Workplace heat stress, health and productivity – an increasing challenge for low and middle-income countries during climate change

BACKGROUND Global climate change is already increasing the average temperature and direct heat exposure in many places around the world. OBJECTIVES To assess the potential impact on occupational health and work capacity for people exposed at work to increasing heat due to climate change. DESIGN A brief review of basic thermal physiology mechanisms, occupational heat exposure guidelines and heat exposure changes in selected cities. RESULTS In countries with very hot seasons, workers are already affected by working environments hotter than that with which human physiological mechanisms can cope. To protect workers from excessive heat, a number of heat exposure indices have been developed. One that is commonly used in occupational health is the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT). We use WBGT to illustrate assessing the proportion of a working hour during which a worker can sustain work and the proportion of that same working hour that (s)he needs to rest to cool the body down and maintain core body temperature below 38 degrees C. Using this proportion a 'work capacity' estimate was calculated for selected heat exposure levels and work intensity levels. The work capacity rapidly reduces as the WBGT exceeds 26-30 degrees C and this can be used to estimate the impact of increasing heat exposure as a result of climate change in tropical countries. CONCLUSIONS One result of climate change is a reduced work capacity in heat-exposed jobs and greater difficulty in achieving economic and social development in the countries affected by this somewhat neglected impact of climate change.The research was supported by funds from the Australian National University and Lund University

Implications for workability and survivability in populations exposed to extreme heat under climate change: A modelling study

Background: Changes in temperature and humidity due to climate change affect living and working conditions. An understanding of the effects of different global temperature changes on population health is needed to inform the continued implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and to increase global ambitions for greater cuts in emissions. By use of historical and projected climate conditions, we aimed to investigate the effects of climate change on workability (ie, the ability to work) and survivability (the ability to survive). Methods: In this modelling study, we estimated the changes in populations exposed to excessive heat stress between the recent past (ie, 1986–2005) and 2100. We used climate data from four models to calculate the wet-bulb globe temperature, an established heat exposure index that can be used to assess the effects of temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors on humans. We defined and applied thresholds for risks to workability (where the monthly mean of daily maximum wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 34°C) and survivability (where the maximum daily wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 40°C for 3 consecutive days), and we used population projections to quantify changes in risk associated with different changes to the global temperature. Findings: The risks to workability increase substantially with global mean surface temperature in all four climate models, with approximately 1 billion people affected globally after an increase in the global temperature of about 2·5°C above pre-industrial levels. There is greater variability between climate models for exposures above the threshold for risks to survivability than for risks to workability. The number of people who are likely to be exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold increases with global temperature change, to reach around 20 million people globally after an increase of about 2·5°C, estimated from the median of the models, but with a large model uncertainty. More people are likely to be exposed to heat stress in urban than in rural areas. Population exposure can fluctuate over time and change substantially within one decade. Interpretation: Exposure to excessive heat stress is projected to be widespread in tropical or subtropical low-income and middle-income countries, highlighting the need to build on the Paris Agreement regarding global temperature targets, to protect populations who have contributed little to greenhouse gas emissions. The non-linear dependency of heat exposure risk on temperature highlights the importance of understanding thresholds in coupled human-climate systems

Die Entwicklung und Bedeutung des seriellen Betonformsteinsystems anhand der Unterlagen aus dem Nachlass des Künstlers Friedrich Kracht unter Berücksichtigung der Doppelautorenschaft mit Karl-Heinz-Adler

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit der Entwicklung und Bedeutung des 1973 zum Patent angemeldeten Seriellen Betonformsteinprogramms als wichtiges und bekanntes Element der sogenannten Ost- und Nachkriegsmoderne. Anhand der gestalterischen Entstehung dieses speziellen seriellen Systems wird auch die Differenz zu anderen Formsteinen deutlich gemacht. Der im Aufbau enthaltene künstlerische Schaffensprozess eröffnet so den Diskurs um die Grenze zwischen Dekor und Kunst, die sich in der DDR gemäß dem Gebot des Sozialistischen Realismus' von der hier vorgeschlagenen Position unterschied.:1. Einleitung 2. Forschungsstand 3. Formsteinelemente im Kontext der Architektur 4. Formsteinwände im Kontext der Produktionsgenossenschaft Bildender Künstler Kunst am Bau in Dresden 5. Die Zusammenarbeit Friedrich Krachts und Karl-Hienz Adlers 5.1 Von der Grafik und der Malerei 5.2 Bis zum Formstein 5.3 Karl-Heinz Adler im Gespräch 6. So funktioniert der serielle Formstein: Optik, Geometrie und Wandelbarkeit des seriellen Betonformsteinprogramms 7. Aufträge, Katalog und Muster, Arbeitsablauf 7.1 Ausblick auf die Rechtslage der Doppelautorenschaft und der Bewertung des Werkes 8. Missing Link: der Baustein zwischen anerkannter Grafik/Malerei und Baugebundener Kunst 9. Fazit 10. Anhang (Interviews, Quellen, Literatur, Internetquellen, Abbildungsnachweise) Selbstständigkeitserklärun

