Employee control over working times: associations with subjective health and sickness absences

Study objective: To investigate the impact of employees' worktime control on health, taking into account other aspects of job control. Design: Analysis of questionnaire data in 1997 and register data on sickness absence during 1996–1998. Setting: Eight towns in Finland. Participants: 6442 municipal employees (1490 men and 4952 women) representing the staff of the towns studied. Follow up was 17 706 person years. Main results: In women, poor health and psychological distress were more prevalent among those in the lowest quartile of worktime control than those in the highest (after adjustment for potential confounders including other aspects of job control, odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals for poor health and psychological distress were 1.8 (1.5 to 2.3) and 1.6 (1.3 to 2.0), respectively). Correspondingly, the adjusted sickness absence rate was 1.2 (1.1 to 1.2) times higher in women with low worktime control than in women with high worktime control. In men, no significant associations between worktime control and health were found. These results, obtained from the total sample, were replicable within a homogeneous occupational group comprising women and men. Conclusions: Exploration of specific aspects of job control provides new information about potentially reversible causes of health problems in a working population. Worktime control is an independent predictor of health in women but not in men. Dissimilarities in the distribution of occupations between men and women are not a probable explanation for this difference

Vertical Search Engines

This paper outlines the growth in popularity of vertical search engines, their origins, the differences between them and well-known broad based search engines such as Google and Yahoo. We also discuss their use in business-to-business, their marketing and advertising costs, what the revenue streams are and who uses them

Evaluation of an Intelligent Assistive Technology for Voice Navigation of Spreadsheets

An integral part of spreadsheet auditing is navigation. For sufferers of Repetitive Strain Injury who need to use voice recognition technology this navigation can be highly problematic. To counter this the authors have developed an intelligent voice navigation system, iVoice, which replicates common spreadsheet auditing behaviours through simple voice commands. This paper outlines the iVoice system and summarizes the results of a study to evaluate iVoice when compared to a leading voice recognition technology.Comment: 10 Pages, 2 Colour Figures, 4 Table

Google+ vs Facebook: The Comparison

Social networks are a varyingly popular tool used to connect with friends, colleagues and/or family. Recently, Facebook has been at the top of the social network food chain, with Bebo and MySpace decreasing in users and the huge increase of users joining Facebook in such a short time. Google have just recently launched Google+, a social networking site. This is not the first time that Google have attempted to break into the social networking scene but it is possible that these failed attempts may have taught them something. As Facebook’s user base is extremely diverse, spreading across different countries, races, ages, professions, and interests, to name a few, this network is a good model to compare new rival Google+ to. Google+ has set out to do the same things as Facebook but better to try and steal away some of that high power and necessity that Facebook has gained. Facebook has News feed, Google has Stream. Facebook has Lists, Google has circles. Facebook has like’s, Google has +1. Facebook accounts for 10% of overall internet usage. This paper will look at various comparables between the two social networks and analyse the better functionality, design and ease of use. It will then conclude a verdict on which is the better social network to use overall.

Extracting Cryptographic Keys from .NET Applications

In the absence of specialized encryption hardware,cryptographic operations must be performed in main memory.As such,it is common place for cyber criminals to examine the content of main memory with a view to retrieving high-value data in plaintext form and/or the associated decryption key.In this paper,the author presents a number of simple methods for identifying and extracting cryptographic keys from memory dumps of software applications that utilize the Microsoft .NET Framework,as well as sourcecode level countermeasures to protect against same.Given the EXE file of an application and a basic knowledge of the cryptographic libraries utilized in the .NET Framework,the author shows how to create a memory dump of a running application and how to extract cryptographic keys from same using WinDBG - without any prior knowledge of the cryptographic key utilized.Whilst the proof-of-concept application utilized as part of this paper uses an implementation of the DES cipher,it should be noted that the steps shown can be utilized against all three generations of symmetric and asymmetric ciphers supported within the .NET Framework

Near Field Communication

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology that enables a device to communicate with another at a maximum distance of around 20cm or less. Currently, mobile phone manufacturers, banking institutions and mobile network providers are attempting to apply this technology to Smartphones and other handheld devices because of the opportunity to enable the consumer to use commercial services more easily. This paper discusses the expected increase in mobile payments using Near Field Communication, possible uses and the risks associated with carrying out transactions over a wireless network. We also discuss a real world implementation of an NFC based loyalty card system for retail.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v2i3.23

Acute Effects Of 24-h Sleep Deprivation On Salivary Cortisol And Testosterone Concentrations And Testosterone To Cortisol Ratio Following Supplementation With Caffeine Or Placebo

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(1): 108-120, 2017. Caffeine has become a popular ergogenic aid amongst athletes and usage to improve athletic performance has been well documented. The effect of caffeine on anabolic and catabolic hormones in a sleep-deprived state has had little investigation to date. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the potential of caffeine to offset the effects, if any, of short-term sleep deprivation and exercise on an athlete’s testosterone and cortisol concentrations via salivary technique. Eleven competitive male athletes volunteered to be part of this prospective double-blinded study. Three test days were scheduled for each athlete; one non-sleep deprived, one sleep-deprived with caffeine supplementation (6 mg.kg-1) and one sleep-deprived with placebo ingestion. Sleep deprivation was defined as 24-h without sleep. Each test day was composed of 2 aerobic components: a modified Hoff test and a Yo-Yo test. Testosterone and cortisol concentrations were measured via salivary analysis at 4 different time-points; T1 to T4, representing baseline, and pre- and post-aerobic components, respectively. Overall no significant differences were detected comparing the different sleep states for testosterone or cortisol concentrations. A trend existed whereby the sleep-deprived with caffeine ingestion state mirrored the non-sleep deprived state for cortisol concentration. Therefore, caffeine supplementation may have potential benefits for athletes during short-term aerobic exercise when sleep-deprived. An increase in mean testosterone concentration post-aerobic exercise was only observed in the sleep-deprived with caffeine ingestion state