bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Tactility as a Function of Grasp Force: Effects of Glove, Orientation, Load and Handle
Authors: Bishu Ram R. , Bronkema Lisa A. , Garcia Dishayne , Klute Glenn , Rajulu Sudhakar 
Published: January 2012

The objectives of this research were to ensure that a reduction in tactile sensitivity was causing a reduction in gloved performance, and to measure this reduction in tactile sensitivity through grasp force at the hand/handle interface under a variety of performance conditions. The effects of glove type, load lifted, handle size, and handle orientation on the initial grasping force and stable grasping force were determined through a factorial experiment in which 10 subjects participated. The working hypothesis was that grasp force would be a function of all the above mentioned factors. The most consistent findings of this experiment were: 1. Glove effect is marginal at submaximal exertions. 2. The magnitude of force exertions in the advanced glove and bare handed conditions were similar. 3. The magnitude of force exertion was the highest with meat packing gloves. 4. The ratio of peak to stable grasp force increased with increasing loads. 5. The glove effect for maximal exertions as seen in experiment 2 is consistent with published evidence. In conclusion, it is clear from these experiments that when people perform a grasping action, the maximal exertions are affected differently by gloves than sub-maximal or “just holding type of exertions.”
Determining Legibility Distance for Highway Signs: Is the within Subject Variability Being Overlooked?
Authors: Greene Frances A. , Koppa Rodger J. , Zellner Ronald D. , Congleton Jerome J. 
Published: January 2012

Laboratory studies of warning symbol signs have been shown to underestimate legibility distances by up to a factor of two when compared with field studies. However, this research suggests it is more than simply experimental setting contributing to disparity in research findings. Using a group of old and young drivers, six symbol signs were investigated in both settings. With six trials per sign, legibility distances, defined as the distance at which the sign is correctly identified from a menu, were collected. Large within subject variability was discovered in both age groups. This variability led to alternative ways of defining the dependent variable equivalent to designs of past studies examining legibility distances of the same signs. Different results arose out of the subsets created. The consideration is not just should a field-based versus laboratory-based methodology be used. An argument is posed that recommended distances at which signs are placed must be determined from a “worst-case” scenario. This premise requires a reexamination of our research methodologies for determining placement of highway signs.
Evaluation of Half-Mask Gas Collection for Metabolic Measurement in the Work Place
Authors: Farley Richard S. , Bishop Phillip A. , Ray Paul 
Published: January 2012

Metabolic measurement is often important in job design and research. Metabolic measurement via indirect spirometry has traditionally used a mouth-piece nose-clip headgear (MNH) method of collecting expired gases. MNH is often uncomfortable, prohibits oral communication, may fail because of loss of nose-clip, and may interfere with or alter some work tasks because of the awkwardness of the headgear. Gas collection masks (MASK) offer the possibility of partially or totally alleviating the problems of MNH but increase the possibility of erroneous measure due to leakage. This study compared the measurement of performance and subject's subjective ratings of a typical MNH vs. MASK (Hans Rudolph model 8900 series) over a range of work loads from light to maximal in 20 well-trained subjects (M=12, F=8). Ventilation (Ve), oxygen uptake (VO2), and respiratory exchange ratio (RER) were collected with a Sensormedics MMC-1, and heart rate (HR) with a Polar Heartwatch. Comfort was assessed with a Likert questionnaire. Results from the final work rate are shown below: Variable Ve (L/min) VO2 (ml/kg/min) RER HR (bpm) MNH 105,217 52.2 1.13 187 MASK 115,281 56.6 1.09 187 Results show this MASK produced values as high as the MNH with greater subject comfort at both peak and sub-maximal work. The observed Ve in the MASK condition suggests that leakage was not problematic and there could be a tendency for the MNH to actually impede the measurement. Based on previous preliminary studies and these data, careful use of the MASK is recommended over MNH for work place metabolic or other ventilatory measurements.
Ecological Validity in Laboratory Based Usability Evaluations
Authors: Jordan Patrick W. , Thomas D. Bruce 
Published: January 2012

