Evaluation of Mental Workload for Port-Coordinator on an Individual Scale Using Salivary NO₃-

Abstract

Our study finally aims for the actualization that salivary NO₃^- can evaluate the mental workload of people in maritime society; navigators (captains), helmsmen, sea pilots, port-coordinators, and so on. The evaluation of salivary NO₃^- is currently not common as a physiological index, but it is reliable method for numerically expressing mental workload at any given time. People in maritime society sustain heavy mental workload on duty because they engage in duties around the clock. The analysis of salivary NO₃^- enables people in maritime society to recognize specific points in time where they themselves feel mental workload, and subsequently investigate methods to relieve stress caused by this workload. This paper will focus on port-coordinators as candidates in maritime society who deal with heavy mental workloads. Port-coordinators engage in keeping the safe of specific harbor/port around the clock in turns. This paper utilizes the evaluation list of port-coordinators’ duties in our study for the first time. This paper finally aims to revise and complete the evaluation list for port-coordinators themselves to locate, accumulate, and classify the navigational risky situations in the harbor/port, and finally to recognize and avoid the most risky situations. By doing so, this paper clarifies and accumulates specific points where port-coordinators feel mental workload from the analysis of salivary NO₃^-, and tries to classify those points into the evaluation list at the first onset. However, most items in the evaluation list did not correspond to the port-coordinators’ much mental workload. We need to consider and revise items in the evaluation list so that the list can be useful for port-coordinators’ duties and our study.