Hard Labor Research Articles

The influence of age, waist circumference and smoking on the respiratory function indices on the example of employees of a chrome ore mine

Introduction. Employees engaged in mining are exposed to several harmful (hazardous) occupation factors: dust factor, industrial noise, general and local vibration, hard labour, heating or cooling microclimate. The paper aims at studying the influence of the length of employment in underground chrome ore mining coupled with biological (age, obesity) and behavioral (smoking) parameters on spirometric bronchial obstruction indices. Material and methods. The study included 134 employees of a chrome ore mine having underground experience from 1 to 33 years. The comparison group comprised of 404 people who had never worked in a mine. External respiration function was evaluated using the Spirometer SP-1 (Schiller). Statistical processing was carried out using the SPSS 22. One-factor and multi-factor linear regression models were built. Results. The construction of one-factor linear regression models of the dependence of FEV1%, FVC% considering the selected independent factors (age, waist circumference, smoking experience, underground experience) showed a statistically significant effect on the dependent variable of all factors in the model (R2 = 0.010-0.135; p = 0.026-0.0001). The variability of obstructive parameters in a multi-factor linear regression model occurs not often in terms of the studied factors (as for FEV1%, R2 = 0.163; as for FVC%, R2 = 0.107). Smoking experience and waist circumference are the most significant factors leading to the decrease in these indices. Age and underground work experience are less important, but statistically significant. Limitations. The limitation of the results of the study was that they characterize a specific set of certain working conditions and lifestyles of workers in chromium mines. Conclusion. A small part of the impact on the obstruction indices of underground work experience might be due to the use of modern engineering systems to eliminate the harmful effects of occupation factors, as well as personal respiratory protection from dust exposure.

Spot the Miner

Coal mining is an industry that is associated with hard physical labor and harsh mental conditions. Modern artistic projects involving portraits of miners evolve as artists' responses to political and economic changes in the mining industry, which is currently in decline, and place a major focus on miner communities, rather than individual miners. This article presents an overview of relevant selected artistic projects, and supplements them with a small mini-gallery sketched by the author. The mini-gallery viewers have been invited to test their perception of miners based on a series of charcoal portraits representing men and women dressed in mining workwear and everyday clothes. Who in this mini-gallery is a miner, what serves as the basis for the respondents' guesswork, and, overall, how different is today’s perception of miners from those of the past centuries? Three main factors are outlined as potentially relevant for identifying miners: mining workwear, gender, and facial expression. The readers can compare their intuitive reactions with the results from an online experiment, which was presented in Norwegian, Russian, and English and collected 136 responses. Although the presence of mining workwear and male gender still carry a strong association with miners, the results reveal certain differences across Norway, Russia, and the United States. The article is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of art history, social studies and psychology with an artistic project.

Falling Standard of education in Pakistan: Who will tie the bell?

The paper investigated and analysed the various factors assumed to be responsible for falling quality of education and the necessary data were collected from university students whom were asked relevant questions. Students expressed dissatisfaction on the semester system and BS program. BS program has killed the students because they are bogged down in the vicious circle of plethora of courses which not only affect their health but also their academic performance. MPhil and PhD admissions are reduced to minimum in the light of demand and supply to avert future problems.The most deplorable aspect is TTS which is supposed to have done more harm and damage to the national exchequer than alleged good. Lecturers in universities enjoy the lucrative BPS-18 scale while doctors, engineers, civil servants are inducted in BPS-17. Step-motherly treatment of other civil servants will certainly add to bad blood. TTS and induction in BPS-18 as lecturer must be stopped once for all. Lack of job opportunities and rapid population growth are potential factors responsible for falling standard of education. When students are aware that their hard labour will not bear fruit, they lose interest in working hard. Social media has added fuel to the fire.

