Dangerous Machinery Research Articles

Implant-retained finger prosthesis with modified retention system

Amputations affect both the physical and the psychological aspects of an individual, causing significant impact on self-esteem. The main causes of finger amputations are work-related accidents with dangerous machinery, road traffic accidents, and animal bites, as well as systemic diseases such as diabetes. This report aims to describe a simple technique for fabrication of implant-retained finger prosthesis with a modified base of the retention system. The O-Ring retention system was used with a modified hexagon-shaped base and a metallic capsule adapted to the acrylic resin to attach the prosthesis to the implant. The prosthesis was made with silicone, and after osseointegration, it was installed without complications, leading to a patient satisfied with the end result and encouraged to return to social life. Restoring self-esteem in the patient and static and functional rehabilitation.

Experimental Analysis of 31 Risk Estimation Tools Applied to Safety of Machinery

This article studies differences in the results of using different risk estimation tools in the same hazardous situations involving dangerous machinery. We investigated how (a) types of risk estimation parameters and methods of constructing tools, (b) the number of levels of each parameter, and (c) the number of risk levels influence the results. Consequently, 31 risk estimation tools were compared by using them to estimate risk levels associated with 20 hazardous situations. Risk estimation appears to be tool-dependent, as different tools give different results with identical hazardous situations. The scope of the tool, its use, and construction could explain these differences. This article also proposes a series of rules for constructing tools to alleviate many problems associated with the variability of risk estimations.

Determinants of Occupational Accidents in the Woodworking Sector: The Case of the Malayasian Wooden Furniture Industry

Studies on occupational accidents in the value-added wood products industry, particularly the wooden furniture industry is grossly lacking. Therefore, the risk factors for injuries to workers in the Malaysian wooden furniture industry were studied in fifty wood-furniture manufacturing factories, using a structured questionnaire. The three primary risk factors for accidents in the wooden furniture industry were: Nature of work, workers characteristics and prevailing safety climate, while the use of dangerous machinery and poor layout were found to be secondary accident causing risk factors. The findings of the study show conclusively that the prevailing safety climate and workers’ characteristics have the strongest influence on accident rate in the wooden furniture industry. It must also be recognized that the production oriented mentality prevalent in the industry appears to contribute towards the compromised occupational safety and health standards in the industry. In this context, it is essential for the policy makers to implement binding legislations that would safe guard the safety and health of the workers, while mandating the factory management to show commitment towards the workers health and safety to ensure a safe working environment in the wooden furniture manufacturing industry.

Would Trotsky wear a Bluetooth?: technological utopianism under socialism, 1917-1989

After visiting Russia in 1921, the journalist Lincoln Steffens famously declared, I have seen the future, and it works. Steffens referred to the social experiment of technological utopianism he found in the Soviet Union, where subway cars and farm tractors would carry the worker and peasant-figuratively and literally-into the twentieth century. Believing that socialism and technology together created a brave new world, Boleslaw Bierut of Poland and Kim Il Sung of North Korea-and other leaders-joined Russia's Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in embracing big technology with a verve and conviction that rivaled the western world's. Paul R. Josephson here explores these utopian visions of technology-and their unanticipated human and environmental costs. He examines the role of technology in communist plans and policies and the interplay between ideology and technological development. He shows that while technology was a symbol of regime legitimacy and an engine of progress, the changes it spurred were not unequivocally positive. Instead of achieving a worker's paradise, socialist technologies exposed the proletariat to dangerous machinery and deadly pollution; rather than freeing women from exploitation in family and labor, they paradoxically created for them the dual-and exhausting-burdens of mother and worker. The future did not work. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of communism's self-proclaimed glorious quest to reach and surpass the West. Josephson's intriguing study of how technology both helped and hindered this effort asks new and important questions about the crucial issues inextricably linked with the development and diffusion of technology in any sociopolitical system.

