Applied ErgonomicsThis is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader, such as GoogleReader, or to display this data on your own website or blog. Subscribe to this data using MyMedWorm.Subscribe to this data using GoogleReader.Subscribe to this data using Bloglines.Subscribe to this data using MyYahoo.

This page shows you the latest items in this publication.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

373 records returned

Effects of the viewing context on target detection. Implications for road lighting design.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Small Target Visibility (STV) model is the main model used to assess the quality of road lighting installations (IESNA, 2000). However, this model is based on a simple detection task in foveal vision using psychophysical data from laboratory conditions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a complex background and apparent motion on target detection performance in mesopic vision, for three luminance contrasts, with reference to the STV scenario. To do so, participants were invited to detect standard square targets varying in terms of contrast presented in three Conditions: a uniform background, s...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - November 4, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Mayeur A, Brémond R, Christian Bastien JM Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The influence of design aesthetics in usability testing: Effects on user performance and perceived usability.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article examined the effects of product aesthetics on several outcome variables in usability tests. Employing a computer simulation of a mobile phone, 60 adolescents (14-17 yrs) were asked to complete a number of typical tasks of mobile phone users. Two functionally identical mobile phones were manipulated with regard to their visual appearance (highly appealing vs not appealing) to determine the influence of appearance on perceived usability, performance measures and perceived attractiveness. The results showed that participants using the highly appealing phone rated their appliance as being more usable than particip...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - November 3, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Sonderegger A, Sauer J Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Utility of the RT3 triaxial accelerometer in free living: An investigation of adherence and data loss.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study investigated user perceptions, adherence to minimal wear time and loss of data when using the RT3 activity monitor in 21 healthy adults, in a variety of occupations, over three (7 day) repeated weeks of measurement in free living. An activity diary verified each day of monitoring and a utility questionnaire explored participant perceptions on the usability of the RT3. The RT3 was worn for an average of 14h daily with 90% of participants having complete data sets. In total 6535.8 and 6092.5h of activity data were collected from the activity diary and the RT3 respectively. An estimated 443.3h (6.7%) of activity da...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 27, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Perry MA, Hendrick PA, Hale L, Baxter GD, Milosavljevic S, Dean SG, McDonough SM, Hurley DA Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Development of an intervention to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders among hospital nurses based on the participatory approach.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The participatory approach has been widely used to improve the work environment. The purpose of this study was to develop an intervention to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders in hospital nurses using the participatory approach. Based on the Participatory Action Oriented Training (PAOT) approach, the multidisciplinary team conducted the trainer workshop to develop a comprehensive intervention protocol, which yielded several practical and low-cost solutions to reduce the risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders. Structured tools that were focused on the hospital environment were developed. The developed ac...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 27, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Kim SL, Lee JE Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Prevalence and risk factors associated with musculoskeletal discomfort in New Zealand veterinarians.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A cross-sectional study using a modified Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire asked 867 New Zealand veterinarians about the presence or absence of musculoskeletal discomfort (MSD). Participants were asked if MSD affected their normal activities and if it required any period(s) of absence from work. Additional questions enquired about work activities, psychosocial factors and workload. A binary logistic regression analysis was used to quantify the association between identified risk factors and the presence of MSD requiring absence from work in the previous 12 months, controlling for the presence of known confounders. T...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 24, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Scuffham AM, Legg SJ, Firth EC, Stevenson MA Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Limited economic evaluation to assess the effectiveness of a university-wide office ergonomics program.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness and provide a limited economic evaluation of an office ergonomics program at a major university from 1995 to 2007. The relationship between office-related recordable injuries, reported lost time, severity of these injuries, and the Workers' Compensation (WC) paid was analyzed and the corresponding incident cost was calculated. Two major datasets analyzed were OSHA 200/300 logs (1991-2007) and WC claims paid (1999-2007). Since the beginning of the office ergonomics program in 1995 and through 2007 (13-year period), the number of office cumulative trauma disord...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 23, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Bidassie B, McGlothlin JD, Goh A, Feyen RG, Barany JW Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Effectiveness of an ergonomic intervention on work-related posture and low back pain in video display terminal operators: A 3 year cross-over trial.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In conclusion, our findings contribute to the evidence that individualized ergonomic interventions may be able to improve work-related posture and reduce LBP for VDT workers. PMID: 19853837 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Applied Ergonomics)
