Work-related musculoskeletal disorder and its costs: a short review

Introduction: Musculoskeletal disorder can result from extreme physical demands at work. It has risen, mainly due to high muscle demands and static postures and generates a significant economic burden to the companies. This short review aims to point out the statistics of the most affected body parts by work-related musculoskeletal disorders, assess absenteeism and presenteeism costs, and evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions. Methodology: According to the PRISMA Statement, the search was performed in 5 electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, Pubmed). Articles selection was made by the title and abstract analysis, especially those aiming to explain and validate the subject. If the abstract fulfils the objective, the articles were read, and studies were considered that met the defined eligibility criteria. Were chosen articles that realised measurements or considered interventions in healthy human beings, especially in the working population, dated from 2015 to 2020. Results and Discussion: The scrutinised articles were conclusive that the most affected part of the body are the upper limbs, the neck and the upper back. The statistics ofthe affected workers varied according to the country and analysed tasks, but they converge concerning the most affected body parts. It could be noted that women are more affected by musculoskeletal disorders than men, especially older women; the reason, however, is not clearly explained. Muscle injury can lead high economic burden, mostly due to absenteeism and presenteeism. It was noted that the expenditure due to presenteeism is higher comparing to absenteeism in both developed and emergent countries. Conclusions: Due to high costs, companies are deploying strategies to improve work conditions and aware the workers about health and safety. Interventions have shown to be effective in reducing the risk of injuries. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders canbe extremely damaging to the workers health and are costly to the companies. Support supervisor interventions effectively improve work conditions and reduce the risk of damaging outcomes, increasing workers health, work ability, and, consequently, productivity.</jats:p

Smart and sustainable cities in the Mediterranean region: The contribution of short supply chains of food

The cities around the world in general, and in the Mediterranean area in particular, are facing tremendous challenges at the environmental, social, economic, and institutional levels, due to the urbanization trend, environmental climatic changes and challenges due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, cities need to be sustainable and smart in the future. An economically important and innovative sector in urban areas is food security. Nowadays, most of the literature explores the concept of smart cities from the point of view of information and communications technology, indeed, the connection with the sustainability aspects of the food supply chain and the ways to operationalize that, remains unsolved. This paper tries to overcome this gap in the literature. The main aim is to analyze the contribution of the short supply chain of food in terms of sustainability in smart cities, regarding current urban trends in cities in general and in Mediterranean areas in particular. The methodology was based on a literature review and includes quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results confirm the existence of positive impacts in the short supply chains of food in urban areas in terms of sustainability. Despite the existence of a considerable number of papers about smart cities and ICT-related topics, the benefits from society of short supply chains of food, and the linkage among the topics and subjects, remain unreferred to or with a limited knowledge exchange. The conclusions of this paper will be helpful for public decision makers to implement policies in order to promote the sustainability of Mediterranean cities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modelação estatística dos índices de sinistralidade, aplicados ao setor da construção

Face ao quadro problemático das estatísticas de sinistralidade e considerando a Segurança na construção uma missão vital e de primordial significado para a sociedade, pretendeu-se com o presente estudo desenvolver modelos matemáticos, com capacidade explicativa do comportamento dos índices de sinistralidade em função de variáveis setoriais e globais como a taxa de desemprego e a taxa de crescimento do PIB de Portugal. Foram utilizados dados oficiais relativos a uma amostra de conveniência composta por 58 empresas do setor da construção, referente ao período de 6 anos. Foi efetuado o tratamento estatístico dos dados e desenhados modelos com base em regressões lineares. No final, dois dos modelos desenvolvidos apresentaram capacidade explicativa. Sendo que nestes aparecem como variáveis relevantes, a taxa de desemprego e os custos de formação por trabalhador. Apesar da capacidade explicativa dos modelos e da possibilidade da sua utilização pelas empresas do setor, como ferramenta potenciadora da Prevenção dos acidentes ocupacionais, é ainda questionada a eventual falta de consistência dos dados e a qualidade da formação ministrada nas empresas

Short review on occupational noise exposure in the extractive industry and similar works