The prevalence and possible causes of contact dermatitis in farmworkers

The National Agricultural Workers Survey estimates that immigrants constitute approximately 78% of the migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States. Migrant farmworkers, defined as those traveling at least 75 miles and establishing a temporary abode within the previous year for work, made up 42% of the crop workers in 2001–2002.1 Farmworkers are exposed to hazardous working conditions, such as exposure to pesticides, working long hours in hot climates, and working with dangerous machinery. These working conditions predispose agricultural workers to occupational skin disease, among other health problems.2 Contact dermatitis, an irritating and inflammatory skin reaction to a foreign substance, is one of the most common skin problems among farmworkers. However, there is limited research involving the prevalence and specific etiologies of contact dermatitis in migrant farmworkers. In many countries, occupational contact dermatitis is the most common reportable occupational disease, and makes up 30% of payable compensation.3 It is difficult to accurately compare data from different countries due to differences in the reporting of occupational diseases and the fact that national registries are often incomplete.4 In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics acquires data regarding occupational disease from an annual survey that includes a representative random sample of business establishments in private industries. In the sector of agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, the incidence of nonfatal occupational injuries/illnesses was 6.4 per 100 full time workers, second only to manufacturing in the goods producing industries.5 However, the incidence of occupational skin disease may actually be underreported of by 10 to 50 times, according to some estimates.4 Due to the paucity of data specific to skin disease in migrant farmworkers, we describe the existing knowledge on the prevalence of occupational contact dermatitis in any farmworker.

Cancer in Migrant and Seasonal Hired Farm Workers

ABSTRACT Studies of cancer among farm workers are difficult to conduct and interpret given the unique nature of this occupational group. The transitory nature of the work, high levels of poverty, and lack of legal documentation make epidemiologic studies difficult to accomplish. Nevertheless, this workforce in the United States, which numbers as much as 3 million persons, is a high isk population due to exposures to numerous toxic substances, including excessive sunlight, heat, dangerous machinery, fumes, fertizers, dust, and pesticides. We summarize characteristics of farm workers (i.e., demographics, health care) from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) and the California Agricultural Workers Survey (CAWS) and present findings from a series of studies conducted among farm workers in California. The epidemiology literature was reviewed and methods for a unique farm worker union-based epidemiologic study are presented. Farm workers in California and the rest of the United States, many of whom are seasonal and migrant workers are at elevated risk for numerous forms of cancer compared to the general population and specific pesticides may be associated with this altered risk. Elevated risks have been found for lymphomas and prostate, brain, leukemia, cervix, and stomach cancers.

Dangerous Machinery: “Conspiracy Theorist” as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion

In a culture of fear, we should expect the rise of new mechanisms of social control to deflect distrust, anxiety, and threat. Relying on the analysis of popular and academic texts, we examine one such mechanism, the label conspiracy theory, and explore how it works in public discourse to “go meta” by sidestepping the examination of evidence. Our findings suggest that authors use the conspiracy theorist label as (1) a routinized strategy of exclusion; (2) a reframing mechanism that deflects questions or concerns about power, corruption, and motive; and (3) an attack upon the personhood and competence of the questioner. This label becomes dangerous machinery at the transpersonal levels of media and academic discourse, symbolically stripping the claimant of the status of reasonable interlocutor—often to avoid the need to account for one's own action or speech. We argue that this and similar mechanisms simultaneously control the flow of information and symbolically demobilize certain voices and issues in public discourse.

Use of laser scanning technology for perimeter protection

The Police Scientific Branch (PSDB) is part of the Crime Reduction and Community Safety Group (CRCSG) of the Home Office. Part of PSDB's work includes evaluating and assessing new technologies for perimeter intrusion detection. Laser scanning technology has been used for some time in a range of industrial and commercial applications. These span from detecting hands when they are close to dangerous machinery to preventing collisions at container ports and monitoring manufacturing processes. Laser scanners are non-contact measurement systems and scan their surroundings two-dimensionally. This describes the application of laser scanning to physical security, including modifications to such systems for their use as perimeter intrusion detection systems (PIDS). In these systems, motion detection is provided by a pulsed laser beam by measuring the propagation time for the reflected beam to return to its source. Using this information, a contour plot of the surrounding area is built up. Once this contour information has been obtained, the detector can recognise the addition of an object to its field of view through a change in the programmed surroundings. Consequently, the size, shape, and direction of targets moving in the frame can be assessed and an alarm output given, if required. This explains the main operating principles of the systems, including mechanisms for the detection of a potential intruder and the handling of false alarms. Detection capabilities and the potential for low false alarm rates will be described, along with configurations for operational deployment.

Effects of Alprazolam on Driving Ability, Memory Functioning and Psychomotor Performance: A Randomized, Placebo-controlled Study

Alprazolam is prescribed for the treatment of anxiety and panic disorder. Most users are presumably involved in daily activities such as driving. However, the effects of alprazolam on driving ability have never been investigated. This study was conducted to determine the effects of alprazolam (1 mg) on driving ability, memory and psychomotor performance. Twenty healthy volunteers participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study. One hour after oral administration, subjects performed a standardized driving test on a primary highway during normal traffic. They were instructed to drive with a constant speed (90 km/h) while maintaining a steady lateral position within the right traffic lane. Primary performance measures were the Standard Deviation of Lateral Position (SDLP) and the Standard Deviation of Speed (SDS). After the driving test, subjective driving quality, mental effort, and mental activation during driving were assessed. A laboratory test battery was performed 2.5 h after treatment administration, comprising the Sternberg Memory Scanning Test, a Continuous Tracking Test, and a Divided Attention Test. Relative to placebo, alprazolam caused serious driving impairment, as expressed by a significantly increased SDLP (F1,19 = 97.3, p < .0001) and SDS (F1,19 = 30.4, p < .0001). This was confirmed by subjective assessments showing significantly impaired driving quality (F1,19 = 16.4, p < .001), decreased alertness (F1,19 = 43.4, p < .0001), decreased mental activation (F1,19 = 5.7, p < .03) and increased mental effort during driving (F1,19 = 26.4, p < .0001). Furthermore, alprazolam significantly impaired performance on the laboratory tests. In conclusion, alprazolam users must be warned not to drive an automobile or operate potentially dangerous machinery.

Psychiatric Disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the New Workplace Violence Account

A video game recently hit computer stores, promising killing [s]o freakin' real, your victims actually beg for mercy and scream for their lives!' The game is called Postal and is based on a disgruntled, psychotic postal worker arming himself to the teeth and systematically shooting his way through several different scenarios, including a school yard, a construction site, and a marching band. The victims, primarily innocent, unarmed bystanders, do not die immediately. Instead, the player must decide whether to let victims beg for mercy or execute them immediately. The disgruntled postal worker periodically complains, only my weapon understands me. The makers of the game did not create this image out of whole cloth. The image of the disgruntled postal worker who explodes in senseless, random violence had already entered the popular culture, symbolizing the potential lethality of the psychotic worker. So embedded in popular discourse is this account that newspapers, television programs, movies, attorneys and school children refer to episodes of unexplained, individual violence as going postal.2 The threat of occupational injury or death, once represented by dangerous machinery or hazardous environments, has now become discursively located in conceptions of the pathogenic worker, lurking unnoticed in the workplace, poised to explode in lethal violence against his supervisors or co-workers. We might refer to the set of stories, images, attributions and prescriptions associated with this imagery as the new workplace violence account. This workplace violence account, we will argue, plays a role in attempts to delegitimize the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Deploying vivid

A survey on management perspectives of the state of workplace health and safety practices in Kenya

