Abstract The objectives of the study were to evaluate factors associated with work ability and musculoskeletal symptoms among food industry workers, to evaluate thermal and neuromuscular responses during repetitive work in the cold and to find out whether cold-induced deterioration in neuromuscular function can be prevented by using additional torso heating or altering work intensity during repetitive work at 4 °C. A questionnaire study (1,117 respondents) and measurements of physical work strain (18 subjects) were performed among workers in food-processing industry. The impact of changes of ambient temperature (16 subjects) and work intensity (8 subjects) on thermal responses and neuromuscular function was evaluated during repetitive work in laboratory conditions. The results from the questionnaire study indicated that self-assessed poor work ability and musculoskeletal symptoms were associated with impaired individual health resources and work-related factors, including higher number of years working in the cold, experience of draught and body cooling at work. Measurements during repetitive work in cold food-processing facilities showed that muscular strain was localized in forearm muscles. Laboratory studies showed that compared with 19 °C, repetitive work at 4 °C increased muscular strain in forearm and upper arm extensors significantly only in men, although the level of muscular strain remained lower and mean skin temperature higher compared with women. Working at 4 °C indicated more continuous activation of the working muscles compared with work at 19 °C. By intermittently increasing the workload at 4 °C the more continuous activation could be counteracted, thus leading to lower strain and fatigue of the working muscles. Additional torso heating did not affect muscular strain of the working muscles at 4 °C. In conclusion, the results indicate a multifactorial feature of work ability and musculoskeletal symptoms among workers in food-processing industry. Gender affects both thermal and neuromuscular responses, which should be considered in the area of work demands and work organization in cold conditions. Altering work intensity could be considered beneficial for reducing muscular strain during repetitive work in cold conditions.

Staying when everyone else flees – an interview study with experienced social workers on coping strategies and organizational conditions Earlier studies in the field have described a complicated situation with high turnover and recruitment problems within the Swedish social services. The aim of this study was to investigate and get an understanding of how social workers within child protective services cope with challenges in their work and what organizational factors at their place of work that affects their intention to stay. Six social workers with a minimum of three years of experience were interviewed. The empirical material was analysed using a hermeneutic approach with coping and sense of coherence as a theoretical ground. The most important factors for the social workers’ intention to stay were their own experience as a way to cope with the workload, support from their colleagues and from their superiors. The discussion highlights the importance of experience in coping with workload as well as for supporting newly educated social workers.

Les variables neurovégétatives permettent d’évaluer l’état fonctionnel de l’individu, et représentent un intérêt pour mieux comprendre le comportement du conducteur, facteur déterminant de la sécurité routière. Ce travail est centré sur l’évaluation de la charge mentale du conducteur automobile par l’analyse de l’activité électrodermale. L’objectif est d’extraire les meilleurs indicateurs du signal électrodermal pour différencier la charge mentale induite par des situations de conduite réelle. L’analyse d’une trentaine d’indicateurs phasiques a permis de différencier des situations de conduite nominale, comparables en termes d’exigence comportementale mais différentes au niveau cognitif. Après traitement approprié du signal, en particulier en appliquant des transformations log, l’amplitude des réponses électrodermales est apparue comme un des indices les plus discriminants. Toutefois, les différences de charge mentale induites par les situations de conduite n’ont pas exactement correspondu à celles qui avaient été supposées. Une explication alternative mettant en avant des processus d’anticipation est proposée. Trois indicateurs toniques, dont deux sont nouveaux, ont ensuite été testés dans une expérience de double tâche, où une activité secondaire distractive était effectuée simultanément à la conduite. L’un s’est révélé inadapté au profil des signaux, mais les deux autres ont permis d’établir une hiérarchisation partielle de la surcharge induite. Particulièrement sensible à l’aspect cognitif de la distraction, l’évaluation psychophysiologique de la charge mentale par l’activité électrodermale apparaît complémentaire de l’analyse de la performance de conduite. / As an assessment tool for individual’s functional state, autonomic indices can help improving our knowledge of drivers’ behaviour, which is a central road safety causal factor. This work is focused on driver’s mental workload assessment, relying on electrodermal activity analysis. This is an attempt to highlight the most reliable electrodermal indices with the aim to distinguish accurately mental workload elicited by actual driving situations. The analysis of about thirty phasic indices, led to differentiate nominal driving situations. These were selected on the basis of comparable behavioural requirements, but of differences cognitive processes. After appropriate signal processing, (using log transformations in particular), electrodermal responses amplitude has the most potential to distinguish among experimental conditions. However, some of the differences about mental workload were not exactly those which were previously expected. An alternative interpretation of results highlighting anticipation processes is thus proposed. Tonic variations were then studied in a dual task experiment, including two new indices. The distractive power of several secondary tasks, performed while driving, was to be evaluated using these indices. One of the indices was unrelated to signals’ profile. Conversely, the two others gave a clear distinction of potential distraction elicited selectively by each secondary task. Mental workload was thus showed as being evaluated accurately using electrodermal activity analysis. Using objective physiological data and defining new electrodermal indices brought more reliability in the field of mental workload. Thus, electrodermal activity is a good candidate to complete data usually brought by tests or questionnaires.

