Work ability: a literature review

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma revisão de literatura sobre a capacidade para o trabalho de trabalho e envelhecimento funcional. Foi realizada uma extensa busca de publicações do período de 1966 a 2006, usando as bases de dados MEDLINE, Lilacs e SciELO. São apresentados vários aspectos relativos à capacidade para o trabalho: o contexto histórico no qual o tema emergiu, o referencial teórico, os fatores determinantes, um modelo explicativo, a metodologia atual para avaliar e monitorar a capacidade para o trabalho e a importância de sua promoção. Também é destacada a situação atual da pesquisa, prática e perspectivas futuras relativas ao tema. No contexto do envelhecimento da força de trabalho, a capacidade para o trabalho tornou-se um indicador importante em função de suas consequências para a saúde, bem-estar e empregabilidade dos trabalhadores, com impactos para os indivíduos, organizações e sociedade. As questões sobre o tema, apesar de relevantes, ainda carecem de maior atenção.The aim of this article is to present a literature review on work ability and functional ageing. An extensive search of publications from 1966 to 2006 was conducted using the databases MEDLINE, LILACS and SciELO. Several aspects of work ability are presented in this manuscript: the historical context when the theme emerged, the theoretical framework, the determinant factors and an explanatory model, the current methodology to evaluate and monitor the work ability, the importance of its promotion. Highlights of the current situation about the research, practice and future perspectives regarding the theme are also discussed. In the context of the workforce aging, the work ability became an important indicator because their consequences to the worker's health, well-being and employability, with impacts to the individuals, organizations and society. In spite of their relevance, there is a lack of attention to the issues about work ability and functional ageing

Estimating marginal cohort working life expectancies from sequential cross-sectional survey data

This article applies recently developed health expectancy methodologies to estimate the average duration of future work life in different states of work ability. Data on working capacity obtained from sequential cross-sectional samples of the cohort population were available from Finnish surveys conducted among active municipal employees. We used these data to estimate cohort marginal probabilities and expected occupancy times in the work ability states. One finding is that the proportion of workers with excellent or good work ability decreased monotonically with advancing age for both genders, but men were prone to have worse work ability and a shorter work career than women. Transition from poor to good or excellent work ability state was estimated to increase working life expectancy of a 45-year-old person by four years for both genders. This study indicates that the work ability of aging Finnish workers deteriorates prematurely, leading to serious socio-economic consequences. Thus it is important to examine the development of work ability already at an early age when it is still possible to intervene in the process

Effect of Persuasive Ability, Technical Ability and Work Ethics of Field Extension Staff (PPL) on Satisfaction of Broiler Chicken Breeders at PT. Sierad Produce

In the global economic era requires business breakthrough efforts to proactively consolidate themselves in order to strengthen competitive advantage, which no longer relies on comparative advantage in the field of raw materials, but also competitive advantages that can be achieved if business people have organizational competence, which means that the businessman can improve his performance. One way to improve performance is through improving human resources. One of the business businesses of PT. Sierad Produce, Tbk is a partnership farming system, where the cutting edge of this business is the Field Extension Officer (PPL), this field employee whose duties and responsibilities are to provide technical direction in the field to the company's breeders about how to run broiler chicken management in accordance with the standards applied by the company to produce good and correct chicken performance. So that the staff of the field extension staff are satisfied with business partners

A participatory physical and psychosocial intervention for balancing the demands and resources among industrial workers (PIPPI): study protocol of a cluster-randomized controlled trial

