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Harley Gant
Ms. Amanda Smith
ENGL 10600-042
17 February 2023
Scholarly Analysis of Enhancing Motion Trajectory Prediction for Site Safety
Construction workers, ages 25-34, are more likely to sustain an injury, and more than
25% of them indicated they failed to report a work-related injury (Rashid and Behzadan, 425).
Construction workers and equipment are put into near-miss situations and contact collisions
almost every day due to the unscripted nature of construction jobs. To help prevent those
accidents, researchers have focused on location-aware methods using a technological perspective
to help improve construction safety. Researchers have also examined how construction workers'
perceptions and attitudes toward safety played a role in the accidents. In the article Enhancing
Motion Trajectory Prediction for Site Safety by Incorporating Attitude toward Risk, Khandakar
M. Rashid and Amir H. Behzadan explained these researchers' results, added the results of their
experiments, and presented a framework of safety with both the technical side and the workers'
position. Through the tone and organization of the research results for the technological
advancements of safety, the author successfully built credibility and proved that through more
research and experiments, there would be a decrease in the number of accidents at construction
sites and workers' perception of safety.
Due to the ever-changing construction site layouts and random daily movements, workers
and equipment's safety and health conditions have decreased. However, the author shows how
safety can increase through tone and organization. To help prevent hazardous situations,
researchers developed "proximity safety warnings and alert systems" within the construction
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sites (Rashid and Behzadan, 425). Different technology has been created and used to help
achieve this goal. That technology includes radio frequency to give an audio-visual alert to
workers and equipment operators, fiber Bragg grating sensors and radio frequency identification
system for labor tracking, and location-aware technologies using wireless communication, GPS,
and GIS to enable real-time safety warning by detecting hazards and alerting drivers to avoid
collision (Rashid and Behzadan, 426). The author uses an informative tone throughout this
explanation to show the audience how important the different technologies can be to different
construction workers. The author then shows that the only problem with these different
technologies is that collecting timely field data to improve job site safety still needs to be solved.
While the technology helped some, it served little of a purpose to the worker when they were
already inside a hazard zone. From the results of the other researchers, Rashid and Behzada
decided to compare two trajectory prediction techniques, the polynomial regression and the
hidden Markov model (HMM) (Rashid and Behzadan, 426). Within their research, Rashid and
Behzada considered workers' behavior, age, gender, and level of experience within their
trajectory prediction, and through the predictions, it slowly started to help prevent incidents.
Through the organization of the research, Rashid and Behzada can inform civil engineers and
construction managers about all the new technologies and research that can be used to help
prevent accidents and hazards on construction sites, even when there are constantly changing
layouts. Having the steps and results in sequential order allows the audience to understand the
knowledge behind the technology. The author also used an informative and essential tone while
explaining the research and experiments to show the importance of the results to civil engineers
and construction managers. Through the author's tone and organization, they were able to prove
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their credibility due to the multitude of results, data, tables, and extensive background knowledge
showing how the safety of construction sites would improve.
Similarly, the tone and organization of the research done by the author about workers'
attitudes toward risk in the experiments can also increase workers' safety and prove the author's
credibility. Within this experiment, the author has sequential organization to show the steps
behind all the research about risk-takers on construction sites. To prevent accidents, Rashid and
Behzada first had to gain background knowledge about risk-takers. They found that there are two
types of risk factors considered to calculate the overall risk factor (k): angular risk factor (a) and
linear risk factor (m). The overall risk factor is a product of the angular and linear risk factors. To
properly quantify the risk attitude of a worker, the aggregate risk factor (u) was added to the
experiment to yield accurate results. For their experiments, they calculated each individual's "risk
factor based upon the history of his/her movements in the vicinity of hazards" (Rashid and
Behzadan, 429). The a, in particular, is calculated on the workers' actual path and in every
direction ranging from 0 to 1. (Rashid and Behzadan, 429). On the other hand, the m is based on
the "discrepancy between predicted and actual positions and represents how much radial error
the prediction has relative to actual position with the hazard zone at the center of the circle"
(Rashid and Behzadan, 429). Within the experiments, the aggregate risk factor (u) is initially
zero since workers are assumed neutral, not risk-takers or risk-averse, but will change over time.
Computed software calculates their risk factor depending on the distance of a worker. If the
approaching distance exceeds the predefined proximity radius, the worker is alerted that they are
too close to the hazard (Rashid and Behzadan, 429). Through the organization of the experiments
by Rashid and Behzada, construction workers could see the importance of their past movements
and how they could keep them from having accidents. Workers can also see the math and
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technology behind the alert system to help them start practicing safer movements around the
sites. Through this experiment, the author also had an informative tone to enforce the importance
of their past and future movements on construction sites. From all this, Rashid and Behzada
proved their credibility to the construction workers, civil engineers, and construction managers
about the importance of workers' movements and the alert system.