Les situations de collaboration à distance dans l’industrie induisent de nouvelles contraintes pour les opérateurs. Dans le contexte de l’utilisation d’environnements virtuels collaboratifs immersifs, nous avons mis en place une série d’études portant sur la compréhension mutuelle, et plus particulièrement au partage d’information de nature spatiale. Les résultats de la première étude ont permis de mettre en évidence l’influence du rôle des participants, guides ou manipulateurs, sur les énoncés spatialisés. Les énoncés étaient centrés préférentiellement sur l’action du manipulateur, suggérant la recherche d’un moindre effort collaboratif. Les résultats de deux études sur la production d’énoncés spatialisés ont permis d’identifier que l’exigence mentale pour la production d’énoncés est modulée notamment par la position de la cible à décrire par rapport au destinataire. En effet, selon la position de la cible, le locuteur doit opérer ou non des transformations mentales coûteuses pour prendre la perspective du destinataire. Cet effort peut être amoindri en présence d’indices visuels distaux. La dernière étude, portant sur la compréhension d’énoncés spatialisés, a permis de mettre en évidence que les énoncés centrés sur le destinataire sont les plus simples à comprendre pour une tâche de nature égocentrée. Certains énoncés exocentrés induisent également une moindre exigence mentale, mais uniquement selon certaines conditions. Les résultats sont discutés selon le principe du moindre effort collaboratif et la théorie des cadres de référence. Ce travail a permis de proposer des pistes de développement pour faciliter la collaboration à distance dans les environnements virtuels. / Remote collaborative situations in industry involve new constraints for workers. In the context of using immersive virtual environments to collaborate, we set up a series of experiments focusing on the mutual comprehension, and more specifically on the process of sharing spatial information. Results of the first experiment showed the influence of one collaborator’s role on spatial statements. Guides and manipulators both used statements preferentially centered on manipulator’s action, which supports the least collaborative effort principle. Results of two experiments about spatial statements production allowed to point out that mental workload is modulated by the target position relative to the addressee. According to the target location, the speaker must operate or not cognitively costly mental transformations to take the addressee perspective. However this workload could be lowered by means of visual cues. The last experiment focused on the understanding of spatial statements. It showed that statements centered on the addressee are the easiest to understand when the task is also centered on the addressee. Some exocentered statements could also induce a lower mental workload but only in some conditions. Results are discussed in relation to the least collaborative effort principle and the spatial frames of reference theory. This work opens new leads to facilitate remote collaboration through virtual environments.

