AHFE Open AccessSocial and Occupational Ergonomics
Editors: Waldemar Karwowski, Henrijs Kalkis, Zenija Roja
Topics: Social & Occupational Ergonomics
Publication Date: 2023
ISBN: 978-1-958651-82-7
DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003999
Articles
Intervention of Cotton Picker in Drudgery Reduction of Farm Women
Cotton is one of the hugely grown commercial crops in India, mainly in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Provisional data from the Meeting of the COCPC (2021), says that India stands first in the world in acreage with 120.69 Lakh Hectares area under cotton cultivation i.e., around 36% of world area of 333 Lakh Hectares. India is in the top position in the world with an estimated production of 362.18 lakh bales during the cotton season 2021-22 i.e., 23 per cent of the world’s cotton production of 1555 lakh bales. Telangana, the study area produced the highest cotton in South India region i.e., 66.45 lakh cotton bales in 2021-22 season, 14.63 per cent higher than the previous season. This shows the immense potential of the cotton production both in terms of employment and economy. ILO (2019) highlighted that cotton farming is one of the most challenging and labour - intensive activities. Lakhs of migrant and bonded labourers, even children and adolescents are being involved, sometimes as unpaid and invisible labour. Women are majorly involved in cotton picking, which is one of the labour - intensive activity in cotton farming. Despite these problems, mechanization is still lagging in cotton picking activity, which causes lot of drudgery and musculo-skeletal issues among them. This can in turn influence the work efficiency of the labour. Though there are cotton picking machines available in the market, farmers and farm labourers do not purchase and use them as they are unaffordable in price; unaware of the machinery and not sure of its efficiency. With these insights, the current study made an attempt to analyse the drudgery reduction among farm women by using a mechanized cotton picker. The study was conducted on ten farm women involved in cotton picking at Lillipur village of Maheswaram mandal, Telangana. Results showed that most of the sample were having a work experience between 6 - 9 years, worked for 4 - 8 hours per day in the picking season. The perceived exertion of work stress by all the sample was ‘very difficult’ while practicing the traditional method of cotton picking. However, it was ‘neutral’ for almost 70 per cent of the sample during the usage of hand operated cotton picker. There was a reduction in drudgery index in improved method (275.7+0.7) when compared to traditional method (276.2+0.5). The parameters related to physiological workload like resting, working and recovery heart rate, CCW, CCR etc., also showed positive changes by using improved cotton picking method. This study, through its results proved that increase in efficiency, drudgery reduction, saving time and effort of the labour can be done by adapting mechanization in farming activities. The results give an indication that taking up such small mechanization measures can surely help the farming community in a long run.
Vijaya Lakshmi Velivelli
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Student Perception on Acceptability and Usefulness of Sit-Stand Desks in College Classrooms
College students are prone to a sedentary lifestyle while trying to balance daily challenges and school workload. Sedentariness is associated with increased risk of chronic diseases – obesity, cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and even cognitive performance. Given that a full-time college student in the US spends more than 15 hours per week sitting in a college classroom, it may be an ideal setting for implementation of Sit-Stand Desk (SSD) to reduce college students’ sedentary time. Graduate and undergraduate students (N = 178) of New Jersey Institute of Technology were randomly recruited to complete an online assessment survey. Participants' mean(standard deviation) age was 22.4(4.7) years old, 63% identified as male, 33% identified as female while 4% were of the other gender class. Among the participants, 44.3% students self-reported to be overweight or obese according to their BMI (>25 kg/m2), 76% students led an inactive/sedentary lifestyle, and 63.5% students did not meet physical activity guidelines. Students’ perceived acceptability of SSD in the classroom was strongly favorable. If SSD were made available in a class that students are currently taking, only about 11% participants preferred not to stand at all during the class time, and 89% students preferred to stand for at least 10% of class time. Most of the students (85% - 99%) predicted either no change or positive change (get better) in all academic factors (focus, restlessness, attention, engagement and boredom) and health factors (physical health, fatigue and back pain), if SSD in introduced in the classroom. Collectively, the findings of this study strongly support students’ acceptability of introducing standing desks in college classrooms. Results of this study should be useful for policy makers regarding classroom designs. Future studies are needed to test the viability and efficacy of introducing sit-stand desks in college classrooms.
