• Title/Summary/Keyword: Catastrophe

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Evaluation of the Safty for the Disposal of High-level Nuclear Waste in the Granite (화강암지역에 고준위 원자력 폐기물 처리에 대한 안정성 평가)

  • Oh, Chang Whan
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.29 no.2
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    • pp.215-225
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    • 1996
  • All the radionuclides in high-level nuclear waste will decay to harmless levels eventually but for some radionuclides decay is so slow that their radiation remains dangerous for times on the order of tens or hundreds of thousands of years. At the present time, the most favorite disposal plan for high-level radioactive waste is a mined geological disposal in which canister enclosing stable solid form of radioactive waste is placed in mined cavities locating hundred meters below the surface. The chief hazard in such disposal is dissolution of radionuclides from the waste in the groundwater that will eventually carry the dissolved radionuclides to surface environments. The hazard from possible escape of the radionuclides through groundwater can be delayed by engineered and geologic barriers. The engineered barriers can become useless by unexpected geologic catastrophe such as volcanism, earthquake, and tectonic movement and by fraudulent work such as careless construction, improperly welded canisters within the first few decades or centuries. As a result, dangerously radioactive waste which is still intensively radioactive is directly exposed to attack by moving groundwater. All the more, it is almost impossible to control repositories for times more than 10,000 years. Therefore, naturally controlled geologic, barriers whose properties will not be changed within 10,000 years are important to guarantee the safety of repositories of high-level radioactive waste. In Sweden and France, the suitability of granite for the mined geological disposal of high-level waste has been studied intensively. According to the research in Sweden and France, granites has the following physio-chemical characteristics which can delay the transportation of radionuclide by groundwater. First, the permeabilities of granites decreases as the depth increases and is $10^{-8}{\sim}10^{-12}m/s$ at depth below 300 m. Second, groundwater at depth below 300 m has pH=7-9 and reducing condition (Eh=-0.1~0.4). This geochemical condition is desirable to prevent both canister and solid waste from corrosion. Third most radionuclides are not transported by low solubilities and some radionuclide with high solubility such as Cs and Sr are retarded by absorption of geologic media through which ground water flows. Therefore, if high-level waste is disposed at depth below 300 m in the granite body which has a low permeability and is geologically stable more than 10,000 years, the safety of repositories from the hazard due to radionuclide escape can guaranteed for more than 10,000 years.

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Estimation of willingness to pay of workers who are engaged in nuclear power R&D projects to avoid exposure to radioactive matters by using a choice experiment (선택실험설문에 의한 방사능 피폭 가능성에 대한 원자력 기술개발 종사자의 지불용의액 추정)

  • Bae, Jeong Hwan
    • Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.411-435
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    • 2013
  • Since catastrophe from explosion of Hukushima nuclear power plant, concerns over possibility of exposure to radioactive matter has been disseminating all over the world and frequent accidents of domestic nuclear power plants also has been amplifying throughout the nation. In the past, major focus was made on compensation for local residents who live nearby nuclear power plants, but focal point of this study is on wage premium of workers who are employed in R&D of nuclear power plants. It is difficult to derive socially desirable result if private sectors are responsible for compensation on workers who suffer from physical damages due to the exposure to radioactive matter. Because victims should verify the damages that occur in the working places. This study conducted a survey on which job would prefer the respondents who are engaged with the nuclear R&D projects as exposure levels to radioactive matter, security of job, location of firms, and work intensity differ. As a result, exposure to radioactive matter was the most important attribute in choosing alternative jobs followed by job security, work intensity and job location. Annual willingness to pay for reduction of exposure to radioactive matter was estimated as 7730~7770 thousand KRW depending on different econometric models. Therefore, Korean government should prepare institutional foundation in order that appropriate compensation should be made on workers who are engaged in R&D projects on nuclear power plants if they have damages from the exposure to radioactive matter.