A Panoptic Eye

The management of 13,500 women transported to Van Diemen’s Land during the fifty years to 1853 was a constant problem for the authorities. In response to suddenly increased numbers during the 1820s when ships began arriving directly from Britain, ‘female factories’ were built. These multipurpose institutions were designed to process new arrivals, regulate the supply of female convict labour to settler households and punish the recalcitrant. All were impelled by agendas of reform, as well as punishment, and were expected to monitor the bodies of criminals while grinding them into useful citizenry. There is considerable evidence that all failed in their objectives. A lack of suitable tasks, ineffective management, and convict agency derailed administrative plans. Unlike British and Irish penitentiaries, female factories were not closed institutions. Their primary role was to service settler demand for cheap domestic servants. A second paperwork surveillance system regulated the wider circulation of female convict labour. This was much more effective at keeping female convicts in view, although it too met with considerable resistance. We examine the impact of both architectural and bureaucratic surveillance systems on prosecution rates and colonial births, illustrating the impacts of colonial surveillance on both work and reproduction.

"It is impossible not only to provide for all the needs of places of detention caused by overcrowding, but also to feed prisoners": interdepartmental financial disputes on the eve of the birth of the Soviet camp system (1928-1929).

The subject of the study is the financial and economic prerequisites of the hardware confrontation on the strategy and priorities of the development of the Soviet correctional labor system, observed at the turn of the 1920s-1930s. Archival documents of that era are analyzed, indicating that the NKVD of the RSFSR and its subordinate Main Directorate of places of detention in the specified period experienced an acute shortage of funds for the maintenance of constantly an increasing contingent of prisoners. The leadership of the People's Commissariat (V. N. Tolmachev) and GUMZ (E. G. Shirvindt) made significant hardware efforts to eliminate the shortage of monetary resources and, with the support of the SNK of the RSFSR, sometimes even acted bypassing the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR for these purposes. Therefore, including for this reason, it categorically refused to participate in the financing of measures to create new correctional labor camps under the auspices of the OGPU. At the same time, representatives of the NKVD opposed the very idea of expanding the camp system and transferring other categories of prisoners to the OGPU in addition to those convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes. The article also cites other archival documents, which, together with the rest of the sources analyzed in it, cast doubt on the well-established opinion that the head of the NKVD V. N. Tolmachev was one of the initiators of the project of transition to a mass system of camp organization of forced labor of prisoners in the USSR.

Occupation and Psychophysiological Status of the Male Population of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area

Introduction: The progressively growing road traffic intensity leads to a steady increase in the informational, emotional and psychological burden in drivers. Truck drivers are exposed to numerous occupational risk factors, including hard labor, constant psychological stress, vibration, noise, a fixed working position, poor visibility, and excess concentrations of noxious gases, all affecting their psychophysiological status. Objective: To study the relationship between professional work and characteristics of the psychophysiological status of the male population of the northern region and to establish the presence and strength of correlations between their elemental and psychoemotional status. Materials and methods: We assessed the psychoemotional status of 182 men aged 32.6 ± 6.2 years, including 94 truck drivers and 88 office workers, living in three northern cities of the Russian Federation. We also established their blood and urinary levels of catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) using enzyme immunoassay and measured hair magnesium and potassium levels using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Results: We observed that the professional drivers of the northern region were more susceptible to psychological stress (p = 0.042…0.001), had higher levels of stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) in blood (p = 0.049…0.005) and urine (p = 0.004…0.003), but lower hair levels of magnesium and potassium, the trace elements essential for mental health (p = 0.004…0.003), than male office workers. The correlation analysis of the above parameters proved that psychological stress of the truck drivers was attributed to magnesium and potassium deficiency (r = -0.475…—0.601) and a high level of stress hormones (r = –0.514…–0.828). Conclusion: In order to stabilize emotional and psychological status and to improve the performance, physical health, and the quality of life of professional drivers, it is important to correct their micronutrient status using multivitamin/multimineral supplements and enriched foods.

