Hearing protectors: a dilemma involving acoustics and personal safety

This thesis is concerned with the optimising of hearing protector selection. A computer model was used to estimate the reduction in noise exposure and risk of occupational deafness provided by the wearing of hearing protectors in industrial noise spectra. The model was used to show that low attenuation hearing protectors con provide greater protection than high attenuation protectors if the high attenuation protectors ore not worn for the total duration of noise exposure; or not used by a small proportion of the population. The model was also used to show that high attenuation protectors will not necessarily provide significantly greater reduction in risk than low attenuation protectors if the population has been exposed to the noise for many years prior to the provision of hearing protectors. The effects of earplugs and earmuffs on the localisation of sounds were studied to determine whether high attenuation earmuffs are likely to have greater potential than the lower attenuation earplugs for affecting personal safety. Laboratory studies and experiments at a foundry with normal-hearing office employees and noise-exposed foundrymen who had some experience of wearing hearing protectors showed that although earplugs reduced the ability of the wearer to determine the direction of warning sounds, earmuffs produced more total angular error and more confusions between left and right. !t is concluded from the research findings that the key to the selection of hearing protectors is to be found in the provision of hearing protectors that can be worn for a very high percentage of the exposure time by a high percentage of the exposed population with the minimum effect on the personal safety of the wearers - the attenuation provided by the protection should be adequate but not a maximum value.

Autoconceito e capacidades fisicas de idosos depessivos e não depressivos participantes de um programa de atividade fisica de longa duração

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Agrupacions de defensa forestal de la comarca d'Osona : els joves voluntaris i el seu compromis amb el territori.

Treball que és fruit d'una investigació qualitativa sobre uns joves que, per motius diversos, es fan voluntaris de les agrupacions de defensa forestal de la comarca d'Osona i dediquen part del seu temps a protegir la natura de l'amenaça del foc i posen en joc la seva integritat física. És l'estudi del compromís d'uns joves amb el territori.

Talking to kids about prescription drug abuse, 2010

As a parent you’re concerned about your children’s health and well-being. You teach them about crossing the street safely and about personal safety. You talk with them about the risks of using tobacco, alcohol and other illegal drugs. But did you know that one of the fastest growing threats to youth today is the abuse of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs? Did you know that nearly one in five teens (19 percent or 4.5 million) nationally report intentionally abusing prescription drugs to get high, and one in ten reports abusing cough medicine to get high.

Confirmatory factor analysis of an inventory of perception of insecurity and fear of crime

This paper focuses on the study of the factorial structure of an inventory to estimate the subjective perception of insecurity and fear of crime. Made from the review of the literature on the subject and the results obtained in previous works, this factor structure shows that this attitude towards insecurity and fear of crime is identified through a number of latent factors which are schematically summarized in (a) personal safety, (b) the perception of personal and social control, (c) the presence of threatening people or situations, (d) the processes of identity and space appropriation, (e) satisfaction with the environment, and (f) the environmental and the use of space. Such factors are relevant dimensions to analyze the phenomenon. Method: A sample of 571 participants in a neighborhood of Barcelona was evaluated with the proposed inventory, which yielded data from the distributions of all the items provided. The administration was conducted by researchers specially trained for it and the results were analyzed by using standard procedures in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) from the hypothesized theoretical structure. The analysis was performed by decatypes according to the different response scales prepared in the inventory and their ordinal nature, and by estimating the polychoric correlation coefficients. The results show an acceptable fit of the proposed model, an appropriate behavior of the residuals and statistically significant estimates of the factor loadings. This would indicate the goodness of the proposed factor structure.

Children's Bullying Experiences and Self-Worth Perceptions in a Private School

This study explored children's bullying experiences (as bully, victim, and bystander) and their self-worth perceptions in a private school in Ontario, Canada. Forty students from 12 different countries participated in a mixed methodology (both quantitative and qualitative) research design using a self-report questionnaire. Students reported involvement in bullying as a bully, victim, and bystander. The overall results reveal a pattern across the three roles where the degree of bullying observed as a bystander is the highest (57%) followed by the experiences as a victim (29%) and that performed as bully (21%). The bystanders reported direct bullying being witnessed, bullies reported indirect bullying interventions as being used, and victims of bullying reported indirect bullying being the most common type of bullying they experienced. Decreased feeling of self-worth is reported in the qualitative research data in regards to bullying. Boarding students reported issues regarding personal safety, need for social relationships, self-worth, and unacceptability of bullying. Implications for practice for the private school are discussed, focusing on the outcome of this study.

Gerenciamento de alarmes em plataformas marítimas de produção de hidrocarbonetos: metodologia e estudo de caso

In the operational context of industrial processes, alarm, by definition, is a warning to the operator that an action with limited time to run is required, while the event is a change of state information, which does not require action by the operator, therefore should not be advertised, and only stored for analysis of maintenance, incidents and used for signaling / monitoring (EEMUA, 2007). However, alarms and events are often confused and improperly configured similarly by developers of automation systems. This practice results in a high amount of pseudo-alarms during the operation of industrial processes. The high number of alarms is a major obstacle to improving operational efficiency, making it difficult to identify problems and increasing the time to respond to abnormalities. The main consequences of this scenario are the increased risk to personal safety, facilities, environment deterioration and loss of production. The aim of this paper is to present a philosophy for setting up a system of supervision and control, developed with the aim of reducing the amount of pseudo-alarms and increase reliability of the information that the system provides. A real case study was conducted in the automation system of the offshore production of hydrocarbons from Petrobras in Rio Grande do Norte, in order to validate the application of this new methodology. The work followed the premises of the tool presented in ISA SP18.2. 2009, called "life cycle alarm . After the implementation of methodology there was a significant reduction in the number of alarms

