The licentiate dissertation “Safety and Sustainability in the Community Planning Process – Actors’ Interests, Roles and Influence” has in three case studies over detailed development planning processes examined how issues related to safety and sustainability are handled in Swedish municipal planning. The research project has focused on three municipal actors; the Planning Office, the Environmental Agency and the Fire and Rescue Services. The complete planning process has been assessed, starting with comprehensive planning, to detailed development planning and on to building permit assessment. The project’s aim has been to investigate how actors’ roles, interests, responsibilities and position influence the planning process. A handling procedure of preventing accidents instead of treating damages caused by accidents is increasingly stressed in society, with the effect that emphasis of handling these matters is given to community planning. This shift in turn has the effect that safety and sustainability become central in community planning, at the same time as new actors’ active participation is requested. One outcome is that municipal authorities such as the Environmental Agency and the Fire and Rescue Services are increasingly invited to actively participate in the plan work. Both actors have important roles in guarding safety and sustainability issues. Their approaches to these issues however differ, which influences how the matters are handled. The Planning Office has the role of balancing and transforming other planning participants’ contribution to the planning process. They also have responsibility of directing the process ahead. Actors participate in planning based on their knowledge, competence, interests and perspectives, but have to relate to conditions in-built in the planning context. The study has provided a view of actors work with safety and sustainability in community planning. Especially regarding collaboration between actors, actors’ access to planning as well as their possibilities for influence. A number of key issues have been extracted, which adjusted to the local planning context can favour the development of a safe and sustainable urban environment. / QC 20101109

Denna licentiatavhandling syftar till att beskriva barns (0-6 år) utsatthet för olycksfallsrisker i hemmiljön genom att fokusera på omfattningen av bränn- och skållskador, föräldrars uppfattningar om påverkande faktorer till olyckshändelser samt föräldrars uppgifter om egen följsamhet till olycksförebyggande råd och anvisningar. I barnhälsovården (BHV) ges råd och anvisningar kring olika åtgärder lämpliga i förhållande till barns utveckling. Dessa råd ges kontinuerligt och under barnens 6 första år. Innehållet i råden är reglerat i det basprogram som föräldrar till alla barn i Sverige erbjuds fram till skolstart. Få studier beskriver i vilken utsträckning föräldrar följer dessa råd och vilka faktorer som påverkar dels föräldrarnas följsamhet till råden dels faktorer som påverkar risken för barnolycksfall. I denna licentiatavhandling är exemplet skållskador (ΙΙ, ΙΙΙ) beskrivet som ett av flera möjliga olycksfall i hemmiljö som barn drabbas av. / The overall aim of this licentiate thesis was to increase the knowledge about children’s (0–6 years old) exposure to accidents in the home environment through parents’ opinions about accidents and parents’ self-reported compliance with precautions. Data were collected from parents of 10-month-old children who answered a questionnaire. The questionnaire prompted responses related to parents’ background and socio-economic factors as well as questions about precautions they had taken to decrease hazards in their home. The questions focused on actions parents had taken upon receipt of preventive advice given to them during the eight-month Child Health Care nurse assessment. Thirty-two percent of the parents complied with less than half of the suggested precautions. Univariate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% C I) were calculated to investigate the associations between compliance and parents’ different background/socio-economic characteristics. The variables foreign born, low occupational level, 12 years’ education or less, rented housing and information provided at Child Health Care clinics proved to be statistically significant for the non-compliant group. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed in order to adjust the estimated odds ratios for the influence of potential confounders such as parents’ nationality, educational and occupational level, place of information and habitation. After the adjustment the variable nationality and educational level stayed significant (Ι). Data in article ΙΙ were collected from medical records, in a retrospectively designed study. Burn-injured children (0–6 years old) consulting the University Hospital or the health centres (21) during 1998 and 2002 were included. Chi-squared test was used to analyse differences in nominal data and cross-tabulation was used to analyse the proportions between the characteristics of the injuries and sex, age and nationality. There were 148 burn injuries, 80% of which were scalds caused by hot liquid (71%) or hot food (29%). The majority were to boys between one and two years old. Children of foreign-born parents were more frequently affected and the extent of injuries often larger. The data collection method in article ΙΙΙ was tape-recorded interviews, analysed by content analysis, with parents of 20 children (0–6 years old) recently suffering from scalds. Parents told their perceptions about causes of the scalds. The analysis resulted in eight categories and two themes. One theme was ‘Deviation from the normal’, which could be when something unusual happened, such as a sudden visit by a friend or when a family member was tired, stressed or ill. The tiredness could be due to fever, a cold, other illnesses or mental stress. It could also be when something was broken in the kitchen and routines were changed. ‘Misjudgement of the child’s capacity’ was the other theme, which it concerned the children’s preventive capacity, rapidity and reach. It was hard for the parents to keep up with the fast development of the small children (9 months–2 years). The parents said that they often did not realise the child’s capacities until the accident occurred. Key words: accident, burns, child, compliance, intervention, prevention and scalds / <p>Note: The papers are not included in the fulltext online.</p><p>Paper I and II in thesis as accepted manuscripts.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University

