•Getting good information is vital for incident learning, as subsequent stages of learning depend on the quality of the information achieved.•We all are biased, and so are incident ...investigators.•Increased awareness of biases optimizes information collection and enhances learning from incidents.•Role-play simulation interviews with industry practitioners revealed what and how biases emerge during interviews in incident investigations.
Introduction: Incident investigation is a foundational tool of safety management. Determining the causal factors of any incident underpins organizational learning and subsequent positive change to processes and practices. Research of incident investigation has largely focused on what information to collect, how to analyze it, and how to optimize resultant conclusions and organizational learning. However, much less attention has been paid to the process of information collection, and specifically that of subjective information obtained through interviews. Yet, as all humans are biased and can’t help being so, the information collection process is inevitably vulnerable to bias. Method: Simulated investigation interviews with 34 experienced investigators were conducted within the construction industry. Results: Common biases were revealed including confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and fundamental attribution error. Analysis was also able to unpack when and how these biases most often emerged in the interview process, and the potential consequences for organizational learning. Conclusions: Being biased to a certain degree will remain inevitable for any individual, and therefore, efforts to mitigate the effects of biases is necessary. Practical Applications: Increased awareness and insights can support the development of processes and training for investigators to mitigate its effects and thus enhance learning from incidents in the field prevent reoccurrence.
•Format of design information has little effect on mental workload.•Spatial cognitive capabilities do not influence hazard recognition skill.•A series of design for safety reviews were conducted ...across the United States.•117 participants explored a mixture of design information to identify hazards.•A novel approach to hazard recognition experimentation is presented.
Research suggests safety reviews are important for Construction Hazard Prevention through Design implementation. Various visual stimuli exist when performing safety reviews and may affect the mental workload of Construction Hazard Prevention through Design tasks. However, no research addresses how spatial cognitive capability, or the format of visual stimuli may affect the mental workload of hazard recognition tasks. To address this gap, safety reviews were conducted across the United States to explore the association of spatial cognitive capability and hazard recognition performance and the variability of the mental workload of hazard recognition tasks across various formats of engineering design. In total, 117 participants were provided a mixture of design information including: computer aided design, computerized visualizations, and a combination of the two and asked to identify hazards for three construction activities. Participants spatial cognitive capability and mental workload were assessed. Multiple linear regression was used to measure the association among these variables. The results indicate no association between spatial cognitive capability and hazard recognition performance. Additionally, the format of design had no effect on mental workload. The results conflict with the prevailing belief that computerized visualizations are superior to computer aided design for reducing the mental workload of Construction Hazard Prevention through Design tasks. However, a demographic analysis revealed that construction experience and time spent in hazard recognition trials predicts hazard recognition performance. Simply, skill in a hazard recognition task depends more on the experience and diligence of the practitioner rather than the format of the design information, task demand, or spatial cognitive capability.
•A No Blame approach to safety assures workers they will not be blamed for accidents should they report and fully cooperate with investigations.•But No Blame brings unintended consequences to ...incident investigation interviews.•No Blame shapes the flow of conversation and the questions asked and left unasked in interviews.•No Blame directs interviewers away from the person in the process and redirects to things that can be blamed without consequence.•No Blame has the potential to actually limit organizational learning.
A ‘no blame’ approach within incident investigations is common practice across many industries. It seeks to optimize worker engagement with the process, enhancing information collection and subsequent organizational learning from any incidents that do occur. Workers are assured they will not be blamed for accidents when they swiftly report and fully comply with investigations. A no blame ideology has been widely adopted across the US construction industry, yet it can bring unintended consequences to aspects of the investigative process that, ironically, can also limit organizational learning. Discourse analysis of n = 34 empirical incident investigation simulated interview transcripts, carried out with construction safety experts in an experimental setting, revealed a discourse we termed ‘new blame’ that detrimentally influenced and shaped investigation interviews. The discourse renders interviewers reluctant to unpack the people in the process, and instead directs focus on things easily blamed without consequence, such as inanimate objects, organizational procedures, or paperwork. Yet without understanding of how workers interact with their work, and what went wrong this time, learning is inevitably limited. At its most extreme, ‘new blame’ takes incident investigation back to ‘Acts of God’; people absolved from any and all responsibility. As no blame is likely to endure, awareness and acknowledgement of such unintended consequences is essential to ensure ‘new blame’ is not hindering learning from incidents and thus the enhancement of occupational safety in the future.
