Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Heat Stress Evaluation Of Protective Clothing Ensembles, Amanda Lee Pease

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clothing directly affects the level of heat stress exposure. Useful measures to express the thermal characteristics are WBGT (wet bulb globe temperature) clothing adjustment factor (CAF) or apparent total evaporative resistance (R_e,T,_a). The CAF is assigned through laboratory wear trials following a heat stress protocol in which the air temperature and humidity are progressively increased until the participant clearly loses the ability to maintain thermal equilibrium. The critical condition is the point of thermal transition and from these conditions both the CAF and Re,T,a are computed. The first objective of this study is to compare the …

Manual Handling Workload And Musculoskeletal Discomfort Among Warehouse Personnel, Terrance N. Knox

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD), specifically physical and muscular discomfort in the upper arm, lower arm, thigh, lower leg, wrist, shoulders, back, or neck, are among the most frequently reported workplace injuries in the United States. The dearth of knowledge about the types of workloads that may contribute to the development of WRMSD was the impetus of this research. The study aimed to identify antecedents of WRMSD among warehouse workers in order to reduce WRMSDs and increase productivity as expressed in a systems perspective on industrial health. The research questions examined the prevalence of specific WRMSDs, the relationship of high-risk tasks …

Observer-Dependent Model For Analyzing Subjective Parameters In Epidemiology, Milad Zarei

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Although medical technologies for preventing the contagion and spread of infectious diseases have improved steadily throughout the last century, new infectious diseases are still emerging and spreading swiftly. The modeling of infectious disease spread is crucial in addressing the lack of predictive ability in epidemiology. Managing the spread of infectious diseases requires processing quantitative epidemiological data and the ability to capture the dynamics of the infectious disease in order to provide a measure of control.

In this thesis, I have introducing cognitive biases in diseases spread modeling. For the first time, to the author's knowledge, the human subjective experience has …

Rapid Sensor Technology: A Risk And System Complexity Analyses Of Early Detection Of Influenza-Like-Illnesses, Cesar Ariel Pinto, Ipek Bozkurt

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The development of effective and reliable methods to defend the nation against biological terrorism remains an urgent challenge to researchers in the areas of risk, bio-defense, public health, and emergency medicine. The emerging threat of the avian flu pandemic also highlights the unpreparedness of our nation's health care system to meet a highly contagious and infectious disease outbreak. The implementation of a rapid sensor technology for early detection of influenza-like-illness provides possible opportunities, as well as problems. Bounding and defining such a complex problem is one of the first challenges this research addresses. Approaching this problem from various perspectives such …

Abatteuses Forestières : Dispositif Et Circuits De Commande Relatifs À La Sécurité, Laurent Giraud, Yuvin Chinniah, Damien Burlet-Vienney, Joseph-Jean Paques, Marina Koutchouk, Renaud Daigle

Rapports de recherche scientifique

Les abatteuses forestières sont des engins tout-terrains conçus pour évoluer en forêt, qui servent de véhicule moteur pour déplacer une tête d’abattage.

L’utilisation d’abatteuses avec une tête d’abattage multifonctionnelle s’est largement répandue au Québec ces dernières années pour deux raisons :

• Cette méthode d’abattage réduit la machinerie car une seule machine tronçonne et façonne les arbres en billots, là où il en fallait plusieurs avec les anciennes méthodes;
• La méthode d’abattage abîme moins le sol de la forêt car le façonnage des arbres se fait sur place et crée ainsi un tapis végétal.

L’IRSST a lancé une série d’études sur …

Applying Lean Manufacturing Techniques To Improve The Performance Of An Emergency Department, Ramesh Pondhe

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The research was an attempt to apply lean manufacturing (LM) techniques, to the healthcare setting specifically to Emergency Department (ED) of a local hospital and to improve its performance. An ED is meant to attend/provide immediate care to a patient who needs medical care immediately and also balancing the care to patients with lesser acuity who arrive at the ED for treatment. The data was collected from the ED by direct observation. The data was statistically analyzed to find out the bottlenecks in the process during the course of a patient's treatment to further provide solutions and improve the performance …

Analysis Of Patient Information: An Empirical Modeling Approach, Tony A. Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

With rising costs and increasing complexities, many hospitals seek to better understand the intricate details of their operations. Increasingly, these organizations have a strong desire to accurately predict the resources required to effectively treat their patient load. This research investigates patient length-of-stay in a hospital neurological unit using an empirical modeling approach. Factors significantly affecting patient length of stay were identified and used to construct a regression model. The predictive model provides hospital decision makers with a compact tool to input what-if scenarios and predict future patient treatment lengths, thus, allowing the hospital to properly allocate resources.

