This new handbook is about the practices of conducting research on military issues. As an edited collection, it brings together an extensive group of authors from a range of disciplinary perspectives whose chapters engage with the conceptual, practical and political questions raised when doing military research. The book considers a wide range of questions around research about, on and with military organisations, personnel and activities, from diverse starting-points across the social sciences, arts and humanities. Each chapter in this volume: Describes the nature of the military research topic under scrutiny and explains what research practices were undertaken and why. Discusses the author's research activities, addressing the nature of their engagement with their subjects and explaining how the method or approach under scrutiny was distinctive because of the military context or subject of the research. Reflects on the author's research experiences, and the specific, often unique, negotiations with the politics and practices of military institutions and military personnel before, during and after their research fieldwork. The book provides a focussed overview of methodological approaches to critical studies of military personnel and institutions, and processes and practices of militarisation and militarism. In particular, it engages with the growth in qualitative approaches to military research, particularly research carried out on military topics outside military research institutions. The handbook provides the reader with a comprehensive guide to how critical military research is being undertaken by social scientists and humanities scholars today, and sets out suggestions for future approaches to military research. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war and conflict studies, and research methods in general.

This is the fifth book published within the Ashgate Studies in Resilience Engineering series. The first volume introduced resilience engineering broadly. The second and third volumes established the research foundation for the real-world applications that then were described in the fourth volume: Resilience Engineering in Practice. The current volume continues this development by focusing on the role of resilience in the development of solutions. Since its inception, the development of resilience engineering as a concept and a field of practice has insisted on expanding the scope from a preoccupation with failure to include also the acceptable everyday functioning of a system or an organisation. The preoccupation with failures and adverse outcomes focuses on situations where something goes wrong and the tries to keep the number of such events and their (adverse) outcomes as low as possible. The aim of resilience engineering and of this volume is to describe how safety can change from being protective to become productive and increase the number of things that go right by improving the resilience of the system.

Design is about the creation of meaningful connections to solve problems and advance human wellbeing; the discipline has always explored the beneficial links between form and function, technology and meaning, beauty and utility, people and artefacts and problems and solutions, among others. This book focuses on the crucial connection between design research and design education. Contemporary society grows increasingly hyper-complex and globally competitive. This state of affairs raises fundamental questions for both Design Education and Design Research: Should research skills be integrated into undergraduate courses? How can we modify design courses without compromising the positive aspects of the educational studio experience? Can the three cycles of higher education in design be combined into a creative and inquisitive educational continuum? To examine the relationship between research and education in Design we must address the topic of knowledge, keeping in mind that the development and dissemination of new and useful knowledge is the core purpose of a University. If we agree that design has its own things to know and ways to find out about them, then design knowledge resides in people, processes, products, and philosophy. This book explores the intersection of these four areas with the aim of uncovering insights to advance the current state of the design discipline.

The mechanical features of human movement are of great interest in a range of endeavors, from engineers designing car seats or keyboards to physicians treating sports injuries. Human movement obeys basic laws that govern static and dynamic bodies, and this textbook takes a quantitative approach to studying human biomechanics. The book features numerous homework problems and worked examples, both of which are vital for classroom use. The book will be welcomed by teachers of engineering mechanics, statics and dynamics, and biomechanics courses that assume familiarity with calculus and vectors.

Two of the most important yet often overlooked aspects of a medical device are its usability and accessibility. This is important not only for health care providers, but also for older patients and users with disabilities or activity limitations. Medical Instrumentation: Accessibility and Usability Considerations focuses on how lack of usability and accessibility pose problems for designers and users of medical devices, and how to overcome these limitations. Divided into five broad sections, the book first addresses the nature and extent of the problem by identifying access barriers, human factors, and policy issues focused on the existing infrastructure. The subsequent sections examine responses to the problem, beginning with tools for usability and accessibility analysis and principles of design for medical instrumentation. Building on this foundation, the third section focuses on recommendations for design guidelines while the fourth section explores emerging trends and future technologies for improving medical device usability. The final section outlines key challenges, knowledge gaps, and recommendations from accomplished experts in the field presented at the recent Workshop on Accessible Interfaces for Medical Instrumentation. Integrating expert perspectives from a wide array of disciplines, Medical Instrumentation traces a clear roadmap for improving accessibility and usability for a variety of stakeholders and provides the tools necessary to follow it.

