Response of adolescent bonnet macaques to an acute fear stimulus as a function of early rearing conditions.

When primate infants are reared during the first half-year of life in an environment in which their mothers face uncertain requirements for food procurement (variable foraging demand [VFD]), long-lasting behavioral and neurodevelopmental consequences ensue, including increases in timidity and social subordinance as well as alterations in stress-related neuroendocrine profiles. We examined the nature and persistence of the effects of VFD rearing by exposing VFD-reared and normally reared adolescent bonnet macaques to a mild fear-provoking stimulus 2 years after the end of differential rearing. VFD-reared subjects at baseline were less gregarious than normally reared monkeys. VFDs also were considerably less responsive to the fear stimulus, and their behavior and affect returned to baseline levels more quickly than normally reared subjects. The extent and persistence of the sequelae of VFD rearing suggest parallels with predisposing factors in human anxiety disorders.

Bystander Trauma Care training in Iowa.

OBJECTIVE: The Iowa Bystander Trauma Care program trained citizens to provide initial care at the scene of a motor vehicle crash. The development, implementation, and evaluation of the program are described. METHODS: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's curriculum was used as the basis for developing the Iowa Bystander Trauma Care program. Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) were trained to be instructors in a two-hour course offered at each of four community colleges. The EMTs, in turn, provided instructions to the general populace. Five hundred participants were given a questionnaire before the one-hour Bystander Trauma Care training session, immediately after the training and six months later. The questionnaire obtained background data and assessed attitudes regarding willingness to stop and assist, and knowledge obtained. RESULTS: One hundred twenty EMT instructors trained more than 2,000 citizen bystanders in a 17-county area in central Iowa. Immediately after the training program, participants were more likely to provide assistance (p < 0.001), and understand the sequence of actions to be performed at the scene of a crash and how to prioritize the information provided to 911 (p < 0.05). There was also evidence of retention of the knowledge six months after training. CONCLUSIONS: Citizens readily volunteered for the Bystander Trauma Care training program. Results of the questionnaire suggest citizens can be successfully trained to recognize the needs of, and provide initial care for, acutely injured persons, and the positive effects of such training are maintained over time.

Furniture tipping accidents: redesign for prevention.

A large public service organization was concerned with protection of its customers against hazards associated with furniture tipping in public use concourses. Because no injury experience was available for analysis, hazard patterns for tipping accidents were developed from an observational study of public interaction with the furniture. For each hazard pattern, anthropometric models were used to find the probability of the furniture being safe from tipping, for different age and gender combinations. A safety criterion was developed from this modeling, and used to change the weights of some furniture items to resist tipping. These modifications have now been implemented and are in widespread use. Implications for broader application of these models to the development of valid tipping standards for furniture are discussed.

The effects of computer interface design on human postural dynamics.

The main objective of this study was to examine the effects of human-computer interface design on postural dynamics, i.e., changes in working postures and postural discomfort exhibited by operators of the computer-based remote bar coding (RBC) system. In addition, the effects of different work/rest schedules on postural dynamics were evaluated. Twelve subjects participated in the laboratory experiment, which consisted of twelve scenarios utilizing two cognitive task requirement factors, i.e., (1) information presentation mode, defined through the letter image preview on the computer screen (none or one preview image); and (2) the information processing mode, defined through the specific keying method (key all characters or key 5 digits only). The third experimental factor was the work/rest schedule (50 min work/10 min break, 2 h of work/15 min break, or flexible schedule). The results showed that requirements of human-computer interface design significantly affected the operators' postural dynamics. It was concluded that not only the physical, organizational, or psychosocial work environment characteristics, but also the cognitive task characteristics are important for assessment of postural effects in the VDT work. The relationship between interface design, mental workload and postural dynamics should be carefully considered in future studies aimed at optimizing the human-computer data entry tasks.