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 22, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Pillastrini P, Mugnai R, Bertozzi L, Costi S, Curti S, Guccione A, Mattioli S, Violante FS Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Ergonomic evaluation and redesign of children bicycles based on anthropometric data.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Proper bicycle fit is very important for cycling performance, efficiency, comfort and injury prevention. This is especially true in the case of children cyclists that do not have the necessary cycling experience, balance and the fully developed musculoskeletal system of the adults. Bicycle fit depends on both the design and dimensions of the bicycle as well as on the anthropometric dimensions of the cyclist. In the present paper a case study concerning the ergonomic evaluation and redesign of a series of bicycles for children and teenagers 7-14 years old is presented. The study has been commissioned by a major Greek bi...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 15, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Laios L, Giannatsis J Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The Design with Intent Method: A design tool for influencing user behaviour.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article presents the Design with Intent Method, an innovation tool for designers working in this area, illustrated via application to an everyday human-technology interaction problem: reducing the likelihood of a customer leaving his or her card in an automatic teller machine. The example application results in a range of feasible design concepts which are comparable to existing developments in ATM design, demonstrating that the method has potential for development and application as part of a user-centred design process. PMID: 19822311 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Applied Ergonomics)
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Lockton D, Harrison D, Stanton NA Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The Operational Demand Evaluation Checklist (ODEC) of workload for railway signalling.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper is concerned with the interpretation and assessment of mental workload, and in particular assessment of the load imposed by the work system. It highlights a framework created to direct the development of workload assessment tools capable of assessing the dimensions most relevant to the population being studied, in our case railway signallers. A tool to capture the operational demands on the rail signaller was required to evaluate the load from the system they operated. This paper justifies the need for, and describes the development of, the Operational Demand Evaluation Checklist (ODEC), using techniques lik...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - October 5, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Pickup L, Wilson J, Lowe E Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Analysis of applied forces and electromyography of back and shoulders muscles when performing a simulated hand scaling task.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Hand scaling is a physically demanding task responsible for numerous overexertion injuries in underground mining. Scaling requires the miner to use a long pry bar to remove loose rock, reducing the likelihood of rock fall injuries. The experiments described in this article simulated "rib" scaling (scaling a mine wall) from an elevated bucket to examine force generation and electromyographic responses using two types of scaling bars (steel and fiberglass-reinforced aluminum) at five target heights ranging from floor level to 176cm. Ten male and six female subjects were tested in separate experiments. Peak and average fo...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 29, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Porter W, Gallagher S, Torma-Krajewski J Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The ability of limited exposure sampling to detect effects of interventions that reduce the occurrence of pronounced trunk inclination.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study used a non-parametric simulation procedure to evaluate the relationship between the number of measurements collected during a self-paced manufacturing job undergoing ergonomics interventions of varying effectiveness, and the probability of correctly determining whether and to which extent the interventions reduced the overall occurrence of pronounced trunk inclination, defined as an inclination of at least 20 degrees . Sixteen video-recordings taken at random times on multiple days for each of three workers were used to estimate the time distribution of each worker's exposure to pronounced trunk inclination. Nin...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 27, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Mathiassen SE, Paquet V Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Cardiorespiratory responses of firefighters to a computerized fire strategies and tactics drill during physical activity.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Firefighters are subjected to a combination of physical and mental challenges in the course of their occupational responsibilities. However, due to the ecological factors involved with firefighting, it makes it extremely difficult to examine physiological and psychological changes that occur as a result of these combined challenges. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a computer-based Fire Strategies and Tactics Drill (FSTD) in eliciting psychological and physiological measures of stress in professional firefighters. In one session, participants exercised at 60% VO(2max) for 37min (exercise alone c...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 27, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Webb HE, McMinn DR, Garten RS, Beckman JL, Kamimori GH, Acevedo EO Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The evaluation of force exertions and muscle activities when operating a manual guided vehicle.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study focuses on evaluating the force exertions and muscle activities in MGV operations. The independent variables include gender, force direction, handle height, load handled and wheel diameter of the MGV. The results show the force direction, handle height and load handling effects are significant in most measures except for F(ending) (the peak force required to stop the MGV) and the EMG of the anterior deltoid. The wheel diameter had a significant effect on F(initial) (the peak force required to move the MGV) and F(ending) responses. Gender did not significantly effect any measures. Moreover, the pushing and pullin...