681 research outputs found
Ergonomics Contributions to Company Strategies
Managers usually associate ergonomics with occupational health and safety and related legislation, not with business performance. In many companies, these decision makers seem not to be positively motivated to apply ergonomics for reasons of improving health and safety. In order to strengthen the position of ergonomics and ergonomists in the business and management world, we discuss company strategies and business goals to which ergonomics could contribute. Conceptual models are presented and examples are given to illustrate: 1) the present situation in which ergonomics is not part of regular planning and control cycles in organizations to ensure business performance, and 2) the desired situation in which ergonomics is an integrated part of strategy formulation and implementation. In order to realize the desired situation, considerable changes must take place within the ergonomics research, education and practice community by moving from a health ergonomics paradigm to a business ergonomics paradigm, without losing the health and safety goals.corporate strategy;paradigm shift;system performance
Investigation of Factors Influencing Ergonomic Characteristics of Water Bottle Handles
Increasingly competitive market environment pushes products and their packaging to meet functional and aesthetic requirements and expectations of consumers. Ergonomic features are one of the most important features for fulfilling consumer expectations and achieving a satisfying user experience. Drinking water in retail is commonly packaged in PET bottles ranging from 0.2 up to 6 litres. The weight of the 6-litre bottle is roughly 6 kilos which can produce strain on the hand while carried from the place of purchase to the place of usage. The goal of this research was to investigate the influence of water bottle handles and to determine how much does handle length, width, and curvature of the grip\u27s edges affect the comfort of product use. This research presents objective experimental measurements and subjective judgment regarding ergonomic characteristics of the 5-6 litre water bottle handles, based on the variations in their shape and dimensions
3D-LIVE : live interactions through 3D visual environments
This paper explores Future Internet (FI) 3D-Media technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) in real and virtual environments in order to sense and experiment Real-Time interaction within live situations. The combination of FI testbeds and Living Labs (LL) would enable both researchers and users to explore capacities to enter the 3D Tele-Immersive (TI) application market and to establish new requirements for FI technology and infrastructure. It is expected that combining both FI technology pull and TI market pull would promote and accelerate the creation and adoption, by user communities such as sport practitioners, of innovative TI Services within sport events
Virtual Helicopter Landing Platform (V-HELP)
The research project focused on how virtual reality (VR) could create a non-immersive
environment and improve in increasing safety awareness at offshore platform. The main
problem is the typical training talk usually use video and audio presentation which
cannot provide the walkthrough movement. The aim of this project is to develop and
design Virtual Helicopter Landing Platform (V-HELP) application which allows users to
explore the virtual platform environment. The objectives of this project are to design and
develop helicopter landing platform; to visualize movement and facilitate understanding
in VR; and at the same time identify components and characteristics of the virtual
environment for adequate realism. In completion the project, the framework used is
based on part of the waterfall "modeling theory. The phases involved in the framework
used for project development is the analysis phase, design and development phase,
integration and testing phase and lastly evaluation phase. Developments tools have been
used in the project are 3D Maya 5..0.1 and Macromedia Flash MX software. As a result
from the evaluation conducted, shows that most of the evaluators are satisfied with the
project. They think that the realism of the prototype can be improved in virtual
environment through enhancement on chosen the suitable textures materials and enable
user control during walkthrough. As a conclusion, the research project show that Virtual
Environment are very useful and more effective for the offshore safety training
compared to the conventional method
The Development of a Novel Pitching Assessment Tool
Posture based ergonomic assessment tools are widely used to evaluate posture and injury risk for many workplace/occupational tasks. To date, there is no validated equivalent that can be used to assess the posture of a pitcher during baseball pitching. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop an inexpensive tool which can allow for the rapid assessment of a pitcher’s posture at lead foot strike, and establish the inter- and intra- rater reliability of the tool. For this study, 11 participants threw 30 pitches (15 fastballs, 15 curveballs) off an indoor pitching. Full body 3D kinematics were measured using reflective markers attached to anatomical landmarks and rigid bodies attached to body segments using a 10-camera Vicon Motion Capture system along with two high-speed video cameras (rear and side view) to record each pitch during the experimental trials. The kinematic data was analyzed, after which the highest velocity fastball of each of the 11 pitchers was selected for further analysis. A Pitching Mechanics Tool was designed to evaluate 16 different parameters at lead foot strike. Each of the 16 parameters had posture ranges or categories established based on scientific literature. Six evaluators with at least five years of experience working with adult pitchers completed the Pitching Mechanics Tool. Findings showed moderate to good levels of repeatability across multiple sessions as well as across multiple evaluators. Additionally, PMT results suggested that 2D qualitative analysis is a viable alternative to 3D motion capture
The feasibility of using virtual prototyping technologies for product evaluation
With the continuous development in computer and communications technology the use of
computer aided design in design processes is becoming more commonplace. A wide range of
virtual prototyping technologies are currently in development, some of which are commercially
viable for use within a product design process. These virtual prototyping technologies range
from graphics tablets to haptic devices. With the compression of design cycles the feasibility of
using these technologies for product evaluation is becoming an ever more important
consideration.
