• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.373-383
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• 2016

Cheonsu Bay, one of the most important in Korea as a coastal fishery is a semi-enclosed bay that is surrounded by large farmlands and industrial areas. This coastal environment has been affected by anthropogenic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). The objectives of this study were to investigate the distribution of PCBs and OCPs in sediment, Manila clams, and mussels from Cheonsu Bay; the accumulation pattern of these chemicals in these bivalves in relation to seasonal changes; and the ecological risk from sediments and the risk to the Korean population from the consumption of these bivalves. The levels of ${\Sigma}PCBs$, ${\Sigma}DDT$, and ${\Sigma}HCHs$ were 69.3-109, 40.3-49.3 and 6.25-17.8 ng/g lipid in Manila clams, and 70.6-159, 38.6-102 and 9.00-13.5 ng/g lipid in Mussels. Significant seasonal variations in PCBs and OCPs concentrations were observed in the two bivalves, suggesting that the accumulation of PCBs and OCPs in these species is related to their spawning times. The dietary intake of these two bivalves and the resulting lifetime cancer risk (LCR) and non-cancer risk were calculated for the human population. The consumption of these bivalves seemed to be safe in relation to human health with negligible LCR and non-cancer risk.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.98-103
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• 2003

Based on ASME probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and NEI PRA peer review guidance, we evaluate a human reliability analysis (HRA) in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) for Korea standard nuclear power plants, Ulchin Unit 3&4, to improve it performed at under design. The HRA for Ulchin Unit 3&4 is assessed as higher than Grade I based on ASME PRA standard and as higher than Grade 2 based on NEI PRA peer review guidance. The major items to be improved identified through the evaluation process are the documentation, the systematic human reliability analysis, the participitation of operators in the works and review of HRA. We suggest the guidance on the identification and qualitative screening analysis for pre-accident human errors and solve some items to be improved using the suggested guidance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.120-125
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• 2016

Usually, a risk can be expressed as a product of likelihood and consequence of a hazard factor. Therefore, conventional risk assessment is carried out by frequency analysis and severity analysis, in turns. However, it is well known that intuitive thinking is another excellent way of thinking of human beings. This study aimed to confirm whether there exist any difference in risk assessment results derived by two different procedures - intuitive and analytical. Thus, the present study showed 10 different illustrations to 30 undergraduate students. Their responses were organized as fuzzy membership functions, and summarized as risk assessments, and compared. The results were also verified with the help of statistical hypothesis testing, which showed no significant difference. On the contrary, however, similarity measure used in fuzzy set theory was not credible as anticipated. Many cases failed to satisfy statistical hypothesis even with similarity measure higher than 0.60 so that only a trend could be accepted. In addition, a subject showed a somewhat consistent logical discrepancy in his response, which implied the necessity of sincere analysis in fuzzy formulations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.144-150
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• 2014

A man is a component of a large system how complex it may be so that human performance which can influence on the system safety should be included in system safety assessment. Meanwhile, human performance can vary over time due to lots of factors. Among them, stress is an indirect factor that may cause human error which can result in industrial accidents. To assess stress level of human workers, not a few assessment tools have been developed. However, it can be questionable to utilize them for human performance anticipation because they were mainly developed with the viewpoint of mental health, though stress assessment can be also required in the safety aspect. Therefore, this study aimed to survey the possibility of their application with safety purpose. About 10 kinds of work stress tools were collected and analyzed with reference to assessment items, assessment and analysis methods, and follow-up measures. The results showed that most tools focused their weights on Demands, Supports, and Relationships, in sequence. However, they, except only one tool developed by the Japanese researchers, merely advised to set up counterplans in PDCA cycle or risk management activities. In consequence, application of stress assessment tools mainly developed for mental health seemed impractical for safety purpose with respect to human performance anticipation so that it was concluded that development of a new assessment tools aimed to human performance variation and accident prevention would be inevitable.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.130-136
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• 2016

