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Walkway codes and standards are created through consensus by committees based on a number of factors, including historical precedence, common practice, cost, and, sometimes, empirical data. The authors maintain that codes and standards that can have an impact on human safety and welfare should give consideration in their formulation to the results of pertinent scientific research.

This article extends a companion one in examining many elements of common walkway codes and standards related specifically to lighting, warnings and markings. It indicates which elements are based on or supported by empirical data; and which elements could benefit from additional scientific research.

This article identifies areas in which additional research leading toward scientific based codes and standards may be beneficial in enhancing the safety of pedestrian walkway surfaces.

This article identifies areas in which additional research leading toward scientific based codes and standards may be beneficial in enhancing the safety of pedestrian walkway surfaces.This study uses a longitudinal within-subjects design to investigate the effects of inadequate Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) on work performance and wellbeing in a sample of 114 office workers over a period of 8 months. Participants completed a total of 2261 online surveys measuring perceived thermal comfort, lighting comfort and noise annoyance, measures of work performance, and individual state factors underlying performance and wellbeing. Characterising inadequate aspects of IEQ as environmental stressors, these stress factors can significantly reduce self-reported work performance and objectively measured cognitive performance by between 2.4% and 5.8% in most situations, and by up to 14.8% in rare cases. Environmental stressors act indirectly on work performance by reducing state variables, motivation, tiredness, and distractibility, which support high-functioning work performance. Exposure to environmental stress appears to erode individuals' resilience, or ability to cope with additional task demands. These results indicate that environmental stress reduces not only the cognitive capacity for work, but the rate of work (i.e. by reducing motivation). Increasing the number of individual stress factors is associated with a near linear reduction in work performance indicating that environmental stress factors are additive, not multiplicative. Environmental stressors reduce occupant wellbeing (mood, headaches, and feeling 'off') causing indirect reductions in work performance. Improving IEQ will likely produce small but pervasive increases in productivity.This study evaluated operators' mental workload while monitoring traffic density in a city traffic control center. To determine the mental workload, physiological signals (ECG, EMG) were recorded and the NASA-Task Load Index (TLX) was administered for 16 operators. The results showed that the operators experienced a larger mental workload during high traffic density than during low traffic density. The traffic control center stressors caused changes in heart rate variability features and EMG amplitude, although the average workload score was significantly higher in HTD conditions than in LTD conditions. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/BafilomycinA1.html The findings indicated that increasing traffic congestion had a significant effect on HR, RMSSD, SDNN, LF/HF ratio, and EMG amplitude. The results suggested that when operators' workload increases, their mental fatigue and stress level increase and their mental health deteriorate. Therefore, it maybe necessary to implement an ergonomic program to manage mental health. Furthermore, by evaluating mental workload, the traffic control center director can organize the center's traffic congestion operators to sustain the appropriate mental workload and improve traffic control management.This review article aims to evaluate a proposed maximum acceptable work duration model for load carriage tasks. It is contended that this concept has particular relevance to physically demanding occupations such as military and firefighting. Personnel in these occupations are often required to perform very physically demanding tasks, over varying time periods, often involving load carriage. Previous research has investigated concepts related to physiological workload limits in occupational settings (e.g. industrial). Evidence suggests however, that existing (unloaded) workload guidelines are not appropriate for load carriage tasks. The utility of this model warrants further work to enable prediction of load carriage durations across a range of functional workloads for physically demanding occupations. If the maximum duration for which personnel can physiologically sustain a load carriage task could be accurately predicted, commanders and supervisors could better plan for and manage tasks to ensure operational imperatives were met whilst minimising health risks for their workers.Tallman lettering, capitalizing the dissimilar portions of easily confused drug names, is one strategy for reducing medication errors. We assessed the efficacy of Tallman lettering in a visually complex environment using a change detection method with healthcare providers and laypeople. In addition, the effect of familiarity with the drug name was assessed using a subset of responses collected from healthcare providers. link2 Both healthcare providers and laypeople detected changes in confusable pairs of drug names more often (P less then 0.0001) and more quickly (P less then 0.05) when changes were presented in Tallman lettering, though the benefits were more pronounced for healthcare providers (p less then 0.05). Familiarity with both drug names in a confusable pair mitigated the benefit of Tallman lettering. Results are discussed in terms of bottom-up and top-down attentional systems for processing of information in the context of the varied healthcare environments.

Little is known about the transfer into the workplace of interventions designed to reduce the physical demands of sheet metal workers.

We reviewed videos from a case series of 15 sheet metal worksite assessments performed in 2007-2009 to score postures and physical loads, and to observe the use of recommended interventions to reduce physical exposures in sheet metal activities made by a NIOSH stakeholder meeting in 2002.

Workers showed consistent use of material handling devices, but we observed few uses of recommended interventions to reduce exposures during overhead work. Workers spent large proportions of time in awkward shoulder elevation and low back rotation postures.

In addition to the development of new technologies and system designs, increased adoption of existing tools and practices could reduce time spent in awkward postures and other risks for musculoskeletal disorders in sheet metal work.

In addition to the development of new technologies and system designs, increased adoption of existing tools and practices could reduce time spent in awkward postures and other risks for musculoskeletal disorders in sheet metal work.Injury and dropout rates during rodwork training appear to reflect difficulties encountered by apprentices adapting to increased physical demands of tying on slab, one of the rodworking tasks with the highest injury risk. Because experience influences work strategies, and consequently the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), this study aimed to identify differences in work practices associated with tying rebar on slab, potentially relevant to back MSD development, in experienced and inexperienced rodworkers. Fourteen male rodworkers were recruited from either experienced (>2 years experience post apprenticeship), or inexperienced ( less then 6 months experience) groups. Both tied an area with rebar laid on the ground. Trunk flexion/extension angles were measured. L4/L5 moments were estimated from T9 Erector Spinae EMG. Experienced workers were found to spend longer periods of time in trunk flexed postures, with lower peak L4/L5 moments. Our findings revealed practices associated with each group might have different implications on back health.Fifteen military personnel performed 30-cm drop landings to quantify how body borne load (light, ∼6 kg, medium, ∼20 kg, and heavy, ∼40 kg) impacts lower limb kinematics and knee joint energy absorption during landing, and determine whether greater lower limb flexion increases energy absorption while landing with load. Participants decreased peak hip (P = 0.002), and knee flexion (P = 0.007) posture, but did not increase hip (P = 0.796), knee (P = 0.427) or ankle (P = 0.161) energy absorption, despite exhibiting greater peak hip (P = 0.003) and knee (P = 0.001) flexion, and ankle (P = 0.003) dorsiflexion angular impulse when landing with additional load. Yet, when landing with the light and medium loads, greater hip (R(2) = 0.500, P = 0.003 and R(2) = 0.314, P = 0.030) and knee (R(2) = 0.431, P = 0.008 and R(2) = 0.342, P = 0.022) flexion posture predicted larger knee joint energy absorption. Thus, military training that promotes hip and knee flexion, and subsequently greater energy absorption during landing, may potentially reduce risk of musculoskeletal injury and optimize soldier performance.In the current study, 44 Chinese and 40 US college students rated their perceived hazard in response to warning labels and products and attempted to match products with warning labels communicating the same level of hazard. Chinese participants tended to provide lower ratings of hazard in response to labels, but hazard perceived in response to products did not significantly differ as a function of culture. When asked to match a product with a warning label, Chinese participants' hazard perceptions appeared to be better calibrated, than did US participants', across products and labels. The results are interpreted in terms of constructivist theory which suggests that risk perceptions vary depending on the "frame of mind" evoked by the environment/context. Designers of warnings must be sensitive to the fact that product users' cognitive representations develop within a culture and that risk perceptions will vary based on the context in which they are derived.The Digital Accessible Information SYstem (DAISY) player is an assistive reading tool developed for use by persons with visual impairments. Certain problems have persisted in the operating procedure and interface of DAISY players, especially for their Chinese users. Therefore, the aim of this study was to redesign the DAISY player with increased usability features for use by native Chinese speakers. First, a User Centered Design (UCD) process was employed to analyze the development of the prototype. Next, operation procedures were reorganized according to GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules) methodology. link3 Then the user interface was redesigned according to specific Universal Design (UD) principles. Following these revisions, an experiment involving four scenarios was conducted to compare the new prototype to other players, and it was tested by twelve visually impaired participants. Results indicate the prototype had the quickest operating times, the fewest number of operating errors, and the lowest mental workloads of all the compared players, significantly enhancing the prototype's usability.