Introduction: Occupational noise is still a matter within the industrial practice with nefarious consequences on the workers health. Pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular problems, disturbances in sleep, fatigue, and, in the worst-case scenarios, hearing loss (this one with a permanent character) are some of the most common adverse effects reported in the literature. This issue covers itself in even more significant concern when analysing the mining industry context. Almost every operation works as a potential noise source, not only for the workers but also for the surrounding populations. Objective: To identify the exposure setting to occupational noise in the extractive industry and similar works (i.e. earthworks), particularly related to tasks and equipment. Methodology: The Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) was used as a guideline to help conduct the research and report of this work. The most relevant keywords were selected and later combined in the selected databases and multidisciplinary academic journals in the first phase. After, the articles were filtered with a set of exclusion criteria, to know: 1) Publication year, 2) Document type, 3) Source type, and 4) Language. The subsequent stage was to determine, within the remaining articles, the pertinence of each study and its later inclusion in the study. Each set of data was then classified according to the measurement context, and the results were analysed. Results and discussion: In the records identification phase, a total of 1148 papers were recovered. By applying the previously mentioned exclusion criteria, 547 were removed related to publication year, 146 due to document type, 12 related to source type and 25 because of language. Additionally, 360 records were excluded because were not in accordance with the proposed objective, 25 were duplicate articles, and 7 had no full-text available. From the last analysis, 11 more papers were excluded, which lead to a final result of 15 included studies. According to theoccupational noise measurements set, the records were divided into four categories: activity, equipment, job category, and working area. Different equipment was associated with high noise levels: crusher between 85.6 and 104 dB, trucks and bulldozes above 100 dB, and shovel 103 dB, whereas the only analysed activity was blasting, where studies concluded that increasing distance leads to lower noise measurement values. Conclusions: Considering this research, although it was possible to identify the tasks and equipment usually associated with occupational noise in the extractive industry, a lot of work still needs to be done, especially data analysis. However, this research serves as a starting point for future study.</jats:p

A systematic review protocol: Examining the evidence of whole body vibration produced by mining equipment

Whole body vibration (WBV) is an emerging issue for the mining industry, occuring from the exposure due to many mining operations. This systematic review protocol intends to give answer to the question "what mining equipment contributes the most to occupational whole body vibration and under what conditions?". For that, the main engineering and health databases were selected (i.e Scopus, Science Direct and PubMed) and a set of keywords was defined to latter combination. The selection process of the papers was also described in an attempt to contribute to the general research on this field. All of the data treatment is detailed, including the risk of bias and attempts to deal with it.*x0D; The protocol for the systematic review is registered in PROSPERO under the code CRD42018087629.*x0D;  </jats:p

Influence of adaptability of Serious Games on learning outcomes and the application of knowledge and skills in professional training

Serious Games have been used in professional training to increase employee engagement and improve the results of training initiatives in this context. This work intends to investigate the influence of game elements, in adaptable Serious Games, according to the users\u27 interactions, in the increase of engagement in the game itself and, as the main objective, in the learning outcomes and the transfer of the acquired knowledge and practised skills to activities in the daily work. Using the Design Science Research methodology, this study is intended to develop a framework for the development and evaluation of Serious Games to improve the user experience, the learning outcomes, the transfer of knowledge to work situations, and the application of skills practised in the game in real professional scenarios

Thermal comfort evaluation of an operating room through CFD methodology

Different studies have been evidencing that the surgeon, working with a high metabolic rate, feels uncomfortable after a time. This enforces the study of indoor thermal conditions in health care facilities. The main objective of the present work is the evaluation of the thermal comfort sensation experienced by surgeons and nurses inside a Portuguese orthopaedic surgical room, using the PMV index. Through CFD tools and a post-processing routine, it was obtained the PMV index in each domain node, in opposite to the typical use of average climate values. The use of average ventilation values, to calculate the index, does not provide a correct and enough descriptive evaluation of the surgical room thermal environment. It is noticeable that surgeons and nurses feel different thermal sensations in the same surgical room. For the studied case, the surgeon feels the room environment hotter than the nurse. The nurses feel a slightly cold sensation under the air supply diffuser and a neutral zone is located in the air stagnation zones close to the walls. As expected for both cases, lamps provide an uncomfortable sensation. The clothing used by both classes, as well as the ventilation conditions, shall be revised accordingly to the amount of persons in the room and the type of activity performed