This thesis begins by presenting the findings of a comprehensive literature review defining
product design with a focus on product evaluation and a discussion of current virtual
prototyping technologies. From the literature review it was clear that user involvement in the
product evaluation process is critical. The literature review was followed by a series of
interconnected studies starting with an investigation into design consultancies' access and
use of prototyping technologies and their evaluation methods. Although design consultancies
are already using photo-realistic renderings, animations and sometimes 3600 view CAD
models for their virtual product evaluations, current virtual prototyping hardware and software
is often unsatisfactory for their needs. Some emergent technologies such as haptic interfaces
are currently not commonly used in industry. This study was followed by an investigation into
users' psychological acceptance and physiological discomfort when using a variety of virtual
prototyping tools for product evaluation compared with using physical prototypes, ranging from
on-screen photo-realistic renderings to 3D 3600 view models developed using a range of
design software. The third study then went on to explore the feasibility of using these virtual
prototyping tools and the effect on product preference when compared to using physical
prototypes. The forth study looked at the designer's requirements for current and future virtual
prototyping tools, design tools and evaluation methods.
In the final chapters of the thesis the relative strengths and weaknesses of these technologies
were re-evaluated and a definitive set of user requirements based on the documentary
evidence of the previous studies was produced. This was followed by the development of a
speculative series of scenarios for the next generation of virtual prototyping technologies
ranging from improvements to existing technologies through to blue sky concepts. These
scenarios were then evaluated by designers and consumers to produce documentary
evidence and recommendations for preferred and suitable combinations of virtual prototyping
technologies. Such hardware and software will require a user interface that is intuitive, simple,
easy to use and suitable for both the designers who create the virtual prototypes and the
consumers who evaluate them
Ergonomics Contributions to Company Strategies
Managers usually associate ergonomics with occupational health and safety and related legislation, not with business performance. In many companies, these decision makers seem not to be positively motivated to apply ergonomics for reasons of improving health and safety. In order to strengthen the position of ergonomics and ergonomists in the business and management world, we discuss company strategies and business goals to which ergonomics could contribute. Conceptual models are presented and examples are given to illustrate: 1) the present situation in which ergonomics is not part of regular planning and control cycles in organizations to ensure business performance, and 2) the desired situation in which ergonomics is an integrated part of strategy formulation and implementation. In order to realize the desired situation, considerable changes must take place within the ergonomics research, education and practice community by moving from a health ergonomics paradigm to a business ergonomics paradigm, without losing the health and safety goals
Methods and Tools for Objective Assessment of Psychomotor Skills in Laparoscopic Surgery
Training and assessment paradigms for laparoscopic surgical skills are evolving from traditional mentor–trainee tutorship towards structured, more objective and safer programs. Accreditation of surgeons requires reaching a consensus on metrics and tasks used to assess surgeons’ psychomotor skills. Ongoing development of tracking systems and software solutions has allowed for the expansion of novel training and assessment means in laparoscopy. The current challenge is to adapt and include these systems within training programs, and to exploit their possibilities for evaluation purposes. This paper describes the state of the art in research on measuring and assessing psychomotor laparoscopic skills. It gives an overview on tracking systems as well as on metrics and advanced statistical and machine learning techniques employed for evaluation purposes. The later ones have a potential to be used as an aid in deciding on the surgical competence level, which is an important aspect when accreditation of the surgeons in particular, and patient safety in general, are considered. The prospective of these methods and tools make them complementary means for surgical assessment of motor skills, especially in the early stages of training. Successful examples such as the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery should help drive a paradigm change to structured curricula based on objective parameters. These may improve the accreditation of new surgeons, as well as optimize their already overloaded training schedules
Usability Heuristic Evaluation in AAL Ecosystems
In the past few years there has been a significant growth of the elderly population in both developing and developed countries. This event provided new economic, technical and demographic challenges to current societies in several areas and services. Among them the healthcare services can be highlighted, due to its impact in people daily lives. As a natural response an effort has been made by both the scientific and industrial community to develop alternatives, which could mitigate the current healthcare services bottlenecks and provide means in aiding and improve the end-user life quality. Through a combination of information and communication technologies specialized ecosystems have been developed, however multiple challenges arose, which compromise their adoption and acceptance among the main stakeholders, such as their autonomy, robustness, security, integration, human-computer interactions and usability. As consequence an effort has been made to deal with the technical related bottlenecks, which shifted the development process focus from the end-user to the ecosystems technological impairments. Despite there being user related issues, such as usability, which still remains to be addressed. Therefore this article focuses over the ecosystem’s usability through the analysis of the process used to check the ecosystem’s compliance level with the usability guidelines from Jakob Nielsen and Shneiderman; and the identification of the quantifiable parameters for each principle that could aid in the heuristics evaluation process by maximizing its objectivity improve its overall accuracy.
Keywords: Usability, Ambient assisted living, User interaction, Older people, Heuristics analysi
Academic methods for usability evaluation of serious games: a systematic review
In the last years, there has been an increasing interest in the design of video
games as a tool for education, training, health promotion, socialization, etc. Usability, which
is a key factor in any video game, becomes even more important in these so-called
Bserious games^, where the users’ special characteristics should be considered, and the
game efficacy depends on the users’ adherence and engagement. However, evaluation of
the usability of this kind of games requires a redefinition of techniques, methods and even
terminology. In this paper, we elicit six research questions and conduct a systematic review
of the scientific literature, which resulted in the selection of 187 papers that contained
the most relevant responses. The conclusions of this systematic review illustrate the
general status of current academic usability evaluations of these games and the main trends
in the selection of methodologies and how are they applied. This view may be a very
valuable foundation for future researchMinisterio de Ciencia e InnovaciĂłn PROCUR@-IPT-2011-1038-90000
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