• PNF and Movement
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.379-389
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• 2019

Purpose: This study examined the effects of wheelchair handle directions on the trunk muscle activity of adult males when climbing ramps. It also evaluated the wheelchair attendant's physical discomfort during tasks. Methods: Healthy males aged over 20 years were chosen and the direction of wheelchair handle grip was randomly selected. The grips included a general grip with ulnar deviation, a medial grip with wrist pronation, and a neutral grip with a neutral wrist. The trunk muscle activity was measured using surface electromyography. Furthermore, the physical discomfort of wheelchair attendants was subjectively evaluated using the Borg CR-10 Scale, which rates the perceived exertion. In addition, the SPSS 18.0 program was used perform repeated measure ANOVA to compare muscle activity and subjective discomfort during the interventions. The contrast test was also conducted with a significance level (α) of 0.05. Results: There was significant difference between the general grip and the medial grip in the rhomboid major muscle and the lumbar erector spinae muscle (p<0.05). In addition, there was significant difference between the general grip and the neutral grip in the rhomboid major muscle and the lumbar erector spinae muscle (p<0.05). Further, there was significant difference between the general grip and the neutral grip in subjective discomfort (p<0.05). Conclusion: In this study, adult male trunk muscle activity and subjective discomfort were lowest when using the neutral grip while climbing ramps. Accordingly, we suggest that neutral grips will help improve the function of the musculoskeletal system and reduce the subjective discomfort by putting less strain on the trunk muscles and maximizing efficiency with less force.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.3-14
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• 2014

Since the domestic introduction of iPhone in 2009, use of smartphones rapidly increased and many tasks, previously performed by various devices, are now performed by smartphones. In this process the importance of reading little text using small smartphone screen has become highly significant. This research tested how display factors of smartphone (pixel density, sub-pixel structure, luminance) and environmental factor (illumination) affect legibility related discomfort in text reading. The results indicated that legibility related discomfort is largely affected by pixel density, where people experience inconvenience when the pixel density becomes lower than 300 PPI. Illumination has limited effect on legibility related discomfort. Participants reported more legibility related discomfort when stimulus presented in various levels of illumination rather than single illumination level. Sub-pixel structure and luminance did not affected legibility related discomfort. Based on the results we suggest lower limit resolution of smart devices (smartphones, tablet computers) of different sizes for text legibility.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.43-56
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• 2003

Observational methods such as OWAS, RULA, and REBA have been widely used to identify posture-related risks of musculoskeletal disorders in industry, since they are useful and efficient in evaluating postural stresses. However. there are few studies comparing the methods and providing guidelines for selecting and using the methods. They have been developed based on different backgrounds and with different application areas. Each method has its own characteristics. which must be considered in selecting and using them. In this study. 17 male subjects evaluated 42 different working postures that frequently assumed in the automobile assembly line using a psychophysical method. The postures were then evaluated by different observational methods. The results of the observational methods were compared with psychophysically evaluated stresses. The observational methods resulted in different values of stresses for certain postures. For some postures showing high values of perceived discomfort. the observational methods showed different values of stresses. These results showed that the observational methods should be used differently according to application area and they have some weak points to be improved.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.253-264
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• 2010

This study investigates the relationship between daily mortality and heat stress in Seoul, using perceived temperatures (PT) derived from a heat budget model. During the summer season, observed PT intensity showed the biggest magnitude of summer heat stress from the middle 10 days of July to the first 10 days of August. The elderly (65 and above) were found to be the most vulnerable to heat stress. The threshold PT, with a significant increase in excess mortality, was $38^{\circ}C$. No time lagged effect was observed with summer heat stress, while a high correlation was observed between anomalies in PT and relative deviation of mortality. A comparison of the heat index and the discomfort index with excess mortality revealed that the discomfort index underestimated excess mortality, whereas the heat index could not appropriately explain the increase in excess mortality correlated with the increase in excess heat. In contrast, PT was found to be the weather element that best represents excess mortality due to heat stress, and is thus expected to serve as a more reliable forecast index of human biometeorology.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.137-146
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• 2008

This study examines one thermal index, perceived temperature (PT), over the Korean Peninsula during 2007 summer. Heat/cold stress has been described using air temperature and humidity for warm seasons and air temperature and wind velocity in the cold conditions, while PT is based on a heat budget model of the human body that considers air temperature, humidity, wind velocity and radiation effect regardless of climates, regions and seasons. PT is higher about $4-5^{\circ}C$ than air temperature in the summer. Humidity increases PT, while wind tends to reduces PT possibly by evaporation of water vapor. The geographical distribution of summer PT indicates that the lowest PT happened in the east central region, with the appearance of the highest PT in the inland of southern region in Korea. Although the latitudinal trend shows that PT decreases northward, inland PT is higher than that of coastal region. Compared to the heat index or the discomfort index that considers air temperature and humidity, PT represents distinctive regional characteristics of thermal comfort. The distribution of PT shows that it may be a useful thermal index for the assessment of thermal comfort or stress region in the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.19 no.4 s.68
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• pp.123-128
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• 2004