Escalating environmental summer heat exposure - a future threat for the European workforce

Heat exposure constitutes a major threat for European workers, with significant impacts on the workers' health and productivity. Climate projections over the next decades show a continuous and accelerated warming over Europe together with longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves on regional and local scales. In this work, we assess the increased risk in future occupational heat stress levels using the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), an index adopted by the International Standards Organization as regulatory index to measure the heat exposure of working people. Our results show that, in large parts of Europe, future heat exposure will indeed exceed critical levels for physically active humans far more often than in today?s climate, and labour productivity might be largely reduced in southern Europe. European industries should adapt to the projected changes to prevent major consequences for the workers? health and to preserve economic productivity.Financial support for this work is provided by the HEAT-SHIELD Project (European Commission HORIZON 2020, research and innovation programme under the grant agreement 668786). The authors wish to thank the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) for providing the technical infrastructure

The ‘Hothaps’ programme for assessing climate change impacts on occupational health and productivity: an invitation to carry out field studies

The ‘high occupational temperature health and productivity suppression’ programme (Hothaps) is a multi-centre health research and prevention programme aimed at quantifying the extent to which working people are affected by, or adapt to, heat exposure while working, and how global heating during climate change may increase such effects. The programme will produce essential new evidence for local, national and global assessment of negative impacts of climate change that have largely been overlooked. It will also identify and evaluate preventive interventions in different social and economic settings

Distinct Effects of Two HIV-1 Capsid Assembly Inhibitor Families That Bind the Same Site within the N-Terminal Domain of the Viral CA Protein

The emergence of resistance to existing classes of antiretroviral drugs necessitates finding new HIV-1 targets for drug discovery. The viral capsid (CA) protein represents one such potential new target. CA is sufficient to form mature HIV-1 capsids in vitro, and extensive structure-function and mutational analyses of CA have shown that the proper assembly, morphology, and stability of the mature capsid core are essential for the infectivity of HIV-1 virions. Here we describe the development of an in vitro capsid assembly assay based on the association of CA-NC subunits on immobilized oligonucleotides. This assay was used to screen a compound library, yielding several different families of compounds that inhibited capsid assembly. Optimization of two chemical series, termed the benzodiazepines (BD) and the benzimidazoles (BM), resulted in compounds with potent antiviral activity against wild-type and drug-resistant HIV-1. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic and X-ray crystallographic analyses showed that both series of inhibitors bound to the N-terminal domain of CA. These inhibitors induce the formation of a pocket that overlaps with the binding site for the previously reported CAP inhibitors but is expanded significantly by these new, more potent CA inhibitors. Virus release and electron microscopic (EM) studies showed that the BD compounds prevented virion release, whereas the BM compounds inhibited the formation of the mature capsid. Passage of virus in the presence of the inhibitors selected for resistance mutations that mapped to highly conserved residues surrounding the inhibitor binding pocket, but also to the C-terminal domain of CA. The resistance mutations selected by the two series differed, consistent with differences in their interactions within the pocket, and most also impaired virus replicative capacity. Resistance mutations had two modes of action, either directly impacting inhibitor binding affinity or apparently increasing the overall stability of the viral capsid without affecting inhibitor binding. These studies demonstrate that CA is a viable antiviral target and demonstrate that inhibitors that bind within the same site on CA can have distinct binding modes and mechanisms of action

Usando as Novas Tecnologias para Promover a Acessibilidade aos Alunos Surdos na Escola

Resumo. Este trabalho apresenta a ideia de um protótipo desenvolvido com a plataforma de hardware Arduíno, a fim de promover a acessibilidade para alunos surdos na escola, contribuindo para a autonomia destes estudantes. Este protótipo consiste em um sinal luminoso, que complementa o sinal sonoro da escola, e que também emite um alerta vibratório para o smartphone do estudante, através do uso de um aplicativo. O trabalho ainda está em fase de desenvolvimento, e como resultados parciais nós já desenvolvemos o protótipo de hardware e a interface do aplicativo.Palavras-chave: Acessibilidade, Arduíno, Novas Tecnologias