Arijit Sengupta, Abiola Kuilan
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Women weaving traditional carpets in Algeria: The ergonomics of weaving posture
In Algeria and many other developing countries, many women do domestic work (weaving, cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking, caring, children the elderly, and persons with disabilities, etc.) in their homes. From domestic work, we refer to carpet weaving. This work is done in most Algerian cities. It is a job that women do at home. They do it while sitting for hours. Researchers show that domestic work require great effort. In addition, it is tiring and strenuous and may have negative effects on body. In this research, the focus will be on carpet weaving in the Southwestern Algeria (the Fatis carpet). Fatis carpet is named after the Fatis Palace (town), located in Tinrkuk area, in the province of Timimoun. (Algeria).This research, aims is to answer the following questions:1.What is the posture adopted while weaving the Fatis carpet?2.What are the body parts where may feel pain at work?3.Are there differences between the highly experienced (10 years and more) and the less experienced (05 years and less) knitters?Method: Researchers used the descriptive survey method, where they observe the Fatis woman as she makes the carpet, and after observing her for a sufficient period, she is presented with a set of questions (the PLIBEL questionnaire) to answer. The sample was (12) women with a mean age of 32.83 years, and an SD of 10.83 years. Tools: Data was collected through observation and PLIBEL Form (questionnaire).Results: This research aims to answer the following questions:1.What is the posture adopted while weaving the Fatis carpet? It has been found that women adopt the sitting crossed-legged working posture while knitting the carpet. The majority of women sit in the workstation for hours. They change it when they leave the work. 2.What are the body parts where may feel pain at work? It has been found that all parts of the body specified in the PLIBEL form (neck/shoulders and upper part of back; Elbows, forearms, and hands; feet; knees and hips; low back) are affected. However, the extent of the impact varied. The knees and hips were affected more than the rest of the other regions.3.Are there differences between the highly experienced (10 years and more) and the less experienced (05 years and less) knitters? It turns out that those with less experience suffer less than those with more experience.Discussion: The results will be discussed in light of the principles of cultural ergonomics. In various situations, it is necessary to resolve the contradiction that appears between the principles of ergonomics and what people are accustomed to and what they carry in terms of social trends by virtue of the societies and cultures to which they belong.Conclusion: This research shed light on the work of women in the textile industry. It was found that women adopt a work posture that needs discussion. It is a research that contributes to the development of social and cultural ergonomics
Mohamed Mokdad, Bouhafs Mebarki, Mourad Semmani, Shaikha Aljunaidi
Open Access
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Effect of ambient temperature and humidity on muscle fatigue of pilots
From scientific research and accident investigations, we are aware of the effects of fatigue on our performance. Pilots’ fatigue has been considered a contributing factor in various aviation accidents; many researchers found that pilots’ muscle fatigue makes pilots slow to respond and slow down their movements, which will bring potential safety hazards to flight. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of different cockpit ambient temperatures (Ta) and relative humidity (RH) on pilots’ muscle fatigue. Thirteen subjects participated in the simulated flight experiments at 21℃/30%, 30℃/45%, and 38℃/60%RH. Continuous measurement of the skin temperature (Tsk) and skin humidity (Hsk) throughout the experiment, the surface electromyography (EMG) signals of biceps brachii (BB), flexor carpi radialis (FCR), rectus femoris (RF), and tibialis anterior (TA) were recorded, the mean power frequency (MPF) of EMG data were analyzed. This study found that the mean power frequency of rectus femoris (RF) and tibialis anterior (TA) at 38°C/60% and 30°C/45% were lower than 21°C/30% (p<0.001), and the MPF of RF at the high ambient temperatures and relative humidity condition was lower than that of TA, biceps brachii (BB) and flexor carpi radialis (FCR) (p<0.001). Through the analysis of binary linear regression, it was found that there was a relationship between ambient temperatures and relative humidity and the change of root mean square (p<0.003). This study showed that the ambient temperatures and relative humidity would impact flight fatigue, and high temperature and humidity are more likely to cause fatigue. Also, in this study, the rectus femoris is more likely to cause fatigue during flight. This study can provide a reference for biological therapies targeting flight fatigue and fatigue prevention of fighter pilots.
