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Books > Professional & Technical > Technology: general issues > Technical design > Ergonomics
The Handbook of Human-Machine Interaction features 20 original chapters and a conclusion focusing on human-machine interaction (HMI) from analysis, design and evaluation perspectives. It offers a comprehensive range of principles, methods, techniques and tools to provide the reader with a clear knowledge of the current academic and industry practice and debate that define the field. The text considers physical, cognitive, social and emotional aspects and is illustrated by key application domains such as aerospace, automotive, medicine and defence. Above all, this volume is designed as a research guide that will both inform readers on the basics of human-machine interaction from academic and industrial perspectives and also provide a view ahead at the means through which human-centered designers, including engineers and human factors specialists, will attempt to design and develop human-machine systems.
This book addresses a range of real-world issues including industrial activity, energy management, education, business and health. Today, technology is a part of virtually every human activity, and is used to support, monitor and manage equipment, facilities, commodities, industry, business, and individuals' health, among others. As technology evolves, new applications, methods and techniques arise, while at the same time citizens' expectations from technology continue to grow. In order to meet the nearly insatiable demand for new applications, better performance and higher reliability, trustworthiness, security, and power consumption efficiency, engineers must deliver smart innovations, i.e., must develop the best techniques, technologies and services in a way that respects human beings and the environment. With that goal in mind, the key topics addressed in this book are: smart technologies and artificial intelligence, green energy systems, aerospace engineering/robotics and IT, information security and mobile engineering, IT in bio-medical engineering and smart agronomy, smart marketing, management and tourism policy, technology and education, and hydrogen and fuel-cell energy technologies.
This book presents a co-design detailed methodology that will enable the reader to develop human-centered product designs, considering the user's needs, skills, and limitations. The purpose of this book is to produce an ergonomic design methodology in which the "user's voice" can be translated into product requirements in a way that designers and manufacturers can use, characterizing it as a co-design methodology. It discusses important topics including ergonomics and product design, design specifications, project evaluation, modeling and prototyping, product safety, human error, kansei/affective engineering, usability and user experience, models of usability, methods for research and evaluation of usability, methods for evaluation of user-experience, preliminary strategic design planning, detailing design, and design, ergonomic and pandemics. The book offers a human-centered design methodology that allows the reader to carry out analysis and design projects for both products aimed at the disabled user population and those that serve the general population. It will be a valuable reference text for undergraduate and graduate students and professionals in the fields of ergonomics, design, architecture, engineering, and related fields. It can also be used by students and professionals of physiotherapy and occupational therapy interested in designing products for people with special needs.
Responding to the public concern caused by recent hospital scandals and accounts of unintended harm to patients, this author draws on her experience of analysing the health care systems of over a dozen countries and examines whether greater regulation has increased patient safety and health care quality. The book adopts a new approach to mapping developments in health care systems in Europe, North America and Australia and pieces together evidence of which regulatory strategies and mechanisms work well to ensure safer patient care. It identifies the regulatory bodies, the regulatory principles and the implementation strategies adopted to improve governance in health care systems and suggests a conceptual framework for responsive regulation. The book will be of interest to government actors, health care professionals and medico-legal scholars.
Technological advances in hardware and software provide powerful tools with the potential to design interfaces that are powerful and easy to use. Yet, the frustrations and convoluted "work-arounds" often encountered make it clear that there is substantial room for improvement. Drawn from more than 60 years of combined experience studying, implementing, and teaching about performance in human-technology systems, Display and Interface Design: Subtle Science, Exact Art provides a theoretically-based yet practical guide for ecological display and interface design. Written from the perspective of cognitive systems engineering and ecological interface design, the book delineates how to design interfaces tailored to specific work demands, leverage the powerful perception-action skills of the human, and use powerful interface technologies wisely. This triadic approach (domain, human, interface) to display and interface design stands in sharp contrast to traditional dyadic (human, interface) approaches. The authors describe general principles and specific strategies at length and include concrete examples and extensive design tutorials that illustrate quite clearly how these principles and strategies can be applied. The coverage spans the entire continuum of interfaces that might need to be developed in today's work places. The reason that good interfaces are few and far between is really quite simple: they are extremely difficult to design and build properly. While there are many books available that address display design, most of them focus on aesthetic principles but lack scientific rigor, or are descriptive but not prescriptive. Whether you are exploring the principles of interface design or designing and implementing interfaces, this book elucidates an overarching framework for design that can be applied to the broad spectrum of existing domains.
