Ergonomics Principles for the Design of an Assembly Workstation for Left-Handed and Right-Handed Users

Pain, fatigue and musculoskeletal disorders may be the consequence of awkward and inadequate postures caused by the improper design of work activities and poorly designed workstations. The good design of workstations following the ergonomics principles is necessary to avoid these adverse effects. This study aimed to define a set of ergonomics principles for the design of assembly workstations for both left-handed and right-handed users. An experimental study was performed at the university laboratory involving both lefthanded and right-handed users for the assembly of a centrifugal electric pump. The experimental study proved that left-handed and right-handed users differently interact with the objects in the space. Four fundamental ergonomics principles for the design of assembly workstations for both left-handed and right-handed users have been defined, based on the results of the laboratory test. The proposed principles help designers and practitioners during the design of assembly workstations, proving the importance of the ambidextrous design of workstations

Associations between handedness and cerebral lateralisation for language: A comparison of three measures in children

Contains fulltext : 116834.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)It has been known for many years that hand preference is associated with cerebral lateralisation for language, but the relationship is weak and indirect. It has been suggested that quantitative measures of differential hand skill or reaching preference may provide more valid measures than traditional inventories, but to date these have not been validated against direct measures of cerebral lateralisation. We investigated the associations of three different handedness assessments; 1) a hand preference inventory, 2) a measure of relative hand skill, and 3) performance on a reaching task; with cerebral lateralisation for language function as derived from functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound during a language production task, in a group of 57 typically developing children aged from 6 to 16 years. Significant correlations between cerebral lateralisation for language production and handedness were found for a short version of the inventory and for performance on the reaching task. However, confidence intervals for the correlations overlapped and no one measure emerged as clearly superior to the others. The best handedness measures accounted for only 8–16% of the variance in cerebral lateralisation. These findings indicate that researchers should not rely on handedness as an indicator of cerebral lateralisation for language. They also imply that lateralisation of language and motor functions in the human brain show considerable independence from one another.6 p