Biyun Zhou, Bo Chen, Jingyu Liu, Yingfang Ao, Li Ding
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
The impacts of multi-agent quantity, type and transparency on mental workload, situation awareness and human out-of-the-loop
With the development of artificial intelligence, more autonomous systems, robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned ground vehicles that can adapt and learn, independently determine goals, and allocate resources to perform specific tasks independently are changing human life. These devices are collectively referred to as autonomous systems. Although these autonomous systems can reduce labor demand, expand human capabilities, and improve human security, they will not be able to complete tasks independently in the foreseeable future and need a human to monitor and cooperate with them. Work organization between autonomous systems and humans is essential in the collaboration process. The ideal way is to maximize the agents' autonomy to expand human ability without causing humans mental overload. This study puts forward three objectives to explore a suitable cooperation mode between human and autonomous systems. First, to examine the impact of the multi-agent quantity on human mental workload, situation awareness (SA), and human out-of-the-loop (OOTL) degree. The second is to study the influence of multi-agent type on the above dependent variable. Thirdly, based on the completion of the first two objectives, a new variable, transparency, is introduced to explore ways to improve the cooperation between humans and autonomous systems. We designed a task scenario that simulated humans working with multiple autonomous agents. Two types of agents were adopted and redesigned: an intelligent assistant that helps operators assign unmanned vehicles, and a semi-autonomous dynamic positioning system for vessels. This research conducted two experiments. The first conducted a 2 (multi-agent quantity) × 2 (multi-agent type) within subjects experiment. The second investigated the effect of multi-agent type and transparency. The subjective mental workload, SA, OOTL degree, and performance were measured. According to the experimental results, the following conclusions can be drawn. The more the quantity of agents, the higher the cognitive mental workload, the lower the SA, and the more serious the OOTL degree. The more complex the types of autonomous systems are, the higher the mental workload. When humans interact with multiple autonomous systems, the heterogeneous agents reduce SA compared to homogeneous agents. The higher the transparency of the autonomous systems, the lower the mental workload, the higher the SA, the lower the degree of OOTL, and the better the experimental performance.The results of this study have significant theoretical and applied value. It can improve the existing theories of work organization between autonomous systems and humans, provide a new perspective from the perspective of mental workload, and improve the current research on multiple agent transparency. In terms of practical application, it can help enterprises and individuals decide which work organization mode to adopt in the human and multi-agent teams. It also has important reference value in the design of multiple autonomous systems. When only one aspect can be improved, priority can be given to the tradeoff on the quantity of agents. When it is inevitable to make humans interact with multiple agents, the transparency of the autonomous systems can be improved to increase the explainability and enhance the mental workload and task performance.
Xinran Xu, Ruifeng Yu, Sihan Ji, Minhui Yuan
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Industry 4.0 and new forms of work organization: an analysis of the perspective of decision-makers from an automotive manufacturer
In the current framework of Industry 4.0 technological transformations, the viewpoint of those who integrate the workplaces being transformed is frequently dismissed. Therefore, this paper explores decision-makers’ views concerning such changes and their impacts, considering they also have the power to act on how these processes are employed. The study was developed at an automotive manufacturer in Portugal, through 26 semi-structured interviews. Our findings come to show the decision-makers’ perspectives regarding how work is organized, their own operational leeway to manage new work demands stemming from the human-technology interaction, and the perceived impacts of technological change. These results shed light on how technological introduction interacts with the daily conflict to manage productivity and quality demands with health and well-being at work. This will support the next phases of the research, which will include workers from different areas of the company.
