ABSTRACT
Microorganisms are intentionally added at different stages of the food and feed chain (food or feed additive, novel food or plant protection product) and are subjected to regulation and ...safety assessment by the European Food Safety Authority. Safety evaluation is based on application dossiers for market authorisation to the European Commission. The qualified presumption of safety (QPS) concept was developed in 20032 to provide a harmonised generic safety pre-appraisal of the above microorganisms. Unambiguously defined biological taxonomic units (TUs) are assessed for their body of knowledge, their safety and their end use. Identified safety concerns for a certain TU can be, where reasonable in number and not universally present, reflected as ‘qualifications.’ Strains belonging to TUs having QPS status may benefit of a fast track evaluation. The lowest TU for which the QPS status is granted is the species level for bacteria and yeasts and the family for viruses. The QPS concept is also applicable to genetically modified microorganisms used for production purposes. Based on the current body of knowledge and/or the ambiguous taxonomic position, some TUs, such as filamentous fungi, bacteriophages, Enterococcus faecium, Escherichia coli, Streptomyces spp. and Oomycetes, are not considered liable for QPS status.
Sensemaking in Safety Critical and Complex Situations: Human Factors and Design Human factors-based design that supports the strengths and weaknesses of humans are often missed during the concept and ...design of complex technical systems. With the focus on digitalization and automation, the human actor is often left out of the loop but needs to step in during safety-critical situations. This book describes how human factors and sensemaking can be used as part of the concept and design of safety critical systems in order to improve safety and resilience. This book discusses the challenges of automation and automated systems when humans are left out of the loop and then need to intervene when the situation calls for it. It covers human control and accepts that humans must handle the unexpected and describes methods to support this. It is based on recent accident analysis involving autonomous systems that move our understanding forward and supports a more modern view on human errors to improve safety in industries such as shipping and marine. The book is for human factors and ergonomists, safety engineers, designers involved in safety critical work and students. Stig Ole Johnsen is a Senior Researcher at SINTEF in Norway. He has a PhD from NTNU in Norway with a focus on resilience in complex socio-technical systems and has a Master’s in Technology Management from MIT/NTNU. He chairs the Human Factors in Control network (HFC) in Norway to strengthen the human factors focus during development and implementation of safety critical technology. His research interests include meaningful human control to support safety and resilience during automation and digitalization. Thomas Porathe has a degree in Information Design from Malardalen University in Sweden. He is currently Professor of Interaction Design at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. He specializes in maritime human factors and design of maritime information systems, specifically directed towards control room design, e-navigation and autonomous ships. He has been working with e-Navigation since 2006 in EU projects such as BLAST, EfficienSea, MONALISA, ACCSEAS, SESAME and the unmanned ship project MUNIN. He is active in the International Association of Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA).
The coronavirus pandemic crisis highlighted the critical importance of comprehensive safety management for all organizations. Safety management literature delineates two approaches to achieving ...safety, characterized as safety management through centralized control, known as the safety management system (SMS), and safety management through guided adaptability, known as organizational resilience (OR). Each of these approaches plays a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining the safety and sustainability of an organization. This paper aimed to compare the maturity of SMS with the maturity of OR, identifying the relationship between aspects of SMS and OR in the context of the crisis of the pandemic. Based on a literature review, the author presents adopted concepts of SMS and OR, as well as a customized maturity model for both. The survey methodology involved two questionnaires on SMS and OR, consisting of 26 and 18 questions, respectively. The survey was conducted in three approved training organizations (ATOs) in the Greater Poland voivodeship. When comparing key aspects of both approaches to safety management (SMS vs. OR), significant differences in ratings were observed. Additionally, a moderate correlation was found between aspects of SMS and OR. This discrepancy was reflected in the maturity models. According to the survey results, SMS achieved the fourth level of maturity, labeled proactive safety management, while OR attained the third level of maturity, termed a fairly agile organization. Furthermore, the results showed that while the guided adaptability approach is more difficult to achieve in an organization, the centralized control approach is insufficient. Therefore, both components are necessary to ensure the comprehensive safety of the organization.
•One of the very few empirical studies focusing on Human Factors and Safety Culture in the port environment.•The application of a robust methodological approach that has been validated in applied ...industrial research.•The application of the Safety Cultural Maturity Model.•Provides a solid platform for future research in this ‘under-researched’ area.•Provides high level recommendations for key steps ports need to consider on their journey towards a resilient safety culture.
The critical role of understanding Human Factors and the importance of Safety Culture in the maritime sector is becoming much more topical. While the key focus of much of the research in this sector has been on seagoing vessels, it is also important to recognise that ports and docks can be particularly dangerous and hazardous environments. The objective of this paper is to report on an exploratory research study assessing the safety culture and human factor awareness in a large European port environment. The research study adopted a multi-methods approach that included the completion of a Safety Culture Assessment Survey across a port environment (161 responses) and research interviews (11 in total) with a port authority company. The research concludes that there is an increasing awareness of human factors and a move towards a positive safety culture that facilitates an open and resilient approach to all safety practices. However much more focused research is required focusing on the specific complexities, constraints and shared processes of our port environments.