A university needs to analyze and improve its curricula with the perspective of the consumer to develop a syllabus for the training of industry-demand customized human resources. Accordingly, this paper surveyed the demand of fire-related industry workers to evaluate the major fitness of the curriculum of fire risk prediction and assessment and carried out descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, and one-way ANOVA based on the results. According to the analysis, fire-related industry workers reported that the curriculum of fire risk prediction and assessment is suitable for majors. In addition, they were greatly aware of the necessity of basic major and common major subjects among subjects of fire risk prediction and assessment. The results of this analysis will provide the basic data to improve the curriculum continuously in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.75-86
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• 2024

Hydrogen has been selected as one of the key technologies for reducing CO₂ emissions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. However, hydrogen safety issues should be fully guaranteed before the commercial and widespread utilization of hydrogen. Here, a bow-tie risk assessment is conducted for the hydrogen fuel supply system in a gas turbine power plant, which can be a mass consumption application of hydrogen. The bow-tie program is utilized for a qualitative risk assessment, allowing the analysis of the causes and consequences according to the stages of accidents. This study proposed an advanced bow-tie method, which includes the barrier criticality matrix and visualized maps of quantitative risk reduction. It is based on evaluating the importance of numerous barriers for the extent of their impact. In addition, it emphasizes the prioritization and concentrated management of high-importance barriers. The radar chart of a bow tie allows the visual comparison of risk levels before/after the application of barriers (safety measures). The risk reduction methods are semi-quantitatively analyzed utilizing the criticality matrix and radar chart, and risk factors from multiple aspects are derived. For establishing a secure hydrogen fuel storage system, the improvements suggested by the bow-tie risk assessment results, such as 'Ergonomic equipment design to prevent human error' and 'Emergency shutdown system,' will enhance the safety level. It attempts to contribute to the development and enhancement of an efficient safety management system by suggesting a method of calculating the importance of barriers based on the bow-tie risk assessment.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.167-175
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• 2017

Objectives: Children may be more exposed to certain environmental contaminants because they react with greater sensitivity and have different food intakes and breathing rate per unit of body weight compared to adults. The aim of this study was to determine general exposure factors such as skin surface area, period and frequency of exposure, and others among Korean children aged ${\leq}18$ years old. This study was carried out as the first of its kind in Korea. Methods: We developed 23 recommended exposure factors for Korean children aged 0 to 18 years by reclassifying raw data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the National Statistical Information Service, as well as through investigation by experiments in the absence of related data. Results: Reflecting the activity patterns of about 9,000 children, the daily inhalation rates for long-term exposure ranged from $9.49m^3/day$ for children from birth to <2 years to $14.98m^3/day$ for children aged 16 to <18 years. The research found that Korean children spent an average of 22.21 hours indoors, 0.67 hours outdoors, and 1.12 hours in-transit every day. Young children (${\leq}2$ years old) spent approximately 34 more minutes outdoors on weekends than they did on weekdays. Conclusion: Various physiological variables in the human body reflect characteristics of children that can directly influence risk exposure. Therefore, the identification of general exposure factors based on Korean children is required for appropriate risk assessment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2018

Objectives: This research is part of a study to be conducted over five years starting from 2017 by the Ministry of Environment on the development of technologies to evaluate the impact of chemical accidents on the human body. Methods: For this research, a five-stage specific study method was developed. Results: In brief, the developed health risk assessment method can be summarized as follows. First, a health risk assessment system was built based on the guidelines set forth by the USA NRC/NAS. Second, based on the disease manifestation theory, the health risk assessment method was divided into 1) a carcinogenic health risk assessment method focused on all carcinogens except non-genotoxic carcinogens and 2) a non-carcinogenic health risk assessment method focused on noncarcinogens including non-genotoxic carcinogens. Third, the detailed contents of the health risk assessment method were developed in four stages(hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk determination) through theoretical consideration of the assessment of the level of health risk related to chemical exposure. Finally, a health risk assessment methodology, classified into stages to address acute, subacute/subchronic, and chronic conditions was developed after considering the physicochemical behavior of hazardous chemicals upon implementation of countermeasures after a chemical accident. Conclusions: A method to evaluate the health risks related to toxic chemicals generated by chemical accidents was developed. This study was performed with the purpose of developing a mathematical health risk assessment method to evaluate the health effects of exposure to hazardous chemicals upon implementation of emergency countermeasures after chemical accidents.

• BMB Reports
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2003

The causative role of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in human carcinogenesis is undisputed. Measurements of PAH-DNA adduct levels in easily accessible white blood cells therefore represent useful early endpoints in exposure intervention of chemoprevention studies. The successful applicability of DNA adducts as early endpoints depends on several criteria:i.adduct levels in easily accessible surrogate tissues should reflect adduct levels in target-tissues, ii. toxicokinetics and the temporal relevance should be properly defined.iii. sources of inter- and intra-individual variability must be known and controllable, and finally iv. adduct analyses must have advantages as compared to other markers of PAH-exposure. In general, higher DNA adduct levels or a higher proportion of subjects with detectable DNA adduct levels were found in exposed individuals as compared with non-exposed subjects, but saturation may occur at high exposures. Furthermore, DNA adduct levels varied according to changes in exposure, for example smoking cessation resulted in lower DNA adduct levels and adduct levels paralleled seasonal variations of air-pollution. Intra-individual variation during continuous exposure was low over a short period of time (weeks), but varied significantly when longer time periods (months) were investigated. Inter-individual variation is currently only partly explained by genetic polymorphisms in genes involved in PAH-metabolism and deserves further investigation. DNA adduct measurement may have three advantages over traditional exposure assessment: i. they can smooth the extreme variability in exposure which is typical for environmental toxicants and may integrate exposure over a longer period of time. Therefore, DNA adduct assessment may reduce the monitoring effort. ii. Biological monitoring of DNA adducts accounts for all exposure routes. iii. DNA adducts may account for inter-individual differences in uptake, elimination, distribution, metabolism and repair amongst exposed individuals. In conclusion, there is now a sufficiently large scientific basis to justify the application of DNA adduct measurement as biomarkers in exposure assessment and intervention studies. Their use in risk-assessment, however, requires further investigation.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.347-353
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• 2005

The risk assessment is the qualitative or quantitative evaluation of the risk posed to human health and the environment by the actual or potential presence or release of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) is assessed by the environmental criteria, and risk assessment is assessed by the risk rate. Risk rate based on dose-response values may not be easy to apply on regulatory basis like EIA for uncertainty. Internationally there is an example of OECD program. Risk assessment of High Production Volume (HPV) Chemicals has started since the OECD Program with the 1990 Council Act on the Co-operative Investigation and Risk Reduction of Existing Chemicals. These HPV chemicals include all chemicals produced or imported at levels greater than 1,000 tonnes per year in at least one Member country or in the European Union region. The SIDS called the Screening Information Data Set is regarded as the minimum information needed to assess an HPV chemical to determine whether any further work should be carried out or not. All the data elements of SIDS including assessment for environment and health are prepared as three formats of the full SIDS Dossier, the SIDS Initial Assessment Report (SIAR), and the SIDS Initial Assessment Profile (SIAP) of an HPV chemical. In 1998 the global chemical industry through the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) has joined to work with OECD. The OECD has assessed approximately 1,000 chemicals from 1991 through 2004 with ICCA. Till the February of 2005, 592 chemicals of those chemicals completed SIDS reports. Member countries have been targeted the goal of 1,000 new chemicals from 2005 to 2010 and Korea shared 36 chemicals from the 1,000 new chemicals. Currently Korea has completed SIDS reports of 7 chemicals among sponsored 24 chemicals. In conclusion SIDS project will be linked to national program for outputs application with more reliable production. Both the OECD and industry will carry out their commitment to complete assessments for more and the remaining chemicals assessment. The major outputs will contribute to cope with international chemical management.