An analysis on invasion threat and a study on countermeasures for Smart Car (스마트카 정보보안 침해위협 분석 및 대응방안 연구)

  • Lee, Myong-Yeal;Park, Jae-Pyo
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.374-380
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    • 2017
  • The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to intelligent technologies and services that connect all things to the internet so they can interactively communicate with people, other things, and other systems. The development of the IoT environment accompanies advances in network protocols applicable to more lightweight and intelligent sensors, and lightweight and diverse environments. The development of those elemental technologies is promoting the rapid progress in smart car environments that provide safety features and user convenience. These developments in smart car services will bring a positive effect, but can also lead to a catastrophe for a person's life if security issues with the services are not resolved. Although smart cars have various features with different types of communications functions to control the vehicles under the existing platforms, insecure features and functions may bring various security threats, such as bypassing authentication, malfunctions through illegitimate control of the vehicle via data forgery, and leaking of private information. In this paper, we look at types of smart car services in the IoT, deriving the security threats from smart car services based on various scenarios, suggesting countermeasures against them, and we finally propose a safe smart car application plan.

A Revisit to the Recent Human Error Events in Nuclear Power Plants Focused to the Organizational and Safety Culture

  • Lee, Yong-Hee
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.117-124
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    • 2013
  • Objective: This paper presents additional considerations related to organization and safety culture extracted from recent human error incidents in Korea, such as station blackout(i.e., SBO) in Kori#1. Background: Safety culture has been already highlighted as a major cause of human errors after 1986 Chernobyl accident. After Fukushima accident in Japan, the public acceptance for nuclear energy has taken its toll. Organizational characteristics and culture became elucidated as a major contributor again. Therefore many nuclear countries are re-evaluating their safety culture, and discussing any preparedness and its improvement. On top of that, there was an SBO in 2012 in the Kori#1. Korean public feels frustrated due to the similar human errors causing to a catastrophe like Fukushima accident. Method: This paper reassesses Japan's incidents, and revisits Korea's recent incidents. It focuses on the analysis of the hazards rather than the causes of human errors, the derivation of countermeasures, and their implementation. The preceding incidents and conclusions from Japanese experience are also re-analyzed. The Fukushima accident was an SBO due to the natural disaster such as earthquakes and a successive tsunami. Unlike the Fukushima accident, the Kori#1 incident itself was simple and restored without any loss and radioactive release. However, the fact that the incident was deliberately concealed led to massive distrust. Moreover, the continued violation of rules and organized concealment of the accident are serious signs of a new distorted type of human errors, blatantly revealing the cultural and fundamental weakness of the current organization. Result: We should learn from Japanese experiences who had taken pride in its safety technology and fairly high confidence in safety culture. Japan's first criticality accident in JCO facility splashed cold water on that confidence. It has turned out to be a typical case revealing the problems in the organization and safety culture. Since Japan has failed to gain lessons and countermeasure, the issue persists to the Fukushima incident. Conclusion: Safety culture is not a specific independent element, which makes it difficult to either evaluate it properly or establish countermeasures from the lessons. It may continue to expose similar human errors such as concealment of incident and manipulation of bad data. Application: Not only will this work establish the course of research for organization and safety culture, but this work will also contribute to the revitalization of Korea's nuclear industry from the disappointment after the export contract to UAE.

Media Access Control Protocol based on Dynamic Time Slot Assignment in Underwater Mobile Ad-hoc Network (동적 타임 슬롯 할당에 기반한 수중 모바일 Ad-hoc 네트워크에서의 매체접근제어 프로토콜)

  • Shin, Seung-Won;Kim, Yung-Pyo;Yun, Nam-Yeol;Park, Soo-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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    • v.20 no.4
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    • pp.81-89
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    • 2011
  • Underwater wireless network can be useful in various fields such as underwater environment observation, catastrophe prevention, ocean resources exploration, ocean organism research, and vessel sinking exploration. We need to develop an efficient design for Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol to improve multiple data communication in underwater environment. Aloha protocol is one of the basic and simple protocols, but it has disadvantage such as collision occurs oftenly in communication. If there is collision occured in RF communication, problem can be solved by re-sending the data, but using low frequency in underwater, the re-transmission has difficulties due to slow bit-rate. So, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) based MAC protocol is going to be used to avoid collisions, but if there is no data to send in existing TDMA, time slot should not be used. Therefore, this paper proposes dynamic TDMA protocol mechanism with reducing the time slots by sending short "I Have No Data" (IHND) message, if there is no data to transmit. Also, this paper presents mathematic analysis model in relation to data throughput, channel efficiency and verifies performance superiority by comparing the existing TDMA protocols.

