The job-related fatality rate in the construction industry is high as a result of multiple factors associated with the safety of workers. However, mental fatigue, a prominent factor affecting one’s hazard perception, from engagement in construction tasks and its effects on fall hazard has not been adequately studied. This thesis proposes a two-trajectory framework to assess mental fatigue using Electroencephalography (EEG). Primarily, Wavelet Packet Decomposition (WPD) was used to obtain energy in each brain wave, and seven mental fatigue indices including θ, α, β, α/β, θ/α, θ/β, and (θ + α)/β were calculated. Secondarily, sample entropy (SampleEn) values were calculated for groups under comparison to examine the results from the WPD. Results from the adopted method suggest that typical construction activities and height exposure can cause mental fatigue and reduce vigilance level in workers. It is essential to have a quantitative approach for continuous cognitive monitoring to enhance construction safety.

Este artículo presenta un estudio acerca del riesgo percibido en el sector de la construcción. El estudio se realizó a partir del análisis de cuestionarios provenientes de una muestra de trabajadores de la construcción del sur de España. Se presenta el perfil del riesgo percibido obtenido según los enfoques del llamado paradigma psicométrico a través de atributos cualitativos y se analizan los resultados. El atributo relativo a como el trabajo afecta a la salud a largo plazo es el más puntuado. Lo cual representa una novedad con respecto a otros estudios previos. A su vez se analizan mediante un análisis de la varianza (ANOVA) los efectos de la variable sociodemográfica oficio con respecto a los distintos atributos del riesgo percibido del cuestionario. Se presentan las diferencias obtenidas entre el grupo de albañiles y estructuristas. / This article presents a study of the perceived risk in the construction sector. The study was conducted from the analysis of questionnaires from several samples of construction workers from southern Spain. We report the perceived risk profile obtained from the psychometric paradigm through qualitative attributes and then we analyze the results. Stands out the attribute regarding how work affects our own long-term health. This represents something new with respect to previous studies. Also analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) the effects of socio-demographic variable craft with respect to the different attributes of the perceived risk of the questionnaire. It presents the differences obtained between the group of masons and framers.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

The United States has the world’s largest road network with over 4.1 million miles of roads supporting more than 260 million of registered automobiles including around 11 million of heavy trucks. Such a large road network challenges the road and traffic management systems such as condition assessment and traffic monitoring. To assess the road conditions and track the traffic, currently, multiple facilities are required simultaneously. For instance, vehicle-based image techniques are available for pavements’ mechanical behavior detection such as cracks, high-speed vehicle-based profilers are used upon request for the road ride quality evaluation, and inductive loops or strain sensors are deployed inside pavements for traffic data collection. Having multiple facilities and systems for the road conditions and traffic information monitoring raises the cost for the assessment and complicates the process. In this study, an integrated system is developed to simultaneously monitor the road condition and traffic using in-pavement strain-based sensors, which will phenomenally simplify the road condition and traffic monitoring. To accomplish such a superior system, this dissertation designs an innovative integrated sensing system, installs the integrated system in Minnesota's Cold Weather Road Research Facility (MnROAD), monitors the early health conditions of the pavements and ride quality evaluation, investigates algorithms by using the developed system for traffic data collection especially weigh-in-motion measurements, and optimizes the system through optimal system design. The developed integrated system is promising to use one system for multiple purposes, which gains a considerable efficiency increase as well as a potential significant cost reduction for intelligent transportation system. / USDOT (U.S. Department of Transportation) / MPC (Mountain-Plains Consortium)

Globally, construction is considered a hazardous industry with a disproportionate amount of fatal and non-fatal injuries as compared to other industries. Electrocution is named as one of the "fatal four" causes for construction injuries by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In the United States, an average of 47.9% electrical fatalities occurred in the construction industry from 2003 to 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. These fatalities include both electrical workers and non-electrical workers. Such a disproportionate rate suggests a need of research to improve construction safety and reduce injuries due to electrocution. However, there is a lack of understanding of causation mechanisms surrounding fatal accidents by electrocution using a systems approach; and there is a disconnection between the mechanism of fatal electrocution accidents and the associated control measures, which may lead to less effective prevention in construction. This dissertation has three objectives, including: (a) establishing a sociotechnical system model that reflects the electrocution occurrence in the U.S. construction industry and identify the associations among its internal subsystems; (b) determining specific electrocution patterns and associated mechanism constraints; and (c) examining hierarchy of control (HOC) measures and determining their appropriateness. Findings from his research include: (a) the identification of three system patterns of electrocution in construction work systems and the associations between personnel, technological, organizational/managerial subsystems, and the internal and external environment for each of the three patterns, using a macroergonomics framework; (b) the identification of five features of work, and map out their decision-making chains, critical decision-making points and constraints, as an interpretation of electrocution mechanisms in the workplace; and (c) revealing that behavioral controls remain prevalent in electrical hazard mitigation even though the knowledge of construction safety and health has increased in the past decades, and that the effectiveness of controls is not statistically different by construction type nor occupation. Based on these findings, the research also suggests corresponding mitigation recommendations that construction managers shall strictly follow HOC rules by giving priority to higher level of controls and upgrading the industry's prevention strategy by introducing more technological innovations and encouraging prevention through design (PtD) strategies. / Ph. D.

