Health & Safety Always an important factor to consider. You can never understate the need to prevent injury to your workforce. Like all other things, we're constantly finding out new products and ways to improve health and safety.
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A new study has found that the type of Taser stun gun used most by police officers can fire more electricity than the company says is possible, which the study's authors say raises the risk of cardiac arrest as much as 50 percent in some people.
The study, led by a Montreal biomedical engineer and a U.S. defense contractor at the request of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., also concluded that even stun guns firing at expected electrical levels carry some risk of inducing a heart attack, depending on the circumstances. |
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Saturday 6 December, 2008 04:52 AM |
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Olympic athletes are not stupid. Obsessed with their craft, perhaps. Addicted to training, of course. But oblivious to the environment in which they are to perform, no.
Given the lack of scientific evidence regarding pollution and its impact on athletes, one sniff of the Beijing air suggested to many of these well-trained contenders all they needed to know about the environment: dangerous. Heck, in January of this year—more than seven months before the games—researchers from the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Penn., studied the impact of athletic performance in low and high pollution scenarios, which prompted one of the study’s key authors, Kenneth Rundell, to conclude, “It might be best to show up the minute you’re going to start running.”
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Thursday 6 November, 2008 04:17 PM |
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Wake Forest University School of Medicine is searching for six real-life, wreck-test dummies.
Researchers are not planning to substitute local residents' flesh and blood for the dummies' plastic limbs and metal rods, but they do want real people to serve as body doubles for computer models to better measure the injuries to bones, muscles, organs and tendons caused by automobile wrecks.
The computer images are being designed for the Global Human Body Models Consortium.
The goal of the consortium is to improve vehicle safety for drivers and passengers according to their specific height, weight, size, shape and age. The members are Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Honda R&D Co., Hyundai Motor Co., Nissan Motor Corp. Ltd., PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Renault s.a.s., Takata Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and TRW Automotive. |
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Monday 3 November, 2008 12:51 AM |
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The prime purpose of any life saving equipment is to ensure no additional loss of human life and to find any casualties as fast as possible. With this is in mind, the development of the six legged robotic spider to support life rescuing operations during catastrophe response missions, such as collapsed buildings after an earth-quake empowers a complete robotic solution.
Thanks to its mobility, small size and onboard intelligence, the spider can avoid a variety of obstacles and move to remote, difficult-to-reach locations to look for trapped victims. Another potential application area is to replace humans in dangerous missions, such as sweeping and neutralizing mine-fields. |
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Monday 27 October, 2008 04:41 PM |
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Original designers of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis likely neglected to calculate the size of key gusset plates that eventually failed, a human mistake that culminated 40 years later when 13 people died after the span collapsed, federal safety investigators have found. |
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Monday 27 October, 2008 10:38 AM |
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An Electronic Dive Buddy built by University of Auckland engineering students could make scuba diving a much safer sport.
Anatoly Kudryashov and Jenny Xu from the Department of Mechanical Engineering's Mechatronics Engineering specialisation have designed a computerised system to automatically adjust a diver's buoyancy if they get into trouble. The project was supervised by Associate Professor Vojislav Kecman and assisted by Technical Officer Rob Earl.
"The most important task for a diver while underwater is buoyancy control. Normally this is controlled manually by adding or releasing air in a buoyancy control device, which is worn like a jacket," Anatoly says. |
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Friday 17 October, 2008 02:11 AM |
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Most office furniture , whether it's used in the study at home or in an air-conditioned cubicle, goes unnoticed. It too often comprises the grey, functional, hard-wearing and bland components of the working landscape, sometimes symbolic of the daily grind, almost never associated with comfort or pleasure, let alone well-being.
So when the American furniture company Herman Miller, which this year celebrates its 85th birthday, announces that its new chair will not only save you from the stiff neck and backache caused by countless hours in front of a computer screen, but will enhance your productivity by allowing you to sit still for longer, both employee and employer suddenly sit up straight – and that's regardless of the chair they're in. |
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Wednesday 15 October, 2008 05:14 PM |
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Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a prosthetic vein valve to help improve the lives of those suffering from a condition known as chronic venous insufficiency. The condition, which affects more than seven million people in the United States alone, occurs when valves in a person’s veins can no longer ensure a one-way flow of blood back to the heart.
