If two people lift and carry an object, they not only produce complementary forces on the object but also walk in synchrony. Previous studies have not examined how two types of coordination strategy are adopted simultaneously. The present study thus tested the hypothesis that complementary and synchronous strategies simultaneously facilitate the action coordination performed by two people. Ten ...

During the past half century, the participation of women in the labor force has increased substantially. In 1930, the 10 million working women represented 24 percent of all women and 22 percent of the total work force (table 1). By 1957, the number of female workers had doubled and their labor-force participation rate had increased to 37 percent. In 1982, 48 million women were in the labor forc...

We used the framework of the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis to explore changes in the structure of variability in multifinger force-production tasks when a secondary task was introduced. Healthy young subjects produced several levels of the total force by pressing with the four fingers of the hand on force sensors. The frame with the sensors rested on the table (Stable condition) or on ...

We report experiments on a millimeter-sized pendant drop of ferrofluid in a horizontal magnetic field. The initial drop size is chosen just below the breakup threshold under gravity. As the magnetic field is increased, the drop tilts in order to align with the direction of the total volume force that is exerted on it: weight plus magnetic force. The breakup is controlled by a generalized Bond n...

Needle insertion can be performed with the aid of an ultrasound (US) image. Detecting the position of a needle in a US image requires considerable technical expertise. To detect whether the needle has reached the target, the physician usually relies on physically sensing the amount of force being fed back from the tip of the needle to their fingertip. The goal of our research was to develop a f...