Biao Yang

Needlestick injuries among nursing students in China

OBJECTIVES To describe and characterize the rates and the nature of needlestick injuries among nursing students in China. METHODS A questionnaire was delivered to 248 randomly selected nursing students from seven training hospitals to obtain information relevant occupational needlestick injuries. RESULTS A total of 1144 incidents of needlestick injuries were reported among the 246 nurses during the time period of internship. The overall rate of needlestick injuries among these nurses was 100%, according to this survey. Insufficient awareness of occupational safety and limited work experience with handling needlestick injuries in these nurse students were significantly reported. In addition, when stratified by departments, the highest rate of needlestick injuries was seen in the surgery department. The occurrence of needlestick injuries is significantly related to clinical practice behaviors. CONCLUSIONS Needlestick injuries are commonly reported in nursing students in China. Enhanced awareness of occupational safety in nursing students is expected to reduce the risk of needlestick injuries.

Using eye-tracking to identify pedestrians' critical visual tasks. Part 2. Fixation on pedestrians

This article investigates different approaches to the interpretation of eye-tracking video records of pedestrians walking outdoors to determine the apparent importance of fixation on other pedestrians and how this is influenced by the frequency of occurrence. The three approaches were as follows: the proportion of time that fixations were on pedestrians (14%), a common approach to interpretation; the proportion of fixations at critical moments that were on pedestrians (23%), critical moments being defined by a delayed response to a dual task; and the probability of an approaching pedestrian being fixated at least once (86%). These data were compared against the number of pedestrians encountered during the trials; the proportion of all fixations and the probability of fixating people were affected by the number of people encountered – only the critical-fixations data did not exhibit a trend.

Observing other pedestrians: Investigating the typical distance and duration of fixation

After dark, road lighting should enhance the visual component of pedestrians’ interpersonal judgements such as evaluating the intent of others. Investigation of lighting effects requires better understanding of the nature of this task as expressed by the typical distance at which the judgement is made (and hence visual size) and the duration of observation, which in past studies have been arbitrary. Better understanding will help with interpretation of the significance of lighting characteristics such as illuminance and light spectrum. Conclusions of comfort distance in past studies are not consistent and hence this article presents new data determined using eye-tracking. We propose that further work on interpersonal judgements should examine the effects of lighting at a distance of 15 m with an observation duration of 500 ms.

Effects of outdoor lighting on judgements of emotion and gaze direction

Road lighting in residential roads should enhance the visual component of interpersonal judgements concerning the apparent intent of other pedestrians – whether friendly, aggressive or indifferent. This paper describes an experiment which collected forced-choice judgements of emotion and gaze direction after 1000 ms exposure under 18 combinations of lamp type, luminance and interpersonal distances. Better performance was found with higher luminance and larger task size, but with diminishing returns according to a plateau-escarpment relationship. The results were used to estimate appropriate light levels for outdoor lighting. Results for judgements of emotion from facial expression suggest a minimum luminance of the face of 0.1–1.0 cd/m2 if facial expressions are to be identified accurately at 4 m, but a luminance above 1.0 cd/m2 for identification at 10 m.

Occupational safety training and education for needlestick injuries among nursing students in China: intervention study.

OBJECTIVES To confirm the effect of occupational safety training and education programs (OSTEP) on needlestick injuries (NSIs) among nursing students in China. METHODS Compare the rates and the nature of NSIs before and after OSTEP among the nursing students in China. Firstly, questionnaires were delivered to 248 randomly selected nursing students from seven training hospitals to obtain basic information concerning relevant occupational NSIs. Then regular intervention measures through OSTEP on 246 nursing students had been introduced for four years. And the resultant information concerning relevant occupational NSIs was obtained afterwards. Finally, the data analysis was performed using SPSS software, version 11.5. RESULTS The rate of NSIs among these nursing students was relatively high before the OSTEP in China (average, 4.65 events/nurse). However, it decreased rapidly to 0.16 events/nurse average after the OSTEP. Occupational safety awareness and behavior in handling NSIs was improved in China. There was a significant difference in the results of Chi-square value (P<0.005). CONCLUSIONS NSIs are common in nursing students in China. The OSTEP can reduce NSIs and change practical behavior markedly among nursing students in China. We should perform OSTEP on nurse students before and during the clinical practice. We must also provide effective preventive measures to reduce this kind of problem in future.