Imprisonment and organization of prison labor in Scandinavian states

The development of society and dominant ideas about humanism and human rights require actualization of the legal regulation of various areas of social relations. It also involves the issues of criminal punishment, process and conditions of its execution, and the prison labor of convicts. This article is devoted to the analysis of the Northern Europe states’ experience of penal systems organization and especially conditions of the imprisoned persons’ labor. The issues of convicts’ recruitment goals, mandatory nature of their labor and alternative types of activities, grounds and procedure for remuneration of the work they perform are in the focus. In addition to the “traditional” Scandinavian states (Sweden, Denmark, and Norway), attention is also paid to the experience of Finland, which is close to the above states in many ways. The analysis of foreign practices is carried out in the context of problems existing in the penitentiary system of the Russian Federation. The results and formulated conclusions may be useful for subsequent scientific research, as well as revising Russian legislation and law enforcement practice connected with prison sentences execution and labor administering.

Reclamation and Memory: Theological Roots of Decarceration in the Rural South

ABSTRACT This essay examines Growing Change, a decarceral, youth empowerment nonprofit based in rural North Carolina. To situate their work, the “human context” is presented, which details intersections of youth detention and state-imposed idleness. Following this, the “context of place” renders the history of prison labor that gave rise to campuses like the one Growing Change now occupies. In response, taken from an oral history given by the organization’s founder, the mutually reinforcing theological themes of memory and reclamation are foregrounded. Memory has to do with truth-telling, making legible the horror of prison labor as connected to its equally brutal and morally horrendous predecessor, chattel enslavement. Reclamation underscores the work of divine witness, the repurposing of land cultivated for domination into a place of care and community welcome. Drawing on this unique theological vision, the essay concludes with a series of reflections that imagine possibilities for extending this work beyond rural North Carolina.

Provision of agricultural machinery for agricultural production in Russia

Relevance. The level of technical equipment occupies a special place in the development of agricultural production. For the development and improvement of production operations in agriculture, developed countries are introducing various high-tech processes and equipment. As a result, agricultural work becomes more interesting, productive and efficient. Only due to the complete automation of technological operations and processes, it is possible to significantly facilitate hard physical labor. The volume of work is significantly increasing at the same costs with the use of innovative machinery and equipment in agricultural production. Consequently, this leads to an increase in the economic efficiency of production.Materials and research methods. The materials of the study were data from periodicals on trends in the technical re-equipment of agriculture in Russia, materials of statistical reporting of the Russian Federation, its constituent entities and the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia over the past decades. In the course of the research, abstractlogical, monographic, computational-constructive, comparative analysis and statistical methods were used.Results. According to the results of the studies, it was established that the provision of agricultural machinery and equipment to agricultural enterprises in Russia has been deteriorating from year to year since 1990, there is a high level of deterioration of technical equipment, a low level of its renewal, a large share of old structures in the structure of the technical fleet of agricultural enterprises. Due to the lack of agricultural machinery, Russia loses about 30% of its crop yield every year, significant losses of production occur from non-compliance with agrotechnical terms for spring sowing, sowing winter crops, harvesting, as well as violations of the technology of cultivation of crops. As the reasons for the lag in the technical equipment of agricultural enterprises in Russia, the authors highlight such factors as the low level of profitability of agricultural enterprises, the inaccessibility of credit funds and weak government support for the industry. It is proved that without positive changes in the trend of technical equipment of agricultural organizations it will be impossible to increase the efficiency of agricultural production.

On-Machine Tool Condition Monitoring System Using Image Processing

An automation system of machine tools can free operators from simple and hard labor by the automatic loading and unloading of workpieces, and allowance of unmanned operation during nights and holidays. To achieve complete shop floor operations, various works that are manually performed by operators need to be automated as well. It is also crucial to accurately monitor tools to detect tool wear and chip winding during machining. In this study, we propose an on-machine tool condition monitoring system that measures tool length and diameter using images to detect tool breakage and winding chips.

