Working overtime could boost risk for major depressive episode

Regularly working long hours in the office might increase your risk of a serious depressive episode, according to a new study.

According to findings published in the journal PloS ONE on Wednesday, people who regularly work 11 hours or more each day are more than twice as likely to experience a major episode of depression than colleagues who stick with an eight-hour work day.

Researchers from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and Queen Mary University of London examined records of more than 2,000 London-based white-collar workers in a five-year study. None of the recruits had a recent history of depression when they were enrolled in the study.

Those who worked 11 hours or more each day were between 2.3 and 2.5 times more likely to develop a major depressive episode than those who worked seven-to-eight-hour days. Researchers controlled for other factors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and general health.

"Long working hours don't just affect us because of the pressure and intensity of work itself, they affect us because we don't have enough time for all the other things we need for good mental health, such as good quality sleep, relationships, and opportunities for rest and exercise," Paul Farmer, chief executive of leading British mental health charity Mind, told WebMD. "Every time we squeeze more work in, many of us will be squeezing something else out.

While other studies have been done on work hours and depression, "results have not been conclusive because there is no standardized benchmark for what constitutes a 'normal' working day," reports WebMD.

A previous study by the same researchers, which also relied on the same database of London-based workers, found that overtime was linked with a 60 percent increase in coronary heart disease.

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (circa $1500 M) is the 4th biggest mosque in the world built from 300,000 tonnes of sandstone. The main musalla (prayer hall) is square (external dimensions 74.4 x 74.4 metres) with a central dome rising to a height of 50 metres above the floor.

The dome and the main minaret (90 metres) and four flanking minarets (45.5 metres) are the mosque’s chief visual features, facilitating a total capacity of 20,000 worshippers at a time.

The mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 square metres and the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 square metres.The job specification was limited to a very specific function at the latter part of the project- evaluation of contractor’s final statements– Wimpey Alawi (UK) - and 35 nominated work package

The ISO 9001 Quality Management

The ISO 9001 quality management standards are the leading quality system that is recognized around the world.  This is the quality system that is currently being used in over 170 countries by nearly 900,000 companies, as a framework to guide their quality management plan.

The ISO 9001 quality management standards are just that, standards and not a process for guaranteed quality into a product. While it is true this process of becoming certified does have a side benefit of usually increasing the quality of the deliverables of a business, it does not occur in all cases.
Plainly put, an ISO 9001 quality management program is taking what a company is saying it is going to do, then make sure they do what they say they are going to do, and then document it. It boils down to that basic principle.

The purpose behind the ISO 9001 quality management system is to bring the highest level of customer satisfaction to a business by way of delivering a quality product. This is done by following the standards that comprise the program.

For a company to be certified in the ISO 9001 quality management standards, they must meet certain requirements. One of the main requirements is to have every procedure that is a part of business is properly documented. These processes must then be overseen to ensure they are being followed as written.

During the certification process of ISO 9001 quality management programs, all of the documents will be examined, so keeping thorough records is a must. The process must be in constant review to see if any improvement can be made. There must be a documented process for changing a process to the new and improved version.

One of the key components to becoming certified in ISO 9001 quality management is to have a working improvement program that itself is well documented. When all of this is in place, then an internal audit should be conducted. Anything that is exposed in the audit must be corrected before the next step should occur.

The last step in ISO 9001 quality management certification is to have your company audited by an independent agency. If it passes the audit, then the company can claim to be ISO 9001 certified.

Any where can play cricket

 

 

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/

Impact of Disturbance on Performance

The following reasons are help us to ask excuse from our boss, when we did not complete our task.

• Official meetings and appointments

• Telephone calls

• Personal breaks and lunch breaks

• Official visitors

• A need to interrupt current activity to make a copy of something, sends a fax, or coordinates with another worker

• Fire drills, hazard alarms, or other emergencies

• Adverse weather

• Power outages

• Equipment breakdowns

• Holds for quality checks or coordination

• Absentees whose work must be absorbed by others

• Turnover of key personnel-new ones must be brought up to speed

• Higher headquarters or outside agency inspections, audits, and reviews

• Secretaries/clerks delivering mail and messages

• Noise and conversations from adjacent work areas

• Unusual activity outside office windows

• Running out of something-paper, staples, etc.

• Misplacing something; and

• Forgetting something

Certain actions or policies may minimize the disruption and time loss effect of some of the above items, but the potential is not significant.

Safety-Management

"The quality of being safe; freedom from danger or injury" # Safety

The dictionary definition is not applicable and should not be used in the context of safety management. The word "safety" should be defined with such a meaning that reflects the reality. There are a number of such definitions by various academics and authorities. Some of these definitions are quoted on below:

U.S. National Safety Council

"Safety" is the control of hazards to attain an acceptable level of risk.

Gloss and Wardle in Introduction to Safety Engineering

"Safety" is the measure of the relative freedom from risks of dangers. Safety is the degree of freedom from risks and hazards in any environment.

Willie Hammer in Occupational Safety Management and Engineering

Safety is a matter of relative protection from exposure to hazards; the antonym to danger.

Lowrance in Of Acceptable Risk: Science and the Determination of Safety --

Safety is a judgment of the acceptability of risk...... A thing is safe if its risks are judged to be acceptable.

Everybody is responsible for their safety. It is not depends on a person or a team.

Chinese farmer gets 5 days in jail for his story on alien invasion

A Chinese farmer received a five-day jail sentence after admitting to authorities that he made up a story about electrocuting an alien, reports the Telegraph.

The man, identified as Li, told authorities he was inspired by the 2011 science fiction comedy "Paul" starring Simon Pegg and Seth Rogan as the voice of the titular alien. Li created his own alien out of rubber, wire, and bone glue and then photographed it, claiming that he had electrocuted the space creature, according to a report from Reuters.

He posted a tall tale about the aliens and a UFO on a Chinese website.

"I was setting an electric trap for rabbits by the Yellow river when I saw a bright light," Li wrote, according to the Telegraph. "Above my bike, a UFO was floating. One by one, five aliens came down, but one of them stumbled into one of my rabbit traps and was electrocuted. The others went back into their ship and flew away."

The story and accompanying photos were a hit online and drew the attention of Chinese authorities. They questioned Li, who eventually admitted that he had made the whole thing up because he wanted other people to believe in little green men.

"After the police interrogated me, I confessed I was a fan of UFOs and the alien was a fake. I just wanted other people to believe that aliens existed," Li told the Shandong Evening News, according to the Telegraph.

Li was charged with disturbing the public order.