Weighted Bayesian network for the classification of unbalanced food safety data: Case study of risk-based monitoring of heavy metals.

Historical data on food safety monitoring often serve as an information source in designing monitoring plans. However, such data are often unbalanced: a small fraction of the dataset refers to food safety hazards that are present in high concentrations (representing commodity batches with a high risk of being contaminated, the positives) and a high fraction of the dataset refers to food safety hazards that are present in low concentrations (representing commodity batches with a low risk of being contaminated, the negatives). Such unbalanced datasets complicate modeling to predict the probability of contamination of commodity batches. This study proposes a weighted Bayesian network (WBN) classifier to improve the model prediction accuracy for the presence of food and feed safety hazards using unbalanced monitoring data, specifically for the presence of heavy metals in feed. Applying different weight values resulted in different classification accuracies for each involved class; the optimal weight value was defined as the value that yielded the most effective monitoring plan, that is, identifying the highest percentage of contaminated feed batches. Results showed that the Bayesian network classifier resulted in a large difference between the classification accuracy of positive samples (20%) and negative samples (99%). With the WBN approach, the classification accuracy of positive samples and negative samples were both around 80%, and the monitoring effectiveness increased from 31% to 80% for pre-set sample size of 3000. Results of this study can be used to improve the effectiveness of monitoring various food safety hazards in food and feed.

Adverse Housing Conditions and Early-Onset Delinquency.

Housing constitutes an important health resource for children. Research has revealed that, when housing conditions are unfavorable, they can interfere with child health, academic performance, and cognition. Little to no research, however, has considered whether adverse housing conditions and early-onset delinquency are significantly associated with one another. This study explores the associations between structural and non-structural housing conditions and delinquent involvement during childhood. Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) were employed in this study. Each adverse housing condition was significantly associated with early-onset delinquency. Even so, disarray and deterioration were only significantly linked to early delinquent involvement in the presence of health/safety hazards. The predicted probability of early-onset delinquency among children exposed to housing risks in the presence of health/safety hazards was nearly three times as large as the predicted probability of early-onset delinquency among children exposed only to disarray and/or deterioration, and nearly four times as large as the predicted probability of early-onset delinquency among children exposed to none of the adverse housing conditions. The findings suggest that minimizing housing-related health/safety hazards among at-risk subsets of the population may help to alleviate other important public health concerns-particularly early-onset delinquency. Addressing household health/safety hazards may represent a fruitful avenue for public health programs aimed at the prevention of early-onset delinquency.

An ISM-MICMAC-based study for identification and classification of preventable safety risk mitigation factors in mass housing projects following a BIM approach.

Construction operation is among the most high-risk sectors in terms of work-related accident, making it highly challenging to surveil the safety of such projects. In construction projects, failure to observe safety represents a leading cause of fatal accidents, not to mention the losses incurred by such accidents to national assets of the country. Accordingly, recent decades have witnessed the emergence of modern techniques for improving the occupational safety of construction projects. The main purpose of the present research is to identify and classify different preventable risk mitigation factors in mass housing projects following a building information modeling (BIM) approach. The research methodology included interviews with relevant experts and elites followed by analysis of the data on the 12 identified-as-significant variables for mitigating the preventable risk factors in mass house construction projects by means of the inferential - structural modeling (ISM) in MICMAC software. In order to explore the relationships among and succession of different criteria and further classify them at different levels, ISM was implemented, with the MICMAC software used to analyze the direct and indirect influences, develop influence/dependence maps, and judge about the role of each criterion. Findings of the present research showed that the mutual relations (H3), the reward system (H6), the reporting system (H7), and the supervisors' supervision (H8) are autonomous variables and hence impose the smallest contributions to the system. Accordingly, they can be eliminated from the model though their effects may not be completely ignored. On the other hand, the employees' empowering (H4), the safety management system (H5), the teamwork (H9), the self-efficiency (H10), and the knowledge and awareness (H11) were identified as the linkage variables that fill in the gap between the safety and occupational accident reduction in the mass house construction projects. Further, the continuous improvement (H2) and the safe behavior (H12) were identified as dependent variables, implying that they exhibit the weakest influence coupled with highest dependence on any change in the conditions of the system. Last but not the least, the management commitment (H1) was identified as the only dependent variable which deserves lots of attention. This information can be helpful to safety decision-makers, end users, research organizations, and academic institutes who work to reduce the preventable risk factors in mass house construction projects.

Experimental evaluation of ballistic hazards in imaging diagnostic center.

