Search results for "Comfort"
showing 10 items of 178 documents
A Humanoid Social Robot Based Approach for Indoor Environment Quality Monitoring and Well-Being Improvement
2020
The indoor environmental quality (IEQ) monitoring inside buildings where people spend most of their time is essential for ensuring their well-being. Traditional approaches based on Building Automation and Control Systems consider buildings equipped with many different sensors. Unfortunately, the sensors are not always placed for taking the measurements at the right positions. Besides, users could feel a negative perception due to continuous supervision. The present work proposes an approach based on a social humanoid robot that monitors indoor environmental quality. It friendly interacts with occupants providing appropriate suggestions. Particularly, the social robot has been endowed with c…
A cross-sectional study of pre-service teachers’ views about disability and attitudes towards inclusive education
2016
Teachers’ attitudes towards students with disabilities and special educational needs (SEN) and their inclusion in regular education classrooms have been internationally identified as a key factor in the implementation of inclusive education. In this study, 501 participants representing a cross-section of pre-service teachers from three public colleges of education in Ghana were surveyed about their views regarding disability, level of discomfort interacting with people with disabilities and attitudes towards inclusive education. The results indicate that the pre-service teachers understood disability as an interaction between biological and environmental factors and felt comfortable interac…
Le confort en bouche, un nouveau concept pour mieux comprendre les attentes des consommateurs seniors
2020
International audience; In humans, oral food intake is the ultimate stage of food supply chain and the beginning of food disintegration and digestion process. During aging, the oral health changes and sometimes eating food can be a real challenge as food can be hard to masticate, humidify or swallow. To meet this challenge, and as part of the AlimaSSenS project, a team of researchers from the Centre of taste and eating behaviour investigated the concept of “oral comfort” when eating a food in an elderly population. A group of 107 seniors aged 65 years and more participated in qualitative (focus group) and quantitative studies (tasting sessions) in order to explore the concept of oral comfor…
Soccer players' fitting perception of different upper boot materials.
2016
[EN] The present study assessed the influence of upper boot materials on fitting perception. Twenty players tested three soccer boots only differing in the upper boot material (natural calf leather, natural kangaroo leather and synthetic leather). Players reported fitting perception and preference on specific foot areas using a perceived fitting scale. Ratings were averaged for every foot area. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze the differences between boots. The kangaroo leather boots were perceived tighter and closer to the preferred fitting in general fitting, metatarsals area and instep area. The synthetic leather boots were perceived as the loosest and as the most distant boot…
A correlation linking the predicted mean vote and the mean thermal vote based on an investigation on the human thermal comfort in short-haul domestic…
2015
Abstract The results of an experimental investigation on the human thermal comfort inside the cabin of some Airbus A319 aircrafts during 14 short-haul domestic flights, linking various Italian cities, are presented and used to define a correlation among the predicted mean vote (PMV), a procedure which is commonly used to assess the thermal comfort in inhabited environments, and the equivalent temperature and mean thermal vote (MTV), which are the parameters suggested by the European Standard EN ISO 14505-2 for the evaluation of the thermal environment in vehicles. The measurements of the radiant temperature, air temperature and relative humidity during flights were performed. The air temper…
Comparisons of Musculoskeletal Complaints and Data Entry Between a Sitting and a Sit-Stand Workstation Paradigm
2009
Background: Seated working positions are often regarded as a cause for discomfort in the musculoskeletal system. Performing work in different working positions—that is, alternating between sitting and standing (sit-stand workstation paradigm)—could help reduce physical complaints. Objective: The questions were whether performing office work partly in a standing position leads to reduced complaints and whether standing would change the efficiency of data entry office work. Method: We investigated the effect of a sit-stand workstation paradigmd during experimental data entry office work on physical and psychological complaints and data entry efficiency by conducting a randomized controlled t…
Developing motor planning over ages
2009
International audience; Few studies have explored the development of response selection processes in children in the case of object manipulation. In the current research, we studied the end-state comfort effect, the tendency to ensure a comfortable position at the end rather than at the beginning of simple object manipulation tasks. We used two versions of the unimanual bar transport task. In Experiment 1, only 10-year-olds reached the same level of sensitivity to end-state comfort as adults, and 8-year-olds were less efficient than 6-year-olds. In each age group, children’s sensitivity did not increase during a session: i.e., either clearly showed the sensitivity or showed no sensitivity a…
Psychological and behavioural factors associated with long-term weight maintenance after a multidisciplinary treatment of uncomplicated obesity
2013
Obesity is a multifactorial syndrome and the likelihood of success of a medical nutritional treatment (MNT) over the long term is low. As psychological and behavioural factors have an important role in both pathogenesis and the treatment of obesity, these issues were investigated in individuals with obesity who reported a long-term success or a failure in terms of weight loss following a MNT. Eighty-eight individuals of an original cohort of 251 subjects were re-evaluated 10 years after a MNT with cognitive-behavioural approach for uncomplicated obesity. Fifty-three participants were classified as failure (body weight change ≥0.5 kg) and 35 as a success (10-year body weight change <0.5 kg) …
Influence of age, gender and obesity on pressure discomfort threshold of the foot: A cross-sectional study
2021
[EN] Background: Foot pain is a highly prevalent health problem for which measures such as a pattern of Pressure Discomfort Threshold of the foot plantar surface can provide valuable information for orthosis design. This study aimed to describe such pattern as a tool for the assessment of painful conditions of the feet and to analyse how it modifies according to age, gender and obesity. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed with participants allocated in: Group 1 people aged 20 to 35 years, Group 2 aged 50 to 65 years and Group 3 aged over 65. Pressure Discomfort Threshold on twelve points of the foot plantar surface was measured with an adapted manual dynamometer. Inferential anal…
Evaluation of Physiological Parameters on Discomfort Glare Thresholds Using LUMIZ 100 Tool
2021
Purpose To assess the links between discomfort glare sensitivity and physiological factors such as eye biometry, refraction, skin phototype, age, and gender among a large sample of healthy human subjects. Methods A total of 489 participants who were 20 to 70 years old (241 men, 248 women) underwent discomfort glare threshold measurements via the LUMIZ 100. Eye biometry and optical quality were measured using a Zeiss IOLMaster 700 biometer and i.Profiler aberrometer. Iris color, skin tone, age, gender, eyeglasses use, chronotype, fatigue level, self-evaluation of light sensitivity, and time spent outdoors were determined. Statistical analysis was carried out using nonparametric Mann–Whitney …