method, and (iii) Mixed review as a method to integrate the findings found in (i) and (ii). Finally, according to the results obtained, the main advances, gaps, and future directions in the implementation of low-cost sensor technologies for use in smart mining are exposed. Digital transformation aspects for data measurement with low-cost sensors by real-time monitoring, use of wireless network systems, artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twins, and the Internet of Things, among other technologies of the Industry 4.0 era are discussed.The authors are indebted to the projects PID2021-126405OB-C31 and PID2021-126405OB-C32 funded by FEDER funds—A Way to Make Europe and Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/. The financial support of the Research Department of the Catholic University of Temuco and the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Castilla-La Mancha is also appreciated.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Features Constituting Actionable COVID-19 Dashboards:Descriptive Assessment and Expert Appraisal of 158 Public Web-Based COVID-19 Dashboards

Background: Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the development of dashboards as dynamic, visual tools for communicating COVID-19 data has surged worldwide. Dashboards can inform decision-making and support behavior change. To do so, they must be actionable. The features that constitute an actionable dashboard in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have not been rigorously assessed. Objective: The aim of this study is to explore the characteristics of public web-based COVID-19 dashboards by assessing their purpose and users (“why”), content and data (“what”), and analyses and displays (“how” they communicate COVID-19 data), and ultimately to appraise the common features of highly actionable dashboards. Methods: We conducted a descriptive assessment and scoring using nominal group technique with an international panel of experts (n=17) on a global sample of COVID-19 dashboards in July 2020. The sequence of steps included multimethod sampling of dashboards; development and piloting of an assessment tool; data extraction and an initial round of actionability scoring; a workshop based on a preliminary analysis of the results; and reconsideration of actionability scores followed by joint determination of common features of highly actionable dashboards. We used descriptive statistics and thematic analysis to explore the findings by research question. Results: A total of 158 dashboards from 53 countries were assessed. Dashboards were predominately developed by government authorities (100/158, 63.0%) and were national (93/158, 58.9%) in scope. We found that only 20 of the 158 dashboards (12.7%) stated both their primary purpose and intended audience. Nearly all dashboards reported epidemiological indicators (155/158, 98.1%), followed by health system management indicators (85/158, 53.8%), whereas indicators on social and economic impact and behavioral insights were the least reported (7/158, 4.4% and 2/158, 1.3%, respectively). Approximately a quarter of the dashboards (39/158, 24.7%) did not report their data sources. The dashboards predominately reported time trends and disaggregated data by two geographic levels and by age and sex. The dashboards used an average of 2.2 types of displays (SD 0.86); these were mostly graphs and maps, followed by tables. To support data interpretation, color-coding was common (93/158, 89.4%), although only one-fifth of the dashboards (31/158, 19.6%) included text explaining the quality and meaning of the data. In total, 20/158 dashboards (12.7%) were appraised as highly actionable, and seven common features were identified between them. Actionable COVID-19 dashboards (1) know their audience and information needs; (2) manage the type, volume, and flow of displayed information; (3) report data sources and methods clearly; (4) link time trends to policy decisions; (5) provide data that are “close to home”; (6) break down the population into relevant subgroups; and (7) use storytelling and visual cues. Conclusions: COVID-19 dashboards are diverse in the why, what, and how by which they communicate insights on the pandemic and support data-driven decision-making. To leverage their full potential, dashboard developers should consider adopting the seven actionability features identified

An Analysis of a Missing Design Concept for Sustainable Buildings: Addressing the Safety and Health of the Construction Worker

Construction work is inherently dangerous. The 2010 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show the construction industry had the most fatal injuries of all industry sectors, 17%. U.S. regulations place the responsibility for construction safety on the construction contractor. However, owners and designers have the potential to affect the safety of the construction workforce. Owners have gotten more involved in promoting the safety and health of construction workers in recent years; however, studies show that the safety and health of the construction workforce is not typically considered by designers. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) - the U.S. Navy\u27s systems command for facility engineering - has initiated several practices to improve construction safety on its projects and has pursued a zero-injury objective for many years, but the efforts focus on the construction contractor. This study\u27s objective was to provide a analysis to present to NAVFAC to consider implementing a program to make construction safety a factor in design decisions. This analysis provides justification, influence factors, and application methods by answering the following questions regarding NAVFAC using the design phase to reduce, or eliminate, construction safety hazards : (1) why, (2) what influences exist, and (3) how will NAVFAC implement? A systematic literature reviewwas used to perform this study. Three reasons were identified to justify NAVFAC to use the design phase to advance this concept: (1) the viability of another approach, (2) design decisions affect construction safety, and (3) a moral obligation exists. The influences identified for designers to consider construction safety were: (1) designers are resistant, (2) owners influence safety, and (3) project delivery methods. Three stages to apply the concept of using the design phase to consider construction safety were discussed: (1) cultural shift, (2) design suggestions and standards, and (3) systematic methods. This study contributes to knowledge by providing a panoramic analysis of the concept to consider the safety of the construction worker. Provided this panoramic analysis, the intended audience of this study, NAVFAC, can decide to further develop an implementation plan to have their designers consider the safety and health of the construction workers