Difficult Work Research Articles

KEY CHALLENGES AND THREATS FOR OPERATORS OF THE 112 EMERGENCY NUMBER DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE MAZOWIECKIE VOIVODESHIP

The article attempts to analyze emergency calls to the 112 number and demonstrate the challengesand threats faced by the 112 operators in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship during the COVID-19pandemic, a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The research focuses on changes inthe type of calls, the increase in the number of calls and other difficulties that operators have hadto face. The analysis is based on data from the period of 2017 to 2022, particularly highlighting thenew challenges caused by the pandemic, such as handling requests connected with COVID-19.The authors draw attention to the important role of operators in public health protection andtheir exposure to stress in difficult working conditions. The study aims to understand the burdenon the emergency notification system in the context of the pandemic and to highlight the role ofoperators in this process.

Elevating labor concerns in small-scale fisheries: challenges to decent work in Peru’s jumbo flying squid fishery

Despite growing attention on severe labor abuses in seafood production, questions remain about the broader range of challenges to decent work in the sector. Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in particular have received relatively little attention from a labor-focused perspective. Motivated by this gap, this study elaborates a methodology to assess working conditions in SSFs across multiple dimensions of decent work, specifically through a case study of the artisanal jumbo squid fishery in Peru, a socially and economically important fishery in which working conditions are poorly understood. The findings highlight key decent work deficits in this fishery, including: inadequate coverage and lack of social protections; remuneration occasionally below the minimum wage; excessive working hours; increasingly longer trips in vessels that often lack adequate occupational safety and health features; informal employment relations and high turnover of crew, which are linked to safety issues (i.e., crew sometimes lack skills for this difficult work at sea); and fragmented fishing organizations with limited capacities for social dialogue. Many of the problems are rooted in or exacerbated by the broader governance context, especially widespread informality. The primary policy solutions being pursued are not labor-specific and are unlikely to address decent work deficits. Addressing these complex problems will require involving fishers—importantly, crew members—in efforts to drive improvements in the fishery and enhancing their capacities to lead in the development of solutions to the problems that affect them. More work is necessary to refine indicators and assess working conditions, but this work contributes towards advancing methodologies and highlighting the importance of studying labor in SSFs.

SPAM EMAIL CLASSIFIER

Today, a sizable portion of people rely on freely accessible email or communications provided by strangers. Because anyone may send an email or leave a note, spammers have an excellent opportunity to write spam messages regarding our various interests. Spam overflows email inboxes with absurd emails. severely reduces the speed of our internet. stealing vital information, such as our contact information, from us. Finding these spammers and the spam content can be difficult work and a popular research area. Spam email is the act of sending many messages via postal mail. Spam is effectively postage due advertising because the recipient bears the majority of the cost. Keywords—Machine Learning(ML), Dataset, Parkinson’s Disease, Artificial Intelligence(AI), Support Vector Machine(SVM).

The Nexus Between Sources of Workers’ Power in the Garment Manufacturing Industries of Lesotho and Eswatini

AbstractWorkers in the garment manufacturing industry are often subjected to violations of their rights and are exposed to low wages and difficult working conditions. In response to the exposure of these violations in the media, major fashion brands and retailers subject their suppliers to labour codes of conduct. Despite these codes of conduct being largely ineffective, this comparative case study of garment manufacturers operating from Lesotho and Eswatini illustrates that such codes provide workers and trade unions with access to bargaining leverage that they would otherwise not have. A framework with a synthesis of potential sources of workers’ power is developed and related to global production networks, collective mobilisation, the nature of the state, as well as national and transnational scales of organising. Based on historical case studies of the two countries, this paper illustrates how unions in the two countries followed different approaches to using this source of power in relation to other sources of power. These approaches were shaped by their contexts and strategic choices. Theoretically, it is argued that sources of workers’ power are analytically distinct, but are relational and operate best when seen as mutually reinforcing. The term ‘power resource nexus’ is used to frame this potential mutual reinforcement of sources of power.

Comparison of Alabama Nurse Experiences Between Practice Areas During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic.

