It is an honor and a great pleasure for us to present this special issue for WORK. This selection of papers is an outcome of our symposium organized during the IEA congress 2009 (Beijing, China) that followed up previous IEA symposia. Ever since the IEA Conference in Paris (1991), and at each of the subsequent triennial IEA conferences (Toronto, 1994; Tampere, 1997; San Diego 2000; Seoul 2003; ...

In Japan, the accident rate for seamen is 5 times higher than that for all other industries. Many maritime work accidents are related to the poor ergonomic conditions of the working environment. It is particularly important to examine seamen safety in terms of vessel type and seamen age, as these factors are related to various sorts of accidents. In this paper, maritime work accidents were anal...

Advances in information technology have triggered changes in the way work is done at VDTs. Traditional patterns of office work have also been changing accordingly, with mobile work being a typical example. We conducted a series of studies to examine the current state of VDT work and identify any new occupational safety and health issues. Our results suggest that new patterns of office work, if ...

objectives: the objective of this study is to evaluate the safety climate as an important part of macroergonomics domains and to determine the importance of each safety climate factor in an iranian company. methods: for data gathering, the researchers used macroergonomic organizational questionnaire survey (moqs) method. for conducting this method we applied safety climate questionnaire which h...

Improvement can be understood as a project that is undertaken to obtain additional benefits to the organization and its customers. In the literature, the term is most often present in the context of pro quality activities as a “continuous improvement”. In the companies’ practice it is striving for excellence that manifests itself through the implementation of various concepts, methods and impro...

The importance of ergonomics across several scientific domains, including biomechanics, psychology, sociology, and physiology, have been extensively explored. However, the role of other factors that may influence the health and productivity of workers, such as nutrition, is generally overlooked. Nutra-ergonomics describes the interface between workers, their work environment, and performance in...

Many ficld surveys and medical check-ups suggest that the visual load of VDT work is heavy, and that complaints and subsequent medical diagnoses rclatc to the user of VDTs. However, very few surveys were epidemiologically wcll designed. Some clinical cases were diagnosed as relating to VDT work; however, the pathogeny was not disclosed. The most commonly mcasurcd and examined physiological resp...

The most frequent and expensive cause category of compensable loss is manual material handling (MMH). Casting workers who handle oxygen (O2) cylinders manually are at risk for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The aim of this study was to assess manual handling of O2 cylinders by casting workers and to implement ergonomic intervention to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorder...