Padronização de uma bateria para a avaliação de fatores de risco psicossociais trabalhistas em trabalhadores colombianos

A battery of questionnaires to assess psychosocial risk factors at work was developed in 2010 in response to Resolution 2646 created by the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection. However, this battery presents some theoretical and practical limitations. A new battery of instruments has been designed and validated that includes instruments and risk indicators of the demand-control-social support and the effort-reward imbalance models. Other factors, not included in these models, but that Resolution 2646 suggests should be assessed, have also been added, and with this additional information, the new battery allows us to also calculate a “global indicator” of demand, control, and social support; family and social risk conditions, coping and personality; and health and wellbeing. The new battery was administered to a sample of 16,095 workers from different occupations and representative Colombian regions. An analysis of the various domains indicates that internal consistency of the various scales is high. The new battery has the following properties: it is simple to use in paper format or when administered by computer, it enables comparison between occupations, it offers unified scores for each variable, and provides information to assess the risk factors suggested by Resolution 2646. In addition, it will make it possible to compare the results obtained when analyzing Colombian workers with those obtained from studies of workers from other countries.Em 2010, desenvolveu-se uma bateria de instrumentos para avaliar fatores psicossociais trabalhistas de risco para a saúde, em resposta à Resolução 2 646 do Ministério da Proteção Social da Colômbia. Contudo, esta conta com algumas limitações que, a partir da construção e da validação de uma nova bateria, neste estudo se pretendem superar. Além disso, a nova bateria oferece recursos adicionais para a avaliação desses fatores: a presente bateria incorpora os instrumentos e os indicadores centrais dos modelos demanda-controle-apoio social e desiquilíbrio esforço-recompensa e os fatores internos do trabalho não considerados nesses modelos, mas que a Resolução considera necessários, mediram-se com testes preexistentes ou desenvolvidos pelos autores. Com os dados coletados, é possível calcular indicadores globais de demanda, controle e apoio social; além de condições familiares e sociais de risco, enfrentamento, personalidade e indicadores de saúde e bem-estar. Para a validação, a bateria foi aplicada a uma amostra de 16 095 trabalhadores de diferentes cargos e municípios colombianos. As anál i ses de consistência interna e validade permitem afirmar que a bateria é simples de aplicar em papel ou digital, permitirá comparar cargos, obter pontuações unificadas por variável, oferecer um diagnóstico de um número importante das variáveis sugeridas na Resolução bem como permitirá comparar os resultados dos trabalhadores colombianos com os de outros países. Palavras-chave: fatores trabalhistas de risco psicossocial, Resolução 2 646 de 2008, modelo demanda-controle-apoio social, modelo desiquilíbrio esforço-recompensa, estresse profissional, avaliação.En 2010 se desarrolló una batería de instrumentos para evaluar factores psicosociales laborales de riesgo para la salud, en respuesta a la Resolución 2646 de 2008 del Ministerio de la Protección Social de Colombia. Sin embargo, esta cuenta con algunas limitaciones que, a partir de la construcción y validación de una nueva batería, en el presente estudio se buscan superar. La nueva batería ofrece recursos adicionales para la evaluación de estos factores: incorpora los instrumentos e indicadores centrales de los modelos demanda-control-apoyo social y desequilibrio esfuerzo-recompensa, y los factores intralaborales no contemplados en dichos modelos, pero que la Resolución considera necesarios, se midieron con pruebas preexistentes o desarrolladas por los autores. Con los datos recolectados es posible calcular indicadores globales de demanda, control y apoyo social; además de condiciones familiares y sociales de riesgo, afrontamiento, personalidad e indicadores de salud y bienestar. Para la validación, la batería se aplicó a una muestra de 16.095 trabajadores de diferentes ocupaciones y municipios colombianos. Los análisis de consistencia interna y validez permiten afirmar que la batería es sencilla de aplicar en papel o por computador, permitirá comparar ocupaciones, obtener puntuaciones unificadas por variable, ofrecer un diagnóstico de un número importante de las variables sugeridas en la Resolución y comparar los resultados de los trabajadores colombianos con los de otros países

Designing a Story Database for Use in Automatic Story Generation

In this paper we propose a model for the representation of stories in a story database. The use of such a database will enable computational story generation systems to learn from previous stories and associated user feedback, in order to create believable stories with dramatic plots that invoke an emotional response from users. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of our proposal are the inclusion of what we call ‘narratological concepts’ and user feedback in the story database

Solar Cycle Variation of 0.3-1.29 MeV/nucleon Heavy Ion Composition during Quiet Times near 1 AU in Solar Cycles 23 and 24

We report on the annual variation of quiet-time suprathermal ion composition for C through Fe using Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE)/Ultra-Low Energy Isotope Spectrometer (ULEIS) data over the energy range 0.3 MeV/nuc to 1.28 MeV/nuc from 1998 through 2019, covering solar cycle 23's rising phase through Solar Cycle 24's declining phase. Our findings are (1) quiet time suprathermal abundances resemble CIR-associated particles during solar minima; (2) quiet time suprathermals are M/Q fractionated in a manner that is consistent with M/Q fractionation in large gradual solar energetic particle events (GSEP) during solar maxima; and (3) variability within the quiet time suprathermal pool increases as a function of M/Q and is consistent with the analogous variability in GSEP events. From these observations, we infer that quiet time suprathermal ions are remnants of CIRs in solar minima and GSEP events in solar maxima. Coincident with these results, we also unexpectedly show that S behaves like a low FIP ion in the suprathermal regime and therefore drawn from low FIP solar sources.Comment: Accepted in Astrophysical Journal. 19 pages, 10 figures, 4 table