An interview based survey, looking at the suitability of a laboratory facility for usability testing, raised the issue of ‘ecological validity’. Ecological validity refers to the extent to which the test environment mirrors the environment in which a product would be used in ‘real life’. Ten ergonomists, nine of whom used the laboratory, were interviewed. Opinions of the laboratory were generally positive; indeed there was a consensus as to the high value of the facility in the ergonomists' work. However, only one of those asked felt that the laboratory provided an ecologically valid testing environment. Initially, this result seems surprising; if the conditions don't provide ecological validity, this would appear to be a limitation on the laboratory's value. This paper considers the concept of ecological validity; discussing the contexts in which it is important and those in which it is not a priority. The extent to which it can be achieved in the laboratory and how it could be achieved are also considered. Generally, the ergonomists were fairly pessimistic about the prospects for this. All, bar one, of the ergonomists interviewed also conducted studies outside of the laboratory. The part played by ecological validity in deciding to evaluate in the field is discussed; at what point does the issue become important enough to force evaluations outside of the laboratory? Five non-ergonomists from the same organisation were also interviewed. Interestingly, they seemed to give ecological validity a higher priority than ergonomists, in terms of influencing the overall value of an evaluation. They were also more inclined to expect ecological validity to be achievable in the laboratory — by using furniture to create an appropriate range of scenarios. This suggests that, even if scenario creation has no real effect on ecological validity (this was the opinion of many of the ergonomists), it may bring ‘propaganda’ benefits in terms of influencing commissioners' attitudes towards ergonomists' work.
The Effects of Back Angle on Target Detection
Authors: Edwards R J , Streets D F , Bond G 
Published: January 2012

It is suggested that crew members of future armoured vehicles will be reclined. However, information relating to task performance when reclined for prolonged (i.e. >30 minutes) periods is limited. This study has investigated the effects of prolonged reclining on a simple target detection task. Twelve subjects undertook four separate seventy minute studies in the upright (control) seated posture or reclined, with head support, at 25°, 45°, and 65° from the vertical. Subjects viewed a model scrubland scene, with light emitting diodes hidden behind the scrub, through seven vision blocks which covered a 300° field of view. During the first 10 minutes subjects responded to a sequence of 32 randomly distributed signals of 4 seconds length, with 15 seconds between each signal. They rested for 50 minutes before repeating the 10 minute test epoch. Measurements taken were number of responses, body part discomfort, sleepiness and Stress and Arousal Checklist, and were analysed using Analysis of Variance. Percentage targets detected significantly reduced with back angle, with the greatest reduction being in the subjects' frontal arc. General body and neck discomfort and sleepiness significantly increased with back angle. Reported stress significantly increased and arousal decreased, but only between 0° and 65°. There was no significant time effect. Possible explanations for the results are that the chair and posture inhibited freedom and ease of movement, or that increased discomfort at the more acute angles may have resulted in an altered searching behaviour. Whatever the mechanism this study has shown that reclined postures may significantly impair the performance of an all-round surveillance task, particularly at the more acute back angles.
Releasing the Hook on the Copilot's Catch 22
Authors: Besco Robert O. 
Published: January 2012

The P.A.C.E. operational methodology presented here is designed to assist subordinate crew members in resolving the basic question of the junior airman: “To Intervene or Not to Intervene?.” The P.A.C.E. system has unraveled “The Copilot's Catch 22: You are damned if you ignore the Captain's mistakes; you are damned if you do something about them.” The four operational procedure steps of P.A.C.E. establish a systematic intervention progression of inquiries to reduce risks at each level of the sequence. The P.A.C.E. skills enable subordinate flight crew members to use proven operationally based procedures to effectively intervene when a Captain is not performing up to reasonable professional standards. P.A.C.E. procedures have been developed from case studies of voice recorder transcripts of National Transportation Safety Board aircraft accident reports. The P.A.C.E. methodology provides the skill and knowledge to implement new, operationally relevant components into Crew Resource Management training for each individual organization.
What Aspects of Organizational Redesign Enhance Job Quality?
Authors: Gabrielsson Åsa 
Published: January 2012

Organizational redesign was studied at an industrial company. The outcome was documented during a two-years period by means of interviews, questionnaires and documentation material. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze what aspects of work industrial workers found important while in the midst of the organizational redesign. Workers considered personal responsibility, variation in tasks, and control over their work situation the most important factors. Much more information and performance feedback from management was desired. They also wanted more possibilities to influence decisions regarding their work and greater freedom to plan their work activities. Workers had conforming needs with respect to their desired work situation, even though they rated their existing work situation differently. The involvement in the change process seemed to positively influence their development and commitment to work. The findings emphasize a shift from individual focus on “resistance to change”, to a holistic focus on “preparation to change”. An integrated view on structural, relational, and individual factors entails a better understanding of the change process as a phenomena, and might give a key to a better understanding of work motivation and satisfaction.
An Analysis of Uncertainty in the Marine Corps
Authors: McCloskey Michael J. 
Published: January 2012