Over the past fifteen years or so, there has been a widespread and increasing fascination with the theme of mobility across the social sciences and humanities. Of course, geographers have always had an interest in mobility, but as yet they have not viewed this in the same 'mobility turn' as in other disciplines where it has been used to critique the standard approaches to the subjects. This text brings together leading academics to provide a revitalised 'geography of mobilities' informed by this wider 'mobility turn'. It makes connections between the seemingly disparate sub-disciplinary worlds of migration, transport and tourism, suggesting that each has much to learn from each other through the ontological and epistemological concern for mobility.
Resilience engineering has since 2004 attracted widespread interest from industry as well as academia. Practitioners from various fields, such as aviation and air traffic management, patient safety, off-shore exploration and production, have quickly realised the potential of resilience engineering and have became early adopters. The continued development of resilience engineering has focused on four abilities that are essential for resilience. These are the ability a) to respond to what happens, b) to monitor critical developments, c) to anticipate future threats and opportunities, and d) to learn from past experience - successes as well as failures. Working with the four abilities provides a structured way of analysing problems and issues, as well as of proposing practical solutions (concepts, tools, and methods). This book is divided into four main sections which describe issues relating to each of the four abilities. The chapters in each section emphasise practical ways of engineering resilience and feature case studies and real applications. The text is written to be easily accessible for readers who are more interested in solutions than in research, but will also be of interest to the latter group.
Developed to promote the design of safe, effective, and usable medical devices, Handbook of Human Factors in Medical Device Design provides a single convenient source of authoritative information to support evidence-based design and evaluation of medical device user interfaces using rigorous human factors engineering principles. It offers guidance on user-centric design supported by discussions of design issues, case studies, and examples. The book sets the foundation with coverage of fundamental topics such as aligning the interactive nature of medical devices to the expected use environments ranging from hospitals and ambulances to patients' homes, drawing on anthropometric and biomechanical data to ensure that designs match the intended users' bodies and physical abilities, and conducting usability tests and other evaluations to ensure that devices perform as intended. It then focuses on applied design issues, offering guidance on the design of specific types of devices and designing devices for particular use environments. Adapted in part from established design standards and conventions, the design guidance presented in this work distills professional judgment extracted from the contributing authors' years of experience in applied analysis and design. Written in true handbook style, each chapter stands alone and includes tables, illustrations, and cross references, allowing you to quickly find the exact information you need. Most chapters begin with a general introduction to the selected topic, followed by the presentation of general and special design considerations and then specific, numbered design guidelines. The book also presents a listing of resources, literature, and website references. It not only focuses on the human factors issues that arise when developing medical devices, it supplies the necessary guidance to resolve them.
The last few decades have been among the most dynamic within recent British cultural history. Artists across all genres and media have developed and re-fashioned their practice against a radically changing social and cultural landscape ? both national and global. This book takes a fresh look at some of the themes, ideas and directions which have informed British art since the later 1980s through to the first decade of the new millennium. In addition to discussing some iconic images and examples, it also looks more broadly at the contexts in which a new ?post-conceptual? generation of artists, those typically born since the late 1950s and 1960s have approached and developed aspects of their professional practice. Contemporary British Art is an ideal introduction to the field. To guide the reader, the book is organised around genres or related practices ? painting; sculpture and installation; and film, video and performance. The first chapter explores aspects of the contemporary art market and some of the contexts within which art is made, supported and exhibited. The chapters that discuss various genres of art practice also mention books that may be useful to support further reading. Extensively illustrated with a wide range of work (both known, and less well-known) from artists such as Chris Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Anthony Gormley, Jack Vettriano, Sam Taylor-Wood, Steve McQueen and Tracey Emin, and many more.
