• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.129-138
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• 2014

As S. Korea is becoming an "aged society", workers in the country would be exposed to higher risk of workplace injuries due to their reducing work abilities as they are getting old. To identify the relationship between the work ability and the incident rate of workplace injuries, the work ability index (WAI) scores were surveyed from 409 workers occupied in different manufacturing industries reside on north GyoengBuk area. The workplace injury statistics in the year of 2010 for the corresponding industries were analyzed and summarized with the WAI scores by age groups, years of service, and sizes of business. The results showed the WAI scores of the workers occupied in the higher risk of workplace injury was lower than that of the workers of the lower risk. It means the lower the WAI score, the higher the chance of being injured during the task. It is concluded that appropriate correlation exists between the WAI scores of workers and the incident rate of workplace injury. It is recommended to administrate individual work abilities of aged workers in order to keep low rate of workplace injuries in upcoming aged and highly aged society.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.3C no.4
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• pp.117-122
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• 2003

The AC power lines and signal lines of info-communication networks are routed on overhead poles and are highly exposed to lightning strikes. Due to the potential difference between grounding points of AC power lines and signal lines, the electronic equipments connected to the signal lines can easily be damaged by lightning surges. In this work, in order to develop reliable methods of protecting information and communication facilities from lightning surges, the reliability and performance of SPDs (surge protective devices) were experimentally investigated in an actual-sized test circuit. The behaviors of SPDs against lightning surges from AC power lines and signal lines and the coordinated effects of SPD installation methods were evaluated. As a consequence, it was confirmed that the bypass arrester methods and common grounding system are both highly effective.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.279-284
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• 2008

This paper aims to provide basic data for work environment control, prevention of worker exposure to asbestos and improvement of air quality to protect workers ‘health after measuring the level of airborne asbestos and workers' exposure in a shipbuilding repair businesses. For this study, a total of 27 samples were collected from 27 workers who had been exposed to asbestos during engine, piping, boiler and other manufacturing processes in 'A' Shipbuilding Repair Company in Gyeongnam. This research was conducted from Oct. 1 to 30, 2007 and had the following results: The target group (27 workers) consisted of all men with an average age of 35.9 years and 6.6 years of work on average. Among them, fifteen 15 (55.6%) were smokers. In terms of their duties at work, there were 12 plumbing repair engineers (44.4%), 8 boiler repair engineers (29.6%) and 7 engine engineers (25.9%). The geometric mean concentration of airborne asbestos was 0.004 f/cc. A total of 4 samples exceeded the exposure limit. In particular, three exceeded the legal limit by more than double, which means that some workers have been highly exposed to asbestos. In terms of the concentration of asbestos fibres by work process, plumbing repair was the highest (0.0071 f/cc($0.001{\sim}0.57\;f/cc$)) while boiler was the lowest (0.0015 f/cc($0.001{\sim}0.007\;f/cc$)). Based on this study, proper action needs to be taken as soon as possible to protect workers from the threat of asbestos.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.117-126
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• 2024

This study aims to identify high exposure tasks among the tasks performed in domestic nuclear power plants as a basis for developing training programs to improve the efficiency of workers' work. To this end, we first analyzed the exposure status of radiation work in domestic nuclear power plants. Radiation tasks in nuclear power plants were categorized, collective doses were investigated, and the collective doses were calculated based on the collective doses, and representative high exposure tasks were identified. We found that the collective and individual doses in domestic nuclear power plants are continuously decreasing, but there is an imbalance of exposure among workers. In terms of work classification, nuclear power plants are managed in 236 work codes based on light water reactors and 181 work codes based on heavy water reactors, depending on the work equipment and location. Among the total work codes, 23 codes have an annual average dose exceeding 10 μSv, and based on this, 10 representative high exposure tasks were derived. The representative high exposure tasks were selected as S/G nozzle dam work, S/G debris removal work, nuclear instrumentation system, S/G eddy current detection work, and insulation work. The results of this study are expected to serve as an important basis for reducing the exposure of workers in nuclear power plants and improving work efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.379-398
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• 2014

This pilot study explored the effect of mental demand on a Web searcher's thoughts, emotions, efforts, and performance in Web searches in order to address whether or not there is any difference between searchers exposed to mental demand manipulation and searchers not exposed. Research data were collected via think-aloud protocol (TAP) with a dual-task in experiments and interviews with 10 subjects who participated in this study. For the searcher's thoughts, relevance judgment was found to be hindered by mental demand. For the searcher's emotions, the experimental group was more frustrated than the control group. With respect to the searcher's efforts, searchers for the experimental group with mental demand manipulation were more likely to spend more time, make fewer queries, and visit fewer pages but work harder to find more relevant information that they needed. Lastly, with regard to the searcher's performance, it is likely that performance was highly dependent upon the completion of the search tasks for both groups. The NASA-TLX six components and cognitive load scores of searchers did not make a significant difference in the outcome. The findings support the use of a dual-task methodology as a promising approach for the assessment of cognitive load induced by complex Web searches.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.199-206
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• 2021

