Background: The cognitive function could be affected following exposure to organic solvents.The purpose of this study was to examine the cognitive performance of workers exposed to different levels of organic solvents in a painting unit of an automotive industry.Methods: This case-control study was conducted, in 2017, on 121 and 111 workers from the painting and assembly units of an automotive industry as the case and control groups,respectively. Exposure of workers to organic solvents were determined according to National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) method. The cognitive performance of the studied population was evaluated by the computerized tests.Results: The obtained scores of the N-Back in 1 and 2 blocks and the simple reaction time tests(SRTTs) were significantly differed in the exposed group (p 0.05). Moreover, a significant relationship between the hazard quotient and the cognitive function test scores were observed except the Stroop test.Conclusion: Exposure to organic solvents affect the cognitive functions even below the Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs). Moreover, workers with high exposure levels of organic solvents had highest risk of poor memory and reaction time.

This research investigated the effects of safety climate and psychosocial safety climate factors on safety performance of employees in a process industry. Operators and supervisors of control rooms participated in this study, and the collected data were analyzed by multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches. The entropy approach was employed to prioritize safety climate and psychosocial safety climate factors. Moreover, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) got applied to rank the alternatives. The findings obtained by the entropy approach showed that “rule breaking” (among safety climate factors) and “organizational communication” (among psychosocial safety climate factors) had the greatest influence on safety performance of employees, respectively. TOPSIS results revealed that supervisors experienced a greater degree of safety performance than operators. The findings of this study demonstrated that safety professionals should consider both safety climate and psychosocial safety climate factors to promote safety performance in high-hazard process facilities.

Previous studies have demonstrated that a positive ergonomics climate with an equal focus on improving operational performance and employee well-being is beneficial to both employee health and organizational performance. This study aimed to assess the ergonomics climate at two power plants and examine its association with self-reported pain, performance, and well-being. At two power plants in Iran, survey responses from 109 and 110 employees were obtained. The questionnaires contained data on ergonomics climate, organizational performance, employee health, and self-reported pain. Results showed that the mean ergonomics climate scores between the Besat and Rey power plants were significantly different (p < 0.001). The overall ergonomics climate score, and all subscales scores, were positively associated with organizational performance (p < 0.001). The overall ergonomics climate score, and some of its subscales, were significantly associated with employees’ general health (p < 0.001). The ergonomics climate score was significantly higher in the group of employees who reported musculoskeletal pain than those who did not report musculoskeletal pain (p < 0.05). Investigation of ergonomics climate can provide organizations with a baseline for prioritizing their values and finding areas for improving organizational performance and employee health.

Background: Although previous evidence confirms the effects of sleep deprivation on mental health and wellbeing, due to the interaction effects of sleep and mood on each other, the influence of sleep improvement has received less attention. Objective: This study aimed to find whether binaural beat technology can enhance sleep quality and thus post-sleep mood. Methods: Twenty healthy students participated in this pilot study. All subjects were investigated for two weeks (a baseline week and an experimental week). In the first week, there was no intervention, but in the second week, all subjects were exposed to a 90 min binaural beat in the delta frequency range. The individuals’ sleep was monitored for two weeks using a sleep diary form, and a Profile of Mood State questionnaire was employed to assess their mood at the end of the first and second weeks. Results: Auditory stimulation with delta binaural beat enhanced sleep parameters such as sleep failure, the number of awakenings, real duration of sleep, sleep quality, and feeling following the waking of the individuals. Finally, students’ moods improved by reducing anxiety and anger, but other mood parameters did not indicate a significant difference. Conclusion: The findings of this study confirmed that auditory stimulation with a delta binaural beat seems to be a low-cost and alternative method for medicine and other treatment methods with side effects. Application: This study demonstrates the use of technology with a neuroergonomics approach to improve sleep and mood disorders.

BACKGROUND: Iran has a variety of climates which support agriculture in different seasons. Hence, a significant proportion of people, especially in rural areas, are engaged in farming. Agriculture is considered one of the most insecure job sectors in

Lighting is one of the environmental factors affecting the performance of the control room operators. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the control room operators’ visual performance in two different illumination conditions at a combined cycle power plant through field-work. Sixteen operators in day shift were evaluated with the Freiburg Visual Acuity test (FrACT) software at two lighting systems with different intensities. It includes the first phase with fluorescent illumination system (Power: 40 W, Color Temperature: 4000 Kelvin, Luminous Flux: 2780 Lumen and Model: Pars Shahab) and the second phase with a combined illumination system includes fluorescent and LED (Power: 48 W, Color Temperature: 4000 Kelvin, Luminous Flux: 5400 Lumen and Model: Mazinoor). Based on the results, visual performance index and visual acuity significantly increased after the intervention (p < 0.001). As to contrast, more lighting significantly reduced the percentage of recognized contrast (p < 0.001) and increased the contrast performance index (p < 0.001). The results of this study showed that increasing the intensity of light from the values below the allowable limit to the values above the allowable limit would increase the visual indicators in individuals.