• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.381-392
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• 2009

Due to the aging effect, older people have relatively weaker muscular performance, less range of motion in the joint articulation, and the lower sense of equilibrium than younger people. These factors attribute to their slow and clumsy ingress/egress motion. In order to analyze ingress/egress motion strategy of the elderly, healthy thirty 65 or more years old volunteers were recruited. The health condition of the each volunteer was verified by the medical checkup and also their physical capabilities were quantified by six fitness tests. Through the video analysis, older driver's ingress/egress motion strategies were classified and statistically investigated. For a comparison purpose, another thirty young volunteers also participated in the same test protocol and their ingress/egress motion strategies were also included in the statistical analysis.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.341-358
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• 2015

This study aims to identify predictors of driving cessation among Korean elderly. Data from 2011 Elderly Survey conducted by Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs were used for the analysis. Based on Webber, Porter, Menec(2010)'s comprehensive theoretical framework for mobility, the model of this study tests five major determinants of driving cessation including financial, psychosocial, environmental, physical and cognitive factors. Results of logistic regression analysis showed that economic status, marital status, contacts with relatives and friends, residential location, taking medication, muscle strength, age, gender, and job were significant predictors of driving cessation of older drivers. Specifically, lower economic status, unmarried status, less contacts with relatives and friends, living in the city, taking medication, weaker muscle strength, older age, female, non-working status were significant risk factors for driving cessation. Practical implications in light of study findings were discussed.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.94-102
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• 2012

Recently entered into an aging socity as the number of elderly drivers is increasing. Traffic accidents of elderly drivers are caused by driver inattentions such as poor vehicle control due to aging, visual information retrieval problems caused by presbyopia, and objects identifying problems caused by low contrast sensitivity. In this paper, detection method of ROIs on the road is proposed. The proposed method creates the saliency map to detect the candidate ROIs from the input image. And, the input image is segmented to obtain the ROIs boundary. Finally, selective visual attention regions are detected according to the presence or absence of a segmented region with saliency pixels. Experimental results from a variety of outdoor environmental conditions, the proposed method presented a fast object detection and a high detection rate.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.229-236
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• 2020

As the number of elderly drivers increases, traffic accidents from the elderly also increase. In particular, the emergency situation of the elderly driver is not transmitted to the following vehicle during cloudy days and night highway accidents, so it is extended to the second and third accidents, leaving serious aftereffects. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish an economic and effective inter-vehicle emergency communication system between the accident vehicle of the elderly and the following vehicles. In this paper, we have proposed a policy and method that can take advantage of the special emergency light pattern of an elderly driver in an emergency and transmit it to the following vehicles, thereby providing secondary accident prevention and emergency relief. Furthermore, by introducing an infrared emergency communication system between vehicles using red brake lights and implementing it as a prototype of RC-Car, we have checked the feasibility of the system.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.90-102
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• 2022

Currently, in our society with a substantial and increasing fraction of the elderly population, transport safety for elderly drivers is becoming the center of attention. However, deficient data on vehicle crashes in South Korea limits the growth of traffic accident research pertaining to the country. So, we complemented South Korean vehicle crash data by examining USA vehicle crash data, especially the data of Ohio State, and analyzing the influential factors of elderly driver-involved crashes of the State. Subsequently, we suggested a way of improving the South Korean dataset. Notably, our study showed that the influential factors were vehicle speed, posted speed, and following other vehicles too close and provided them in the South Korean dataset.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.843-853
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to find out the characteristics of elderly pedestrian accidents and to suggest policy implications to enhance the level of elderly pedestrian safety. Although much efforts has made to enhance traffic safety environment, pedestrian traffic accidents among elderly population are not significantly decreased. This is mainly because current traffic safety measures do not much consider the characteristics of elderly pedestrians in the aspects of physical and psychological conditions. Main findings from vehicle-pedestrian traffic accident data and survey are as follows. First elderly pedestrians have high probability of traffic accident near crosswalks or cross streets rather than on crosswalk or cross streets. Second they need more green light time for crossing the streets. Third, they feel motor cycles running on the side walk and parked vehicles on the side walk are the most dangerous factors. Forth, general drivers do not have reasonable understanding for the walking behaviors of elderly pedestrians. Fifth, elderly pedestrians frequently need to rest while walking. Sixth, elderly people do not see clearly or understand traffic signs. Finally, many elderly pedestrians experience accidents or inconvenience while walking on the sidewalk.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.575-584
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• 2010

