Search

O sono e uma necessidade basica do ser humano, fundamental para a homeostase e manutencao da vida. Problemas para dormir levam a fadiga ocupacional, com consequente baixa capacidade de trabalho. Existe associacao entre sonolencia diurna excessiva com menor qualidade de vida. O objetivo desse trabalho foi, com base na revisao da literatura, analisar a qualidade do sono (QS) e a sonolencia diurna (SD) em docentes universitarios e o quanto interferem na qualidade de vida no trabalho (QVT) dos mesmos, pretendendo posteriormente realizar acoes preventivas para melhorias em sua capacidade laboral e servir como guia para estudos futuros. Isso proporcionara auxilio em futuras acoes estrategicas voltadas ao publico alvo, buscando aprimorar a qualidade de vida e qualidade de vida no trabalho dos docentes universitarios.

This paper reports on part of the French MEDOC Project that was supported by Foundation MAIF, Paris, France [grant number RP4-F14140]. The main goal of this project was to understand near miss situations using both objective and subjective methods for data collection: the vehicle dynamics and registered driver’s actions; and the self-reported conditions that led to the occurrence and self-reported road users’ actions to avoid an accident. The collected data allowed for comparing reported ones. The project involved a total of 154 drivers. However, this paper just addresses the group of 27 older drivers. Although older drivers are generally considered safe and cautious drivers, age-related perceptual and cognitive declines might have an impact on self-perception of their own abilities and behavior leading some of them to be under or over-estimators, which will influence their perception of any sudden event. Thus, this study is important to compare their self-reports with the collected data from sensors.

Ergonomics in Portugal as an undergraduate university course started in 1985, at the Faculty of Human Kinetics (FMH). During the last 32 years, changes have been introduced. Since 2007 the length of the course and rearrangement of the contents suffered modifications determined by the Bologna Agreement. Aiming at characterizing the profession, two questionnaires were applied to ergonomists. The first questionnaire was applied by FMH to a sample of 48 ergonomists and the second questionnaire was applied by the Portuguese Association (APERGO) to 43 ergonomists. Regarding the need of ergonomists in Portugal the prevalent opinion is that more ergonomists are and will be needed. Most of the ergonomists develop their work activity in the domain of Ergonomics (60.47%) and/or Health and Safety at work (55.8%). The Services sector (53.5%) is the main sector of activity for more than half of the sample. Industry (30.2%) and Education/Training (20.93%) are other sectors more represented. During the last years of economic crisis the training of ergonomists in Portugal has been questioned based on its costs. However, new demands are emerging and ergonomists will be needed in the future.

Background Beyond workload and specific environmental factors, flight attendants can be exposed to irregular working hours, conflicting with their circadian rhythms and having a negative impact in sleep, fatigue, health, social and family life, and performance which is critical to both safety and security in flight operations. Objective This study focuses on the irregular schedules of cabin crew as a trigger of fatigue symptoms in a wet lease Portuguese airline. The aim was to analyze: what are the requirements of the cabin crew work; whether the schedules being observed and effective resting timeouts are triggering factors of fatigue; and the existence of fatigue symptoms in the cabin crew. Methods A questionnaire has been adapted and applied to a sample of 73 cabin crew-members (representing 61.9% of the population), 39 females and 34 males, with an average age of 27.68 ± 4.27 years. Results Our data indicate the presence of fatigue and corresponding health symptoms among the airline cabin crew, despite of the sample favorable characteristics. Senior workers and women are more affected. Conclusions Countermeasures are required. Recommendations can be made regarding the fatigue risk management, including work organization, education and awareness training programmes and specific countermeasures.

