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Soil excavation is a fundamental step of building and infrastructure development. Despite strong enforcement of construction best practices and regulations, accidents in construction industry are comparatively higher than other industries. Likewise, significant increase in injuries and fatalities are recently reported on geotechnical activities such as excavation pits and trenches. Academic researchers and industry professionals have currently devoted vital attention to acquire construction safety in preconstruction phase of the project. They have developed various algorithms to enhance safety in preconstruction phase such as automated generation of scaffolding and its potential risk analysis, checking BIM model for fall risks, and limited access zone allocation in wall masonry. However, safety in geotechnical works at preconstruction phase is yet unexplored. This paper proposed automatic safety rule compliance approach for excavation works leveraging algorithmic modeling tools and BIM technologies. The focused approach comprises of the following three modules: information extraction and logic design (IELD), information conversion and process integration (ICPI), and automodeling and safety plan generation (ASPG). Specifically, the scope of the paper is limited to major risks such as cave-ins, fall, safety egress, and prohibited zones risks. A set of rules-based algorithms was developed in commercially available software using visual programming language (VPL) that automatically generates geometric conditions in BIM and visualizes the potential risks and safety resources installation along with their quantity take-off and optimized locations. A case study has been presented to validate the proof of concept; automated modeling tool for excavation safety planning generated the required results successfully. It is anticipated that the proposed approach has potential to help the designers through automated modeling and assist decision makers in developing productive and practical safety plans compared to the conventional 2D plans for excavation works at the preconstruction phase. Moreover, it is realized that the same approach can be extended to other rule-dependent subjects in construction.

In order to proactively prevent accidents and injuries in construction, tertiary safety education should equip students with adequate safety knowledge and skills. However, in most construction curricula, safety is considered a low priority, and safety education is delivered in isolation, without sufficient interaction and practical experience to improve safety learning. On the other hand, anatomical theory in medicine has been adopted by and proved advantageous to various scientific disciplines. With this regard, this study presents an interactive construction safety education system using building anatomy modelling (BAM) based on the integration of anatomical theory and state-of-the-art visualization technologies. The BAM system comprises two modules: (1) knowledge acquisition module, which delivers safety knowledge to students; and (2) practical experience module, which enables students to interact with BAM to improve their hazard identification and elimination skills. The building anatomy concept (BAC) and BAM prototype are evaluated through interactive system trials with educators and learners. Findings suggest the BAC has significant pedagogic potential, and the proposed system can effectively provide safety knowledge and interactively support the development of practical safety skills of learners.

Background During general anesthesia, the surgical pleth index (SPI) monitors nociception. The evidence of SPI in the elderly remains scarce. We aimed to investigate whether there is a difference in perioperative outcomes following intraoperative opioid administration according to the surgical pleth index (SPI) value versus hemodynamic parameters (heart rate or blood pressure) in elderly patients. Methods Patients aged 65–90 years who underwent laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery under sevoflurane/remifentanil anesthesia were randomized to receive remifentanil guided by SPI (SPI group) or conventional clinical judgment based on hemodynamic parameters (conventional group). The primary endpoint was intraoperative remifentanil consumption. Secondary endpoints were intraoperative hemodynamic instability, pain score, fentanyl consumption and delirium in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), and perioperative changes in interleukin-6 and natural killer (NK) cell activity. Results Seventy-five patients (38, SPI; 37, conventional) were included in the study. The SPI group consumed significantly more remifentanil intraoperatively than the conventional group (mean ± SD, 0.13 ± 0.05 vs. 0.06 ± 0.04 μg/kg/min, P  < 0.001). Intraoperative hypertension and tachycardia were more common in the conventional group than in the SPI group. Pain score in the PACU ( P  = 0.013) and the incidence of delirium in the PACU were significantly lower in the SPI group than the conventional group (5.2% vs. 24.3%, P  = 0.02). There was no significant difference in NK cell activity and interleukin-6 level. Conclusions In the elderly patients, SPI-guided analgesia provided appropriate analgesia with sufficient intraoperative remifentanil consumption, lower incidence of hypertension/ tachycardia events, and a lower incidence of delirium in the PACU than the conventional analgesia. However, SPI-guided analgesia may not prevent perioperative immune system deterioration. Trial registration The randomized controlled trial was retrospectively registered in the UMIN Clinical Trials Registry (trial number: UMIN000048351; date of registration: 12/07/2022).

