Noise Management at Work

Every single day millions of European workers are exposed to noise at work. One in five of European’s workers have to raise his voice to be heard for at least half of the time that there are at work and 7% suffer from work-related hearing impairment. In Europe noise-induced hearing loss is the most common reported occupational disease. This paper deals with issues related with noise management at work, especially regarding the compliance with the new noise European Directive, (2003/10/EC).noise; working conditions

Fisheries Safety Management

Fisheries is one of the most dangerous professions in the world. Fatal accidents and injuries in the fisheries are characterized as well as particular circumstances that may cause or aggravate the risk of accidents. Aspects of safety management of fishing vessels are covered in this paper: areas of concern when doing a risk assessment in fishing vessels, fundamental elements on a safety management system for the fisheries and the need for international and national level instruments as well as legal and compulsory measures.fisheries; working conditions; safety management

Ergonomics and Usability – key factors in Knowledge Society

During the recent years human society evolved from the “industrial society age” and transitioned into the “knowledge society age”. This means that knowledge media support migrated from “pen and paper” to computer-based Information Systems. Due to this fact Ergonomics has assumed an increasing importance, as a science/technology that deals with the problem of adapting the work to the man, namely in terms of Usability. This paper presents some relevant Ergonomics, Usability and User-centred design concepts regarding Information Systems

Noise management at work

Every single day millions of European workers are exposed to noise at work. One in five of European’s workers have to raise his voice to be heard for at least half of the time that there are at work and 7% suffer from work-related hearing impairment. In Europe noise-induced hearing loss is the most common reported occupational disease. This paper deals with issues related with noise management at work, especially regarding the compliance with the new noise European Directive, (2003/10/EC).European Agency for Health and Safety at Wor

Fisheries Safety Management

Fisheries is one of the most dangerous professions in the world. Fatal accidents and injuries in the fisheries are characterized as well as particular circumstances that may cause or aggravate the risk of accidents. Aspects of safety management of fishing vessels are covered in this paper: areas of concern when doing a risk assessment in fishing vessels, fundamental elements on a safety management system for the fisheries and the need for international and national level instruments as well as legal and compulsory measure

Modelling uncertainty in decision making : fuzzy performance measures and fuzzy target

Decision making processes are based on performance measures that are compared with other performance measures values or with targets. Generally, the performance measure is only a number which do not consider the uncertainty associated with obtaining it such as measurement errors, precision and accuracy of measurement tools and subjective judgment. In this work, the uncertainty associated with performance measures is quantified through fuzzy numbers. The decision criterion is also represented by a fuzzy number. An indicator that considers both uncertainties in performance measure and decision criterion is developed. This indicator will help the decision maker once it quantifies the risk associated with the decision.Centro Algoritm

Graph theory approach to quantify uncertainty of performance measures

In this work, the performance measurement process is studied to quantify the uncertainty induced in the resulting performance measure (PM). To that end, the causes of uncertainty are identified, analysing the activities undertaken in the three following stages of the performance measurement process: design and implementation, data collection and record, and determination and analysis. A quantitative methodology based on graph theory and on the sources of uncertainty of the performance measurement process is used to calculate an uncertainty index to evaluate the level of uncertainty of a given PM or (key) performance indicator. An application example is presented. The quantification of PM uncertainty could contribute to better represent the risk associated with a given decision and also to improve the PM to increase its precision and reliability.FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: PEst- OE/EEI/UI0319/2014

Quantification of uncertainty of performance measures using graph theory

In this paper, the graph theory is used to quantify the uncertainty generated in performance measures during the process of performance measurement. A graph is developed considering all the sources of uncertainty present in this process and their relationship. The permanent function of the matrix associated with the graph is used as the basis for determining an uncertainty index.This work was financed with FEDER Funds by Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade – COMPETE and by National Funds by FCT –Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Project: FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674

On the characterisation of uncertainty in performance measurement systems

Performance measurement systems (PMSs) are receiving increasing attention from academics and practitioners particularly after the development of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), and many PMSs are available nowadays. The hypothesis is that organisations need to reflect the uncertainty of its systems and contextual factors in their PMs to improve their models. This identification of uncertainty in PMS is the first step to reduce such uncertainty. This work provides a classification of uncertainty components that affect the quality of PMs

Data quality assessment in performance measurement

Data quality is a multi-dimensional concept and this research will explore its impact in performance measurement systems. Despite the large numbers of publications on the design of performance measurement systems (PMSs) and the definition of critical success factors to develop Performance Measures (PMs), from the data user perspective there are possibilities of finding data quality problems, that may have a negative impact in decision making. This work identifies and classifies uncertainty components of PMSs, and proposes a qualitative method for PMs’ quality assessment. Fuzzy numbers are used to represent PMs’ uncertainty and a method is proposed to calculate an indicator of the compliance between a PM and a target value that can serve as a risk indicator for the decision-maker.FEDER - Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade (COMPETE)Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) - FCOMP-01-0124-FEDE