The aim of this thesis is to design a system for automated accident detection in intersections. The input to the system is a three-second audio signal. The system can be operated in two modes: two-class and multi-class. The output of the two-class system is a label of ?crash? or ?non-crash?. In the multi-class system, the output is the label of ?crash? or various non-crash incidents including ?pile drive?, ?brake?, and ?normal-traffic? sounds. The system designed has three main steps in processing the input audio signal. They are: feature extraction, feature optimization and classification. Five different methods of feature extraction are investigated and compared; they are based on the discrete wavelet transform, fast Fourier transform, discrete cosine transform, real cepstrum transform and Mel frequency cepstral transform. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is used to optimize the features obtained in the feature extraction stage by linearly combining the features using different weights. Three types of statistical classifiers are investigated and compared: the nearest neighbor, nearest mean, and maximum likelihood methods. Data collected from Jackson, MS and Starkville, MS and the crash signals obtained from Texas Transportation Institute crash test facility are used to train and test the designed system. The results showed that the wavelet based feature extraction method with LDA and maximum likelihood classifier is the optimum design. This wavelet-based system is computationally inexpensive compared to other methods. The system produced classification accuracies of 95% to 100% when the input signal has a signal-to-noise-ratio of at least 0 decibels. These results show that the system is capable of effectively classifying ?crash? or ?non-crash? on a given input audio signal.

No description available.

Stroke, or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), is a prominent cause of long term disability in the United States. It has been evidenced that the outcome of a CVA patient differs as a function of the cerebral hemisphere that is damaged by the stroke, especially in terms of emotional changes. The Right Hemisphere Model of Emotion posits that the right hemisphere is specialized for processing emotional content, regardless of valence. In contrast, the Bi-Hemispheric Model of Emotion posits that each hemisphere has its own emotional specialization. The current experiment tested the competing predictions of the two theoretical perspectives in a mixed sample of left cerebrovascular accident (LCVA) patients and right cerebrovascular accident (RCVA) patients using a Dichotic Listening task and the Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AAVLT). Heart Rate (HR) and Pulse Oxygen Saturation (SpO2) were also recorded as sympathetic measures. It was expected that the predictions of the Bi-Hemispheric Model would be supported. A series of mixed design ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. Results revealed that both groups may have exhibited decreased auditory detection abilities in the ear contralateral to CVA location. Additionally, CVA patients recalled significantly more positive words, than negative or neutral words, and exhibited a significant learning curve. LCVA patients exhibited a recency effect, while RCVA patients exhibited a heightened primacy effect. Findings from HR and SPO2 measures suggested a parasympathetic response to neutral information as well as an impaired sympathetic response to negative information in RCVA patients. Taken together these results lend partial support to the hypotheses drawn from the Bi-Hemispheric Model of Emotion, as evidenced by the diametrically opposite effects in these groups, which appears to reflect opposing cerebral processes. / Ph. D.

The serious consequences of ship collisions necessitate the development of regulations and requirements for the subdivision and structural design of ships to reduce damage and environmental pollution, and improve safety. Differences in striking ship bow stiffness, draft, bow height and shape have an important influence on the allocation of absorbed energy between striking and struck ships. The energy absorbed by the striking ship may be significant. The assumption of a "rigid" striking bow may no longer hold good and typical simplifying assumptions may not be sufficient. The bow collision process is simulated by developing a striking ship bow model that uses Pedersen's super-element approach and the explicit non-linear FE code LS-DYNA. This model is applied to a series of collision scenarios. Results are compared with conventional FE model results, closed-form calculations, DAMAGE, DTU, ALPS/SCOL and SIMCOL. The results demonstrate that the universal assumption of a rigid striking ship bow is not valid. Bow deformation should be included in future versions of SIMCOL. A simplified bow model is proposed which approximates the results predicted by the three collision models, closed-form, conventional and intersection elements, to a reasonable degree of accuracy. This simplified bow model can be used in further calculations and damage predictions. A single stiffness can be defined for all striking ships in collision, irrespective of size. / Master of Science

