• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.14-29
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• 1992

COMCAF, a computer code for the common-cause failure analysis, is developed to treat the common-cause failures in nuclear power plants. In the treatment of common-cause failures, the minimal cut sets of the system are obtained first without changing the fault-tree structure. The occurrence probabilities of the minimal cut sets are then calculated accounting for the common-cause failures among components in the same minimal cut set or in different minimal cut sets. The basic parameter model is used to model the common-cause failures between similar or identical components. For dissimilar components, the assumption of symmetry used in the basic parameter model is applied to the basic events affecting two or more components. The top event probability is evaluated using the inclusion-exclusion method. In addition to the common-cause failures of components in the same minimal cut sets, failures of components in the different minimal cut sets are also easily accounted for by this method. This study applied this common-cause failure analysis to the PWR auxiliary feedwater system. The results in the top event probability for the system are compared with those of no common-cause failures.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• 제46권2호
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• pp.327-338
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• 2018

Purpose: A risk evaluation procedure is proposed for common failure causes in FMEA(Failure Mode and Effects Analysis). The conventional FMEA does not provide a proper means to compare common failure causes with other failure causes. This research aims to develop a risk evaluation procedure in FMEA where common failure causes and other failure causes exist together. Methods: For each common failure cause, the effect of each combination of its resulting failures is recommended to be reevaluated considering their interactive worsening effect. And the probability that each combination of failures is incurred by the same common cause is also considered. Based on these two factors, the severity of each common cause is determined. Other procedures are similar to the conventional method. Results: The proposed procedure enables to compare and prioritize every failure cause. Thus, the common causes, each of which incurring two or more failures, and other causes, each of which is corresponding to one failure, can be fairly compared. Conclusion: A fair and proper way of comparing the common failure causes and other causes is provided. The procedure is somewhat complicated and requires more works to do. But it is worth to do.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.243-254
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• 2016

This research identifies the elements of the methodologies of Newton's discovery of his dynamics. These methodologies involve the transformation of preceding theoretical concepts and the discovery of common cause. This essay consists of two parts within historical case studies of Newton's works. The elements of the method of discovery consists of the transformation of preceding concepts and the identification of common cause in the formation of the research program's hard cores and protective belts. Newton transformed their predecessors' concepts to find out appropriate common causes in his dynamical theory. The transformed theoretical concepts are synthesized to be constructed as the elements of common cause which provide the foundations of Newtonian research programs.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 대한인간공학회 1992년도 추계학술대회논문집
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• pp.84-89
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• 1992

This study is to develop a cognitive paradigm including a new model of common cause human behavior error domain and to analyze their causal factors and their properties of common cause huamn error characteristics in software engineering.l A laboratory study was performed to analyze the common causes of human behavior domain error in software develoment and to indentify software design factors contributing to the common cause effects in common cause failure redundancy. The results and analytical paradigm developed in this resuarch can be applied to reliability improvement and cost reduction in software development for many applications. Results are also expected to provide training guideliness for software engineers and for more effective design of ultra-high reliabile software packages.

• IE interfaces
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• 제25권4호
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• pp.382-392
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• 2012

Reactor protection system to keep nuclear safety and operational economy of plants requires high reliability. Such a high reliability of the system can be achieved through the redundant design of components. However, common cause failures of components reduce the benefits of redundant design. Thus, the common cause failure analysis, to accurately calculate the reliability of the reactor protection system, is carried out using alpha-factor model. Analysis results to 24 operating months are that 1) the system reliability satisfies the reliability goal of EPRI-URD and 2) the common cause failure contributes 90% of the system unreliability. The uncertainty analysis using alpha factor parameters of 0.05 and 0.95 quantile values shows significantly large difference in the system unreliability.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.35-45
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• 1992

This study is to define a congitive paradigm including a new model of common cause human behavior error domain and to analyze their causal factors and their properties of common cause human error characteristics in software engineering. A laboratory study was performed to analyze the common causes of human behavior domain error in software development and to identify software design factors contributing to the common cause effects in common cause failure redundancy. The results and analytical paradigm developed in this research can be applied to reliabbility improvement and cost reduction in software development for many applications. Results are also expected to provide training guidelines for software engineers and for more effective design of ultra-high reliable software packages.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 한국철도학회 2008년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.255-262
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• 2008

