Work-in-progress on a thin IEEE1451.0 - architecture to implement reconfigurable Weblab infrastructures

Institutions have been creating their own specific weblab infrastructures. Usually, they use distinct software and hardware architectures comprehending instruments and modules (I&M) able to be parameterized but difficult to be shared. These aspects are impairing their widespread in education, since collaboration between institutions, in developing and sharing resources, is still low. To handle both aspects, this paper proposes the adoption of the IEEE1451.0 Std. with FPGA technology for creating reconfigurable weblab infrastructures. It is suggested the adoption of an IEEE1451.0 infrastructure with compatible instruments, described in Hardware Description Languages (HDL), to be reconfigured in FPGA-based boards. Besides an overview of the IEEE1451.0 Std., this paper presents a solution currently under development which seeks to enable the reconfiguration and the remote control of weblab infrastructures using a set of IEEE1451.0 HTTP commands.

Occupational risk in a glass manufacturing industry unit

Risk assessment is one of the main pillars of the framework directive and other directives in respect of health and safety. It is also the basis of an effective management of safety and health as it is essential to reduce work-related accidents and occupational diseases. To survey the hazards eventually present in the workplaces the usual procedures are i) gathering information about tasks/activities, employees, equipment, legislation and standards; ii) observation of the tasks and; iii) quantification of respective risks through the most adequate risk assessment among the methodologies available. From this preliminary evaluation of a welding plant and, from the different measurable parameters, noise was considered the most critical. This paper focus not only the usual way of risk assessment for noise but also another approach that may allow us to identify the technique with which a weld is being performed.

Identificação, avaliação e controlo de riscos numa empresa da indústria dos colchões

Relatório de Estágio

Análise às Condições de Segurança e Saúde no Trabalho em Pedreiras

Dissertação de Mestrado em Gestão Integrada da Qualidade, Ambiente e Segurança

A problemática da higiene, segurança e saúde no trabalho em contexto hospitalar

Dissertação de Mestrado em Gestão Integrada da Qualidade, Ambiente e Segurança

Simulador para apoio ao ensino do código da estrada

Uma das ambições da sociedade atual é a obtenção da carta de condução, havendo cada vez mais jovens a tirar a sua carta mal atingem a idade mínima necessária. Muitos destes jovens envolvem-se em acidentes rodoviários, provavelmente devido à sua inexperiência e ao seu estilo de vida. Dados os problemas de inexperiência foi realizado um estudo de forma a averiguar se seria possível desenvolver uma ferramenta de modo a contribuir para uma melhoria do ensino do código da estrada, ajudando os atuais e futuros candidatos a condutor a sentirem-se mais bem preparados para quando adquirirem as suas licenças de condução. O objetivo principal do presente estudo focou-se no desenvolvimento de uma solução capaz de simular situações de trânsito permitindo ao instrutor de condução alterar os componentes da simulação, como veículos e sinalização, permitindo a criação de múltiplas situações de trânsito demonstrando aos seus alunos o modo correto de proceder quando confrontados com situações semelhantes. No final são apresentadas as conclusões retiradas do presente estudo, onde são retiradas as conclusões principais da analisa de resultados efetuada, permitindo verificar que a ferramenta desenvolvida é interessante para uma melhoria do ensino atual do código da estrada. No fim são apresentadas as perspetivas de trabalho futuro.

Acidentes de trabalho com exposição biológica em contexto hospitalar

Dissertação de Mestrado em Gestão Integrada da Qualidade, Ambiente e Segurança

Defining risk acceptance criteria in occupational settings: A case study in the furniture industrial sector

The use of appropriate acceptance criteria in the risk assessment process for occupational accidents is an important issue but often overlooked in the literature, particularly when new risk assessment methods are proposed and discussed. In most cases, there is no information on how or by whom they were defined, or even how companies can adapt them to their own circumstances. Bearing this in mind, this study analysed the problem of the definition of risk acceptance criteria for occupational settings, defining the quantitative acceptance criteria for the specific case study of the Portuguese furniture industrial sector. The key steps to be considered in formulating acceptance criteria were analysed in the literature review. By applying the identified steps, the acceptance criteria for the furniture industrial sector were then defined. The Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) for the injury statistics of the industrial sector was identified as the maximum tolerable risk level. The acceptable threshold was defined by adjusting the CDF to the Occupational, Safety & Health (OSH) practitioners’ risk acceptance judgement. Adjustments of acceptance criteria to the companies’ safety cultures were exemplified by adjusting the Burr distribution parameters. An example of a risk matrix was also used to demonstrate the integration of the defined acceptance criteria into a risk metric. This work has provided substantial contributions to the issue of acceptance criteria for occupational accidents, which may be useful in overcoming the practical difficulties faced by authorities, companies and experts.