Background: Need for recovery and work ability are strongly associated with high employee turnover, well-being and sickness absence. However, scientific knowledge on effective interventions to improve work ability and decrease need for recovery is scarce. Thus, the present study aims to describe the background, design and protocol of a cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce need for recovery and improve work ability among industrial workers. Methods/Design: A two-year cluster randomized controlled design will be utilized, in which controls will also receive the intervention in year two. More than 400 workers from three companies in Denmark will be aimed to be cluster randomized into intervention and control groups with at least 200 workers (at least 9 work teams) in each group. An organizational resources audit and subsequent action planning workshop will be carried out to map the existing resources and act upon initiatives not functioning as intended. Workshops will be conducted to train leaders and health and safety representatives in supporting and facilitating the intervention activities. Group and individual level participatory visual mapping sessions will be carried out allowing team members to discuss current physical and psychosocial work demands and resources, and develop action plans to minimize strain and if possible, optimize the resources. At all levels, the intervention will be integrated into the existing organization of work schedules. An extensive process and effect evaluation on need for recovery and work ability will be carried out via questionnaires, observations, interviews and organizational data assessed at several time points throughout the intervention period. Discussion: This study primarily aims to develop, implement and evaluate an intervention based on the abovementioned features which may improve the work environment, available resources and health of industrial workers, and hence their need for recovery and work ability

Towards a quantitative evaluation of the relationship between the domain knowledge and the ability to assess peer work

In this work we present the preliminary results provided by the statistical modeling of the cognitive relationship between the knowledge about a topic a the ability to assess peer achievements on the same topic. Our starting point is Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives in the cognitive domain, and our outcomes confirm the hypothesized ranking. A further consideration that can be derived is that meta-cognitive abilities (e.g., assessment) require deeper domain knowledge

Welfare Reform and Children's Short-Run Attainments: A Structural Approach

In this paper, we develop a dynamic structural model of single mothers' work and welfare participation decisions while their children are young. This model is used to measure the effects of mothers' decisions on short run attainments of the children of NLSY 79. Using PIAT Math test score as a measure of attainment, we find that both single mothers' work and welfare use in the first five years of their children's lives have a positive effect on children's outcomes, but this effect declines with initial ability. The higher the initial ability of a child, the lower the positive impact work and welfare have. In fact, in the case of welfare the effect is negative if a child has more than median initial ability. Furthermore, we find that the work requirement reduces a single mother's use of welfare. However, the net effect of the work requirement on a child's test score depends on whether the mother's work brings in enough labor income to compensate for the loss of welfare benefits. We also look at the implications of the welfare eligibility time limit and maternal leave policies on children's outcomes.Welfare reform, childhood cognitive ability, female work, dynamic choice model, maximum likelihood

Can smartwatches replace smartphones for posture tracking?

This paper introduces a human posture tracking platform to identify the human postures of sitting, standing or lying down, based on a smartwatch. This work develops such a system as a proof-of-concept study to investigate a smartwatch's ability to be used in future remote health monitoring systems and applications. This work validates the smartwatches' ability to track the posture of users accurately in a laboratory setting while reducing the sampling rate to potentially improve battery life, the first steps in verifying that such a system would work in future clinical settings. The algorithm developed classifies the transitions between three posture states of sitting, standing and lying down, by identifying these transition movements, as well as other movements that might be mistaken for these transitions. The system is trained and developed on a Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and the algorithm was validated through a leave-one-subject-out cross-validation of 20 subjects. The system can identify the appropriate transitions at only 10 Hz with an F-score of 0.930, indicating its ability to effectively replace smart phones, if needed

'From Each according to Ability; To Each according to Needs': Origin, Meaning, and Development of Socialist Slogans

There are three slogans in the history of Socialism that are very close in wording, viz. the famous Cabet-Blanc-Marx slogan: "From each according to his ability; To each according to his needs"; the earlier Saint-Simon-Pecqueur slogan: "To each according to his ability; To each according to his works"; and the later slogan in Stalin’s Soviet Constitution: "From each according to his ability; To each according to his work." We will consider the following questions regarding these slogans: a) What are the earliest occurrences of each of these slogans? b) Where does the inspiration for each half of each slogan come from? c) What do the Saint-Simonians mean by “To each according to his ability”? d) What do they mean by “To each according to his works”? e) What motivates the shift from “To each according to his ability” to “From each according to his ability”? f) How should we envisage the progression toward “To each according to his needs”? g) What is the distinction between from “To each according to his works” and “To each according to his work”