The Apache Diaspora: Four Centuries of Displacement and Survival

The Apache Diaspora: Four Centuries of Displacement and Survival

A Literature Review on Digitization in Libraries and Digital Libraries

AbstractThe purpose of this work was due to critical literature reviews often being used as a crucial tool for the research outputs of different ideologies to access and develop the knowledge base. The main aim of this paper is to review current literature on digitization in libraries considering different facets like process of selection, acquisition, conversion, creation of metadata, storage, preparing for long term access and issues and challenges for managing these through a review of literature. The current study follows a literature review process where there is analysis of 56 full papers on different aspects of digitization and digital libraries after a filtration from 110 research papers from 2010 to 2019. A number of major issues and challenges like high budget, diversity in records, efficiency and hard labor, document security, quality control, information retrieval, and manipulation of metadata associated with digitization and digital library management with correspondence solutions to them were identified. The study provides valuable information to researchers and librarians working in the field of digitization by illustrating the process, challenge, and implication in libraries as were outlined by various scholars from different corners of the world.

Anand A. Yang. Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia.

Anand A. Yang. <i>Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia</i>.

Performance of community radio stations in southern India

One of the media that had created great impact among the people and later became a companionship to them is Radio. The radio has influenced people who listen to its programme broadcasted on various subjects. The radio was invented by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 (Degna M., 2001). It comes in different sizes to the needs of the people and it is most portable that one can carry it with them. Transformation of transistor radios in 1950s to digital radio in late nineties and later web radio was introduced. Today, listening to radio has become a hobby to many people and it has changed numerous people around the world towards better living attitude. It became a source for information. Radio has become an instrument for collecting information that happens around the world. Besides that, radio reduced the stress on the people especially those who are subjected to hard labor works. However, Wireless Radio Transmission was started during the early nineties. Along with Guglielmo Marconi, another Inventor named as Professor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden has transmitted using wireless radio across the ocean for the first time in 1906 (Helen F., 1940; Ormond R.,1970).

The “Law of Necessity”

AbstractIn June 1835, the Brazilian parliament promulgated a stringent law which punished enslaved persons convicted of assassinating their masters with capital punishment. Called the “law of necessity,” the regulation targeted the leaders of slave rebellions and established the death penalty as punishment against slave resistance. Research on the enforcement of the law demonstrated that while the regulation increased public hangings of the enslaved, overall fewer convict slaves were executed because of the law than had their sentences commuted to galé perpétua or a lifetime of penal servitude in public works. Analyzing slave petitions to commute death penalty sentences to penal servitude, this article intervenes in the debates on punishing the enslaved which connects labor history with the history of punishment. The research probes convicts’ understanding of the construction of Brazilian legal culture while analyzing the tensions between slave-owners and imperial authorities on punishing the enslaved.

Blood pressure trait in rural Bengal- impact of hard labour, poor economic condition and poor diet

Background: The aim of the present study was to observe the blood pressure trait of male population of rural Bengal, India as a part of community work. Physical characteristics and blood pressure of 699 adult male from a rural area of West Bengal, India were studied. Participants were from poor socioeconomic status, who do hard different manual works on the field for earning to feed their families for survival.Methods: Blood pressure was measured with manual sphygmomanometer in the morning. Physical characteristics were measured for predicting nutritional status in terms of BMI.Results: Nutritional status of 85% male villagers was either underweight or normal. Only 4.6 % were obese. Most of villagers possessed either optimal or normal blood pressure. Very few had hypertension. More than 99% of male villagers were without hypertension. Calorie intake of the villager were nominal due to poverty but had to work hard for economic survival. Nominal intake of calories along with hard labour might be the reason behind optimal or normal blood pressure.Conclusions: It could be concluded that survival efforts of the rural people make them less hypertensive.

Sovereign dealings with blasphemy: the prosecution of written pacts with the Devil within the absolute monarchy of Denmark-Norway

ABSTRACT This article discusses how to perceive developments in the prosecution of written pacts with the Devil in Denmark-Norway between 1634 and 1754. While existing scholarship interprets the prosecution within the framework of an Enlightenment narrative by presenting the cases as evidence of an incomplete rejection of magical beliefs, such as the possibility of making a pact with the Devil, this article investigates the cases with regard to the early absolutist sovereigns’ endeavours to deal with blasphemy offences. The medley of punishments imposed in the cases – including public confession, executions, and imprisonment with hard labour – calls for a more complex evaluation of both ruptures and continuity in the prosecution of this type of crime during the period. Through selected cases representing varying approaches of the respective sovereigns, this article analyses how the understanding and administration of the offence developed in the legal practice of the emerging absolutist state.

