The demand for leisure time in the presence of constrained work hours

This article presents a labor supply model designed to address situations of overemployment or underemployment in the labor market. Previous labor supply models have taken the possibility of work hour constraints into consideration but typically assumed that the existence of fixed work hours only influenced the decision of labor force participation. This ignores situations in which individuals choose to be employed at fixed-hour jobs even though these jobs do not offer the desired work hours.     

Postural assessment of school children: an input for the design of furniture

During the last decades of the previous century, school desks with a tilt top have disappeared. The chairs have been designed for sitting upright, with the hip, knees and ankles all at right angles. However, the erect posture cannot be maintained for more than one or two minutes, after which it will result in fatigue, discomfort or poor posture. The main aim of project is to identify the type of furniture that most effectively contribute to adequate neck and back postures of the school children, by carrying out a postural analysis of a sample of school pupils when using three different types of furniture. The postures adopted by school pupils were monitored by video during several activities, such as reading, writing and painting tasks, copying from a blackboard and listening the teacher. Additionally, the characteristics of the adopted postures were assessed by registering the head tilt, flexion of the neck, trunk and hips position. All these aspects were classified and the results were recorded for future analysis. The obtained results seem to point out that the use of a school desk with a tilted table surface resulted in a reduction in trunk and neck flexion, preserving the natural lordosis in the lumbar and cervical regions. Accordingly, it can be concluded that there are alternatives to consider in the furniture design in order to eliminate tensions and, consequently, to improve children's wellbeing.     

Comparison between occupational noise measurement strategies: why is it important?

The international standard ISO 9612:2009, regarding the determination of occupational noise exposure through an engineering method, establishes a methodology for evaluating the exposure of workers to occupational noise, through the specification of three different strategies, namely: task-based measurement (TBM); job-based measurement (JBM) and; full day measurement (FDM). In this work, questions are raised, "resulting in a literature review regarding the need to test the functionality of the three strategies, through the systematic comparison between them and analysis of their application impact at several levels. There is a need to test the compare these three strategies, since there are no peer-review studies in this domain. In fact, there are still no studies that systematically do the comparison between them and analyze the impact of their application at various levels, such as the precision and accuracy of the results, the required equipment, time spent and, most important, the estimation of the uncertainty associated to the measurements.     

Urban ergonomics: an ongoing study of city signs and maps

The purpose of this study is to assess whether the existing signals in three European cities were developed according usability principles and ergonomic aspects for the citizen. City maps and signals will be tested using efficiency, effectiveness and user's satisfaction criteria. Among the urban areas are the center of Paris-FR, assumed to be well signalized, the historical center of Guimar?es-PT and Chorweiler, Cologne-DE, a residential neighborhood of modern urbanism characterized by the extensive use of vegetation, the landscape homogeneity, and, consequently, by the difficult navigation.     

A financial survey of mergers during the years 1968–70

This paper is concerned with the financial objectives of mergers and acquisitions and the way in which considerations in the merger transaction, such as the price paid and the method of payment used, may affect such objectives subsequent to the merger. The analysis is based on a sample of 65 mergers during the years 1968–70 inclusive [2].     

From ergonomics to design specifications: contributions to the design of a processing machine in a tire company

The development of ergonomics' recommendations, guidelines and standards are attempts to promote the integration of ergonomics into industrial contexts. Such developments result from several sources and professionals and represent the effort that has been done to develop healthier and safer work environments. However, the availability of large amount of data and documents regarding ergonomics does not guarantee their applicability. The main goal of this paper is to use a specific case to demonstrate how ergonomics criteria were developed in order to contribute to the design of workplaces. Based on the obtained results from research undertaken in a tire company, it was observed that the ergonomics criteria should be presented as design specifications in order to be used by engineers and designers. In conclusion, it is observed that the multiple constraint environment impeded the appliance of the ergonomics criteria. It was also observed that the knowledge on technical design and the acquaintance with ergonomic standards, the level of integration in the design team, and the ability to communicate with workers and other technical staff have paramount importance in integrating ergonomics criteria into the design process.     

Ergonomic tridimensional analysis: critical ergonomic factors identification in a commercial environmental

The Ergonomic tridimensional analysis (ETdA) was developed to be used as an auxiliary tool on the ergonomic intervention. It was specially designed for commercial areas with free circulation of people. Due to that, the client, the third ETdA dimension, becomes an important element and their opinions relevant in the ergonomic analysis. The remains two ETdA dimensions, professionals and analyst, play an identical role as in the traditional occupational ergonomic analysis. For each of these dimensions, specific observation tools were assembled: an ETdA questionnaire, an evaluation form and a checklist for direct and indirect observations. The variables that allow the ETdA operability are identified as Ergonomic Factors (EFs). A case study is presented identifying, for each dimension, the critical EFs. This will allow the design of the weighting table, where the influence of each dimensions results is measured, stressing the important role of clients on ergonomic issues.     

A literature review about usability evaluation methods for e-learning platforms

The usability analysis of information systems has been the target of several research studies over the past thirty years. These studies have highlighted a great diversity of points of view, including researchers from different scientific areas such as Ergonomics, Computer Science, Design and Education. Within the domain of information ergonomics, the study of tools and methods used for usability evaluation dedicated to E-learning presents evidence that there is a continuous and dynamic evolution of E-learning systems, in many different contexts -academics and corporative. These systems, also known as LMS (Learning Management Systems), can be classified according to their educational goals and their technological features. However, in these systems the usability issues are related with the relationship/interactions between user and system in the user's context. This review is a synthesis of research project about Information Ergonomics and embraces three dimensions, namely the methods, models and frameworks that have been applied to evaluate LMS. The study also includes the main usability criteria and heuristics used. The obtained results show a notorious change in the paradigms of usability, with which it will be possible to discuss about the studies carried out by different researchers that were focused on usability ergonomic principles aimed at E-learning.