A Druid looks at quality control for product and service industries, amplifying from his earlier book Right first time . Some highlights: Quality is a religion, with the same trappings and pitfalls as other religions; humanity can be distorted, but not abolished, by managerial decree and organizatio

One of the primary applications of human factors engineering is in the aviation domain, and the importance of human factors has never been greater as U.S. and European authorities seek to modernize the air transportation system through the introduction of advanced automation. This handbook provides regulators, practitioners, researchers, and educators a comprehensive resource for understanding and applying human factors to air transportation.

In our increasingly globally interconnected world, understanding and appreciating the sociocultural context within which individuals make their decisions is critical to developing successful partnerships. The collection of chapters in this volume illustrates how advances in information and social media technologies, as well as modeling and simulation tools, combined with the social sciences, can be leveraged to better understand how sociocultural context influences decision making. The chapters in this volume were contributed by leading experts from academia, industry, and government and provide: Insights into cross-cultural decision making based on recent international events, with grounding in an historical context Discussions of cutting-edge modeling techniques used today by professionals across multiple organizations and agencies Descriptions of specific cross-cultural decision making tools designed for use by laypeople and professionals Case studies on the role of cross-cultural decision making grounded in current events and (in many cases) military applications.

Researching Patient Safety and Quality in Health Care: A Nordic Perspective is an anthology based on contributions from leading researchers on quality and safety in healthcare in the Nordic countries together with four internationally renowned patient safety authors. Research on patient safety and quality has been dominated by countries such as the USA, England, Canada, and Australia. This book addresses the current debates in research on patient safety and quality in healthcare from a Nordic perspective. What are the flavours of Nordic research within these topics? What does it add to the international research literature? This book illustrates the unique nature of researching patient safety and quality with the Nordic perspective as well as showcasing representative work. The book presents an overview of the status and evidence of international and Nordic research on quality and safety in healthcare. Four different perspectives are used to present the trends within the research field: a patient perspective, a methodological perspective, a theoretical perspective, and a clinical perspective. The book then presents the status of Nordic research in the field and displays a set of illustrative work and current research topics within the Nordic context, concluding with a discussion of the characteristic features of Nordic research on patient safety and quality in healthcare. The anthology presents an inter-professional perspective and researchers from disciplines such as medical and nursing sciences, humanities, social sciences and engineering. It is written to contribute to the patient safety cause with translational knowledge that will be useful to researchers, policy makers and healthcare managers within Nordic countries and internationally.

This book provides a socio-cultural analysis of the ways in which air traffic controllers formally and informally learn about their work and the active role that organisational cultures play in shaping interpretation and meaning. In particular, it describes the significant role that organizational cultures have played in shaping what is valued by controllers about their work and its role as a filter in enabling or constraining conscious inquiry. The premise of the book is that informal learning is just as important in shaping what people know and value about their work and that this area is frequently overlooked. By using an interpretative research approach, the book highlights the ways in which the social structure of work organisation, culture and history interweaves with learning work to guide and shape what is regarded by controllers as important and what is not. It demonstrates how this social construction is quite different from a top-down corporate culture approach. Technological and organizational reform is leading to changes in work practice and to changes in relationships between workers within the organization. These have implications for anyone wishing to understand the dynamics of organizational life. As such, this study provides insights into many of the changes that are occurring in the nature of work in many different industries. Previous research into learning in air traffic control has centred largely on cognitive individual performance, performance within teams or more recently on performance at a systems level. By tracing the role of context in shaping formal and informal learning, this book shows why interventions at these levels sometimes fail.

This book examines an emerging organizational form called the multi-team system (MTS). This type of aggregation is being increasingly adopted by organizations and agencies that need to respond to complex strategic problems. There has been increasing interest in MTSs over the last decade to the point where there is now a need to (a) describe these organizational forms more fully, (b) build conceptual frames that can guide research, and (c) begin developing tools to improve the study of MTSs. The purpose of this book is to respond to these needs. The book contains a series of chapters that expand prior conceptual frames of MTSs, defining in more detail the compositional and linkage attributes that characterize such units. The book also explores how such systems emerge and develop, as well as the methods for studying MTSs. The intent of the book is to establish and nurture a strong conceptual and methodological foundation that can guide research and practice with MTSs. Because the notion of MTSs cuts across multiple domains, this book will interest scholars in industrial/organizational psychology, organizational science, management and organizational theory, human factors, sociology, organization communications, and public administration.

