Citation analysis and bibliometric research in the field of ergonomics

Given that journal impact factors now represent such a “hot” topic in the modern scientific world, it is essential that ergonomists remain fully cognizant of the citation‐based research that has been conducted in our field. This article reviews and examines bibliometric research in the ergonomics profession, ranging from seminal work on content analysis and citation indexing, to some of the latest research describing ergonomics journal lists and longitudinal impact factor trends. Overall, history has shown how citation‐based studies have become increasingly common in the ergonomics field during the past few decades, and, as we move through the 21st century, ergonomics journals continue to mature as a result. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ergonomics and human factors: the paradigms for science,engineering, design,technology and management of human-compatible systems

This paper provides a theoretical perspective on human factors and ergonomics (HFE), defined as a unique and independent discipline that focuses on the nature of human-artefact interactions, viewed from the unified perspective of the science, engineering, design, technology and management of human-compatible systems. Such systems include a variety of natural and artificial products, processes and living environments. The distinguishing features of the contemporary HFE discipline and profession are discussed and a concept of ergonomics literacy is proposed. An axiomatic approach to ergonomics design and a universal measure of system-human incompatibility are also introduced. It is concluded that the main focus of the HFE discipline in the 21st century will be the design and management of systems that satisfy human compatibility requirements.     

Methodological issues in systems Human Factors and Ergonomics: Perspectives on the research–practice gap,reliability and validity,and prediction

The changing nature of work and society, and a proliferation of complex global challenges, is increasing the need for systems Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE). The discipline is well equipped to respond, but there remain a number of longstanding issues preventing systems HFE from realizing its full impact. There is a research–practice gap, a lack of reliability and validity evidence associated with systems HFE methods, and a shortage of methods that can predict behavior. In this article we revisit each issue, with each co-author providing their own perspective on the extent and causes of each issue, and their resolution. The perspectives reveal a consensus that the issues exist and are problematic but are challenging, multi-factorial, and require various solutions. The findings are subsequently synthesized to form an agenda for the wider discipline.     

Coercive journal self citations,impact factor,Journal Influence and Article Influence

This paper examines the issue of coercive journal self citations and the practical usefulness of two recent journal performance metrics, namely the Eigenfactor score, which may be interpreted as measuring “Journal Influence”, and the Article Influence score, using the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science (hereafter ISI) data for 2009 for the 200 most highly cited journals in each of the Sciences and Social Sciences. The paper also compares the two new bibliometric measures with two existing ISI metrics, namely Total Citations and the 5-Year Impact Factor (5YIF) (including journal self citations) of a journal. It is shown that the Sciences and Social Sciences are different in terms of the strength of the relationship of journal performance metrics, although the actual relationships are very similar. Moreover, the Journal Influence and Article Influence journal performance metrics are shown to be closely related empirically to the two existing ISI metrics, and hence add little in practical usefulness to what is already known, except for eliminating the pressure arising from coercive journal self citations. These empirical results are compared with existing results in the bibliometrics literature.     

Citations,research topics and active countries in software engineering: A bibliometrics study

Context: An enormous number of papers (more than 70,000) have been published in the area of Software Engineering (SE) since its inception in 1968. To better characterize and understand this massive research literature, there is a need for comprehensive bibliometrics assessments in this vibrant field.Objective: The objective of this study is to utilize automated citation and topic analysis to characterize the software engineering research literature over the years. While a few bibliometrics studies have appeared in the field of SE, this article aims to be the most comprehensive bibliometrics assessments in this vibrant field.Method: To achieve the above objective, we report in this paper a bibliometrics study with data collected from Scopus database consisting of over 70,000 articles. For thematic analysis, we used topic modeling to automatically generate the most probable topic distributions given the data.Results: We found that number of papers published per year has grown tremendously and currently 6000–7000 papers are published every year. At the same time, nearly half of the papers are not cited at all. Using text mining of articles titles, we found that currently the hot research topics in software engineering are: (1) web services, (2) mobile and cloud computing, (3) industrial (case) studies, (4) source code and (5) test generation. Finally, we found that a small share of large countries produce the majority of the papers in SE while small European countries are proportionally the most active in the area of SE, based on the number of papers.Conclusion: Due to large volumes of research in SE, we suggest using the automated analysis of bibliometrics as we have done in this paper. By picking out the most cited papers, we can present the land marks of SE and, with thematic analysis, we can characterize the entire field. This can be useful for students and other new comers to SE and for presenting our achievements to other disciplines. In particular, we see and report the value of such an analysis in situations where performing a full scale SLR is not feasible due to restrictions on time or to lack of exact research questions.     

Musculoskeletal exposure of manual spray painting in the woodworking industry – an ergonomic study on painters

In the present study the ergonomic conditions of manual spray painting in the woodworking industry have been studied. Manual spray painting is, despite rationalisations, quite common in the Swedish woodworking industry. Interviews with spray painters showed that they had higher prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in their right shoulder compared with other workers with manual work. A majority of the spray painters painted work-pieces lying on a work-table. A majority of these painters abduct the right upper-arm so much when painting the horizontal surface of the work-piece that they risk supraspinatus tendinitis. The upper-arm abduction when painting horizontal surfaces could be decreased without introducing new ergonomic disadvantages by installing work-tables with powered height control or possibly also by changing the geometry of the spray gun. Gripping the spray gun trigger was for some of the painters identified as causing a high risk for WMSD in the wrist. Lower spray gun trigger force would improve the situation. This could be done by the users in several ways, such as greasing the trigger mechanism and/or decreasing the spring pressure on the fluid needle.

Relevance to industry

The study highlights some major ergonomic problems for a fairly large group of workers in the woodworking industry.     

The impact of poor assembly ergonomics on product quality: A cost–benefit analysis in car manufacturing

The study aimed at analyzing the relationship between assembly ergonomics, assemblability (“ease of assembly”), and product quality and at quantifying these relationships in economic terms. This was in order to better to support the development of more ergonomic product and assembly solutions, particularly at early stages of the car development process. The assembly of 24,443 cars was studied for 8 weeks in an assembly plant and for another 16 weeks as factory‐complete vehicles. The results show increased risks for quality errors of 3.0 and 3.7 times and total action costs that were 8.7 times and 8.2 times higher for high and medium physical load assemblies compared to low physical load assemblies for 55 tasks assessed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Biomechanical analysis of accurately and carefully placing an aerospace avionics box in restricted space

The design of a spacecraft has many trade-offs to reduce its mass, which typically result in reduced work space for the installation of Line Replaceable Units (LRU). One common LRU in aerospace vehicles is the avionics box found in the space shuttle. To prevent damage to cold plates, the installation of these boxes requires designing for accurate and careful placement; yet there are no standards to follow nor studies to consider for designers concerning human limitations for installing boxes accurately and carefully. In the literature, there are an abundance of lifting studies; however, there are only a few studies that have placed a box in restricted space or on a target as a constraint. Of those studies, only three have looked at the biomechanics, and none of those studies have looked at factors affecting the Placement Control (accurate and careful placement) of a box on a target in restricted or unrestricted space. Thus, the focus of this study is to determine the biomechanical stresses and the human performance metrics for Placement Control (accurate and careful placement) of a box on target in restricted space.     

Research intelligence involving information retrieval – An example of conferences and journals

This paper reports a work that was intended to reveal the connection between topics investigated by conference papers and journal papers. This work selected hundreds of papers in data mining and information retrieval from well-known databases and showed that the topics covered by conference papers in a year often leads to similar topics covered by journal papers in the subsequent year and vice versa. This study used some existing algorithms and combination of these algorithms to proposed a new detective procedure for the researchers to detect the new trend and get the academic intelligence from conferences and journals.The goal of this research is fourfold: First, the research investigates if the conference papers’ themes lead the journal papers’. Second, the research examines how the new research themes can be identified from the conference papers. Third, the research looks at a specific area such as information retrieval and data mining as an illustration. Fourth, the research studies any inconsistencies of the correlation between the conference papers and the journal papers.This study explores the connections between the academic publications. The methodologies of information retrieval and data mining can be exploited to discover the relationships between published papers among all topics. By discovering the connections between conference papers and journal papers, researchers can improve the effectiveness of their research by identifying academic intelligence.This study discusses how conference papers and journal papers are related. The topics of conference papers are identified to determine whether they represent new trend discussed in journal papers. An automatic examination procedure based on information retrieval and data mining is also proposed to minimize the time and human resources required to predict further research developments. This study develops a new procedure and collects a dataset to verify those problems. Analytical results demonstrate that the conference papers submitted to journals papers are similar each year. Conference papers certainly affect the journal papers published over three years. About 87.23% of data points from papers published in 1991–2007 support our assumption. The research is intended to help researchers identify new trend in their research fields, and focus on the urgent topics. This is particularly valuable for new researchers in their field, or those who wish to perform cross-domain studies.     