Investigating the chromatic contribution to recognition of facial expression

A pedestrian may judge the intentions of another person by their facial expression amongst other cues and aiding such evaluation after dark is one aim of road lighting. Previous studies give mixed conclusions as to whether lamp spectrum affects the ability to make such judgements. An experiment was carried out using conditions better resembling those of pedestrian behaviour, using as targets photographs of actors portraying facial expressions corresponding to the six universally recognised emotions. Responses were sought using a forced-choice procedure, under two types of lamp and with colour and grey scale photographs. Neither lamp type nor image colour was suggested to have a significant effect on the frequency with which the emotion conveyed by facial expression was correctly identified.

Transient effects of harsh luminous conditions on the visual performance of aviators in a civil aircraft cockpit.

The aim of this work was to examine how harsh luminous conditions in a cockpit, such as lightning in a thunderstorm or direct sunlight immediately after an aircraft passes through clouds, may affect the visual performance of pilots, and how to improve it. Such lighting conditions can result in the temporary visual impairment of aviators, which may greatly increase the risk of accidents. Tests were carried out in a full-scale simulator cockpit in which two kinds of dynamic lighting scenes, namely pulse changed and step changed lighting, were used to represent harsh luminous conditions. Visual acuity (VA), reaction time (RT) and identification accuracy (IA) were recorded as dependent variables. Data analysis results indicate that standardized VA values decreased significantly in both pulsing and step conditions in comparison with the dark condition. Standardized RT values increased significantly in the step condition; on the contrary, less reaction time was observed in the pulsing condition. Such effects could be reduced by an ambient illumination provided by a fluorescent lamp in both conditions. The results are to be used as a principle for optimizing lighting design with a thunderstorm light.

Health education about hypertension in the elderly in rural Chinese villages

This study sought to examine baseline knowledge of hypertension among the elderly in rural western Chinese villages and to evaluate whether educational programs could improve their knowledge towards better hypertension prevention and management. We conducted a 25-day health education about hypertension, including health lectures, personal consultation and distribution of health pamphlets, etc., for 1182 randomly assigned elderly people in Shaanxi Province, P. R. China, during the period from June to September, 2007. All subjects received a questionnaire-based survey and then a 25-day health education on hypertension. Poor knowledge regarding the causes and preventive measures of hypertension was observed in these aged participants before implementation of the health education. However, their overall knowledge of hypertension was significantly improved after the health education (P<0.05). Health education can greatly improve knowledge of hypertension, which may help to reduce the risk of hypertension in the elderly.

Effect of environmental factors on how older pedestrians detect an upcoming step

The relationships between environmental features and older peoples ability to safely move around a complex pedestrian environment are, as yet, poorly understood. Specifically, the impact of light levels on trip hazard detection during walking has received relatively little attention. This study investigates the effect of illuminance on peoples ability to detect steps of different heights in a laboratory-based controlled environment. Sixteen young and 15 older participants walked along a 13.2 m walkway towards an either ascending or descending step at 200 lux or 4 lux light levels. Trial time, gaze behaviour and distance at which the step was first visually fixated (detection distance) were measured using an eye-tracker. It was found that both the trial time and detection distance of older participants were affected by light level whereas the fixation number and fixation duration of young participants were affected by step-height. Shorter detection distance, greater number of fixations and longer fixation duration were found among older participants as opposed to young participants. The results suggest that the processing efficiency for visual information on an upcoming step is slower among older people than among young people. This implies that the vulnerability of older pedestrians maybe be reduced if better lighting or a simplified visual environment is provided.

Does expression choice affect the analysis of light spectrum and facial emotion recognition

Facial emotion recognition has been used as a representative pedestrian activity in studies examining the effect of changes in road lighting. Past studies have drawn conclusions using results averaged across performance with the six universally recognised expressions. This paper asks whether expression choice matters. A reanalysis of past data for each unique expression does not suggest a change in the conclusion that facial emotion recognition is not significantly affected by the spectral power distribution of the lighting.