A baseline survey was conducted in 1995 on management perspectives of occupational health and safety (OHS) structures and practices in Kenya. This was achieved by interviewing management and supervisory staff attending 1 week multi-disciplinary courses that were organized by the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) and the International Labour Office (ILO) at hotel venues in Kenya. The purpose of the survey was to gain some insight into work safety conditions in Kenya and to assess the potential for a new OHS manual to meet existing knowledge gaps. The manual was locally developed in 1993/4 by Kenyan OHS experts in collaboration with colleagues from the Swedish National Institute for Working Life. Results of the survey from 65 participants indicated that most workplace managers were not familiar with the Kenyan work safety legislation. Work injuries were largely attributable to working with dangerous machinery. Occupational diseases and HIV/AIDS were cited as other causes of workplace morbidity and mortality. Although most respondents (70%) were satisfied with their work safety conditions, only 37% said their workplaces were annually audited by labour inspectors while 45% said injured workers were not treated well by management. Many workplaces (65%) violated the mandatory legal requirement on the establishment of health and safety committees. The OHS resource person and course content were rated highly by most respondents (96%). The foregoing results provided the basis of a needs analysis for future OHS programs in Kenya.

Complications of allergic rhinitis.

With unfortunate high frequency, clinicians consider allergic rhinitis to be more of a nuisance than an illness. When in fact, allergic rhinitis is not only a very common disease process, affecting up to a cumulative frequency of 42% of the U.S. population by age 40, but can lead to significant short-term and long-term medical complications. Poorly controlled symptoms of allergic rhinitis may contribute to sleep loss, secondary daytime fatigue, learning impairment, decreased overall cognitive functioning, decreased long-term productivity and decreased quality of life. Additionally, poorly controlled allergic rhinitis may also contribute to the development of other related disease processes including acute and chronic sinusitis, recurrence of nasal polyps, otitis media/otitis media with effusion, hearing impairment, abnormal craniofacial development, sleep apnea and related complications, aggravation of underlying asthma, and increased propensity to develop asthma. Treatment of allergic rhinitis with sedating antihistamine therapy may result in negative neuropsychiatric effects that contribute to some of these complications. Sedating antihistamines may also be dangerous to use in certain other settings such as driving or operating potentially dangerous machinery. In contrast nonsedating antihistamines have been demonstrated to result in improved performance in allergic rhinitis.

Chapter 11 Immunological and neuroendocrine modulation of fever in stress

Publisher Summary This chapter summarizes the current opinions on the mediators and mechanisms involved in the generation of fever, emphasizing the different hypotheses on the transfer of febrile signals from the periphery of the body into the brain. The different endogenous antipyretic systems are introduced, and the modulation of the activity of the immune system and the changes of the febrile response under the influence of different stressors are analyzed. The chapter discusses that if the stress-induced rise of core temperature, which is accompanied by the release of soluble immune mediators and possibly stimulated by some stress hormones, represents a condition of fever under nonpathological conditions. Fever is one of the most common components of the array of host defence responses in an infected organism. Under the conditions of an activated immune system, sympathetic nerve fibers to lymphoid tissue or spleen, as well as a stimulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis, represent the most important negative-feedback loops, which may help in which the potentially dangerous machinery of the immune system is restricted in its activity to limited time periods and finally turned off again.

SLEEP APNOEA: CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES AND TREATMENT

SUMMARYAn awakening has taken place over the last 25 years to the science of sleep disorders. Foremost amongst these, both in the medical world and the public eye, has been Sleep Apnoea Syndrome (SAS).The prevalence is thought to be of the order of 1–2%.1,2 Males are eight times more commonly affected than females, although after the menopause the gap narrows considerably. Sleep apnoea occurs in children, usually in relation to large tonsils and adenoids, but in adult life patients usually present between the age of 40 and 60 and the prevalence increases with age. Numerous apnoeas or hypopnoeas during the night's sleep result in disordered sleep architecture and unrefreshing sleep. This is usually accompanied by night‐long snoring which may lead to marital discord and even complaints from neighbours. Symptoms on waking may be a headache and a feeling of not being refreshed by sleep. Sleepiness during the day can interfere with work and social activities and may produce risks to the patient and others if it occurs while operating dangerous machinery or driving.Over a longer time scale SAS results in intellectual and memory deterioration, a higher incidence of ischaemic heart disease, hypertension, polycythemia and pulmonary hypertension. Right heart failure is particularly likely if there is chronic airflow obstruction contributing to a low arterial oxygen level. Asystolic periods and tachyarrhythmias may occur during apnoeic periods. The increased mortality of SAS relates to coronary and cerebrovascular disease and arrhythmias. Sudden death occurs with greater frequency in patients with SAS, mainly at night.3

