• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.51-62
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• 1996

This research utilized the psychophysical methodology, where secrw drivers are used, to determine the effects of i) the location and orientation of work objects, and ii) wearing gloves, on ratings of perceived exertion at various body parts. The validity of the psychophysical methodology in determining a preferred work pace was also studied. The subjects drove screws with a screw driver into thick wooden sheet at three vertical and three horizontal locations. They drove serews for 3 minutes at each location and assessed the condition using the psychophysical scale. The results showed that only the vertical location was a significant factor in determining the discomfort ratings. Driving screws at elbow height on the vertical surface and with the lower arm close to the body on the horizontal surface were the work locations with the smallest ratings of perceived discomfort. Wearing gloves had significant effects on reducing the pain of the hand. From the experiment in which a comfortable work pace was identified using 20 minute psychophysical adjustment, it was found that the psychophysical method is sensitive to workers perception of the physical stress when the upper limbs are employed. This was confirmend by the high correlation between the psychophysical results and EMG measurement.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.145-153
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• 2010

Activity of lifting has been a major issue in many research area related in manual materials handling tasks. However, the opposite activity of lifting, lowering, has received much less attention. It is known that 52% of all box-handling tasks were lowering in nature. The difference in stress between lifting and lowering activity is not well understood. A simple assumption that these two activities are very similar has been established and widely used. However, this simple assumption may be questionable. The objective of this study was to compare a lifting activity and a lowering activity based on the three different ergonomic approaches; (1) biomechanical, (2) physiological, (3) psychophysical approach. It was found that the stress of lowering activity was from 65% to 93%, from 87% to 97%, and from 87% to 96% according to the biomechanical, physiological, and psychophysical point of view, respectively. It is concluded from the result of this study that the stress of lowering activity is lower than that of the lifting activity. The maximum compressive force on the lumbro-sacral joint (L5/S1) was 158% and 108% respectively, for lifting and lowering activity of which the work load is the 58% of Action Limit. It is suggested that the NIOSH AL and RWL and biomechanical criteria should be reconsidered especially for the low frequency of lifting activities.

• IE interfaces
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.46-55
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• 2004

Various characteristics of the object being lifted are known to affect the biomechanical, physiological, and psychophysical stresses. The object characteristics to be considered in the design process of lifting tasks are weight, shape, stiffness, and availability of handles and similar coupling devices. In this study, a prototype Polypropylene laminated bag with carrying handles was designed to decrease the physical stress of people who handle these bags. Physiological and psychophysical approaches as well as subjective ratings were applied to evaluate the effects of handles provided on the designed PP laminated bag. Statistical analysis showed that the VO2, heart rate, blood pressure, and Borg-RPE score for PP laminated fertilizer bag with carrying handles were significantly lower than those bags without handles. Moreover, Maximum Acceptable Lifting Endurance Time(MALET) measure, newly developed in this study, for bags with handles was significantly higher than those for bags without handles. It is thus recommended that the various types of bags and boxes be equipped with handles to reduce the musculoskeletal, physiological, psychophysical, and subjective perceived stresses.

• 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.

• IE interfaces
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.218-225
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• 2004

This study aims to investigate effect of external load and motion repetitiveness on perceived discomfort. An experiment was performed for measuring discomfort scores at varying conditions, in which external load, motion repetitiveness and arm posture were employed as experimental variables. The arm posture was controlled by shoulder flexion and abduction, and by elbow flexion. Fifteen healthy college-age students without history of musculoskeletal disorders voluntarily participated in the experiment. The results showed that the effect of external load, motion repetitiveness and shoulder posture on discomfort were statistically significant, but that elbow posture did not significantly affect discomfort ratings. The effect of external load was much larger than that of any other variables, and that of repetitiveness was second only to external load. Discomfort scores significantly increased linearly as the levels of external load and motion repetitiveness increased. This implies that although they were not fully reflected in the existing posture classification scheme such as OWAS, RULA, etc., the effect of external load and motion repetitiveness should be taken into consideration for precisely quantifying work load in industry. Based on regression analysis, equivalent values of external load and motion repetitiveness in terms of discomfort scores were provided, which would be useful for better understanding the degree of their effect on work load.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.413-423
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• 2001

Low back disorders (LBDs) are one of the most common and costly work-related musculoskeletal disorders. One of the major possible risk factors of LBDs is to work with static and awkward trunk postures, especially in a complex trunk posture involving flexion, twisting and lateral bending simultaneously. This study is to examine the effect of complex trunk postures on the postural stresses using a psychophysical method. Twelve healthy male students participated in an experiment, in which 29 different trunk postures were evaluated using the magnitude estimation method. The results showed that subjective discomfort significantly increased as the levels of trunk flexion, lateral bending and rotation increased. Significant interaction effects were found between rotation and lateral bending or flexion when the severe lateral bending or rotation were assumed, indicating that simultaneous occurrence of trunk flexion, lateral bending and rotation increases discomfort ratings synergistically. A postural workload evaluation scheme of trunk postures was proposed based on the angular deviation levels from the neutral position. Each trunk posture was assigned numerical stress index depending upon its discomfort rating, which was defined as the ratio of discomfort of a posture to that of its neutral posture. Four qualitative action categories for the stress index were also provided in order to enable practitioners to apply corrective actions appropriately. The proposed scheme is expected to be applied to several field areas for evaluating trunk postural stresses.