According to the Total Worker Health® framework, safety culture including a reasonable workload among healthcare workers is essential to the security and well-being of patients, staff, and healthcare organizations. Evaluating the impact of the pandemic on the nursing workforce in different practice areas is critical for addressing workforce health and sustainability. The purpose of this study was to compare work and selfcare experiences among Alabama nurses between practice areas and the early pandemic years (2020 vs. 2021). A secondary analysis of cross-sectional Alabama State Nurses Association (ASNA) survey data was conducted. Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance, Wilcoxon rank, and false discovery rates were examined. There were 1,369 and 2,458 nurse survey responses in 2020 and 2021, respectively. By 2021, nurses reported worsening staff shortages, a greater need for retired and new graduate nurses to help with the workload burden, and perceptions of heavier emergency department workloads. Lower proportions of nurses reported the ability to engage in self-care activities and satisfaction with state and federal crisis management. Intensive care nurses were more likely to report staffing shortages while also reporting the lowest ability to engage in self-care. Overall, the Alabama nursing workforce perceived worsening work conditions in 2021 compared to when the pandemic began. Practice areas varied greatly in their responses, with acute and intensive care areas perceiving more difficult work conditions. Total Worker Health® programs should be designed to promote and support nurses' well-being based on their experience and the needs of specific practice areas.

"We're Not in That Circle of Misinformation": Understanding Community-Based Trusted Messengers Through Cultural Code-Switching

While social computing technologies are increasingly being used to counter misinformation, more work is needed to understand how they can support the crucial work of community-based trusted messengers, especially in marginalized communities where distrust in health authorities is rooted in historical inequities. We describe an early exploration of these opportunities in our collaboration with Black and Latinx young adult "Peer Champions" addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy the U.S. state of Georgia. We conducted interviews engaging them with a social media monitoring and outreach dashboard we designed, to probe their understanding of their roles and current and potential use of digital platforms. With the concept of cultural code-switching as a framing, we found that the Peer Champions leveraged their particular combination of cultural, health, and digital literacy skills to understand their communities' concerns surrounding misinformation and to communicate health information in a culturally appropriate manner. While being positioned between their communities and public health research and practice motivated and enabled their work, it also introduced challenges in finding (mis)information online and navigating tensions around authenticity and respect when engaging those close to them. Our research contributes towards characterizing the valuable and difficult work trusted messengers do, and (re)imagining collaboratively designed interpretive digital tools to support them.

Pippin's The Culmination, ‘logic as metaphysics’, and the unintelligibility of Dasein

April 15, 2024: This article published in Early View in error. The article will republish shortly.

Survival Games: Understanding Journalistic and Extra-Journalistic Practices and Pursuits of Small-Town Stringers in South India

ABSTRACT The precarity of journalistic labour has received significant scholarly attention globally, leading to a plethora of studies that attempt to theorise changing journalistic roles, practices, and norms. Whereas precarity in newswork is formulated as the “new normal” in the Global North, the precarious situation of marginal(ised) newsworkers in the Global South has been simply normal. Based on ethnographic research in two small-town formations in South India, this article presents how stringers working in Indian-language newspapers have developed a complex professional identity and shared norms through journalistic and extra-journalistic practices to survive in the field. In doing so, we develop, in a novel way, Bourdieu’s concept of illusio to understand the formation of a professional identity that spans adjacent fields. This paper’s critical engagement with the difficult working lives of stringers and their invisible labour has learnings for analysis of precarity in journalism across the Global North and South.

Separation method of semifixed variables together with integral bifurcation method for solving generalized time‐fractional thin‐film equations

It is well known that investigation on exact solutions of nonlinear fractional partial differential equations (PDEs) is a very difficult work compared with integer‐order nonlinear PDEs. In this paper, based on the separation method of semifixed variables and integral bifurcation method, a combinational method is proposed. By using this new method, a class of generalized time‐fractional thin‐film equations are studied. Under two kinds of definitions of fractional derivatives, exact solutions of two generalized time‐fractional thin‐film equations are investigated respectively. Different kinds of exact solutions are obtained and their dynamic properties are discussed. Compared to the results in the existing references, the types of solutions obtained in this paper are abundant and very different from those in the existing references. Investigation shows that the solutions of the model defined by Riemann–Liouville differential operator converge faster than those defined by Caputo differential operator. It is also found that the profiles of some solutions are very similar to solitons, but they are not true soliton solutions. In order to visually show the dynamic properties of these solutions, the profiles of some representative exact solutions are illustrated by 3D graphs.

