China's Work Safety Report

General Situation of China's Work Safety in 2004 In 2004, the national work safety situation remained stable as a whole and gained momentum to improve. The totality of accidents held the line and began to drop. The safety conditions in industrial,mining, and commercial/trading enterprises improved. Progress was made in ensuring work safety in the relevant industries and fields. The safety situation in most provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government) kept stable.……

Work Hard to Ensure Food,Drugs Safety for the People——An interview with Shao Mingli,director-general of the State Food and Drug Administration(SFDA)

Following is an interview given by Shao Mingli, director-general of China＇s State Food and Drug Administration to our reporter on what is being done to ensure food and drug safety in China. As everybody knows, food and drug safety is vital to people＇s lives.

Evaluation of the Impact of Presence Lighting and Digital Speed Limit Trailers on Interstate Speeds in Indiana Work Zones

Work zone safety continues to be one of the important focus areas for transportation agencies. Previous studies have identified that vehicle speed and lighting conditions are significant risk factors impacting work zone safety. This study evaluated the impact of the use of presence lighting and digital speed limit trailers on nighttime motorist speeds using commercially available connected vehicle speed data. Geospatial analysis was conducted on over 500,000 connected vehicle records to linear reference nearly 18,000 records from 195 unique trajectories to study section during the study period of 2 days. Results showed that median speeds reduced by 4 to 13 mph from 11PM to 7AM during the deployment of presence lighting and speed limit trailers compared to base conditions. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistical test comparing 105 vehicles traveling through the construction zone with presence lighting and speed limit trailers with a group of 90 vehicles during base condition indicated the speeds during the deployment of presence lighting and speed limit trailers were lower than the base condition. Also, increased compliance with the 55 mph speed limit was observed when the presence lighting and digital speed limit trailers were deployed. However, there were two hours (3AM to 5AM) where speeds increased by 0 - 4 mph, perhaps due to the low volume at that hour. The encouraging results support the further deployment of presence lighting and speed limit trailers in nighttime construction zones for reducing vehicle speeds. Those future deployments should be monitored with connected vehicle speeds to collect additional data to broaden the evaluation of these speed mitigation techniques over a diverse set of construction zone activities.

Active protection of work area against explosion of dust-gas mixture

Potentially explosive atmosphere can occur not only in the production systems of the food,energy,chemical and petrochemical industries but also in the production processes of the mining industry.Gases,vapours,mists and dusts arise can escape in an uncontrolled way during production,processing,transportation and storage of flammable substances.In combination with oxygen,they create explosive atmospheres that,if ignited,lead to an explosion causing catastrophic damage to peopled lives and property.To protect against the results of hazardous dust-gas mixtures explosions in a confined work space,where employees can stay,various control and protection mechanisms are used in the form of an active explosion-proof system.The article presents the results of tests on an active system for limiting the effects of ignition of gas and/or dust based on a highly efficient explosion suppression system-equipped with an ignition detection system,high-pressure fire extinguisher and a power supply and trigger system.Smokeless powder was used as the explosive charge and sodium bicarbonate as the suppressive material.Tests of the effectiveness of the active explosion suppression system were carried out on two devices:a small-size dry dust collector and a zone extinguishing system adapted for direct explosion suppression in closed working spaces.In both cases,the explosion suppression process took place through the action of extinguishing powder blown out of the fire extinguisher after membrane perforation by compressed combustion products.

Movement of Autonomous Vehicles in Work Zone Using New Pavement Marking: A New Approach

The autonomous vehicles are the future of mobility across the globe and are expected to touch the lives of every person of all ages. But this comes with certain challenges regarding safety, reliability, cost, legal framework, regulations, etc. however, of all the concern safety and reliability are of utmost importance for researchers and engineers. The current research is focused on the movement of the autonomous vehicle in the work zone. The work zone is one of the most challenging areas for the autonomous vehicle to drive from. This is because the work zones are very dynamic, and all the construction activities are specific to the site condition and cannot always be predefined. The study provides a concept of how pavement marking can be used for smooth movement through the complicated work zone. In this study, various pavement marking signs have been designed as a concept considering the standard colors and striping width being used in the Manual of Uniform Traffic control device (MUTCD). The study assumes that the movement of the autonomous vehicle will not be exclusive and that it will move with the driver driven vehicle. It is expected that autonomous vehicles will require special pavement marking and signage for smooth movement through the work zone. These pavement marking and signage will eventually become part of standard Traffic Control Plans (TCP) and Maintenance of Traffic Plans (MOT). The research aims to study the current research being done in this area and technology being used for detecting various pavement markings and signages.

Research on System Dynamic of Buying Work Safety Services in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Buying work safety services from intermediaries is a new and important approach to improve the work safety in small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs).The existing literature addresses the significance and effectiveness of the service model but it ignores the dynamic game relationship between relevant stakeholders when SMEs choose to purchase the services under bounded rationality.Therefore,this study aims to analyse this dynamic game relationship based on evolutionary game theory.Furthermore,dynamic simulations of the evolutionary game model are applied to determine the impact of major factors for three stakeholders(SMEs,governments,and safety service agents),examine stability strategies,and identify modes of equilibrium under different subsidy strategies.The results of simulation are as follows.First,the results explain that how the major factors(service price,the quality of service,government subsidy,etc.)affect the system dynamic force of buying work safety services.Second,when the subsidy strategy is static payment,the selection of the stakeholders fluctuates and is not optimal.Third,when the subsidy strategy is a dynamic payment,the evolutionary game process converges to a stable state,which indicates that an evolutionarily stable strategy exists under the dynamic subsidy strategy.Moreover,the stable state and equilibrium values are not affected by the different initial values.The results of this study offer a certain reference for the government to guide the implementation of the purchase of work safety or other services in SMEs.