OBJECTIVE A shovel with a blade perforated with small holes was tested to see whether a worker would use less whole-body energy to dig wet clay than with a shovel with an opaque blade. BACKGROUND A perforated shovel is hypothesized to require less whole-body energy on the basis of adhesion theory; a smaller surface area would require less physical effort to dig and release soil from the blade...

As of January 3, 2015, Ebola virus disease (Ebola) has killed more than 2,500 persons in Sierra Leone since the epidemic began there in May 2014. Ebola virus is transmitted principally by direct physical contact with an infected person or their body fluids during the later stages of illness or after death. Contact with the bodies and fluids of persons who have died of Ebola is especially common...

Many of the “new paradigms in mining” and notions of “sustainable mining” have at their core the requirement for reliable, continuous centimetre-level positioning accuracy to enable increased automation of mining operations. The deployment of precision systems for navigating, controlling and monitoring machinery such as drills, dozers, draglines and shovels with real time position information i...

Surface mining comprises complex geometries, dangerous operations and human controlled machines. Due to human errors, unstable layouts, geological deformations, and design problems, safety and health hazards including fatal accidents occur. The 2016 fatal accidents review by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) showed that mobile machines accounted for 58.3% (2012), 36.4% (2013), 39...

gas emissions would be instituted and emission credits would be sold to, and then traded among, emitters. Part of the revenue from the sold credits would go to investments in renewable energy, though it's not clear what would happen to the rest. A so-called 'Gang of 15', comprising senators from states that depend on coal-fired power plants for energy, is especially opposed to Obama's system be...

Introduction: One of many unknowns prior to the Apollo landings concerned the possibility of life, its remains, or its organic precursors on the surface of the Moon. While the existence of lunar organisms was considered highly unlikely, a program of biological quarantine and testing for the astronauts, the Apollo Command Modules, and the lunar rock and soil samples , was instituted in the Lunar...

The US coal mining industry consumes approximately 142 billion kWh per year of energy. The US Department of Energy estimates that the industry‟s annual energy consumption can be reduced by 49% (24.6 billion kWh/year by using currently available best practices and a further 44.8 billion kWh/year with more research). This constitutes nearly $3.7 billion of potential savings on coal production cos...

The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker (TMW), by Mike Rose (2004), is an engaging and timely book on the complex cognitive behaviors involved in work that is often considered “low skill” or “unskilled.” It is about blue-collar work, blue-collar workers, and the significance of technical education. It is also about how contemporary America regards the manual work “of t...

Surface mining comprises complex geometries, dangerous operations and human controlled machines. Due to human errors, unstable layouts, geological deformations, and design problems, safety and health hazards including fatal accidents occur. The 2016 fatal accidents review by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) showed that mobile machines accounted for 58.3% (2012), 36.4% (2013), 39...

Children were a common theme for the impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Her "Children on the Beach" depicts a placid scene around the turn of the century. With buckets and small shovels, two little girls in beach dresses, one with a sun bonnet, make an attempt to change the sandy landscape; in the background sailboats float serenely in the calm waters. On viewing the painting, we feel that eve...