* Addresses the four fields of focus for error prevention / reduction - namely, (1) hazards and barriers, (2) error traps and counteraction behaviors, (3) erroneous and correct thought process in decision-making and (4) prevention of the recurrence of error. The scope of this book is unique. * Provides my unique model of performance - using the daisy chain of knowledge, cognition, beliefs, values, attitudes, behavior, results, performance. * Addresses in detail Dr. Peter Drucker's teaching, as follows: "The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in a way that makes a system's weaknesses irrelevant." My book makes it clear that the "alignment of strengths" are the error prevention, detection and mitigation barriers and the "weaknesses" are the hazards in processes that are or should be made irrelevant by the barriers. My book provides the specifics of how to identify and assess the hazards and how to create effective barriers. * Provides the most complete list and most comprehensive a discussion of management responsibilities to establish and maintain the quality-conscious work environment. * Provides my 30+ principles of human error prevention, none of which duplicate Dr. James Reason's 12 principles of error management and a few of which contradict Dr. Reason's principles. * Provides a unique seven 7 human error causal factors which, when fully understood, enable one to better design processes and better perform root cause analysis. * Addresses risk management at three levels - (1) risk management of processes, (2) risk management of components and (3) and risk management of hardware systems and the facility as a whole. The techniques for each are significantly different. Neither ISO 9001 not ISO 31000 do this. * Provides the most complete list of techniques for improving the effectiveness of process barriers and the most comprehensive discussion of these techniques. * Describes the full scope of the quality function in terms of hazards and barriers. * Provides a unique nine types of corrective action with examples of each. * Describes 36 biases that adversely impact decision-making. * Describes the 10 questions that should be asked and answered before making any significant decision. * Provides unique templates for root cause analysis - templates that assure the discipline, rigor and logic of the analysis. * Provides the most complete and comprehensive coverage of the widely known Piper Alpha accident, especially the causal factors of the accident, and introduces a non-fail-safe character of the work permit process as the major cause. * provides universally applicable criteria for 37 different areas types of processes that may be included in the enterprise business management system - criteria that are designed to prevent human error in the design of the processes. Examples are: o 12 cross-references to facilitate document change management; o 100+ different types of records; o Methods by which to improve inspection and test effectiveness. Regarding specific incidents, the book: * Introduces violation of The Precautionary Principle in addition to GroupThink as causes of the Challenger accident. * Demonstrates that even if Alaska Flight 161 had not crashed due to the change in the lubrication schedule for the jackscrew assembly, sooner or later it would have crashed due to the lack of specificity in the maintenance procedure for the jackscrew assembly. * Demonstrates that even with all of the error-inducing conditions aboard the Greenville submarine, its sinking of the Ehime Maru could not have occurred without the failure of a barrier. Error-inducing conditions cannot be root causes. * My book Note: Bold typed items represent my unique additions to the body of knowledge. Non-bold typed items represent my special treatment of items that already exist in the body of knowledge.
Human error is cited over and over as a cause of incidents and accidents. The result is a widespread perception of a 'human error problem', and solutions are thought to lie in changing the people or their role in the system. For example, we should reduce the human role with more automation, or regiment human behavior by stricter monitoring, rules or procedures. But in practice, things have proved not to be this simple. The label 'human error' is prejudicial and hides much more than it reveals about how a system functions or malfunctions. This book takes you behind the human error label. Divided into five parts, it begins by summarising the most significant research results. Part 2 explores how systems thinking has radically changed our understanding of how accidents occur. Part 3 explains the role of cognitive system factors - bringing knowledge to bear, changing mindset as situations and priorities change, and managing goal conflicts - in operating safely at the sharp end of systems. Part 4 studies how the clumsy use of computer technology can increase the potential for erroneous actions and assessments in many different fields of practice. And Part 5 tells how the hindsight bias always enters into attributions of error, so that what we label human error actually is the result of a social and psychological judgment process by stakeholders in the system in question to focus on only a facet of a set of interacting contributors. If you think you have a human error problem, recognize that the label itself is no explanation and no guide to countermeasures. The potential for constructive change, for progress on safety, lies behind the human error label.
