Workplace Fields Research Articles

Estimation of H*(10) and E(Ω) (and H*) using the Hp(10) and Hp(0.07) detectors of a body TLD

The H*(10) and E(Ω) responses to photons from 15 to 1253 keV were determined as a function of source orientation for the 7LiF:Mg,Cu,P ‘body’ and ‘skin’ elements of a thermoluminescence dosemeter optimized to measure Hp(10) and Hp(0.07), and are presented here relative to the results from 662 keV calibration exposures. The calculations were performed using the Monte Carlo transport code MCNP6.2, with the dosemeter located either free-in-vacuo or on a concrete wall; the impacts of the radiation field and dosemeter mounting are discussed. The relative response profiles were found to be fairly flat at energies above a few 10s of keV, leading to the conclusion that the personal dosemeter may be used in some environmental or workplace fields to provide reasonable estimates of ambient dose equivalent and effective dose; the latter is additionally relevant given the newly proposed operational quantity ambient dose (H*). Optimal correction factors were also derived that allow the dosemeter's standard Hp(d,0°,137Cs) system calibrations to be maintained.

Evaluation of uncertainty in personal dose measured using CaSO4:Dy-based TLD badge at different workplaces.

The metrological quality of a measurement is characterised by evaluating the uncertainty in the measurement. In this paper, uncertainty in personal dose measured using individual monitoring CaSO4:Dy-based thermoluminescence dosimeter badge is evaluated by application of the guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement method. The present dose reporting quantity, whole body dose (WBD) and the proposed quantity, personal dose equivalent, Hp(10) has been used as measurands. The influence of various input quantities on the measurement were analyzed through tests that conform to the requirements of the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC 62387. The study found that the expanded uncertainties for WBD and Hp(10) measurements were 63.4% and 41.4%, respectively, corresponding to a 95% coverage probability for workplace fields covering a wide photon energy range (33-1250keV). However, the uncertainty estimates were quite lower for the type of workplaces that are identified using the dose evaluation algorithm. The input quantities, namely, the response to a mixture of photon beam qualities and photon energy and angular dependence contribute the most to the total uncertainty.

Denotation and connotation meaning in Little Women: reflection of liberal feminism through verbal and non-verbal signs in a movie

This research aims to determine the meaning of denotation and connotation in Little Women (2019) movie. It employed a qualitative approach. Purposive sampling technique was used to select verbal and non-verbal signs containing feminism issues. In analyzing the data, this research applied Barthes’ (1986) semiotics and the theory of liberal feminism (Tong and Botts, 2018). The data taken are four scenes in the movie. Based on the analysis, it reveals two findings. The denotation reflects the original, actual, or objective meaning of the non- and verbal signs that has been universally agreed upon. Meanwhile the connotation implies the meaning which is not real and is influenced by the reader/viewer’s feelings, emotions, and cultural values. The signs’ meanings there represent liberal feminism in four fields: workplace, social, domestic, and education fields.

EURADOS intercomparison for whole-body neutron dosemeters from 2012 to 2022

Within the EURADOS (European Radiation Dosimetry Group) self-sustained programme of regular intercomparisons (ICs) for individual monitoring, three campaigns had been performed in 2012, 2017 and 2022 to assess the performance of neutron personal dosemeters routinely used to measure personal dose equivalent, Hp(10). The irradiation schemes were established to provide participants with useful information regarding linearity, reproducibility and response of their dosimetry systems at different energies and angles of incidence. Small alterations were made in irradiation plans for subsequent exercises. Combinations of standard calibration fields and simulated workplace fields were employed, using bare and moderated neutron sources as well as monoenergetic and thermal neutron fields. Neutron energies used to evaluate dosemeter performance ranged from thermal to several MeV. Dose values varied between 0.3 mSv and 15 mSv. The number of participating laboratories in the three campaigns was stable: 31 in IC2012n, 32 in IC2017n and 29 in IC2022n. The dosimetry systems could have been categorized according to their detection principle into albedo and track dosemeters, or a combination of both. In 2012, a category ‘other’ had to be introduced to consider active personal dosemeters and fission track detectors. In 2012, participants were asked to provided results in a two-step procedure: (i) with no information on the radiation fields, and (ii) after receiving additional simplified a priori information on the energy distribution of the neutron fields to enable correction for dosemeter response. In 2017 and 2022, based on a one-step procedure, however, participants might have requested a priori information upon registration, which was reported in the certificate of participation. Intercomparison results were analysed against the acceptance criteria of the ISO 14146:2018 standard, although there were no standardized performance requirements for neutron personal dosemeters at the time of IC2012n. The paper compares the results of the three exercises, identifies major problems for individual monitoring services and shows trends in dosimetric performance. In all three intercomparisons, a few systems had shown problems related to calibration. Data do not allow to draw a universally applicable conclusion with regard to potentially superior performance of one particular dosimetry system.