In an effort to better understand the nature of uncertainty faced by Marine Corps warfighters, Klein Associates conducted an exploratory study of uncertainty. We developed a method for classifying levels and sources of uncertainty and we studied Marines in action to determine the specific types of uncertainty that occurs on the battlefield. Uncertainty can exist at the levels of raw data, inferences drawn from data, or projections/diagnoses from multiple inferences and/or data. The sources of uncertainty include missing, unreliable, ambiguous/conflicting, or complex information. We observed decision makers at regimental and battalion command posts during a military exercise and recorded instances where they faced uncertainty. We coded these instances for both the level and source of the uncertainty. The uncertainty events we observed clustered around missing, unreliable and ambiguous data, ambiguous inferences, and ambiguous projections. These areas have implications for the design of supports for operating in the midst of uncertainty.
Extending User-Centered Methods beyond Interface Design to Functional Definition
Authors: Kelley John F. (“Jeff”) , Spraragen Susan L. , Jones Lauretta , Greene Sharon L. , Boies Stephen 
Published: January 2012

The contributions of human factors or usability practitioners to application development often begin with a functional specification handed down from an external source. User-centered design methods are commonly applied to how function is delivered but not what functions will be delivered. We in the Interactive Transaction Systems (ITS) group at the T.J. Watson Research Division of IBM have succeeded, during several application development efforts, in expanding the scope of our user-centered, iterative design approaches to include functional as well as interface definition for both software and hardware (kiosk/workstation) design. By learning our customer's business and owning the entire development process, we can better design our solutions to solve their problems (and their client's problems in the case of service industry solutions). We achieve this by including the functional definition in the first of four phases we have defined for all of our development projects. A significant facilitation for this in the arena of software development has been the CADT (Customer Access Development Toolset) development platform we use to build our applications. This set of tools for iterative application design and development gives us the flexibility to quickly and effectively address emerging functional requirements.
Evaluation of Ansi/Hfs 100-1988 Flicker Assessment Method
Authors: Jones Megan M. , Beaton Robert J. 
Published: January 2012

This work examined the method used in the American National Standard for Human Factors Engineering of Visual Display Terminal Workstations (ANSI/HFS 100–1988) to evaluate flicker from Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) displays. The standard specifies that “the display must be found to be flicker free for at least 90 percent of a sample of the user population under conditions representative of actual use.” However, the associated flicker compliance test is questioned as not representing realistic office viewing conditions. A psychophysical experiment was conducted to compare the detection of CRT flicker, in terms of Critical Flicker Frequencies (CFFs), under the ANSI/HFS 100–1988 viewing conditions (i.e., 0 and 20 degrees viewing angle, dark ambient, and hyphen-filled, bright-on-dark character screen) with several others, defined by combinations of ambient illuminance, display luminance, display viewing angle, and screen pattern. As expected, the results indicate that these four factors significantly affect CFFs. More importantly, the CFFs obtained under these viewing conditions were higher than those obtained under the ANSI/HFS 100–1988 viewing condition. The findings of this work indicate that the ANSI/HFS 100–1988 flicker assessment method is too conservative and may not be sufficient to ensure flicker-free viewing of CRT displays under typical office viewing conditions.
Trade-offs between Spatial and Temporal Resolution in Driving Unmanned Ground Vehicles
Authors: van Erp Jan B.F. 
Published: January 2012

Remote vision for steering unmanned vehicles is generally facilitated by on-board cameras. Due to limited bandwidth data-links, a trade-off exists between spatial and temporal image resolution. In the present experiment, objective performance of military driving instructors was measured on a standardized task-battery in a fixed-base driving simulator. The results showed that the optimum choice of spatial and temporal resolution is task specific. The lack of an interaction between both the factors pleads for some provision for the operator to modify these parameters when switching between tasks.
Situation-Oriented Displays of Space Shuttle Data
Authors: Thronesbery Carroll , Christoffersen Klaus , Malin Jane 
Published: January 2012

Event-based, or situation-oriented, logs of Space Shuttle data were evaluated for their support of flight controllers in reviewing operations. An intelligent system was developed to bundle and annotate the data describing an operational event, or situation. A display tool was also developed to show this situation information to flight controllers, aiding the review of procedure operations and anomalies. Finally, flight controllers informally evaluated the situation displays in the context of scenarios based on recorded mission data. They confirmed that the situation-oriented logs provide useful information for reviewing operations and help the reviewer find relevant details associated with a procedure or anomaly. Initially, these logs were designed to support off-line tasks like shift hand-overs, anomaly analysis, and writing post-mission reports. As we learn more about how to support a quick understanding of events, we can better answer the challenges of real-time monitoring of large amounts of data and management by exception. Miller's 7±2 is an oft-cited but misleading heuristic in user interface design. Miller extracted this rule of thumb by examining data on memory span, among other things. However, memory span procedures measure short-term memory at its upper limits and thereby greatly overestimate humans' ability to easily hold in mind unrelated, linguistic material. Justifications for using a maximum of 3 items as a design heuristic are presented.
Effect of Error Correction Strategy on Speech Dictation Throughput
Authors: Lewis James R. 
Published: January 2012