Soldier-robot teams will be an important component of future battle spaces, creating a complex but potentially more survivable and effective combat force. The complexity of the battlefield of the future presents its own problems. The variety of robotic systems and the almost infinite number of possible military missions create a dilemma for researchers who wish to predict human-robot interactions (HRI) performance in future environments. Human-Robot Interactions in Future Military Operations provides an opportunity for scientists investigating military issues related to HRI to present their results cohesively within a single volume. The issues range from operators interacting with small ground robots and aerial vehicles to supervising large, near-autonomous vehicles capable of intelligent battlefield behaviors. The ability of the human to 'team' with intelligent unmanned systems in such environments is the focus of the volume. As such, chapters are written by recognized leaders within their disciplines and they discuss their research in the context of a broad-based approach. Therefore the book allows researchers from differing disciplines to be brought up to date on both theoretical and methodological issues surrounding human-robot interaction in military environments. The overall objective of this volume is to illuminate the challenges and potential solutions for military HRI through discussion of the many approaches that have been utilized in order to converge on a better understanding of this relatively complex concept. It should be noted that many of these issues will generalize to civilian applications as robotic technology matures. An important outcome is the focus on developing general human-robot teaming principles and guidelines to help both the human factors design and training community develop a better understanding of this nascent but revolutionary technology. Much of the research within the book is based on the Human Research and Engineering Directorate (HRED), U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) 5-year Army Technology Objective (ATO) research program. The program addressed HRI and teaming for both aerial and ground robotic assets in conjunction with the U.S. Army Tank and Automotive Research and Development Center (TARDEC) and the Aviation and Missile Development Center (AMRDEC) The purpose of the program was to understand HRI issues in order to develop and evaluate technologies to improve HRI battlefield performance for Future Combat Systems (FCS). The work within this volume goes beyond the research results to encapsulate the ATO's findings and discuss them in a broader context in order to understand both their military and civilian implications. For this reason, scientists conducting related research have contributed additional chapters to widen the scope of the original research boundaries.
This book examines the Arabic conflict resolution method known as "sulha." In this process, notable male elders mediate conflicts between and within Arab communities. A lengthy process of political jockeying culminates in a ceremony that peaks when "enemies" shake hands and publicly forgive the crimes of the other. The reality of actual sulha deviates considerably from the ideal, but both the official framework and the actual events point to a deep seated valorization of peace and reconciliation in Israeli-Palestinian society.
This volume is concerned with digital human modeling. The utility of this area of research is to aid the design of systems that are benefitted from reducing the need for physical prototyping and incorporating ergonomics and human factors earlier in design processes. Digital human models are representations of some aspects of a human that can be inserted into simulations or virtual environments to facilitate prediction of safety, satisfaction, usability and performance. These representations may consider the physical, physiological, cognitive, behavioral or emotional aspects. They are typically represented by some visualization with the math and science computed in the background. Explicitly, the book covers the following subject areas: I. Applications II. Mobility and Universal Access III. Physical and Physiological Aspects IV. Product and Process Design V. Motion Analysis VI. Cognitive Aspects VII. Human Response and Behavioral Aspects VIII. Novel Systems Approaches This book is of special value to those researchers and practitioners involved in various aspects of product, process and system design worldwide. Engineers, ergonomists and human factors specialists will see a broad spectrum of applications for this research, especially in the automotive and manufacturing industries, military, aerospace and service industries such as healthcare. Seven other titles in the Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics Series are: Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare Advances in Cross-Cultural Decision Making Advances in Cognitive Ergonomics Advances in Occupational, Social and Organizational Ergonomics Advances in Human Factors, Ergonomics and Safety in Manufacturing and Service Industries Advances in Ergonomics Modeling & Usability Evaluation Advances in Neuroergonomics and Human Factors of Special Populations
Increasingly, top executives view supply markets as sources of competitive advantage and as means of achieving strategic objectives. Procurement is the management activity that makes this happen, and this process depends on a superior risk management capability if it is be effective. Yet, despite its importance, Procurement Risk Management is surprisingly under-developed. Recent Global Risk surveys have pinpointed Supply Chain Vulnerability as one of the four key global risks for the next decade. What is less well known is that this is only half of the story ... risk exposures also exist inside the company and can be just as damaging. No company is an island; it needs suppliers as well as customers. Conventional wisdom puts great emphasis on managing certain aspects of business such as customers; operations; strategy and finances. Typically, however, much less regard is paid to external suppliers and the risks present in dealing with them. As a minimum, suppliers are the sources of materials, services and expert attention which enable the company to feed its business model. When done well, a risk-aware procurement process provides the bonus of competitive advantage, with the ability to capitalise, on the occurrence of unexpected events. This short guide explains just how to do it. Each chapter explores the topic in hand, outlines the risks and the remedies available and offers guidance on the principles and risk prevention.