The Construction of Career Education in Senior High School under the Field Perspective

In the deep-seated transformation of senior high school education catalysed by the reform of the college entrance examination, the function of career education in senior high school has garnered attention. This paper examines career education in senior high school through the lens of Bourdieu's theory of the field. It is not only significant for theoretical reconstruction but also for re-understanding of methodology. It highlights the necessity of viewing the propelling role of capital and power, particularly cultural capital, from a relational perspective within its structural context. In addition, the process is examined in terms of the significance of the distinct habits that shaped its construction and practical logic. The career field in senior high school emphasize ‘value leadership’ and ‘personal growth’, moulding field habits through the interplay of relationships within the field and interactions with other fields, such as the ‘college field’ and the ‘workplace field’. This interaction contributes to the development of field behaviours and stimulates the psychological field's growth and transformation. It aids actors in generating their patterns of practice, thereby attaining the dual objectives of intellectual and social construction and development.

Improving compliance with COVID-19 guidance: a workplace field experiment

Abstract Compliance with hygiene and other safety measures in the workplace was an important component of society's strategy for reducing infections at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular before vaccinations were widely available. We report the results of a field trial of well-established behavioural interventions (social norms, pledging and messenger effects) we implemented to improve compliance with such measures in an occupational setting. We use daily reports of own and other's behaviour to assess the effects of these interventions and supplement these subjective (self-reported) measures with objective data on hand sanitiser usage. The behavioural interventions tested have statistically significant but quantitatively moderate effects on subjective compliance measures and minimal effects on hand sanitiser usage. All effects of our interventions are short-term in nature and dissipate shortly after implementation. Our findings thus provide at most weak support for the notion that typical behavioural interventions can help support compliance with infection prevention measures in the workplace.

Measurements in pulsed neutron fields.

Dosimetry in pulsed and mixed radiation fields represents an important challenge in radiation measurements, because in several accelerator technologies, the acceleration occurs in bunches of particles with short time duration, producing intense radiation pulses spaced by a relatively long time of beam off. The stray mixed radiation field generated around these installations maintains the same time structure as the primary beam and causes a problem in workplace fields' monitoring. Active neutron detectors normally used in steady neutron fields, specifically REM-counters and Bonner sphere spectrometers, can suffer pulsed fields because of the high dead time losses during the bursts and are often inadequate for pulsed field monitoring. This work reviews the efforts of European Radiation Dosimetry Group (EURADOS), and in particular of the Working Group 11 'High Energy Radiation Fields', to define the problem, characterize instrumentation and to propose solutions to the issue of pulsed and mixed radiation fields. Despite the EURADOS initiative, several open issues still remain. A metrological traceability for pulsed neutron fields is missing. There is still room for the optimization and better characterization of available instruments. Initiatives of education and training are required.