The influence of task design on upper limb muscles fatigue during low-load repetitive work: A systematic review

Ergonomic interventions such as increased scheduled breaks or job rotation have been proposed to reduce upper limb muscle fatigue in repetitive low-load work. This review was performed to summarize and analyze the studies investigating the effect of job rotation and work-rest schemes, as well as, work pace, cycle time and duty cycle, on upper limb muscle fatigue. The effects of these work organization factors on subjective fatigue or discomfort were also analyzed. This review was based on relevant articles published in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. The studies included in this review were performed in humans and assessed muscle fatigue in upper limbs. 14 articles were included in the systematic review. Few studies were performed in a real work environment and the most common methods used to assess muscle fatigue were surface electromyography (EMG). No consistent results were found related to the effects of job rotation on muscle activity and subjective measurements of fatigue. Rest breaks had some positive effects, particularly in perceived discomfort. The increase in work pace reveals a higher muscular load in specific muscles. The duration of experiments and characteristics of participants appear to be the factors that most have influenced the results. Future research should be focused on the improvement of the experimental protocols and instrumentation, in order to the outcomes represent adequately the actual working conditions. Relevance to industry: Introducing more physical workload variation in low-load repetitive work is considered an effective ergonomic intervention against muscle fatigue and musculoskeletal disorders in industry. Results will be useful to identify the need of future research, which will eventually lead to the adoption of best industrial work practices according to the workers capabilities.

Power Law Behavior and Self-similarity in Modern Industrial Accidents

Advances in technology have produced more and more intricate industrial systems, such as nuclear power plants, chemical centers and petroleum platforms. Such complex plants exhibit multiple interactions among smaller units and human operators, rising potentially disastrous failure, which can propagate across subsystem boundaries. This paper analyzes industrial accident data-series in the perspective of statistical physics and dynamical systems. Global data is collected from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) during the time period from year 1903 up to 2012. The statistical distributions of the number of fatalities caused by industrial accidents reveal Power Law (PL) behavior. We analyze the evolution of the PL parameters over time and observe a remarkable increment in the PL exponent during the last years. PL behavior allows prediction by extrapolation over a wide range of scales. In a complementary line of thought, we compare the data using appropriate indices and use different visualization techniques to correlate and to extract relationships among industrial accident events. This study contributes to better understand the complexity of modern industrial accidents and their ruling principles.

Semi-Partitioned Scheduling of Fork-Join Tasks using Work-Stealing

13th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC 2015). 21 to 23, Oct, 2015, Session W1-A: Multiprocessing and Multicore Architectures. Porto, Portugal.

Towards the Combination of Work-Stealing and Semi-Partitioned Scheduling for Parallel Tasks

Paper/Poster presented in Work in Progress Session, 28th GI/ITG International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS 2015). 24 to 26, Mar, 2015. Porto, Portugal.

Towards the Combination of Work-Stealing and Semi-Partitioned Scheduling for Parallel Tasks

Poster presented in Work in Progress Session, 28th GI/ITG International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS 2015). 24 to 26, Mar, 2015. Porto, Portugal.

Proposta de modelo para obtenção do Work Index das rochas

Este trabalho pretende estabelecer uma relação entre o Work Index e algumas propriedades das rochas. Através da pesquisa bibliográfica foram identificadas varias propriedades com possível influência no valor do Work Index, das quais foram seleccionadas a massa volúmica aparente, a resistência à carga pontual, a composição química, a composição mineralógica e a abrasividade. Adicionalmente a porosidade aberta e resistência à compressão também foram analisadas. Assim foram analisadas 10 amostras de rocha, quatro de granitos, uma de quartzodiorito, uma de ardósia, uma de serpentinito, uma de calcário, uma de mármore e uma de sienito nefelínico, sobre as quais já eram conhecidos os valores de cinco das propriedades referidas previamente, tendo sido determinados os valores das ainda desconhecidas, resistência à carga pontual e a abrasividade que está representada através do resultado do ensaio capon. Devido à dificuldade de execução do ensaio de determinação do Work Index de Bond foram recolhidos dados bibliográficos de valores do Work Index para as amostras de rocha seleccionadas e adoptado o valor médio para cada uma. Os dados obtidos foram tratados estatisticamente através do método de análise de componentes principais assim como através de regressões lineares simples e múltiplas. A análise de componentes principais permitiu identificar várias propriedades da rocha com possível influência sobre o Work Index de entre as analisadas. Foi possível estabelecer uma relação entre o Work Index e quatro das propriedades seleccionadas, designadamente a porosidade aberta, a resistência à compressão, a resistência à carga pontual e a abrasividade.