Overview of Human Factors and Ergonomics in the OR,with an Emphasis on Minimally Invasive Surgeries

Operating rooms (OR) are where medical teams work to improve the health of a patient. However, because of the complexity of the procedures, errors and unsafe situations are likely to occur. These complications can lead to harm to the patient or medical professionals. Human factors and ergonomic professionals have been working to improve these unsafe conditions in the OR for over a century. However, with advances in technology, increased surgical complexity, as well as an increase in medical team members in the OR, there are still numerous improvements yet to be accomplished. Minimally invasive surgeries require an even more advanced approach to prevent errors due to technology, fatigue, and miscommunication. Human factors and ergonomic techniques provide the ability to greatly improve conditions for patients and surgeons alike. It is imperative that human factors and ergonomics continue to grow and facilitate technological advancements in healthcare. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Participatory journalism – the (r)evolution that wasn't. Content and user behavior in Sweden 2007–2013

A contemporary debate in media studies concerns participation and empowerment, and to what extent digital media shift power to the citizens. This study assesses the long‐term viability of participatory journalism using Swedish content and user data. Inclusion of comments and blog‐links on news sites increased from 2007 to 2010, and decreased rather dramatically from 2011 onward. Posting user comments or writing blogs have never been activities that have appealed to a majority of the Swedes. Participatory journalism seems to have decreasing value to producers and little appeal to users. A shift in how power is distributed in the public sphere is absent. This is not primarily a problem of reluctant producers but, more importantly, a lack of interest from users.     

Modelling worker fatigue and recovery in dual-resource constrained systems

The operational benefits that dual-resource constrained (DRC) job shop systems bring have captured the attention of researchers for some time. Although several studies that investigate DRCs are available in the literature, none has investigated a DRC system for the effects of human fatigue and recovery, which poses important parameters to avoiding overload and injury to employees. The purpose of this paper is to address this limitation by presenting a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model that describes fatigue and recovery in a DRC system with one worker performing n tasks (flexibility level) within m cycles. Later, the complexity of the MILP problem was reduced to four practical cases. These cases were investigated to evaluate several research questions. The results obtained from the MILP model and the four practical cases suggest that short rest breaks after each task, short cycle times and faster recovery rates improve the system’s performance and that reduced force levels in the work tasks will reduce recovery needs and further increase performance. Further research is still needed to identify or to develop better models of physiological and mental fatigue that can be integrated to the modelling framework presented here.     

Statistical analysis of energy consumption in China 1978–1990

An important aspects of energy research in recent years is to provide the developing nations with policies that foster a reasonable economic growth; while energy consumption is reduced per activity units. This paper presents the results of an analysis of Chinese energy consumption in the 1978–1990 period.     

Work Environment and the Bottom Line: Survey of Tools Relating Work Environment to Business Results

Insufficient knowledge of how the working environment (WE) impacts company performance leads to a poor basis for managerial decision making. The objective of this study was to survey and evaluate available tools relating WE to business results. Nine tools were identified and qualitatively evaluated using 11 criteria. The tools were clustered into three categories, ranging from analysis of WE risks as well as calculation of their economic impact to solely investment analysis. Shortcomings in the tools include insufficient attention to quality and productivity issues and insufficient guidance for users. Although further methodological development is indicated, researchers should also attend to the factors affecting tool uptake and application as well as the potential to integrate such analysis into companies' regular accounting systems. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Attitudes and opinions of railway signallers and related staff, using the Rail Ergonomics Questionnaire (REQUEST)

REQUEST, the Rail Ergonomics Questionnaire, has been designed to survey attitudes and opinions of railway signallers and those in associated roles on a range of human factors such as job satisfaction, the workplace, culture or stress. The development of the survey instrument has been described in Ryan et al. [2008. Developing a rail ergonomics questionnaire (REQUEST). Appl. Ergon., doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2008.04.006.]. The present paper presents an overview of findings from this national survey which achieved a sample size of 3889 and a response rate of 83%. Findings are compared by different roles (e.g. signaller, controller) on a range of main scales and responses to additional questions in the survey. Ratings from the largest of the occupational groups, the signaller at 83.1% of the overall population, have been compared according to different types of signalling system used, identifying different characteristics in the use of lever, panel and VDU signalling systems. Comparisons of signallers’ ratings by geographical location have produced findings of interest at different layers of management of the organisation, identifying locations with high or low ratings on a range of scales. The findings provide valuable information for the client organisation, using direct input from frontline staff on a range of human factors issues. This was a large survey, one of the largest ever civilian human factors surveys, involving lengthy, often repetitive and frequently complex analyses. Lessons learned within the administration of the survey, the analysis of the data and dissemination of the findings will be of interest to researchers. An overview of the scope of analyses of the database is introduced, in addition to proposals for further development of the survey instrument.     

Checkout cashier work and counter design – Video movement analysis, musculoskeletal disorders and customer interaction

This study was conducted in order to analyse checkout cashiers’ movements at a checkout counter during interaction with customers and the prevalence of work-related stress and musculoskeletal disorders in checkout cashiers. In one shop, six cashiers were videotaped during the workday, and 50 cashiers from seven shops from the same chain of stores responded a questionnaire. Cashier activities and movements, customer interaction and counter design issues were analysed from the video data. Prevalence of work-related stress and musculoskeletal disorders was obtained from the questionnaire. It was found that 76% of all items were manually turned or angled. With a better adjustment of the scanner and a standardised positioning of the EAN-code, many of these movements could be avoided. Furthermore the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders was quite high (68% for the neck). The questionnaire results showed that many cashiers experienced stress, giving a high percentage of cashiers in the “dedication under pressure” group. The behaviour of the customers was the major cause of stress. Other sources of stress arose from bad design or function of the computer system or other technical equipment.

Relevance to industry

In this study several problems regarding cashier work were identified and solutions, relevant to counter and package designers, shop managers and cashiers are suggested. Data obtained on cashier movements and prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders are given.     

Mapping the intellectual structure of research in decision support systems through author cocitation analysis (1971–1993)

This study applies factor analysis of an author cocitation frequency matrix derived from a database file that consists of a total of 23,768 cited reference records taken from 944 citing articles. Factor analysis extracted eleven factors consisting of six major areas of DSS research (group DSS, foundations, model management, interface systems, multicriteria DSS, and implementation) and five contributing disciplines (multiple criteria decision making, cognitive science, organizational science, artificial intelligence, and systems science). This research provides hard evidence that the decision support system has made meaningful progress over the past two decades and is in the process of solidifying its domain and demarcating its reference disciplines. Especially, much progress has been made in the subareas of model management such as representation, model base processing, model integration, and artificial intelligence application to model management leading towards the development of a theory of models. To facilitate the transition from the pre- to post-paradigm period in DSS research, this study has completed important groundwork.     

Data envelopment analysis with classification and regression tree – a case of banking efficiency

Abstract: Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a non‐parametric method for measuring the efficiency and productivity of decision‐making units (DMUs). On the other hand data mining techniques allow DMUs to explore and discover meaningful, previously hidden information from large databases. Classification and regression (C&R) is the commonly used decision tree in data mining. DEA determines the efficiency scores but cannot give details of factors related to inefficiency, especially if these factors are in the form of non‐numeric variables such as operational style in the banking sector. This paper proposes a framework to combine DEA with C&R for assessing the efficiency and productivity of DMUs. The result of the combined model is a set of rules that can be used by policy makers to discover reasons behind efficient and inefficient DMUs. As a case study, we use the proposed methodology to investigate factors associated with the efficiency of the banking sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.