Evaluation of Dentists’ Attitudes Towards Principles of Professional Ethics

The aim of this research was to investigate attitudes towards principles of professional ethics (PPE) amongst Iranian dentists working in Isfahan, Iran. This pilot cross-sectional study was conducted amongst 273 dentists in Isfahan, Iran. A validated, comprehensive questionnaire including principles of respect for patient autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice was used to evaluate dentistry professional ethics aspects. Age, gender, marital status, type of graduate university, level of education, specialised field of study, work experience, workplace, and participation in ethics workshops and courses were registered from participants. Total and domains scores of used questionnaires were calculated and compared across categories of study participants' characteristics. Mean ± SD age of participants was 35.4 ± 10.7 years, and 57% were female; about 73% graduated from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, and 65% were general dentists. The attitude total score of dentists towards PPE was 133.02 ± 13.16. Mean total score of the questionnaire and its domains was different significantly (P < .05) across categories of level of education, marital status, and passing the ethical courses. The attitude of dentists towards PPE was rated at a good level. However, improvement in attitudes of some specific subgroups such as general dentists and newly graduated ones is needed. Conducting specific workshops about professional ethics and incorporating these principles into university curricula can be beneficial.

Structural Dimension Exploration and Measurement Scale Development of Employee Involution in China's Workplace Field.

The phenomenon of workplace involution has attracted ample attention. How to make employees treat their work with the correct attitude and behavior and improve their work performance has become a realistic proposition. This study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, with the help of grounded theory, to conduct an exploratory study on the structural dimensions of employee involution in the Chinese workplace and, on this basis, to develop and test the measurement scale. The research results show that employee involution is a multi-dimensional construct with rich connotations, including four dimensions: inefficient busyness, exhaustion of innovation, promotion anxiety, and internal competition. The measurement scale consists of four factors and 13 items. The factor analysis results showed that the developed scale's reliability and validity reached an ideal level. To a certain extent, this study promotes the recognition and attention of various types of organizations at all levels to involution. The research conclusions provide theoretical guidance for employees to get rid of the involution crisis and will motivate managers to formulate better intervention measures to prevent and reduce workplace involution.

Computational personal dosimetry at a realistic neutron workplace field

Some drawbacks of monitoring radiation worker doses with personal dosimeters could be avoided by the introduction of computational dosimetry based on 3D cameras for tracking of workers, modelling the workplace and its radiation field, and dose calculation using computer simulations. The PODIUM (Personal Online DosImetry Using computational Methods) project was setup to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of the computational dosimetry approach developed within the PODIUM project at a realistic neutron workplace field. A transport container with spent MOX fuel needles in a controlled area at SCK CEN was selected as a realistic neutron workplace field for this feasibility study. An MCNP6.2 model of this workplace was developed and successfully validated by comparing simulations with extensive measurements. After validation, the model was used to calculate an effective dose rate map of the workplace field. A single 3D camera was setup at the workplace to track the workers. Using a Python tool, the effective dose rate map, and the tracking file from the camera, the effective dose of the tracked worker could then easily be calculated.

Social Comparison and the Value of Performance Trajectory Information: A Workplace Field Experiment

New workers often compare themselves to their high-achieving senior coworkers, but they often do so without knowing how senior workers performed in the early stages of their careers. This upward social comparison under incomplete information can have adverse effects on new workers’ well-being and employee turnover. We study whether providing performance trajectory information to new workers mitigates the negative consequences of performance comparison. In a large-scale randomized control trial at a leading multinational spa chain in China, we sent workers twice-weekly messages on the performance trajectories of their high-performing senior coworkers. This information treatment reduces the attrition rate of new workers by 12%, and the effect is most pronounced for the more productive workers. The lower attrition rate is mostly driven by an improvement in new workers' stress levels and mental health due to the lowering of their beliefs about senior coworkers' past performance. Overall, this study demonstrates that showing junior workers the

Benchmarking a New Digital Data Acquisition System for Fast Neutron Metrology

The application of a CAEN DT5730 digitizer unit for fast neutron metrology is explored. Measurements were made at the Accelerator for Metrology and Neutron Applications in External Dosimetry (AMANDE) monoenergetic neutron facility of the IRSN, France, over a neutron energy range from 1.2 to 7.0 MeV using a BC501A scintillator. The DT5730 digitizer and an analog system based on NIM electronics and an MPA-3 multichannel analyzer acquisition unit were used, under identical beam conditions, for data acquisition. Several observables were compared between the two systems including the quality of pulse shape discrimination (PSD), neutron energy distribution derived from unfolding analyses, and deadtime effects over a range of beam currents from 0.1 to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5.1~\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . The suitability of the digital system for fast neutron metrology measurements both in the laboratory and in workplace fields is discussed.