•Existing performance metrics should be used in synergy to capture a holistic picture of construction safety.•Construction safety should not keep depending on only lagging indicators as performance ...metrics.•Leading and lagging indicators have complementary strengths.•A safety performance metric must be predictive, valid, objective, clear, functional, important.
Introduction: Measuring safety performance is crucial to making informed decisions that improve construction safety management. Traditional approaches to construction safety performance measurement primarily focus on injury and fatality rates, but researchers have recently proposed and tested alternative metrics such as safety leading indicators and safety climate assessments. Although researchers tend to extol the benefits of alternative metrics, they are studied in isolation and the potential weaknesses are rarely discussed, leaving a critical gap in knowledge. Method: To address this limitation, this study aimed to evaluate existing safety performance against a set of pre-determined criteria and explore how multiple metrics may be used together to optimize strengths and offset weaknesses. For a well-rounded evaluation, the study included three evidence-based assessment criteria (i.e., the extent to which the metric is predictive, objective, and valid) and three subjective criteria (i.e., the extent to which each metric is clear, functional, and important). The evidence-based criteria were evaluated using a structured review of existing empirical evidence in literature, while the subjective criteria were evaluated using expert opinion solicited through the Delphi method. Results: The results revealed that no construction safety performance measurement metric is strong in all evaluation criteria, but many weaknesses may be addressed through research and development. It was also demonstrated that combining multiple complementary metrics may result in a more complete evaluation of the safety systems because multiple metrics offset respective strengths and weaknesses. Practical Applications: The study provides a holistic understanding of construction safety measurement that may guide safety professionals in their selection of metrics and assist researchers who seek more reliable dependent variables for intervention testing and safety performance trending.
On the probabilistic degree of OR over the reals Bhandari, Siddharth; Harsha, Prahladh; Molli, Tulasimohan ...
Random structures & algorithms,
August 2021, 2021-08-00, 20210801, Letnik:
59, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We study the probabilistic degree over ℝ of the OR function on n variables. For ε∈(0,1/3), the ε‐error probabilistic degree of any Boolean function f : {0, 1}n → {0, 1} over ℝ is the smallest ...nonnegative integer d such that the following holds: there exists a distribution P of polynomials P(x1,…,xn)∈ℝx1,…,xn of degree at most d such that for all x‾∈{0,1}n, we have PrP∼PP(x‾)=f(x‾)≥1−ε. It is known from the works of Tarui (Theoret. Comput. Sci. 1993) and Beigel, Reingold, and Spielman (Proc. 6th CCC 1991), that the ε‐error probabilistic degree of the OR function is at most O(logn·log(1/ε)). Our first observation is that this can be improved to Ologn≤log(1/ε) which is better for small values of ε. In all known constructions of probabilistic polynomials for the OR function (including the above improvement), the polynomials P in the support of the distribution P have the following special structure: P(x1,…,xn)=1−∏i∈t1−Li(x1,…,xn), where each Li(x1, … , xn) is a linear form in the variables x1, … , xn, that is, the polynomial 1−P(x‾) is a product of affine forms. We show that the ε‐error probabilistic degree of OR when restricted to polynomials of the above form is Ωlogn≤log(1/ε)/log2logn≤log(1/ε), thus matching the above upper bound (up to poly‐logarithmic factors).
Public health experts have strongly supported the need for companies to play their part in the global management of the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing training, screening, health surveillance and ...care. Occupational health and safety issues have become critical strategic concerns for organizations and industry sectors when making decisions about the management of business operations during the pandemic. There is emerging research documenting successful adaptations made by construction organisations to minimise the health and safety impacts of COVID-19, including modified work practices, flexible work arrangements, improved hygiene practices and welfare facilities. While the COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for the construction industry, it has also prompted researchers and practitioners to reflect on the lessons that have been and continue to be learned and the role that the effective management of health, safety and well-being has played (and can continue to play) in ensuring organizational resilience and business continuity. The aim of this special issue is to analyse, understand and document the way in which construction industries across the globe have responded to and experienced (and continue to experience) the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as what they have learnt during this extraordinary period. The special issue seeks to collate evidence as to what worked well and what did not, and why, and to identify and share lessons learned in relation to strengthening the global construction industry’s risk governance mechanisms, bolstering organizational resilience and reducing vulnerability to transboundary crises that might arise in the future. This special issue focuses on the variety and effectiveness of health and safety management responses at: macro (industry/policy), meso (organizational/project) and micro (workgroup/individual) levels implemented by the global construction industry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
PDF