"It's our grief": Re-membering Blanche beyond Pity and Fear (테네시 윌리엄스의 블랑쉬 다시 기억하기 - 공포와 연민을 넘어서 책임과 공감으로)

  • Kim, Mijeong
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.38
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    • pp.29-63
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    • 2015
  • This paper attempts to re-read Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire from a non-Aristotelian perspective, particularly focusing on the audience performativity. In Chapter 6 of the Poetics, Aristotle says that tragedy has a final purpose or end (telos) and that is to inspire a catharsis (literally "purification") of pity and fear by means of representation and to give pleasure from experiencing their relief. However, a dramatic theoretician Augusto Boal argues that Aristotelian catharsis is not to get rid of pity and fear through their vehement discharge; rather, the basic function of catharsis is the purging of antisocial elements from the social body and the restoration of order because catharsis occurs when the spectator, terrified by the spectacle of the catastrophe, is purified of his "hamartia" which looks similar to the tragic flaw of the hero in the play. Thus, Boal asserts that Aristotle's coercive system of tragedy manipulates the emotions of the passive spectator. By contrast, in non-Aristotelian aesthetics, tragedy functions not as legitimation for a particular political configuration but as the performance of ethical acts-through which all the participants, including not only the actors but also the audience, communicate more actively about practical problems and actively work in order to make sense of themselves, others, and society. Here, the audience is required to restore and reinforce his/her capacity to think and to act; thus, an unquestioning, passive, indifferent attitude is not allowed. In these contexts, this paper explores how Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire involves the audience in the responsibility for what occurs on the stage, in order to urge the audience's ethical judgements and responsible acts. This paper argues that what this play asks of us is not catharsis, the purging of pity and fear, but empathy toward the other's pain, beyond pity and fear, to carry out our responsibility of sharing in and caring for the other's suffering. That is to say that it will be an ethical way to "re-member" Blanche DuBoi-the iconic Williams victim "dis-membered" by traumatic memories and open wounds and is thus unable to complete her grieving and mourning-as one of us, not as the other. It will be the only way to remember right regarding her tragedy.

A Comparative Analysis of Disaster-Related Curriculum between Emergency Department and Nursing Department

  • Jung, Ji-Yeon
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.24 no.10
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    • pp.183-188
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    • 2019
  • This study is a descriptive research to compare and analyze the current status of disaster-related curriculum between emergency department and nursing department Research and analysis targets were 41 universities which include the emergency department in South Korean by using the universities' internet homepage, finally 30 universities were researched by removing the universities which doesn't upload the curriculum on their homepage, have emergency department or have nursing department. The research data were collected and analyzed by using the universities' internet homepage. The Keyword is 'Disaster', 'Catastrophe', and 'Emergency' to search the name of the subjects. The curriculum calculated as a percentage of frequency by using the status of disaster-related subjects opening, classification of major education, grade, credit, number of class, practical hours, and the total number of subjects. According to the study, 29 universities (96.7%) of emergency department and 19 universities (63.3%) of nursing department has the disaster-related subjects in their curriculum. The current status of the class opening is emergency department at second grade and nursing department as fourth grade. As a subject of major, two credits are the common class credits. Based on the results of the study, knowledge and skills and training courses are necessary to develop the ability to cope with disasters in the disaster field. The curriculum that matches the role of health care resources will be required.

The Dehistoricization Trend in Historical Plays: Play with History and Everyday Life History Writing (역사극의 탈역사화 경향: 역사의 유희와 일상사적 역사 쓰기)