The robot is an effective means to perform repetitive tasks quickly and accurately. It could be more effective in dangerous environments where human is difficult to access. The construction site is a dangerous environment with a high possibility of industrial accidents where heavy work is frequently carried out at a high place. In particular, an accident in the construction site is highly likely to lead to a severe disaster. Of course, various technologies are being developed to monitor the safety of workers in construction sites and prevent accidents, but there is a limit to eliminate the risk of accidents. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts to replace workers exposed to dangerous environments with equipment or robots that could be controlled remotely in a more active way. In this study, Remote Precise Installation System was proposed to replace the workers exposed to the risk of accident at a high place during the bridge construction. Also, the conceptual design and analytical reviews of this system were carried out. Suppose Remote Precise Installation System is developed according to the derived concept and the target performance. In that case, this system is expected to be applied as a technology that can effectively replace the workers at the bridge construction site.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.172-181
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• 2022

Objectives: In order to reduce the burden on employers and increase the reliability of measurement results, improvements to the provisions related to the work environment measurement reporting system, such as the current Occupational Safety and Health Act and its Enforcement Rules, are planned. This study aimed to suggest improvements for the work environment measurement reporting system through a survey and Delphi investigation. Method: This survey included workplaces (health managers), national institutions (the Ministry of Employment and Labor) that use the results of the work environment measurement reporting system for policy and supervision purposes, and work environment measurement institutions that enter the results were included. In addition to the survey, we tried to derive results through meetings with stakeholders and expert advisory meetings. Results: It is difficult to abolish or partially improve the reporting system under the Enforcement Regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act at this point because the opinions of workplaces, supervisory agencies, and measuring agencies differ in terms of its intended purpose and use. In the case of high-exposure harmful factors (over 50% on the basis of exposure) in the "comprehensive opinion" described in the work environment measurement results table, it is necessary to insert unit of work with exposed harmful factors, exposure factors, and current conditions in checklists or tables so that they can be reflected in government policies. In the case of workplaces that are feared to be highly exposed to substances subject to measurement, it seems desirable to improve them so that industrial health instructors registered with the Korea Safety and Health Agency or local labor offices can provide technical guidance. As an improvement plan to increase the reliability of data and the use of big data, it is necessary to improve the input method for processes and jobs. Conclusion: The laws and regulations of the work environment measurement reporting system are difficult to revise due to a lack of consensus among current stakeholders, but improvements can be achieved by improving the Ministry of Employment and Labor's notifications and other means. In addition, in order to effectively utilize the data from the K2B system, it is necessary to improve the input method for processes and jobs.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.31-35
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• 1998

Many reaearchers have reproted that poor body postures are associated with pains or symptoms of musculoskeletal dissoders. Therefore, the ergonomic evaluation of postural stresses as well as biomechanical stresses is important when a job such as automobile assembly tasks involves highly repetitive and/or prolonged poor body postures. A macropostural classification shema was developed to characterise various body postures occurring in automobile assembly tasks in the study. To specify a postural code and stress level to each body posture, perceived joint discomforts were subjectively evaluated in the lab experiments for the full range of motion in five human body joints. Based on the reaults, a postural classification scheme was developed where the full range of motion in each body joint was classified into several codes repressenting different stress levels. The automobile tasks were clustered into 12 types based on the result walk-in-surveillance and the possible posture codes for each task type are defined. I was exposed that the poor postural problems in automobile assembly tasks were concerned in most part with arms, trunk and neck. Application of te developed schema to seven operations in automobile assembly tasks showed that the schema can be used as a tool to identify the operations and tasks involving highly stressful body postures. The schema can also be utilised as a basis to prioritise the candidate assembly operations for redesign of work methods.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.35-48
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to find injurious factors and to propose an improvement plan on workers' musculoskeletal disorders at a bakery workplace through analyzing the symptom, work posture and quantitative estimate. For this study, a survey and ergonomic estimate methods were adopted. According to the survey, it was analyzed that 429 workers corresponding to 68.2% of the response have been experienced the symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders such as an ache, prickle and numbness. The result of QEC analysis shows that shoulder and waist are highly exposed to musculoskeletal disease. The result of RULA analysis shows that injurious factors of muscle, weight and repeated operations are a little higher than those of operation posture. The result of SI estimate shows that pre-treatment of making bread requiring highly repeated operation gets the highest point of 81, on the other hand, chocolate-coating job requiring relatively low speed and short time gets the point of 4.5. Based on the analyzed results, improvement plan to prevent the musculoskeletal disorders against injurious working process of a bakery workplace. The goal of this study is to propose the improved scheme that prevents the workers against musculoskeletal disorders. A questionnaire and an ergonomic assessment method were adopted to analyze the symptoms of workers' musculoskeletal disorders, and an analysis of working postures and a quantitative assessment on various processes were performed to find out harmful factors of workplace.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.184-188
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• 2016

Highly ordered $SnO_2$ and NiO nanocolumns have been successfully achieved by glancing-angle deposition (GLAD) using an electron beam evaporator. Nanocolumnar $SnO_2$ and NiO sensors exhibited high performance owing to the porous nanostructural effect with the formation of a double Schottky junction and high surface-to-volume ratios. When all gas sensors were exposed to various gases such as $C_2H_5OH$, $C_6H_6$, and $CH_3COCH_3$, the response of the highly ordered $SnO_2$ nanocolumn were over 50 times higher than that of the $SnO_2$ thin film. This work will bring broad interest and create a strong impact in many different fields owing to its particularly simple and reliable fabrication process.