• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.157-165
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the importance of developing slim seats with ergonomic design to improve seat comfort and expand the interior space. Two seats were used for the experiment: a sample seat designed based on hip shape and spinal alignment and a normal seat with a flat design without curves. Subjects sat in both the sample seat and a normal seat applied to the vehicle simulator and the experiment was conducted. The next part of the experiment was conducted in two different postures: a driving posture and a relaxed posture. The subjects filled out a comfort questionnaire immediately after sitting and after 30 minutes. The results showed that the comfort in the sample seat was found to be more comfortable than the normal seat. However, no significant difference was noted for the relaxation posture. Pressure distribution was also recorded immediately after sitting and after 30 minutes. In the case of pressure distribution, it was confirmed that the pressure in the sample seat was more evenly distributed in both the driving and relaxed postures than in the normal seat. The results showed that the ergonomically designed sample seat greatly improved seating comfort and pressure distribution compared to the normal seat, which is a general vehicle seat design.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.3 s.61
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• pp.85-94
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• 2005

Most of product designers use 3D CAD system as a inevitable design tool nowadays and many new products are developed through a concurrent engineering process. However, it is very difficult for novice designers to get the sense of reality from modeling objects shown in the computer screens. Such a intangibility problem comes from the lack of haptic interactions and contextual information about the real space because designers tend to do 3D modeling works only in a virtual space of 3D CAD system. To address this problem, this research investigate the possibility of a interactive quantified structure simulation for product design using AR(augmented reality) which can register a 3D CAD modeling object on the real space. We built a quantified structure simulation system based on AR and conducted a series of experiments to measure how accurately human perceive and adjust the size of virtual objects under varied experimental conditions in the AR environment. The experiment participants adjusted a virtual cube to a reference real cube within 1.3% relative error(5.3% relative StDev). The results gave the strong evidence that the participants can perceive the size of a virtual object very accurately. Furthermore, we found that it is easier to perceive the size of a virtual object in the condition of presenting plenty of real reference objects than few reference objects, and using LCD panel than HMD. We tried to apply the simulation system to identify preference characteristics for the appearance design of a home-service robot as a case study which explores the potential application of the system. There were significant variances in participants' preferred characteristics about robot appearance and that was supposed to come from the lack of typicality of robot image. Then, several characteristic groups were segmented by duster analysis. On the other hand, it was interesting finding that participants have significantly different preference characteristics between robot with arm and armless robot and there was a very strong correlation between the height of robot and arm length as a human body.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.65-69
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• 2009

Purpose: Recently incidence of VDT syndrome has gradually increased as extensive use of computers. VDT syndrome reported by VDT workers include musculoskeletal disorder, neuropsychiatric disoders and eye symptoms such as eye strain, tired eyes, irritation and blurred vision. The environmental factors of VDT syndrome include electromagnetic waves, size, brightness and lighting of computer screen, height of a monitor and a worktable, working hours, kind of task, distance between screen and workers, indoor humidity and temperature, indoor air contamination and ventilation. In this study, we investigated the environmental factors related to body symptoms and health effects included in VDT syndrome. Methods: Study subjects were total 120 persons (54 male, 66 female) with age from 19 to 28. We surveyed the body symptoms and physical discomfort when doing an activity in a short distance such as reading book or paper, computer work. The questionnaire included main body symptoms, self-consciousness symptoms of eye, satisfaction of working environment, pain of the wrist when using keyboard and mouse. Results: Most of people (70%) felt physical pain from long time work of computer, paper, electrical apparatus. They mainly complained pain of neck and low back (57.1%), eye (45.2%) and head (31%). With the environmental factors, 78.3% of the subjects complaint pain of eye from inappropriate illumination. Most of the symptoms included 'eye fatigue'(38.3%), 'dryness of eye'(31.9%) and 'blurred vision'(23.7%). Subjects in this study complained discomfort of their chairs and most of them experienced pain in the wrist when using keyboard or mouse. Conclusions: When people use electrical apparatus or work with paper, people would get their eye fatigue and feeling of physical fatigue because of not harmonizing various environmental factors such as light, space, posture, worktable with theirselves. Therefore, workers should develop preventive method such as self-control of adequate break time to avoid fatigue while VDT work. Work environment should be changed to ergonomic design for optimal visual environment to prevent musculoskeletal disorder through constant research.