Safe Contiki OS: Type and Memory Safety for Contiki OS

Embedded systems, especially Wireless Sensor Nodes are highly prone to Type Safety and Memory Safety issues. Contiki, a prominent Operating System in the domain is even more affected by the problem since it makes extensive use of Type casts and Pointers. The work is an attempt to nullify the possibility of Safety violations in Contiki. We use a powerful, still efficient tool called Deputy to achieve this. We also try to automate the process

Safe Contiki OS: Type and Memory Safety for Contiki OS

Embedded systems, especially Wireless Sensor Nodes are highly prone to Type Safety and Memory Safety issues. Contiki, a prominent Operating System in the domain is even more affected by the problem since it makes extensive use of Type casts and Pointers. The work is an attempt to nullify the possibility of Safety violations in Contiki. We use a powerful, still efficient tool called Deputy to achieve this. We also try to automate the process

Supporting co-operative work in apron control and resource management offices on airports

A high demand exists to increase the efficiency of present airport ground facilities and the co-ordination of traffic and services. The Traffic Office plays a crucial role in managing the airport. The main tasks of the Traffic Office is management of equipment, services, and ressources based on the flight schedule and resolving conflicts arising from deviations from the schedule. A new tool will support information exchange between Traffic Office and other facilities on the airport.

Decent work?

Pastoralism and ranching are two different rangeland-based livestock systems in dryland areas of East Africa. Both usually operate under low and irregular rainfall and consequently low overall primary biomass production of high spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Both are usually located far from town centres, market outlets and communication, medical, educational, banking, insurance and other infrastructure. Whereas pastoralists can be regarded as self-employed, gaining their livelihood from managing their individually owned livestock on communal land, ranches mostly employ herders as wage labourers to manage the livestock owned by the ranch on the ranches’ own land property. Both production systems can be similarly labour intensive and – with regard to the livestock management – require the same type of work, whether carried out as self-employed pastoralist or as employed herder on a work contract. Given this similarity, the aim of this study was to comparatively assess how pastoralists and employed herders in northern Kenya view their working conditions, and which criteria they use to assess hardship and rewards in their daily work and their working life. Their own perception is compared with the concept of Decent Work developed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Samburu pastoralists in Marsabit and Samburu Districts as well as herders on ranches in Laikipia District were interviewed. A qualitative analysis of 47 semi-structured interviews yielded information about daily activities, income, free time, education and social security. Five out of 22 open interviews with pastoralists and seven out of 13 open interviews with employed herders fully transcribed and subjected to qualitative content analysis to yield life stories of 12 informants. Pastoralists consider it important to have healthy and satisfied animals. The ability to provide food for their family especially for the children has a high priority. Hardships for the pastoralists are, if activities are exhausting, and challenging, and dangerous. For employed herders, decent conditions are if their wages are high enough to be able to provide food for their family and formal education for their children. It is further most important for them to do work they are experienced and skilled in. Most employed herders were former pastoralists, who had lost their animals due to drought or raids. There are parallels between the ILO ‘Decent Work’ concept and the perception of working conditions of pastoralists and employed herders. These are, for example, that remuneration is of importance and the appreciation by either the employer or the community is desired. Some aspects that are seen as important by the ILO such as safety at work and healthy working conditions only play a secondary role to the pastoralists, who see risky and dangerous tasks as inherent characteristics of their efforts to gain a livelihood in their living environment.

Laser Health and Safety Interactive Video

This short video is designed to make you think about the safety aspects of working with lasers within laser laboratories. Postgraduates and research fellows work with many different types of lasers in a variety of different experimental conditions. These lasers are often more powerful than those used as an undergraduate and require additional safety practices. The video was demonstrated to the EUNIS 2008 conference Aarhus, Denmark, and was a finalist in the Dorup E-Learning Award.