Results of the EURADOS international comparison exercise on neutron spectra unfolding in Bonner spheres spectrometry

This paper summarizes the results obtained from an international comparison exercise on neutron spectra unfolding in Bonner spheres spectrometry, organized within the activities of EURADOS working group 6: computational dosimetry. Four realistic situations were considered: a medical accelerator, a workplace field, an irradiation room and a skyshine scenario. The reference solutions are presented, given in terms of idealized fluence-energy distributions and dose rates, along with details of their derivation using verified Monte Carlo codes. The wide variety of unfolded results that were submitted by the participants are then provided, with some shown to agree well with the reference solutions but others showing significant energy-dependent discrepancies. Finally, explanations for some of these discrepancies are proposed, along with suggested methods for how they might be improved.

Defining the digital workplace: A systematic literature review

There have been a significant number of publications about digital workplace transformation. This is due to technological developments in the last decades as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is no adequate overall definition of the term. This leads to misunderstandings and confused interpretation of the digital workplace, sometimes even narrowing it down to a set of tools or a platform. Given the complexity of digital workplace transformation, there is a need to have an integrated prospective and analyze it not just from a technological perspective, but from an organizational and processes point of view as well. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to review the concept and offer a comprehensive definition of the digital workplace. This includes all the important aspects of the transformation including tools and platforms as well as personal issues, organization, processes and management. The paper provides a systematic literature review of the publications in leading bibliographic and citation bases, starting from Web of Science and Scopus to SpringerLink, IEEE Xplore and Association for Information Systems eLibrary. The review includes not only journal papers, but also leading proceedings, books and other referent publications. It addresses the authors' approaches, perspectives, terminologies, focusses and understanding of workplace transformation over the last decade by a comprehensive review of the state of art of the literature in the field of digital workplace. Finally, a set of recommendations are made to further research in increasingly important subject of digital workplace transformation.

Computational Personal Dosimetry at a Realistic Neutron Workplace Field

Computational Personal Dosimetry at a Realistic Neutron Workplace Field

Virtual estimation of effective dose in neutron fields

The PODIUM project aims to provide real-time assessments of occupationally exposed workers by tracking their motion and combining this with a simulation of the radiation field. The present work describes the approach that would be taken in mixed neutron-gamma fields, and details the methods for generating and applying an effective dose rate map; the required fluence to effective dose conversion coefficients at intercardinal angles are also presented. A proof-of-concept of the approach is demonstrated using a simple simulated workplace field within a calibration laboratory, with corroborative comparisons made against survey instrument measurements generally confirming good agreement. Simulated tracking of an individual within the facility was performed, recording a 1.25 μSv total effective dose and accounting for dose rates as low as 0.5 nSv h−1, which is much lower than anything that could be accurately measured by physical neutron dosemeters in such a field.

Improving Compliance with COVID-19 Guidance: A Workplace Field Experiment

Compliance with COVID-19 measures in the workplace is a vital component of society’s strategy for mitigating the effects of the pandemic. We trial well-established behavioural interventions (social norms, pledging, messenger effects) in a field setting. We use daily reports of own and other’s behaviour to assess the effects of these interventions on compliance and supplement these subjective measures with objective data on hand sanitiser usage. The behavioural interventions tested have significant but quantitatively moderate effects on subjective compliance measures and minimal effects on sanitiser usage. We discuss the influence of ceiling effects caused by already high compliance levels as one limiting factor when attempting to influence behaviour in this context. Another important observation is that all effects of our interventions (where they exist) are short-term in nature and dissipate shortly after implementation. Our findings thus provide weak support for the hypothesis that interventions supported by a large body of behavioural work can help support compliance with infection prevention measures in the workplace.

