• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.147-152
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• 2007

The aim of this study was to evaluate the musculo-skeletal symptomatic features of municipal sanitation workers and to compare differences of the musculo-skeletal symptoms by work types. We conducted descriptive cross-sectional survey concerning the musculo-skeletal symptomatic features of 315 street cleaners in Seoul and GyeongGi Province, Korea, during 2 weeks of September 2006. Questionnaires were consisted of general characteristics, occupational characteristics and musculo-skeletal symptoms. And we observed their works and evaluated their movement and posture by REBA. For work types, tools and subjective physical work loading, there were statistical difference whether or not NIOSH symptom positive on upper limb. Musculo-skeletal symptoms on upper limb were claimed from 43.2% of street cleaners, more than in 32.4% of cleaners. Musculo-skeletal symptoms on upper limb were reported higher in the group who felt their subjective physical work loading severe than in the otherwise group. The REBA results were over 'high risk stage' in street cleaners. Street cleaners had more repetitive motions than solid waste collectors on upper limbs. Works according to the criteria of musculoskeletal burdened work by the Ministry of Labor results were over 'high risk stage' of No. 2 and No. 4 in street cleaners. We found that street cleaners complained musculo-skeletal symptoms on upper limb more than solid waste collectors. This study suggests that it is necessary for street cleaners to carry out the prevention program of musculo-skeletal diseases. For street cleaner, the measure plans such as job rotation, automatic street sweepers, reducing work hours are helpful in preventing musculoskeletal symptoms on the upper limb.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.24-35
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• 1998

Cumulative trauma disorders(CTDs) have been a growing problems for US and European industries with higher incidence rate every year. The increase and their associated costs has led companies to form committes and implement programs to address this problem. In our country, we have just started to recognize and to work on the problems in industry. This study conducted an ergonomic analysis for typical jobs of ship building industry which was not usually surveyed for CTD problem. A baseline CTD checklist which was supposed to do a risk assessment was developed and applied in this study. Initially, we considered five major parts in the checklist which consisted of personal, frequency, posture, force, and miscellaneous information. Most jobs in ship building industry were much different from typical assembly work and VDT work that have been major part of the previous CTD studies. Specifically, job characteristics in terms of frequency and posture were quite different. There were relatively long cycle time, awkward postures for whole body (not just for upper extremities). Also, CTD risk scores based on checklist were a lot higher than the scores for VDT jobs which was a case of preceding application of the checklist. Specifically, grinding jobs turned out to be the most risky one in terms of CTDs. In conclusion, usual CTD prevention guidelines are not likely to he effective in this type of industry. An individual job based interventions are strongly suggested to have a good control of CTD problems in ship building industry.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.44-52
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of different objects and target location of dominant hand on the non-dominant hand movement kinematics in a bimanual reaching task. Fifteen right-handed volunteers were asked to reach from same starting point to the different target point of right and left hand with grasping the objects of different size. Independent variables were 1) three different object types (small mug cup, name pen, and PET bottle), and 2) three different target locations (shorter distance, same distance, and longer distance than the non-dominant hand) of the dominant hand. Dependent variables were movement time (MT), movement distance (MD), movement mean velocity ($MV_{mean}$), and movement peak velocity ($MV_{peak}$) of the non-dominant hand. Repeated measures two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for differences in the non-dominant hand movement kinematics during bimanual reaching. The results of this study were as follows: 1) MT of the non-dominant hand was increased significantly when traveling with grasping the mug cup and reaching the far target location, and was decreased significantly when traveling with grasping the PET bottle and reaching the near target location of the dominant hand. 2) MD of the non-dominant hand was significantly increased during reaching the far target location, and significantly decreased during reaching the near target location with dominant hand. 3) $MV_{mean}$ of the non-dominant hand was increased significantly when traveling with grasping the PET bottle, and was decreased significantly when traveling with grasping the mug cup of the dominant hand. Therefore, it can be concluded that the changes of the ipsilateral hand movement have influence on coupling of the contralateral hand movement in bimanual reaching.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.35-42
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• 2011

Efficient space plans are built upon relations of both human and physical compositions, and the standard of the interaction is basically the human scale. Especially in medical areas, the character of the users within human scale design environment is quite significant. Unlike large hospitals with great plans and scalability performed by experts, mid-sized clinics tend to have limited space, designed by non-specialists who highlight aesthetics over functionality in floor plans which leads to poor quality in medical service. For this reason, this study will include the application of human scale based therapy rooms within the clinic from a physical standpoint and will further analyze and pinpoint any room for improvement to further enable more efficient ergonomic space planning. In this study, theoretically will contemplate over human scale, mid-sized clinic, therapies, and therapists, while the case study will include status of the recent human scale based mid-sized clinic from a physical viewpoint, classification and analysis amongst human and physical compositions chosen by discretion from either a newly opened or a newly re-modeled clinic within the last 2 years, which has 15 beds or more, minimum 3 physical therapists, with more than 5 different therapy facilities in the metropolitan area in order to measure the human scale of therapy rooms in a mid-sized clinic. As a result, the area where improvement can practically be applied is the physical composition, which does not include human scale like human composition factors as therapists and patients, and hence, I suggest the human scale applied efficient medical space plan become the base of this study and look forward to subsequent improvement in the quality of medical services.

• IE interfaces
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.288-296
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• 2005

Many jobs and activities in our daily lives require squatting postures. The fore part includes housekeepers, farmers, and welders and the latter includes a wide variety of activities such as housekeeping; planting, cultivating and harvesting various agricultural products; grinding, welding, etc. It is speculated that prolonged squatting postures without any supporting stool would gradually cause musculoskeletal injuries to workers. This study is conducted to examine the proper height of stools according to the position of the working materials and to develop wearable stools for workers with squatting posture. Forty male and female subjects participated in the experiment to find the proper height of stools according to the position of the working materials. Subjects were asked to squat and work with 3 different working positions: floor level; ankle level; shank level of 3 different stool height conditions: 10cm height; 15cm height; and 20cm height. After 5 minutes of maintaining a squatting work posture while sitting on the different height stools, Likert summated rating method as well as pairwise ranking test was applied to evaluate the user preferences for provided stools under the conditions of different working positions. The results of statistical analysis show that the subjects preferred 10cm height stool for floor level, 15cm height stool for ankle level, 20cm height stool for knee level. We thus strongly recommend to use appropriate height stools in accordance with the different working positions. Moreover, a prototype wearable stool was designed such that workers with squatting posture do not need to move the stool while they are moving about. The purpose of developing wearable stool was to decrease the physical stress and hence promote worker's health who work with squatting posture.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.66 no.7
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• pp.124-138
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• 2016

The present study observes collaboration methods in which 3D printing was a part of the fashion manufacturing process, expression methods of such cases, and their ripple effects. As a result, the three types of collaborations between fashion designers and other industry fields, fashion brands and 3D printing companies, and fashion designers and artists. Case analysis results and ripple effects found according to each collaboration method were as follows. First, in collaborations found were between fashion designers and other industry fields, 3D printed fashion works with futuristic images were seen through the fusion of future industries, which claim to support cutting edge digital technology, and creative fashion design. As they were mainly collaborations between automobile industries with cutting edge images or digital related industries and fashion designers, they were expressed as a new form of experimental clothing, and were used as strategies to improve future corporate images of the high tech industry. Second, in collaborations between fashion brands and 3D printing technology businesses, the sporting good brands and the shoe industry attempted to let their products be known through the promotion of functional material or ergonomic technology. While they emphasize practicality by mainly using flexible material, they were mainly proposed as functional sporting goods for famous players or as shoe accessories, so methods are still used for public distribution as brand promoting marketing strategies. Third, with collaborations between fashion designers and artists, creative pieces were shown through the grafting of 3D printing technology, the artistry of artists, and the experimentation of fashion designers. In particular, the innovative value of fashion as art was created through the union of the artistic 3D modeling technology support of artists and the creativity of designers. Like this, 3D printing fashion can graft the cutting edge nature of fashion to other industry fields through collaborations, enhancing pacesetting images, and in the fashion field, it can improve possibilities for innovations in the fashion industry through the support of 3D printing technology businesses and artists, raising expectations towards future human living.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.58-67
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• 2011