Accident prevention is a common thread throughout every aspect of our society. However, even with the most current technological developments, keeping people safe and healthy, both at workplaces and at other daily activities, is still a continual challenge. When it comes to work environments, ergonomics and human factors knowledge can play an important role and, therefore, must be included in, or be a part of, the safety management as a cross-disciplinary area concerned with the understanding of actual work situations and potential variables. This multidisciplinary approach will ultimately ensure the safety, health, and well-being of all collaborators. The main goal of this book is to present theories and models, and to describe practices to foster and promote safer work and working environments. This book offers: * Examples of field practices that can be reproduced in other scenarios * Applications of new methods for risk assessment * Methods on how to apply and integrate human factors and ergonomics in accident prevention and safety management * Coverage of human factors and ergonomics in safety culture * New methods for accident analysis This book is a compilation of contributions from invited authors organized in three main topics from eleven countries and is intended to cover specific aspects of safety and human factors management ranging from case studies to the development of theoretical models. Hopefully, the works presented in the book can be an inspiration for translating research into useful actions and, ultimately, making a relevant and tangible contribution to the safety of our daily and work settings.

Moving from theory into practical reality, ergonomics has come of age as a useful tool for generating safe, comfortable, and productive working environments. Tackling both the simple and complex aspects of a variety of workplaces, Office Ergonomics: Practical Applications demonstrates how to create offices that accommodate all workers. The book contains practical advice on how to maintain an office environment that promotes a healthy, safe, and efficient workforce. Covering workstation design, selection, layout, and use, the book details the impact of computers on worker well-being, particularly when used under unfavorable conditions, and discusses how ergonomics can accommodate disabled workers. The author emphasizes the need to offer 'protection' to people involved in manual handling in offices, an issue that is frequently overlooked, and offers advice on how to work satisfactorily in non-office environments. She explores the possible negative outcomes, such as back pain, headaches, and upper limb disorders, of a poorly designed workstation. Walking you through all the features of an office, the book provides insight into the potential problem areas that workers often encounter. The book explains how to identify suitable workstation furniture, test it, trial it, and introduce the final selection so the workforce accepts it. The author draws on first-hand experience dealing with difficulties in many types of office situations to provide straightforward, easily applicable advice on how to improve the workplace to reduce the likelihood of workers experiencing discomfort, ill-health, and dissatisfaction.

The potential of software applications to solve an array of office and administrative problems is increasing faster than the ability of users to exploit it. We need to make systems easier to learn and more comfortable to use. This book reports a major advance in the effort to accomplish both goals. Flexcel enables users to modify access and dialog dynamics to their specific requirements. Relying on a plan recognition feature, the system proposes adaptations or uses of adaptations. The ongoing conflict between the adaptive and the adaptable is resolved in an integration: user and system share the responsibility for the initiatives, decision-making and execution. A "critic" component of the system then analyzes the user's handling of the adaptation tools and suggests improvements. The system offers an environment in which users can explore as they learn. HyPlan implements the context-sensitive help that facilitates learning on demand. When the PLANET plan-recognition feature identifies the kinds of support for work that may possibly be required, HyPlan provides, on request, specific assistance in the form of hypermedia or animated displays and tutorials. Developmental research has shown that users take advantage of opportunities to adapt interfaces only in conjunction with help-functions -- which are accepted when they do not interrupt work. And studies by social scientists have shown that adaptations of technical systems have to be integrated into the overall process of organizational innovation and undertaken cooperatively. This book will stimulate all those concerned with software -- from computational, cognitive, ergonomic, or organizational standpoints -- to reconceive the relationship between design and user support.

This book summarizes the activities of the Generic Intelligent Driver Support (GIDS) Consortium and offers recommendations for successful GIDS implementation. It is based on the GIDS Project, a part of the EC-funded Dedicated Road Infrastructure for Vehicle Safety in Europe Programme.