Exploring psychological distress among psychiatric nurses in Tunisia

IntroductionNurses working in psychiatric departments regularly encounter intricate, stress-inducing, and emotionally challenging situations. The mental well-being of these nurses directly influences the quality of care they deliver.ObjectivesTo assess the prevalence of psychological distress among psychiatric nurses and to identify the socio-demographic and clinical factors associated with it.MethodsCross-sectional, descriptive, and analytical study conducted over the course of one month from October 11th to November 8th 2023. Participants included were psychiatric nurses working in Razi Hospital, Tunisia. We collected data using pre-established questionnaire which included socio-demographic and clinical data of the participants. The assessment of psychological distress was conducted using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), validated in Arabic. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in its 25th versionResultsWe collected data from 55 nurses working in Razi psychiatry hospital during the time of the study. Among them, 80% (n=44) were female. Their median age was 35 (Min=25, Max=62). Most of participants were married (81.8%, n=45) and 70.9 (n=39) had kids. In our sample, 5.5% (n=3) and 23.6% (n=13) had respectively personal psychiatric and somatic history. Some addictive behaviors were identified among our participants, especially smoking (14.5%, n=379) and alcohol use (3.6%, n=2).Regarding working conditions, 81.8% (n=45) were assigned shift work. They worked in the men’s ward (43.6%, n=24), the women’s ward (34.5%, n=19), or in both (21.8%, n=12). Furthermore, 45.5% (n=25) reported witnessing a suicide attempt during their work, and 74.5% (n=41) were victims of aggression, primarily by patients (82.5%, n=33). Sixty percent (n=33) said expressed a desire to transfer.Moderate to extremely severe depression, anxiety and stress was observed in respectively 34.5% (n=19), 61.8% (n=34) and 36.4% (n=20) of cases.A significant association was found between stress among psychiatry nurses and personal somatic history (p <10-3). No further links were found between depression, anxiety, stress and other clinical factors.ConclusionsThese results emphasize the difficult working environment within psychiatric settings, emphasizing the critical requirement for specific interventions aimed at improving the mental health and well-being of psychiatric nurses.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

경찰관기동대원의 소진 영향 요인 연구

The number of assemblies and demonstrations where police units are deployed is not decreasing, and it has been revealed that in the past 10 years, the number of cases in which riot police officers have experienced physical harm at assemblies and demonstrations has averaged about 90 people per year. Moreover, in a reality where it is difficult to quantitatively prepare riot police officers due to the abolition of the mandatory police system, if they are forced to leave their duties due to overloaded and difficult work, the gap in public security work at assembly and protest sites will become even larger. In other words, in order to maintain social order and ensure the safety of citizens, there is a need to explore factors at the organizational level to prevent riot police officers from experiencing burnout and leaving their duties. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to statistically verify the factors that affect the burnout of riot police officers. To achieve the purpose of the study, survey data that secured representativeness through proportional quota sampling, taking into account class, age, gender, etc., were used for analysis, using the 2022 national riot squad as the population. Through a review of previous research, job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment were set as independent variables and their impact on burnout was verified. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among riot police officers all had a statistically significant impact on burnout, and that job stress in particular had the greatest impact on burnout. Based on these results, several policy recommendations were presented to reduce job stress levels and increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Teaching mass spectrometry: A compilation of approaches to teaching theory and practice of mass spectrometry.

The areas of mass spectrometry applications seem to be much larger than those of any other analytical techniques. They extend from the determination of molecular mass in organic chemistry, through the analytical applications in forensic, environmental and omics sciences, the application in extra-terrestrial exploration and many others. Mass spectrometry, usually coupled with chromatographic techniques, has also found wide application in the pharmaceutical industry, forensic laboratories, laboratories of sanitary inspection or environmental inspection, etc. The growing areas of applications give rise to the demand for the comprehensive mass spectrometry education of undergraduates. This overview covers the body of literature describing various interesting ideas that can be successfully used for teaching mass spectrometry. Since mass spectrometry is a multidisciplinary field, old but dynamically developing, teaching mass spectrometry may be more problematic in comparison to teaching other analytical techniques, for example, there is the problem of position of mass spectrometry in the chemistry curriculum. On the other hand, it is obvious that the mass spectrometry community, besides difficult scientific work, does great and admirable teaching work, in order to perfectly educate undergraduates in the field of mass spectrometry and to make learning mass spectrometry as attractive as possible.

