• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2007

Dentists are known to be highly exposed to the musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). The present study investigated the prevalence of MSD among Korean dentists and association between their MSD and physical workload. In addition, work-related causes of high physical workload were identified and needs of dentists were collected for improvement of dental instrument and environment. Four types of questionnaires including the Nordic questionnaire were used to investigate body troubles, physical workload, causes of physical workload, and improvement priority of dental components. A total of 104 dentists in Seoul were participated in the survey. Neck trouble (82%) was the most prevalent in the participated dentists and shoulder (68%) and low back trouble (56%) followed, while low back trouble was reported to be most common in previous western studies. The body troubles were related to the physical workload of the corresponding body parts, although they were not associated with personal characteristics. Most dentists selected 'to keep direct view inside patient's mouth' and 'no support of the hand with dental instruments' as causes of awkward and strenuous work postures. They wanted design improvement for some components in their operating room such as operating light and arrangement of workplace.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.25-32
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• 2006

As national income increases, consumers began to place a great deal of weight on products or quality of their life. They would like to have products which are more convenient to use and could meet their emotional desire in addition to its basic functional requirements. An automobile is one of the transportation system for human beings and the factor such as safety or environmentaly-friendly is regarded as important things resulting from it's popularization. In fact, domestic design technology leaves much to be desired compared with excellent manufacturing techniques. For this reason, some problems, like lowering of usage, could be caused by introducing technological data as it is from overseas. A survey of domestic car users has found that the most preferred condition (step height) is 460~495cm when they get in and out of their car. Men use their visual information and then get in the car, taking motion fit for each condition when automobile condition is changed. In other words, men get in cars actively within the range of conditions used for this study. These results were found from a motion study, when getting in a car, and checking the possibility of getting injury in accordance with the change of condition as well.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.251-257
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• 2011

When designing a ship, ergonomic considerations are crucial when minimizing a navigator's fatigue due to the burden of work, and to appropriately operate the navigational equipment for each given situation by helping the operator to understand the surroundings as well as the physical functions of the ship. However, insufficient consideration of ergonomic elements in the actual design of ship Bridges is lowering the performance of safe navigation and allows for the possibility of operation or readout errors. Consequently, these errors lead to an increase in maritime accidents. Therefore, this study conducted a usability evaluation on the importance of and the usage frequency of navigational equipment, their influence on actual navigation, and the possibility of error upon operation or readout between training ship officers, to derive an optimized layout that includes the consideration of ergonomic factors for on-Bridge navigational equipment, which are currently arranged differently according to their type or size. The optimized layout of on-Bridge navigational equipment was carried out based on the evaluation results, using the Lingo program. Through the process of optimization, revised layouts of on-Bridge navigational equipments(control and display device) were suggested, considering emergency situations(ship collision, stranding, fire and explosion, sinking, etc.) during navigation.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate old and newly designed ammunition boxes from an ergonomic point of view. Background: The ammunition boxes made of wood, which are currently used by the military, have some difficulties such as corrosion and damage of ammunition, environmental pollution, and stock management. Also, damages to the wooden ammunition boxes take place frequently, because soldiers carry them manually. Method: Sixteen participants volunteered to randomly perform lifting, carrying, and side-by-side moving tasks with 4 different old and new boxes, respectively for the ammunitions of 5.56mm, 60mm, 81mm, and 105mm in diameter. The old boxes are made of wood and are currently used in the military, while the new boxes are made of plastics. The joint moments of the elbow, shoulder, back, and knee were measured by using a motion analysis system and force platforms. In addition, an electromyographic system was used to measure the forces of hand and wrist muscles. Results: In most tasks, new boxes caused less joint moments at the elbow and shoulder than old boxes, because the new boxes were lighter and smaller than the old boxes. New boxes also derived less hand and wrist muscle forces due to the provision of fixed hard handles rather than string handles. Conclusion: The ergonomically designed new boxes could reduce the physical stresses of soldiers manually handling ammunitions and be helpful for storage and reuse. Application: This study shows an ergonomic application example for product development and evaluation.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the legibility of one-syllable Korean characters with the participation of sixteen subjects. The experiment considered nine factors including age (young and old), gender (male and female), illuminance (150lx and 600lx), viewing distance (50cm and 200cm), material type (paper and LCD), typeface (Ming and Gothic), thickness (plain and bold), color contrast (black letter/white background and white letter/black background), and complexity (simple, complex, and number) to examine main effects with a $2^{6-3}\times3$ fractional factorial design. The dependent variables were minimum character size of 100% correctness, maximum character size of 0% correctness, and minimum character size of comfortable reading preference. The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that age, illuminance, viewing distance and complexity were significant for all dependent variables, except gender which was significant only for the minimum character size of comfortable reading preference. In general, the young could see twofold smaller size letters than the elderly. The subjects could see smaller sized letters with the illuminance of 600lx and viewing distance of 50cm than 150lx and 200cm, respectively and also with numbers, simple characters, and complex characters in that order. The findings of this study could be characterized about the legibility of Korean characters and be good resources for developing its standard.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.389-396
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• 2013

