Appropriate integration of workers with physical limitations into a manual workplace – development of an assessment tool
- Authors: Pearson, Jessie T
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8209 , vital:21368
- Description: Background: People with physical limitations can contribute significantly to society and the economy, however, barriers to full and effective participation in the labour market often hinder decent employment. In light of this, placement decisions of impaired workers should be based on detailed information of the nature of the jobs available, as well as individual capabilities of the worker. An ergonomics approach to design attempts to achieve an appropriate balance between the capabilities of the worker and the requirements of the task and uses this balance to improve productivity and encourage physical and mental well-being, job satisfaction and safety. A specific analysis tool which can be applied to various workplaces and jobs, and provide information for decisions regarding placement of physically limited workers, will help to increase the percentage of correct placement in an appropriate workplace, resulting in optimum productivity and worker safety. Methods: An assessment tool which allows matching of job requirements and worker capabilities was developed based on a theoretical framework from Mattison and Goebel (2007), as well as principles defined by Almgren and Schaurig (2012) and Demura and Nakada (2010). The tool assesses range of motion, force and time components of the physical requirements of different tasks involved in the job, as well as movement capabilities and limitations of the worker. The tool was pilot tested in a case study with an above the knee amputee working at a research facility. Results: The tool successfully provided information regarding the matching of the work to the identified job. The output of the tool highlighted two tasks which would place the worker at risk due to physical requirements of the tasks being greater than movement capabilities of the worker. These tasks need to be further investigated to determine if accommodations can be made to assist the worker in safely performing the task, or if the job is not suitable for the worker. Conclusions: The tool developed was useful in providing information to inform appropriate placement of the physically limited worker. Further research needs to be done to validate and determine reliability of the tool.
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Assessing the physical fitness level of children with intellectual disability in the Grahamstown region of the Eastern Cape, and subsequently designing, implementing and evaluating the efficacy of an exercise intervention
- Authors: Parsons, Samantha Lee
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/19723 , vital:22478
- Description: Background: Extensive research has addressed physical fitness as an agent in promoting health and well-being; however, there is little research on this topic for special populations, such as individuals with intellectual disability and even less relating to the South African context. Children with intellectual disability attending special need schools in disadvantaged communities in the Eastern Cape have lacked the opportunity to participate in structured physical education programs. Implementing a solution to this problem was seen to be a challenge, due to the lack of informative research and available data. Aims: The purpose of this research was two-fold; firstly, it aimed to identify the physical fitness levels of the intellectually disabled children in the Grahamstown region of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa; and secondly, it aimed to implement and evaluate the efficacy of an exercise intervention programme on physical fitness in a local school for children with intellectual disability. Phase 1: The descriptive study compared basic anthropometric as well as physical fitness measures from a sample of participants with intellectual disability (n=29) with a comparable sample of typically developed children (n=25). There were 15 males and 14 females in the intellectually disabled sample group, with an average age of 10.69 ± 1.26 years, and the typically developed sample had 13 males and 12 females, with an average age of 10.51 ± 0.74 years. The anthropometric measures included stature and mass; while the health-related physical fitness components included cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, strength, body composition, and flexibility; and the skill-related physical fitness components were balance, agility, speed, power, coordination and reaction time. The results revealed that the children with intellectual disability were significantly shorter in stature and lighter in mass (p <0.001) compared to their typically developed peers. Muscular endurance and strength, balance, speed, power, coordination and reaction time were poorer among those with intellectual disabilities (p <0.05). Cardiorespiratory endurance, flexibility and agility were similar between groups. Results of the correlation analyses determined significant (p <0.05) relationships between certain health-related and/or skill-related physical fitness components, which were instrumental for selecting measures for Phase 2. The physical fitness components that had the most significant (p <0.05) correlations were speed with five significant correlations, both muscular endurance and balance with six, coordination with seven, and power with eight significant correlations of the eleven physical fitness components. The comparative results, in conjunction with the correlations, determined that the most suitable physical fitness components to be implemented in the exercise intervention for Phase 2 were muscular endurance, balance, and power. Phase 2: The intervention study was a case-control study (intervention group: n = 16; control group: n = 15), whereby the intervention group was exposed to an 8-week multi-modal exercise intervention training muscular endurance, balance and power. Pre-and post-intervention measures were performed using the same eleven physical fitness tests as in Phase 1. The interaction effects and effect sizes were determined and the results showed significant improvements and large effect sizes for the intervention group’s performance of muscular endurance (p=0.026; d=0.617) and power (p<0.000; d=0.999), whereas no significant changes were found for balance. Furthermore, the exercise intervention also impacted the overall level of physical fitness, as significant changes were found for cardiorespiratory endurance (p<0.001; d=0.98), strength (p=0.021; d=0.654) and flexibility (p=0.032; d=586). In conclusion, the exercise intervention was effective for improving the intellectually disabled participants’ muscular endurance and power but not found effective for balance.
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The effects of the type of rest breaks on return-to-task performance in semi-automated tasks with varying complexities
- Authors: Hoyi, Zandile
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Rest periods , Rest periods -- Physiological effect , Human-robot interaction , Aeronautics -- Human factors , Human engineering , Drowsiness
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/44490 , vital:25412
- Description: Automation in the aviation industry is acknowledged as a useful tool in reducing pilot workload (Hoh, Smith & Hinton, 1987; Beringer & Harris Jr., 1999). Typically, the role of the pilot (operator) shifts from active participation in a process to a task of monitoring the system with the resumption of control should the automation ‘fail’ (Byrne & Parasuraman, 1996). Unfortunately, the skills necessary to do so would likely degrade from non-use, during this process (Landry, 2012). This project investigates the “attentional demands” for the human operator during interaction with semi-automated operations of the flight. According to Dr Abbott (1996), FAA human factors specialist, one of the problems causing disharmony between crews and their automated systems is the incorrect upset recovery, owing to the human being out-of-the-loop (OOTL) from the system. Recovery, or rather return to task, is the ability of the pilot to loop back into control, once situational awareness has been decreased due to lack of alertness and a decrease in arousal. Different types of rest tasks are commonly prescribed fatigue countermeasures in the industrial setting and have been showed to elicit beneficial effects on prolonged human performance. Understanding the effects of different rest break activity and time out-of-the-loop during semi-automated flying on return to task performance has been adequately studied, thus highlighting its importance in the context of flight safety. The present study requested participants to perform a tracking task in a laboratory where they changed from activity (30 minutes) to a break (2 vs. 30 minutes) and back to the activity (20 minutes). The task varied in the complexity of the activity (pure tracking vs. tracking plus memory plus rule-based decision making), the type of break (passive rest vs. actively supervising) and the duration of the break (2 minutes vs. 30 minutes). Performance was measured as effective response time in the tracking task and number of correct responses to secondary cognitive tasks. Physiological measures included heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV- time and frequency-domain), eye blink frequency and duration. The Karolinska Sleepiness Scale was used as a subjective measure. With regards to the most appropriate rest break tasks, the study concluded that active, administrative tasks, which allowed the operator to maintain some form of situational awareness by monitoring the automated system, achieved favourable effects of being more alert than the passive rest break of being disengaged from the system. In terms of the most appropriate rest break durations, the shorter duration of being out-of-the-loop from controlling the system proved to be more advantageous than the longer out-of-the-loop duration. In looking at the workload levels of arousal, the results suggest that the higher workload level is better at maintaining the alertness of operators. This study functions as a foundational framework for future investigations around the topic of human-automation interaction, looking specifically at return-to-task performance.
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