The Japanese Journal of Ergonomics
Online ISSN : 1884-2844
Print ISSN : 0549-4974
ISSN-L : 0549-4974
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Volume 46, Issue 1
Displaying 1-18 of 18 articles from this issue
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Contribution
  • Attentional Characteristics of Train Drivers when Receiving Train Radio Messages
    Mayuko UEDA, Hisashi NAITO, Shinnosuke USUI
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 1-9
    Published: January 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.1
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    In this study, we examine the influence of the train radio communication system, which is not directly related to the train drivers' duties, on their task performances. In the experiment, participants performed auditory and visual dual task while not paying attention to the radio messages being transmitted. After the experiment, they had to complete a recognition task relating to the train radio system, which they were not previously informed about.
    We found that the participant's reaction time for visual targets was longer when more important messages were transmitted on the train radio, as compared to the case where less important messages were transmitted. In contrast, in the recognition task, train drivers recognized the station names presented in the more important radio messages more often than in the less important ones. The results reveal that train drivers display an attentional bias due to which they can not ignored to the more important radio messages, and a memory characteristic by which they automatically retain the necessary operating information. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that train drivers possess the necessary characteristics with which they can operate a train efficiently.
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  • The Difference of Nurse's Working Efficiency and the Influence to Patients Neck Muscle Loads in Patient Transfer at Different Heights of Beds
    Tomoko TAMARU, Yoko ASO, Aki IBE, Yoko HONDA, Shizuka KIMURA, Miyuki S ...
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 10-15
    Published: January 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.10
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    This study examined the difference of nurse's work efficiency by changing the height of beds, and how the difference of nurse's working efficiency influences the patient's neck muscle load. 15 healthy women over 70 years old participated in this experiment as the patient role. One researcher, assuming the nurse role, performed patient transfers in two different bed heights : easy and uneasy working height beds. When the bed was set to the uneasy working height, patient's backbone was more lifted, and took more time to complete the transfer. These results show that nurse's working efficiency is decreasing when patient transfer is performed at uneasy working height. Moreover, at the uneasy working height, patient's neck hyperextension angle and integrated electromyogram of sternocleidomastoid muscles showed larger values than those of easy working height. The reason of this phenomenon is, as it is not comfortable lying with lifted backbones and retroflexed necks, patients attempted to draw in their chin unconsciously. Therefore, it can be said that, when patient transfer is performed at an uneasy working height, nurse's working efficiency decreases and patient's neck muscle load increases.
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  • Development of Thumb-Operated Dial-Type Integrated Switch and its Effectiveness
    Atsuo MURATA, Makoto MORIWAKA, Shuguang WANG
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 16-22
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.16
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    A thumb-operated dial-type integrated switch for automobile use was developed, and the task completion time for this type of integrated switch was compared with that for a traditional integrated switch. The rotation torque of an encoder and the rotation diameter ware selected as experimental parameters. An attempt was made to identify the recommended condition of rotation torque and diameter. It was demonstrated that the thumb-operated dial-type integrated switch led to faster task completion time as compared with the traditional integrated switch. As for the thumb-operated dial-type integrated switch, the following combination of the rotation torque and the rotation diameter were not proper: diameter of 20 mm for the rotation torque of 12.9 mN·m and 9.2 mN·m, and diameters of 20 mm and 40 mm for the rotation torque of 8.6 mN·m. It was also suggested that the optimal condition cannot be identified using the condition of the rotation force only, and that the optimal condition must be determined taking into account the combination of the rotation torque and the rotation diameter.
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  • Relation between Transportation Method of Stretcher and Ride Quality
    Koichi SAGAWA, Harumi KADOHAMA, Keiko HASEGAWA
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 23-30
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.23
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    This paper describes the effect of mechanical stimuli such as vibration and rotation during stretcher transport in the hospital on subjective evaluation of ride quality. Ride quality is subjectively evaluated using semantic differential (SD) method. The stretcher is transported in the rectangular course with 14 m×15 m. At each round, four kinds of rotation methods are applied to compare the effect of acceleration and angular velocity on the ride quality : (1) usual rotation performed in the common transport, (2) rotation around subject's head, (3) rotation around subject's foot and (4) rotation around the center of stretcher. After one round transportation applying one of four rotation methods, the subjects are asked to fill in a SD questionnaire table which has 37 kinds of adjectives. Principal component analysis is employed to identify the reason of deterioration of ride quality. Twelve subjects participated in the transportation experiments and the experimental results show that the principal component analysis produces two factors which represent the effect of angular velocity and foot-to-head acceleration on the ride quality. It is suggested that the angular velocity mainly causes the deterioration of the ride quality provoking motion sickness or vomit during transportation.
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  • Visual Behavior of Expert Baton Twirlers during Catching Tasks
    Madoka TAKAHASHI, Kazunobu FUKUHARA, Hirofumi IDA, Motonobu ISHII
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 31-36
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.31
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    The purpose of this study was to examine a specific visual behavior during baton-catching by using the gaze analysis. Three male and three female expert baton twirlers were asked to catch a spinning baton or ball, thrown in their sagittal plane (distance = 5 or 7 m), with their right hands. Their eye movements were monitored during the execution of the task, by using an eye tracker. The result shows that during baton-catching, the eyes jumped on the trajectory of the spinning baton around 100 ms after the release and then pursued the central region and the tips of the baton. The fixation duration on the central region was longer than those of other regions. That is, the visual behavior specific for making a success of the baton-catching is the gaze shift to the baton in the initial phase of flight and the smooth pursuit eye movements towards its central region. Thus, it indicates that baton twirlers might anticipate the time-to-contact by employing the visual behavior specific for spinning baton-catching.
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  • Relationship between Handleability of Slide-out Drawer and Upper Limb Load
    Atsushi SUGAMA, Akihiko SEO, Kouki DOI
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 37-43
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.37
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    In this study, we investigated the relationship between handleability of slide-out drawer and the upper limb load. We used a slide-out drawer mock-up which fabricated from file cabinet. In this experiment, ten healthy male subjects were asked to pull out the slide-out drawer under the following nine conditions of slide-out drawer location with 20 N force : three installation height (vertical, horizontal and obliquely directions), three operational direction of the slide-out drawer (left 45 degrees from front, front and right 45 degrees from front). We estimated control force and the maximum torque ratio of the upper limb joints by six-axis load cell and 3 dimension attitude measurement sensor. We also measured upper limb and dorsal muscle activities with an electromyogram. Subjective easiness of pulling out the slide-out drawer and right upper limb load was recorded. The results showed that upper limb load influenced on subjective easiness of pulling out the slide-out drawer and right upper limb load.
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  • Background Factors in Marine Accidents and Incidents Caused by Watch-keeper Drowsiness
    Shinsuke URUSHIDANI, Toshiki KIKUCHI, Yuji SANO, Toshikazu TERASAWA
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 44-52
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.44
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    Numerous marine accidents caused by human errors occur at sea near Japan each year, and result in preventable casualties. The purpose of this study was to perform a feature extraction of sleep and lifecycle characteristics among watch-keepers involved in marine accidents and incidents.
    A questionnaire that included attributes of the watch-keeper, amount of sleep, problems related to sleep, fatigue, feeling hiyari-hatto incidents, and the Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) was administered to a sample of 7,750 watch-keepers (response rate : 21.3%).
    Watch-keepers have problems related to sleep, such as “once a month or more awaking while sleeping and cannot sleep afterwards” (40.0%), “once a month or more awaking too early in the morning and cannot sleep afterwards” (39.0%), “I have been told by my family and colleagues that I snore” (56.1%), and “I had my breathing stopped while sleeping” (14.1%). Some watch-keepers indicated “once a month or more feeling hiyari-hatto incidents” (5.6%).
    These results suggest that watch-keeper of each ship have problems related to sleep due to sleep and lifecycle characteristics.
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Ergonomic data
  • Mothers' Use of the Internet as Child-Rearing Support
    Noriko TOYAMA, Akihisa KODATE, Kyoko KIKUCHI
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 53-60
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.53
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    The present study examined mothers' use of the Internet as child-rearing support. Mothers with young children from the Tokyo area participated in a questionnaire survey (n = 134). Most mothers accessed the Internet on a daily basis in order to purchase nursery items, gather information on medical agencies or child-rearing practices such as feeding and weaning. Such frequent usage was not differed by their age, academic background, current employment status, and home economic situation. Some mothers valued “emotional” or “consultative” supporting functions of the Internet, while others attached importance to its practical facility. In the present study, the former group of mothers was called the “emotional group” (n = 43), and the latter, the “practical group” (n = 47). There were some differences between these two groups concerning the mothers' profile and their Internet usage. The mothers in the emotional group were characterized by their young age, low academic background, minimal child-rearing support from their husbands, frequent usage of the Internet, and preference for online support instead of personal one. Measures to construct more user-friendly internet environments for child-rearing mothers were discussed on the basis of the results of this study.
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  • Biomechanical Analysis of Effects of Waraji-Like Footwear on Human Movement (Comparison between Wearing Methods Using a Musculoskeletal Model)
    Kazunori HASE, Daisuke KAJI, Yukihiro MATSUYAMA
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 61-67
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.61
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    In order to clarify the influence of footwear invented by inspiration from waraji (Japanese traditional sandal) to walking and standing movements, the kinetic and kinematic measurements were performed using a motion capture system and force platforms in the previous study of the authors. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship among the footwear, toe finger functions and human movement with different wearing types of the footwear using a musculoskeletal model and pedobarograph. In the experiment, ten subjects were asked to wear three types of wearing : first-second-finger stimulation type, second-to-fifth-fingers constraint type, and all-fingers constraint type. Walking and standing motions were measured for each wearing type and the distributions of foot pressure were collected separately. In the first-second-finger stimulation type, it was found that the flexion of the toe and the distance between the toe fingers increased, and the muscle activity around the ankle joint also increased significantly. The foot shape and walking pattern changed significantly due to two other wearing types. The effects of the footwear on human movement were discussed based on these biomechanical data from the experiments.
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  • Differences in Driving Behavior between Ordinary and Professional Drivers regarding Braking in a Turn when Entering a Circuit Corner
    Yoshimoto HARANAKA
    2010 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 68-78
    Published: February 15, 2010
    Released on J-STAGE: February 14, 2011
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5100/jje.46.68
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    When braking in a turn (BIT), gentle braking of about 0.2∼0.4 G with high lateral acceleration causes the vehicle to enter a spin, which requires a high level of skill to control. Ordinary drivers executing gentle braking when BIT may lose control of the vehicle. Professional drivers driving on a circuit, however, intentionally execute gentle braking when BIT, taking advantage of this spin behavior to generate rotary motion more effectively around the center of gravity of the vehicle for better lap times. In this study, the driving behavior of a professional driver was compared with that of ordinary drivers when BIT at the entry of a constant-radius corner of a circuit. When BIT, the professional driver executed gentle braking of 0.2∼0.4 G for longer than the ordinary drivers. The professional driver took advantage of the spin of the vehicle by executing gentle braking in combination with high-skill steering maneuvers. As a result, the mean values of mean lateral acceleration and mean yaw rate were higher, and the mean variation in velocity tended to be smaller for the professional driver compared to that of the ordinary drivers. The ordinary drivers often executed heavy braking of 0.6 G or higher to avoid entering an uncontrollable spin.
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