• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.292-309
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• 2022

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused a recession in the fashion industry. Therefore, this study aims to assess the influence of face masks on the selection of fashion products by Korean women in their twenties and thirties. This is highly relevant as the mandatory donning of face masks becomes a social norm. To this end, an in-depth interview and a survey were conducted. The results indicate that wearing a face mask affects consumers' fashion selection criteria in regard to styles, materials, colors, and types. Face masks have gradually contributed to the unification and simplification of fashion styles due to the atmosphere and wearing of the mask itself, which has led to a decline in the overall interest in fashion. Most consumers in this study felt a disconnect between face masks and fashion products, since the former have not been established within most fashion styles. Consequently, consumers had difficulty naturally aligning face masks with various fashion styles, which eventually led to a decreased interest in fashion. This study is significant in that it provides objective data that can be utilized to establish strategies in the fashion industry regarding the integration of face masks.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2023

Respiratory face masks are protective facepieces that are designed to filter inhaled air. They are easy-to-use devices that can protect the wearer against various hazardous particles in the air. Respiratory face masks also prevent the spread of viruses and bacteria-containing droplets that are released from the coughing or sneezing of the infected people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, various types of face masks have circulated on the market. Their ability to filter sub-micron particles, which are the sizes of harmful particulate matter and airborne viruses, needs to be investigated. Their breathability, the easiness of breath through the mask, also needs to be considered. In this study, wwe evaluated the performance of filters used for different types of face masks certified by different standards including Korean (KF94, KF80, KF-AD), USA (N95), and Chinese (KN95) standards. We also tested the filters of nanofiber masks and surgical masks for which there are no standards for filtration test. The N95 mask filters showed the highest quality factor for capturing virus-sized particles. The other types of mask filters have acceptable performance except for nanofiber mask filters whose performance is very low.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.116-122
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• 2022

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic is one of the worst disease outbreaks of the 21th century. Due to a lack of reliable antiviral therapeutics, wearing face masks is recommended to prevent airborne infection originating from virus-contaminated bioaerosols. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the filtration efficiencies of face masks that are commercially available in South Korea for a biological aerosol of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and murine coronavirus, a well-known surrogate for human coronaviruses. Methods: We collected six different kinds of commercial masks: two Korea Filter (KF)94 (KF94-1, KF94-2) masks, one surgical (Surgical-1) mask, one anti-droplet (KF-AD-1) mask, and two dust (Dust-1, Dust-2) face masks. S. aureus (ATCC 6538), a well-performing test bacteria and murine coronavirus (ATCC VR-764) were prepared under a suitable culture condition. Then, a mask biological filtration tester was used to examine the microbial filtration efficiencies of masks. Test microorganisms were quantitatively measured via cultivation methods and microbial filtration efficiencies were calculated appropriately. Results: All face masks showed over 99.6% filtration efficiency for S. aureus or murine coronavirus. There were no significant differences among the bacterial filtration efficiencies of the face masks. KF94-1 (99.97±0.08%) and Dust-1 mask (99.97±0.07%) showed the highest (over 99.9%) filtration efficiency for murine coronavirus. KF94-1 or Dust-1 masks showed a significant virus filtration efficiency compared to Surgical-1 mask (p<0.05; Mann-Whitney U test). Conclusions: All the commercially available face masks used in this study can filter S. aureus or murine coronavirus in bioaerosols efficiently, regardless of the mask type. Therefore, our results suggest that wearing a certified face mask is a reliable means to prevent the transmission of infectious airborne diseases via biological aerosols.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.208-214
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• 2021

Since face masks in public were mandated during COVID-19, more people have taken temperature checks, with their masks on. The study has developed a contactless thermal camera that accurately measures temperatures of people wearing different kinds of masks, detect people wearing masks wrong, and record the temperature data. The built-in system that identifies people wearing masks wrong is what masks our contactless thermal camera differentiated from other thermal cameras. Also our contactless thermal camera can keep track of the number of mask wearers in different regions and their temperatures. Thus, the analysis of such regional data can significantly contribute to stemming the spread of the virus.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.3658-3679
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• 2022

Classification of persons wearing and not wearing face masks in images has emerged as a new computer vision problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to address this problem and scale up the research in this domain, in this paper a hybrid technique by employing ResNet-101 and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classifier has been proposed. The proposed technique is tested and validated on a self-created face masks classification dataset and a standard dataset. On self-created dataset, the proposed technique achieved a classification accuracy of 97.3%. To embrace the proposed technique, six other state-of-the-art CNN feature extractors with six other classical machine learning classifiers have been tested and compared with the proposed technique. The proposed technique achieved better classification accuracy and 1-6% higher precision, recall, and F1 score as compared to other tested deep feature extractors and machine learning classifiers.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.826-833
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• 2020

