Ergonomics最新文献

This study examines the potential of ergonomic interventions to improve the well‑being and productivity of artisans in the Machilipatnam Kalamkari cluster, Andhra Pradesh, known for its traditional vegetable hand‑block printing. Due to a shortage of skilled labour and rising demand, the craft is transitioning to screen printing. The research assesses the feasibility of tools and equipment to ease manual labour, reduce stress, and prevent injuries, while enhancing productivity. The purpose of the study was to propose alternative mechanisms for the craft practices both at unit and cluster levels involving production and non‑production based activities. A survey of 30 artisans revealed strong support for items like anti‑fatigue flooring, measuring stands, and hydro extractors, with over 80% of responses rating them as relevant, useful, and feasible. There is significant association between the awareness and availability of suggested items. The study highlights the importance of introducing ergonomic tools to reduce fatigue, attract younger artisans, and sustain this traditional craft, contributing to both artisan welfare and the preservation of cultural heritage.

Construction is hazardous for workers' health. This study identifies the prevalence of spinal pain vis-à-vis associated occupational and socioeconomic factors, amongst 600 workers (from 20 construction sites, occupied at 7 work stages). We extracted data from the Nordic-Musculoskeletal-Disorders-Questionnaire and analysed in association with personal and occupational traits, using R-language. All workers were male with ages ranging between 15 and 53 years, a mean value of 28.43, and a mean BMI of 19.89 kg/m². A total of 506 workers reported pain in the upper back. Odd Ratios (ORs) of work experience were high (6.749) for the upper back. Income and a part-time job with ORs 1.957 and 2.238 affected upper back. The highest OR (1.165) for the upper back was in 'helpers', and for the lower back (1.643) in 'floor/roof slabbers'. The prevalence of pain with frequency (daily) in the upper back is high (n = 197) than the lower back (n = 170). Intervention is suggested to reduce risk factors.

The main objective of this research was to develop a questionnaire that demonstrates elevated levels of reliability to assess the behaviour of e-scooter users. The researchers designed an E-scooter Riding Behaviour Questionnaire (ERBQ) with 27 items. This questionnaire aimed to assess the self-reported frequency of various e-scooter riding behaviours, including errors, violations and behaviours. Four hundred eighty-three e-scooter riders completed the ERBQ with subsequent data analysis. Factor analysis was used to identify a six-factor solution that includes control errors, traffic violations, slips and lapses, prohibited actions, positive behaviour and negative behaviour. The findings of the variance study revealed that, after accounting for gender as a confounding factor, errors, violations and negative behaviour emerged as the primary indicators of the likelihood of a crash, near miss and ticket experience. This study focuses on the inferences drawn from the findings about the most effective countermeasures to reduce e-scooter crashes.

There are increasing calls for the application of systems ergonomics methods in healthcare, although evidence for their utility and uptake is limited. In this study, 67 Australian healthcare workers participated in a six-month longitudinal study where they were trained to apply the AcciMap adverse event analysis and Net-HARMS risk assessment methods. Data were gathered in line with the RE-AIM (Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) evaluation framework, including rates of organisational uptake and method validity, perceived workload, usability, and barriers and facilitators to use in practice. Overall RE-AIM ratings for AcciMap were relatively high, and more moderate for Net-HARMS. Time constraints was the most frequently identified barrier to the use of both methods in practice, while there was more organisational resistance to Net-HARMS uptake. Facilitators for the use of both methods include providing quality training and mentorship, additional time and software resources, and dedicated job roles.

Situation awareness (SA) and workload have both received considerable attention over the past several decades. Little research has investigated the relationship between these two constructs however. The present study examines the relationship between workload and SA in a task involving operation of unmanned vehicles performing an inspection task. Overall, an inverse correlation between SA and workload was found, with SA decreasing by approximately 20% as workload increased. Unexpectedly, considerable differences in this relationship across individuals were found, however, with 50% of participants showing a correlation between SA and only one workload measure (subjective or secondary task) and 30% showing no correlation between SA and workload on either measure. Reasons for dissociation within different measures of workload and SA are discussed, as well as potential reasons for individual differences leading to dissociations across these two constructs.