Construction safety prediction is an emerging field where various forms of information and analytical techniques are used to predict the likelihood or severity of a future injury. A review of this ...literature reveals that even though the approaches are used for the same goal of predicting future safety outcomes, they are modeled independently and exclusively from one another. To organize thinking in safety prediction, the literature is organized into four operationally-defined predictive families: (1) safety risk assessment, which considers the characteristics and dangers of the work; (2) precursor analysis, which considers the conditions of the workers; (3) leading indicators, which consider the quantity of safety management activities; and (4) safety climate assessments, which considers worker perceptions of safety. Additionally, a unified model is proposed where the four families are considered together and opportunities for synergy and cross-validation are exploited. Researchers may benefit from this model as they create points of departure, propose and test novel approaches, and attempt to contextualize their findings within the existing body of literature. Furthermore, practitioners may use the model to make more accurate and robust safety predictions that account for the interconnectedness of the work attributes, human resources, and management strategies that affect safety.
Road project sites are dangerous and crash-prone, with many hazards that can cause injuries and can result in the deaths of road users or site-workers. Work zones for road construction or maintenance ...can potentially contribute to increasing these crashes. Many studies have addressed this issue; however, there is a lack of similar studies in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this study contributes to developing safety practices for road work zones in Saudi Arabia by identifying, analyzing, and controlling the main risk factors. A survey approach was used to identify risk factors and potential countermeasures from road users' and civil engineering experts' perceptions. The main findings showed that most participants believed that the presence of work zones on the road might increase the probability of crash occurrence and that the highest risk factor that could cause a crash in a work zone is related to driver behavior. Both groups agreed that strict action against contractors or consultants who have safety violations would enhance road safety in work zones. Considering the findings of this study, decision-makers should take strong action to implement and improve road safety practices.
•Measuring the development of Chinese provincial road safety over the past decade.•The DEA-MPI approach is used to conduct the measurement.•Road safety productivity decomposes into efficiency change ...and technical change.•China has achieved a considerable improvement in road safety from 2007 to 2016.
With a view to analyzing the development of road safety over time, we hereby present an approach for measuring the phenomenon. This method was constructed based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist productivity index (MPI), so it was named the DEA-MPI method. The core of this method is to compare the output-input ratio among decision-making units in order to measure Chinese provincial road safety development from 2007 to 2016. Three road risk indicators are used as the input, and four road accident result indicators as the output. The results show that most provinces have achieved considerable progress in road safety over the last decade. The total factor productivity change (TFPCH) in road safety decomposes into efficiency change (EFFCH) and technical change (TECHCH). The cumulative EFFCH and TECHCH have decreased and increased, respectively, over the last decade. In 2016, China achieved an improvement in road safety productivity 1.433 times greater than it did in 2007, which is greatly attributable to improvement in frontier technology. This study could help scholars to understand the situation of Chinese provincial road safety in the past decade and provide a guide for policymakers on road safety improvement.
Background
Unsafe patient events not only entail a clinical impact but also lead to economic burden in terms of prolonged hospitalization or unintended harm and delay in care delivery. Monitoring and ...time‐bound investigation of patient safety events (PSEs) is of paramount importance in a healthcare set‐up.
Objectives
To explore the safety incident reporting behaviour and the barriers in a hospital set‐up.
Methods
The study had two sections: (a) Retrospective assessment of all safety incidents in the past 1 year, and (b) Understanding the barriers of safety reporting by interviewing the major stakeholders in patient safety reporting framework. Further root cause analysis and failure mode effect analysis were performed for the situation observed. Results were statistically analyzed.
Results
Of the total of 106 PSEs reported voluntarily to the system, the highest reporting functional group was that of nurses (40.57%), followed by physicians (18.87%) and pharmacists (17.92%). Among the various factors identified as barriers in safety incident reporting, fear of litigation was the most observed component. The most commonly observed event was those pertaining to medication management, followed by diagnostic delay. Glitches in healthcare delivery accounted for 8.73% of the total reported PSEs, followed by 5.72% of events occurring due to inter‐stakeholder communication errors. 4.22% of the PSEs were attributed to organizational managerial dysfunctionalities. Majority of medication‐related PSE has moderate risk prioritization gradation.
Conclusion
Effective training and sensitization regarding the need to report the patient unsafe incidents or near misses to the healthcare system can help avert many untoward experiences. The notion of ‘No Blame No Shame’ should be well inculcated within the minds of each hospital unit such that even if an error occurs, its prompt reporting does not get harmed.
•VR and MR are successful in operationalising authenticity and groupwork factors.•The perceived guidance factor influences the perceived effectiveness of the lesson.•The motivation of the students is ...influenced by the perceived authenticity and groupwork factors.•The study derived three proposed guidelines for using VR and MR in safety management education.
Effective safety management education is essential for improving safety within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. While new information technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) are increasingly explored to improve safety management education and training, they are currently limited by the lack of pedagogies to guide the design and development of learning content. This paper aims to address this issue by utilising the authentic learning framework to guide the design of a VR/MR lesson for safety management education. The study developed an immersive VR/MR simulation-based activity based on the authentic learning framework. The effectiveness of the safety management lesson using an immersive VR/MR simulation is compared to a recorded video lesson. The results showed that the VR/MR simulation is more beneficial to the participants’ motivation than the video lesson, but not for knowledge improvement and perceived lesson effectiveness. The results can be attributed to the difficulties in operationalising the guidance factor in the authentic learning framework. The key contributions of this study are threefold: (1) the study demonstrates that the authentic learning framework can be used for guiding the development of VR/MR simulation and recorded video lessons for safety management education; (2) the analysis finds that the VR/MR simulation improves motivation for learning, but not knowledge and perceived effectiveness of the lesson; and (3) three guidelines are suggested to improve the design of VR/MR educational applications.
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