When it is necessary to wear masks for long periods, such as during the current COVID-19 pandemic, the essential function of masks to prevent contamination (or transmission to others) as well as comfortableness are important. For this study, we used three-dimensional (3D) facial measurements of adult women to compile basic face shape data for designing comfortable and effective masks. This study analyzed the 3D facial data of 127 subjects in their 20s to 30s of the 6th Size Korea. Factor analysis of the survey data produced seven factors that formed the composition of adult female faces. These factors combined to produce three facial types: square (long face and a large lower middle face), oval (smallest central and lower body in the middle), and triangle (short face with a small central and lower large nose). These types reflect that the facial types of adult women show the differences in the nose angle, nose length, bitragion-subnasal arc, bitragion-menton arc. Therefore, properly fitting masks for fine dust particle filtration require 3D customization of a mask's breathing apparatus to fit differently shaped central and lower face parts that interfere with mask fit.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1582-1590
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• 2022

Due to the situation of the widespread of the coronavirus, which causes the problem of lack of face image data occluded by masks at recent time, in order to solve the related problems, this paper proposes a method to generate face images with masks using a combination of generative adversarial networks and spatial transformation networks based on CNN model. The system we proposed in this paper is based on the GAN, combined with multi-scale convolution kernels to extract features at different details of the human face images, and used Wasserstein divergence as the measure of the distance between real samples and synthetic samples in order to optimize Generator performance. Experiments show that the proposed method can effectively put masks on face images with high efficiency and fast reaction time and the synthesized human face images are pretty natural and real.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.422-435
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• 2024

This study intended to verify the effects of face masks on the Korean language in terms of acoustic, aerodynamic, and formant parameters. We chose all types of face masks available in Korea based on filter performance and folding type. Two professional voice actors (a male and a female) with more than 20 years of experience who are native Koreans and speak standard Korean participated in this study as speakers of voice data. Face masks attenuated the high-frequency range, resulting in decreased Vowel Space Area (VSA) and Vowel Articulation Index (VAI)scores and an increased Low-to-High spectral ratio (L/H ratio) in all voice samples. This can result in lower speech intelligibility. However, the degree of increment and decrement was based on the voice characteristics. For female speakers, the Speech Level (SL) and Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP) increased with increasing face mask thickness. In this study, the presence or filter performance of a face mask was found to affect speech acoustic parameters according to the speech characteristics. Face masks provoked vocal effort when the vocal intensity was not sufficiently strong, or the environment had less reverberance. Further research needs to be conducted on the vocal efforts induced by face masks to overcome acoustic modifications when wearing masks.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.116-131
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• 2022

This study used text mining to analyze big data to understand consumers' demand for and perceptions of fashion masks. Based on the text-mining analysis results, a survey was conducted with those living in Korea to investigate the influence of consumers' mask selection criteria on mask brand awareness and purchase intention for fashion masks. "Fashion mask" and "functional mask" were used as the keywords in a text-mining analysis, and an online survey of 242 respondents was conducted. The analysis results were as follows: First, the text-mining analysis extracted commonly appearing words that had a high frequency and TF-IDF, such as "COVID-19," "fashion," "celebrity," "antibacterial," and "filter." This confirmed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have demanded masks that are both functional and fashionable. Second, among consumers' mask selection criteria, trend and design had positive effects on face-mask brand awareness. Third, face-mask brand awareness had a positive effect on the purchase intention for both brand and fashion masks, and the purchase intention for brand masks had a positive effect on the purchase intention for fashion masks.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 1999

Even though there is no fit test regulations in Korea, in many developed countries, respirator fit testing is required before entering specific work environment to ensure that the respirator worn satisfies a minimum of fit and that the user knows when the respirator fits properly. Due to no regulation for fit test, a lot of Korean workers wearing respirators may be potentially exposed to hazards. Anthropometric test panels for testing the fit of respirators are very important to develop respirators fitted properly for Korean workers. To evaluate the fitting performance, 304 workers (272 males, 32 females) and 536 students (268 male, 268 females) were fit tested for 4 full-facepieces (2 domestic-made S, C, and 2 foreign-made T, N), 2 half masks (1 domestic-made S, and 1 foreign-made T) and 3 quarter masks (2 domestic-made S, C, and 1 foreign-made T) with PortaCount 8020. Fit factors of foreign-made masks were higher than those of domestic-made masks in all types. Males were fitted more properly than females. A facial dimension survey of 364 workers (339 males, 25 females) and 158 students (69 males, 89 females) was conducted to develop test panels for fit testing. Subjects were selected on the basis of face length and face width to wear full-facepiece masks in test. For testing half- and quarter masks, face length and lip length were used. Test panels containing 25 male-and-female subjects and 16 male subjects were respectively developed for full-facepiece, and half-and quarter masks to represent a majority of population surveyed.