Feasibility study of a shielding-independent radiation portal monitor system for revealing 241-Am orphan sources in radiometric surveillance of scrap metal

Orphan radioactive sources inadvertently melted in steel plants are a health and economical hazard. Thus, regulation authorities impose strict control measurements to be performed at these plants. However, a recent series of incidents related to the melting of {}^{241}hbox {Am} sources demonstrated the inadequacy of even state of the art systems in revealing this low-energy gamma ray emitter up to activities of the order of hundreds GBq. However, {}^{241}hbox {Am} sources are characterized by a weak neutron emission which can be detected by proper monitor systems. This work provides a feasibility study of a shielding-independent neutron-sensitive portal monitor system to be installed in steel plants. Measurements were performed both with a certified {}^{241}hbox {Am} shielded source and at the weighing area of a steel plant, to assess both the detector performance and the practical feasibility of the system implementation in work-place fields. A risk evaluation analysis demonstrated that with the current control systems {}^{241}hbox {Am} sources up to 185 GBq could pass undetected with a potential exposure for workers equal to 1.7 mSv, consistent with recent accidents reports. The proposed technique could reveal {}^{241}hbox {Am} activities down to 2 GBq, decreasing the worker exposure down to 24 upmu hbox {Sv}, without interfering with the standard plant operations.

CHARACTERISATION OF RADIOPHOTOLUMINESCENCE DOSIMETRY SYSTEM FOR INDIVIDUAL MONITORING.

Performance evaluation is typically assessed as part of the approval procedure to verify that a dosimetry system fulfils specified national or international type-test requirements under representative exposure conditions that are expected to mimic workplace fields from the radiological activities being monitored. The International Atomic Energy Agency Radiation Safety Technical Services Laboratory has recently implemented an integrated radiophotoluminescence (RPL) personal dosimetry system developed by Chiyoda Technol Corporation. This paper reports on the successful verification of dosimetric performance properties of the RPL dosimetry system to IEC 62387:2020, in which the badges were exposed to a range of radiation energies and angles of incidence as well as other influence parameters. Characteristics under test included the coefficient of variation, non-linearity of response due to dose dependence as well as the energy and angular response to photon and beta radiation.

Calibration of a neutron dose rate meter in various neutron standard fields

This paper presents the calibration of a neutron dose rate meter and the evaluation of its calibration factors (CFs) in several neutron standard fields (i.e., two standard fields with bare sources of $$^{252}\hbox {Cf}$$ and $$^{241}\hbox {Am}{-}\hbox {Be}$$, and five simulated workplace fields with $$^{241}\hbox {Am}{-}\hbox {Be}$$ moderated sources). The calibration in standard fields with bare sources was conducted by following the recommendations of the ISO 8529 standard. The measured total neutron ambient dose equivalent rates, denoted as $$\dot{H^*}(10)_{\text {tot}}$$, were analyzed to obtain direct components, denoted as $$\dot{H^*}(10)_{\text {dir}}$$, using a reduced fitting method. The CF was then calculated as the ratio between the conventional true value of the neutron ambient dose equivalent rate in a free field, denoted as $$\dot{H^*}(10)_{\text {FF}}$$, and the value of $$\dot{H^*}(10)_{\text {dir}}$$. In contrast, in the simulated workplace neutron fields, the calibration of the neutron dose rate meter was conducted by following the ISO 12789 standard. The CF was calculated as the ratio between the values of $$\dot{H^*}(10)_{\text {tot}}$$ measured by a standard instrument (i.e., Bonner sphere spectrometer) and the neutron dose rate meter. The CF values were obtained in the range of 0.88–1.0. The standard uncertainties ($$k = 1$$) of the CFs were determined to be in the range of approximately 6.6–13.1%.