This study investigated effect of arm posture, repetition of wrist motion and external load on perceived discomfort. The arm postures were controlled by shoulder flexion, elbow flexion, and ist motions such as flexion, extension, radial deviation and ulnar deviation. An experiment was conducted to measure discomfort scores for experimental treatments using the magnitude estimation, in which the L16 orthogonal array was adopted for reducing the size of experiment. The results showed that while the effect of the shoulder flexion, repetition of wrist motion and external load was statistically significant at $\alpha=0.05$or 0.10, that of the elbow and wrist motions was not. Discomfor ratings increased linearly as levels of wrist repetition and external load increased. This implies that the existing posture classification schemes such as OWAS, RULA, which do not properly consider effect of motion repetition and external load, may underestimate postural load. Based on the regression equation for wrist repetition and external load, isocomfort region indicating the region within which discomfort scores were expected to be the same was proposed. It is recommended that when assessing risk of postures or developing new posture classification schemes, motion repetition and external load as well as posture itself be fully taken into consideration for precisely evaluating postural stress.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.18-26
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• 2002

Objectives : The object of this study was to investigate the relationship between coping strategies and perceived stress or pain discomfort in patients with chronic low back pain. 80 patients with chronic low back pain and 100 normal controls participated in this study. Methods: Global assessment of recent stress (GARS) scale and Stress Response Inventory (SRI) were used to measure perception for stressors and stress responses. Coping scale and pain discomfort scale were used to measure coping strategies and pain perception. Results : Scores of perceived stress related to work or job, interpersonal relationship, changes in relationship, sickness or illness and the total scores on the GARS scale were significantly higher in those with chronic low back pain than normal controls. Scores of the SRI fatigue subscale scored significantly higher in those with chronic low back pain than normal controls. No significant difference was found on total scores of the pain discomfort scale between those with chronic low back pain and normal controls. The patients with chronic low back pain scored significantly higher on planful problem solving and positive reappraisal than normal controls. In the patient group, pain perception had significant positive correlations with total scores of the SRI and scores of stress perception related to illness or injury. The extent of escape-avoidance showed significant negative correlations with age, whereas the extent of distancing or escape-avoidance had significant negative correlations with the level of education. Significant difference was also found in accepting responsibilities between male subjects and females. However, no significant correlations were found between coping strategies and perceived stressors, stress responses or pain perception. Conclusion : The results suggest that patients with chronic low back pain were more likely to use more active coping strategies than normal controls, though the former had more perception for stressors than the latter. It was also found that coping strategies used by the patients were associated with sociodemographic factors, but that they were not associated with perceived stressors, stress responses or pain perception.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.787-796
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• 1995

A man model is a useful design tool for the evaluation of man machine systems and products. An arm reach trajectory prediction for such a model will be specifically useful to present human activities and, consequently, could increase the accuracy and reality of the evaluation. In this study, a three-dimensional reach trajectory prediction model was developed using an inverse kinematics technique. The upper body was modeled as a four link open kinematic chain with seven degrees of freedom. The Resolved Motion Method used for the robot kinematics problem was used to predict the joint movements. The cost function of the perceived discomfort developed using the central composite design was also used as a performance function. This model predicts the posture by moving the joints to minimize the discomfort on the constraint of the end effector velocity directed to a target point. The results of the pairwise t-test showed that all the joint coordinates except the shoulder joint's showed statistically no differences at .alpha. = 0.01. The reach trajectory prediction model developed in this study was found to accurately simulate human arm reach trajectory and the model will help understand the human arm reach movement.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.73-82
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• 1997

Daily exposure to constrained body postures and deviations from neutral postures over a long period may result in discomfort as well as pains and aches in the muscles, joints, tendons, and other soft tissues. Furthermore, it was known that poor body postures are a major cause of musculoskeletal disorders in industry. Therefore, in this study, comfort ranges of joint motions were obtained as a criterion for evaluating body postures and designing workplaces ergonomically, which were bases on subjects' perceived discomfort level estimated by magnitude estimation. Nineteen healthy male subjects participated in the laboratory study. They results showed that comfort ranges of joint motions occurred in the wrist, elbow, neck, and ankle were little less than their normal range of joint motions, but those in the back(L5/S1) and hip joint were much less than their normal ones. This fact implies that the back and jip movements are more stressful than the other joints movements. It is expected that comfort ranges of joint motions can be used as a valuable guideline when designing and evaluating workplaces.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.1193-1203
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• 2023

This study aims to provide primary data regarding the thermal stress of disposable personal protective coveralls. Thermal stress and surface temperature measurements were taken among ten men wearing coveralls. The size of the ten men corresponds to a size eight in Size Korea. As a result of thermal stress, sensations of humidity and discomfort were higher when wearing Level C compared to Level D. Level D felt significant thermal stress in their upper body after exercise. However, they did not feel such stress in their lower body. Level C felt thermal stress in their upper and lower body after exercise. In addition, in Level C, the ratings of perceived exertion blood pressure and pulse rate after exercise were higher than those of Level D. Furthermore, the surface temperature of disposable personal protective coveralls among Level C was slightly higher than that of Level D.