Paint Factory Research Articles

Acute and Chronic Neurological Symptoms Among Paint Workers Exposed to Mixtures of Organic Solvents

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence rates of acute and chronic neurologic symptoms among paint workers and the association of such symptoms with the severity of exposure to mixtures of solvents. Two paint manufacturing factories and 25 various kinds of spray painting factories were selected for study. Air concentrations of organic solvents were measured by personal samplers and were analyzed by gas chromatography. A total of 196 workers were given a screening neurological examination and a questionnaire on acute and chronic neurologic symptoms. A detailed personal medical history and a profile on alcohol consumption and medication were also included. The results showed that xylenes and toluene were the major solvents found in almost all the air samples with average contents of 50 and 24% on a weight basis of 73 air samples. We classified workers according to different exposure patterns and different air concentrations of breathing zones: high (8-hr hygienic effect, 0.25–9.86; median, 1.66), short-term high (hygienic effect, 0–3.38; median, 0.12), and low (hygienic effect, 0–0.38; median, 0.12). All workers showed no overt neurological signs such as ataxic gait, poor coordination, or muscle weakness. After excluding those workers who consumed more than 280 g of alcohol per week ( n = 8), took antihypertensive medications ( n = 4), or were treated with antipsychotic agents ( n = 1), we found that the severity of exposure was associated with acute symptoms of headache and chest tightness and chronic symptoms of dizziness, easy fatigability, depressed mood, and palpitation. There was no association between peripheral neurological symptoms and the severity of exposure. Workers in the high exposure group were 2.7 times more likely to develop two or more acute symptoms and 3.3 times more likely to develop three or more chronic symptoms of the central nervous system than the low exposure group. After modeling by multiple logistic regression, we concluded that exposure to a medium level of mixtures of solvents (hygienic effect exceeding 1.66) may produce acute and chronic central neurological symptoms.

Wastes from the former uranium paint factory at Joachimstal (Jáchymov) used in dwellings

Wastes resulting from the production of uranium paints in the K.u.K. Uranfarbenfabrik at Joachimstal became famous as the raw material for isolation of radium in great amounts by M. and P. Curie in 1898. In the past century, these wastes with radium concentrations up to 300 Bq/kg were also used to a great extent in mortars and plasters instead of sand in dwellings at Joachimstal. Radiological impacts of this unintentional abuse are given. The relationships between radium concentration of the building material, dose rate of gamma radiation, superficial radon exhalation rate, rate of radon entry, and radon concentration in air are shown.

Multicriteria multigoal decision making - the fuzzy paradigm

In real life, the imprecise and subjective nature of information makes decision making rather complex and incosistent. This paper presents a Fuzzy Decision Support Expert System that enables more efficient and consistant decision making. The linguistic thought process of the decision maker are qualified and quantified using fuzzy logic and approximate reasoning. The system integrates multicriteria decision rules and various measures of decision factors to make the inference. The mechanism of this system is illustrated by addressing the Aggregate Production Planning Problem. Holt's[1] HMMS Paint Factory data is used with the rule base proposed by Rinks[2]. Comparison of results with Rinks and Turksen[3] shows that the proposed system can be used successfully to generate a near-optimum solution. The capability of the system in handling diverse problem domains that require group decision making with imprecise and incomplete information in a multigoal environment is also discussed.

Exposure to mixtures of solvents among paint workers and biochemical alterations of liver function.

