Safe Operation of Nuclear Power Plants - Is Safety Culture an Adequate Management Method?

One of the characteristics of a good safety culture is a definable commitment to the improvement of safety behaviours and attitudes at all organisational levels. A second characteristic of an organisation with excellent safety culture is free and open communication. The general understanding has been that safety culture is a part of organisation culture. In addition to safety culture thinking, proactive programmes and displays of proactive work to improve safety are required. This work needs to include, at a minimum, actions aiming at reducing human errors, the development of human error prevention tools, improvements in training, and the development of working methods and the organisation’s activities. Safety depends not only on the technical systems, but also on the people and the organisation. There is a need for better methods and tools for organisational assessment and development. Today there is universal acceptance of the significant impact that management and organisational factors have over the safety significance of complex industrial installations such as nuclear power plants. Many events with significant economic and public impact had causes that have been traced to management deficiencies. The objective of this study is development of new methods to increase safety of nuclear power plant operation. The research has been limited to commercial nuclear power plants that are intended for electrical power generation in Finland. Their production activities, especially operation and maintenance, are primarily reviewed from a safety point of view, as well as human performance and organisational factors perspective. This defines the scope and focus of the study. The research includes studies related to knowledge management and tacit knowledge in the project management context and specific studies related to transfer of tacit knowledge in the maintenance organization and transfer of tacit knowledge between workers of old generation and young generation. The empirical results of the research are presented in research papers which are enclosed in this thesis

Mental and physical workload in laparoscopic surgery

Imperial Users onl

Safety Culture and Collective Commitment in Organizational Context

In nuclear power plants and process industry safety is the number one priority over profitability and productivity. In such high-risk environments where individuals work independently their decisions can lead to dangerous situations to coworkers, organizations or even to society. In many cases, a loose commitment to occupational role causes individual to perceive safety culture as something too much detailed which makes them to lose focus on what is important regarding the safety culture. In our view, this is a problem for collective safety culture to raise to a higher level. To understand organizations collective safety culture and safety consciousness it is important to analyze employees individually to see what are their internal feelings, understanding and aims. This paper presents a joint analysis of organization’s safety culture and commitment towards their organization by utilizing also Company Democracy Model (CDM)

Instruction with 3D Computer Generated Anatomy

Research objectives. 1) To create an original and useful software application; 2) to investigate the utility of dyna-linking for teaching upper limb anatomy. Dyna-linking is an arrangement whereby interaction with one representation automatically drives the behaviour of another representation. Method. An iterative user-centred software development methodology was used to build, test and refine successive prototypes of an upper limb software tutorial. A randomised trial then tested the null hypothesis: There will be no significant difference in learning outcomes between participants using dyna-linked 2D and 3D representations of the upper limb and those using non dyna-linked representations. Data was analysed in SPSS using factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results and analysis. The study failed to reject the null hypothesis as there was no signi cant di fference between experimental conditions. Post-hoc analysis revealed that participants with low prior knowledge performed significantly better (p = 0.036) without dyna-linking (mean gain = 7.45) than with dyna-linking (mean gain = 4.58). Participants with high prior knowledge performed equally well with or without dyna-linking. These findings reveal an aptitude by treatment interaction (ATI) whereby the effectiveness of dyna-linking varies according to learner ability. On average, participants using the non dyna-linked system spent 3 minutes and 4 seconds longer studying the tutorial. Participants using the non dyna-linked system clicked 30% more on the representations. Dyna-linking had a high perceived value in questionnaire surveys (n=48) and a focus group (n=7). Conclusion. Dyna-linking has a high perceived value but may actually over-automate learning by prematurely giving novice learners a fully worked solution. Further research is required to confirm if this finding is repeated in other domains, with different learners and more sophisticated implementations of dyna-linking