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 23, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Lin CL, Chen MS, Wei YL, Wang MJ Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Exposure assessment of kneeling work activities among floor layers.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The objective of this study was to quantify the proportion of kneeling work activities among floor layers and to assess external knee joint forces in five different kneeling work positions. Thirty-three floor layers were videotaped discontinuously and four floor layers were videotaped continuously for a whole working day. External knee forces were measured in five different kneeling work positions in ten floor layers using Computer Dynography. The study showed that floor layers spent a high percentage of time in knee-straining work positions. Kneeling work tasks, particularly gluing and crawling caused high external knee f...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 17, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Jensen LK, Rytter S, Bonde JP Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Optimization of the operating parameters of a grass trimming machine.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this study, the influence of several operating parameters (length of nylon cutting thread, engine speed and handle material) is investigated in terms of HAV. Data are analyzed via orthogonal array, main effect, signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and analysis of variance to determine the appropriate operating parameter levels to minimize HAV. Operating parameters under investigation are found to be influential in controlling HAV generation during grass trimming operation. Experiments are carried out for measuring hand-arm vibration using tri-axial accelerometer conforming the effectiveness of this approach. Results show that 1...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 14, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Mallick Z Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Speech intelligibility measured with shortened versions of Callsign Acquisition Test (CAT).Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
CONCLUSIONS: Under the experimental conditions of this study, any of the shorter versions of the CAT can be utilized in place of the full version to reduce testing times with no effect on predictive power. PMID: 19748610 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Applied Ergonomics)
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 10, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Blue MA, Ntuen C, Letowski T Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Quality control in the optical industry: From a work analysis of lens inspection to a training programme, an experimental case study.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A cognitive work analysis of quality inspection in the optical industry has been carried out in order to devise a training programme. The task concerned the inspection of high quality human eyeglass lenses. We conducted an experimental investigation of defect detection and acceptability decision-making tasks in 18 experts and novice inspectors. Detection and decision-making were investigated together and separately in two experimental sessions. We showed the effect of expertise on reaction times and errors, and we described the cognitive processes of novice inspectors. On the basis of the processing differences between...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 8, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Rebsamen M, Boucheix JM, Fayol M Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Do mechanical tests of glove stiffness provide relevant information relative to their effects on the musculoskeletal system? A comparison with surface electromyography and psychophysical methods.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The main purpose of the present study was to test the construct validity of two mechanical tests of glove stiffness using a surface electromyography (SEMG) methodology that would allow estimating the effect of glove stiffness on forearm muscle activation during a standardized grip contraction. The mechanical tests [free-deforming multidirectional test (FDMT) and Kawabata Evaluation System for Fabrics (KESF)] were applied on 27 gloves covering a wide range of stiffness. In 30 human subjects, a psychophysical assessment of these gloves was also carried on in addition to the SEMG test. The results showed that the sensitiv...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 7, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Larivière C, Tremblay G, Nadeau S, Harrabi L, Dolez P, Vu-Khanh T, Lara J Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The impact of drywall handling tools on the low back.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Carpenters and other construction workers who install drywall have high rates of strains and sprains to the low back and shoulder. Drywall is heavy and awkward to handle resulting in increased risk of injury. The purpose of this study was to evaluate several low-cost coupling tools that have the potential to reduce awkward postures in drywall installers. Five coupling tools were evaluated using the Lumbar Motion Monitor that measures trunk kinematics and predicts probability of low back disorder group membership risk (LBD risk). Workers answered surveys about their comfort while using each tool. The results indicate th...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - September 3, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Hess JA, Kincl LD, Davis K Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Vision ergonomics at recycling centres.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
