Adaptive thermal comfort: principles and practice

and recurrence plots (Chapter 10); NDS indicators, such as noise (Chapter 5) and entropy (Chapter 9); statistical approaches, using general linear model (Chapter 11), nonlinear regression (Chapters 12 and 13), spectral analysis (Chapter 15), differential equations (Chapter 16), Markov processes (Chapters 17 and 19) and orbital decomposition (Chapters 21 and 22). The focus of several chapters in the book is on systems that relate to motor control, e.g. in terms of response timing (Chapters 7 and 8) or eye movement (Chapters 10 and 15), and it brings together work from a wide range of fields which do not often appear together. The book, therefore, provides a marvellous resource for students of motor control, covering topics which are not always given sufficient space in textbooks on the subject. In addition to the examples drawn from the domain of motor control, the book shows how principles and techniques from NDS can be applied to patterns of accidents (Chapter 11) and to decision-making in gambling (Chapter 14). However, I feel that the appeal of this book should be wider than the subject matter might at first imply. By considering systems as nonlinear and by considering the ways in which this nonlinearity can be described, the book offers new ways for Ergonomists to reflect on the central focus of its endeavour, i.e. the ‘system’. As Ergonomics evolves into its twenty-first-century manifestation, it needs to develop and refine its concept of how systems operate. This book provides the foundation for that development and should be required reading for anyone who uses the word ‘system’ in their discussion of Ergonomics.