The objective of this study was to determine biochemical alterations of liver function among paint manufacturers and sprayers associated with exposure to organic solvents. Two paint manufacturing factories and 22 various kinds of spray painting factories (16 car painting, two aircraft painting, three video terminal painting; and one trailer painting) were included. Air concentrations of organic solvents were collected by personal samplers and analysed by gas chromatography. A total of 180 workers were given a comprehensive physical examination, a questionnaire, a liver function test, and a test for hepatitis B surface antigen. The questionnaire contained questions regarding detailed personal medical history, intake of alcohol, and use of medicine. Mixtures of solvents were used throughout the factories, and xylene and toluene were the major components found in almost all air samples with average contents of 46% and 29% on a weight basis of 67 air samples. No strong hepatotoxic solvents were detected. Workers were classified according to the different exposure patterns and different air concentrations of breathing zones as: high (eight hour time weighted average (8 h TWA) hygienic effects of solvents 0.25-9.83, median 1.66), short term high (8 h TWA hygienic effects of solvents 0-3.38, median 0.12), and low (8 h TWA hygienic effects of solvents all below 0.38). After applying a multivariate model to control the non-occupational factors (alcohol, medication, age, and hepatitis B viral infection), increase in gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) activity was found to be associated with severity of exposure to the mixture of solvents. Because the possible effects on GGT activity of non-occupational factors were controlled for, it is concluded that increased GGT activity among exposed workers may be due to a higher exposure to the mixture of solvents.

ATTENUATION OF LOW-FREQUENCY NOISE BY HEARING PROTECTORS

The ability of earmuffs and helmets to reduce low-frequency (4-250 Hz) noise was tested in an anechoic chamber, in a paint factory, outside and in a low-frequency noise chamber. Prototypes of a new noise helmet were also tested. Steady noise and low-frequency noise impulses were used as the sound sources. The testing was sometimes difficult because physiological noise raised the sound level inside the hearing protector at some frequencies after the protector was put on. Therefore the low-frequency sound level had to be over 100 dB at frequencies of 2-250 Hz during the tests. The earmuffs attenuated noise levels of 1-20 dB in the 4-250 Hz frequency range. Commercial noise helmets tested were not as good as earmuffs in attenuating low-frequency noise. New noise helmet prototypes attenuated low-frequency noise better than did earmuffs or commercial helmets (attenuation 5-39 dB).

Performance evaluation of the LDR and the PSH with forecast errors

AbstractDespite its ability to produce optimal solutions, the Linear Decision Rule (LDR) has not had a significant impact in the business environment. The Production Switching Heuristic (PSH), which has shown promising results when compared with the LDR, has experienced some business application because of its practicability and flexibility. During aggregate production planning, forecast errors are almost unavoidable, but the sensitivity of these models to such errors has not been thoroughly tested. Insufficient attention has been paid to truly understand the cost effects of forecast errors and other important interactions. The study investigates these issues by analyzing the results of 740 simulated problems.Using the famous “paint factory” cost data, the sensitivity of the LDR and the PSH are examined under various experimental conditions. The factors controlled at different levels are: forecast error mean, forecast error standard deviation, demand pattern, demand variability, and cost coefficients. The results show that 1) the PSH is generally less sensitive than the LDR to forecast errors, 2) both forecast error mean and standard deviation effectively measure the severity of forecast errors, and 3) underforecasts cause less cost penalty than overforecasts.The outcome of the study has helpful managerial implications for aggregate planning related decisionmaking. It suggests that the use of the PSH could result in potential cost savings even if significant forecast errors are envisioned as long as the period‐to‐period demand variability is not substantially high. Also, BIAS warrants more attention than MSE in evaluating the extent of forecast errors and their eventual cost impact on aggregate production planning.

An approximate analogical reasoning schema based on similarity measures and interval-valued fuzzy sets

An Approximate Analogical Reasoning Schema (AARS) is proposed which exhibits the advantages of Fuzzy Sets Theory and Analogical Reasoning in Expert Systems development. The AARS avoids going through the conceptually complicated Compositional Rule of Inference. It uses a Similarity Measure of Fuzzy Sets and a threshold τ 0 to determine whether a rule should be fired and a Modification Function inferred from a Similarity Measure to deduce a consequent. Linguistic Variables and Terms, rather than Quantitative Variables are used to represent decision rules and/or decision variables. The schema is extended to Interval-Valued Fuzzy Sets where additional uncertainty can be handled in a formal model. Finally, the proposed AARS is implemented using Texas Instrument's PC + Expert System Shell. The Expert System AARS is applied to an Aggregate Production Planning Prototype study (HMMS Paint Factory Model), where intuitive decision-making seems to be common practice. The system's performance is compared with other approaches and the result is encouraging.

