• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.121-130
• /
• 2009

Subjective evaluation has always been regarded as a branch of social science research. Hence, in scientific and especially engineering points of view, its development is always taken for granted despite the importance of its effects on the design and development decisions. In the past, at least two automotive seat survey questionnaires have been developed with high statistical validity and reliability. Nonetheless, both were not local while subjective perception very much depends on demographic background factors. It is felt that since vehicle seat comfort is an important aspect in a seat design, a local sense should be put into the survey that is used as the subjective tool. The proposed vehicle seat discomfort survey questionnaire was developed in dual languages; English and Malay. Malay language is the national language of Malaysia, where the survey was tested. Beside inputs from literatures, key informant interviews helped in establishing the appropriate terms used as survey items. Three experimental runs on two different seats by 22 paid subjects showed that the developed questionnaire is reliable and valid. Furthermore, criterion validity analysis on the survey and previously developed survey showed significant correlation at 0.01 significance level.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.5-15
• /
• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of position change on the level of comfort and occurrence of bleeding after transarterial chemoembolization. Methods: This study was the nonequivalent control group non-synchronized design. The experimental group was positioned in supine with 15-30 degree Semi-folwer's position for 2 hours and then changed supine position alternatively to 30 degree lateral positioning in turn per hour for 2 hours. For the control group, 6 hour supine positions without any position change were applied. Results: The level of discomfort of the control group was scored higher level than that of the experimental group. There was no significant differences in back pain and the degrees of voiding difficulty. There were no significant differences in the incidence of bleeding complication between the two groups. Conclusion: The position change in patients after transarterial chemoembolization could be applied without any severe side effects such as bleeding complication, but it was revealed to be effective in reducing the level of discomfort.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
• /
• v.18 no.12
• /
• pp.1217-1223
• /
• 2008

Vehicle vibration mostly originates from the road excitation and causes discomfort, fatigue and even injury to a driver. Vehicle ride comfort is one of the most important performance indices to achieve a high-quality vehicle design. Since design parameter variations inevitably result in the vehicle ride comfort variance, the variance characteristics should be analyzed in the early design stage of the vehicle. The vehicle ride comfort is often defined by an index which employs a weighted RMS value of the acceleration PSD of a seat position. The design solution is obtained through two steps in this study. An optimization problem to obtain a minimum ride comfort index is solved first. Then another optimization problem to obtain minimum variance of the ride comfort index is solved. For the optimization problems, the equations of motion and the sensitivity equations are derived basing on a 5-DOF vehicle model. The numerical results show that an optimal solution for the minimum ride comfort is not necessarily same as that of the minimum variance of the ride comfort.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.51-70
• /
• 2008

CFD is applied to evaluate pedestrian wind comfort at outdoor platforms in a high-rise apartment building. Model validation is focused on generic building sub-configurations that are obtained by decomposition of the actual complex building geometry. The comfort study is performed during the design stage, which allows structural design changes to be made for wind comfort improvement. Preliminary simulations are performed to determine the effect of different design modifications. A full wind comfort assessment study is conducted for the final design. Structural remedial measures for this building, aimed at reducing pressure short-circuiting, appear to be successful in bringing the discomfort probability estimates down to acceptable levels. Finally, the importance of one of the main sources of uncertainty in this type of wind comfort studies is illustrated. It is shown that the uncertainty about the terrain roughness classification can strongly influence the outcome of wind comfort studies and can lead to wrong decisions. This problem is present to the same extent in both wind tunnel and CFD wind comfort studies when applying the same particular procedure for terrain relation contributions as used in this paper.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.452-460
• /
• 2008

Purpose: This study assessed the effectiveness of hand massage on reducing discomfort of patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI). Methods: The sample consisted of 62 patients admitted to an university affiliated hospital. The 30 patients in experimental group received hand massage developed by Snyder(1995) for 5 minutes on both hands and 32 patients in control group received the usual nursing intervention only. The outcome variable of discomfort was measured 10 minutes before and after the hand massage using Questionnaire and VAS. The data were collected from Feb. 5th to May 17th in 2007, and analysed through Chi-square, and t-test with SPSS WIN 12.0. Results: The level of discomfort measured with the questionnaire was decreased in experimental group, but increased in control group. This discomfort changes in two groups were significantly different(t=4.43, p<.001). The level of discomfort measured with VAS was also decreased in experimental group, but increased in control group. The changes were significant, too(t=5.62, p<.001). Conclusion: It was clear that hand massage could be a useful nursing intervention in reducing the discomfort of patients undergoing PCI.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.131-141
• /
• 2004