Not only do Rashid and Behzada explain the importance of the new technology and
systems that improve workers' safety, but they also explain the risk-taking factors and behaviors
that play a part in safety as well through the use of effective tone, organization, and proving their
credibility. Through this information provided in the article and the multitude of experiments,
results, and tables, the authors were able to effectively prove to civil engineers, construction
managers, and construction workers that having trajectory technology and prediction systems
within their company will improve safety with the ever-changing site layouts and the
unprecedented that lies on construction sites.
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Works Cited
Rashid, Khandakar M., and Amir H. Behzadan. “Enhancing Motion Trajectory Prediction for
Site Safety by Incorporating Attitude toward Risk.” American Society of Civil Engineers,
Khandakar M. Rashid and Amir H. Behzadan, 13 June 2017, https://doiorg.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/10.1061/9780784480847.053.
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Reflective Memo
Throughout this project, I was pushed outside of my comfort zone by researching and
writing a scholarly article analysis about safety on construction sites. While it was tough at first
to understand the goals of this project and the article's goals, I could comprehend and complete a
final analysis that meets the requirements through the help of peer review, Grammarly, and the
Purdue writing lab. Through my analysis of the article, Enhancing Motion Trajectory Prediction
for Site Safety by Incorporating Attitude toward Risk, I proved to the audience that through the
author's tone, organization, and establishing credibility, they were successful in showing that
updated technological advancements will increase safety on construction sites.
When I read about what the WP1 project entailed, I began researching safety within civil
engineering, leading me to improving safety on construction sites. I spent about an hour
researching and reading different articles about safety on construction sites when I finally settled
on the article by Khandakar M. Rashid and Amir H. Behzadan due to the multitude of research
and experiment results added within the article. Safety is fascinating to me since I have
completed my Occupational Safety and Health Administration 10 (OSHA) certification and plan
to manage construction sites as a civil engineer/project manager in the future. After choosing my
article, I started to complete my statement of purpose. Although I did not understand the
assignment thoroughly, after reviewing the example provided, I have a better understanding of
what the statement of purpose entails for the next project. The statement of purpose helped me
understand my analysis's audience, purpose, and context. After completing the statement of
purpose, I began outlining and drafting my analysis. In the beginning, I summarized the essay
and added my thoughts about how the author successfully showed the importance of safety.
After that, I began revising and adding in the rhetorical devices that the author used to prove
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their point. Next, I ensured that the essay flowed and made sense. I then confirmed that I hit all
the rubric requirements and made the necessary changes from my peer review. The peer review
helped me get feedback from someone else and have a fresh set of eyes read my analysis. It also
helped me since I was able to see how someone else completed their analysis which gave me
new ideas for revising my essay. For some more help in my revising process, I used the
Grammarly report to provide me with some additional feedback, especially on my grammatical
errors, since that is where I usually struggled. Finally, I received feedback from the Purdue
writing lab. Their feedback allowed me to get new ideas in ways to rearrange my essay and
thoughts so that I could successfully hit all the needed points of the prompt. In conclusion, the
additional feedback I received allowed me to continuously review and improve my essay and get
a final draft that hits all the needed requirements for the scholarly article analysis.
Some that I found the authors used were tone and organization to gain their credibility.
Throughout the article, the author had an informative tone to show the importance of the results
and conclusions of the experiments they were making. The authors also had effective sequential
organization while explaining their experiments and developments that allowed the audience to
understand and connect more with the importance of safety on construction sites. The author
proved their credibility through the tone and organization due to the multitude of results and data
they provided to show how experienced and knowledgeable they are on increasing safety. Using
the author's tone and organization, I proved how the author has credibility and successfully
demonstrated how to improve safety on construction sites.
Overall, completing this project was a learning curve for me since I did not understand
the rubric for the statement of purpose in the beginning and had to do some extra work to
understand it completely. Throughout the writing process, especially the revising step, allowed
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me to get the additional feedback I needed. The feedback from the peer review, Grammarly, and
the Purdue writing lab made the revising step much more manageable and helped me complete
my scholarly analysis. Although it was a learning curve for this project, I am glad I found an
article that sparked my interest and allowed me to gain more knowledge about new safety
technologies for construction workers. Even though I experienced lots of positives and negatives
throughout this project, I am prepared for the remaining assignments and projects that this course
entails.