• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.2555-2575
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• 2017

This paper presents a dual exposure fusion method for image enhancement. Images taken with a short exposure time usually contain a sharp structure, but they are dark and are prone to be contaminated by noise. In contrast, long-exposure images are bright and noise-free, but usually suffer from blurring artifacts. Thus, we fuse the dual exposures to generate an enhanced image that is well-exposed, noise-free, and blur-free. To this end, we present a new scale-space patch-match method to find correspondences between the short and long exposures so that proper color components can be combined within a proposed dual non-local (DNL) means framework. We also present a residual filtering method that eliminates the structure component in the estimated noise image in order to obtain a sharper and further enhanced image. To this end, the entropy is utilized to determine the proper size of the filtering window. Experimental results show that our method generates ghost-free, noise-free, and blur-free enhanced images from the short and long exposure pairs for various dynamic scenes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.3 s.81
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• pp.13-21
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• 2007

Personal and static sampling for formaldehyde, wood dust and noise monitoring, in accordance to the equipment running on the day, were carried out throughout wood panel manufacturing process. Even though the exposure level of formaldehyde and wood dust were below than exposure criteria, but the personal protective equipment(PPE) for those should be worn to everyone in the process because of its potential characteristics like carcinogenicity. Also a few local air extraction system above the cutting, grinding sections and organic blending room should be required. Most of the exposures of noise exposure were exceeded permitted exposure criteria, in case of Hopper operators, exposed to maximally 94dB(A) as LAeq 8hr, therefore active controls like PPE, monitoring, isolation etc. are necessary. The main sources of noise were caused on compressed air of the machinery, radio sound and operation noise like running machines, conveying, cutting, sawing, moving vehicles, storing and so on. For the comparison of control criteria in each country, the permitted exposure standards for above hazardous materials and noise in Korea, ACGIH and Australia were discussed. We have recognized that the Korean criteria should be discussed urgently to give the right information to employee and modified, if it is necessary.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.177-191
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• 2000

This paper presents an approach for evaluating directionality effects for both wind speeds and wind loads in hurricane-prone regions. The focus of this study is on directional wind loads on low-rise structures. Using event-based simulation, hurricane directionality effects are determined for an open-terrain condition at various locations in the southeastern United States. The wind speed (or wind load) directionality factor, defined as the ratio of the N-year mean recurrence interval (MRI) wind speed (or wind load) in each direction to the non-directional N-year MRI wind speed (or wind load), is less than one but increases toward unity with increasing MRI. Thus, the degree of conservatism that results from neglecting directionality effects decreases with increasing MRI. It may be desirable to account for local exposure effects (siting effects such as shielding, orientation, etc.) in design. To account for these effects in a directionality adjustment, the factor described above for open terrain would need to be transformed to other terrains/exposures. A "local" directionality factor, therefore, must effectively combine these two adjustments (event directionality and siting or local exposure directionality). By also considering the direction-specific aerodynamic coefficient, a direction-dependent wind load can be evaluated. While the data necessary to make predictions of directional wind loads may not routinely be available in the case of low-rise structures, the concept is discussed and illustrated in this paper.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.53-56
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• 2019

The optimal treatments of carcinoma in situ of glottis include radiotherapy, laser surgery and vertical partial laryngectomy. Conventional surgical treatments need general anesthesia and radiotherapy has several complications. Recently, the effectiveness of 532 nm potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) laser has been proven and widely used in vocal fold diseases even some cases of vocal fold dysplasia. A patient with difficult laryngeal exposure underwent fiberoptic laryngeal laser surgery using KTP laser under local anesthesia, showed improved voice outcome and the glottic lesion was removed successfully without local recurrence and regional metastasis 18 months after surgery.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.371-384
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• 2023

Precast roofing systems employing prestressed elements often serve as smart structural solutions for the construction of industrial buildings. The precast concrete elements usually employed are highly engineered, and often consist in thin-walled members, characterised by a complex behaviour in fire. The present study was carried out after a fire event damaged a precast industrial building made with prestressed beam and roof elements, and non-prestressed curved barrel vault elements interposed in between the spaced roof elements. As a consequence of the exposure to the fire, the main elements were found standing, although some locally damaged and distorted, and the local collapse of few curved barrel vault elements was observed in one edge row only. In order to understand and interpret the observed structural performance of the roof system under fire, a full fire safety engineering process was carried out according to the following steps: (a) realistic temperature-time curves acting on the structural elements were simulated through computational fluid dynamics, (b) temperature distribution within the concrete elements was obtained with non-linear thermal analysis in variable regime, (c) strength and deformation of the concrete elements were checked with non-linear thermal-mechanical analysis. The analysis of the results allowed to identify the causes of the local collapses occurred, attributable to the distortion caused by temperature to the elements causing loss of support in early fire stage rather than to the material strength reduction due to the progressive exposure of the elements to fire. Finally, practical hints are provided to avoid such a phenomenon to occur when designing similar structures.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.460-467
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• 2018