Current binocular stereoscopic displays cause visual discomfort when objects with large disparities are present in the scene. One solution for improving visual comfort is synthetic depth-of-field processing, which simulates the characteristics of a human visual system. With this technique, visual comfort is improved by blurring portions of the background and/or foreground in the scene. However, this technique has the drawback of degrading overall image quality because the blurring is typically applied to both left and right images. To alleviate the visual discomfort, we propose a novel disparity-based asymmetrical filtering technique. Proposed technique applies the filtering to the image of one eye only, and controls the blur level according to the disparity information between stereoscopic images. We investigate the effects of this technique on stereoscopic video by measuring visual comfort and apparent sharpness. Our results indicate that disparity-based asymmetrical filtering can improve visual comfort of stereoscopic video while it maintains apparent sharpness if unfixated regions with large disparities are blurred under the appropriate filtering condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.32 no.8
• /
• pp.1179-1189
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to investigate the satisfaction of the adolescents' school backpack bag and the important criteria when purchasing for developing comfort and functional backpack. The questionnaire was composed and surveyed with 245 middle school students and the data were analyzed through SPSS 13.0. Purchasing criteria were grouped into 5: practical, shop environment, comfort, aesthetic and maintenance. Satisfaction factors were function/comfort, fashion/aesthetic and durability/A.S. 50.2% of students recognized the inappropriate wearing backpack might cause the deformation of body shape. And the wrong habit of wearing bag was found to affect the body posture of students. Main symptoms caused by wearing it for long time are ‘sweating around shoulder and back' and ‘feeling stiff in shoulders and waist'. Needs arise to develop the bag which could prevent them and to educate students how to wear bags. According to the result from MDS of purchasing criteria, one axis is product vs. environment, and other is functional vs. psychological aspects. According to the result from MDS of bag satisfaction, one axis is function/durability vs. fashion/appearance, and other is gestalt quality vs. part quality. They wanted the improvement in the aspects of shape/design, material, maintenance, comfort and usability of the bags. Specially it is required that we research the adolescent customer-oriented way and develop the new materials or shapes pursuing both shoulder comfort and characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
• /
• 1995.04a
• /
• pp.529-533
• /
• 1995

안장은 인체하중이 집중되고, 자전거의 충격과 진동이 직접 전달되는 부위로서 주행 안락도를 높이고 buttock의 discomfort를 감소시킬 수 있도록 설계되어야 한다. 본 연구의 목적은 인체곡면을 본뜬 안장형상 설계를 통하여 buttock의 국부적 discomfort를 감소시키고자 하는 것이다. 인간의 앉은자세에 대한 해부학적 고찰을 통해 좌골결절(Ischial Tuberosity)과 치골결합면(Symphyseal Surface)이 안장과 직접 맞닿는 면으로 파악되었으며, 이들 부위에 대한 집중적 개선이 이루어져야 할 것으로 제안되었다. 문헌조사를 통해 의자설계시 고려해야 할 인체치수 및 지침을 파악하였으며, 안장과 의자의 기능비교를 통해 이를 선별적으로 적용하였다. 인체곡면 측정을 위해 Rod Matrix(3cm 간격, 13*20)방법을 이용하여 10명의 buttock contour를 측정하였으며, 측정된 자료를 분석하여 안장의 곡면형상을 결정하였다. General Comfort Rating, Body Part Discomfort 등의 주관적 안락도 평가방법을 통하여 기존 자전거 안장과 본 연구를 통해 개발된 안장을 비교 평가한 결과, 전반적인 안락도의 향상과 좌골결절 및 치골 결합부의 discomfort 감소효과를 가져온 것으로 파악되었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
• /
• 2014.10a
• /
• pp.247-249
• /
• 2014

The beating phenomenon occurs because of various causes, when idle vibration was happened. In this study, the beating phenomenon was divided into several parameters and controlled by the parameter. It was hypothesized that the beating parameter is related to discomfort of idle vibration. The three-down one-up method was performed for evaluating discomfort of controlled vibrations, which is widely used in the field of psychophysics. As a result in pilot test, a subject responds beating vibration more discomfort than normal idle vibration. In the future, the study will be implemented to know how much the parameters of beating signal affect to the discomfort at idle vibration in passenger vehicle.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.63 no.8
• /
• pp.1025-1032
• /
• 2014

The effective energy management method will provide the significant advantage to the residential customers under real time pricing plan since it can reduce the electricity charge by controlling the energy consumption according to electricity rate. The earlier studies for load management mainly aim to minimize the electricity charges and peak power but put a less emphasis on the human comfort dwelling in the residence. The discomfort and displeasure from the energy management only focusing on reduction of electricity charge will make the residential customer reluctant to enroll the real time pricing plan. In this paper, therefore, we propose optimal load control strategy which aim to achieve not only minimizing the electricity charges but also maintaining human comfort by introducing "the human comfort coefficient." Using the human comfort coefficient, the energy management system can reflect the various human personality and control the loads within the range that the human comfort is maintained. Simulation results show that proposed load control strategy leads to significant reduction in the electricity charges and peak power in comparison with the conventional load management method.