This study explored the effects of scene complexity factor on cybersickness. In this between-subjects experiment, 44 participants played the Pendulum Chair VR game, half with a simple scene and half with a complex scene. The complex scene featured higher optic flow (lower-level perceptual factor) and higher familiarity (higher level factor). Dependent variables were cybersickness and task performance. Results were unexpected in that cybersickness did not differ significantly between the simple and complex scenes. These results suggest that the impact of optic flow and familiarity on cybersickness may be affected by each other or other factors, making them unreliable predictors of cybersickness if considered alone. Both lower level and higher-level factors would benefit from further research to deduce the conditions under which they affect cybersickness. VR designers could consider that optic flow and familiarity alone are not reliable factors when predicting the cybersickness-inducing effects of a new environment.

Stress is both a driver of objective performance impairments and a source of negative user experience of technology. This review addresses future directions for research on stress and ergonomics in the digital age. The review is structured around three levels of analysis. At the individual user level, stress is elicited by novel technologies and tasks including interaction with AI and robots, working in Virtual Reality, and operating autonomous vehicles. At the organisational level, novel, potentially stressful challenges include maintaining cybersecurity, surveillance and monitoring of employees supported by technology, and addressing bias and discrimination in the workplace. At the sociocultural level, technology, values and norms are evolving symbiotically, raising novel demands illustrated with respect to interactions with social media and new ethical challenges. We also briefly review the promise of neuroergonomics and emotional design to support stress mitigation. We conclude with seven high-level principles that may guide future work.

Not only is it important to know how large the overall change in vibration should be for occupants to perceive an improvement in comfort, but also how large this change should be in specific frequency bands. Relative difference thresholds (RDT) of primary (0.5-4 Hz) and secondary (9-80 Hz) ride are estimated for 14 automotive engineers seated in a vehicle on a 4-poster test rig over two roads. Resulting stimuli differed in magnitude and spectral shape. The median RDTs estimated for primary and secondary ride were 16.68% and 13.82% on the smooth road, and 9.50% and 24.67% over the rough road. Statistically significant differences were found in the medians of the RDTs between (1) primary and secondary ride on the two roads and (2) the two roads for changes in the primary and secondary ride, suggesting that Weber's law does not hold.

Many investigations of biomechanical overload concentrate on upper limbs and manual handling: certain jobs require an evaluation on spinal and lower limb postures. While existing methodologies adequately describe postures, they often poorly consider the organisation. This shortcoming prompted the development of TACOs for spinal and lower limb postures, using organisational factors to adjust the risk indexes. The TACOs is set out in steps: task identification, posture assessment, duration, and a final evaluation also for complex cycles. Given the complexity, tools have been devised, free downloadable, to facilitate evaluation. Studies on the TACOs reliability indicate excellent intra-observer and moderate interobserver agreement. TACOs, defining the task as a measurement unit, offers the advantage of assessing postures more easily and, considering duration, provides precise evaluation of the final risk. While the method does not demonstrate predictive validity regarding related diseases, it nonetheless enables the classification of exposure levels, even in complex multitask scenarios.

The concepts of automation trust and dependence have often been viewed as closely related and on occasion, have been conflated in the research community. Yet, trust is a cognitive attitude and dependence is a behavioural measure, so it is unsurprising that different factors can affect the two. Here, we review the literature on the correlation between trust and dependence. On average, this correlation across people was quite low, suggesting that people who are more trusting of automation do not necessarily depend upon it more. Separately, we examined experiments that explicitly manipulated the reliability of automation, finding that higher automation reliability increased trust ratings twice as fast as dependence behaviours. This review provides novel quantitative evidence that the two constructs are not strongly correlated. Implications of this work, including potential moderating variables, contexts where trust is still relevant, and considerations of trust measurement, are discussed.