Research on the acceptability of assistive systems for improving the safety of powered two-wheelers (PTWs) is a pressing issue. The use of safety-enhancing assistive systems for motorised vehicles, including advanced driver assistance systems and in-vehicle information systems is widespread in many countries. Yet, there is only a limited number of equivalent intelligent transport systems (ITS) for PTWs, namely advanced rider assistance systems and on-bike information systems. This study describes the methodological development of a specific tool for assessing motorcyclists’ acceptability of ITS, as part of the motorcyclists’ profiling questionnaire (MOPROQ). There were three stages of development. First, a literature review was undertaken to assess the current state of the art regarding ITS for PTWs and to determine the most relevant facets of acceptability that should be measured. Second, a series of focus group interviews were conducted to explore riders’ attitudes towards ITS. Finally, the focus group results were used to develop a large-scale survey (MOPROQ), which was administered to an initial sample of over 6000 riders internationally. The designed tool can be used as a basis for the determination of rider acceptability of ITS systems in the future.

There has been limited development of advanced rider assistance systems and on-bike information systems for powered two-wheelers (PTWs), even though research suggests that population-wide deployment of assistive systems could significantly reduce PTW crashes. This study aims to understand general and system-specific factors that are likely to influence acceptability of PTW assistive systems, including barriers that may prevent uptake and proper use of systems, through a large-scale survey of European riders. The survey was available in seven languages and attracted 6297 respondents. Respondents were frequent riders, who rode primarily for leisure purposes and had high awareness of assistive systems. Cluster analysis revealed two groups based on overall acceptability of assistive systems. The moderate and low acceptance clusters differed in terms of riding practices, risk perception, attitudes towards rule breaking, and some personality traits. Overall acceptability was low, but riders who perceive greater risk in riding display higher acceptability. Acceptability was highest for systems that do not interfere with the riding task, are well-known and/or considered reliable (e.g., night vision, ABS, eCall, advanced front-lighting system). In general, riders believe that existing safety equipment (e.g., helmets, protective clothing) is more reliable, provides greater resistance, and is considerably cheaper than more sophisticated assistive technology. Riders believe that innovations should focus on protective equipment, since they believe crash prevention is better addressed through rider training. Finally, riders felt there should be more emphasis on vehicle tyre condition, while tyre pressure control systems were identified as potentially helpful.

In the last two decades the control of the Portuguese railway network has become much more centralized in three centres, there integrating the functions of route flow management, electrical control and signalling. This study aimed to investigate the influence of work and individual determinants in sleepiness among railway control workers, namely socio-demographic factors, work ability, psychosocial factors, shiftwork characteristics, fatigue perception, and sleep. Sleepiness by shift was associated with quality of sleep, job satisfaction, fatigue perception, quantitative demands, and age. The results indicate a high prevalence of sleepiness during the night shift and show the relevance of the quality of sleep as a predictor in the three models of sleepiness for morning, afternoon and night shifts. This study, done at the major Portuguese railway control centre, alerted managers to the importance of schedule planning as well as sleepiness prevention plans and makes these results a reference for future research.

Le projet europeen CEMVOCAS (Centralised management of vocal interfaces aiming at a better automotive safety) a ete conduit dans l'optique de pallier les problemes engendres par la multiplication des systemes d'assistance utilisant le canal vocal pour communiquer avec le conducteur. Ce projet visait, en outre, a attenuer l'impact negatif de ces nouvelles technologies, tout comme celui de l'utilisation du telephone, sur la tâche de conduite. L'objectif etait de developper une technologie adaptative, c'est-a-dire une technologie capable de moduler son interaction avec le conducteur en fonction du contexte de conduite, puis de la tester en situation reelle de conduite. Apres avoir presente les differentes phases du projet, cet article se focalise sur la conception d'un module de diagnostic de la disponibilite du conducteur pour recevoir des messages vocaux (recueil de donnees, codage des situations) et sur son evaluation (taux de reconnaissance du codage selon les situations), puis presente l'evaluation du prototype final (opinion de conducteurs sur l'apport global du systeme, en termes de securite et de confort). De bonnes performances ont ete obtenues pour le module de diagnostic (taux satisfaisant de reconnaissance des situations de conduite). Les evaluations finales ont egalement montre le gain que peut apporter une gestion en temps reel des informations vocales, en offrant la possibilite de les differer lorsque la situation de conduite l'exige. Enfin, les conducteurs ont apprecie l'apport de ce systeme, en termes de confort et securite.