Machines and Microbes

Agriculture is the only industry in the nation in which children are allowed to work and play around dangerous machinery. In most nonagricultural industrial situations, great advances have been made in eliminating or decreasing occupational hazards largely through agencies, employees, or unions. Such regulatory mechanisms are not in operation for the farmer, however, and farms with fewer than 11 nonfamily employees are still not within the jurisdiction of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1 Furthermore, the prohibition of activities around farm machinery declared hazardous the Secretary of Labor for minors younger than 16 years does not apply to youths on farms operated by their parents or persons standing in the place of their parents on farms owned or operated such parents or persons. 2 In a recent comprehensive review of all injury death certificates for children aged 0 to 9 years in two states with large

SARWAR v. SIMMONS &amp; HAWKER LTD.

June 25, 1971 Factory — Dangerous machinery — Capstan lathe — Danger caused by tool used to adjust jig — Jig not fenced — Accident occurring whilst jig being tightened — Whether tool part of machine — Whether duty to fence — Factories Act, 1961 (9&amp;10 Eliz. II,c.34),s. 14(1).

F. E. CALLOW (ENGINEERS) LTD. v. JOHNSON

October 21, 1970 Factory — Dangerous machinery — Dangerous combination of machinery and material — Danger arising from “nip” between moving workpiece and imperceptibly moving boring bar — Automatic cooling device — Coolant applied by hand — Practice known to employers — Workman's hand caught in “nip” — Whether duty on employers to fence boring bar — Whether dangerous part of machinery — Danger of accident foreseen by employers — Whether foreseeable — Workman unable to establish exactly how accident happened — Materiality — Factories Act, 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz. II, c.34), s.14 (1).

RODGERS v. LONDON BRICK CO. LTD.

January 27, 1970 Mines Quarry — Dangerous machinery — Moveable bar on tractor — Four‐inch nip when bar fully raised — Tractor being removed from pit by attaching dragline to bar — Slip by employee trapping foot in nip — Whether a “dangerous” exposed part of machinery — Whether duty to fence — Dragline not long enough to reach if tractor on level ground — Tractor backed short way up slope of pit — Whether failure to provide longer dragline breach of statutory or common law duty — Mines and Quarries Act, 1954 (2 &amp; 3 Eliz.II, c.70), ss. 82(1), 115.

JOHNSON v. F.E. CALLOW (ENGINEERS) LTD.

October 24, 1969 Factory — Statutory duty — Dangerous machinery — Dangerous combination of machinery and material — Danger arising from “nip” between moving work‐piece and stationary bar — Automatic cooling device — Danger arising from coolant applied by hand — Practice known to employers — Whether foreseeable — Whether duty to fence — Factories Act, 1961 (9 &amp; 10 Eliz. II, c. 34), s. 14(1).

FOSTER v. FLEXILE METAL COMPANY LTD.

May 12,1967 Factory — Dangerous machinery (fencing) — Guard provided and ready for use — Machine being re‐set — Guard provided for operation not used by workman — Whether machine “fenced” — Workman re‐setting machine without calling on help of assistant — Whether reckless — Whether amounting to contributory negligence — Factories Act, 1961 (9 &amp; 10 Eliz.II, c.34), ss. 14,16.