BACKGROUND: Serious hazards for human health and life and devices in close proximity to the magnetic resonance scanners (MRI scanners) include the effects of being hit by ferromagnetic objects attracted by static magnetic field (SMF) produced by scanner magnet - the so-called ballistic hazards classified among indirect electromagnetic hazards. International safety guidelines and technical literature specify different SMF threshold values regarding ballistic hazards - e.g. 3 mT (directive 2004/40/EC, EN 60601-2-33), and 30 mT (BMAS 2009, directive proposal 2011). Investigations presented in this article were performed in order to experimentally verify SMF threshold for ballistic hazards near MRI scanners used in Poland. MATERIAL/METHODS: Investigations were performed with the use of a laboratory source of SMF (0-30 mT) and MRI scanners of various types. The levels of SMF in which metal objects of various shapes and 0.4-500 g mass are moved by the field influence were investigated. The distance from the MRI scanners (0.2-3T) where hazards may occur were also investigated. RESULTS: Objects investigated under laboratory conditions were moved by SMF of 2.2-15 mT magnetic flux density when they were freely suspended, but were moved by the SMF of 5.6-22 mT when they were placed on a smooth surface. Investigated objects were moved in fields of 3.5-40 mT by MRI scanners. Distances from scanner magnet cover, where ballistic hazards might occur are: up to 0.5 m for 0.2-0.3T scanners; up to 1.3 m for 0.5T scanners; up to 2.0 m for 1.5T scanners and up to 2.5 m for 3T scanners (at the front and back of the magnet). CONCLUSIONS: It was shown that SMF of 3 mT magnetic flux density should be taken as the threshold for ballistic hazards. Such level is compatible with SMF limit value regarding occupational safety and health-protected areas/zones, where according to the Polish labor law the procedures of work environment inspection and prevention measures regarding indirect electromagnetic hazards should be applied. Presented results do not support the increase up to 30 mT of the SMF limit for protected area.

ICNIRP Guidelines' Exposure Assessment Method for 5G Millimetre Wave Radiation May Trigger Adverse Effects.

The current global roll-out of 5G infrastructure is designed to utilise millimetre wave frequencies (30-300 GHz range) at data transmission rates in the order of gigabits per second (Gbps). This frequency band will be transmitted using beamforming, a new introduction in near-field exposures. The International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has recently updated their guidelines. We briefly examine whether the new approach of the ICNIRP is satisfactory to prevent heat damage and other adverse bio-effects once millimetre wave 5G is included, and we challenge the use of surface-only exposure assessment for local exposures greater than 6 GHz in part due to possible Brillouin precursor pulse formation. However, this is relevant whether or not Brillouin precursors occur from absorption of either 5G or future G transmissions. Many significant sources conclude there is insufficient research to assure safety even from the heat perspective. To date, there has been no published in vivo, in vitro or epidemiological research using exposures to 5G New Radio beam-formed signals.

Recent Advances in Personal Glucose Meter-Based Biosensors for Food Safety Hazard Detection.

Food safety has emerged as a significant concern for global public health and sustainable development. The development of analytical tools capable of rapidly, conveniently, and sensitively detecting food safety hazards is imperative. Over the past few decades, personal glucose meters (PGMs), characterized by their rapid response, low cost, and high degree of commercialization, have served as portable signal output devices extensively utilized in the construction of biosensors. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the mechanism underlying the construction of PGM-based biosensors, which consists of three fundamental components: recognition, signal transduction, and signal output. It also detailedly enumerates available recognition and signal transduction elements, and their modes of integration. Then, a multitude of instances is examined to present the latest advancements in the application of PGMs in food safety detection, including targets such as pathogenic bacteria, mycotoxins, agricultural and veterinary drug residues, heavy metal ions, and illegal additives. Finally, the challenges and prospects of PGM-based biosensors are highlighted, aiming to offer valuable references for the iterative refinement of detection techniques and provide a comprehensive framework and inspiration for further investigations.

Health and safety aspects of traditional European meat products. A review.

Meat products constitute one of the most important groups of traditional foods. Thanks to the unique and favorable organoleptic characteristics, and high quality, they are willingly chosen by consumers. Lately, there has been a growing concern over the health aspects of these products. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the nutritional value and factors affecting quality and health safety of traditional meat products on the basis of available literature. The study findings have revealed various issues with uniformity of traditional meat products. Products of the same name may differ substantially considering nutritional value. Reports also indicate that there are some discrepancies which can be attributed to product character (traditional/conventional). They mainly concern the content of moisture, protein, salt, fat, and fatty acid profile. Research suggests that traditional meat products may also be associated with some health safety issues, such as the presence of pathogens, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrate and nitrite residues, N-nitrosamines, biogenic amines and heavy metals.

