Safety Discipline Research Articles

Integrated framework for safety management and uncertainty management

Safety management and uncertainty management have traditionally been completely separate functions. The two disciplines are, to a large extent, based on different scientific pillars. The safety discipline typically produces frequency estimates of specific hazardous events, whereas the uncertainty discipline produces prediction intervals based on probability distribution quantiles, in addition to mean values. Furthermore, the safety discipline has a focus on risk acceptance criteria, whereas the uncertainty discipline makes top-ten and similar lists to rank the most critical uncertainty aspects. These differences make it difficult to obtain an integrated framework for safety management and uncertainty management. However, the recent introduction of risk perspectives highlighting the uncertainty component of risk has provided an improved basis for development of such an approach. By seeing risk as a two-dimensional concept covering events and consequences on the one side and uncertainties on the other, the content and boundaries of risk assessments are changed. The gap between the two disciplines can, to a large extent, be bridged. The purpose of the current paper is to present and discuss an integrated framework for these disciplines and traditions, based on this risk perspective. The starting point is petroleum operations, but the discussion is, to a large extent, general.

La comunicazione e l'etichettatura degli alimenti nella disciplina della sicurezza alimentare

- The current market is governed by an information system, but it is also regulated by interests specific to the discipline of food safety. Therefore, it highlights the close bond between the contents of the contract and the contents of the information, as well as the equally tight correlation between information and competition. In fact, the legislator aims to reconcile the need for food safety with that for the circulation of goods. It must also be added that food safety is a discipline, first and foremost, concerned with product marketing, and thus the rules on information provided for by the common legislator are instrumental to the achievement of a common market of safe and healthy foods, a market governed by rules of communication that facilitate exchanges and guarantee the circulation of foods. From this perspective, within the discipline of food safety information has a double aim, as it strives to provide the market with that symmetry of information essential to its functioning while safeguarding the interests of food safety. Hence, we can understand the legal weight, within the food market, of labels, which can be seen as both the "space" in which communication takes place and a vehicle for information. It is in this context that the food labelling law, eventually regulated by directive 2000/13, originates and develops. However, the legal function of labels cannot be regarded exclusively as a tool for the satisfaction of the need to inform and safeguard consumers and facilitate exchanges between member states, but it should exist in a framework that encompasses the whole food safety legal sys158 tem (reg. 178/2002). The general rules governing the food safety system are thus revealed, as well as the indications, compulsory and non, to be placed on the labels, both with regard to their content and the way this information is conveyed. In this context, we can see the relevance of the very recent reg. 1924/2006 of December 20th 2006 on the nutritional values of foods and their effects on health. Key words: food security, comunication, labelling, consumer protection.

Organizing work: Company magazines and the discipline of safety

This article explores how company magazines went beyond the creation of corporate culture and were used as a tool of management to manipulate and control the labour process. The article concentrates upon the Great Western Railway, its staff magazine and the occupational safety education campaign run between 1913–1939. Using Foucauldian notions of discipline, it is argued that the magazine propagated a specific version of ‘safety’ which attempted to extend managerial prerogative in the workplace. This operated within the bureaucratic tradition of the railway industry. However, it is also suggested that attempting to influence production processes through company magazines is highly problematic.

HSE’s safety assessment principles for criticality safety

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its revised Safety Assessment Principlesfor Nuclear Facilities (SAPs) in December 2006. The SAPs are primarily intended for useby HSE’s inspectors when judging the adequacy of safety cases for nuclear facilities.The revised SAPs relate to all aspects of safety in nuclear facilities including thetechnical discipline of criticality safety. The purpose of this paper is to set out forthe benefit of a wider audience some of the thinking behind the final publishedwords and to provide an insight into the development of UK regulatory guidance.The paper notes that it is HSE’s intention that the Safety Assessment Principlesshould be viewed as a reflection of good practice in the context of interpretingprimary legislation such as the requirements under site licence conditions forarrangements for producing an adequate safety case and for producing a suitableand sufficient risk assessment under the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999(SI1999/3232 www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/uksi_19993232_en.pdf).

Neighborhood safety and social involvement: associations with parenting behaviors and depressive symptoms among African American and Euro-American mothers.

The relation between neighborhood characteristics and parenting and the mediating role of maternal depressive symptoms was examined among African American and Euro-American mothers of kindergarten children. Mothers' ratings of neighborhood safety were related to disciplinary strategies for both African American and Euro-American mothers but not to expressions of affection. Interviewers' ratings of safety were related to mothers' use of hostile socialization strategies. Both mothers' and interviewers' reports of safety were linked with maternal depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms mediated the relation between neighborhood safety and inconsistent discipline, suggesting that the influence of safety on inconsistent discipline was due to its impact on maternal depression. Although there were similarities across ethnic groups, the relation between social involvement and mothers' withdrawal of interactions with their children differed across groups.

Radiation safety education for laboratory animal science.

Students enrolled in the laboratory animal science graduate program at MCP Hahnemann University seek to gain entrance to veterinary school or to manage an animal facility within an academic institution, pharmaceutical or biotechnology company conducting biomedical research. Ongoing interaction between faculty in the radiation oncology, radiation safety, and lab animal science disciplines revealed an acute need for radiation safety education for laboratory animal science students who will likely interact with researchers either designing and writing protocols for animal studies using radiation or radioactive materials, or veterinary staff who will use sources of radiation to diagnose and/or treat possible animal injuries and diseases. A core course in the Radiation Sciences graduate program was modified to address the needs of these students, instructing them in radiation safety, detection and counting instrumentation, and radiation biology. These fundamental areas were integrated to help the students gain a sound, basic knowledge of radiation and radioactive materials used in biomedical research.

Building an integrated environmental, health, and safety management system

AbstractThis article discusses an integrated management system that aligns and integrates the various environmental, health, and safety functions and disciplines. This model is easily adopted to provide performance measures required to satisfy Responsible Care®, ISO 14001, and the European Union EMAS requirements.

A Viewpoint on Professional Conduct for Ergonomic Experts in Forensics

This panel session explores the paradigm of professional conduct for ergonomic experts in the practice of forensics. A hypothesis of conduct is offered as a candidate guideline for professional conduct. This hypothesis is based on basic professionalism principles and has been adapted on the basis of observed experiences in the field, comments from other practicing professionals, and in the context of previous draft “codes” of professional conduct for human factors professionals and also for ergonomic forensics practitioners. The panelist contributions to this session range from a discussion of the need for and merits of a standard of professional conduct, to institutionalization of standards or codes of conduct, to the breadth and scope of professional involvement in forensics, to the mechanics of the actual practice of professional ergonomie forensics, to a comparative perspective from the related discipline of safety.