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ObjectivesThe association between near-misses/minor injuries and moderate/severe injuries has yet to be investigated longitudinally. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal association between near-misses/minor injuries and moderate/severe injuries by the presence/absence of depressive symptoms using 1-year follow-up data obtained from a nationally representative sample of workers in Japan.MethodsOf the 18 231 eligible participants at time 1 (T1), 12 127 who responded to the 1-year follow-up survey at time 2 (T2) (response rate: 66.5%; 4370 females and 7757 males; mean age (SD), 45.3 (10.5) years) were included in the analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed with the presence/absence of moderate/severe injuries at T2 as the dependent variable.ResultsIn total, 36.4% of participants reported depressive symptoms at T1. During the follow-up period, 1.6% of participants reported moderate/severe injuries in industrial settings. After adjusting for relevant variables, participants who reported near-misses (OR=1.7 (95% CI, 1.3 to 2.4)) and minor injuries (OR=2.5 (95% CI, 1.3 to 4.7)) at T1 were more likely to have moderate/severe injuries at T2 compared to those who reported no near-misses/minor injuries. However, this association was stronger in participants who did not have depressive symptoms at T1 than in those who had depressive symptoms.ConclusionsWhile the predictive value of near-misses/minor injuries for the occurrence of moderate/severe injuries by the presence/absence of depressive symptoms should be cautiously interpreted, our findings suggest that the development and utilisation of near-miss/minor injury reporting systems may help reduce the likelihood of moderate/severe injuries among workers, especially those without depressive symptoms.

It is important for enterprise management to measure effectiveness of return on investment for machine and manufacturing system. It shall be considered not only to measure based on annual production value, but also to measure the effectiveness with cost caused by labors’ injuries and cost of protection measures that prevents industrial accidents. To make it realized, we shall define a calculation method for machine and manufacturing system includes protection measures from the aspect of the total life cycle, and a calculation method for total cost caused by industrial accidents. Then we shall define an evaluation index of investment effectiveness includes protection measures that will be led by a relation with values that comes from the above mentioned calculations.

The effects of interface states and fixed oxide charges on a MOS solar cell operation are theoretically analyzed and optimum design condition is deduced. In a p-MOS cell, negative fixed charges or acceptor type surface states with small hole capture cross section and large tunneling capture cross section are found to be effective to improve the efficiency due to the enhancement of the built-in voltage, while give negative effects in an n-MOS cell. However, efficiency improvement rate by surface states is also found to be rather smaller than that by fixed charges. The obtained maximum improvement factor as compared with the corresponding Schottky diode is 2.25 at the fixed surface charge density of 3×1012cm-2and the oxide thickness of 12 Å.