• IE interfaces
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2003

The purposes of this study are to investigate perceived discomfort for static joint motions, and to propose rankings for the joint motions based on the perceived discomfort. The perceived discomfort was measured through an experiment using the free modulus method of the magnitude estimation, in which ten healthy college-age female students participated. The results showed that joints, joint motions and their levels significantly affected the perceived discomfort at $\alpha$=0.01, and that the interaction of joints and joint motion levels was also significant. Based on the experimental results, three rankings were proposed by joint and joint motions, by joints and by joint motions, which were very different from the existing ones. Especially, the proposed rankings were different from the males' published before in their order and magnitude. These rankings can be used as a valuable tool for better understanding potentially adverse effects of poor working postures in industrial sites, and as basic data for developing the postural classification scheme.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.9-15
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively investigate perceived discomfort of complex shoulder postures with external loads and to propose a preliminary evaluation scheme of shoulder postures. Twelve healthy male adults participated in an experiment to rate their perceived discomfort of shoulder postures. The independent variables were shoulder flexion angle(45, 90 and 150$^{\circ}$), adduction/abduction angle(-30, -10, 0, 30 and 60$^{\circ}$), and external load(0, 1.5 and 3.0kg). The results revealed that the flexion angle, external load and their interaction significantly affected the perceived discomfort(p$<$0.05) but the effect of adduction/abduction angle on the discomfort was not significant(p$>$0.05). The effect of external load was much larger than that of any other factor with explaining about 81% of the total variation of discomfort scores. Based on the experimental results a preliminary scheme was presented to evaluate the stress of shoulder postures with external loads.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.112-123
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• 2010

The paper gives an overview of the problems to be tackled nowadays by occupational health with regards to shift work as well as the main guidelines at organizational and medical levels on how to protect workers' health and well-being. Working time organization is becoming a key factor on account of new technologies, market globalization, economic competition, and extension of social services to general populations, all of which involve more and more people in continuous assistance and control of work processes over the 24 hours in a day. The large increase of epidemiological and clinical studies on this issue document the severity of this risk factor on human health and well being, at both social and psychophysical levels, starting from a disruption of biological circadian rhythms and sleep/wake cycle and ending in several psychosomatic troubles and disorders, likely also including cancer, and extending to impairment of performance efficiency as well as family and social life. Appropriate interventions on the organization of shift schedules according to ergonomic criteria and careful health surveillance and social support for shift workers are important preventive and corrective measures that allow people to keep working without significant health impairment.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.58-63
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• 2012

An altitude chamber, also known as a hypobaric chamber, is a device used during aerospace or high terrestrial altitude research or training to simulate the effects of high altitude on the human body. Although data from altitude chamber researches using experimental animals have been accumulated, studies in the humans exposed to hypobaric conditions are seldomly reported. Despite the importance of altitude chamber flight training in the field of aviation physiology, the hematological analysis of post-flight physiological changes has rarely been performed. The aims of the present study were to investigate the alterations in blood components during altitude chamber flight and to determine whether the differences between pre- and post-flight values are significant. Sixty experienced pilots in the Republic of Korea Air Force were enrolled in the altitude chamber flight training. Venous blood samples were obtained before and immediately after the flight. Compared with the pre-flight values($6.32{\times}10^3/mm^3$, $5.02{\times}10^6/mm^3$, 15.61 g/dL, respectively), white blood cell count, red blood cell count and hemoglobin level were significantly increased after the flight($6.77{\times}10^3/mm^3$, $5.44{\times}10^6/mm^3$, 16.26 g/dL; p=0.006, p=0.012, p<0.001, respectively). These alterations may be attributable to the exposure to hypobaric hypoxia, 100% oxygen supply for denitrogenation, considerable rise and fall in altitude and psychophysical stress due to these factors. In further studies, experimental groups and methods should be individualized to ensure objectivity and diversification. In addition, multiple time-frame analyses regarding the changing pattern of each blood component are also required to elucidate the physiological process for adapting to the high terrestrial altitude exposure.