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BACKGROUND: The sanitary emergency due to COVID-19 virus obliged people to face up several change... more BACKGROUND: The sanitary emergency due to COVID-19 virus obliged people to face up several changes in their everyday life becauseWorld Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and countries' Health Systems imposed lockdown of activities and social distancing to flatten the infection curve. One of these rapid changes involved students and professors that had to turn the traditional "in presence" classes into online courses facing several problems for educational delivery. OBJECTIVES: This work aimed to investigate the factors that affected both teaching/learning effectiveness and general human comfort and wellbeing after the sudden transition from classrooms to eLearning platforms due to COVID-19 in Italy. METHODS: A workshop, involving students and experts of Human Factors and Ergonomics, has been performed to identify aspects/factors that could influence online learning. Then, from workshop output and literature studies, a survey composed of two questionnaires (one for st...
Work
BACKGROUND: According to ergonomic researches regarding a good sitting posture, it is essential t... more BACKGROUND: According to ergonomic researches regarding a good sitting posture, it is essential to ensure a natural back-curve in order to prevent musculoskeletal disorders. A brief observation among the Scientific Technology Library inside the University of Salerno showed that students used to complain about neck and lumbar pain, especially after a study day. OBJECTIVE: On the light of this background, a sitting posture comfort analysis had been performed on chairs inside the library to check the critical factors that influence the postural comfort and, consequently, the learning. METHODS: A prolonged sitting posture, that is common during the daily study activity, had been simulated with fifteen volunteer students performing 1-hour tests (divided into four 15-minutes tasks). Subjective perceptions had been gathered through questionnaires rating on a 5-point Comfort scale, both the expected comfort at the beginning of the experiment and the Localized Postural Comfort at the end of ...
Work
BACKGROUND: In recent years, a growing interest in ergonomics and comfort perception in secondary... more BACKGROUND: In recent years, a growing interest in ergonomics and comfort perception in secondary schools and universities can be detected, to go beyond the UNI-EN regulations and understanding how practically improve students’ perceived comfort during lessons. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to analyse the (dis)comfort perceived by students while sitting in a combo-desk during lessons; it proposed a method for understanding and weighing the influence of postural factors on overall (dis)comfort. METHODS: Twenty healthy students performed a random combination of three different tasks in two sessions - listening, reading on a tablet and writing. Subjective perceptions were investigated through questionnaires, in which the expected and the overall comfort were evaluated; postural angles were gathered by processing photos through Kinovea® software and were used for the virtual-postural analysis, using a DHM (Digital Human Modelling) software; statistical analysis was used to investigate the...
Applied Mechanics and Materials, Feb 6, 2014
Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, ... more Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, in redesign a manual assembly workplace, can be; authors, using a new comfort/ergonomic evaluation criterion, analyzed a workstation, then identified the critical issues under ergonomic/comfort point of view and finally gave several guidelines to redesign the workplace, implementing minor modification, and improve work-safety, work-quality and productivity.
Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, 2016
Work
BACKGROUND: Nowadays, the ergonomic study of the driving position is a critical aspect of automot... more BACKGROUND: Nowadays, the ergonomic study of the driving position is a critical aspect of automotive design. Indeed, due to the rising needs on the market, one focus for car industries is to improve the perceived comfort related to the cars’ interior. Driving a car for a prolonged time could cause complaints in some body-regions, especially in the lumbar-sacral area. Thus, special lumbar-sacral supports for driver seat has been proposed for reducing this kind of complaints. OBJECTIVE: Development of two virtual and physical models of lumbar-sacral support for improving both the lumbar/sacral and overall perceived comfort while driving. METHODS: Two prototypes of lumbar/sacral support have been realized: the first one was integrated into the seat, and the second one was shaped as a removable pillow (removable support). Fifty participants were asked to rate the perceived comfort in lab tests performed on a seating-buck by comparing three configurations (5 min each): a standard seat, s...