Liliana Cunha, Sarah Maggioli, Daniel Silva, Ruben Moutinho, Catarina Correia, Ana Correia De Barros
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Exploration on the Method of Optimizing Figure Training under the Guidance of Ergonomics
As the civilization of modern society continues to develop at a high rate, women in the new era have begun to gradually realize the importance of scientific training in shaping a perfect posture. If Ergonomics is applied to body training, the human body structure and physiological and psychological characteristics can be fully understood. he training movements can be precisely matched to the body size, physiological structure and physical characteristics of individual women so that the training process can be more rationalized and the results maximized within the physiological tolerance of women. By combining the scientific theories of anthropometry, human anatomy and exercise physiology, this paper analyzes the cooperative and coordinated relationship between the normative and mechanical aesthetics of local movement training of women's shoulders, waist and abdomen, and legs. Through the comparison of experimental data, it reflects that the scientific combination of aerobic exercises, muscle training, and flexibility training can not only correct women's bad body deformities and optimize their physical posture but also fully satisfy women's physiological and psychological multiple feelings and even provide some experience and references for better-promoting women's health and scientific body training.In this experiment, 100 female students from the Dalian Polytechnic University modeling program were selected for the study and trained for 5 months. Moreover, the experiment analyzed the specific changes in the students' body structure and aimed to provide a practical and feasible method and theoretical basis for scientific body training.
Yizhu Lin, Xiaomei Chen
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The effect of individual ability differences and personality traits on social comparison
These days, some work groups use the publication of employees’ performance information as feedback on their work, such as sales champions in car sales or real estate sales, to improve group performance by using well-performing employees to motivate poor-performing employees to promote their individual work effort. Social comparison theory helps people to evaluate their abilities when lacking an absolute objective standard. This study explored the effects of individual ability level, the combination of ability levels, and personality traits on social comparison among co-operators. Method: A three-way mixed design of 2 (work condition: individual work; group work) X 3 (individual ability level: high ability; medium ability; low ability) X 3 (combination of ability levels: the combination of two high-ability, one medium-ability and one low-ability; the combination of one high-ability, two medium-ability and one low-ability; the combination of one high-ability, one medium-ability and two low-ability) was used, with 180 subjects completing the illusion ensemble task and completing the personality trait questionnaires (including Rosenberg self-esteem scale, Eysenck Personality Inventory(EPQ), Social Comparison Orientation Scale(INCOM) and social comparative effect scale) under different experimental conditions. Results: The results indicated that work condition significantly influenced individual performance. Besides, individual ability level had a significant effect on social comparison. The impact of work condition on individual performance was different for subjects with varying levels of ability: the performance of high-ability subjects significantly decreased, while both medium-ability and low-ability subjects significantly increased, and low-ability subjects had significantly higher performance improvement than medium-ability subjects. Moreover, different combinations of ability levels significantly impacted subjects' individual behavior. Low-ability subjects in the combination of one high-ability, one medium-ability, and two low-ability subjects had the most significant improvement, which was the combined result of the upward identification and parallel comparison. Furthermore, personality traits play a crucial role in social comparison. Self-esteem had a significant effect on participation in social comparison. Subjects with low self-esteem were more inclined to participate in social comparisons and changed sharply in individual performance relative to those with high self-esteem. In addition, neuroticism was associated with adverse effects caused by social comparison (e.g., upward-contrast effect and downward-identification effect), whereas extraversion was associated with positive effects induced by social comparison (e.g., upward-identification). Apart from this, social comparison propensity was found to be positively associated with changes in individual performance and negatively related to self-esteem scores. Additionally, performance change in medium-ability subjects may primarily come from the effect of the downward-contrast effect from the result of the social comparison effect scale. Conclusions: This study illustrates the impact of individual ability and personality traits on social comparison, and provides feasible suggestions for the work organization to improve group performance. Based on the performance changes across groups, an increment in the number of high-ability subjects caused a decrease in team performance, whereas an increment in the number of low-ability subjects positively affected overall team performance. Therefore, group work organizations can improve team performance by increasing the number of low-ability members and reducing the number of high-ability members in future management.