The eight participants in this experiment used two different commercially available speech recognition dictation systems to complete a variety of reading transcription tasks. Participants enrolled fully in both systems. They received training in two correction strategies for both systems: multimodal correction (voice plus mouse plus keyboard) and hands-free correction (voice-only), and used both strategies during the experiment. The key findings were: • Both dictation systems were equally accurate. • Throughput (corrected words per minute) was significantly (63%) faster using multimodal correction. • Speaking rates were the same for both systems and correction strategies, averaging around 105-110 utterances (words and commands) per minute. • Correction speeds for the multimodal correction strategy (13.2 seconds per correction) were significantly faster than (a little more than twice as fast as) those for hands-free correction (29.1 seconds per correction). • At the end of the experiment, participants indicated they significantly preferred the multimodal correction strategy.
Factors Influencing Adherence to ART
Authors: Anuradha S. , Joshi Anant , Negi Madhubala , Nischal Neeraj , Rajeshwari K. , Dewan Richa 
Published: January 2012

Background: Adherence to therapy is central to the success of antiretroviral treatment (ART). With the availability of free ART under the national program in India, cost of ART is no longer the primary determinant of adherence. This study evaluated the adherence and factors influencing it among patients receiving free ART in a public health ART center in India. Methods: The adherence and its influences among 250 HIV-positive patients on first line ART for at least 3 months from the ART Center of Maulana Azad Medical College and Lok Nayak Hospital, New Delhi, India were analyzed. The adherence was assessed by patients' self report using the adult AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) questionnaire and counter checked with pharmacy records. The association of various parameters affecting adherence levels was analyzed by using SPSS package and Epiinfo software. Results: Of the 250 patients, 242 (96.8%) had optimum adherence (>95%) and 8 (3.2%) were “non-adherent.” CD4 counts ( P = 0.05), high level of belief among patients, patients' knowledge about importance of adherence ( P = 0.04), and sound mental health were positively influencing adherence. The main barriers to adherence were poor mental health and negative psychological states in the patients (0.001). The presence of adverse reactions to ART also resulted in poorer adherence. Conclusions: The modifiable factors most strongly associated with good adherence rates were higher current CD4 counts, patients' beliefs in ART, and positive mental health. These factors can be targeted by simple, practical interventions to improve and maintain high adherence levels.
Seroepidemiology of Klebsiella pneumoniae colonizing the intestinal tract of healthy chinese and overseas chinese adults in Asian countries
Authors: Lin Yi-Tsung , Siu L Kristopher , Lin Jung-Chung , Chen Te-Li , Tseng Chih-Peng , Yeh Kuo-Ming , Chang Feng-Yee , Fung Chang-Phone 
Published: January 2012

Abstract

Background
Capsular serotypes K1 and K2 of Klebsiella pneumoniae are thought to the major virulence determinants responsible for liver abscess. The intestine is one of the major reservoirs of K. pneumoniae, and epidemiological studies have suggested that the majority of K. pneumoniae infections are preceded by colonization of the gastrointestinal tract. The possibility of fecal-oral transmission in liver abscess has been raised on the basis of molecular typing of isolates. Data on the serotype distribution of K. pneumoniae in stool samples from healthy individuals has not been previously reported. This study investigated the seroepidemiology of K. pneumoniae isolates from the intestinal tract of healthy Chinese in Asian countries. Stool specimens from healthy adult Chinese residents of Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam were collected from August 2004 to August 2010 for analysis.

Results
Serotypes K1/K2 accounted for 9.8% of all K. pneumoniae isolates from stools in all countries. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of K1/K2 isolates among the countries excluding Thailand and Vietnam. The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern was nearly the same in K. pneumoniae isolates. The result of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis revealed no major clonal cluster of serotype K1 isolates.

Conclusions
The result showed that Chinese ethnicity itself might be a major factor predisposing to intestinal colonization by serotype K1/K2 K. pneumoniae isolates. The prevalent serotype K1/K2 isolates may partially correspond to the prevalence of K. pneumoniae liver abscess in Asian countries.