Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The Thermal Stress Index (TSI) was developed to provide a means for rapidly estimating the physiological severity of exposure to extreme temperatures for shipboard firefighters and to provide a rational means for finding their most effective work rest cycles. It was meant to be an adjunct to discrete event simulation models of human behavior in complex environments. In this way, a modeling tool with the TSI equation could be used to recommend the number of personnel needed onboard for fighting shipboard fires, the least recovery time needed before they could be returned to duties and to estimate the extent of heat casualties while an onboard fire is fought. As a stand-alone algorithm, the TSI could assist management of fire crews using a simple spreadsheet program to estimate safe exposure and recovery times for forest fires, such as those that annually burn US forests and major building fires.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Belding

H. S.

Control of exposure to heat and cold. In Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, The industrial environment - its evaluation and control. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973. pp 563–572.

French

Morris

Hancock

. (2003) Modeling fatigue degraded performance in artificial agents, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Denver, CO.

Hertig

B. A.

Thermal standards and measurement techniques. In Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, The industrial environment - its evalution and control. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973. Pp 413–430.

Laughery

K. R.

Micro Saint: A tool for modeling human performance in systems. In McMillan

G. R.

Beevis

Salas

Strub

M.H.

Sutton

van Breda

(Ed.) Applications of Human Performance Models to System Design (pp 219–230) New York, Plenum Press 1989.

Laughery

K. R.

Modeling human performance during system design. In Salas

(Ed) Human/Technology Interaction in Complex Systems, Vol 9 Jai Press, Inc, Stamford, CT 1999, pp 147–174.

McQuade

Allen J.

, U.S. Army Natick Development Center, Comparison of Tripartite Overgarments with Respect to Their Physiological Load Upon the Wearer, April 1975, Unclassified.

Minard

. Physiology of heat stress. In Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, The industrial environment - its evaluation and control. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973. pp. 399–412.

Pew

R. W.

Mavor

A. S.

(Ed.). Representing human behavior in military simulations: Interm Report. Panel on Modeling Human Behavior and Command Decision Making. Washington DC, National Academy Press. 1997.

See

J. E.

Vidulich

M. A.

Computer Modeling of Operator Mental Workload during target acquisition: An assessment of predictive validity. Al/CF-TR-1997-0018. January 1997.

10.

See