“Blood flows to the toes because of gravity, but the body uses vein valves to pump blood in one direction back to the heart,” said David Ku, the Lawrence P. Huang Endowed Chair in Engineering and Entrepreneurship and Regents’ Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. “However, sometimes a vein valve dissolves away after a blood clot. The loss of the valve leaflets allows blood to flow the wrong way, causing swelling in the legs and ankles.”
Ku is leading a research team that has developed a prosthetic vein valve to replace damaged, non-functioning valves. The prosthetic vein valve design and results from laboratory studies were presented at the Society for Biomaterials Fall Symposium in Atlanta on September 12. The research – under way for the past five years – is funded by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. |
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Tuesday 30 September, 2008 09:51 AM |
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Cabs are being withdrawn from service after a number of taxis burst into flames.
Some 11 vehicles in Brighton and Hove are to undergo checks after TX4 models across the country were affected by under-bonnet fires.
In the latest incident in London, the driver had only 45 seconds to escape the blaze.
Brighton and Hove City Council has licensed 25 of the taxis, of which 11 have the GX56 registration associated with the problem.
A spokesman said: “We’re likely to ask drivers to have safety checks on these cabs by a certain deadline, as is happening in London.”
Twelve TX4 cabs have burst into flames since being issued in October 2006. |
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Sunday 21 September, 2008 10:55 AM |
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The deadliest rail disaster in 15 years has exposed a glaring safety issue: Technology installed on a fraction of U.S. rail tracks can slow or halt trains heading toward catastrophe, but it was not in use when a Los Angeles commuter train failed to stop at a red warning light and collided with a freight train.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been pushing railroads for decades to adopt the system known as positive train control. Railroads, however have balked at the cost and reliability of the technology. |
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Thursday 18 September, 2008 06:51 AM |
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Scientists at the University of Ulster are to begin working on a multi-million pound project to develop unmanned 'intelligent' aerial robots which could revolutionise the way in which search and rescue operations or the response to natural or man-made disasters are carried out.
The small helicopters would be remotely controlled and would be able to send back pictures and data to a central command post. They would also be able to communicate with each other to co-ordinate their operations.
Professor Gerard Parr, Professor of Telecommunications Engineering at Ulster said the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could be used in a number of scenarios including to:
* Search for people lost in isolated areas like mountains, forests or moors.
* Monitor disasters like floods or forest fires which could cover thousands of acres.
* Survey biological disasters such as chemical factory fires and sample gas emissions.
* Act as a communications platform where normal radio or mobile telephone transmissions are impossible or disrupted.
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Saturday 6 September, 2008 08:57 AM |
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AMESBURY — A long, rusty metal beam has fallen from the Interstate 95 bridge, and a review of the structure shows at least three other spots where beams on the 57-year-old span are missing and may have fallen into the Merrimack River.
Rusted and bent metal plates on the underside of the bridge indicate where the T-shaped beam — about a half-inch thick, 6 inches wide and 30 feet long — was once attached to the bridge. The beam now sits on a grassy patch alongside the river, about 80 feet below where it once was. |
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Monday 30 June, 2008 07:05 PM |
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center is dedicated to advancing the discovery of new and novel medical technologies and research and following them through to implementation, said the center's director.
Col. (Dr.) Karl Friedl, who leads the center on Fort Detrick, Md., discussed the center's mission during an interview on the "Dot Mil Docs" program on BlogTalkRadio.com on Thursday.