The project brought together researchers from 9 EU-Countries and resulted in a number of actions, in particular the following: (a) There is an urgent need of defining the concept of flexible working hours, since it has been used in many different and even counterintuitive ways; the most obvious distinction is where the influence over the working hours lies, that is between the "company-based flexibility" and the "individual-oriented flexibility"; (b) The review of the Legislation in force in the 15 European countries shows that the regulation of working times is quite extensive and covers (Council Directive 93/104/EC) almost all the various arrangements of working hours (i.e., part-time, overtime, shift, and night work), but fails to provide for flexibility; (c) According to the data of the Third EU Survey on Working Conditions, longer and "irregular" working hours are in general linked to lower levels of health and well-being; moreover, low (individual) flexibility and high variability of working hours (i.e., company-based flexibility) were consistently associated with poor health and well-being, while low variability combined with high autonomy showed positive effects; (d) Six substudies from different countries demonstrated that flexible working hours vary according to country, economic sector, social status, and gender; overtime is the most frequent form of company-based flexibility but has negative effects on stress, sleep, and social and mental health; individual flexibility alleviates the negative effects of the company-based flexibility on subjective health, safety, and social well-being; (e) The literature review was able to list more than 1,000 references, but it was striking that most of these documents were mainly argumentative with very little empirical data. Thus, one may conclude that there is a large-scale intervention ongoing in our society with almost completely unknown and uncontrolled effects. Consequently, there is a strong need for systematic research and well-controlled actions in order to examine in detail what flexible working hours are considered, what and where are their positive effects, in particular, as concerns autonomy, and what regulation seem most reasonable.

The final prototype of a centralized voice information system, developed under the framework of the European CeMVocAS (Centralised Management of Vocal Interfaces Aiming at a Better Automotive Safety) project, was evaluated. This system manages all types of voice messages to the driver (i.e., input and output voice flows to and from car telephone, radio, and driver assistance systems) to minimize their disruptive impact on the basic task of driving. Analysis of the results included evaluation of ( a) the part of the system responsible for determining the driver’s potential availability to receive voice messages [driving situation recognition unit (DSRU)] and ( b) the complete system (DSRU plus centralized voice interface management system). Results indicate that the system is quite robust in terms of vehicle, driver, and route variability; in addition, levels of system effectiveness, system efficiency, and user satisfaction were high.

Human-centred design of innovative systems in the field of Transports is crucial for safety and efficiency issues. For utilitarian or working purposes, a system is designed and developed in such a way it should fit the human characteristics and the function it is designed for. Even automatic and complex systems are controlled by people, meaning that their features should be integrated from the design phases until the implementation and functioning in order to ensure a well succeeded life cycle. The value of the contribution of Ergonomics to fit systems and tasks to human is well recognised, particularly concerning the physical features of humans and machines. However, technological development and innovation are bringing about new problems and, consequently, new research needs. Actually, the main research questions related to the human interaction with modern and complex systems focus on the human information processing and cognitive functioning, stressing decision making, attention, mental workload and fatigue, which are responsible for the success of any task performance but could compromise the expected results and safety. The study of human activity and behaviour allows us to understand human diversity and variability, the instability of the human activity over time, due to fatigue, health, ageing, etc., as well as the evolution of human expertise and people’s motivation and commitment in their tasks performance. This article will focus on these new research questions applied to the field of TRANSPORTS, where the main technological innovation is represented by the introduction of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). Ongoing and recently carried out projects will be referred to frame and explain the following research topics: the cognitive resources in performing additional tasks to driving, fatigue and drowsiness in driving and in traffic control rooms, as well as ITS and special needs of older drivers.

Typical industrial assembly lines with repetitive work have increasing rates of musculoskeletal disorders. Work organization centered on small lines and providing a larger set of tasks by operator is a possible solution to prevent this problem. The aim of this study was the ergonomic evaluation of two small radio assembly lines compared with the traditional one. The results are very promising for the new line models.