Fatal occupational injury is a construction and management problem in the United States. Fatality rates among specialty trade contractors made up the largest percent of fatalities in construction at 62% per year. The purpose of this nonexperimental study was to examine the relationship between the quality of information in construction safety plans and construction safety among specialty trade contractors. The theoretical foundations for the study were Petersen'€™s accident/incident theory and work systems theory. The key research question was to examine the relationship between information quality and construction safety among specialty trade contractors. A survey with closed-ended questions was used to collect primary data from a self-selection sample of 134 specialty trade contractors in the United States. Spearman rank correlation coefficient (rs) was used to measure the strength of the relationship between information quality and construction safety. Results indicated that the quality of information in construction safety plans (measured by the relevance, accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of information) did not have any statistically significant relationships with construction safety among U.S. specialty trade contractors. Further research is needed to understand if the variables used in this study are relevant predictors for construction safety. This study connects with positive social change by bringing into focus quality information systems research required to improve safety among U.S. specialty trade contractors and provide safety professionals a direction for continuous safety improvement in the U.S. construction industry, thus benefitting construction stake holders.

<p>The purpose of this study is to determine if Virtual Reality safety training is more effective at teaching fall protection safety than traditional methods of instruction. A literature review of previous research was conducted and a theoretical framework and methodology was developed to test the two groups for this study. The research design is a difference-in-differences method comparing the pre-test and post-test scores of the participants of each group. There will be other small pieces of analysis that will be done to further understand the results of the data collection. The data will be analyzed and interpreted to better understand how the research question was answered in comparison to previous work and the theoretical framework. Finally, other questions that arose during the process will be addressed and future areas for more research will be defined.</p>

Given the large economic and social costs of work-related accidents and injuries, it is not surprising that organisations strive to reduce them; this creates a need to improve the safety performance of the whole construction industry. Health and Safety statistics in general appear to suggest a levelling off of safety performance across the construction industry as a whole and this implies that improving safety beyond the current level of attainment calls for a radical look at how safety is addressed by the industry. Such a radical approach needs to explore alternatives to current practices in safety improvement. Although it is acknowledged that human factors are involved in 80-90% of work-related accidents and incidents, the focus of safety research in recent years still addresses only organisational and environmental factors, rather than variables at the level of the individual. Occupational personality models suggest that the ability to understand, predict and control incidents could minimize their potential transition into accidents. The safety behaviour of the individual worker forms part of such occupational personality modelling. Understanding the safety behaviour of construction workers should provide opportunities for improvement beyond traditional practices in the quest to improve safety management. The study on which this thesis is based aimed to develop a conceptual framework for improving safety performance on sites. This was achieved by exploring, on the one hand, the relationship between the personality traits of individual workers and their safety behaviour (safety participation, safety compliance and safety motivation), and incident rates on the other. The data for the analysis was drawn from multi-cultural construction workers in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the Big Five personality model has been widely accepted as a valid and reasonably generalisable taxonomy for personality structure and has been used by numerous researchers as a framework to explore the criterion-related validity of personality in relation to job performance. This study employed the Big Five categorisation of traits to explore the relationship between fundamental dimensions of personality and potential for involvement in accidents and incidents. The principal findings from the study showed a very good level of acceptance by practitioners in Saudi Arabia for the conceptual framework developed for managing safety behaviour. The study also established that some personality traits moderated the effects of safety behaviour for incident rates. In addition, the analysis revealed that individual workers characterised by conscientiousness and openness are least likely to experience incidents, and consequently, accidents and injuries at work. However, individuals characterised by high extraversion, neuroticism and low agreeableness are more likely to be v involved in incidents, and potentially, accidents and injuries. These important findings have significant ramifications for the way safety development and training for construction workers should be addressed in the future. Recommendations from the study culminated in the development of a conceptual framework for improving safety performance which aimed to minimize incidents attributable to the worker. The framework relies on the attitudes and behaviours of employees in proposing mitigation strategies for the construction industry.

This dissertation focuses on occupational risk communication created by grantees of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration\'s Susan Harwood Training Grant (SHTG) Program. Although the SHTG program is aimed at workers in most high-hazard industries, I focus on occupational risk communication developed for residential construction workers, who remain the most at-risk for on-the-job injuries and fatalities. In 2011 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), 721 construction workers died in work-related accidents (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). In this study, I relied primarily on two research methods: context-sensitive text analysis of deliverables created by twelve SHTG program grantees from 2006-2009 and interviews with representatives of four of these twelve grantees. The findings from this research illustrate the complexity of creating occupational risk communication in grant-related institutional settings. Although the process might seem straightforward, it is composed of twelve milestones, each of which can result in difficulties for the final deliverables. Grantees are asked to create safety training deliverables that includes principles of active workplace learning; however, qualitative analysis of these deliverables indicates that such principles are rarely enacted. Instead, the deliverables are marked by an emphasis on technical language, as well as by death-focused justification strategies that scare trainees into following the guidelines being presented. Each of these characteristics can alienate audiences of varied linguistic and cultural backgrounds, such as those found in the construction industry. / Ph. D.

This thesis presents the design and analysis of a vest-worn alerting system with the purpose of warning those who wear it. The goal of this thesis has been shaped around roadside construction workers, people who endeavor to build and maintain the roadways in highly noisy and dangerous environments. Our goal is to determine what type of alerting method best interrupts the worker, allowing him or her to know that danger approaches. Multiple alerting methods will be compared via reaction time and user data derived through critical incidents from the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) and notification-focused questionnaires. All testing is done in a simulated noisy environment. Each of these alerting methods involve combinations of auditory, visual, or haptic components. At the end of this thesis, the different alerting methods will be compared and a mode will be suggested for wearable notification activities. The work proposed in this thesis focuses mostly on vest design and alert testing for construction-based scenarios, but the work can be extended to police and highway worker scenarios. / Master of Science