All municipalities in Sweden offer their inhabitants a service for disposing of large-size and hazardous waste at local recycling centres. Opening hours at these centres include hours of darkness. The aims of this study were to 1) describe user and employee experiences of lighting and signs at Swedish recycling centres, 2) measure and assess the lighting system at the two recently built recycling centres in Linköping and to assess the legibility and visibility of the signs used and 3) propose recommendations regarding lighting and signs for recycling centres. Interviews and questionnaires were used to assess exper...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 21, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Hemphälä H, Kihlstedt A, Eklund J Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Issues in combining the categorical and visual analog scale for the assessment of perceived thermal sensation: Methodological and conceptual considerations.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Typically, the scales for the measurement of thermal sensation have been formatted as categorical scales (CS). Emerging is the use of CS combined with visual analog scale (VAS) for the measurement of thermal sensation to improve the sensitivity of scales. However, reports are rare comparing the typical CS, standard VAS, and combined CS with VAS. Methodological and conceptual issues are arising with the combining of scales, but there are insufficient reports about the advantages and limitations of different scales. The present study compared 9-points categorical scale (9pts CS), VAS, and CS combined with VAS (graphic CS...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 17, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Lee JY, Stone EA, Wakabayashi H, Tochihara Y Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The strategic role of recycling centres for environmental performance of waste management systems.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper analyses how different actors influence the sorting quality of waste at recycling centres. Users (i.e. citizens) play an essential role since they conduct the actual sorting. They have difficulties sorting many of their discarded products, leading to decreased performance of the entire waste management system of which recycling centres are a part. Several measures addressing this problem are identified such as product design, improved terminology for labelling waste and increased manning at recycling centres. A fundamental task for managers and employees is to further develop information and guidance for use...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 16, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Krook J, Eklund M Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Air management and physiological responses during simulated firefighting tasks in a high-rise structure.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Air consumption, oxygen uptake (VO(2)), carbon dioxide output (VCO(2)) and respiratory exchange ratio (RER=VCO(2)/VO(2)) were measured directly from the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) as 36 professional firefighters (three women) completed scenarios of high-rise stair climbing and fifth floor search and rescue. During stair climbing VO(2) was 75+/-8% VO(2max) (mean+/-SD), RER=1.10+/-0.10, and heart rate=91+/-3% maximum (based on maximum treadmill data). Firefighters stopped climbing on consuming 55% of the air cylinder then descended. In the fifth floor search and rescue VO(2) was slightly lower than stair c...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 13, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Williams-Bell FM, Boisseau G, McGill J, Kostiuk A, Hughson RL Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

A portable device for the assessment of dynamic visual acuity.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Dynamic visual acuity (DVA) thresholds are among the few visual functions predictive of automobile crashes. DVA is also sensitive to alcohol and aging. However, measuring DVA is awkward because there is no standardized, efficient, flexible apparatus for DVA assessment. In this project, we developed a prototype of an automated, portable DVA system using a low-energy laser, and we compared this laser DVA with the traditional device in two within-subjects, repeated measures designs. The two studies included 48 participants (22 males and 26 females with an average age of 18.33years). The most important findings were that: ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 13, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Al-Awar Smither J, Kennedy RS Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Injury severity assessment for underground coalmine workers.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An injury severity model is proposed for assessment of injury incidents in industrial settings. A classification scheme for injury incidents considering interactions is also developed. The injury severity model considers injury potential in the form of unsafe conditions and analyzes its transfer to actual injury of varying severity. A case study was conducted in an underground coalmine of eastern India. An observed reduction in risk realization is explained through the model. Presence of interactions is found to be the most significant incident attribute of injury occurrences. The classification scheme and the results ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Khanzode VV, Maiti J, Ray PK, Tewari VK Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Personal noise exposures of operators of agricultural tractors.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The objectives of this study were to determine sound pressure levels, A-weighted sound pressure levels, and the permissible exposure time for tractors without cabins, field-installed cabins, and original cabins at ear level of agricultural tractor operators for following machines: plows, cultivators, top soil cultivators, rotary tillers, tool combinations (harrow+roller), mechanical drills, pneumatic drills, chemical applicators, fertilizer applicators, drum mowers, balers, and forage harvesters. Variance analyses showed that type of operation, type of cabins, and operationxcabin interactions were statistically significant...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Aybek A, Kamer HA, Arslan S Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Sorting and disposing of waste at recycling centres - A users perspective.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper investigates Swedish recycling centres from the users' perspective. The aim was to describe the characteristics and experiences of the users and their activities when sorting and disposing of waste, and to identify improvements for the users. The typical recycling centre user is a recently retired man, living in a house with a garden, having travelled 5km alone in his own car. The users requested longer opening hours and better information available at home and at the recycling centre. The major difficulty for the users is to understand which fraction their waste belongs to, and consequently into which conta...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Eklund J, Kihlstedt A, Engkvist IL Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The thermal ergonomics of firefighting reviewed.