This book is a new interdisciplinary work which presents the
proceedings of the third international conference on Vision in
Vehicles, the aim of which was to provide an international forum
for the exchange of information on current work on all aspects of
vision and its relationship to vehicle design. This includes both
the internal and external design of the vehicle and its
environmental displays, as well as the perceptual and cognitive
capabilities of the vehicle controllers.
This text is a critical and empirically-based introduction to disability studies. It offers a comprehensive, book-length analysis of disability through the lens of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and presents a practice-oriented discussion of how bodies, senses and things are linked in everyday life and configure "enabling" and "disabling" scenarios. Relevant to a broad spectrum of medical practitioners and practicing social service workers, the book will also be essential reading in the fields of disability studies, sociology of the body/senses, medical sociology and STS.
This volume presents research from a variety of perspectives on the enhancement of human intelligence. It is organized around five themes - enhancement via instruction; enhancement via development (over the life cycle); enhancement over time; enhancement via new constructs; and new directions in enhancement.Three key issues are addressed: First, although most of the scientific research on intelligence has concerned what it is, this volume attends to the consequential societal and economic issue concerns of whether it can be increased, and how.Second, intellectual enhancement is particularly important when targeted to minorities and the poor, groups that have typically performed relatively less well on intelligence and achievement measures. This volume reflects the education community's ongoing interest in understanding, and attempting to close, achievement or test score gaps.Third, most of the attention to examining intellectual enhancement, and in accounting for and closing the test-score gap, has focused on general cognitive ability. In line with the current emphasis on considering intelligence from a wider perspective, this volume includes constructs such as emotional and practical intelligence in definitions of intellectual functioning.Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs is an essential volume for researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of educational psychology, intelligence, educational measurement and assessment, and critical thinking.
The application of probability and statistics to an ever-widening number of life-decisions serves to reproduce, reinforce, and widen disparities in the quality of life that different groups of people can enjoy. As a critical technology assessment, the ways in which bad luck early in life increase the probability that hardship and loss will accumulate across the life course are illustrated. Analysis shows the ways in which individual decisions, informed by statistical models, shape the opportunities people face in both market and non-market environments. Ultimately, this book challenges the actuarial logic and instrumental rationalism that drives public policy and emphasizes the role that the mass media play in justifying its expanded use. Although its arguments and examples take as their primary emphasis the ways in which these decision systems affect the life chances of African-Americans, the findings are also applicable to a broad range of groups burdened by discrimination.
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.
Technology is our conduit of power. In our modern world, technology is the gatekeeper deciding who shall have and who shall have not. Either technology works for you or you work for technology. It shapes the human race just as much as we shape it. But where is this symbiosis going? Who provides the directions, the intentions, the goals of this human-machine partnership? Such decisions do not derive from the creators of technology who are enmeshed in their individual innovations. They neither come from our social leaders who possess only sufficient technical understanding to react to innovations, not to anticipate or direct their progress. Neither is there evidence of some omnipotent 'invisible hand,' the simple fact is that no one is directing this enterprise. In Mind, Machine and Morality, Peter Hancock asks questions about this insensate progress and has the temerity to suggest some cognate answers. He argues for the unbreakable symbiosis of purpose and process, and examines the dangerous possibilities that emerge when science and purpose meet. Historically, this work is a modern-day child of Bacon's hope for the 'Great Instauration.' However, unlike its forebear, the focus here is on human-machine systems. The emphasis centers on the conception that the active, extensive face of modern philosophy is technology. Whatever we are to become is bound up not only in our biology but critically in our technology also. And to achieve rational progress we need to articulate manifest purpose. This book is one step along the purposive road. Drawing together his many seminal writings on human-machine interaction and adapting these works specifically for this collection, Peter Hancock provides real food for thought, delighting readers with his unique philosophical perspective and outstanding insights. This is theoretical work of the highest order and will open minds accordingly.