Refraction Wiggles for Measuring Fluid Depth and Velocity from Video

We present principled algorithms for measuring the velocity and 3D location of refractive fluids, such as hot air or gas, from natural videos with textured backgrounds. Our main observation is that intensity variations related to movements of refractive fluid elements, as observed by one or more video cameras, are consistent over small space-time volumes. We call these intensity variations “refraction wiggles”, and use them as features for tracking and stereo fusion to recover the fluid motion and depth from video sequences. We give algorithms for 1) measuring the (2D, projected) motion of refractive fluids in monocular videos, and 2) recovering the 3D position of points on the fluid from stereo cameras. Unlike pixel intensities, wiggles can be extremely subtle and cannot be known with the same level of confidence for all pixels, depending on factors such as background texture and physical properties of the fluid. We thus carefully model uncertainty in our algorithms for robust estimation of fluid motion and depth. We show results on controlled sequences, synthetic simulations, and natural videos. Different from previous approaches for measuring refractive flow, our methods operate directly on videos captured with ordinary cameras, do not require auxiliary sensors, light sources or designed backgrounds, and can correctly detect the motion and location of refractive fluids even when they are invisible to the naked eye.Shell ResearchMotion Sensing Wi-Fi Sensor Networks Co. (Grant 6925133)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship (Grant 1122374)Microsoft Research (PhD Fellowship

A Majority of Solar Wind Intervals Support Ion-Driven Instabilities

We perform a statistical assessment of solar wind stability at 1 AU against ion sources of free energy using Nyquist's instability criterion. In contrast to typically employed threshold models which consider a single free-energy source, this method includes the effects of proton and He$^{2+}$ temperature anisotropy with respect to the background magnetic field as well as relative drifts between the proton core, proton beam, and He$^{2+}$ components on stability. Of 309 randomly selected spectra from the Wind spacecraft, $53.7\%$ are unstable when the ion components are modeled as drifting bi-Maxwellians; only $4.5\%$ of the spectra are unstable to long-wavelength instabilities. A majority of the instabilities occur for spectra where a proton beam is resolved. Nearly all observed instabilities have growth rates $\gamma$ slower than instrumental and ion-kinetic-scale timescales. Unstable spectra are associated with relatively-large He$^{2+}$ drift speeds and/or a departure of the core proton temperature from isotropy; other parametric dependencies of unstable spectra are also identified.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted in Physical Review Letters; fixed typos in version

2\u27-O-Methyl at 20-mer Guide Strand 3\u27 Termini May Negatively Affect Target Silencing Activity of Fully Chemically Modified siRNA

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) have the potential to treat a broad range of diseases. siRNAs need to be extensively chemically modified to improve their bioavailability, safety, and stability in vivo. However, chemical modifications variably impact target silencing for different siRNA sequences, making the activity of chemically modified siRNA difficult to predict. Here, we systematically evaluated the impact of 3\u27 terminal modifications (2\u27-O-methyl versus 2\u27-fluoro) on guide strands of different length and showed that 3\u27 terminal 2\u27-O-methyl modification negatively impacts activity for \u3e60% of siRNA sequences tested but only in the context of 20- and not 19- or 21-nt-long guide strands. These results indicate that sequence, modification pattern, and structure may cooperatively affect target silencing. Interestingly, the introduction of an extra 2\u27-fluoro modification in the seed region at guide strand position 5, but not 7, may partially compensate for the negative impact of 3\u27 terminal 2\u27-O-methyl modification. Molecular modeling analysis suggests that 2\u27-O-methyl modification may impair guide strand interactions within the PAZ domain of argonaute-2, which may affect target recognition and cleavage, specifically when guide strands are 20-nt long. Our findings emphasize the complex nature of modified RNA-protein interactions and contribute to design principles for chemically modified siRNAs

Nonlinear viscosity and velocity distribution function in a simple longitudinal flow

A compressible flow characterized by a velocity field $u_x(x,t)=ax/(1+at)$ is analyzed by means of the Boltzmann equation and the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook kinetic model. The sign of the control parameter (the longitudinal deformation rate $a$) distinguishes between an expansion ($a>0$) and a condensation ($a<0$) phenomenon. The temperature is a decreasing function of time in the former case, while it is an increasing function in the latter. The non-Newtonian behavior of the gas is described by a dimensionless nonlinear viscosity $\eta^*(a^*)$, that depends on the dimensionless longitudinal rate $a^*$. The Chapman-Enskog expansion of $\eta^*$ in powers of $a^*$ is seen to be only asymptotic (except in the case of Maxwell molecules). The velocity distribution function is also studied. At any value of $a^*$, it exhibits an algebraic high-velocity tail that is responsible for the divergence of velocity moments. For sufficiently negative $a^*$, moments of degree four and higher may diverge, while for positive $a^*$ the divergence occurs in moments of degree equal to or larger than eight.Comment: 18 pages (Revtex), including 5 figures (eps). Analysis of the heat flux plus other minor changes added. Revised version accepted for publication in PR