Há uma percepção de que as vibrações geradas pelo equipamento na área da preparação de madeira de uma instalação industrial são crescentes desde o início da operação. Devido ao fato de que as vibrações podem afetar tanto o corpo humano e edifícios estas começaram a se tornar uma preocupação para os trabalhadores expostos. Uma revisão das principais regras e procedimentos para avaliar a vibração aos quais está exposto o corpo humano e avaliar se isso afeta o seu conforto ou afetar a sua saúde é feita neste trabalho. Através deste estudo busca-se terminar o grau de exposição existente, para a qual seguem-se os procedimentos da ISO 2631 e BS 6472, 2008. Uma vez que estes valores são medidos, o grau de exposição dos trabalhadores é determinado de acordo com as regras existentes, verificando se há um risco para a saúde e se são necessárias ações para reduzir o nível de vibração recebido por eles. No Uruguai não existe uma norma afirmando os limites de vibração aceitáveis e assim os limites da Directiva 2002/44 /EC, ISO 2631, 1997, e BS 6472, 2008, serão tomadas neste estudo. Os valores de aceleração rms obtidos nas medições encontram-se num intervalo entre 0,028 m/s² e 0,9213 m/s², sendo a maioria delas muito inferiores aos propostos pelas normas anteriores para os valores limites de que venham afetar o conforto ou saúde das pessoas. No entanto, dependendo do tempo de exposição, alguns dos locais apresentam níveis de vibração que são considerados problemáticos. / There is a perception that vibrations generated by machines in a wood preparation facility are have been growing since the start of operations. Because vibration may affect not only the human body but also surroundings buildings, this became an issue and concern to the workers in the facility that are exposed of such vibrations. A review of the existing main standards and procedures to evaluate human vibration exposure is performed and conclude if this affects health and comfort on the human body in some workplaces at the facility. Through this experimental study the existing exposure magnitude is determined following ISO 2631, 1997, and BS 6472, 2008, standard procedure specifications. Once the surveyed values are measured, following the existing standards this allows to determine the degree of exposure of workers, if there is health risk and if actions are necessary to mitigate the levels. In Uruguay there is no standard indicating the threshold values for vibration exposure. Therefore, this will be the reason of the present study using Directive 2002/44/EC, ISO 2631, 1997, y BS 6472, 2008, threshold limit values. The rms acceleration values obtained in the measurements were in a range between 0.028 m/s² and 0.9213 m/s², most of them being well below the values proposed by the standards mentioned for the limits of affectation to the comfort or health of people. However, depending on the exposure time, some of the sites present vibration levels considered uncomfortable. / Existe la percepción de que las vibraciones generadas por los equipos en el área de Preparación de Madera de una planta industrial han ido creciendo desde el arranque de las operaciones. Debido al hecho de que las vibraciones pueden afectar tanto al cuerpo humano como a los edificios ha comenzado a ser un motivo de preocupación para los trabajadores expuestos. Se realiza una revisión de las principales normas y procedimientos existentes para evaluar la vibración a la que se exponen dichos trabajadores en determinados puestos de trabajo de la planta industrial y determinar si esta afecta su comodidad o afecta su salud. Mediante este estudio experimental se busca determinar el grado de exposición existente, por lo que se siguen los procedimientos de la Norma ISO 2631, 1997, y BS 6472, 2008. Una vez relevados estos valores, se determina siguiendo las normas existentes, el grado de exposición de los trabajadores, si existe riesgo para la salud y si son necesarias acciones para disminuir el nivel de vibración recibido por los mismos. En Uruguay no existe una norma que indique valores límite de exposición por lo que se utilizan en el presente estudio los límites de la Directiva 2002/44/EC, ISO 2631, 1997, y BS 6472, 2008. Los valores de aceleración rms obtenidos en las mediciones se encontraron en un rango entre 0,028 m/s² y 0,9213 m/s², estando la mayoría de ellos muy por debajo de los valores propuestos por las normas mencionadas para los límites de afectación a la comodidad o la salud de las personas. Sin embargo, dependiendo del tiempo de exposición, algunos de los sitios presentan niveles de vibración considerados incómodos.

The goal of this project was to make a shirt with three embedded IMU sensors (Inertial Measurement Unit) that can measure a person’s movements throughout an entire workday. This can provide information about a person’s daily routine movements and aid in finding activities which can lead to work-related injuries in order to prevent them. The objective was hence to construct a sensor fusion framework that could retrieve the measurements from these three sensors and to create an estimate of the human body orientation and to estimate the angular movements of the arms. This was done using an extended Kalman filter which uses the accelerometer and magnetometer values to retrieve the direction of gravity and north respectively, thus providing a coordinate system that can be trusted in the long term. Since this method is sensitive to quick movements and magnetic disturbance, gyroscope measurements were used to help pick up quick movements. The gyroscope measurements need to be integrated in order to get the angle, which means that we get accumulated errors. This problem is reduced by the fact that we retrieve a correct long-term reference without accumulated errors from the accelerometer and magnetometer measurements. The Kalman filter estimates three quaternions describing the orientation of the upper body and the two arms. These quaternions were then translated into Euler angles in order to get a meaningful description of the orientations. The measurements were stored on a memory card or broadcast on both the local net and the Internet. These data were either used offline in Matlab or shown in real-time in the program Unity 3D. In the latter case the user could see that a movement gives rise to a corresponding movement on a skeleton model on the screen.

In this thesis, an internal mobile phone antenna with a distributed matching circuit for eight-band LTE/WWAN operation is presented. By selecting proper dimensions of the distributed matching circuit, the bandwidth of the proposed antenna can be greatly enhanced. Good radiation characteristics are also obtained, and the proposed antenna occupies only 60 ¡Ñ 10 ¡Ñ 3 mm^3 and is very suitable for slim mobile phone applications. Effects of the human body including user¡¦s head and hand are also studied, and the SAR and HAC issues are simulated and analyzed in this thesis.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Media, Music, and Cultural Studies, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 303-332.

Presented is a radiometric sensor and associated electromagnetic propagation models, developed to facilitate non-invasive core body temperature extraction. The system has been designed as a close-proximity sensor to detect thermal emissions radiated from deep-seated tissue 1 cm – 3 cm inside the human body. The sensor is intended for close proximity health monitoring applications, with potential implications for deployment into the improved astronaut liquid cooling garment (LCG). The sensor is developed for high accuracy and resolution. Therefore, certain design issues that distort the close proximity measurement have been identified and resolved. An integrated cavity-backed slot antenna (CBSA) is designed to account for antenna performance degradation, which occurs in the near field of the human body. A mathematical Non-Contact Model (NCM) is subsequently used to correlate the observed brightness temperature to the subsurface temperature, while accounting for artifacts induced by the sensor’s remote positioning from the specimen. In addition a tissue propagation model (TPM) is derived to model incoherent propagation of thermal emissions through the human body, and accounts for dielectric mismatch and losses throughout the intervening tissue layers. The measurement test bed is comprised of layered phantoms configured to mimic the electromagnetic characteristics of a human stomach volume; hence defines the human core model (HCM). A drop in core body temperature is simulated via the HCM, as the sensor monitors the brightness temperature at an offset distance of approximately 7 mm. The data is processes through the NCM and TPM; yielding percent error values < 3%. This study demonstrates that radiometric sensors are indeed capable of subsurface tissue monitoring from the near field of the body. However, the following components are vital to achieving an accurate measurement, and are addressed in this work: 1) the antenna must be designed for optimum functionality in close proximity to biological media; 2) a multilayer phantom model is needed to accurately emulate the point of clinical diagnosis across the tissue depth; 3) certain parameters of the non-contact measurement must be known to a high degree of accuracy; and 4) a tissue propagation model is necessary to account for electromagnetic propagation effects through the stratified tissue.

Le thème de ce mémoire de Maîtrise en droit est « La dignité humaine: limite à la brevetabilité du corps humain». Dans ce travail, nous avons tenté d'apporter une contribution à un débat des plus importants de ce début du 21 e siècle. Deux parties composent ce mémoire. La première partie vise à présenter la thématique de la brevetabilité du corps humain. Elle fait l'analyse non seulement des normes juridiques interdisant la brevetabilité du corps humain, mais aussi elle se penche sur le corps humain comme source d'inventions brevetables. Dans la première sous-section, notre analyse porte sur l'étude des documents normatifs d'intérêt international, régional et national. Le modèle et les normes de la Communauté européenne ont largement retenu notre attention alors que le cas des États-Unis, du Canada et surtout de la France nous servait de guide de réflexion pour mieux comprendre l'état du droit au Canada. Par une argumentation serrée nous avons conclu cette partie en affirmant que le corps humain n'est pas brevetable. La prohibition de la brevetabilité du corps humain s'impose comme universelle. La dignité humaine a constitué un élément déterminant de cette prohibition. Ce qui nous a permis, dans la deuxième sous-section de considérer le brevetage de l'ADN. Après avoir présenté les trois critères juridiques de la brevetabilité, à savoir la nouveauté, l'utilité et l'inventivité, nous avons appliqué ces critères à l'ADN. Il s'est avéré que c'est à bon droit que la plupart des pays accordent le brevet sur l'ADN. Mais cet état de droit pose des problèmes sur le plan des valeurs éthiques. Il a notamment comme conséquence de relativiser la dignité humaine. Ces dernières considérations éthiques nous ont conduits à étendre à l'ADN les critères juridiques de la brevetabilité vus dans la première partie. Pour nous prononcer adéquatement sur ce sujet combien délicat, il a fallu considérer la question de la brevetabilité de l'ADN chez les vivants, depuis l'affaire Chakrabarty en 1980, aux États-Unis, en passant par la Directive européenne de 1998, l'affaire Harvard College au Canada jusqu'à Myriad Genetics Inc. En droit, la brevetabilité de l'ADN ne fait plus de doute. Mais elle continue de soulever des « gènes» sur le plan éthique. L'inquiétude que suscite la pente glissante nous a amenés, dans la deuxième partie, à nous pencher sur la brevetabilité dans son rapport avec la dignité humaine. La première sous-section se voulait une analyse permettant de montrer que la dignité humaine est une valeur absolue et inconditionnelle. Si nous considérons cette valeur comme absolue, il devient impossible de breveter le corps humain dans son ensemble. Par contre, en brevetant l'ADN humain, nos institutions se trouvent à relativiser la dignité humaine. C'est ce que la deuxième sous-section tendait à montrer. Soulignons que cette deuxième sous-section a été conçue également comme une conclusion. Elle s'articule autour notamment de la dignité humaine comme principe de précaution. / "Patentability of the Human Body and of DNA through a comparative, ethical and legal study" is at the heart of a crucial debate of our time regarding the effect of biotechnology on human nature. Hereby, we have attempted to bring a contribution to the debate. In the first part of our work, we developed the concept and the legal criterion of patentability. We then presented a comparative study based on normative documents from international, regional and national sources. Based on the norms defined by the European community, as well as documents from the US, Canada and France, it is clear that the human body is not patentable. In fact, this prohibition appears to be widely recognized. At the core of such a prohibition lies the concept of human dignity, a concept that we proceed to analyze both legally and ethically. It follows that the idea of patenting a human body violates human dignity as well as the integrity and freedom of the person. However, the same cannot be said about the patentability of the DNA. By applying the legal .criteria prevalent to patentability of "human parts," as they appear in Sections 1 and 4 of our thesis, and after considering the debate raised by Chakrabarty in the US, the European Directive of 1998, the Harvard College case in Canada and that of Myriad Genetics, one sees that patentability of the DNA is accepted legally in spite of its ambivalent statutes and the ethical issues. There is no conclusion as this matter is an ongoing subject of public and individual concern. To avoid sliding down a road leading to the patentability of the human body as a whole, one searches for safeguards, such as the "plastic" concept of human dignity.

L’intérêt marqué porté actuellement aux recherches NBIC (nano-bio-info-cognitivo technologies) visant l’optimisation des capacités humaines augure d’un profond bouleversement dans nos représentations du corps humain et du rapport humain-machine. Tour à tour, des travaux issus des domaines du génie génétique, de la pharmacologie, des biotechnologies ou des nanotechnologies nous promettent un corps moins sujet à la maladie, mieux « adapté » et surtout plus malléable. Cette construction en laboratoire d’un corps amélioré fait amplement écho aux préoccupations contemporaines concernant la santé parfaite, le processus de vieillissement, l’inaptitude, l’apparence, la performance, etc. En vue d’analyser les transformations qu’induisent ces recherches sur les représentations du corps, nous avons construit un modèle théorique appuyé, d’une part, sur des travaux en sociologie du corps et, d’autre part, sur des travaux en épistémologie des sciences. Puis, en scrutant différents textes de vulgarisation scientifique produits par des chercheurs transhumanistes – militant ouvertement en faveur d’une optimisation radicale des capacités humaines par le biais des technosciences –, il a été observé que les représentations du corps s’organisent autour de trois principaux noyaux. Le corps humain est présenté, dans ce discours, comme étant à la fois informationnel, technologiquement perfectible et obsolète. Cette représentation tripartite du corps permet aux transhumanistes d’ériger leur modèle d’action (i.e. amélioration des capacités physiques, intellectuelles, sensitives, émotionnelles, etc.) à titre de nécessité anthropologique. À leurs yeux, l’amélioration des conditions humaines doit passer par une mutation contrôlée de la biologie (i.e. une hybridation avec la machine) du fait que le corps serait « inadapté » au monde contemporain. Ainsi, les promesses NBIC, une fois récupérées par les chercheurs transhumanistes, se voient exacerbées et prennent une tonalité péremptoire. Ceci contribue vivement à la promotion du posthumain ou du cyborg, soit d’un individu transformé dans l’optique d’être plus robuste et intelligent, de moduler sa sensitivité et ses états émotifs et de vivre plus longtemps, voire indéfiniment. Enfin, situé à mi-chemin entre la science et la science-fiction, ce projet est qualifié de techno-prophétie en ce qu’il produit d’innombrables prévisions basées sur les avancées technoscientifiques actuelles et potentielles. Afin d’accroître l’acceptabilité sociale de leur modèle d’action, les transhumanistes ne font pas uniquement appel à la (potentielle) faisabilité technique; ils s’appuient également sur des valeurs socialement partagées, telles que l’autodétermination, la perfectibilité humaine, l’égalité, la liberté ou la dignité. Néanmoins, la lecture qu’ils en font est parfois surprenante et rompt très souvent avec les conceptions issues de la modernité. À leur avis, le perfectionnement humain doit s’opérer par le biais des technosciences (non des institutions sociales), sur le corps même des individus (non sur l’environnement) et en vertu de leur « droit » à l’autodétermination compris comme un droit individuel d’optimiser ses capacités. De même, les technosciences doivent, disent-ils, être démocratisées afin d’en garantir l’accessibilité, de réduire les inégalités biologiques et de permettre à chacun de renforcer son sentiment d’identité et d’accomplissement. L’analyse du discours transhumaniste nous a donc permis d’observer leurs représentations du corps de même que la résonance culturelle du projet qu’ils proposent. / The current interest in NBIC research (nano-bio-info-cognitivo technologies), which are intended to optimize human capacities, points to deep-seated change in both our representation of the human body and the human-machine relationship. Again and again, the work coming out of genetic engineering, pharmacology, the biotechnologies and the nanotechnologies promises a human body that is less subject to illness, better “adapted” and, especially, more malleable. This in-laboratory construction of an improved body echoes contemporary concern about perfect health, the ageing process, inaptitude, appearance, performance, etc. To analyze the transformations this research causes in the representation of the body, we built a theoretical framework supported by studies both in the sociology of the body and in the epistemology of the sciences. Then, examining different popularized scientific documents written by transhumanist researchers—who openly advocate a radical optimization of human capacities via the technosciences—we observed that representations of the body pivot around three main axes. The human body is presented in this discourse as being informational, technologically perfectible and obsolete. This threefold representation of the body suggests that transhumanists’ plan of