The Impact of Emotional States on Construction Workers' Recognition Ability of Safety Hazards Based on Social Cognitive Neuroscience.

The construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries with grave situation owing to high accident rate and mortality rate, which accompanied with a series of security management issues that need to be tackled urgently. The unsafe behavior of construction workers is a critical reason for the high incidence of safety accidents. Affective Events Theory suggests that individual emotional states interfere with individual decisions and behaviors, which means the individual emotional states can significantly influence construction workers' unsafe behaviors. As the complexity of the construction site environment and the lack of attention to construction workers' emotions by managers, serious potential emotional problems were planted, resulting in the inability of construction workers to effectively recognize safety hazards, thus leading to safety accidents. Consequently, the study designs a behavioral experiment with E-prime software based on social cognitive neuroscience theories. Forty construction workers' galvanic skin response signals were collected by a wearable device (HKR-11C+), and the galvanic skin response data were classified into different emotional states with support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. Variance analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to analyze the influence of emotional states on construction workers' recognition ability of safety hazards. The research findings indicate that the SVM algorithm could effectively classify galvanic skin response data. The construct ion workers' the reaction time to safety hazards and emotional valence were negatively correlated, while the accuracy of safety hazards recognition and the perception level of safety hazard separately had an inverted "U" type relationship with emotional valence. For construction workers with more than 20 years of working experience, work experience could effectively reduce the influence of emotional fluctuations on the accuracy of safety hazards identification. This study contributes to the application of physiological measurement techniques in construction safety management and shed a light on improving the theoretical system of safety management.

Automatic classification of literature in systematic reviews on food safety using machine learning.

Systematic reviews are used to collect relevant literature to answer a research question in a way that is clear, thorough, unbiased and reproducible. They are implemented as a standard method in the domain of food safety to obtain a literature overview on the state-of-the-art research related to food safety topics of interest. A disadvantage to systematic reviews, however, is that this process is time-consuming and requires expert domain knowledge. The work reported here aims to reduce the time needed by an expert to screen all possible relevant articles by applying machine learning techniques to classify the articles automatically as either relevant or not relevant. Eight different machine learning algorithms and ensembles of all combinations of these algorithms were tested on two different systematic reviews on food safety (i.e. chemical hazards in cereals and leafy greens). The results showed that the best performance was obtained by an ensemble of naive Bayes and a support vector machine, resulting in an average decrease of 32.8% in the amount of articles the expert has to read and an average decrease in irrelevant articles of 57.8% while keeping 95% of the relevant articles. It was concluded that automatic classification of the literature in a systematic literature review can support experts in their task and save valuable time without compromising the quality of the review.

Investigation of potential safety hazards during medical waste disposal in SARS-CoV-2 testing laboratory.

This study aims to investigate the potential safety hazards and provide reference for improving the medical waste disposal procedure in SARS-CoV-2 testing laboratory. Our SARS-CoV-2 testing group detected the RNA residue on the surface of medical waste with Droplet Digital PCR, and held a meeting to discuss the risks in the laboratory medical waste disposal process. After effective autoclaving, SARS-CoV-2 contaminated on the surface of medical waste bags was killed, but the average concentration of viral RNA residues was still 0.85 copies/cm2. It would not pose a health risk, but might contaminate the laboratory and affect the test results. When the sterilized medical waste bags were transferred directly by the operators without hand disinfection, re-contamination would happen, which might cause the virus to leak out of the laboratory. Furthermore, we found that sterilization effect monitoring and cooperation among operators were also very important. In summary, we investigated and analyzed the potential safety hazards during the medical waste disposal process in SARS-CoV-2 testing laboratory, and provided reasonable suggestions to ensure the safety of medical waste disposal.

COVID-19 Outbreak Response for an Emergency Department Using In Situ Simulation.

In January 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 an epidemic in China and the possibility of evolving into a pandemic. During early phases, most emergency departments did not have contingency plans for an outbreak of this scale and therefore necessitating adequate preparation. This study aims to describe the utility of in situ simulation in identifying system errors and latent safety hazards in response to preparation for the expected COVID-19 surge. We also aim to describe the corrective measures taken to improve our outbreak response locally. We hope that others may be able to use this information as foresight in preparing their own departments for this outbreak. The emergency department and anesthesiology department of Galway University Hospital conducted a series of multidisciplinary, in situ simulations to rapidly identify operational errors and latent safety hazards in response to this outbreak. Each simulation involved an interdisciplinary response to a suspected/COVID-19 patient. The cases were used as a training opportunity for staff and ultimately a platform to expeditiously implement system changes in response to deficits identified during the simulations. Conclusively, with the complexities and intricate structure of every emergency department, we understood that preparation for an outbreak requires evaluation of the current system before implementing any changes. It is not a "one size fits all" concept. Therefore, conducting in situ simulations and the use of foresight, is pivotal as it could prevent loss of resources and time in preparing for an outbreak.

Small business success: Identifying safety hazards and safety risks.

The establishment and growth of the small businesses in South Africa is of vital importance for economic stability and progress in the economy. A key small business management skill comprises occupational health and safety management, with particular reference to the proper identification of safety hazards and safety risks. This conceptual article set out to identify current perceptions about the concepts of safety, safety risks and safety hazards in the workplace while also identifying and analysing misconceptions regarding safety hazards. This article reports on a secondary data analysis of relevant literature on safety hazards and safety risk and the role thereof on small business success. The structure and functioning of the interrelated characteristics of safety hazards were visualised, with the objective of allowing small business owners or managers to understand how safety hazards contribute to safety risks. Proper identification of safety hazards and safety risks, along with adequate protection measures, allows for improved productivity and a reduction in operational costs. Safety hazards in the workplace, encompassing the functional and structural characteristics, such as humans and machinery, should be noted by small business owners, as applicable to all types of businesses. This article may serve as a catalyst for small business success through growth and sustainability by implementing enhanced safety management practices based on an accurate identification and analysis of safety hazards and safety risks. It allows for the identification and proactive mitigation of safety hazards and safety risks in all types of small businesses.

Development of a Scalable Process for the Synthesis of DNDI-VL-2098: A Potential Preclinical Drug Candidate for the Treatment of Visceral Leishmaniasis.

A process suitable for kilogram-scale synthesis of (2R)-2-methyl-6-nitro-2-{[4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenoxy]methyl}-2,3-dihydroimidazo[2,1-b][1,3]oxazole (DNDI-VL-2098, 2), a preclinical drug candidate for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis, is described. The four-step synthesis of the target compound involves the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation of 2-methyl-2-propen-1-ol, 8. Identification of a suitable synthetic route using retrosynthetic analysis and development of a scalable process to access several kilograms of 2 are illustrated. The process was simplified by employing in situ synthesis of some intermediates, reducing safety hazards, and eliminating the need for column chromatography. The improved reactions were carried out on the kilogram scale to produce 2 in good yield, high optical purity, and high quality.

Agents, mechanisms and clinical features of non-scald burns in children: A prospective UK study.

AIMS: To inform childhood burn prevention by identifying demographics, clinical features and circumstances of unintentional non-scald burns. METHODS: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted across Cardiff, Bristol and Manchester, including six emergency departments, three minor injury units and one burns unit between 13/01/2013-01/10/2015. Data collected for children aged <16 years with any burn (scald, contact, flame, radiation, chemical, electrical, friction) included: demographics, circumstances of injury and clinical features. Scalds and burns due to maltreatment were excluded from current analysis. RESULTS: Of 564 non-scald cases, 60.8% were boys, 51.1% were <3 years old, 90.1% (472/524) of burns affected one anatomical site. Contact burns accounted for 86.7% (489/564), 34.8% (137/394) of which were from objects placed at >0.6m and 76.5% (349/456) affected the hands. Hairstyling devices were the most common agent of contact burns (20.5%, 100/487); 34.1% (30/88) of hairstyling devices were on the floor. Of children aged 10-15 years, 63.7% (65/102), sustained contact burns of which 23.2% (13/56) were preparing food, and when burnt from hairstyling devices, 73.3% (11/15) were using them at the time of injury. CONCLUSIONS: Parents of toddlers must learn safe storage of hazardous items. Older children should be taught skills in safe cooking and hairstyling device use.

Risk for household safety hazards: Socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors.

INTRODUCTION: Many unintentional injuries to young children occur in the home. The current study examines the relation between family socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors and risk factors for home injury. METHODS: Presence of household hazards was examined in 80 families with toddler-aged children. Parental ability to identify household hazards in pictures was also assessed. ANOVAs and Pearson product-moment correlations examined the relationship between presence of household hazards, knowledge to identify hazards, and factors of yearly family income, parental age, parental education, parental marital status, child ethnicity, and the number of children living in the home. RESULTS: A greater number of hazards were found in the homes of both the lowest and highest income families, but poorer knowledge to identify household hazards was found only among parents of the lowest income families and younger parents. Across family socioeconomic status, parent knowledge of hazards was related to observed household hazards. CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between family income and risk for injury is complex, and children of both lower and higher SES families may be at risk for injury. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: While historically particular focus has been placed on risk for injury among children in low income families, injury prevention efforts should target reducing presence of household hazards in both high and low SES families.