Conceptual issues and theoretical considerations regarding the study of prison labour

The present paper attempts to explore the conceptual challenges in the research of prison labour and to sketch the contours of a proposed theoretical framework, which can highlight the connection between penal policy tendencies, labour market dynamics and organizational practices of prison labour regimes. Based on a literature review, it is argued, that besides market dynamics on which many of the existing prison labour narratives are focused, the state is also a key agent in generating, maintaining, or relieving the potential tensions between the two main objectives of prison labour: rehabilitative purposes on the one hand and economic efficiency on the other. It is assumed that through the conceptualization of prison labour as one of the most radical manifestation of state-imposed unfree labour, it is possible to shed new light on state-labour relations. By doing so, the research on prison labour could be enriched with some new aspects.

Incarcerated workers: overlooked as essential workers

ObjectiveTo use the example of COVID-19 vaccine prioritization for incarcerated workers to call attention to the need to prioritize incarcerated workers’ health.MethodsFrom November to December 2020, we searched publicly available information (e.g. Department Of Corrections websites and press releases) for 53 US prison systems, including all states, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Puerto Rico. Coders reviewed if states had prison labor policies, if states had COVID-19 specific prison labor policies, the location of work, industries both pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the scope of work, and hourly wage. Findings were compared to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s occupational vaccine prioritization recommendations.ResultsEvery facility has incarcerated individuals working in some capacity with some resuming prison labor operations to pre-pandemic levels. All but one prison system has off-site work locations for their incarcerated population and many incarcerated workers have resumed their off-site work release assignments. Additionally, every state has incarcerated workers whose job assignments are considered frontline essential workers (e.g. firefighters). In at least five states, incarcerated workers are participating in frontline health roles that put them at higher risk of acquiring COVID-19. Yet, no state followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended vaccination plan for its incarcerated population given their incarcerated workers’ essential worker status.ConclusionThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that incarcerated people be prioritized for vaccination primarily due to the risk present in congregate style prison and jail facilities. Furthermore, our review found that many incarcerated people perform labor that should be considered “essential”, which provides another reason why they should have been among the first in line for COVID-19 vaccine allocation. These findings also highlight the need for incarcerated workers’ health to be prioritized beyond COVID-19.

FIGHT FOR PUBLIC CATERING: THE ROLE OF THE PROPAGANDA SYSTEM IN CREATING A NEW WAY OF LIFE DURING THE FIRST FIVE-YEAR PLAN

The paper analyses propaganda materials which were published in the periodical press during the first five-year plan period and promoted public catering as an alternative to oldfashioned household routines. The author underlines that the Soviet government treated household routine transformation as a prerequisite to women’s industrial involvement. The Soviet government promoted communal living, popularized communal laundry facilities and public catering system. The promotion and popularization of public catering was intertwined with an anti-alcohol campaign and the promotion of cultured leisure. The author analyzes articles published by the Culture and Routine magazine and provincial newspapers. The author investigates the mechanisms of public consciousness transformation via public festivals and “ours vs. theirs” dichotomy. The analysis of the aforementioned articles shows that propagandists tried to equate women’s oldfashioned household routines with hard everyday labour (cooking, cleaning, laundry, child care). Newspaper articles attempted to persuade readers that having individual kitchens was a waste of living space. Newspaper articles promoted public catering, praised well-functioning public canteens and tea houses and censured mal-functioning ones. However, the author maintains that is difficult to objectively assess the effects of the Soviet propaganda, for the Soviet government soon realised that public catering was economically unprofitable and unfeasible.