Science and Technology for the Built Environment
International Journal on Interactive Design and Manufacturing (IJIDeM)
Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, 2016
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2016
In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good lev... more In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good level of safety and wellbeing of users (humans) and to avoid health problems like muscular-skeletal diseases. ISO Standards give us a good reference on Ergonomics and Comfort: ISO 11228 regulation deals with several parameters for evaluating Postural Ergonomics in manual loads' push/pull, in manual loads' lifting and carrying and in repetitive actions. Those parameters can be synthesized in a "Postural Load Index" that represents the Ergonomics level of examined posture. Nothing has be done, by ISO, in order to give a method/criterion for evaluating comfort performances of products and workplaces. More than 100.000 scientific papers dealing with comfort and discomfort can be easily found in main scientific databases and most of these speak about relationship between environmental factors (like temperature, humidity, applied forces etc.) and perceived comfort/discomfort. Several papers follow the assumption that there is a relationship between self-reported discomfort and musculoskeletal injuries and that those injuries affect the perceived comfort; however, the theories relating comfort to products/processes and products/processes' design characteristics are rather underdeveloped. One of the most recent and interesting paper about comfort perception and its evaluation is the Vink-Hallbeck (2012) one in which the Moes' comfort perception model (2005) has been developed and improved. In our paper, a simplified model of comfort perception, that seems to work well with the Vink-Hallbeck one, has been proposed and takes into account four aspects that strongly affect the global comfort perception: (B)-User Biomechanics/Posture, (P)-Physiologic factor, (E)-Environment contribute, (C)-Cognitive factor. Each of these aspects can be split in sub-aspects that have to be taken into account in order to be evaluated and correlated to subjective comfort perception. This paper want to explain all those sub-aspects, analyze the state of the art about their evaluation and propose an easy-to-use framework for weighing and evaluating contributes coming from cognitive, postural and physiologic comfort perceptions (no environment's factors have been studied) to the global comfort perception.
In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good lev... more In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good level of safety and well-being of users (humans) and to avoid health problems like muscular-skeletal diseases. ISO Standards give us a good reference on Ergonomics and Comfort: ISO 11228 regulation deals with several parameters for evaluating Postural Ergonomics in manual loads’ push/pull, in manual loads’ lifting and carrying and in repetitive actions. Those parameters can be synthesized in a “Postural Load Index” that represents the Ergonomics level of examined posture. Nothing has be done, by ISO, in order to give a method/criterion for evaluating comfort performances of products and workplaces. More than 100.000 scientific papers dealing with comfort and discomfort can be easily found in main scientific databases and most of these speak about relationship between environmental factors (like temperature, humidity, applied forces etc.) and perceived comfort/discomfort. Several papers foll...
Applied Mechanics and Materials, 2013
Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, ... more Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, in re-design a manual assembly workplace, can be; authors, using a new comfort/ergonomic evaluation criterion, analyzed a workstation and identified the critical issues under ergonomic/comfort point of view and finally gave several guidelines to re-design the workplace, implementing minor modification, and improve work-safety, work-quality and productivity. The postural analysis was performed by non-invasive and especially inexpensive methods, based on cameras and video-recorder use and by photogrammetric analysis; DELMIA® DHM software has been used to perform all simulations; comfort analysis was performed by the software developed by researchers of Departments of Industrial Engineering of Salerno: CaMAN®. The test case is an automatic assembly machine that has been modeled and used for virtual postural analysis. Main results of this work can be found in a very good numerical/experiment...
Procedia Manufacturing, 2015
ABSTRACT What are the new trends in research for comfort evaluation and the objective and predict... more ABSTRACT What are the new trends in research for comfort evaluation and the objective and predictive techniques for quantifying and qualifying comfort perception by humans? This paper has attempted to answer this question in a wide literature review, whereby it is possible to highlight many partial aspects that have been studied successfully. Just a few researchers [1–3] have studied the problem of comfort perception and evaluation under a wider point of view. Nevertheless, some aspects seem not to have yet been taken into account. In a previous paper, the authors extended the Vink–Hallbeck model to build a comfort perception/evaluation matrix in which four kinds of comfort related to different humans’ perception were studied and linked to the whole environment’s characteristics. In the resultant perception-scheme and in the proposed “fusion rule” (for different kinds of perceived comfort/discomfort), one aspect that played a fundamental role in the final comfort/discomfort perception/evaluation was expectation. Expectation due to preconceived data (acquired or formed in the users’ minds) and the influence of the working environment, can act in terms of additive or subtractive factor in the comfort experience by altering the final comfort/discomfort perception and changing the subjective comfort/discomfort evaluation. This paper presents the results of expectation influence analysis on comfort evaluation. Using the placebo effect, authors conducted a wide experimental test with a wide sample of users, asking them to use and evaluate two identical mattresses that were dressed and described as two different products (the first one as a very cheap mattress and the second one as a high-level and expensive mattress). Differences between subjective evaluations have been statistically processed and correlated to anthropometric parameters to individuate and understand the role of expectation.
Work
BACKGROUND: The sanitary emergency due to COVID-19 virus obliged people to face up several change... more BACKGROUND: The sanitary emergency due to COVID-19 virus obliged people to face up several changes in their everyday life becauseWorld Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and countries' Health Systems imposed lockdown of activities and social distancing to flatten the infection curve. One of these rapid changes involved students and professors that had to turn the traditional "in presence" classes into online courses facing several problems for educational delivery. OBJECTIVES: This work aimed to investigate the factors that affected both teaching/learning effectiveness and general human comfort and wellbeing after the sudden transition from classrooms to eLearning platforms due to COVID-19 in Italy. METHODS: A workshop, involving students and experts of Human Factors and Ergonomics, has been performed to identify aspects/factors that could influence online learning. Then, from workshop output and literature studies, a survey composed of two questionnaires (one for st...
Work
BACKGROUND: According to ergonomic researches regarding a good sitting posture, it is essential t... more BACKGROUND: According to ergonomic researches regarding a good sitting posture, it is essential to ensure a natural back-curve in order to prevent musculoskeletal disorders. A brief observation among the Scientific Technology Library inside the University of Salerno showed that students used to complain about neck and lumbar pain, especially after a study day. OBJECTIVE: On the light of this background, a sitting posture comfort analysis had been performed on chairs inside the library to check the critical factors that influence the postural comfort and, consequently, the learning. METHODS: A prolonged sitting posture, that is common during the daily study activity, had been simulated with fifteen volunteer students performing 1-hour tests (divided into four 15-minutes tasks). Subjective perceptions had been gathered through questionnaires rating on a 5-point Comfort scale, both the expected comfort at the beginning of the experiment and the Localized Postural Comfort at the end of ...
Work
BACKGROUND: In recent years, a growing interest in ergonomics and comfort perception in secondary... more BACKGROUND: In recent years, a growing interest in ergonomics and comfort perception in secondary schools and universities can be detected, to go beyond the UNI-EN regulations and understanding how practically improve students’ perceived comfort during lessons. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to analyse the (dis)comfort perceived by students while sitting in a combo-desk during lessons; it proposed a method for understanding and weighing the influence of postural factors on overall (dis)comfort. METHODS: Twenty healthy students performed a random combination of three different tasks in two sessions - listening, reading on a tablet and writing. Subjective perceptions were investigated through questionnaires, in which the expected and the overall comfort were evaluated; postural angles were gathered by processing photos through Kinovea® software and were used for the virtual-postural analysis, using a DHM (Digital Human Modelling) software; statistical analysis was used to investigate the...
Applied Mechanics and Materials, Feb 6, 2014
Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, ... more Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, in redesign a manual assembly workplace, can be; authors, using a new comfort/ergonomic evaluation criterion, analyzed a workstation, then identified the critical issues under ergonomic/comfort point of view and finally gave several guidelines to redesign the workplace, implementing minor modification, and improve work-safety, work-quality and productivity.
Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, 2016
Work
BACKGROUND: Nowadays, the ergonomic study of the driving position is a critical aspect of automot... more BACKGROUND: Nowadays, the ergonomic study of the driving position is a critical aspect of automotive design. Indeed, due to the rising needs on the market, one focus for car industries is to improve the perceived comfort related to the cars’ interior. Driving a car for a prolonged time could cause complaints in some body-regions, especially in the lumbar-sacral area. Thus, special lumbar-sacral supports for driver seat has been proposed for reducing this kind of complaints. OBJECTIVE: Development of two virtual and physical models of lumbar-sacral support for improving both the lumbar/sacral and overall perceived comfort while driving. METHODS: Two prototypes of lumbar/sacral support have been realized: the first one was integrated into the seat, and the second one was shaped as a removable pillow (removable support). Fifty participants were asked to rate the perceived comfort in lab tests performed on a seating-buck by comparing three configurations (5 min each): a standard seat, s...
Science and Technology for the Built Environment
International Journal on Interactive Design and Manufacturing (IJIDeM)
Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, 2016
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2016
In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good lev... more In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good level of safety and wellbeing of users (humans) and to avoid health problems like muscular-skeletal diseases. ISO Standards give us a good reference on Ergonomics and Comfort: ISO 11228 regulation deals with several parameters for evaluating Postural Ergonomics in manual loads' push/pull, in manual loads' lifting and carrying and in repetitive actions. Those parameters can be synthesized in a "Postural Load Index" that represents the Ergonomics level of examined posture. Nothing has be done, by ISO, in order to give a method/criterion for evaluating comfort performances of products and workplaces. More than 100.000 scientific papers dealing with comfort and discomfort can be easily found in main scientific databases and most of these speak about relationship between environmental factors (like temperature, humidity, applied forces etc.) and perceived comfort/discomfort. Several papers follow the assumption that there is a relationship between self-reported discomfort and musculoskeletal injuries and that those injuries affect the perceived comfort; however, the theories relating comfort to products/processes and products/processes' design characteristics are rather underdeveloped. One of the most recent and interesting paper about comfort perception and its evaluation is the Vink-Hallbeck (2012) one in which the Moes' comfort perception model (2005) has been developed and improved. In our paper, a simplified model of comfort perception, that seems to work well with the Vink-Hallbeck one, has been proposed and takes into account four aspects that strongly affect the global comfort perception: (B)-User Biomechanics/Posture, (P)-Physiologic factor, (E)-Environment contribute, (C)-Cognitive factor. Each of these aspects can be split in sub-aspects that have to be taken into account in order to be evaluated and correlated to subjective comfort perception. This paper want to explain all those sub-aspects, analyze the state of the art about their evaluation and propose an easy-to-use framework for weighing and evaluating contributes coming from cognitive, postural and physiologic comfort perceptions (no environment's factors have been studied) to the global comfort perception.
In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good lev... more In HMI design, several parameters have to be correctly evaluated in order to guarantee a good level of safety and well-being of users (humans) and to avoid health problems like muscular-skeletal diseases. ISO Standards give us a good reference on Ergonomics and Comfort: ISO 11228 regulation deals with several parameters for evaluating Postural Ergonomics in manual loads’ push/pull, in manual loads’ lifting and carrying and in repetitive actions. Those parameters can be synthesized in a “Postural Load Index” that represents the Ergonomics level of examined posture. Nothing has be done, by ISO, in order to give a method/criterion for evaluating comfort performances of products and workplaces. More than 100.000 scientific papers dealing with comfort and discomfort can be easily found in main scientific databases and most of these speak about relationship between environmental factors (like temperature, humidity, applied forces etc.) and perceived comfort/discomfort. Several papers foll...
Applied Mechanics and Materials, 2013
Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, ... more Main purpose of this work is to show how easy and economics an ergonomic/comfort based approach, in re-design a manual assembly workplace, can be; authors, using a new comfort/ergonomic evaluation criterion, analyzed a workstation and identified the critical issues under ergonomic/comfort point of view and finally gave several guidelines to re-design the workplace, implementing minor modification, and improve work-safety, work-quality and productivity. The postural analysis was performed by non-invasive and especially inexpensive methods, based on cameras and video-recorder use and by photogrammetric analysis; DELMIA® DHM software has been used to perform all simulations; comfort analysis was performed by the software developed by researchers of Departments of Industrial Engineering of Salerno: CaMAN®. The test case is an automatic assembly machine that has been modeled and used for virtual postural analysis. Main results of this work can be found in a very good numerical/experiment...
Procedia Manufacturing, 2015
ABSTRACT What are the new trends in research for comfort evaluation and the objective and predict... more ABSTRACT What are the new trends in research for comfort evaluation and the objective and predictive techniques for quantifying and qualifying comfort perception by humans? This paper has attempted to answer this question in a wide literature review, whereby it is possible to highlight many partial aspects that have been studied successfully. Just a few researchers [1–3] have studied the problem of comfort perception and evaluation under a wider point of view. Nevertheless, some aspects seem not to have yet been taken into account. In a previous paper, the authors extended the Vink–Hallbeck model to build a comfort perception/evaluation matrix in which four kinds of comfort related to different humans’ perception were studied and linked to the whole environment’s characteristics. In the resultant perception-scheme and in the proposed “fusion rule” (for different kinds of perceived comfort/discomfort), one aspect that played a fundamental role in the final comfort/discomfort perception/evaluation was expectation. Expectation due to preconceived data (acquired or formed in the users’ minds) and the influence of the working environment, can act in terms of additive or subtractive factor in the comfort experience by altering the final comfort/discomfort perception and changing the subjective comfort/discomfort evaluation. This paper presents the results of expectation influence analysis on comfort evaluation. Using the placebo effect, authors conducted a wide experimental test with a wide sample of users, asking them to use and evaluate two identical mattresses that were dressed and described as two different products (the first one as a very cheap mattress and the second one as a high-level and expensive mattress). Differences between subjective evaluations have been statistically processed and correlated to anthropometric parameters to individuate and understand the role of expectation.