This book collects the papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Risk Analysis and Crisis Response (RACR-2019) held in Athens, Greece, on October 15-19, 2019. The overall theme of the seventh international conference on risk analysis and crisis response is Risk Analysis Based on Data and Crisis Response Beyond Knowledge, highlighting science and technology to improve risk analysis capabilities and to optimize crisis response strategy. This book contains primarily research articles of risk issues. Underlying topics include natural hazards and major (chemical) accidents prevention, disaster risk reduction and society resilience, information and communication technologies safety and cybersecurity, modern trends in crisis management, energy and resources security, critical infrastructure, nanotechnology safety and others. All topics include aspects of multidisciplinarity and complexity of safety in education and research. The book should be valuable to professors, engineers, officials, businessmen and graduate students in risk analysis and risk management.

As computers proliferate and as the field of computer graphics matures, it has become increasingly important for computer scientists to understand how users perceive and interpret computer graphics. Experimental Design: From User Studies to Psychophysics is an accessible introduction to psychological experiments and experimental design, covering the major components in the design, execution, and analysis of perceptual studies. The book begins with an introduction to the concepts central to designing and understanding experiments, including developing a research question, setting conditions and controls, and balancing specificity with generality. The book then explores in detail a number of types of experimental tasks: free description, rating scales, forced-choice, specialized multiple choice, and real-world tasks as well as physiological studies. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each type and provides examples of that type of experiment from the authors' own work. The book also covers stimulus-related issues, including popular stimulus resources. It concludes with a thorough examination of statistical techniques for analyzing results, including methods specific to individual tasks.

Management of hazardous chemicals and materials-particularly during emergency release situations-is a critical part of routine training required for workers and professionals in the chemical, petroleum and manufacturing industries. Proper storage of highly reactive chemical agents, correct choice of protective clothing and safety issues in confined spaces are vital to operating facilities. Inattention to these and other issues covered in this book can result in a loss of life, dispersal of toxic chemical agents into the environment, or fire and explosion and subsequent legal liabilities.Emergency Response and Hazardous Chemical Management: Principles and Practices provides a concise reference for management and workers on the important issues regarding the use and management of hazardous chemicals as well as the critical issues in the emergency response management of uncontrolled releases of hazardous agents. This book combines practical information on hazardous chemical response and environmental management with scientific and management issues important in the development of sound chemical management planning. Important current topics such as hazardous chemical management in confined spaces are also covered in detail.

This is a short guide on sit-stand working in the office. It reviews the research on sitting and standing at work from the 1950s to present and provides guidance for specialists, therapists, practitioners, and managers. The book is illustrated with many photos and figures, provides guidance for active working at the end of every chapter, and is understandable to the layman as well as the specialist. With the increased emphasis on healthy lifestyles, coupled with the obesity and overweight epidemic, many are claiming that we should spend more time standing at work. Some have even claimed that sitting is the new smoking. Readers of the book will learn and understand what is behind these claims, what stacks-up, what doesn't, and be able to make informed decisions about whether to invest in new facilities, and what to invest. This book is of value to human factors specialists, physical therapists, chiropractors and occupational health practitioners, architects, and facilities managers. Features Explains the origins of sedentary office work Summarizes the health risks of sitting and standing and how to avoid them Reviews new research on active working and practical ways of developing active working habits in the office Discusses the obesogenic workplace, and how to avoid it Includes over 60 key points to help you decide how to be more active at work

This volume presents world-leading ideas and research that explores some of the most prominent topics relevant to detecting terrorism. The book is divided into six key themes: conceptualising terrorism, deception and decision making, social and cultural factors in terrorism, modelling hostile intent, strategies for counter-terrorism, and future directions. Twenty two chapters cover the spectrum of detecting terrorist activities, hostile intent, crowded public spaces and suspicious behaviour. The work draws from high impact research findings and presents case-studies to help communicate concepts. Specific areas of interest include methodological issues in counter-terrorism, counter terrorism policy and its impact on end users, novel research methods and innovative technologies in counter-terrorism. A variety of disciplines are represented by this work, including: ergonomics/human factors, psychology, criminology, cognitive science, sociology, political theory, art/design, engineering and computer science. This book not only expands the knowledge base of the subject area and is therefore of prime relevance to researchers investigating counter-terrorism, but provides a valuable resource to security stakeholders at policy and practitioner levels.

