## 4 Discussion
### Carrying Strength  
The carrying strengths with gloves 3 (42.7 kgf) and 2 (41.5 kgf) were both significantly higher than those of glove 1 (37.6 kgf) and bare hand (38.9 kgf) conditions, indicating that the former two gloves were superior to the latter two. The reason for this may be attributed to the friction of the gloves. The COF of gloves 2 and 3 (\(\approx\)0.9) were much higher than that of glove 1 (0.3). They were also believed to be much higher than that of the skin even  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Glove**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Lifting Strength (kgf)**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**RLS (\%)**} \\ \cline{2-5}  & **Female** & **Male** & **Female** & **Male** \\ \hline
0 \(\lx@math@degree\) & 45.6 (\(\pm\)12.9) & 77.6 (\(\pm\)23.9) & - & - \\
1 & 42.0 (\(\pm\)13.1) & 77.2 (\(\pm\)21.9) & 3.3 (\(\pm\)28.1) & \(-\)1.6 (\(\pm\)16.4) \\
2 & 48.7 (\(\pm\)13.9) & 77.2 (\(\pm\)22.9) & \(-\)7.8 (\(\pm\)12.3) & \(-\)1.3 (\(\pm\)18.5) \\
3 & 47.8 (\(\pm\)13.6) & 78.5 (\(\pm\)21.1) & \(-\)6.8 (\(\pm\)19.0) & \(-\)5.1 (\(\pm\)22.3) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \(\lx@math@degree\) bare hand condition.  
\end{table}
Table 8: Lifting strength and RLS under experimental conditions.  
though we could not measure the COF of the bare hand of the participants on the handle. High COF allows better hand-handle coupling and thus enhances the carrying strength of the participants. This was consistent with the discussions in [50]. The effects of the gloves on the reductions of carrying strength between the two genders were different. Figure 7 shows that female participants lost 6.4% of their carrying strength when wearing the cotton gloves. They, however, gained 12.4% and 11.4% of their strength when wearing the knitted gloves with NBR coating and the cut resistant gloves, respectively. Male participants, on the other hand, gained a negligible amount (0.7%) of carrying strength when wearing the cotton gloves. They gained 6.7% and 11.7% of the carrying strength when wearing the knitted gloves with NBR coating and the cut resistant gloves, respectively. Females seemed to gain equivalent benefits when using the latter two gloves in performing carrying tasks. Males, on the other hand, gained more benefits using the cut resistant gloves than that of the knitted gloves with NBR coating.  
Wearing the cotton gloves led to carrying strength reduction in the range of 2.9% to 7.5%, on average, for female and male participants using semi-squat posture (see Table 7). There were also 5.7% and 9.7% carrying strength declines, on average, for female participants wearing this glove using the straight posture. The inferiority of the cotton gloves on carrying strength might be attributed to the low friction (0.3) of this glove. Slip of the hand might occur on the handle when the friction between the hand-handle interface was insufficient. This would hamper the force application of the participant on the handle.  
Wearing the knitted glove with NBR coating led to carrying strength reductions of 11.3% and 1.5% on dominant and non-dominant hands, respectively, for male participants using semi-squat posture. However, this glove led to carrying strength increases (10-21.7%) in all other postural, gender, and handedness conditions. Both male and female participants showed higher carrying strength for both of their hands under both semi-squat (2.7-14.9%) and straight (9.8-23%) postures when wearing the cut resistance gloves.