Las secuencias de accidente con rotura de tubos en el generador de vapor (secuencias SGTR) están consideradas como contribuyentes del riesgo en reactores de agua a presión. Su relevancia radica en la potencial liberación de aerosoles radioactivos al medio ambiente en caso de accidente severo. Sin embargo, dichas partículas podrían quedar retenidas parcial o totalmente sobre las superficies del generador de vapor, incluso en condiciones extremas de ausencia de agua en el generador de vapor. La carencia de conocimiento en cuanto a la capacidad de retención de término fuente de este componente ha eludido su consideración en los estudios probabilistas de seguridad y en las guías de gestión de accidente severo. Esta tesis es una contribución a la comprensión y cuantificación de los procesos naturales de mitigación que tienen lugar dentro del generador de vapor como consecuencia de los accidentes SGTR. La principal actividad llevada a cabo ha sido el desarrollo de un modelo teórico que calcula la capacidad de retención de aerosoles en la etapa de rotura de un generador de vapor seco. El modelo, llamado ARI3SG, está basado en una aproximación de filtro y tiene una naturaleza semi-empírica. En él se tienen en cuenta tanto la dinámica de aerosoles como la hidrodinámica de aerosoles que tiene lugar dentro del generador de vapor en este tipo de escenarios. Para esto último, se han llevado a cabo una serie de simulaciones con el código tridimensional FLUENT 6.2, que han sido validadas con datos experimentales. El comportamiento del modelo ha sido evaluado en profundidad: primero, a través de un proceso de verificación con el que se ha visto que es robusto. Segundo, a través de un proceso de validación frente a los datos experimentales disponibles. Tercero, a través del estudio del efecto de las incertidumbres del escenario y del modelo sobre los resultados. La comparación frente a los datos experimentales ha sido satisfactoria y muestra la viabilidad del uso de formulaciones como la de ARI3SG en códigos de sistema. / López Del Prá, C. (2012). A THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION OF AEROSOL RETENTION WITHIN THE SECONDARY SIDE OF A STEAM GENERATOR UNDER A SGTR SEVERE ACCIDENT SEQUENCE IN A PWR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/15183

Yes / Based on a literature review, likely, there is a relationship between job stress and safety climate, and in this way, the accident occurrence is affected. Therefore, the present study was aimed to investigate the relations of job stress dimensions to safety climate and accidents occurrence among the workers using regression models. This cross-sectional study was carried out on 1530 male employees in 2019. People were randomly selected from various departments. The participants filled out the questionnaires, including demographical information and accident history questionnaire, the NIOSH generic job stress questionnaire, and the Nordic safety climate questionnaire. In addition, information on occupational experience and accident history was obtained from the health unit of the petrochemical company. In the end, data were analyzed using statistical tests of bivariate correlation, multivariate correlation, and logistic regression. Based on the bivariate analysis, the variables of job satisfaction (0.998), problem at work (0.900), depression (-0.836), and physical environment (-0.796) among the job stress dimensions had the highest correlation coefficients with the total score of the safety climate, respectively. The results of the logistic regression analysis with the adjustment of the effect of the safety climate indicated that the relationships between the dimensions of the job satisfaction (Wald = 6.50, OR = 4.96, and p-value<0.05) and social supports (Wald = 5.88, OR = 3.20, and p-value<0.05) with the accident occurrence were significant. To increase the positive safety climate and decrease the accident occurrence, industries must try to reduce job stress in the workplaces through controlling the important factors, such as low job satisfaction and poor social supports. / This work was supported by Tehran University of Medical Sciences (97-03-61-38355).

L'objet du sens, à partir duquel procède toute connaissance humaine, est extérieur à l'essence des choses, de sorte que le savoir ne peut se passer de l'accident, qui se trouve au principe même de sa démarche. Or l'accident est aussi le ressort du premier et semble-t-il du plus pernicieux des sophismes extra-verbaux, ces derniers étant une division principale des treize manières de tromper répertoriées par Aristote dans ses Réfutations sophistiques. Sa compréhension, ainsi que celle de tous les mécanismes qui sont à la source des paralogismes, est indispensable à l'intellectuel qui veut mener droitement ses recherches et se protéger des erreurs. C'est dans le but de contribuer à une telle étude que ce mémoire se propose d'exposer la conception grecque de la définition du sophisme de l'accident posée par le philosophe. Il rend d'abord compte de la vision qu'ont ces commentateurs des trois choses impliquées dans la définition de ce procédé, des relations qu'elles entretiennent et du vice que ces relations comportent. On y retrouve ensuite leur analyse d'exemples du sophisme et leur opinion quant à des modalités sous lesquelles il peut se produire. La conclusion fait enfin le bilan des gains acquis et des problèmes laissés en suspens.