action (i.e. improving humans’ physical, intellectual, sensorial, emotional, etc., capacities) is an anthropological necessity. In their view, the improvement of human conditions means a controlled biological mutation (i.e., hybridization with the machine) because the body is “unadapted” to the contemporary reality. Thus, once adopted by transhumanist researchers, the possibilities of NBIC are taken to their extreme and given a peremptory tone. This actively contributes to promoting the posthuman, also called the cyborg—an individual transformed to be more robust and intelligent, to modulate its sensitivity and emotional states, and live longer, even indefinitely. Situated half-way between science and science fiction, this project is said to be “techno-prophesy” as it generates countless previsions based on current and potential technoscientific advances. To make their action plan more socially acceptable, transhumanists not only rely on its (potential) technical feasibility, but on socially shared values, such as self-determination, human perfectibility, equality, liberty and dignity. Nevertheless, their interpretation is sometimes surprising and very frequently breaks with notions that have grown out of modernity. In their opinion, human perfection must occur through the technosciences (and not via social institutions) directly on individuals’ bodies (and not on their surroundings) and according to their “right” to self-determination, which is seen as an individual’s right to optimize his or her capacities. Similarly, they maintain that the technosciences must be made democratic to guarantee accessibility, reduce biological inequalities and allow all humans to reinforce their identity and sense of accomplishment. This analysis of transhumanists’ discourse has thus allowed us to observe their representation of the body as well as the cultural resonance of the project they put forth.

This thesis is constructed between a double argument. The first is a feminist argument that the female body may be viewed as a tool for cultural reinscription against dominant structures of subjectivity and representation that have rendered women the common flesh of art, without recourse to their own representational economy. Secondly, it is argued that the female body can never be recuperated as an essential, original form. That is, there is no essential female body or nature to be represented. In this sense, the body is artificial, or not natural, and so can be re-presented, specifically in feminist performance art, in order to rework radically the relationship between language, subjectivity and desire. The research undertaken is genealogical and also looks towards the future: deconstructing the historical imperatives that have produced 'the female body' and suggesting ways in which feminist performance art may redefine the ways in which female flesh is represented. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Using a framework of feminism and poststructuralism, this thesis aims to interrogate the utilisation of the body as a contested site of struggle for meaning in contemporary theatre dance in South Africa. "Both feminism, as a politics, and dance, as a cultural practice, share a concern for the body" (Brown, 1983: 198). A feminist analysis of dance can offer a tool to interrogate the dominant discourses of gender and race that surround and permeate both the female and male body in contemporary theatre dance. The body is not a neutral site onto which cultural codes and conventions are inscribed, as the dancer's body is always marked in the physical sense of gender and race. This thesis aims to decode the body and examine how the discourses of gender and race are embodied by the moving body on stage - specifically in the South African (KwaZulu-Natal) context. By a feminist appropriation of the poststructural endeavour, this research will look at how the body, as discourse, can be interrogated to examine how the interconnected discourses of gender and race surround and permeate the moving body. The utilisation of a poststructural paradigm will aid in the examination of how the dominant discourses of gender and race are hegemonically imposed onto the body. Poststructuralism also offers an understanding that there exist counter-discourses that have the ability to resist the dominant discourses of gender and race. This notion becomes important to the study of contemporary theatre dance as an art form. This thesis will examine how South African (Durban-based) contemporary theatre dance choreographers explore the body's potential to be subversive in performance. The thesis will focus on the body's ability to interrogate the discourses that operate in its surroundings and permeate its lived reality. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

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