Contribuyendo al reto de la sostenibilidad: el sistema producto- servicio en la industria de la moda rápida

El presente proyecto de grado se inscribe bajo el proyecto de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial de la línea de investigación de Realidad Empresarial de la Facultad de Administración de la Universidad del Rosario. El problema de investigación surge de dos problemas actuales, que convergen en la insostenibilidad a largo y mediano plazo de la manera en que se hacen la mayoría de los negocios hoy en día. El primer problema, es el de suficiencia, se evidencia desde el punto de vista del consumidor, el cual pareciera estar diseñado para comprar y acumular objetos y cosas que luego de un tiempo irán a parar a la basura. El segundo problema es el modelo de negocio que extrae recursos, los transforma, los comercializa de manera repetitiva y obliga al cliente a seguir comprando, olvidando que la mayoría de cosas que produce, terminan en el basurero. La deficiencia actual del consumismo insostenible y del diseño que no piensa en las generaciones futuras son dos caras de la misma moneda. Por eso es que se estudia el problema desde la perspectiva tanto del consumidor, como del productor. Las tendencias internacionales relacionadas con la sostenibilidad están llevando a los negocios por una nueva senda, la cual les dará ventajas competitivas a los adoptadores tempranos. A raíz de los problemas planteados y con el objetivo de encontrar la sostenibilidad empresarial, se estudia una posible solución para cada actor del problema. Por el lado del consumidor, se analiza la teoría que gira alrededor del consumo responsable y de cómo los consumidores tienen el poder de causar un efecto positivo con lo que mejor saben hacer: comprando (y eligiendo que comprar). Por el lado del productor se estudia un nuevo modelo de negocios llamado el sistema producto-servicio, el cual se enfoca a satisfacer necesidades de los clientes por medio de una combinación de prestación de servicios y facilitación de productos, en vez de la comercialización de estos. Es decir que en vez de vender cosas que los consumidores quieran acumular (problema de suficiencia), se les vende soluciones que satisfagan sus necesidades, reteniendo la compañía la propiedad sobre los productos que integran al servicio. Se estudia también de que maneras este modelo particular de sistemas producto-servicio puede ser recibido por los consumidores de hoy en día, tan acostumbrados al modelo actual. Se quiere explorar el sistema de productos y servicio como una alternativa empresarial perdurable que solucione los retos ambientales del siglo XXI. Para poder probar la viabilidad de este hipotético modelo que cambia los patrones de interacción de las empresas con los usuarios, se plantea una idea de negocio que integre productos y servicios para satisfacer las necesidades del cliente. Se escogió un área viii caracterizada por ser de las más consumistas y acumuladoras en cuanto al volumen de compras anual de los clientes: el negocio de la ropa. Y no solo cualquier tipo de ropa, sino el de la moda rápida, un modelo que obliga a los consumidores a comprar ropa con una frecuencia aún mayor. Se hizo esto con el objetivo de probar que el modelo propuesto puede funcionar inclusive bajo los supuestos más “consumistas” que existen hoy en día.

Aplicación del cuestionario nórdico para el análisis de síntomas musculoesqueleticos en trabajadores del Cuerpo Técnico de Policia Judicial: investigacion (CTI)

RESUMEN INTRODUCCION Los desórdenes musculoesqueléticos constituyen uno de los más comunes y costosos problemas de salud en el trabajo en todo el mundo. La detección a tiempo de síntomas iniciales debe ser una prioridad de los sistemas de vigilancia epidemiológica. El objetivo de este trabajo de investigación fue determinar la prevalencia de los desórdenes musculoesqueléticos (DME) en la población de funcionarios del cuerpo de policía judicial de Bogotá en el año 2014. MATERIALES Y METODOS Estudio de corte transversal con una muestra de 300 trabajadores a los que se les aplico el cuestionario Nórdico de Síntomas musculoesqueléticos. RESULTADOS Se encuesto al 33,9% de los trabajadores pertenecientes al cuerpo técnico de Policía Judicial de la Fiscalía General de la Nación en la ciudad de Bogotá. Los trabajadores evaluados tienen una edad promedio de 41,9 años, con un predominio del género femenino (54%), encontrándose que la mayoría de los que respondieron al cuestionario 87,66% (n=263) habían presentado algún síntoma musculoesqueléticos en los últimos 12 meses. Un hallazgo significativo fue la afectación cervical en el 53% (n=159) de los que reportaron sintomatología musculo esquelética. CONCLUSIONES La población perteneciente a la Policía Técnica Judicial en la ciudad de Bogotá presenta una alta prevalencia (87,66%) de síntomas que afectan al sistema musculoesquelético, principalmente comprometiendo las regiones de columna cervical, parte baja de la espalda y parte alta de la espalda, con una mayor afectación a las personas de género femenino.

Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.

An inspector's-eye view - The prospective enforcement of work-related fatality cases

This paper concerns the prospective implementation of the proposed 'corporate killing' offence. These proposals suggested that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)-the body currently responsible for regulating work-related health and safety issues-should handle cases in which a 'corporate killing' charge is a possibility. Relatively little attention has been paid to this issue of implementation. An empirical investigation was undertaken to assess the compatibility of the HSE's methodology and enforcement philosophy with the new offence. It was found that inspectors categorize themselves as enforcers of criminal law, see enforcement action as valuable and support the new offence, but disagree over its use. They also broadly supported the HSE taking responsibility for the new offence. This suggests that 'corporate killing' may not necessarily be incompatible with the HSE's modus operandi, and there may be positive reasons forgiving the HSE this responsibility.

Drivers' ratings of different components of their own driving skill: a greater illusion of superiority for skills that relate to accident involvement

Different components of driving skill relate to accident involvement in different ways. For instance, while hazard-perception skill has been found to predict accident involvement, vehicle-control skill has not. We found that drivers rated themselves superior to both their peers and the average driver on 18 components of driving skill (N = 181 respondents). These biases were greater for hazard-perception skills than for either vehicle-control skills or driving skill in general. Also, ratings of hazard-perception skill related to self-perceived safety after overall skill was controlled for. We suggest that although drivers appear to appreciate the role of hazard perception in safe driving, any safety benefit to be derived from this appreciation may be undermined by drivers' inflated opinions of their own hazard-perception skill. We also tested the relationship between illusory beliefs about driving skill and risk taking and looked at ways of manipulating drivers' illusory beliefs.

Are clinical documents optimised for patient safety? A critical analysis of patient safety outcomes using the EDA error model

Iatrogenic errors and patient safety in clinical processes are an increasing concern. The quality of process information in hardcopy or electronic form can heavily influence clinical behaviour and decision making errors. Little work has been undertaken to assess the safety impact of clinical process planning documents guiding the clinical actions and decisions. This paper investigates the clinical process documents used in elective surgery and their impact on latent and active clinical errors. Eight clinicians from a large health trust underwent extensive semi- structured interviews to understand their use of clinical documents, and their perceived impact on errors and patient safety. Samples of the key types of document used were analysed. Theories of latent organisational and active errors from the literature were combined with the EDA semiotics model of behaviour and decision making to propose the EDA Error Model. This model enabled us to identify perceptual, evaluation, knowledge and action error types and approaches to reducing their causes. The EDA error model was then used to analyse sample documents and identify error sources and controls. Types of knowledge artefact structures used in the documents were identified and assessed in terms of safety impact. This approach was combined with analysis of the questionnaire findings using existing error knowledge from the literature. The results identified a number of document and knowledge artefact issues that give rise to latent and active errors and also issues concerning medical culture and teamwork together with recommendations for further work.

The national food safety control system of China: a systematic review

In recent years, there have been increasing concerns over the safety of the Chinese food supply. Although many of these have only raised concern internally within China, several major food safety issues have had international repercussions. In response, China has implemented new food safety laws and management systems to improve its national food safety control system and reduce public and international concerns. This paper has describes and discusses the components of the Chinese system using the five key elements of a national food control system identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as essential for an effective system. The latest Chinese national food safety control has made significantly improvement on its regulation framework, however, more work need to be done on standards, law enforcement, and information exchange.