Office chairs are becoming a modern status symbol in the workplace. Many individuals are seated on office chairs for most of the working day. As a result of using poorly designed chairs injury and discomfort are frequently experienced, most particularly lower back pain. Correct design of chairs is imperative, and must be user-centered. The aim of this investigation has been to gather anthropometric dimensions characteristic of the South African population, as this information has not been widely assimilated to date. Once collated, this information could be used in the design of an ergonomically correct office chair, suitable for the unique characteristics of the South African working population. Anthropometric dimensions were collected from 683 South Africans (comprising 448 South African females and 235 South African males) from pre-selected companies in major centres in South Africa (Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg, Durban, East London, Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town). Measurements included participants’ personal information (age, sex, home language and ethnic group), basic anthropometric measures (stature, shoulder height, mass, and waist and hip circumference) as well as specific measures of fit of the individual to the specially designed, adjustable chair. Of the 448 females, 317 were Black females, 77 were White females, 35 were Coloured females and 19 were Indian/Asian females. Of the 235 males, 112 were Black males, 79 were White males, 26 were Coloured males and 18 were Indian/Asian males. Office chair dimensions for each ethnic group were represented and differences were noted. A comparison between a current office chair’s dimensions and the South African sample office chair’s dimensions indicated modifications that would need to be constructed to suit the South African sample. The conventional office chair is still the most widely accepted office chair due to its stability and support structures that maintain the correct sitting posture of the user. An ergonomic office chair needs to incorporate anthropometric dimensions worldwide.

A incorporação da informática nas atividades corriqueiras da execução de desenhos técnicos provocou uma verdadeira revolução nas práticas de ensino destes conteúdos. As pranchetas foram substituídas por computadores, alterando a prática do ensino e o modo de aprender, criando a necessidade de projetar um novo tipo de sala de aula, voltada a atender às novas exigências. Esta pesquisa diagnostica os problemas e identifica as diretrizes que devem nortear este projeto. Para tanto, foram entrevistados professores da área de Desenho Técnico, fabricante de móveis, técnicos em condicionamento ambiental e aplicados questionários aos estudantes deste conteúdo na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. O resultado desta pesquisa é um conjunto de diretrizes que se apresenta para auxiliar aos projetistas, fornecendo uma orientação sobre as principais variáveis envolvidas. / The integration of informatics in simple activities of technical drawing performance has led to a real revolution in the teaching practices of these contents. The drawing boards have been substituted by computers, making a change in teaching practice and in the way of learning, giving rise to the necessity of projecting a new kind of classroom aiming to fulfill the new demands. This research recognizes the problems and identifies the guidelines that lead the way to this project. In order to do that interviews with Technical Drawing professors, furniture manufacturers and environmental conditioning technicians were conducted, as well as the use of questionnaires with students of this subject at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The result of this research is a set of guidelines that is presented to help designers, indicating to them trends concerning the main variables involved.

p. 1-149 / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2013-02-26T17:28:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 777.pdf: 1925078 bytes, checksum: f9f4bd60ba5c3ae44306580394b3a093 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Tatiana Lima(tatianasl@ufba.br) on 2013-03-13T20:36:22Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 777.pdf: 1925078 bytes, checksum: f9f4bd60ba5c3ae44306580394b3a093 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-03-13T20:36:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 777.pdf: 1925078 bytes, checksum: f9f4bd60ba5c3ae44306580394b3a093 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Estatísticas e dados divulgados por instituições particulares e governamentais têm comprovado o número cada vez mais preocupante de acidentes de trabalho e de acidentes com instalações industriais, afetando diversos setores governamentais, da sociedade civil, e da iniciativa privada. No primeiro caso, os altos custos de indenizações e de recuperação de pessoas acidentadas comprometem, muitas vezes, verbas que deveriam estar sendo aplicadas em ações preventivas e de melhoria social da população. No segundo caso, acidentes que provocam lesões incapacitantes e, em alguns casos, até mesmo a morte do trabalhador, trazem danos irreversíveis a sua família. E, por último, com os acidentes, a iniciativa privada tem perdido muitos dos seus investimentos nos trabalhadores, além de sofrer danos a suas instalações e processos, às vezes causados em função de acidentes. Apesar da evolução observada na tecnologia dos componentes dos sistemas e equipamentos, onde se investe cada vez mais em sistemas confiáveis e de alta performance, capazes de minimizar e, muitas vezes, eliminar as falhas na operação de sistemas e processos, estes sistemas e equipamentos, apesar de automatizados, mantém a necessidade da interface com o homem. Neste sentido, infelizmente, não se observa o mesmo avanço nas pesquisas e ferramentas para minimizar a probabilidade de ocorrência do erro humano na operação dos sistemas e equipamentos, preservando as condições de trabalho adequadas e garantindo a observação dos valores humanos no ambiente de trabalho. Neste trabalho, avalia-se a influência dos erros e fatores humanos na ocorrência de acidentes na Braskem - Unidade de Insumos Básicos, e propõe-se uma metodologia para a avaliação do erro humano através das ferramentas de análise de risco e análise de acidentes. Consideram-se, também, os fatores humanos envolvidos durante a elaboração de projetos, a fim de que os sistemas e equipamentos projetados tornem-se mais confiáveis e seguros, diminuindo a probabilidade de acidentes com as pessoas, instalações e meio ambiente. Espera-se, com esta pesquisa, contribuir não só para os processos de evolução técnicos nesta área, como também, através desta, estar contribuindo para que trabalhadores voltem para suas casas como vieram ao trabalho, ou seja, com a sua integridade física, psicológica e emocional preservada. / Salvador

A aviação agrícola é uma atividade importante que afeta diretamente a preservação das florestas, da horticultura e agricultura, tendo presença marcante na cultura de arroz no sul do Brasil. As condições atuais de demanda e desenvolvimento, tornam a aviação agrícola, de fundamental importância para acompanhar as necessidades de crescimento da agricultura. De forma geral, este serviço especializado é feito por pequenas empresas e em alguns casos por pilotos agrícolas autônomos. Estas empresas, assim como os pilotos agrícolas, têm diversos problemas relacionados com o seu trabalho, que de certa forma são alvo de vários estudos do setor. Estes são focados principalmente no desenvolvimento de tecnologias voltadas para o aumento da produtividade e da qualidade de aplicação dos insumos agrícolas. Estas tecnologias criam uma mudança nas condições de trabalho, principalmente quanto a forma em que os pilotos agrícolas executam suas tarefas. Estas mudanças por sua vez, não são acompanhadas de muitos estudos que relacionem as novas condições de trabalho com os possíveis efeitos na Saúde e Segurança do Trabalho (SST) dos pilotos agrícolas. Assim, este estudo objetiva a compreensão de parte dos problemas presentes no ambiente de trabalho dos pilotos agrícolas, analisando a exposição ao ruído ambiental e a vibração de corpo inteiro, na realização do trabalho real. Além disto, é listada uma série de outros fatores de exposição relacionados ao trabalho, que podem potencializar ou atenuar os efeitos da exposição ao ruído e vibrações. Os resultados apresentados na primeira etapa deste estudo mostram uma série de fatores de exposição, e, os efeitos causados por estes na SST dos pilotos agrícolas, conforme o que é de conhecimento científico, e, conforme a perspectiva dos pilotos. Em um segundo momento, o trabalho se concentra nas condições de exposição ao ruído ambiental e exposição as vibrações de corpo inteiro, onde é constatado que os níveis de exposição a ambos os fatores estão muito acima do que é normalizado. Apesar destes resultados, é importante a condução de novos estudos direcionados para a evolução dos efeitos na SST dos pilotos agrícolas nas condições de trabalho atuais. / The agricultural aviation is an important activity that directly affects the preservation of forests, horticulture and agriculture having a strong presence in the rice crop in southern Brazil. The current conditions of demand and development, make agricultural aviation fundamentally important to follow the growing needs of agriculture. Overall, this specialized service is made by small companies and sometimes by autonomous agricultural pilots. These companies, and also the agricultural pilots, have several problems with their work, which somehow are the target of many studies. These are mostly focused on the development of technologies for increasing productivity and improving the quality of the agricultural inputs application. These technologies create a change in working conditions, especially regarding how the agricultural pilots perform their tasks. On the other hand, these changes were not followed by many studies that relate the new working conditions and the possible effects for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) of agricultural pilots. So, this study aims to understand some of the problems present in the work environment of agricultural pilots, analyzing exposure to noise and whole body vibration, performing the work. In addition, is listed a number of other exposure factors related to work, which may increase or reduce the effects of noise exposure and vibration exposure. The results presented in the first stage of this study show a series of exposure factors, and the effects caused by these on the OHS of agricultural pilots, whichever is scientific knowledge, and, as the prospect of pilots. At a second stage, the work focuses on the conditions of noise exposure and whole body vibration exposure, where it is found that the levels of exposure to both factors are far above what is allowed by the standards. Despite these results, it is important to conduct further studies directed to the monitor of OHS problems evolution of agricultural pilots with today working conditions.

abstract: Humans and robots need to work together as a team to accomplish certain shared goals due to the limitations of current robot capabilities. Human assistance is required to accomplish the tasks as human capabilities are often better suited for certain tasks and they complement robot capabilities in many situations. Given the necessity of human-robot teams, it has been long assumed that for the robotic agent to be an effective team member, it must be equipped with automated planning technologies that helps in achieving the goals that have been delegated to it by their human teammates as well as in deducing its own goal to proactively support its human counterpart by inferring their goals. However there has not been any systematic evaluation on the accuracy of this claim. In my thesis, I perform human factors analysis on effectiveness of such automated planning technologies for remote human-robot teaming. In the first part of my study, I perform an investigation on effectiveness of automated planning in remote human-robot teaming scenarios. In the second part of my study, I perform an investigation on effectiveness of a proactive robot assistant in remote human-robot teaming scenarios. Both investigations are conducted in a simulated urban search and rescue (USAR) scenario where the human-robot teams are deployed during early phases of an emergency response to explore all areas of the disaster scene. I evaluate through both the studies, how effective is automated planning technology in helping the human-robot teams move closer to human-human teams. I utilize both objective measures (like accuracy and time spent on primary and secondary tasks, Robot Attention Demand, etc.) and a set of subjective Likert-scale questions (on situation awareness, immediacy etc.) to investigate the trade-offs between different types of remote human-robot teams. The results from both the studies seem to suggest that intelligent robots with automated planning capability and proactive support ability is welcomed in general. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2015

abstract: This thesis explores the human factors effects pilots have when controlling the aircraft during the takeoff phase of flight. These variables come into play in the transitory phase from ground roll to flight, and in the initiation of procedures to abort a takeoff during the ground run. The FAA provides regulations for manufacturers and operators to follow, ensuring safe manufacture of aircraft and pilots that fly without endangering the passengers; however, details regarding accounting of piloting variability are lacking. Creation of a numerical simulation allowed for the controlled variation of isolated piloting procedures in order to evaluate effects on field performance. Reduced rotation rates and delayed reaction times were found to cause significant increases in field length requirements over values published in the AFM. A pilot survey was conducted to evaluate common practices for line pilots in the field, which revealed minimum regulatory compliance is exercised with little to no feedback on runway length requirements. Finally, observation of pilots training in a CRJ-200 FTD gathered extensive information on typical piloting timings in the cockpit. AEO and OEI takeoffs were observed, as well as RTOs. Pilots showed large variability in procedures and timings resulting in significant inconsistency in runway distances used as well as V-speed compliance. The observed effects from pilot timing latency correlated with the numerical simulation increased field length outputs. Variability in piloting procedures results in erratic field performance that deviates from AFM published values that invite disaster in an aircraft operating near its field performance limitations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Human Systems Engineering 2017

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