Dyadic behavior in co-manipulation :from humans to robots

To both decrease the physical toll on a human worker, and increase a robot’s environment perception, a human-robot dyad may be used to co-manipulate a shared object. From the premise that humans are efficient working together, this work’s approach is to investigate human-human dyads co-manipulating an object. The co-manipulation is evaluated from motion capture data, surface electromyography (EMG) sensors, and custom contact sensors for qualitative performance analysis. A human-human dyadic co-manipulation experiment is designed in which every human is instructed to behave as a leader, as a follower or neither, acting as naturally as possible. The experiment data analysis revealed that humans modulate their arm mechanical impedance depending on their role during the co-manipulation. In order to emulate the human behavior during a co-manipulation task, an admittance controller with varying stiffness is presented. The desired stiffness is continuously varied based on a scalar and smooth function that assigns a degree of leadership to the robot. Furthermore, the controller is analyzed through simulations, its stability is analyzed by Lyapunov. The resulting object trajectories greatly resemble the patterns seen in the human-human dyad experiment.Para tanto diminuir o esforço físico de um humano, quanto aumentar a percepção de um ambiente por um robô, um díade humano-robô pode ser usado para co-manipulação de um objeto compartilhado. Partindo da premissa de que humanos são eficientes trabalhando juntos, a abordagem deste trabalho é a de investigar díades humano-humano co-manipulando um objeto compartilhado. A co-manipulação é avaliada a partir de dados de um sistema de captura de movimentos, sinais de eletromiografia (EMG), e de sensores de contato customizados para análise qualitativa de desempenho. Um experimento de co-manipulação com díades humano-humano foi projetado no qual cada humano é instruído a se comportar como um líder, um seguidor, ou simplesmente agir tão naturalmente quanto possível. A análise de dados do experimento revelou que os humanos modulam a rigidez mecânica do braço a depender de que tipo de comportamento eles foram designados antes da co-manipulação. Para emular o comportamento humano durante uma tarefa de co-manipulação, um controle por admitância com rigidez variável é apresentado neste trabalho. A rigidez desejada é continuamente variada com base em uma função escalar suave que define o grau de liderança do robô. Além disso, o controlador é analisado por meio de simulações, e sua estabilidade é analisada pela teoria de Lyapunov. As trajetórias resultantes do uso do controlador mostraram um padrão de comportamento muito parecido ao do experimento com díades humano-humano

The doctoral research abstracts. Vol:7 2015 / Institute of Graduate Studies, UiTM

Foreword: The Seventh Issue of The Doctoral Research Abstracts captures the novelty of 65 doctorates receiving their scrolls in UiTM’s 82nd Convocation in the field of Science and Technology, Business and Administration, and Social Science and Humanities. To the recipients I would like to say that you have most certainly done UiTM proud by journeying through the scholastic path with its endless challenges and impediments, and persevering right till the very end. This convocation should not be regarded as the end of your highest scholarly achievement and contribution to the body of knowledge but rather as the beginning of embarking into high impact innovative research for the community and country from knowledge gained during this academic journey. As alumni of UiTM, we will always hold you dear to our hearts. A new ‘handshake’ is about to take place between you and UiTM as joint collaborators in future research undertakings. I envisioned a strong research pact between you as our alumni and UiTM in breaking the frontier of knowledge through research. I wish you all the best in your endeavour and may I offer my congratulations to all the graduands. ‘UiTM sentiasa dihati ku’ / Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Prof Ir Dr Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar , FASc, PEng Vice Chancellor Universiti Teknologi MAR

The role of cardiopulmonary exercise testing for identifying possible silent myocardial ischaemia in people with coronary heart disease

This thesis investigates the utility of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in assessing and managing patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), particularly focusing on the significance of oxygen pulse (O2Pulse) inflections as a marker for myocardial ischemia. The research encompasses a comprehensive analysis of O2Pulse morphology, inflection point identification, and the impact of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (exCR) programs, specifically high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and moderate-intensity steady-state (MISS) training, on patients with CHD.Chapter 3 examines the reliability of CPET in detecting suspected myocardial ischemia through O2Pulse and ΔV̇O2/ΔWR inflections in chronic total occlusion (CTO) patients. This study was considerable hampered by poor recruitment and the outbreak of COVID-19. Subsequently only four patients were enrolled, three of whom exhibited no inflections in O2Pulse. In the one patient who did have O2Pulse inflections they occurred at similar work rates (10W) and heart rates (5bpm). Chapter 5 extends the inquiry into the short-term reliability and agreement of O2Pulse curve parameters in a healthy cohort demonstrating that the mean percent minimal detectable change for filtered O2Pulse was 13.5 ± 3.2. Building on these findings, Chapter 6 evaluates the inter- and intra-rater reliability in identifying O2Pulse inflections, comparing subjective assessments with an objective algorithmic method. Almost perfect agreement between the algorithm and human raters was demonstrated, with a Fleiss’ Kappa statistic of 0.89. Chapter 7, a subset analysis from the HIIT or MISS UK trial, delves into the rate of O2Pulse inflections in outpatient cardiac rehabilitation (16%) and how different exercise interventions affect O2Pulse inflections in CAD patients.The results highlight a considerable potential for CPET, particularly O2Pulse inflections, in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of CAD. The research underscores the potential reliability of O2Pulse as a diagnostic tool, the effectiveness of exCR in improving cardiopulmonary fitness, and the relevance of O2Pulse inflections as a surrogate marker for myocardial ischemia. The findings suggest that both HIIT and MISS can positively influence O2Pulse inflections, offering a non-invasive means to monitor and potentially improve the health outcomes of CAD patients.This thesis contributes to the understanding of CPET in clinical settings, advocating for its broader application in cardiac rehabilitation. It identifies areas for further research, including the exploration of different exercise modalities, to optimize exCR programs and enhance patient care

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically