Human factors laboratories

Technical data. Health, Safety and Human Factors Laboratory, Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., 1980. 

Human factors laboratories are also being started by clinical engineers for example, at the Beaumont Hospital s Technology Usability Center in Michigan, USA, and the Healthcare Human Factors group of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada. 

Fleger, S. A., Fermenter, K. E., Malone, T. B., Carlow Associates Inc. (1988), Advanced Human Factors Engineering Tool Technologies, Technical Memorandum 2-88, U. S. Army Engineering Laboratory... 

In addition, the use of field fortification samples measures the carefulness factor of the Field Scientist during the field research and allows a Study Director/Manager or distant observer to obtain a quality control estimate on the field portion of the study. For this reason, the field fortification samples are usually meant to be different from laboratory procedural fortifications and are meant to be prepared under field conditions, which are considerably more rigorous than are controlled laboratory conditions. For example, environmental factors such as heat, humidity, wind, human stress, and other human factors such as fatigue to the Field Scientist are an integral part of any field worker exposure/re-entry study. Field fortifications made to matrices under these conditions will test and readily demonstrate the ability of the Field Scientist to perform such a difficult study under trying circumstances. 

Human factors need to be properly considered in the design and appfication of any detection system. Studies have shown that explosive detection systems generally perform less effectively in realistic field trials than in laboratory tests and that one of the biggest causes of this shortfall is failure to properly consider the operator/ system interface. 

He was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration in 1985, and he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, and a research fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum (Sciences Center) Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Social Research, Cologne. He has been a member of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management and panels of the Committee on Human Factors and the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He served on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Department of Energy, and chaired its Task Eorce on Radioactive Waste Management, examining questions of institutional trustworthiness. He was a member of the National Research Council s panel on Human Eactors in Air Traffic Control Automation and the Technical Review Committee for the Nuclear Materials Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

The use of different laboratories can give rise to results that are not comparable. Van Schothorst et al. [31] showed that despite the use of a carefully described standard method for the isolation of Salmonella from minced meat, the results from all laboratories were not the same. Differences between laboratories became especially apparent when samples were used with an even distribution of low numbers of Salmonella and high numbers of competitive flora. In this latter case four laboratories examined 100 artificially contaminated samples. The total number of samples found to be positive for Salmonella varied from 43 to 93. The differences were attributed to laboratory-associated factors such as differences in incubators, media preparation, time available to carry out the work, interruptions etc. When the analysis was carried out by the same workers, but in a single laboratory (repeatability), there were small (not significant) differences in the results. These differences were much smaller than when the analyses were carried out in different laboratories (reproducibility). The small differences were ascribed to the so-called human factor, that is interest, skill, dexterity etc. 

Crouch, E. A. C. (1996). Uncertainty distributions for cancer potency factors Laboratory animal carcinogenicity bioassays and interspecies extrapolation. Human Ecol Risk Assess 2(1), 103-129. 

A point needs to be made here, which will not be repeated for reasons of brevity, that signs and rules must take into account human factors. Otherwise, they are likely to be ignored and weaken compliance witii otiier mles overall. Unfortimately, the strictures on wearing goggles while performing work in the laboratory seems to be one less often followed d enforcement is often lax. 

Scheetz, H. A., Corona, B. M., Ellis, P. H., Jones, R. D., Randall, R. B. Method for Human Factors Evaluation of Ballistic Protective Helmets , Report AD-774833, Human Engineering Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. 

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) 2002. Health and Safety Laboratory, Human Factors Group. Safety Culture A Review of the Literature . HSL/2002/25. Healthcare Foundation 2013. Safety Culture What is It and How Do We Monitor and Measure It Event Report. Available at http //www.health.oig.uk/ publications/safety-culture-what-is-it-and-how-do-we-monitor-and-measure-it/ (last accessed on 11 July 2013). 

The history of human factors may be traced back to 1898, when Frederick W. Taylor conducted various studies to determine the most suitable design of shovels [5]. In 1918 the United States Department of Defense established laboratories to perform research on various aspects of human factors at the Brooks and Wright-Patterson Air Force Bases [6]. In 1924 the National Research Council (USA) initiated a study concerned with the various aspects of human factors including the effects of varying illumination, length of workday, and rest period on productivity at the Hawthorne Plant of Western Electric in the state of Illinois [7,8]. By 1945 human factors came to be recognized as a specialized discipline, and currently a vast number of publications are available on human factors. 

H.H. De Jong (2004). Guidelines for the identification of hazards How to make unimaginable hazards imaginable National Aerospace Laboratory NLR, Contract report for Eurocontrol, NLR-CR-2004-094 M.R. Endsley (1995). Towards a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1) 32-64... 

An additional resource available on the Internet is placed there by the Cornell University Ergonomics Web. Its title is Workplace Ergonomics Tools and it lists over 40 assessment and evaluation forms and some software. All items can be downloaded. Because of its value, a request was made of Alan Hedge, Director, Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory at Cornell University, for permission to include the list in this book, which he gave. It appears as Addendum B. 

Iron sintering mix control and composition stabilization. For an efficient sintering process, a constant and optimized basicity of raw mix without short and long term fluctuations is a must. Achieving real-time automatic process control without human factor influence requires on-line elemental composition data. Figure 8.29a presents typical breakdown spectra of the sintering mix and the results of industrial LIBS unit test data, where laboratory CaO control data are compared with online analyzer readings. One hundred and forty samples have been taken from conveyer belt and send to laboratory for control analysis. It was found that the correlation of... 

Rasmussen, J. 1981. Human Errors. A Taxonomy for Describing Human Malfunction in Industrial Installations. Ris0-M-23O4. Rosldlde, Denmark Risp National Laboratory. Rasmussen, J. and Taylor, J. R. 1976. Notes on Human Factors Problems in Process Plant Reliability and Scfety Prediction. Ris0-M-1894. Roskilde, Denmark Ris0 National Laboratory. 

Rodgers, M.D. and Nye, L.G. (1993). Eactors associated with the severity of operational errors at Air Route Traffic Control Centers. In M.D. Rodgers (Ed.), An Analysis of the Operational Error Databasefor Air Route Traffic Control Centers, DOT/FAA/AM-93/22. Oklahoma City, OK Human Factors Research Laboratory, Civil Aeromedical Institute, Federal Aviation Administration. 

NASA-Cognition Lab http //human-factors.arc.nasagov/ihi/cognition/ (accessed October 27, 2010). This laboratory is a part of the Human Systans Integration Division at the NASA Ames Research Center. The activities of the lab, their research projects, and contacting information are found on this site. 

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