Implementation of an Automatic Polishing Process with a Conveyor Mechanism

In the current industrial environment, products’ life cycles have become shorter and the need for more sophisticated molds with free-form surfaces has drastically increased. However, the polishing process of a product needs the exceptional skill of an experienced master. It is difficult to increase productivity if the manually operative process is not automated. So, the main objective of this project is to reduce manpower and time consumption of the polishing process in the industry. Which leads to increases in the productivity rate. This project deals with the automation of polishing work by the use of an industrial mechanical arm with a conveyor. Since polishing work, which takes much time, requires experience, patience, and skill, it is manually performed by skilled workers. This project aims at rationalizing such difficult polishing work by introducing a mechanical arm with conveyor and CAD technology. The arm can be equipped with a polishing tool, i.e., Buffing wheels, also known as mops, are either made from cotton or wool cloth and come bleached or unbleached. In addition, the project is to achieve a robust process that results in a consistent surface finish, the roughness of which can be specified and controlled.

Teaching Toni Morrison’s Beloved : From Genesis to the Reckoning

Abstract: This comparative essay outlines one strategy for teaching Toni Morrison’s Beloved through a biblical lens, in order to encourage students with strong Christian backgrounds to read works that challenge some of their assumptions. I argue that in Beloved , Morrison uses Genesis 1–4 as the structure for her novel, offering a bridge to students who are comfortable reading the Bible as a way into a difficult work. I argue that the Garner’s Sweet Home resonates with Genesis 1 and 2, that Schoolteacher’s Sweet Home evokes Genesis 3, and that Morrison’s masterstroke in the novel is her ruminations on Genesis 4, including the death of the child, Beloved, which explains the protagonist, Sethe’s, name. Moreover, the better we understand those biblical chapters, the closer we get not only to interpreting Morrison’s novel, which is about understanding complicity and rebuilding community, but the closer we are, as educators, to living the mantra of Morrison’s message about communal understanding.

Health and medical experience of migrant workers: qualitative meta-synthesis

BackgroundMigrant workers in Korea are contributing to economic development by resolving labour shortages due to the increase in the ageing population, and they have become necessary and important in the Korean economy. However, long working hours, poor working conditions, and cultural differences can cause migrant workers to experience disadvantages in using health and medical services. Therefore, this study aimed to understand and analyse the health and medical service experience of migrant workers in Korea by reviewing previous studies in order to improve their health and access to medical services.MethodThe qualitative meta-synthesis method suggested by Thomas and Harden was used. The key question for searching the literature is ‘What is the status of the use of health and medical service by migrant workers in Korea and the attributes that affect them?' Five electronic databases (RISS, KCI, KISS, Science ON, and KMbase) were searched for Korean literature published in academic journals until 6 November 2022 using a combination of “migrant worker or foreign worker or foreign labourer or migrant” and “medical or health” in Korean.ResultsA total of nine studies out of 1,006 were included in the review after methodological quality assessment using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP). The results of studies were synthesised into three themes and ten sub-themes: ‘Personal factors’ of personal health beliefs and the financial burden of healthcare costs; ‘Cultural factors’ of cultural differences in the lifestyle, cultural differences in the healthcare environment, and traditional medicine in the country; and ‘Socio-institutional factors’ of poor and difficult working environment, insufficient information about medical institutions, policies with a lack of practical applicability, systems of healthcare institutions, and healthcare services usage.ConclusionsThis study identified the experiences of migrant workers in using health and medical care services. The results of this study can be used as a basis for improving the health of migrant workers and access to healthcare services. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to improve the health management ability of migrant workers by developing a health management platform that can support Korean medical information and provide professional and accurate self-health management information.

"A Major Issue": The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on How Home Care Leaders Perceive and Promote Aides' Mental Health and Well-Being.