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to estimate the inhalation exposure level of benzene for workers using Tier 1 exposure models ECETOC TRA (European Center for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals Target Risk Assessment) and Stoffenmanager, and to investigate their reliability for exposure assessment in K-REACH. Methods: Two exposure scenarios, 'manufacture of benzene' and 'use as solvents,' were developed for assessment of workers' exposure to benzene. The Process Category (PROC) for ECETOC TRA was collected from the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) registration dossier, and the Activity for Stoffenmanager was converted from PROC using translation of exposure models (TREXMO). The information related to exposure, such as working duration, Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE), Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV), and Risk Management Measure (RMM) were classified into high, medium, and low exposure conditions. The risk was determined by the ratio of the estimated exposure and occupational exposure limits of benzene. Results: Under high exposure conditions, the worker exposure level calculated from all PROCs and Activities exceeded the risk level, with the exception of PROC 1 and Activity 1. In the medium exposure condition, PROC 8a, 8b, and 9 and Activity 3, 7, and 8 all exceeded the risk, whereas in the low condition, all PROCs and Activities were determined to be safe. As a result, action corresponding with the low exposure condition is required to reduce the risk of exposure among workers in workplaces where benzene is manufactured or used as a solvent. In addition, the predicted exposure levels derived from the exposure models were lower than measured levels. The exposure levels estimated from Stoffenmanager were more conservative than those from ECETOC TRA. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of exposure models for exposure assessment through the example of occupational inhalation exposure assessment for benzene. For more active utilization of exposure models in K-REACH, the exact application of collected information and accurate interpretation of obtained results are necessary.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.245-251
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• 2013

BACKGROUND: The objectives of this study are to investigate the contamination levels of heavy metals in soil, ground water, and agricultural product near the abandoned Boeun and Sanggok mine areas in Korea and to assess the health risk for these local residents exposed to the toxic heavy metals based on analytical data. METHODS AND RESULTS: By the results of human health risk assessment for local residents around Boeun and Sanggok, human exposure to cadmium, copper, arsenic from soil and to lead, cadmium, and arsenic from rice grain were higher in Sanggok, but human exposure to zinc and arsenic from ground water was higher in Boeun. By the results of hazard index (HI) evaluation for arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc, HI values in both areas were higher than 1.0. This result indicated that the toxicity hazard through the continuous exposure to lead, cadmium, arsenic from rice, ground water, and soil would be likely to occur to the residents in the areas. Cancer risk assessment for arsenic, risks from the rice were exposed to one to two out of 10,000 people in Boeun and one of 1,000 people in Sanggok. These results showed that the cancer risks of arsenic in both areas were 10~100 times greater than the acceptable cancer risk range of US EPA ($1{\times}10^{-6}{\sim}1{\times}10^{-5}$). CONCLUSION(S): Therefore, if these two local residents consume continuously with arsenic contaminated soil, ground water, and rice, the adverse health effects (carcinogenic potential) would be more increased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.19-33
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• 2023

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to systematically identify situations where exposure levels are expected to be high by structuring domestic lead measurement data according to exposure processes and activities. Methods: Occupational exposure data on lead was collected from the results of the Evaluation of Reliability of Working Environment Measurement conducted by the government from 2019 to 2020. Lead exposure characteristics were analyzed by PROC (process category) and activity. The Risk Characterization Ratios (RCRs) of five PROCs according to ventilation type and lead content were evaluated using the MEASE (Metal's EASE) model. Results: The exposure data on lead (n=250) was classified into 12 PROCs and 12 activities, with an average concentration of 0.040 mg/m³ and about 14% exceeding the occupational exposure limit of 0.05 mg/m³. Processes with high exposure levels were PROC 7 (industrial spraying), 23 (open processing and transfer operations of molten metal), 24 (mechanical treatment), 25 (welding), and 26 (handling of powder containing lead). The results of evaluating RCR for the five PROCs were greater than 1 or close to 1 even if local exhaust ventilation was used. Conclusions: There is a possibility that the concentration of exposure is high in the casting and tapping of molten metal containing lead, mechanical treatment such as fracturing and abrasion, handling of powder, spraying, battery manufacturing, and waste battery recycling processes. It is necessary to implement chemical management policies for workplaces with such processes.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.63-72
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• 2020

Dental local anesthesia is performed daily on a global scale. Adverse effects are rare, but the topic of neurotoxicity of local anesthetics deserves to be explored, as publications can be controversial and confusing. Therefore, a need was felt to address and question the evidence for potential neurotoxicity of dental local anesthetics. This review aimed to assess the studies published on the neurotoxicity of dental local anesthetics. A Pubmed^Ⓡ search was conducted between January 2019 and August 2019. This revealed 2802 hits on the topic of neurotoxicity or cytotoxicity of the following anesthetics: lidocaine, prilocaine, mepivacaine, articaine, ropivacaine, and bupivacaine. Only 23 papers were deemed eligible for this review: 17 in vitro studies, 3 reviews and 3 audits of national inquiries. The heterogeneous literature on this topic showed that all dental local anesthetics are potentially neurotoxic in a concentration and/or exposure time fashion. There seems no consensus about what cell lines are to be used to investigate the neurotoxicity of local anesthetics, which makes the comparison between studies difficult and ambiguous. However, the bottom line is that all dental local anesthetics have a neurotoxic potential, but that there is no unanimity in the publications about which local anesthetic is the least or the most neurotoxic.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.11-18
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a gas classification method using combined features for an electronic nose system that performs well even when some loss occurs in measuring data samples. We first divide the entire measurement for a data sample into three local sections, which are the stabilization, exposure, and purge; local features are then extracted from each section. Based on the discrimination analysis, measurements of the discriminative information amounts are taken. Subsequently, the local features that have a large amount of discriminative information are chosen to compose the combined features together with the global features that extracted from the entire measurement section of the data sample. The experimental results show that the combined features by the proposed method gives better classification performance for a variety of volatile organic compound data than the other feature types, especially when there is data loss.