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The Impact of the COVID 19 Pandemic on Aviation Workers & The Aviation System.
No full textWorker wellness and mental health is hugely important in safety critical systems such as aviation. Aviation workers need to be fit for duty and aware of all risks that compromise their health and wellbeing. Work has the potential to negatively impact on mental health particularly in the form of stress. The COVID-19 pandemic has put increased stress on aviation workers and the aviation industry. The industry has experienced a decrease in capacity. Many workers are working on reduced salary, furloughed, or have lost their jobs. This has had a detrimental impact on their sense of purpose and financial security. Those who are still working, are working in very different environments with additional stressors. People vary in relation to their ability to cope successfully with stress (including work-related stress). The practice of healthy behaviours strengthens a person’s resistance to stress. The substitution of maladaptive coping with more adaptive coping strategies is an important component of therapeutic interventions for work-related stress. Common adaptive stress coping strategies include exercise, the practice of relaxation techniques and seeking social support and/or social participation. Peer support programmes have been implemented by airlines for pilots. However, they are less commonplace for other aviation workers including maintenance and cabin crew.It is likely that some aviation workers may experience significant challenges during the period of being off work. Social isolation and confinement may lead some people to develop maladaptive coping strategies. If off work, some of the occupational barriers to maladaptive coping are not there (i.e. intoxicant testing by employer). Further, the enablers of adaptive coping (i.e. support from social network, access to peer support and access to support groups within the community) are not there. As such, the current COVID-19 pandemic poses a huge occupational health and safety risk. The Flight Safety Foundation has identified three operational scenarios to be managed during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. (1)being at work during the COVID-19 outbreak, (2)being off work, and (3)returning to work
Challenging social norms to recraft practices: A Living Lab approach to reducing household energy use in eight European countries
No full textENERGISE is the first large-scale European effort to reduce household energy use through a change initiative that adopted a ‘living lab’ approach informed by social practice theory. Two challenges were introduced to 306 households in eight countries: to lower indoor temperatures and to reduce laundry cycles. This contribution demonstrates the usefulness of a practice-centered design that takes habits and routines as an entry point for understanding how different ‘elements of practices’ can be re-crafted. We discuss how a participatory ‘living lab’ approach that explicitly encouraged deliberation and reflexivity served to sharpen attention on practices as central to change. We discuss how ‘doing laundry’ and ‘keeping warm’, as very different types of practices, responded to the change initiative. For laundry, tangible changes in material arrangements, news skills and sensory competencies, and shifts in what is seen as ‘normal’ proved to be central to reducing wash cycles, including wearing clothes more often, airing them out, using smell to gauge cleanliness, or keeping dirty clothes out of sight. Warming people rather than spaces through added layers and activities, and related shifts in norms around thermal comfort, emerged as crucial steps towards lowering indoor temperatures. Average changes in reported temperatures and wash cycles indicate that reductions are possible, without an emphasis on individuals or technologies as central to change. We end with a discussion on the implications of our approach for energy sufficiency thinking and practice, emphasizing the merits of taking the complexity of everyday life seriously when designing change initiatives.We would like to thank all the households who participated in the ENERGISE Living Labs, as well as our research teams and implementation partners. We are grateful to the reviewers who provided excellent feedback to an earlier draft. We also thank Laura Baird for the graphic design elements. The research presented here received funding from the European Union\u27s H2020 Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement no. 727642. The sole responsibility for the content of this paper lies with the authors
Article 31 Action Pack Children\u27s Rights and Children\u27s Play : Resources for Action to Implement Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
No full textThe right rest and leisure, to engage in play is usually missing from any discussions of children\u27s rights. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking only of those rights which are about protections; from poverty, from war and from abuse of every kind. This view will tend to see children as victims. The Article 31 Action Pack focuses on those articles which are about participation.Calouste Gulbenkian Foundatio
Photoacoustic imaging with clinical, preclinical, and quantitative applications
No full textPhotoacoustic (PA) imaging (PAI) is an emerging biomedical imaging modality that combines optical absorption contrast with ultrasonic resolution and imaging depth. Major research has been carried out into PAI in recent years, and as a result PAI is rapidly being established as a mainstream imaging modality in both biological research and clinical practice.
In this thesis, three main areas of PAI application were studied: clinical, preclinical, and quantitative PAI.
Handheld linear-array PAI was introduced to the clinic for breast and melanoma imaging applications. For the breast study, PAI using was assessed in terms of its ability to image the morphology and oxygenation status of breast lesions suspicious for cancer. PAI was found to image the morphology of superficial lesions with high contrast, while functional imaging found strong evidence of tumour hypoxia indicating malignancy. For the melanoma imaging study, PAI was applied to preoperatively measure lesion thickness of pigmented cutaneous lesions suspicious for melanoma. The PAI measured lesion thickness was found to corelate strongly with the histologically measured lesion thickness, indicating the efficacy of PAI in guiding biopsy depth and sample location. Additionally, PAI was found to be effective at imaging intradermal lesion growth which has important implications for melanoma staging.
A method of correcting for the effects of spectral fluence attenuation on quantitative PA measurements was introduced in chapter 3. The method uses arteries as a known optical calibration standard to estimate optical fluence at nearby veins and to quantify venous blood oxygen saturation. The method was experimentally validated in coupled Monte-Carlo-PA simulations, phantom, and in vivo tests.
