• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2014

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to review the debate on the Article 28(Prohibition of Inhouse-Contract for Harmful Work) of the Industrial Safety and Health Law. Methods: Literatures and recent debate for prohibition and permission of inhouse-contract for harmful work were reviewed. Proposals of revision for the Article 28 of the Industrial Safety and Health Law were also reviewed. Results: It was not found reasonable to revise the Article 28 based on increased fatal accidents or diseases in the electroplating work and heavy metals handling works that are currently listed in the Presidential Decree under the law as the harmful works. Regulation types of prohibition or authorization for any harmful work shall have inherently poor coverage since the scope of application is extremely limited. Contractors for maintenance and repair of chemical facilities may not be included in the scope of application if the harmful works are defined as chemical handling works. If harmful works are prohibited, the contractor workers may loose their jobs. Therefore, it is necessary to consider balancing job security and occupational safety and health safety. Conclusions: Various limitations were found in the Article 28 and the proposals to revise it. Currently in-house subcontracting is widely spread in the workplace. Therefore, it may be inappropriate to set one or two Article such as the Article 28 and 29 to protect in-house subcontract workers from injury and illness. It is believed that it needs fundamental redirection and new approach with new paradigm to impose occupational safety and health duty to prime contractors.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

As contemporary building construction type is getting higher and deeper, construction equipment usage is getting more, and related fatal accidents are on an increasing trend. Because of this, a method was drawn which could grasp the present state of construction equipment management and manage safety of the equipment more easily for accident prevention by choosing 2 kinds of Construction equipment which cause safety accident frequently among the equipment mainly used in construction site. This study suggested a method about construction equipment safety management using "smart phone" base which could be used in safety management for construction equipment by whomever in construction site. After attachment of QR code included safety checklist, It became possible that site managers could check more efficiently by scanning with their smart phone when they inspect equipment. Moreover, by the construction interested who didn't know what and how they have to inspect could point out unsafe condition in the early stage of equipment entering or take unsafe one out of the site by using new smart phone safety checking system is installed, it became possible that critical accident caused by construction equipment was prevented in advance.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.473-492
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• 2016

Objective: This paper discusses the recent challenges to human factors engineering due to the safety culture. Background: As incidents occurring in specific fields such as logistics, plant, energy and medical sectors in Korea, as well as in the public sectors including railway, road, aviation and shipping, are recently raised as social issues from the disaster dimension, those incidents are dealt with as man-made disasters in many cases. The trend regarding all accidents as man-made disasters has been expanded in the active perspective that the controllability of all incidents should be ensured in technology development, due to change from a fatal point of view regarding disasters as random occurrence of uncertainties in the past. Method: Man-made disasters are concluded as human errors, and safety culture stands out as a cause of human errors or a new cause item recently. Because safety culture, however, is a very comprehensive term, of which true nature is obscure, although many definitions of safety culture have been presented, the safety culture may make avoid the true nature and responsibility of an incident, or make the main player and subject obscure. Raising safety culture as a cause without presenting a specific countermeasure will be just a wisdom of hindsight. Results and Conclusion: This study reviews the fundamental discussions on "Is safety culture a task of human factors engineering?" and the existing approach carried out from various perspectives in order to seek an effective approach on the new task of safety culture in the human factors engineering field. This study discusses an engineering approach to meet a precondition that safety culture is not just an added factor through a review of the approaches in the proactive fields such as nuclear power and aviation, and the traditional approaches of human factors engineering. Application: This study especially defines the perspective of socio-technological system that has expanded the existing man-machine system, and discusses a systemic approach embracing various interactions, and several overriding tasks.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.289-292
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• 2013

A total of 2,080 forensic autopsies in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi province were performed by the National Forensic Service (NFS) in 2010. After analysing blood samples collected at autopsies by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS, the types and prevalence of drugs and poisons in blood were investigated using our laboratory information management system. Among 2,080 cases, 1,061 cases (51%) were positive for drugs and poisons. Surprisingly, antidepressants were identified in 137 cases which comprised 13% of the positive cases. Twelve different kinds of antidepressants were determined: Amitriptyline, fluoxetine, nortriptyline, trazodone, imipramine, mirtazapine, citalopram, venlafaxin, clomipramine, paroxetine, sertraline and bupropion. Amitriptyline was the most frequently detected antidepressant and was identified in 39 cases. Moreover, amitriptyline, fluoxetine, and nortriptyline were included in the list of the 20 most commonly encountered drugs or poisons in the analysis of blood collected at autopsies from 2007 to 2009, indicating the prevalence of their use. In this study, the 137 antidepressant-related deaths were classified by the mode of death to predict the prevalence of these drugs. As a result, those deaths were divided into four groups based on the cause and mode of death: 56 cases of suicide with fatal concentrations of antidepressant drugs in blood, 6 homicidal cases directly or indirectly related to antidepressants, 59 natural deaths with antidepressants detected in blood and 16 deaths caused by fire or other accidents with antidepressants detected in blood. Because incidents involving antidepressants have been increasing, especially in suicides or homicides, it is necessary for the health authorities and law enforcement administrations to cooperate and share the statistical data for curbing the abuse of antidepressants. This report is expected to provide the reference data related with antidepressants for the investigation of the deaths.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.292-298
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• 2015

A wiper is a safety device removing rain and debris from windshield and ensuring visibility of drivers. If contact pressure distribution between rubber of the blade and the windshield is unbalanced, unwanted noise, vibration, and abrasion of the blade can occur and sometimes fatal accidents could occur. To improve the safety of the wiper, there have been many researches on the contact pressure analysis of the wiper, but the analysis results were not converged or require much computational time due to material nonlinearity of the rubber and contact conditions between the blade rubber and the windshield. In this research, a simple model with 1D beam and 2D shell elements was used for the contact pressure analysis instead of the 3D blade model. The simplified model saved computational time of the analysis and resolved convergence problems. The accuracy of the analysis results was verified by comparing them with experimental results for different rail spring curvatures.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.40 no.1 s.270
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• pp.66-68
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• 2007

Traumatic cardiac injury is an extremely serious medical condition. It is possible to overlook a cardiac injury where there is no chest wall trauma. We here report the 47-year-old woman who got a crach car accident and had a tear of the right atrium. The distortion force from a decelerating injury may cause cardiac rupture at a fixed point. The most common symptom that alerts the clinician to a potentially fatal cardiac injury is the change in vital signs. Therefore cardiac injury should be considered in any patient with unexplained hypotension who has experienced decelerating trauma, even without external injury to the chest wall.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.526-538
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• 2016

The government of South Korea has made great efforts in the area of railway safety management by means of a railway safety law and an integrated railway safety plan established in 2004 after the Daegu subway fire accident. However, after certain railway incidents, a reactive railway safety management system has been implemented that has led to fatal accidents caused by the collision, derailment, and fire every year. Hence, this study is intended to propose a framework that integrates data from distributed detection devices into a real-time railway safety monitoring and control system for proactive safety management. Furthermore, we will provide a future development direction for safety performance monitoring indicators to determine whether the railway safety monitoring and control system works effectively. The proposed framework is expected to be a cornerstone for the real-time railway safety monitoring and control system to be implemented in the future.

• Korean Journal of Bronchoesophagology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.109-114
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• 1997

Aspiration of foreign bodies into the airway is a common problem in spite of efforts to educate the public, and it can be sometimes fatal accidents. We clinically analyzed 101 cases of airway foreign bodies treated in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine for the past 10 years comparing data with the previous articles. There was male predominance in the occurrence rate, being 72% in the male patients. The peak age was 1 to 3 years of age, and 84.2% was below age of 10. The most common symptom after foreign body aspiration was intractable cough, and obstructive emphysema was most commonly found on the initial chest X-rays. Foreign bodies were mainly located at the right main bronchus and left main bronchus was the next. Peanuts were the most common airway foreign bodies. Ventilating bronchoscopy was performed in the 99 cases and foreign bodies were successfully removed in most cases. There was 2 deaths(2%) resulted from hypoxia after bronchoscopy. The fact that complication rates increase with the duration of the foreign bodies in situ is clear. Therefore, prompt bronchoscopy in patients with suspected airway foreign bodies is essential for lower complication rates.

• Journal of Clinical Nutrition
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.31-37
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• 2018

Recently, in Korea, the importance of preparation and use of injectable drugs has been emphasized due to successive fatal accidents caused by injection infections. Parenteral nutrition (PN) has also been identified as a cause of infection. Cases of infection due to PN have been reported not only in Korea, but also abroad, and contamination occurs mainly during the preparation of PN. Because sterile preparation and compounding of injections are very important for infection control and patient safety, this article reviews the major guidelines outlined thus far. The Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2006 published guidelines and the KSHP (Korean Society of Health-System Pharmacists) recently issued guidelines for the aseptic preparation of injections. In addition, as US guidelines, the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) guidelines and United States Pharmacopeia (USP) <797> are also reviewed. The recent guidelines published by the KSHP have significance in that they were adopted in accordance with the domestic reality, even though they conform to foreign guidelines, and are expected to be guidelines for hospital pharmacists performing aseptic preparation work. In addition, the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare is considering appropriate guidelines for the safe management of medications, training staff for infection prevention and strengthening staff capacity. Furthermore, the gradual expansion of aseptic compounding facilities and human resources, as well as the provision of adequate medical costs are also considered. Based on the establishment and standardization of injectable drugs compounding guidelines for Korean hospitals, it is believed that if human resources and facilities are supported and medical charges are improved, it will be possible to expect the safer preparation and use of injections.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.47-53
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• 2021

The fatality rate is used to estimate each country's risk level. However, the fatality rate is calculated using the number of fatal accidents and workers, which is collected differently across countries. It is therefore problematic to use these numbers in an equivalent way. This study proposes a new approach for calculating the number of full-time equivalent workers when evaluating individual countries' fatality rate by suggesting an equivalent condition for the calculation of the number of full-time equivalent workers. This study proceeds in three steps: (i) analysis of the fatality rate among various countries; (ii) fatality rate calculation using the full-time equivalent workers; and (iii) comparison of the fatality rate among various countries. The study found that for the fatality rate based on national data, the fatality rate in South Korea (1.72‱) is 10 times higher than that in United Kingdom (0.17‱). However, according to the number of full-time equivalent workers, the fatality rate in South Korea (1.86‱) was three times higher than that in the United Kingdom (0.56‱). These findings reveal a difference in the fatality rate depending on the method used to calculate the number of full-time equivalent workers. Therefore, the number of full-time equivalent workers must be calculated for each country to accurately compare the fatality rate. Ultimately, the study's results highlight the need for clearer standards in the assessment of the fatality rate by country in international organizations such as the ILO.