Minhui Yuan, Xiaokun Du, Ruifeng Yu, Xinran Xu
Open Access
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Evaluation Method of Employee's Motivation to Participate in Safety Activities Using Daily Work Report
To improve the quality of safety activities, many companies are aiming to increase employees' understanding of safety activities and motivate them to participate in them. The main method to measure the willingness to participate is through questionnaires, but it takes time and effort. Therefore, we focused on information on "Awareness" events reported by on-site employees in daily work report. We call this information "Information on Preparing for the Unexpected”. The purpose of this study was to develop a method to evaluate employees' understanding of and willingness to participate in safety activities using "Information on Preparing for the Unexpected”. Through experiments, trouble-related data were collected at several workplaces, and text mining was conducted. We worked on the construction and validation of the system.
Nanako Yokozawa, Yusaku Okada
Open Access
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Globalisation, cultural pluralism - on the need for (meta)analytical assumptions of career theory for cross-cultural career counseling practice
The qualitative aspects of the evolution of relations between globality and locality, society and the individual, and their links, are not without consequence for the multicontextual changes in the labour market, which present new challenges to employees. This vision implies completely new ways of interpreting the world in which “a career makes a career” – they are problems of „a borderless career”, „a varied career”, „a post-corporate career” as a novum, of sorts, in the planning of a broadly understood career, the rise in importance of having a career and the ability to plan, manage and monitor one’s own career in the perspective of one’s whole life.The consideration discusses the need for (meta)analytical career theory assumptions for the practice of cross-cultural career counseling. The author emphasizes that there is a need to generate new approaches, which will cross the boundaries defined by partial paradigms so that they will be relevant in the 21st century. Moreover, she raises the question of how to "manage" the rich heritage of career theories of the late 20th century, while at the same time increasing their theoretical-cognitive value. Another aspect that justifies the need for critical reflection on the reliability of theoretical perspectives is the study of methodological instrumentation that takes into account culturally shaded social and professional aspects. A special place is given to the constructivist school of thought and theory of career construction by Mark L. Savickas, which is said to focus on the nature of the social world and refer to the domain of life involving career and its proactive construction, by simultaneously presenting a new perspective on the participation in the global changes. Changes in the world of “borderless” careers shine a new light on the problem of individual proactivity – an individual’s proactive behaviours in their career.
Agnieszka Cybal-Michalska
Open Access
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A harmonized multi-lingual terminology for ICT devices and services
Users who are unfamiliar with the terminology, technical meaning, or intended functionality of modern mobile ICT (Information and Communications Technology) devices and services may be reluctant to use those devices and services and miss out on their potential benefits. A limited understanding of those devices and services on the users’ part also prevents them from exploiting the true potential of ICT and hinders the uptake and use of services, including those of societal relevance. ETSI Guide EG 203 499 presents an alternative, offering a solution focusing on improving the overall user experience and accessibility through by providing recommendations for a harmonized terminology, covering more than 800 basic, commonly-used ICT features in the 27 European languages, that are the official languages of the European Union (EU) and EFTA, the European Free Trade Area. Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF) of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) has initiated this ongoing work, to develop a freely-available ETSI document (ETSI Guide EG 203 499, current version of October 2022, a further update to be published in the first half of 2024). The method used for developing the terminologies and examples of the terminologies published in the latest ETSI Guide version are presented. ETSI Guide 203 499 will not only facilitate the use of ICT devices and services for users but may also serve as a reference for harmonized (on a voluntary basis) user interface elements and user manuals to be provided by the industrial ICT actors concerned (e.g. manufacturers).
