Although sleepiness is pervasive in our society, there is little agreement on how to measure sleepiness or on how well sleepiness is actually related to sleep habits. To better assess how subjective sleepiness is related to sleep, the authors used self-report measures of sleep quantity, sleep quality, and napping to predict 4 different sleepiness-related measures in a group of healthy young and middle-aged-to-older adults. A forward regression analysis indicated that sleep quality was better than sleep quantity as a predictor of participants' sleepiness. The sleep measures, furthermore, predicted sleepiness better in the older adults than in the younger adults. Finally, the 4 sleepiness measures differed in how well they were related to sleep. The findings in the study suggest that sleepiness is a complex phenomenon rather than a simple reflection of sleep quantity.

During the period from October 1999 through December 2000, the Placement Service of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society distributed announcements describing 233 new positions available for human factors engineers and ergonomics professionals. This paper describes placement opportunities for HF and ergonomics professionals in industry and government/military (N=220). The attributes of the position descriptions examined include: employment sector, major field of study, degree requirements, required work experience, salary, geographic location, travel, and areas of expertise. The type of industry seeking most employees was Internet based at 33%. The most frequently specified major field of study was human factors (N=124). Fifty-three percent of the positions describe the master's degree as the minimum requirement. The geographical areas with the most jobs were California (N=48) and the Northwest (N=23). Finally, the area of expertise most frequently requested by employers was usability testing and design (N=99) and Human Computer Interaction (N=42) was the most commonly specified job expertise/function.

Internet-based questionnaires are emerging as a source of information for human factors and ergonomics researchers. There are a variety of commercially available tools that can assist researchers in the production of the questionnaire and collection of data. Four commercially available tools for the construction of Internet-based questionnaires were selected and evaluated for their use in human factors research. This product review provides a comparison of relevant features and recommendations on the value and usefulness of"these tools. The authors recommend 2 of the tools, Zoomerang.com and WebSurveyor.com, which offer a broad array of features for questionnaire creation, data collection, and analysis.