Bakgrund: Stress är ett vanligt förekommande problem inom vården och grundas i underbemanning samt hög arbetsbelastning. Sjuksköterskans tid med patienter påverkas av dessa faktorer. Relationen mellan sjuksköterskan och patienten utgör grunden för vårdandet. Relationen påverkas genom stress i sjuksköterskans arbete som leder till att patienter inte blir sedda eller bekräftade. Sjuksköterskan har ett ansvar att se till helheten hos patienten. Stress kan resultera i en försämrad vårdmiljö samt arbetsmiljö. Sjuksköterskan påverkas emotionellt av dessa faktorer vilket kan leda till utbrändhet och avsikt att lämna professionen, samt leda till försämrad omvårdnadskvalitet och patientsäkerhet. Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva sjuksköterskans upplevelser av otillräcklighet i vårdandet när sjuksköterskan påverkas av stress. Metod: En systematisk litteraturöversikt är vald och innefattar både kvalitativa och kvantitativa artiklar. Resultat: I resultatet framkom tre teman, dessa var bristande tid, dokumentationens inverkan samt sjuksköterskans välbefinnande. Slutsats: Sjuksköterskans stressiga arbetsmiljö behöver reduceras för att sjuksköterskan ska ha möjlighet att uppnå sina omvårdnadsmål och därmed uppleva sig nöjd med vårdandet. Underbemanning, hög arbetsbelastning och tidsbrist är faktorer som påverkar vårdandet och resulterar i försämrad omvårdnad samt patientsäkerhet. Detta påverkar även sjuksköterskan fysiskt och psykiskt. / Background: Stress is a common problem in nursing care, based on understaffing and high workload. The nurse’s time with patients are affected by these factors. The relationship between the nurse and the patient is the basis in nursing care. The relationship is affected by the stress in nurse’s work leading to patients not being seen or confirmed. Nurses have a responsibility to ensure patient’s integrity. Stress can result in a deterioration of care environment and work environment. Nurses are affected by this emotionally, leading to burnout and intention to leave the profession and may result in deterioration in quality of care and patient safety. Aim: The aim of this study is to describe nurses’ experiences of inadequacy in nursing care when the nurse is affected by stress. Method: A systematic literature review is selected and include qualitative and quantitative articles. Findings: The findings revealed three themes: lack of time, the impact of documentation and the nurse’s well—being. Conclusions: Nurse’s stressful work environment needs to be reduced to achieve optimal nursing care and so that they can feel satisfied with their care. Understaffing, high workload and lack of time are factors that affect nursing care and results in deteriorated care and patient safety. This also affects the nurse physically and mentally.

This work is focused on the workload management of data warehouses based on Teradata technologies using Active System Management architecture. Objectives of this work are to characterize and analyze Active System Management architecture and types of rules, used in the workload management of Teradata data warehouses. These objectives have been achieved by a search of available resources and their subsequent analysis. Informations obtained from the analysis were empirically verified on a particular instance of a data warehouse and their synthesis is presented in this work The contributions of this work are in the documentation of technology that is currently not well known and widespread in the Czech Republic. Another contribution is identification of risks, drawbacks and presentation of recommendations in the workload management using Active System Management based on empirical tests. The repeatable implementation procedure based on induction has been proposed in the work. Maturity of the architecture for a production environment is evaluated. The work is hierarchically divided into several chapters that are dedicated to Teradata database technologies, workload management, Active System Management and implementation procedure. The first three chapters are focused on theory, however, they also contain practical informations related to the processed theory. The latter chapter is focused practically, therein is designed a repeatable Active System Management architecture implementation procedure.

Esta tese apresenta a caracterização de desempenho dos serviços executados em um ambiente em nuvem, quando são consideradas rajadas de diferentes origens, intensidades e variabilidades nas cargas de trabalho. Os resultados mostram que a presença de rajadas no processo de chegada das requisições e/ou nas demandas de serviço, ocasiona uma considerável degradação no desempenho dos serviços e, portanto, devem ser consideradas nos modelos de cargas de trabalhos e nas atividades voltadas para avaliação de desempenho em computação em nuvem. Considerando-se a grande influência das rajadas, é proposta e validada uma metodologia que permite monitorar uma carga de trabalho e determinar a ocorrência de rajadas tanto nas taxas de chegadas de requisições quanto nas demandas de serviços. A metodologia utilizada na condução deste trabalho consta de diferentes modelos de cargas de trabalho com rajadas de diferentes variabilidades e intensidades, desenvolvidos e integrados à arquitetura CloudSim-BEQoS proposta nesta tese. Utilizando-se essa arquitetura é possível executar um conjunto de experimentos que possibilitam a obtenção dos resultados que caracterizam o desempenho dos serviços quando são criadas condições de rajadas nas cargas de trabalho submetidas à nuvem. / This thesis presents the performance characterization of the services executed in a cloud environment, when bursts are considered from different sources, intensity and variability in the workload. The results show that the presence of bursts in the arrival process of requests and/or in service demands, causes a significant degradation in the performance of services and therefore should belong to the models of workloads and in the activities considered for performance evaluation in cloud computing. Considering the great influence of bursts, a methodology to monitor a workload and predict the occurrence of bursts in both the rates of request arrivals and the service demands is proposed and validated. The methodology used in the conduction of this work consists in different types of workloads with bursts of different variability and intensity, developed and integrated into the CloudSim-BEQoS architecture proposed in this thesis. By using this architecture it is possible to execute a set of experiments that enable the achievement of the results that characterize the performance of services when bursts conditions are created in the workload submitted to the cloud.

