Injury count model for quantification of risk of occupational injury

Reduction of risk of occupational injuries is one of the most challenging problems faced by industry. Assessing and comparing risks involved in different jobs is one of the important steps towards reducing injury risk. In this study, a comprehensive scheme is given for assessing and comparing injury risks with the development of injury count model, injury risk model and derived statistics. The hazards present in a work system and the nature of the job carried out by workers are perceived as important drivers of injury potential of a work system. A loglinear model is used to quantify injury counts and the event-tree approach with joint, marginal and conditional probabilities is used to quantify injury risk. A case study was carried out in an underground coal mine. Finally a number of indices are proposed for the case study mine to capture risk of injury in different jobs. The findings of this study will help in designing injury intervention strategies for the mine studied. The job-wise risk profiles will be used to prioritise the jobs for redesign. The absolute indices can be applied for benchmarking job-wise risks and the relative indices can be used for comparing job-wise risks across work systems.     

The safety attitudes of people who use multi-purpose recreation facilities as a physical activity setting

Multi-purpose recreation facilities (MPRFs) are a popular setting for physical activity and it is therefore important that they are safe for all patrons. However, the attitudes of MPRF users towards safety are a potential barrier to the success of injury prevention programmes implemented within MPRFs. This article reports a survey of the safety attitudes of over 700 users of four indoor MPRFs. Factor analysis of 12 five-point Likert scale statements showed that the attitudes clustered around three major dimensions - the importance of safety, the benefits of safety and the perceptions of injury risk. Together, these three dimensions accounted for 49% of the variability in the attitudes. More than 85% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that: safety was an important aspect of physical activity participation; being injured affected enjoyment of physical activity; people should adopt appropriate safety measures for all physical activity; and individuals were responsible for their own safety. The MPRF users, particularly women and older people, were generally safety conscious, believed in adopting safety measures, and were willing to take responsibility for their own safety. Facility managers can be confident that if they provide evidence-based injury prevention interventions in these settings, then users will respond appropriately and adopt the promoted behaviours.     

Impact of IT Service Management Frameworks on the IT Organization

Over 90 percent of companies are estimated to use IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks, yet there is little research on their benefits to the Information Technology (IT) department and the business units. An international survey of 491 firms was conducted to assess the benefits of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the de-facto ITSM framework, specifically on how these benefits evolve as companies increase their adoption of the ITIL model. Also studied are the perception of challenges of the implementation and the number of ITIL processes implemented in relation to the progress of the adoption of ITIL. Results indicate that as the maturity of implementation increases, the perception of challenges decreases. Findings also show that as the maturity of implementation increases, the number of realized benefits increases, as well as the number of implemented ITIL processes. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.     

Consumer demand for nutrition versus taste in four major food categories

This study addresses the trade‐off between nutrition and taste in expenditure on breakfast cereal, milk, bread, and soft drinks. Within each category, products have similar cost and convenience, but have markedly different flavor and nutritional content. Using annual expenditure data for a large sample of households participating in the ACNielsen Homescan system, we regress a measure of “healthiness” on household demographics and market prices, and find that households with college‐educated heads and higher incomes made significantly healthier choices in all four categories. These effects are puzzling in that the nutritional differences between products were well known to consumers, and there are no cost or convenience differences between them. The presence of children was associated with less healthy choices, especially for cereal and bread, while older households made healthier choices in all categories except milk.     

Methods and tools for integrated assessment of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries

For stimulating sustainable development in developing countries, land use patterns and land use changes are considered critical, and therefore effective and efficient land use policies are needed. In this paper we present a methodological framework that has been developed in a joint European and developing countries project (LUPIS – Land Use Policies and Sustainable Development in Developing Countries), to assess the impact of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries. An illustrative application is presented for a case study in China, where water pollution due to agriculture in Taihu Basin is a major problem.