• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2012

Lead poisoning is one of the earliest identified and most known occupational disease. Its acute effects have been recognized from antiquity when this condition principally afflicted manual workers and slaves, actually scarcely considered by the medicine of that time. The Industrial Revolution caused an epidemic of metal intoxication, urging scientists and physician of that period to study and identify specific symptoms and organ alterations related to chronic lead poisoning. During the 20th century, the acknowledgment of occupational and environmental toxicity of lead fostered public awareness and legislation to protect health. More recently, the identification of sub-clinical effects have greatly modified the concept of lead poisoning and the approaches of medicine towards this condition. Nowadays, lead poisoning is rarely seen in developed countries, but it still represents a major environmental problem in certain areas. Consequently, it may appear as a paradigm of "occupational and environmental disease," and the history of this condition seems to parallel the historical development of modern "Occupational and Environmental Health" as a more complete medical discipline.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.356-362
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• 2015

Many burial sites were constructed in a short time to prevent the rapid spread of foot and mouth disease in infected livestock carcasses in Korea. More than 4,700 carcass burial sites were constructed in 2011. Approximately seven million poultry and 3.5 million livestock, including cattle and swine, were buried on farmland. Some burial sites were suspected of leachate leakage and were excavated and carcasses redisposed in a bioaugmentation process. This study performed interviews in order to understand the economic issues related to carcass burial and redisposal. The internal data from local government and the assumption data from online sites were analyzed to evaluate the costs; the focus was on burial site construction. The results showed that the local government paid $4.7 and $10.9 per carcass for traditional burial and redisposal. The comparable costs shown online were $4.5. This study found that the standard operating procedures should be carried out to reduce environmental impact and avoid additional costs. We estimated that the cost could be reduced by the advance preparations of materials against the emergency situations such as catastrophe of epidemics. In addition, the innovative technology for the stabilization of carcasses should be established through a future study.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.98-105
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• 2006

Yersinia enterocolitica induces a broad range of gastrointestinal syndromes, including acute enteritis. We previously reported that the clinical isolate, Y. enterocolitica KU14, which lacks pYV, was still capable of causing clinical infection. The present study demonstrated that KU14 did not trigger the death of macrophages in vitro, unlike WA-314 (ATCC51871, which harbors the pYV virulence plasmid). However, the intracellular growth of KU14 in the macrophages was greater than that of WA-C (ATCC51872, a non-plasmid harboring the derivative pYV plasmid). Treatment with a cholesterol-binding drug $(\beta-cyclodextrin)$ that affected lipid rafts resulted in a dramatic reduction in the inracellular growth of KU14. These data clearly indicate that the enhanced inracellular growth of KU14 is related to lipid raft-mediated infection.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.241-243
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• 2020

Coronavirus disease 2019 poses an occupational health risk to health-care workers. Several thousand health-care workers have already been infected, mainly in China. Preventing intra-hospital transmission of the communicable disease is therefore a priority. Based on the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety model, the strategies and measures to protect health-care workers in an acute tertiary hospital are described along the domains of work task, technologies and tools, work environmental factors, and organizational conditions. The principle of zero occupational infection remains an achievable goal that all health-care systems need to strive for in the face of a potential pandemic.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.430-441
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• 2018

The adverse health impact of air pollution is becoming more serious. The purpose of this study is twofold: One is to analyze the effect of air pollution and temperatures on human health by analyzing the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease in Seoul, Korea; the other is to determine what impact the location of a monitoring site has on the results of a health study. For this latter purpose, air pollution and temperature monitors are sited at three locations termed green, public, and residential. Then, a decision tree model is used to analyze factors linked with deaths occurring at each monitoring site. The results show that the environmental temperatures before death and the $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations on the day of death are highly linked with the number of deaths regardless of the monitoring location. However, results are most accurate with residential data. The results of this study can be used as base data for a similar analysis and ultimately, as a guide to minimize the health impact of air pollution.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.7.1-7.5
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• 2023

Two 1-year-old Korean native steers in the same herd presented severe hemorrhagic diarrhea. Case 1 had severe dehydration and died after 3 days, whereas case 2 had anorexia, depression, and severe diarrhea with mucus and blood. Only case 2 was necropsied, and bovine viral diarrhea virus-2a (BVDV2a) was detected in the tissues of its alimentary tract. Gross lesions, including erosion, ulceration, and extensive hemorrhage, were observed in the digestive tract mucosa. Immunohistochemistry revealed marked positive staining for BVDV2a antigen in the large intestine. These findings are indicative of hemorrhagic disease caused by BVDV2a in a native Korean steer.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.1113-1117
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• 2012

Shigella sonnei is a causal agent of fever, nausea, stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrheal disease. The present study describes a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assay for the specific detection of S. sonnei using a primer pair based on the methylase gene for the amplification of a 325 bp DNA fragment. The qPCR primer set for the accurate diagnosis of Shigella sonnei was developed from publically available genome sequences. This quantitative PCR-based method will potentially simplify and facilitate the diagnosis of this pathogen and guide disease management.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.401-407
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• 2005

Objectives : We wanted to investigate the relationship between heavy metal, especially lead and mercury, to the blood pressure and cholesterol level in children. Methods : This study was undertaken in three primary schools and the study subjects were a total of 274 children. The lead in the blood and the urine mercury were analyzed by performing atomic absorption spectroscopy. Results : All of participants' blood lead levels and urine mercury concentrations were below the suggested level of concern according to the criteria of the CDC and ATSDR. We found no significant correlation between lead, mercury and the blood pressure. The blood lead level did not show any relationship with the blood pressure and cholesterol. However, the urine mercury levels were associated with the serum cholesterol. Conclusion : Our study suggests that mercury can induce an increase of cholesterol as a risk factor of myocardial infraction and coronary/cardiovascular disease.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.35-53
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• 2021

A field survey was carried out targeting 59 pine wilt disease control areas distributed in Andong, and the ecological characteristics of the areas affected by pine wilt disease were analyzed using vegetation information, ecological information, and land use information. Vegetation characteristics of Pine wilt disease affected forest area showed a 3-layer vegetation structure, high percentage of accidental occurrence species (37%) and secondary vegetation species (59.6%), appearing 12 taxa naturalized plants and 3 taxa ecosystem disturbance organisms designated by the Ministry of Environment. Ecological information of Pine wilt affected area showed frequent occurrence of water stress in south and west slopes, low lying grounds in mountains, and in well-drained soils. Also, surrounding the area has been used as roads, tombs, and cultivation where intensive human activities were the cause of disturbance and stress to the pine forest. It was analyzed that the pine forest in Andong city suffered extensive damage due to the onset of pine wilt disease while the pine trees were weakened due to continuous human activities. Conclusively, the spread and onset of pine wilt disease are worsened by artificial factors than natural environmental conditions.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.24.1-24.8
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• 2019

Early environmental exposure is recognized as a key factor for long-term health based on the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis. It considers that early-life nutrition is now being recognized as a major contributor that may permanently program change of organ structure and function toward the development of diseases, in which epigenetic mechanisms are involved. Recent researches indicate early-life environmental factors modulate the microbiome development and the microbiome might be mediate diet-epigenetic interaction. This review aims to define which nutrients involve microbiome development during the critical window of susceptibility to disease, and how microbiome modulation regulates epigenetic changes and influences human health and future prevention strategies.