The railway is required to be highly reliable, which carries a lot of passenger and baggage. Presently, the reliability prediction method is based on independent failure. If the common cause failure affecting many components simultaneously in a system occurs, the system has seriously an aptitude to be broken out. Therefore, for raising the reliability of the railway power system, it is introduced that the analysis is conducted to use the common cause failure. The common cause failure is modeled and is combined with independent failure. Furthermore in order to examine the method, it is applied to the railway power substation. If this method is used to the power system, the reliability of the railway power system will be highly improved.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권2호
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• pp.357-367
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• 2021

In general, common cause failures (CCFs) have been modeled with the assumption that components within the same group are symmetric. This assumption reduces the number of parameters required for the CCF probability estimation and allows us to use a parametric model, such as the alpha factor model. Although there are various asymmetric conditions in nuclear power plants (NPPs) to be addressed, the traditional CCF models are limited to symmetric conditions. Therefore, this paper proposes the copulabased CCF model to deal with asymmetric as well as symmetric CCFs. Once a joint distribution between the components is constructed using copulas, the proposed model is able to provide the probability of common cause basic events (CCBEs) by formulating a system of equations without symmetry assumptions. In addition, Bayesian inferences for the parameters of the marginal and copula distributions are introduced and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are employed to sample from the posterior distribution. Three example cases using simulated data, including asymmetry conditions in total failure probabilities and/or dependencies, are illustrated. Consequently, the copula-based CCF model provides appropriate estimates of CCFs for asymmetric conditions. This paper also discusses the limitations and notes on the proposed method.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.55-64
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• 2023

This research investigated category-based feature inference when category features were connected in common cause and common effect causal networks. Previous studies that tested feature inference in causal categories showed unique inference patterns depending on causal direction, number of related features, whether the to-be-inferred feature was cause or effect, etc. However, these prior studies primarily focused on inference pattens that arise from causal relations, and few studies directly explored how the effects of causal relations vary depending on causal strength. We tested feature inference in common cause (Expt. 1) and common effect (Expt. 2) causal categories when casual strengths were either strong or weak. To this end, we had participants learn causal categories where features were causally linked and then perform feature inference task. The results showed that causal strengths as well as causal relations had important impacts on feature inference. When causal strength was strong, inference for common cause feature became weaker but that for the common effect feature became stronger. Moreover, when causal strength was strong and common cause was present, inference for the effect features became stronger, whereas the results were reversed in common effect networks. In particular, in common effect networks, casual discounting was more evident with strong causal strength. These results consistently demonstrate that participants consider not only causal relations but also causal strength in feature inference of causal categories.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• 제34권1호
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• pp.83-89
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• 2008

Purpose: Different patterns in the causes of maxillofacial injury are thought to correlate with socioeconomic status and regional environment. This study investigated maxillofacial fractures in order to analyze maxillofacial trauma characteristics and the relationship between the causes and injury patterns in Korea. Material and methods: A total of 518 patients with maxillofacial fractures who were treated at the Seoul National University Boramae Hospital between 1996 and 2004 were retrospectively analyzed. Data were obtained from the patients' medical records and radiographs. The male to female ratio in the patient group was 2.78:1, and the mean age was 32.3 years. Results: Midfacial fractures were the most common location of injury (46.1%). The most common etiologic factor was an activity associated with daily life (42.6%) including falls, stumbling, and collisions. The second most common cause was assault (32.4%), followed by traffic accidents (13.7%). In the case of midfacial fractures and mandibular fractures, assault was the most common etiologic factor, whereas in the case of alveolar bone fractures, activities associated with daily life were the most common cause. With regard to age groups, assault was the most common cause for patients between 10 and 39 years old and an activity associated with daily life was the most common cause in those under 10 years and over 40 years. Conclusions: This study concluded that activities associated with daily life and assault causes a large proportion of Korean maxillofacial injuries and that preventive measures should be implemented in order to minimize these risks.