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The occupation of firefighting is one that has repeatedly attracted the research interests of ergonomics. Among the activities encountered are attention to live fires, performing search and rescue of victims, and dealing with emergencies. The scientific literature is reviewed to highlight the investigative models used to contribute to the knowledge base about the ergonomics of firefighting, in particular to establish the multi-variate demands of the job and the attributes and capabilities of operators to cope with these demands. The job requires individuals to be competent in aerobic and anaerobic power and capacity, m...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 4, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Barr D, Gregson W, Reilly T Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Joint investigation of working conditions, environmental and system performance at recycling centres - Development of instruments and their usage.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article describes the development and use of instruments for data collection within a multidisciplinary research programme "Recycling centres in Sweden - working conditions, environmental and system performance". The overall purpose of the programme was to form a basis for improving the function of recycling centres with respect to these three perspectives and the disciplines of: ergonomics, safety, external environment, and production systems. A total of 10 instruments were developed for collecting data from employees, managers and visitors at recycling centres, including one instrument for observing visitors. Valida...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - August 3, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Engkvist IL, Eklund J, Krook J, Björkman M, Sundin E, Svensson R, Eklund M Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Working conditions at recycling centres in Sweden - Physical and psychosocial work environment.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The number of jobs at recycling centres are increasing, at the same time as there are indications of work environment problems. The aim of this paper was to investigate physical and psychosocial working conditions for employees at recycling centres in Sweden, to describe how they were perceived, to compare differences between subgroups, and further to identify proposals for improvement. Employees at 42 recycling centres (n=122) responded a postal questionnaire. Of these 32 employees from 16 recycling centres were interviewed, as also their employer (n=16). The work at recycling centres was reported to be a meaningful s...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 27, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Engkvist IL Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The effect of arm posture on the scan-derived measurements.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Among various three-dimensional (3D) scanning anthropometric surveys, the inconsistent arm postures for scanning may lead to incompatible measurement results. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of arm posture on the scan-derived measurements. The two arm postures in concern are the one with palms facing inward and the one with palms facing backward. The experimental results reveal that the two postures do not differ from each other in obtaining the scan-derived measurements for most body dimensions except for those related to the upper torso. Besides, the scan-derived measurements can be more precise ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 26, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Lu JM, Wang MJ, Mollard R Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

The influence of user expertise and prototype fidelity in usability tests.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An empirical study examined the impact of user expertise and prototype fidelity on the outcomes of a usability test. User expertise (expert vs. novice) and prototype fidelity (paper prototype, 3D mock-up, and fully operational appliance) were manipulated as independent variables in a 2x3 between-subjects design. Employing a floor scrubber as a model product, 48 users carried out several cleaning tasks. Usability problems identified by participants were recorded. Furthermore, performance, system management strategies and perceived usability were measured. The results showed that experts reported more usability problems ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 23, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Sauer J, Seibel K, Rüttinger B Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Psychophysically determined forces of dynamic pushing for female industrial workers: Comparison of two apparatuses.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The objective of this study was to investigate the reproducibility of maximum acceptable initial and sustained forces while performing a pushing task at a frequency of 1min(-1) both on a MPB treadmill and on a high-inertia pushcart. This is important because our pushing guidelines are used extensively as a ergonomic redesign strategy and we would like the information to be as applicable as possible to cart pushing. On two separate days, nineteen female industrial workers performed a 40-min MPB treadmill pushing task and a 2-hr pushcart task, in the context of a larger experiment. During pushing, the subjects were asked to ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 20, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Ciriello VM, Maikala RV, Dempsey PG, O'Brien NV Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Evaluation of lifestyle risk factors and job status associated with back injuries among employees at a mid-western university.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For decades the literature has shown an association between work-related risk factors and back injuries among employees. However, only recently, there is a growing body of literature that suggests lifestyle risk factors may also be associated with back injuries. The purpose of this research was to determine if selected lifestyle risk factors are associated with a greater risk of back injuries. Further, there may be an association between job status and incident reporting, lost workdays cases and workers' compensation (WC) paid for back injuries among university employees. Aggregate data from a Health Risk Assessment (H...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 16, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Bidassie B, McGlothlin JD, Mena I, Duffy VG, Barany JW Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