High-risk surgeries for patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS) are challenging for anesthesiologists and can result in hemodynamic deterioration and even mortality. We describe a case in which remimazolam was used to induce and maintain general anesthesia for a high-risk, noncardiac surgery accompanied by ongoing bleeding. An 86-year-old man with severe AS was scheduled to undergo proximal gastrectomy due to ongoing gastrointestinal bleeding and severe anemia. Remimazolam, a novel, ultra-short-acting benzodiazepine, was administered along with remifentanil for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia. Throughout the anesthetic process, the patient’s cardiac index and systemic vascular resistance were well preserved without any vasopressor support. Remimazolam seems to have possible effectiveness as a relatively safe agent for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia in patients with severe AS who are undergoing high-risk, noncardiac surgery with bleeding.

Falls are the leading cause of construction site accidents and made up more than 60 percent of all construction-related deaths in 2018, according to the Korea Occupational Health and Safety Administration (KOSHA). Accordingly, the government conducts intensive management and supervision of scaffolding and scaffolding installation at small sites while inducing safe working environments through support for system scaffolding installation. However, the timing of scaffolding installation for external work varies by site, and visiting inspections of more than 400,000 sites annually are practically limited. In particular, in the case of small sites, the work is often carried out with a high risk of falling accidents due to installation or defects that do not comply with KOSHA rule and the occurrence of accidents is frequently reported. To solve these limitations, information on whether the right amount of scaffolding has been purchased and installed at the right time according to the size and shape of each site needs to be managed by a systematic method. In this paper, we propose a framework for verifying the adequacy of the installation of scaffolding needed at the individual construction site using blockchain technology. The system provide Dapp, an application that runs on the block chain server, so that General contract (GC) and Supplier can enter information related to ordering and procurement of scaffolding. The core information required to determine the adequacy of scaffolding installation is stored in a non-modifiable form using the distributed ledger storage technology of the block chain. As a result, scaffolding installation adequacy can be automatically verified through the algorithms that can compare the installation schedule and quantity calculation with the actually purchased quantity. It is anticipated that using the proposed framework, government agencies can identify the safety levels of individual sites without on-site visits.

Despite the consistent growth of global markets and emergence of cutting-edge technologies, construction jobsites remain among the most dangerous workplaces with extremely high accidents rates. In the safety management process, it is necessary to review and assess a variety of safety documents and data. Numerous public agencies provide open access to accident data, safety checklists, templates and other useful documents for safety management. However, these safety related contents are multifarious, fragmented and often stored in unstructured ways. As a result, the process of finding and utilizing required safety information for specific safety tasks is challenging and inefficient. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes an innovative approach using linked data and semantic web technologies for integrating and sharing construction safety information from diverse sources. A construction safety contents ontology is developed, and construction safety information from accident cases, Job Hazard Analyses (JSA), safety rules and training contents is integrated through RDF formats and SPARQL queries. In order to enable convenient and effective retrieval of information, this study develops a categorization and classification of safety-related contents for safety management processes. The proposed system is expected to improve access and sharing construction safety information, reduce data search time and improve data accuracy. Through this, the approach may enable reductions in safety incidents and overall improvements in safety management and performance.

Construction accidents, injuries, and fatalities have not declined significantly, despite continuous efforts from researchers, safety professionals, and strongly-enforced safety laws. In managing safety, construction personnel are required to access a variety of rules, regulations, guidelines, and documents. However, finding the right contents, and communicating them to right person tends to be tedious and time-consuming, because construction safety information is not systematically structured. This study contributes to addressing this issue by introducing a system framework for integrating BIM dataset with classified regulation document. To accomplish the study objective, a general classification system is developed for safety rules using criteria that can reflect safety rules in BIM environments. To demonstrate, the OSHA’s safety and health technical guidelines are selected to classify the legal provisions into safety management steps and tasks aiming to integrate with construction work sequence. From classified safety rules, four different cases are presented to show the practical implementation of classification system. The developed approach is expected to reduce oversights, enable to deliver the relevant safety rules at the right time, and reduce the efforts required for searching through safety contents.