Martin Boecker, Emmanuel Darmois
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Cross-Cultural Analyses Between USA and Japan: Personality, Emotional Strategies, and Job Performance of Customer Service Employees
The previous theory suggests that individuals may experience less stress when engaging in activities that are personality congruent. In this research, the author first tries to answer what kind of personality in the Big-five personality model of customer service employees are more or less likely to practice better job performance. And second, this study tries to answer the question of the best emotional strategies, affective delivering, surface acting, and deep acting, to easily practice for the specific type of employees to perform emotion regulation tasks. This study also tries to answer the question of who can best manage their emotions to produce the required emotional expression without appearing insincere or experiencing increased stress. Finally, the author compares the result from the USA and Japanese data to reveal the similarity and differences between the two.
Noriko Okabe
Open Access
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Relationship between user characteristics regarding ICT devices and acceptability of new systems in Society 5.0
This study aimed to obtain a clue to consider the acceptability of the new system of Society 5.0 when conducting HCD for the new system expected to be utilized in Society 5.0. Specifically, this study examined the effects of the stress toward ICT equipment use, experience/skills in computer use, and involvement in ICT equipment use on the acceptability of the new Society 5.0 system. The participants were divided into clusters according to their ratings of their characteristics for ICT equipment use, and compared between clusters in terms of the acceptability of the new system in Society 5.0. The acceptability was examined by intention to use and difficulty in using the equip-ment. The results suggest that users with high computer experience/skills and positive attitudes toward ICT devices are relatively more receptive to new technologies and systems that utilize them in Society 5.0.
Toshihisa Doi
Open Access
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The Importance of Well-Being for Organisational Culture
The culture of an organisation is an abstraction that unfolds in social and organisational situations. Following Schein’s (1984) 3-level-model, organisational culture reflects the behaviour of all members of an organisation. However, an important concept in organisational culture research that is often neglected is well-being in the work context, which is often conceptualised in a hedonic and context-free way (Taris & Schaufeli, 2014). This paper argues that well-being allows the exploration of individual aspects of organisational culture and serves to capture an overall picture. To do so, a different approach to thinking about well-being in the work context is needed, based on an adaptation of Carol Ryff's (1989) Psychological Well-Being Model and Bakker and Demerouti's (2018) Job Demands-Resources Model as a theoretical framework. Such a holistic approach to researching organisational culture will allow to identify and explore interdependencies and interactions between individual aspects.
Yusuf Arslanparcasi
Open Access
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Abandoned Tibetan and Qiang Villages Cause Analysis: A Case Study of Li County
This paper takes Li County, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China as an example in order to study the phenomenon and causes of vil- lage abandonment from a multi-ethnic perspective. Oblique photogrammetry and semi-structured interviews were used to collect spatial and abandonment data in 219 villages. The characteristics of the abandoned villages of the Qiang and Tibetans were compared and analyzed through site selection indicators such as altitude, spa- tial indicators such as scale, and abandonment indicators such as abandonment rate. The main factors affecting village abandonment were screened by Pearson correla- tion analysis and linear regression analysis. The results show that the site selection of Qiang villages is gentle, and the villages are larger in scale, more compact in shape, and more concentrated in distribution. The abandonment phenomenon in Tibetan vil- lages is more serious, and the abandonment rate, relocation distance, and relocation height difference are greater. The main influencing factors of Qiang and Tibetan vil- lage abandonment are different, but the most influencing factors are the same. The main factor affecting the abandonment of Qiang villages is terrain, and the main factor affecting the abandonment of Tibetan villages is terrain, resources, economy. Terrain is the most factor affecting the abandonment of Tibetan and Qiang villages.
Peng Liu, Yi Wang
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