Home care aides play a critical role in the care of older adults, but they do this under difficult working conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated aides' stress and worsened their mental health, raising the question of how agencies can better support aides. We explore how home care industry leaders in New York perceived and addressed home care aides' mental health and well-being prior to and during the pandemic through in-depth interviews conducted in 2019 (n = 8 agencies) and 2022 (n = 14 agencies). We found that these topics became more central in leaders' thinking, reflected in a range of new internally and externally funded agency actions, albeit limited by ongoing financial constraints. Maintaining a skilled and reliable aide workforce is critical to societal health but will remain challenging without continued investment in aide support of the kind described in the Surgeon General's Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being.

Adaptive strategies used by surgical teams under pressure: an interview study among senior healthcare professionals in four major hospitals in the United Kingdom

BackgroundHealthcare systems are operating under substantial pressures, and often simply cannot provide the standard of care they aspire to within the available resources. Organisations, managers, and individual clinicians make constant adaptations in response to these pressures, which are typically improvised, highly variable and not coordinated across clinical teams. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the types of everyday pressures experienced by surgical teams and the adaptive strategies they use to respond to these pressures.MethodsWe conducted interviews with 20 senior multidisciplinary healthcare professionals from surgical teams in four major hospitals in the United Kingdom. The interviews explored the types of everyday pressures staff were experiencing, the strategies they use to adapt, and how these strategies might be taught to others.ResultsThe primary pressures described by senior clinicians in surgery were increased numbers and complexity of patients alongside shortages in staff, theatre space and post-surgical beds. These pressures led to more difficult working conditions (e.g. high workloads) and problems with system functioning such as patient flow and cancellation of lists. Strategies for responding to these pressures were categorised into increasing or flexing resources, controlling and prioritising patient demand and strategies for managing the workload (scheduling for efficiency, communication and coordination, leadership, and teamwork strategies).ConclusionsTeams are deploying a range of strategies and making adaptations to the way care is delivered. These findings could be used as the basis for training programmes for surgical teams to develop coordinated strategies for adapting under pressure and to assess the impact of different combinations of strategies on patient safety and surgical outcomes.

A novel deep learning architecture and its application in dynamic load monitoring of the vehicle system

In a complex vehicle system, the monitoring of dynamic load is difficult work. Therefore, a novel deep learning architecture based on a divide-and-conquer strategy is developed to construct the dynamic load monitoring model. The mathematical model of the vehicle system is established to provide data and theoretical support for the deep learning model. To solve the problems of long modeling time and poor accuracy under full operating conditions, the unsupervised Deep Temporal Clustering (DTC) method and supervised lightweight 3D convolutional neural network (3DCNN) are respectively used to identify operating conditions and construct local models. The test results show that the proposed deep learning model has high reliability, and the shape and amplitude of the predicted results of the dynamic load are basically consistent with the real results. Compared with the traditional model, the MAE index and MSE loss of the proposed model are smaller and have better performance.

Two-phase oil and water flow pattern identification in vertical pipes applying long short-term memory networks

Accurate biphasic flow pattern recognition is essential in the design of coatings for the oil and gas sector because it enables engineers to create materials that are tailored to specific flow conditions. This results in enhanced corrosion protection, erosion resistance, flow efficiency, and overall performance of equipment and infrastructure in the challenging environments of the oil and gas industry. The development of flow maps has been based on empirical correlations that incorporate characteristics such as superficial velocities, volume fractions, and physical properties such as the density and viscosity of the analyzed substances. In addition, geometric parameters such as the inclination and the internal diameter of the pipes are considered. However, due to the difficult working conditions on offshore platforms and the limitations in monitoring internal flow patterns, technological advances have been implemented to improve this process using artificial intelligence techniques. In this context, this study proposes using a long-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network to predict the flow patterns generated in vertical pipes. This LSTM network was trained and validated using data obtained from a literature database. The results obtained showed that the model has a prediction error of less than 1%. These technological advances represent an important step towards optimizing the flow pattern identification process in the hydrocarbons industry. By leveraging the capabilities of artificial intelligence, more accurate and reliable forecasts can be obtained, enabling informed decisions and improving the efficiency and safety of operations.

Mental health effects of working as a legal professional in the field of asylum law: a systematic review

AimsLegal professionals work closely with asylum seekers at many points during an asylum claim. While there is an increasing literature examining the mental health effects of working with traumatised populations,...