Slips, trips and falls in crowds

Crowd situations are commonplace and involve circumstances known to lead to slips, trips and falls (STF). Data from focus groups with crowd participants (5 groups, n = 35 individuals); observations of crowd situations (n = 55); and interviews with crowd organisers (n = 41) were analysed to examine understanding of and responses to the risk of STF in crowds. Although safety was a high priority for both crowd participants and organisers, explicit consideration of STF as a safety concern was low among both groups. Crowd observations found STF risks mitigated on some occasions and present on others, without any discernible pattern for the variation. A risk management framework for STF risk in crowds is proposed. It is concluded that improved understanding is needed of the nature and pattern of STF occurrence in crowds and the efficacy of measures for prevention.N/

A comparison of three systemic accident analysis methods using 46 SPAD (Signals Passed at Danger) incidents

During the period 1996-2003 there were five fatal accidents on the UK railway network, three of which were Signals Passed at Danger (SPAD) events (Watford Junction, 1996; Southall, 1997; Ladbroke Grove, 1999). SPAD events vary in severity and whilst most are not fatal there is the potential to cause serious injuries to passengers and train staff and damage to railway infra-structure. This paper investigates how the current system accident analysis tool used within the railway, the Incident Factor Classification System (IFCS) identifies and analyses causal factors of SPAD events. To evaluate the effectiveness IFCS was used to analysis SPAD incident reports (n=46) and the outputs were compared with two systemic accident analysis methods and relevant outputs (the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System – HFACS and Acci-Maps). The initial reporting process proved to hinder all systemic accident analysis methods in the extraction of causal factors. However, once extracted, all system accident analysis methods were successful in categorizing causal factors and demonstrated various outputs to illustrate the findings

Determinants of recovery from post-COVID-19 dyspnoea: analysis of UK prospective cohorts of hospitalised COVID-19 patients and community-based controls

Background The risk factors for recovery from COVID-19 dyspnoea are poorly understood. We investigated determinants of recovery from dyspnoea in adults with COVID-19 and compared these to determinants of recovery from non-COVID-19 dyspnoea. Methods We used data from two prospective cohort studies: PHOSP-COVID (patients hospitalised between March 2020 and April 2021 with COVID-19) and COVIDENCE UK (community cohort studied over the same time period). PHOSP-COVID data were collected during hospitalisation and at 5-month and 1-year follow-up visits. COVIDENCE UK data were obtained through baseline and monthly online questionnaires. Dyspnoea was measured in both cohorts with the Medical Research Council Dyspnoea Scale. We used multivariable logistic regression to identify determinants associated with a reduction in dyspnoea between 5-month and 1-year follow-up. Findings We included 990 PHOSP-COVID and 3309 COVIDENCE UK participants. We observed higher odds of improvement between 5-month and 1-year follow-up among PHOSP-COVID participants who were younger (odds ratio 1.02 per year, 95% CI 1.01–1.03), male (1.54, 1.16–2.04), neither obese nor severely obese (1.82, 1.06–3.13 and 4.19, 2.14–8.19, respectively), had no pre-existing anxiety or depression (1.56, 1.09–2.22) or cardiovascular disease (1.33, 1.00–1.79), and shorter hospital admission (1.01 per day, 1.00–1.02). Similar associations were found in those recovering from non-COVID-19 dyspnoea, excluding age (and length of hospital admission). Interpretation Factors associated with dyspnoea recovery at 1-year post-discharge among patients hospitalised with COVID-19 were similar to those among community controls without COVID-19. Funding PHOSP-COVID is supported by a grant from the MRC-UK Research and Innovation and the Department of Health and Social Care through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) rapid response panel to tackle COVID-19. The views expressed in the publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Health Service (NHS), the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. COVIDENCE UK is supported by the UK Research and Innovation, the National Institute for Health Research, and Barts Charity. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funders

Alternative perspectives on connections in economic systems

Complex system, Decision rules, Lifestyle, Goodwill, Substitution, Evolution, B41, B52, D11, D20,

Designing Socio-Technical Systems: A Multi-team Case Study

Technical system design processes are typically based on systems engineering vee models where designers move between functional and physical domains as they develop detailed designs of the overall system and its sub-systems and component parts. The movements between the functional and physical domains are informed by the core activities of any design process: synthesis, description, analysis and simulation, and decision-making. However, delivering socio-technical systems design mindsets, such as those needed to design multi-team systems, requires a new branch of systems science that integrates human behavior into system behavior. Design processes built on such a science would allow system designers to compare alternative solutions in terms of their anticipated performance and consider different options with respect to functions carried out by humans and machines. In this chapter we use a systems design process vee model and apply it to a case study that involves the design of a multi-team customer service system. Both the application of the vee model (i.e., the proposed design process) and the results of its application (i.e., the multi-team customer service system) can be regarded as socio-technical systems and are used to illustrate and elaborate on Clegg’s (Appl Ergon 31(5):463–477, 2000) socio-technical principles for system design. On this basis, we provide a practical framework for designing socio-technical systems and identify requirements for developing future methods and tools to support this process