  • Kim, Sunghee
    • Journal of Korean Theatre Studies Association
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    • no.48
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    • pp.51-84
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    • 2012
  • In Korea, historical plays took an epoch-making turn from the previous historical plays in terms of approaches to topic and material and methods of rewriting history in the 1990s. Historical plays became dehistoricized with individual, everyday life, and faction emerging as major codes of historical plays according to mistrust in history and grand narrative as the original and disappearance of trust in the growth and totality of history. A new trend became dominant of presenting fictionality prominent instead of reproduction of history and freely playing with history outside the context. While modern historical plays were subject to the content of history, post-modern historical plays sought after new history writing to tell a new story on history within a framework of fiction. Focusing on some of the trends in post-modern historical plays since the 1990s, which include play with history, daily life-style history writing, and reproduction patterns of colonial modernity, this study examined the goals, representations, and text strategies of new history writing in three historical plays, Generation After Generation(2000) by Park Geunhyung, The Mercenaries(2000) by Park Sujin, and Chosun Detective Hong Yunshik(2007) by Sung Giwoong. In Generation After Generation, the author adopts a plot of starting with the present and tracing back to the past, breaking down the myth of racially homogeneous nation. At the same time, he discloses that the colonial history is not just by the oppressive force of Japan but also by the voluntary cooperation of Korean people. That is, we are also accountable for the colonial history of the nation. The Mercenaries contrasts the independence movement during the colonial period against the modern history developed after Liberation, thus highlighting the still continuing coloniality, namely post-colonial present. The past is presented as the "phantom of history" making its appearance according to the request of the present hoping for salvation. The author politicizes history and grants political wishes to history by summoning the history by personal memories such as fictional diaries and letters with Messiah-like images opposed to the present of collapse and catastrophe. In Chosun Detective Hong Yunshik, the author makes an attempt at the microscopic reproduction of daily life by approaching the 1930s as the modern period when capitalist daily life started to take root. The lists of signs comprising daily life in colonial Gyeongseong are divided between civilization and savagery and between modern and premodern. With the progress of narrative, however, they become mixed together and reversed in the representation system in which the latter overwhelms the former.

A Study on Psychological and Physical Health of Families of Victims One Year after the Sewol Ferry Disaster (세월호 재난 1년 후 유가족의 심리적, 신체적 건강에 대한 연구)

  • Ko, Jeong-Kyung;Han, Eunjin;Shin, Cheolmin;Lee, Seung-Hoon;Park, Sol A;An, Sora;Ko, Young-Hoon
    • Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.179-187
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    • 2018
  • Objectives : The purpose of this study was to assess physical illnesses, psychological difficulties, and daily life function of victims' family members one year after the Sewol ferry disaster, in order to establish a basis of strategies to promote their mental health and resilience. Methods : We statistically analyzed self-reported data collected from a survey conducted between March 22 and 28, 2015 with 139 family members of victims. Results : All respondents complained about one or more psychological difficulties, and 95.4% of them had newly diagnosed or exacerbated physical illnesses. An increased number of psychological difficulties was associated with a greater tendency to present physical illnesses including chronic headache, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, obstetrico-gynecological, genitourinary, and cardiovascular disease. In addition, the majority of respondents reported a decrease in life functioning. Specifically, 71.9% reported interpersonal avoidance and 63.9% reported difficulty in returning to work. Conclusions : Not only psychological trauma but also physical illness and daily functioning should be evaluated in detail and actively addressed in the bereaved family members after a catastrophe.

A Study on National Response Strategies of Large-scale Marine Disaster (대규모 해양재난의 국가적 대응전략에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Choonjae
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.25 no.5
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    • pp.550-559
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    • 2019
  • The sinking of the M/V SEWOL in April 2014 was not a mere marine accident, but a marine catastrophe. This grim case developed into a social tragedy that impinged the national sentiment and communal integrity. It is imperative that thorough provisions and measures be outlined at the national level with regard to massive marine accidents, oil pollution, and natural disasters that might critically affect government affairs. Pivoting on "The Black Swan Theory," a concept of improperly rationalizing a national crisis based on uncertainties, this research assesses a variety of response strategies that minimize the national economic and social damage caused by a large-scale marine disaster. Along with the effort of minimizing any potential defects in each protective barrier, the "Black Swan Detection System of the Marine Disaster" needs to be incorporated to prevent cases wherein such defects lead to an actual crisis. Maritime safety must be systematically unified under a supervisory organization, and a structure for maritime crisis on-scene command and cooperation must likewise be established in order that every force on the scene of a marine disaster may act effectively and consistently under the direction of an on-scene commander.