Objective: The ride qualities of the six passenger cars were evaluated in 4 subjects on the highway and uneven road. The relation between vibration with driving velocity and driving posture were also investigated separately. Background: Ride comfort plays an important role in the vehicle design. Vibration is the one of the principal components associated with ride comfort. Method: The acceleration of the foot, hip and back were measured using B&K accelerometers in this study. The velocity of the passenger cars was maintained at a constant speed of 80km/h on the highway and 40km/h on the uneven road. For evaluating the effects of driving velocity and driving posture on vehicle's vibration level, separate experiments were performed on the highway with 5 different vehicle speeds and 5 different backrest angles, respectively. Results: The overall ride value of the luxury car showed the best result while the smaller car showed the worst value on the highway. On the uneven road the overall ride value level was increased 75~98%. All the vehicles had the SEAT value less than 1. Faster the velocity lowers the SEAT value. The ride quality in terms of vibration gets worst when the backrest angle increased. Conclusion: The smaller car had a first mode at the higher frequency and showed higher vibration level. SEAT value was mostly affected by the seat property not by vehicle. We ranked the luxury car seat had a best vibration reduction quality than others based on SEAT values. When the driving velocity increased, the overall ride values were increased proportionally and the SEAT values were somewhat decreased. Application: Evaluation of whole-body vibration in the passenger car.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.333-340
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• 2013

Objective: The aim of this study is to provide a current knowledge of the multiple issues regarding motion effects on crew performance. Background: The motions of the ship may create motion sickness, nausea and vomit. Also, these motions also disturb the balance of crew members, increase the energy expenditure of crew for shipboard work, and result in increased levels of injury and fatigue. However, the motion effects of the ship on crew performance has not been thoroughly investigated. Method: Participants(N=10) were engaged in an experiment in 2 experimental environments(training ship and ship handling simulator) and 2 navigational conditions(day and night). The COP(Center of Pressure) data were recorded as an objective measure of postural balance control and the SSQ(Simulator Sickness Questionnaire) was used as a subjective measure of sickness. Results: The results showed that COP has a no significant difference based on experimental environments, but significant effect on SSQ. Conclusion: During the virtual simulator navigation, subjects showed significant SSQ level changes, which included decreased SSQ data. But, there is no significant difference of COP between training ship and ship handling simulator. Application: The results of this study could be applied to the next generation of ship design to decrease effect of motion at sea and to increase performance of ship crew.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.47-55
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• 1996

This study developed a comprehensive and easily applicable nuclear reactor control system evaluation method using reactor operators behavioral and mental workload database. A proposed control panel design cycle consists of the 5 steps: (1) finding out inconvenient, erroneous, and mentally stressful factors for the proposed design through evaluative experiments, (2) drafting improved design alternatives considering detective factors found out in the step (1), (3) comparative experiements for the design alternatives, (4) selecting a best design alternative, (5) returning to the step (1) and repeating the design cycle. Reactor operators behavioral and mental workload database collected from evaluative experiments in the step (1) and comparative experiments in the step (3) of the design cycle have a key roll in finding out defective factors and yielding the criteria for selection of the proposed reactor control systems. The behavioral database was designed to include the major informations about reactor operators' control behaviors: beginning time of operations, involved displays, classification of observational behaviors, dehaviors, decisions, involved control devices, classification of control behaviors, communications, emotional status, opinions for man-machine interface, and system event log. The database for mental workload scored from various physiological variables-EEG, EOG, ECG, and respir- ation pattern-was developed to indicate the most stressful situation during reactor control operations and to give hints for defective design factors. An experimental test for the evaluation method applied to the Compact Nuclear Simulator (CNS) installed in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) suggested that some defective design factors of analog indicators should be improved and that automatization of power control to a target level would give relaxation to the subject operators in stressful situation.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.190-196
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• 2010

Digital media has evolved in different areas as a result of the development of media and communications technology. The development of such media has also affected design in general as well as the design process systems focused on computer systems. Specifically, study of digital media design is based on a variety media and the development of computers due to social and environmental changes. Additionally, study is required on the convergence of variety of research including business, computer science, and human ergonomics. Nevertheless, most curricula in domestic universities are biased towards training practical manpower rather than creative/analytical manpower. For this reason, interchange between and study in multidisciplinary courses is desirable. Therefore, this study analyzes the curricula of departments of multimedia design of major universities and suggests enhanced curricula based on an analysis of the current state and understanding of the problem.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.51-67
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to develop the high value-added cultural product design with local cultural resources, and to contribute to promoting cultural tourism festivals. To accomplish this study, first, a preliminary survey is carried out the investigation of cultural product stores and visitors' questionnaire survey. Next, based on these survey and prior study, this study established the development direction and concept of fashion cultural products and to developed fashion cultural products using local cultural resources. Adobe Photoshop 6.0, and Adobe Illustrator CS Program were used for the standardization of patterns, textile design and illustration. The results of this study were as follows; First, based on preliminary research results, the problems of the design of cultural tourism festival products were derived. As one solution to solve this problem, this study established the development direction and concept of fashion cultural products to develop fashion cultural products. The concept of the Andong Maskdance Festival was 'Tribal-Holic'; the Boryeong Mud Festival, 'Get away form it all'; the Gangjin Celadon Festival, 'Timeless Memories'; the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival, 'Lighting up the River'; the Chungju World Martial Arts Festival, 'Next Ergonomics Gym'; and the Muju Firefly Festival, 'Eco-Purity'. Second, based on the desired items of festival organizers and the survey of visitor's preference for cultural products, 4 items were selected by festival type. Then a total of 96 designs of 4 kinds each were developed using logos or characters, traditional patterns, special products, symbolizing region, or festival as a motif. Third, the strategy for development of cultural products design for promotion of cultural tourism festivals were 'Place identity design strategy', 'Market oriented design strategy', 'Buyer-Based pricing strategy', 'Regional brand strategy', and 'Distribution networks expansion strategy'.