A high prevalence of protected horiculture farmer's work-related musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs) have been reported in precedent studies. One of the tasks required ergonomic intervention to reduce the musculo-skeletal risks is the task of harvesting. The purpose of this study is to evaluate quantitatively the spinal load of worker harvesting with squatting posture to predict and prevent musculo-skeletal risks. Spinal load in Squatting posture with asymmetric trunk motion were analyzed. Before evaluating spinal load on harvesting worker by bio-mechanical approach, it is needed to validate human model. In this study, ADAMS LifeMOD human model shows satisfactory results, comparing with already validated model's results or measured results. While worker reached arms (20%, 40%, 70% arm reach) with various asymmetric trunk motion (0, 45, 90 degree), their spinal loads (extension, twisting and lateral bending moment) were evaluated. In case of extensor moment at lumbo-sacral joint, the more the arm reach got increased, the moment increased. however, in case of twisting moment and lateral bending moment, the more both arm reach and asymmetric trunk motion got increased, the moment increased significantly. The findings of this study suggest that it need to be determine the spinal load, especially twisting, lateral bending moment in evaluating musculo-skeletal workload in squatting posture.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.106-111
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• 2015

Purpose: Impaired reaching movement is commonly observed in children with cerebral palsy. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the inclination of seat surface can influence the reaching movement in children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy (CP). Methods: The subjects were 31 children, 16 children with spastic bilateral CP and 15 typically developing (TD) children. The children performed static sitting and forward reaching under three conditions: a horizontal seat surface (Horizontal $0^{\circ}$), a seat surface inclined anterior 15 degrees (Ant $15^{\circ}$), and a seat surface inclined posterior 15 degrees (Post $15^{\circ}$). A 3-axis accelerometer ('ZSTAR3') was used for analysis of the reaching movement. A 3-axis accelerometer was attached on the manubrium of the sternum, lateral epicondyle of the humerus, and styloid process of the ulna. We measured the reaction time, movement time, and data amount during reaching the 8 cm target with an index finger on the three inclined seat surfaces. Results: Reaction time and movement time for CPs showed significant delay; comparing the TD's and CP's amount was significantly greater than the TD's during reaching task (p<0.05). In particular, CP's reaction time and movement time on a seat surface inclined Ant $15^{\circ}$ was significantly more delayed compared with the other seat surfaces (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our results suggest that seat-inclination intervention may provide an ergonomic approach for children with spastic cerebral palsy.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.165-172
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• 2020

Background: To gain a better understanding of nonfatal injuries in Alaska, underutilized data sources such as workers' compensation claims must be analyzed. The purpose of the current study was to utilize workers' compensation claims data to estimate the risk of nonfatal, work-related injuries among occupations in Alaska, characterize injury patterns, and prioritize future research. Methods: A dataset with information on all submitted claims during 2014-2015 was provided for analysis. Claims were manually reviewed and coded. For inclusion in this study, claims had to represent incidents that resulted in a nonfatal acute traumatic injury, occurred in Alaska during 2014-2015, and were approved for compensation. Results: Construction workers had the highest number of injuries (2,220), but a rate lower than the overall rate (34 per 1,000 construction workers, compared to 40 per 1,000 workers overall). Fire fighters had the highest rate of injuries on the job, with 162 injuries per 1,000 workers, followed by law enforcement officers with 121 injuries per 1,000 workers. The most common types of injuries across all occupations were sprains/strains/tears, contusions, and lacerations. Conclusion: The successful use of Alaska workers' compensation data demonstrates that the information provided in the claims dataset is meaningful for epidemiologic research. The predominance of sprains, strains, and tears among all occupations in Alaska indicates that ergonomic interventions to prevent overexertion are needed. These findings will be used to promote and guide future injury prevention research and interventions.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.55-64
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• 2010

This study tried to focus on nontraditional job that has not been studied in terms of the subjects associated with MSDs(Musculoskeletal Disorders). Specifically, dental procedure was the job to be analyzed in this study. An alternative method as well as a traditional method for viewing teeth while performing simulated dental procedures. Four graduated students did both methods(direct view and indirect view) as the subjects in this study. The method based on indirect view used a video camera and monitor to view the teeth. The experiment was conducted five times for each subject. The major findings in this study were as follows; 1) Job speed was increased with the repetitions for both methods, 2) Difference of Neck flexion between direct and indirect methods was statistically siginificant(Neck flexion for indirect method was dramatically decreased), 3) Difference of job speed between direct and indirect methods was statistically significant(Job speed for direct method was faster than that of indirect method), 4) Difference of error rate between direct and indirect methods was statistically significant(error rate for direct method was lower than that of indirect method), 5) Even though indirect method did not provide better performance in terms of job speed and error rate yet, it seemed to need a trade-off between two methods in the future since indirect method provided better working postures than that of direct method.