Muscle strength is an important topic for ergonomics practitioners and physiologists to understand, especially as it relates to workplace injuries. Muscle strength and function is at the heart of many injuries that lead to reduced productivity and economic strain on the worker, the company, and society as a whole. This comprehensive source of information and data relating to muscle strength is the first to present such information in a single source. Muscle Strength explains the general determinants of muscle strength such as gender, age, and muscle type. It illustrates physical data in the context of theoretical background and examines the protocols, techniques, devices, and data used to record muscle strength in various parts of the body. This is followed by a discussion of overexertion, strength prediction, strength and endurance, torque and EMG relationship, and muscle fatigue. Finally, the material is applied to the use of muscle in jobs, to product design, and to studies of job accommodation and the effect of disability on strength. Professionals in ergonomics, biomechanics, sports science, and physiology will find that this unique text provides insight and data on an important subject in their field.

This book focuses exclusively on ergonomics in the design and use of hand tools. Hand tools have been an integral supplement to the human hand since the beginning of civilization. Recently, they have been pinpointed as a prominent cause of workplace disease. Cumulative Trauma Disorders such as Tendonitus, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and Raynaud's Syndrome are caused by the specialization of motion employed when using a screw driver, the shock to the hand and wrist when a hammer strikes a nail, or the vibration of a power saw. Ergonomics and Safety in Hand Tool Design explores the relationship between Biomechanics, Safety, and Ergonomics allowing the reader to recognize, evaluate, and control ergonomic risk factors and improve hand tool design. After a history of hand tool use and design, the book is broken down by the various disciplines as they apply to hand tools, taking a broad approach. The author gives special attention to safe design and use, illustrated with detailed diagrams. The text serves as a guide to the human factors in safety and ergonomics for safety professionals.

As a safety manager in today's work environment, you wear hats in many different fields. Sometimes you need only a specific formula or drawing to understand the current situation. This resource supplies it. Or maybe you want to know where to find more information on a specific subject. This resource has it. The Safety Officer's Concise Desk Reference covers the basics in a user-friendly format and provides specific references of where and how to obtain additional information on each subject. While there are entire books devoted to almost every item in this book, nowhere else will you find these issues covered in a concise reference format. It gives you the essentials to get through the task immediately before you, providing the necessary information and references, while not burdening you with unimportant information. And, after a specific crisis is contained, it provides you with resources for where and how to obtain additional information. Need to make doctor's reports and fill out workers compensation forms? Detailed explanations make these easy to reference, understand, and explain. Need a mathematical formula or conversion? Again, available in an easy-to-find format. During a crisis, you need a resource that puts information at your fingertips. You need go no further than The Safety Officer's Desk Reference.

Preparation and Restoration is the second volume of Resilience Engineering Perspectives within the Ashgate Studies in Resilience Engineering series. In four sections, it broadens participation of the field to include policy and organization studies, and articulates aspects of resilience beyond initial definitions: - Policy and Organization explores public policy and organizational aspects of resilience and how they aid or inhibit preparation and restoration - Models and Measures addresses thoughts on ways to measure resilience and model systems to detect desirable, and undesirable, results - Elements and Traits examines features of systems and how they affect the ability to prepare for and recover from significant challenges - Applications and Implications examines how resilience plays out in the living laboratory of real-world operations. Preparation and Restoration addresses issues such as the nature of resilience; the similarities and differences between resilience and traditional ideas of system performance; how systems cope with varying demands and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail; how an organization's ways of preparing before critical events can enable or impede restoration; the trade-offs that are needed for systems to operate and survive; instances of brittle or resilient systems; how work practices affect resilience; the relationship between resilience and safety; and what improves or erodes resilience. This volume is valuable reading for those who create and operate systems that must not only survive, but thrive, in the face of challenge.

A comprehensive review of international and national standards and guidelines, this handbook consists of 32 chapters divided into nine sections that cover standardization efforts, anthropometry and working postures, designing manual material, human-computer interaction, occupational health and safety, legal protection, military human factor standards, and sources for human factors and ergonomics standards. The book delineates the role standards and guidelines play in facilitating the design and optimal working conditions in regards to occupational safety and health as well as system performance in the context of technological advances and opportunities for economic development worldwide.