Thesis ( MPH.) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / The purpose of the study was to find out factors associated with occupational stress among nurses working in clinics in Gaborone. The study was conducted in Gaborone district targeting all primary healthcare clinics. The specific focus was drawn to all registered nurses working in clinics in Gaborone. The objective of the study was to investigate factors associated with occupational stress among nurses working in clinics in Gaborone. A quantitative study was carried out in this study. A sample of 106 respondents was used in the study. Purposive sampling was employed to select respondents that were included in the study. Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire which comprised of close and open ended questions. Informed consent was obtained from the participants who participated in the study. The study revealed that a higher percentage (74%) of nurses have ever experienced occupational stress. The results also revealed that females 80 percent respondents experienced stress compared to their male counterparts. The results also show that all of the respondents mentioned that they had experienced stress related to work. Respondents also mentioned that work relationship, shortage of staff, and workload contribute to stress among the nurses. On the other hand, the results of the study also found that staff welfare issues also contribute to stress among the nurses. These include lack of recognition, no personal growth, lack of support and unfriendly work environment. From the results most of the respondents indicated that there are no interventions dealing with stress in the workplace therefore the study recommends that interventions in the workplace needs to be introduced to address occupational stress among the nurse. Furthermore there is a need to create wellness programs, reduce work overload and motivate staff by promotions and other means in order to increase level of job satisfaction.

abstract: Despite the prevalence of teams in complex sociotechnical systems, current approaches to understanding workload tend to focus on the individual operator. However, research suggests that team workload has emergent properties and is not necessarily equivalent to the aggregate of individual workload. Assessment of communications provides a means of examining aspects of team workload in highly interdependent teams. This thesis set out to explore how communications are associated with team workload and performance under high task demand in all-human and human–autonomy teams in a command and control task. A social network analysis approach was used to analyze the communications of 30 different teams, each with three members operating in a command and control task environment of over a series of five missions. Teams were assigned to conditions differentiated by their composition with either a naïve participant, a trained confederate, or a synthetic agent in the pilot role. Social network analysis measures of centralization and intensity were used to assess differences in communications between team types and under different levels of demand, and relationships between communication measures, performance, and workload distributions were also examined. Results indicated that indegree centralization was greater in the all-human control teams than in the other team types, but degree centrality standard deviation and intensity were greatest in teams with a highly trained experimenter pilot. In all three team types, the intensity of communications and degree centrality standard deviation appeared to decrease during the high demand mission, but indegree and outdegree centralization did not. Higher communication intensity was associated with more efficient target processing and more successful target photos per mission, but a clear relationship between measures of performance and decentralization of communications was not found. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Human Systems Engineering 2020

Barnmorskors arbete inom förlossningsvården innebär ofta en nära kontakt med den födande kvinnan, och barnmorskan har kompetens att självständigt bedöma när en situation under förlossningsarbetet avviker från det normala samt förestå en handlingsberedskap för komplikationer och akuta situationer. Svåra händelser kan påverka barnmorskan emotionellt, och syftet med studien är att utforska hur barnmorskor upplever svåra situationer inom förlossningsvården, samt vilket stöd de får i samband med detta. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med sex barnmorskor som hade minst tre års erfarenhet från arbete på förlossningsavdelning. Intervjuerna analyserades enligt kvalitativ innehållsanalys med induktiv ansats. Tre huvudkategorier framkom i resultatet med åtta underkategorier Huvudkategorierna är: Att hantera det som känns svårt, Att utsättas för psykisk påfrestning, En utsatthet i relation till professionen. Att handlägga en förlossning är ett stort ansvar, och barnmorskor belyste situationer då de upplevt oro inför det som hände eller kunde ha hänt. Barnmorskorna betonade vikten av stöd både från chefer och kollegor i samband med svåra situationer, samt efterfrågade tid till samtal med kollegor och chefer eller handledning med extern gruppledare.