The new realities of airline travel came into full focus after the September 11 terrorist attacks. These horrific events escalated air rage incidents by 400%, but more importantly they put the entire airline industry under the spotlight. In subsequent years, the general public began to voice frustrations with the industry in very dramatic ways, a marked shift in consumer behavior from that of before 9/11. The International Transport Workers Federation responded with a call to action to bring about major changes to raise the airline industry to a level of service quality sufficient to meet the needs of 21st Century passengers. The quality of services that airline customers expect and the propensity toward air rage needs to be understood. Undoubtedly, some passengers are prone to air rage by factors in no way related to customer service. However, a better understanding of the customer's perception of service and airlines' offerings is one way of addressing the air rage crisis, combating the contributing factors long before they conspire to provoke a damaging incidence. Anger in the Air: Combating the Air Rage Phenomenon provides airlines with valuable input to help them better meet the service expectations of their customers and avoid instances of air rage on their flights. What do today's customers need and expect? What do airline customers perceive as the quality of services and how can the gap be closed between expectations and perceptions? The book addresses these key issues in five stages: 1.
Since Canis lupus familiaris first shared a fire with man more than 15,000 years ago, dogs have been trusted and valued coworkers. Yet the relatively new field of canine ergonomics is just beginning to unravel the secrets of this collaboration. As with many new fields, the literature on working dogs is scattered across several non-overlapping disciplines from forensics and the life sciences to medicine, security, and wildlife biology. Canine Ergonomics: The Science of Working Dogs draws together related research from different fields into an interdisciplinary resource of science-based information. Providing a complete overview, from physiology to cognition, this is the first book to discuss working dogs from a scientific perspective. It covers a wide range of current and potential tasks, explores ergonomic and cognitive aspects of these tasks, and covers personality traits and behavioral assessments of working dogs. A quick look at the chapters, contributed by experts from across the globe and across the multidisciplinary spectrum, illustrates the breadth and depth of information available in this book. Traditionally, information concerning working dogs is mostly hearsay, with the exchange of information informal at best and non-existent at worst. Most books available are too general in coverage or conversely, too specific. They explain how to train a service dog or train a dog to track, based on training lore rather than empirical methods verified with rigorous scientific standards. This book, drawing on cutting edge research, unifies different perspectives into one global science: Canine Ergonomics.
This book provides a great collection of work design testimonies with transferable lessons across many industry sectors and domains. It discusses physiological and cognitive parameters, teamwork, social aspects, organizational, and broader factors that influence work design initiatives. It is important to learn from practitioner stories and real-world conditions that affect the theoretical applications of work design. Readers will benefit from understanding the struggles and successes of the authors. The chapters cover a wide spectrum of human factors and user needs, including decision making in (ab)normal and safety-critical situations, physical ergonomics, design-in-use modifications, and tailored training. The text examines holistic approaches that lead to improved work methods, worker engagement, and effective system-wide interventions. Ergonomic Insights: Successes and Failures of Work Design is primarily written for professionals and graduate students in the fields of ergonomics, human factors, and occupational health and safety. Educators will also benefit from using these case studies in class lessons.
Risky Work Environments provides new insights into the multiple and dynamic trajectories of both near misses and mistakes in complex work environments, based on actual case examples. It also studies the interactions between various activity systems or work practices (design, maintenance, incident investigation, regulation, operation) and their consequences for operational performance. The role of rules and regulations is explored, considering the consequences of deviations and the limitations of enforced compliance. Further, the book explains how to search for, think about and act on information about vulnerability, near misses and mistakes in a way that emphasizes accountability in ways that are not punitive but instead responsible, innovative and provide opportunities for learning. Writing from different disciplines and theoretical perspectives, the contributors analyse working in risky environments which include air traffic control, offshore mining, chemical plants, neo-natal intensive care units, ship piloting and emergency call dispatch centres. In each chapter the authors present rich empirical data and their analyses illustrate a variety of ways in which, despite imperfect systems, safety and resilience is created in human action. In the chapters where the focus is on error or mistakes, the analysis undertaken reveals the logic of actions undertaken at the time as well as their constraints. The contributors are all active researchers within their disciplines and come from Australia, Finland, France, Norway and the Netherlands. The book will be of direct interest to safety scientists, researchers and scientists, as well as human factors practitioners working in complex technological systems. |
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