Medição de malha de terra em subestações energizadas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Posso ajudar? Cuidador formal e relação de ajuda: a percepção do idoso acerca do apoio oferecido por um serviço socioassistencial de um município do interior de São Paulo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Integrated luminescent chemical microsensors based on GaN LEDs for security applications using smartphones

Development of PCB-integrateable microsensors for monitoring chemical species is a goal in areas such as lab-on-a-chip analytical devices, diagnostics medicine and electronics for hand-held instruments where the device size is a major issue. Cellular phones have pervaded the world inhabitants and their usefulness has dramatically increased with the introduction of smartphones due to a combination of amazing processing power in a confined space, geolocalization and manifold telecommunication features. Therefore, a number of physical and chemical sensors that add value to the terminal for health monitoring, personal safety (at home, at work) and, eventually, national security have started to be developed, capitalizing also on the huge number of circulating cell phones. The chemical sensor-enabled “super” smartphone provides a unique (bio)sensing platform for monitoring airborne or waterborne hazardous chemicals or microorganisms for both single user and crowdsourcing security applications. Some of the latest ones are illustrated by a few examples. Moreover, we have recently achieved for the first time (covalent) functionalization of p- and n-GaN semiconductor surfaces with tuneable luminescent indicator dyes of the Ru-polypyridyl family, as a key step in the development of innovative microsensors for smartphone applications. Chemical “sensoring” of GaN-based blue LED chips with those indicators has also been achieved by plasma treatment of their surface, and the micrometer-sized devices have been tested to monitor O2 in the gas phase to show their full functionality. Novel strategies to enhance the sensor sensitivity such as changing the length and nature of the siloxane buffer layer are discussed in this paper.

Discurso pronunciado en la Reinauguración de la Biblioteca Nacional

Ha llegado el momento tantas veces anunciado. Cada vez que sentíamos próxima la conclusión de las obras de remodelación, un nuevo daño nos obligaba a ser cautelosos y a posponer, nuevamente, la apertura de la Biblioteca Nacional.Queridos ciudadanos, ha llegado la hora de reabrir las puertas al conocimiento y al placer de leer. Volvamos a las salas de la Biblioteca Nacional con la seguridad de que el Estado, representado por el Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes, ha cumplido con la obligación de conservar valiosos documentos históricos, ha aplicado costosas medidas que garantizan la seguridad personal de los usuarios, y ha hecho realidad que la ciudad disponga, nuevamente, de un espacio para la ilustración, la investigación, la educación y el esparcimiento.

Happiness and victimization in Latin America

In recent decades, studies on economics have identified happiness as a life quality indicator that not only accounts for individuals’ socioeconomic improvement but also accounts for their interactions with institutions and public goods, such as personal safety and protection of life. This study examines the determinants of individual happiness of Latin American citizens by focusing on whether the individual had been a victim of a crime in the last twelve months. To do this, a generalized ordered logit with partial constraints is used to analyze data obtained from the Americas Barometer Survey of 2014. The individual self- reported level of life satisfaction is used to study its relationship with having been a victim of a crime during the previous year. The results suggest the existence of a negative relationship between having been a victim of a crime in the past twelve months and being very satisfied with life.

Gerenciamento de alarmes em plataformas marítimas de produção de hidrocarbonetos: metodologia e estudo de caso

In the operational context of industrial processes, alarm, by definition, is a warning to the operator that an action with limited time to run is required, while the event is a change of state information, which does not require action by the operator, therefore should not be advertised, and only stored for analysis of maintenance, incidents and used for signaling / monitoring (EEMUA, 2007). However, alarms and events are often confused and improperly configured similarly by developers of automation systems. This practice results in a high amount of pseudo-alarms during the operation of industrial processes. The high number of alarms is a major obstacle to improving operational efficiency, making it difficult to identify problems and increasing the time to respond to abnormalities. The main consequences of this scenario are the increased risk to personal safety, facilities, environment deterioration and loss of production. The aim of this paper is to present a philosophy for setting up a system of supervision and control, developed with the aim of reducing the amount of pseudo-alarms and increase reliability of the information that the system provides. A real case study was conducted in the automation system of the offshore production of hydrocarbons from Petrobras in Rio Grande do Norte, in order to validate the application of this new methodology. The work followed the premises of the tool presented in ISA SP18.2. 2009, called "life cycle alarm . After the implementation of methodology there was a significant reduction in the number of alarms

MySafePlace: un'applicazione per sentirsi al sicuro

La Tesi descrive un'applicazione per la sicurezza della persona che vuol essere un trampolino di lancio per innovare questo mercato ampio ma a molti sconosciuto. La principale innovazione è la chiamata random che permette ad un utente di avere la possibilità di poter parlare con un altro utente che utilizza, come lui, l'applicazione. L'applicazione è stata sviluppata come tesi per Laboratorio di applicazioni mobili ed è scritta in linguaggio swift per dispositivi iOS a partire dalla versione 15