Technology, human factors

In the industrial field, the accidents situation depends on a wide variety of causes (i.e. diversification and complexity in production processes and technologies, human factors, organizational aspects, no application of safety procedures) that are often very difficult to indentify and to analyze. This is the reason why today aproactive approach to safety problems becomes a key factor. The Risk Assessment approach is aheady known and consohdated but the problem that is not yet solved is related to the indicators used in order to identify the risk priority. Usually these indicators are based on evaluator s experience and expertise, and not necessary deriving from statistical analysis. It depends on the fact that work injuries data are often not usable to characterize a specific risk category by a statistical approach it s a fact mainly due to the amount and typology of the available data and, consequently, to the lack of relationships between injuries and root causes. 

Implemented User involvement, human factors technology, human factors skills... 

From a broader perspective, the Abnormal Situation Management Consortium is working to apply human factors theory and expert system technology to improve personnel and equipment performance during abnormal conditions. In addition to reduced risk, economic improvements in equipment reliability and capacity are expected (Rothenberg and Nimmo, 1996). 

Fleger, S. A., Fermenter, K. E., Malone, T. B., Carlow Associates Inc. (1988), Advanced Human Factors Engineering Tool Technologies, Technical Memorandum 2-88, U. S. Army Engineering Laboratory... 

In this section, we provide a brief introduction to the field of display engineering and the human-factors issues which dictate display design. We then assess how OLEDs measure up to the criteria necessary to achieve a commercially successful display technology. But first, we take a short detour to lay out the language used by display engineers and to provide a means of translating from the scientific units that wc have used up to now. 

Today one of the most widely accepted and adapted incident theory relies on the system theory developed by Recht. According to this theory, an incident is seen as an abnormal effect or result of the technological or management system. System theory analyzes the structure and state of a physical system for its elements and their interdependencies. A physical system is either a technological system or a human factors system. The theory provides ... 

There is no method of making a plant truly inherently safe, since there is always risk when human activity is involved. But, if we carefully examine the technology available to us, we can make chemical plants inherently safer than they might be without such an examination. We can determine that a plant can be safe, but there are many factors that will determine whether a plant will be safe. CEFIC, the European Council of Chemical Manufacturers Federations (CEFIC, 1986), reports these include human factors that are so difficult to quantify that they are rarely taken into consideration. They include the human side of plant management, operation, and maintenance. Designers cannot do much about these human factors, but they can often do a lot to make the plant easy to operate, and reduce the chances of accidents that may result from human error and mechanical failure. 

He was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration in 1985, and he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, and a research fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum (Sciences Center) Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Social Research, Cologne. He has been a member of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management and panels of the Committee on Human Factors and the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He served on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Department of Energy, and chaired its Task Eorce on Radioactive Waste Management, examining questions of institutional trustworthiness. He was a member of the National Research Council s panel on Human Eactors in Air Traffic Control Automation and the Technical Review Committee for the Nuclear Materials Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Explain the genetic defect in hemophilia and discuss how recombinant DNA technology has been used to produce human Factor VIII (antihemophilic factor). 

The importance of human factors should be emphasized. Humans play a very important role in CIM design, implementation, and operation. Although computer applications and artificial intelligence technologies have made much progress, even in the future, computers wiU not replace people. To stress the importance of the role of humans, the idea of human-centered CIM has been proposed. 

Demel, G., and Meshkati, N. (1989), Requisite variety A concept to analyze the effects of cultural context for technology transfer, in Proceedings of the 33 rd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society. Santa Monica, CA Human Factors Society, pp. 765-769. 

Karwowski, W. et al., (1994), Integrating People, Organizations, and Technology in Advanced Manufacturing A Position Paper Based on the Joint View of Industrial Managers, Engineers, Consultants, and Researchers, International Journal of Human Factors in Manufacturing, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 1-19. 

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