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Abstract:The study focuses on psychological and physical effects of stress while performing community garden activities of various intensity levels. The aim of this study was to determine the psychological and physical effects in adults with (case group) and without (control group) mental disabilities. Salivary α-amylase (sAA) levels and the stress response scale (SRS-18) were used for the psychological analysis (n = 42). For physical assessment (n = 13), electrocardiogram (ECG), surface electromyogram (sEMG), and respiration rate were continuously measured while performing the activities using a multichannel telemetry system. The results showed that following the activities, the case group exhibited decreasing sAA levels while control group exhibited increasing sAA levels. However, both groups exhibited lower SRS-18 results following the activities. Compared with the control group, the case group had a significantly lower increase in the ratio of the heart rate (IRHR) (5.5%) during low-intensity work (filling pots with soil), but a significantly higher IRHR (16.7%) during high-intensity work (turning over soil). The case group experienced significantly higher levels of fatigue during high-intensity work (digging) than during the rest condition. These findings indicate that appropriate workload allocation, according to health, is necessary in the community garden setting because reducing the intensity of work assignments for people with mental disabilities will reduce their physical stress.

Gardening has been recognized as a physical activity that increases well-being and health benefits among adults with and without mental disabilities. The aim of this study was to quantify trunk movements and conduct motion analysis of adult with case group, n = 6 and without control group, n = 7 mental disabilities while performing six gardening tasks of varying levels of intensity.A wireless tri-axial accelerometer was used to continuously measure, monitor, and record motion acceleration during the tasks. Results showed that the pattern of mean dynamic acceleration MAD differed between the case and control groups and between tasks over time. The case group showed significantly lower trunk movement lower MAD values in the high-intensity trunk movement tasks, such as digging, compared with the control group. In the low-intensity trunk movement tasks, such as seed sowing, the case group had higher MAD values compared with the control group, but not significantly different. In high-intensity trunk movement tasks, such as digging and turning over soil, the control group performed at a faster rate and showed a more harmonic pattern 3 s/cycle compared with the case group 4 s/cycle . The case and control groups may have responded differently to motion because of their habitual physical activity. The characteristics of movement during gardening tasks in adults with and without mental disabilities reported in this study could form the basis for selection data for gardening program development.

In this study, a greenhouse solar dryer with double-pass multi-hollow collector for leaf drying was design, constructed, and evaluated. From the result, the double pass solar air collector with multi-hollow tube is capable of increasing air temperature by 5.5℃-10.8℃ compared to ambient air temperature. Thermal efficiency of the dryer was evaluated for passive and active modes, where 47.2% and 50% are recorded respectively. The moisture reduction on mass basis in passive and active dryer recorded was 44% and 74%, respectively. The specific moisture extraction rate (SMER) and specific energy consumption (SEC) of passive dryer was determined to be 0.198 kg per kWh and 5.047 kWh per kg, and active dryer at 0.210 kg per kWh and 4.769 kWh per kg, respectively.

Oil palm harvesting activity is mostly done by 'human power' manual handling, therefore the activity may cause work safety and health problems.This research is deal with anthropometry, motion study and biomechanic to find out the risk of manual handling and to develop ergonomic assessment model of oil palm harvesting. This model was designed in the aims to find out better work motion, good procedure and better design of harvesting tool, so the manual harvesting can be done in more safe, efficient and productive. The formula for the appropriate distance between harvester's position and the tree and the length of egrek show that oil palm harvesting for more than 16 m bunches's height is not safe with 'egrek'. Critical load for neck, shoulder and forearm are 21.85 N, 1091.96 N and 1634.31 N. Ergonomic risk assesment's tool of oil palm manual harvesting was designed with the parameter: appropriate distance (dt), the length of egrek (lp), critical range of motion (CRM) and critical load (CL) for neck, shoulder and forearm.