CIN of Portugal

CIN‐Corporação Industrial Do Norte SA of Oporto, with a turnover last year of around £17m, is the largest independent paint company in Portugal and the largest industrial paint supplier. With 1992 and the common European home market now looming large on the horizon, the editor recently visited CIN at their 50,000m2 site near to Porto (in Portugal they drop the ‘O’) Airport, to prepare the following report (and incidentally, to partake of some excellent port wine). A visitor is immediately surprised at the extensive laboratory facilities, the degree of automation in production, and computer control facilities that exceed all those we have seen in UK paint factories, with one exception.

Isolation and identification of phthalate-utilizing bacteria

Phthalate-utilizing bacteria were isolated from sewage samples collected at several plastic and paint factories. All 116 strains isolated were Gram-negative aerobic rods, except one Gram-positive micrococcus. Most of the rods were found to be Pseudomonas spp., while the remaining ones were genera Agrobacterium and Alcaligenes. The micrococcus was identified as Micrococcus sp. Some of the isolates were identified as P. pseudoalcaligenes, P. pseudoflava, and Agrobacterium radiobacter which have not been listed as phthalate ester-utilizers previously.

Respiratory and nonrespiratory morbidity in a titanium oxide paint factory in Nigeria.

A study of 67 subjects in a small titanium oxide paint factory in Nigeria showed 50-54% frequency for airway symptoms, 20-40% for neurological symptoms, and 10-27% for other symptoms. The symptoms were well correlated with exposure (p less than .05) and pulmonary function tests (PFTs). The directly exposed subjects had likelihood odds ratios of 5 to 17 of presenting symptoms compared to controls. The PFT deficit, relative to the expected value, was significantly higher for those with airway symptoms than for those of other symptom categories (p less than .005). There were 28 (42%) cases of restrictive lung impairment. Exposure to cotton dust had confounding influence on the PFT of subjects previously exposed. Smoking rate was very low. These findings indicate the need for worker protection in a manufacturing plant in Nigeria.

Sowing the Threads of Resistance: Worker Resistance and Managerial Control in a Paint and Garment Factory

Sowing the Threads of Resistance: Worker Resistance and Managerial Control in a Paint and Garment Factory

Microcomputer Control of a Printing Ink Plant

The manufacturing of printing inks can be considered as a multi-product batch technological system. The production of more than 2000 products take place by charges with identical or similar sequence of identical procedures on the basis of the recipes containing the technological instructions. The available items of the different equipment types may be allocated to simultaneously operating parallel production lines according to the production program. The goal of the control system elaborated for the new processing area of the BUDACOLOR Paint Factory /Hungary/ is to ensure the stationary processing of high-quality products by the concept of recipe controlled sequencing and data recording for the analysis of the processing system. The control system is based on an MPC-Z80 microcomputer and involves two levels of the computer control. The process management level performs the recipe handling and production programming. On the process control level the functions of process control, operator interface and documentation are accomplished. Both control levels are executed separately and consequently by the use of the program overlay technique. The successful combination of the process management and control levels on the basis of a 8-bit microcomputer configuration can be interesting for other batch-type technologies.

A preliminary investigation of the lead level in whole blood of normal and occupationally exposed populations in Damascus City

A preliminary investigation of whole blood lead levels of workers in a paint factory and workers of the Official Government Press in Damascus City was carried out. For comparison, the blood lead level of a group of donors from the same city was also determined. A graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrometer was used for blood analysis. Elevated levels of lead were found in the blood of some workers, mainly those who were exposed to large amounts of lead compounds in dust. Lead levels in whole blood of donors ranged from 6 to 51 μg/−100 ml.

Dermatitis from Paints and Coatings

Contact dermatitis among painters and paint factory workers is most commonly induced by irritation from solvents injudiciously used for skin cleaning. The most common sensitizers are synthetic resins (epoxy, phenolformaldehyde, polyfunctional acrylates), resin-curing agents, cobaltous drying agents, chromate-containing pigments, and biocidal preservatives. Any reasonable patch test investigation must be aimed, as much as possible, at the particular constituents of the paints and coatings to which an individual is actually exposed.

Preventing microbial damage of paint

The Paint Research Association reports that despite the good hygiene practised in most paint factories microbial contamination occasionally occurs. This can cause thinning, gassing or malodour in aqueous paints rendering them unsaleable. The cost of paint raw materials is rising faster than the general rate of inflation and the cost of a spoilt batch is a serious matter for paintmakers.

Turnpike Horizons for Production Planning

A quadratic model for production-inventory planning was made famous by Holt, Modigliani, Muth, and Simon in 1960 in (Holt, C. C., F. Modigliani, J. F. Muth, H. A. Simon. 1960. Planning Production, Inventories, and Work Force. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.), especially for its application to a paint factory. A discrete control version of a related quadratic production-inventory model was studied by Kleindorfer, Kriebel, Thompson, and Kleindorfer in (Kleindorfer, P. R., C. H. Kriebel, G. L. Thompson, G. B. Kleindorfer. 1975. Discrete optimal control of production plans. Management Sci. 22 261–273.). In the present paper we solve a continuous version of the model in Kleindorfer, Kriebel, Thompson, and Kleindorfer (Kleindorfer, P. R., C. H. Kriebel, G. L. Thompson, G. B. Kleindorfer. 1975. Discrete optimal control of production plans. Management Sci. 22 261–273.) in complete detail. The reason we are able to obtain a complete solution (which can rarely be done in control models) is that the linear decision rule, which is optimal here as in other quadratic models, permits the elimination of the adjoint function from the state variable equation after one differentiation of the latter. Thus the difficult two-point boundary value problem which usually arises in control problems is converted into an ordinary second order differential equation, which is readily solved. One advantage of having a complete solution to the problem is that it is possible to determine turnpike horizon points. These correspond to zeros of the adjoint function, and have the property that if they are known exactly, then a production-inventory plan which is optimal up to the next horizon point also forms part of the overall optimal plan. In the case of cyclic demand these turnpike horizon points usually occur every half cycle. Similar horizons are likely to exist in real production-inventory problems. A planning procedure for a real problem which extends only as far as a suspected horizon has a good chance of producing an optimal or near optimal solution for that period of time. A second advantage of having the complete solution available is that it is possible to develop a practical production-inventory system which intermingles a prediction procedure (such as the use of a finite Fourier series) with the solution procedure so that a comparison between predicted and actual inventories can be made continuously. Whenever the discrepancy between these two becomes sufficiently large, the model suggests proper corrective actions to be taken.

Dispersers, Mixers, Fillers—Part 2

Supplied as a turnkey operation and completed in 8½ months from contract the new paint factory of Greyclour Ltd, recently commenced production. Mastermix Engineering Co. Ltd., of Redditch, England, as main contractor, was responsible for the design, supply and installation of all plant and services including, water, compressed air, electricity, as well as 85 tons latex storage together with associated metering and pipework. The design team was headed by John Perkins with Bill Maysey being responsible for installation and erection.

Coatings update 1977: Energy

That energy in the coatings industry is of concern throughout the world is indicated by a Russian article by Myachin [Lakokras. Mat., 1 (1976) p. 55] which discusses means to utilise thermal energy in a paint factory more economically.

Isolation of Neisseria meningitidis and Neisseria catarrhalis from the genitourinary tract and anal canal.

During a 12-month period 285 isolates of Neisseria species, other than Neisseria gonorrhoeae, were cultured from patients attending the Department of Venereology, Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. There were eight patients in whom genitourinary or rectal isolates of Neisseria meningitidis or Neisseria catarrhalis were found. Differences between data from our series and from previous reports are discussed with particular regard to sites routinely cultured in female patients. We also report in vitro inhibition of N. gonorrhoeae by an isolate of N. meningitidis cultured from the cerivx of a patient.

Handling problems resolved

Two paint factories have recently solved their handling problems by using Lansing Bagnall fork lift trucks. However the two schemes are completely different: in one the trucks are on rental and work outdoors, in the other a range of trucks are used throughout the factory to reduce manpower and handling times.