The aim of study is to suggest the design procedure of automobile headlamp by considering driver's experience in regard of the visibility and glare during nighttime driving. The characteristics of driver were investigated in terms of the drivers' cognitive ability and reaction time, headlamp specification and visibility, light source and glare. And, the degree of visual discomfort was categorized and recognized as a tool to represent the subjective user experience. The UX point of view was stated when the existing results were seemingly lacking of it. The visual comfort and safety of elderly drivers were also discussed by reviewing the studies of ageing regarding the visibility and driving responses. Finally, this study suggested how to reduce the negative effect of nighttime driving due to the height of headlamp, angle of lighting, color spectrum, discomfort glare, source of light by using the UX perspective and methodology.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.67-71
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• 2010

This study examined the field of view of older drivers based on their eye points. The subjects were 25 people whose age was over 65 years and 10 contrasting subjects on their 20s. For the experiment, we expanded the width of the A-pillar of a test vehicle. With a measuring apparatus designed for the study, we analyzed 3 axes of coordinates from glabella to a fixed point of the vehicle that would be used as CAD data of vehicle design. Result shows that average eye point of the older subjects was located significantly farther from the seat than that of the 20s approximately by 31.62mm(p=0.05). It was also found that the Binocular FOV was not significantly different between the older subjects and the 20s(p=0.85), and the effect of the width of the A-pillar on the FOV could not be found. We also measured the left and right side of the Ambinocular FOV of the older subjects. It was found that the older subjects had much wider visual angle than the 20s by 2.84 degree (F=4.78, p=0.01) on the left side, while the 20s showed significantly wider average angle than the older subjects by about 4.88 degree (F=4.78, p<0.05) on the right side. The results of this study can be used to improve the FOV based on the optimal eye points when designing a vehicle for older drivers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.148-154
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• 2022

Background: Bus driving is a mentally demanding activity that requires prolonged attention to ensure safety. The aim of the study was to assess mental fatigue caused by driving a public bus and to find a profile of workers at higher risk. Methods: We evaluated changes of critical flicker fusion (CFF) (index of central arousal) and heart rate variability (HRV) (index of autonomic balance) in a 6-hour driving shift on a real route, in 31 professional bus drivers, and we tested the influence of personal factors such as sleep quality, BMI, and age. Paired t-test was used to test differences of CFF and HRV between both initial and final phase of driving, while multiple linear regression tested the influence of personal variables on the indexes of mental fatigue. Results: Results showed that CFF significantly decreased after 6 hours of bus driving (41.91 Hz, sd 3.31 vs. 41.15 Hz, sd 3.15; p = 0.041), and heart rate significantly decreased in the final phase of driving, with respect to the initial phase (85 vs. 78 bpm, p = 0.027). Increasing age (beta = -0.729, p = 0.022), risk of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (beta = -0.530, p = 0.04), and diurnal sleepiness (beta = -0.406, p = 0.017) showed a significant effect on influencing mental fatigue. Conclusion: Elderly drivers at higher risk of sleep disorders are more prone to mental fatigue, when exposed to driving activity. Monitoring indexes of central arousal and autonomic balance, coupled with the use of structured questionnaires can represent a useful strategy to detect profile of workers at higher risk of mental fatigue in such duty.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.437-447
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• 2020

Following the extension of human life expectancy, the number of elderly traffic accidents that have been increasing at a rapid pace since 2018 has also emerged as a social problem. The traffic accident rate among those aged 65 and older is increasing, but traffic safety policies are insufficient. Based on the analysis of traffic accident status for senior citizens and traffic accident for the past five years from 2014, the reduction plan is to be presented in three main aspects. First, the system needs systematic management by strengthening the system of senior citizens' transport policy departments and driver's license for senior citizens in government agencies, such as the United States, Britain and Japan, from an institutional perspective, so that the walking time and crosswalk traffic environment for the vulnerable should be improved from an environmental perspective. In addition, in human terms, the ability to cope with real-time changes in traffic conditions should be enhanced by training transportation safety experts to secure the effectiveness of education for elderly drivers and by strengthening safety education for those with driver's license and expanding experienced traffic safety facilities to enhance the ability of senior citizens to cope with the changing traffic conditions in real time.