Application Of Queuing Theory And Procedure Time Estimation In A Local Healthcare System, Galina Tsoy

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

People in the United States pay more for their basic healthcare needs than do people in any other nation in the world. When we consider that the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, controlling the majority of the world's resources, it seems only reasonable to ask: Why should it be this way?

In an effort to address this problem, this thesis examines two possible methods of improving health care efficiency in hospitals. The thesis is thus in two parts: the first part examines resource allocation in medical units using Queuing Theory, and the second part examines a …

How Many Slides? Documented Cytotechnologist Workload, Sophie K, Thompson, Eileen Mason

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

(First paragraph) This paper relays workload information obtained as part of an ergonomics survey.1 Data were obtained on the number of slides evaluated daily, workplace setting, hours worked, and demographic information.

The Effects Of Human-Computer Communication Mode, Task Complexity, And Desire For Control On Performance And Discourse Organization In An Adaptive Task, Cristina Bubb-Lewis

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study examined how different communication patterns affected task performance with an adaptive interface. A Wizard-of-Oz simulation (Gould, Conti, & Hovanyecz, 1983) was used to create the impression of a talking and listening computer that acted as a teammate to help participants interact with a computer application.

Four levels of communication mode were used which differed in the level of restriction placed on human-computer communication. In addition, participants completed two sets of tasks (simple and complex). Further, a personality trait, Desire for Control (DC), was measured and participants were split into high and low groups for analysis. Dependent measures …

Selecting For Random Drug Testing At Union Pacific Railroad, Jennifer Meyer, Paul Savory

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Many industries have recently implemented programs to detect and deter the use of recreational drugs in the workplace. The transportation industry has received careful government attention, particularly where the safety of the public may be seriously affected by employees who use drugs. Following federal guidelines, Union Pacific Railroad first implemented a random drug-testing plan in 1990. Because the assigned jobs, shifts, and work locations of many railroad employees change frequently, defining the selection population was particularly challenging. In its continuing efforts to validate and improve this plan, Union Pacific Railroad sought an external evaluation to determine the fairness of its …

Healthcare Management: Operation Research Perspectives, Basu Ghosh

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

Accidents Types Des Monteurs De Lignes Du Secteur De La Construction (Annexe), Évelyne Kedl, Lucie Laflamme, Lyne Marinacci

Rapports de recherche scientifique

La première phase du projet dont il est ici question vise à résumer, en un nombre limité d’accidents types, les circonstances dans lesquelles les monteurs de lignes se blessent le plus souvent et les caractéristiques les plus courantes de leurs lésions. À cette fin, les fichiers "pairés" d’accidents des trois entrepreneurs participants et de la CESST ont servi à décrire 236 accidents en utilisant un total de 15 variables. Le traitement de ces données, rétrospectives, a conduit à la reconstruction de six classes d’accidents différentes les unes des autres.

Ces classes se distinguent d’abord par le genre de l’accident. Nos …

Accidents Types Des Monteurs De Lignes Du Secteur De La Construction, Évelyne Kedl, Lucie Laflamme, Lyne Marinacci

Rapports de recherche scientifique

La première phase du projet dont il est ici question vise à résumer, en un nombre limité d’accidents types, les circonstances dans lesquelles les monteurs de lignes se blessent le plus souvent et les caractéristiques les plus courantes de leurs lésions. À cette fin, les fichiers "pairés" d’accidents des trois entrepreneurs participants et de la CESST ont servi à décrire 236 accidents en utilisant un total de 15 variables. Le traitement de ces données, rétrospectives, a conduit à la reconstruction de six classes d’accidents différentes les unes des autres.

Ces classes se distinguent d’abord par le genre de l’accident. Nos …

Self-Perceived Benefits Which Occur As The Result Of Kimberly-Clark's Health Management Program, Richard Lee Langford

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to determine if employee participants in Kimberly-Clark's Health Management Program perceived benefits from their participation that have affected their lifestyles, both at work and outside of work.

The population for this study consisted of all salaried employees of Kimberly-Clark in the Fox Valley of Wisconsin who have been participants within the Health Service Center for at least six months at an adherence level of two days per week or more. A random sample of this population was used to conduct the survey. A total of 130 employees were surveyed.

The research study was of …

Udder Preparation For Milking, W G. Robinson

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

REGULAR routine methods of preparing the udder for milking hare long been recognised as essential for good "let down" of milk.

The biggest problem so far has been to combat the spread of disease, in particular mastitis from udder to udder by the milker's hands or the udder washing cloths.