Increased Pupil Size during Future Thinking in a Subject with Retrograde Amnesia

Recent research has assessed pupil size during past thinking in patients with retrograde amnesia. Building on this research, we assessed pupil size during future thinking in a retrograde amnesia patient. To this end, we measured pupil size during past and future thinking in L, a 19-year-old, right-handed man free of neurological/psychiatric disorders except for retrograde amnesia that occurred after an episode of fugue. During a past thinking condition, we invited L to retrieve retrograde events (i.e., events that occurred before amnesia) and anterograde events (i.e., events that occurred after amnesia). During a future thinking condition, we invited him to imagine events that might occur the following week, the following month, and in the new year. Past and future thinking occurred while L’s pupil size was monitored with eye-tracking glasses. L demonstrated higher specificity during future than during past thinking. Critically, the results demonstrated a larger pupil size during future than during past thinking. The larger pupil size during future thinking observed in L can be attributed to the high cognitive load involved in future thinking. Our study not only demonstrates preserved future thinking in a patient with dissociative retrograde amnesia, but also shows that pupillometry can be used for the physiological assessment of future thinking in retrograde amnesia patients.

Physical Welding Factors for Reclassified Welding Positions in Shipbuilding Assembly Process Based on Muscle Activity Measured by Surface Electromyography

Welding, a key technology in the shipbuilding industry, is mostly performed by hand, owing to the complex structure and shape of production blocks. This manual welding requires a variety of working postures, which have become an important determinant of the worker’s workload and, consequently, assembly man-hours. Currently, major shipyards calculate welding man-hours by reflecting the welding factor, which is defined as the working time consumed in the welding process. A set of welding factors is known to be based on the accumulated experience in shipyards, whereas the verification or derivation process for these factors is not disclosed or available. This study proposed a method for quantitatively calculating work difficulty for welding positions based on the working posture in a process where the posture acts as an important variable. Standard welding positions reflecting the actual welding work at shipyards were established. A physiological assessment method was used to propose the physical welding factor by analyzing the measured muscle activity. The validity of the proposed method was verified by comparing the results of a musculoskeletal simulation package and shipyard welding factors. The proposed method can be readily applied to other fields in which workers’ physical activities are involved.

PROBLEM OF PHYSIOLOGICAL ESTIMATION OF NEGATIVE IMPACT OF FILTERING RESPIRATORY PROTECTION DEVICES TO WORKERS

Filtering respiratory protection devices are widely used in industry and now in healthcare. The tests that these products undergo assess only the technical characteristics, without considering how the personal protective equipment affects the physiological processes of the user. The purpose of this study was to study modern methods of physiological assessment of the negative impact of the use of filtering respiratory protection devices on the human body. Analyzed domestic and foreign publications. The absence of a unified set of physiological methods for assessing the impact of filtering means of personal respiratory protection on the employee's body was established. This may be due to insufficient actualization of this problem both in Russia and in foreign countries.