A complete task analysis to measure the workload associated with operating an agricultural sprayer equipped with a navigation device.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The objective of this study was to perform a complete task analysis to measure the workload associated with operating an agricultural sprayer equipped with a navigation device. The task analysis included a written questionnaire and subsequent observation of sprayer operators. The questionnaire revealed that the lightbar was the most important source of guidance information (as opposed to relying on guidance information from external field cues). Observation consisted of recording eye-glance behaviour and heart rate variability while operators were spraying in a field setting. The eye-glance data suggest that external cues ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Dey AK, Mann DD Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

A survey of the optimal handle position for boxes with different sizes and manual handling positions.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this study, four different prototype boxes with auxiliary handles were designed to determine the optimal handle position of a box based on the evaluated user preferences and body part discomfort (BPD). Twenty male students participated in the experiment. Likert-5 point summated rating was applied to evaluate user preferences for the provided boxes with handles in upper, middle, and lower positions, in four different sizes and manual handling positions. Ten additional subjects were asked to indicate their BPD on a body chart after performing a similar experiment. The results show that the subjects preferred the upper par...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 6, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Jung HS, Jung HS Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Investigating users' intuitive interaction with complex artefacts.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper examines the role of intuition in the way that people operate unfamiliar devices. Intuition is a type of cognitive processing that is often non-conscious and utilises stored experiential knowledge. Intuitive interaction involves the use of knowledge gained from other products and/or experiences. Two initial experimental studies revealed that prior exposure to products employing similar features helped participants to complete set tasks more quickly and intuitively, and that familiar features were intuitively used more often than unfamiliar ones. A third experiment confirmed that performance is affected by a ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 5, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Blackler A, Popovic V, Mahar D Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Human performance interfaces in air traffic control.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper examines how human performance factors in air traffic control (ATC) affect each other through their mutual interactions. The paper extends the conceptual SHEL model of ergonomics to describe the ATC system as human performance interfaces in which the air traffic controllers interact with other human performance factors including other controllers, software, hardware, environment, and organisation. New research hypotheses about the relationships between human performance interfaces of the system are developed and tested on data collected from air traffic controllers, using structural equation modelling. The r...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - July 3, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Chang YH, Yeh CH Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

"Appl Ergon"; +103 new citationsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
103 new pubmed citations were retrieved for your search. Click on the search hyperlink below to display the complete search results: "Appl Ergon" These pubmed results were generated on 2009/06/27PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, includes over 15 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources. (Source: Applied Ergonomics)
Source: Applied Ergonomics - June 28, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Report Source Type: journals

Physiological responses to workload change. A test/retest examination.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The purpose of this study is to examine the test/retest consistency of physiological responses induced by mental tasks. Fifteen healthy male university students were recruited as participants. They were instructed to perform a 5-min Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB) trial three times successively. The task difficulty level of the tracking task of the second trial was set as medium (M). The first one was set as more difficult (H) and the last trial was easiest (L). The difficulty levels of the other two tasks (resource management and system monitoring) of the MATB were identical for all three trials. The participants ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 19, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Miyake S, Yamada S, Shoji T, Takae Y, Kuge N, Yamamura T Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Visual stress, its treatment with spectral filters, and its relationship to visually induced motion sickness.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We review the concept of visual stress and its relation to neurological disease. Visual stress can occur from the observation of images with unnatural spatial structure and an excess of contrast energy at spatial frequencies to which the visual system is generally most sensitive. Visual stress can often be reduced using spectral filters, provided the colour is selected with precision to suit each individual. The use of such filters and their effects on reading speed are reviewed. The filters have been shown to benefit patients with a variety of neurological conditions other than reading difficulty, all associated with ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 13, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Wilkins AJ, Evans BJ Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Field tests and machine learning approaches for refining algorithms and correlations of driver's model parameters.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper describes the field tests on a driving simulator carried out to validate the algorithms and the correlations of dynamic parameters, specifically driving task demand and drivers' distraction, able to predict drivers' intentions. These parameters belong to the driver's model developed by AIDE (Adaptive Integrated Driver-vehicle InterfacE) European Integrated Project. Drivers' behavioural data have been collected from the simulator tests to model and validate these parameters using machine learning techniques, specifically the adaptive neuro fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) and the artificial neural network (ANN...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 13, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Tango F, Minin L, Tesauri F, Montanari R Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Psychophysiology in ergonomics.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19278667 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Applied Ergonomics)
