Ergonomics
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Fatigue in the extensor muscles of the torso affects neuromuscular recruitment and control of the spine. The goal of this study was to test whether fatigue influences stability of dynamic torso movements. A controlled laboratory experiment measured the change in the maximum finite-time Lyapunov exponent, lambda(max), before and after fatigue of the extensor muscles. ⋯ Fatigue-related changes in spinal stability may contribute to the risk of low-back injury during fatiguing occupational lifting tasks. The findings reported here indicate that one mechanism by which fatigue contributes to low back disorders may be spinal instability. This information may contribute to the development of ergonomic countermeasures to help prevent low back disorders.
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Educational ergonomics - the teaching of ergonomics and the design of environments where ergonomics teaching and learning might occur - has received little attention from ergonomists. This paper first describes the roots of the author's interest and research in educational ergonomics; second it provides a personal view of the opportunities and challenges posed by the two streams of educational ergonomics; and lastly it considers the implications of teaching ergonomics to children in terms of their personal development, the design of schools and the impact such initiatives might have on wider societal problems.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of anaesthetists' activity patterns in the operating room and during simulation.
This study investigated the behavioural aspects of ecological validity of anaesthesia simulation environments using a task analysis approach. Six anaesthesists were observed during two cases performed in the operating room (OR), one routine and two critical incident simulation scenarios. A two-way MANOVA for repeated measures was performed with the independent variables Case (OR/SIM-R/SIM-CI) and Phase Induction/ Maintenance (Emergence), the latter being a repeated measure. ⋯ Statistically significant main effects for Phase concerning communication, monitoring, manual tasks and documentation, for Case concerning communication and documentation, and a significant interaction effect for Phase x Case concerning manual tasks and other were found. Increased action density (i.e. amount of co-occurring activities) was observed during Induction, Emergence and the Management of simulated critical events. The similarities and differences in anaesthetists' activity patterns identified in this study will help to further improve the ecological validity of simulation environments as research settings.
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Review
The Work Compatibility Improvement Framework: an integrated perspective of the human-at-work system.
The industrial revolution demonstrated the limitations of a pure mechanistic approach towards work design. Human work is now seen as a complex entity that involves different scientific branches and blurs the line between mental and physical activities. Job design has been a traditional concern of applied psychology, which has provided insight into the interaction between the individual and the work environment. ⋯ A joint approach to organizational and job design will not only result in decreased prevalence of health risks, but in enhanced organizational effectiveness as well. The implementation of the WCM, that is, the Work Compatibility Improvement Framework, provides the basis for integrating different elements of the work environment into a single reliable construct. An improvement framework is essential to ensure that the measures of the WCM result in a system that is adaptive and self-regulated.
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This article examines the multiple effects of cognitive diversity in teams operating complex human-machine-systems. The study employed a PC-based multiple-task environment, called the Cabin Air Management System, which models a process control task in the operational context of a spacecraft's life support system. Two types of cognitive diversity were examined: system understanding and team specialization. ⋯ No advantages were found for cognitive diversity with regard to specialization. There was no effect of cognitive diversity on intra-team conflict, with conflict levels generally being very low. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the engineering of cognitive diversity in teams operating complex human-machine-systems.