Finally, the PA image contrast capabilities of novel gold nanostars (GNS) were tested in phantom and in vivo studies. The results showed the addition of a silica coating increased photothermal transfer and hence PAI contrast, while the in vivo study showed the strong photostability and low tissue clearance of the particles after GNS-mediated photothermal therapy in a mouse-tumour model
Pointwise-in-time a posteriori error control for time-fractional parabolic equations
No full textFor time-fractional parabolic equations with a Caputo time derivative of order α ∈ (0, 1), we give pointwise-in-time a posteriori error bounds in the spatial L2 and L∞ norms. Hence, an adaptive mesh construction algorithm is applied for the L1 method, which yields optimal convergence rates 2 − α in the presence of solution singularitie
The application of additive manufacturing / 3D printing in ergonomic aspects of product design: a systematic review
No full textAdditive Manufacturing (AM) facilitates product personalization and iterative design, which makes it an ideal
technology for ergonomic product development. In this study, a systematic review was conducted of the liter ature regarding the use of AM in ergonomic-product design, and methodological aspects of the studies were
analyzed. A literature search was performed using the keywords “3D print*,” “additive manufacturing,” “ergo nomic*” and “human factors”. Included were studies reporting the use of AM specifically in ergonomic design of
products/prototypes including the detailing of an ergonomic testing methodology used for evaluation. Forty
studies were identified pertaining to the fields of medicine, assistive technology, wearable technology, hand
tools, testing devices and others. The most commonly used technology was fused deposition modeling with
polylactic acid, but the overall preferred material was acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Various combinations of
objective/subjective and qualitative/quantitative product evaluation methods were used. Based on the findings,
recommendations were developed to facilitate the choice of most suitable AM technologies and materials for
specific applications in ergonomics
Experimental characterisation of the moment-rotation behaviour of beam-beam connections using compressed wood fasteners
No full textThe widespread use of energy-intensive metallic connectors and synthetic adhesives in modern timber construction has negative implications for the end-of-life disposal or re-use of the structural timber components. Therefore, it is favourable to substitute metallic connectors and synthetic adhesives with bio-based alternatives such as wood-based connectors. Recent studies have shown that densified or compressed wood (CW) with superior mechanical properties could be suitable for the manufacture of wood-based connectors in the form of CW dowels and CW plates. This study experimentally examines the moment-rotation behaviour of semi-rigid type timber-CW beam-beam connections under pure bending. The study also assesses the suitability of current design rules to predict the moment capacity of timber-CW connections. The comparative study has shown that the moment capacity of the timber-CW connection can be conservatively predicted from the characteristic load-carrying capacity of the connections calculated using the EC 5 strength equations.The study was conducted within the framework of the project “Towards Adhesive Free Timber Buildings - AFTB” at the College of Science and Engineering, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland. The AFTB project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) via Interreg North-West Europe grant 348. The contribution of the technical staff of the College of Science and Engineering, NUI Galway, in particular, Peter Fahy and Colm Walsh is gratefully acknowledged
Editorial: Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): diet, inflammation and nutritional status
No full textSince late 2019, the world has come to terms with the fact that it is facing a major public health crisis
against the novel coronavirus disease termed COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of August 12th 2021, there are over 205 million
confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,300,000 deaths globally while more than 180 million patients
have recovered. The first known case of COVID-19 originated from the city of Wuhan in Hubei
Province, China. From there, it has spread to every inhabited continent worldwide
Inflammation and chronic diseases: the polar lipid link
No full textCardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death globally. The focus of scientists and practitioners for decades has been on cholesterol levels and pharmacological ways to control them. Over the past few years, a new school of thought has emerged: inflammation is the underlying cause of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as CVD. Therefore, the key to reducing the incidence of chronic diseases is to control the activities of various inflammatory mediators, such as platelet-activating factor (PAF), via diet, exercise, and healthy lifestyle choices. One proposal has been that the polar lipids (PL) present in foods can play a key role via their antithrombotic and anti-inflammatory bioactivities. In this paper, we present our latest views on PAF and how it is related to CVD, and we discuss the role of diet and PL against PAF-induced inflammation
Modified wood as compression reinforcement of timber perpendicular to the grain
No full textAn investigation was carried out to examine the potential to utilise modified wood as a reinforcement for timber subjected to compression loading perpendicular to the grain. In recent years there has been a significant number of studies examining the use of steel screws and bonded in rods for this purpose. This is becoming more and more important with the increased use of timber in medium-to high rise structures. In this study, thermally densified or modified timber in the form of dowels are utilised as compression reinforcement perpendicular to the grain and tested to failure. Thermally densified dowel reinforcement arrangements of 2, 4, and 6 dowels are examined experimentally under a compressive load and compared to timber samples similarly reinforced but with steel screws specifically designed to resist stresses perpendicular to the grain. The results have demonstrated the potential to utilised modified wood to create an all-wood solution to reinforce against compressive stresses perpendicular to the grain.The authors would also like to thank Rothoblaas for
supplying the screws used in this project and A. Sotaya
and Z. Guan of the University of Liverpool for supplying
the DW dowels utilised in this study