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Trimmel M, Fairclough S, Henning R Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

A cross-cultural comparison of perceived hazard in response to warning components and configurations: US vs. China.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There is increasing momentum towards international harmonization of warning standards. Therefore, it is critical to determine the applicability of existing standards across different cultures. Perceived hazard in response to isolated warning components (colors, signal words and symbols) and warning configurations was examined as a function of culture of the product-user (US vs. China) to determine the extent to which ANSI (American National Standards Institute)-recommended components/configurations communicate the expected level of hazard across cultures. 40 college students in the US and 43 in China rated colors, sign...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 9, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Lesch MF, Rau PL, Zhao Z, Liu C Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Determining temperature ratings for children's cold weather clothing.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study examined the physical and physiological differences between children and adults that affect body heat generation and losses and then developed a heat loss model for determining the temperature ratings of cold weather clothing designed for use by children of various ages. The thermal insulation values of selected jackets were measured using a heated manikin dressed in two base ensembles, and the temperature ratings were calculated using the model. The results indicated that the type of garments used in the base ensemble had a major effect on jacket ensemble insulation and the predicted comfort temperature. For a ...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 7, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: McCullough EA, Eckels S, Harms C Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Physiological compliance and team performance.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Physiological compliance (PC) refers to the correlation between physiological measures of team members over time. The goals of this study were to examine ways of measuring PC in heart rate variability (HRV) data and the relationship between PC and team performance. Teams were tasked with entering both real and simulated rooms and "shooting" individuals with a weapon and identifying individuals without a weapon. The linear correlation and directional agreement PC methods were shown to be the most sensitive to differences in performance, with greater PC being associated with better performance. The correlation method whe...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 6, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Elkins AN, Muth ER, Hoover AW, Walker AD, Carpenter TL, Switzer FS Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Transfer of computer-based training to simulated driving in older adults.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As the population of many industrialized countries ages, the number of older drivers on the roads increases. Statistics show that older drivers are at increased risk for involvement in fatal accidents. One explanation for this is the cognitive and motor declines associated with the aging process. As we age, performance on attention, memory and motor control tasks, three important components of driving, declines. In the present study we examined the relationship between performance on component cognitive tasks and the influence of training on these tasks on the simulated driving performance of older adults. More specifi...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - March 5, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Cassavaugh ND, Kramer AF Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

Investigation of legibility and visual fatigue for simulated flexible electronic paper under various surface treatments and ambient illumination conditions.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study employs simulated electronic paper to investigate critical issues and focuses on improving legibility of display and reducing users' visual fatigue. Three critical factors - choice of surface treatment, ambient illumination, and bending curvature - are evaluated through the method of a letter-search task. The results show that subjects performed better on legibility and felt less visual fatigue with an anti-glare treatment. Choosing the better anti-glare treatment instead of the anti-reflection series can save significant cost for manufacturers. In addition, ambient lighting of 1500lux is more appropriate for re...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - February 26, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Lin YT, Lin PH, Hwang SL, Jeng SC, Liao CC Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals

A numerical tool for reproducing driver behaviour: Experiments and predictive simulations.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper presents the simulation tool called SDDRIVE (Simple Simulation of Driver performance), which is the numerical computerised implementation of the theoretical architecture describing Driver-Vehicle-Environment (DVE) interactions, contained in Cacciabue and Carsten [Cacciabue, P.C., Carsten, O. A simple model of driver behaviour to sustain design and safety assessment of automated systems in automotive environments, in this issue]. Following a brief description of the basic algorithms that simulate the performance of drivers, the paper presents and discusses a set of experiments carried out in a Virtual Reality...
Source: Applied Ergonomics - February 26, 2009 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Casucci M, Marchitto M, Cacciabue PC Tags: Appl Ergon Source Type: journals