The effect of handhold orientation, size, and wearing gloves on hand-handhold breakaway strength.

Objective: The aim of this study was to quantify the effect of handhold orientation, size (diameter), and wearing a glove on the maximum breakaway strength between a hand and handhold.

Background: Manual breakaway strength is known to be greatly reduced for vertical compared with horizontal handholds, but oblique orientations have yet to be studied.

Method: For this study, 12 young adults (6 female) attempted to hold on to fixed overhead cylindrical handholds with one hand in low-speed simulated falls as forces on the handhold were recorded in two experimental designs.

The effect of visualization method on the performance of simulated microsurgery tasks.

The operating microscopes may be a significant cause of fatigue and discomfort in surgeons. The need for the microscope to be placed over the operating field forces surgeons to remain at the microscope's eyepieces at an uncomfortable posture for the entirety of the surgery. This study compared the effects on microsurgical task performance for four visualization methods: a monocular microscope, a binocular microscope, a three-dimensional (3D) flat-panel television display and a two-dimensional (2D) flat-panel television display.