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Tuesday 24 June, 2008 11:47 AM |
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The Volkswagen Group has taken on the Virtual Performance Solution software suite developed by ESI Group (ESIN FR0004110310)(Paris: ESI) for the simulation of vehicle crash, safety and structural load cases. Virtual Performance Solution includes PAM-CRASH, PAM-SAFE products and FPM (Finite Point Method) technology for all vehicle crash and safety simulations, as well as the latest developments in implicit technology for linear and nonlinear structural load cases. The most recent software release - Virtual Performance Solution version 2008 - opens the way to a considerable acceleration in the development process. Impact scenarios and structural load cases as designed, as analysed, as built and as destroyed can now be simulated much more efficiently. This results from ESI Group's close cooperation with the Volkswagen Group, Europe's largest automobile manufacturer: Both have jointly pioneered crash simulations successfully since 1986. |
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Thursday 29 May, 2008 02:06 PM |
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Did you know Trivia - CHIEF Executive at the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Dr David Brown says lives are put at risk by nonsensical interpretations of health and safety laws.
According to Brown, the misguided approach to health and safety has led to their misrepresentation and stunts like the banning of Christmas lights and practical science lessons.
click the links to read more |
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Sunday 18 May, 2008 05:21 PM |
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Even though they are often used as restraining devices on members of the public, police do not carry out routine tests on Taser guns , a CTV News investigation has found.
It means that police officers are unaware of the true electrical output of what has proven to be a lethal weapon.
This information has come to light in the wake of the death in 2004 of Robert Bagnell, who was killed almost instantly after being shocked by a Vancouver police Taser.
....click the link to read more |
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Thursday 8 May, 2008 03:06 PM |
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British Sugar plc operates four sugar beet processing plants in the UK producing more than one million tonnes of sugar a year — around half the UK's sugar demand. Reflecting the potential for sugar dust to create explosions, the company has long been proactive in the area of factory safety, operating in compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act and associated legislation to ensure a safe working environment.
Well before the arrival of ATEX/DSEAR legislation, each British Sugar site produced detailed, site-specific risk assessments of all product handling, screening and storage plant, including the buildings within which the equipment was stored. These covered general zone classification, plant identification, a Basis of Safety review for each plant item, the existing equipment explosion protection measures and devices. Likewise, arrangements for earth bonding, maintenance schedules and records and housekeeping procedures were continually monitored and developed.
....click the link to read more |
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Friday 2 May, 2008 03:21 AM |
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Robots are nothing new. Even bionics has become a bit passe. But imagine building a robot that can not only use sensory perception but also learn from its environment and adjust its actions to suit.
Australian researchers are not just imagining it - they are taking the first steps to create it, through a unique collaboration of scientific disciplines, universities and ideas.
The Thinking Systems Group was founded in March 2005, but it has only been in the past six months that work has really begun on its first project - creating an autonomous robotic hand that uses sensory feedback to mimic the connection between our own hands and brain.
....click the link to read more |
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Tuesday 29 April, 2008 03:08 PM |
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Worried about pesticides in the food chain? Concerned about your carbon footprint? Just pondering the planet's fate is enough to drive some of us to drink.
Fortunately, that's one activity we don't have to feel so guilty about any more. The latest cocktail craze? Ethical booze.
It started with Rain organic vodka, which landed in B.C. stores two years ago, and Juniper Green Organic London Dry Gin from England, available in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta. Engineered to make you feel good.
....click the link to read more |
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Thursday 17 April, 2008 09:07 PM |
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Nuclear reactors of the kind France wants to sell to Britain suffer from "potentially catastrophic" engineering problems, it was claimed yesterday.
News of the structural flaws came days after President Nicolas Sarkozy used a state visit to Britain to boast about his nation's nuclear engineering expertise.
He made it clear that devices such as the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) being built at Flamanville, in Normandy, should be on Gordon Brown's shopping list as part of the "entente formidable" between the two countries. ....click the link to read more |
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Tuesday 1 April, 2008 03:06 AM |
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The professional organization for engineers who build the nation's roads, dams and bridges has been accused by fellow engineers of covering up catastrophic design flaws while investigating national disasters.
After the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the levee failures caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the federal government paid the American Society of Civil Engineers to investigate what went wrong. ....click the link to read more |
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Sunday 30 March, 2008 07:06 PM |
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