Extreme Interaction Among Human–Environment–Equipment: A Pilot Study on the Ergonomic Design of Military Snow Boots

Abstract

The Indian soldiers guard the border regions located at extreme elevations in cold, often snow-covered conditions. Protecting their feet from life-threatening cold injuries is a primary objective as well as a matter of national security. As a solution, a new cold-condition “snow boot” design based on ergonomic principles was developed indigenously. The present study was conducted to assess the efficacy of the newly developed snow boot through the application of both objective and subjective tools. The new snow boot was as effective as an existing imported boot. Users preferred the new design and appreciated the boot’s relative lightweight.

A Crowd-Sourcing Project to Understand, Prevent and Manage Incidences of Injury and Wounding to Astronauts and Off-Earth Colonists

“…Our findings further support the use of the abstraction hierarchy methodology from WDA to develop a systems model for managing and treating injury and in understanding the drivers for the maintenance of positive mental fitness. This second study emphasises the important role that ergonomics has to play in modelling systems of such complexity and in previous studies conducted in other extreme environments and non-traditional workplaces [53][54][55][56][57] which should serve to inform both mission planners and amateur astronomers who want to understand, challenge and support the concept vision. The presentation of our findings at two Astronomy Society meetings acted as a route for critique and provided valuable input, particularly concerning our consideration of conditions presented in alternate extreme environments.…”