• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.371-377
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• 2017

Background: Social status might be a determinant of occupational health inequalities. This study analyzed the effects of social status on both work environments and health outcomes. Methods: The study sample consisted of 27,598 wage employees aged 15 years and older from among the Korean Working Condition Survey participants in 2011. Work environments included atypical work, physical risks, ergonomic risks, work demands, work autonomy, social supports, and job rewards. Health outcomes comprised general health, health and safety at risk because of work, the World Health Organization-5 Well-being Index, work-related musculoskeletal disease, and work-related injury. Multivariable logistic-regression models were used to identify the associations between social status and work environments and health outcomes. Results: Employees in the demographically vulnerable group had lower occupational status compared with their counterparts. Low social status was largely related to adverse work environments. Especially, precarious employment and manual labor occupation were associated with both adverse work environments and poor health outcomes. Conclusion: Precarious and manual workers should take precedence in occupational health equity policies and interventions. Their cumulative vulnerability, which is connected to demographics, occupational status, adverse work environments, or poor health outcomes, can be improved through a multilevel approach such as labor market, organizations, and individual goals.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.336-343
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• 2022

Industrial robotic arms are widely adopted in numerous industries for manufacturing automation under factory settings, which eliminates the limitations of manual labor and provides significant productivity and quality benefits. The U.S. modular construction industry, despite having similar controlled factory environments, still heavily relies on manual labor. Thus, this study investigates the U.S., Canada, and Europe-based leading modular construction companies and research labs implementing industrial robotic arms for manufacturing automation. The investigation mainly considered the current research scope, industry state, and constraints, as well as identifying the types and specifications of the robotic arms in use. First, the study investigated well-recognized modular building associations, the Modular Building Institute (MBI), and renowned architecture design magazine, Dezeen to gather industry updates. The authors discovered one university lab and a few companies that adopted Switzerland-based robotic arms, ABB. Researching ABB robotics led to the discovery of ABB's competitor, Germany-based KUKA robotic arms. Consequently, research extended to the companies and labs adopting KUKA models. In total, this study has identified seven modular companies and four research labs. All companies employed robotic arms and gantry robot combinations in a production-line-like system for partial automation, and some adopted design standardization for optimization. The common goal among the labs was to achieve greater flexibility and full automation with robotic arms. This study will help companies better implement robotic arm automation by providing recommendations from investigating its current industry status.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.47-51
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• 2013

Existing buildings now represent the greatest opportunity to improve building energy efficiency. Building performance analysis is becoming increasingly important because decision makers can have a better visualization of their building's performance and quickly make the solution for improving building energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts. Nowadays, building information models (BIMs) have been widely created during the design phase of new buildings, and it can be easily imported to third party software to conduct various analyses. However, a BIM is not always available for all existing buildings. Even if a BIM is available during the design and construction phases, it is very challenging to keep updating it while a building is aged. A manual process to create or update a BIM is very time consuming and labor intensive. A laser scanning technology has been a popular tool to create as-is BIM. However it still needs labor-intensive manual processes to create a BIM out of point clouds. This paper introduces automatic as-is simplified BIM creation from point clouds for energy simulations. A framework of decision support system that can assist decision makers on retrofits for existing buildings is introduced as well. A case study on a residential house was tested in this study to validate the proposed framework, and the technical feasibility of the developed system was positively demonstrated.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.384-389
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• 2018

Cultivation techniques of proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.), such as sowing, weeding, and harvesting, are often not properly utilized, resulting in low productivity rates. The goal of this study was to develop cultivation techniques to increase millet productivity rates and reduce labor inputs. We evaluated the effects of different machine sowing methods compared with manual sowing methods from 2014 to 2016. The three machine sowing methods were dibbling, drilling, and broadcasting. Compared with manual sowing, the broadcasting method decreased labor times by 16.07 and $14.23hr10a^{-1}$ for proso and foxtail millets, respectively. Proso millet showed greater culm lengths at 138 and 125 cm with the broadcasting method for two years, whereas foxtail millet after three years had greater culm lengths from both the drilling and broadcasting methods. Both crops exhibited the thickest culm stems in the $3^{rd}$ year. The greatest number of seeds of the panicle were from the manual sowing method in both crops. Compared with manual sowing, broadcasting increased grain yields by 15-35% and 9.1-28% for proso and foxtail millets, respectively. Therefore, we suggest that the application of broadcasting in mechanical sowing will increase labor efficiency and yields of proso and foxtail millets.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.104-113
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• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of emotional labor of nursing personnel working in comprehensive nursing service ward and to suggest the way service improvement can be achieved. Methods: A total of 28 nurses working in comprehensive nursing service ward were divided into four groups to conduct focus group interview. All interviews were recorded and transcribed after the interview to perform data analysis in the order of data classification, topic categorization, and keyword derivation. Results: The five categories of subjects and relating keywords drawn from the focus group interviews are as follows: 1) Emotional labor experience: suppressing emotions, expressing emotions or actions that are different from reality, 2) Situations of emotional labor: verbal abuse and assault, sexual harassment, personal needs and errands, 3) Responses to emotional labor: responding directly, responding directly, receiving senior's help, using the organizational system, persevering, 4) Problems caused by emotional labor: work exhaustion, job change intention, job stress, 5) Protection plan against emotional labor: manual or education for nurses, education for patients and carers, compensation, tough sanctions though system strengthening. Conclusion: This study shows that although nurses working in comprehensive nursing service ward generally experience high levels of emotional labor, the problem solving of them relies mainly on personal response. Therefore, it is necessary to develop various measures to protect nurses in an organizational level response, thus to improve the comprehensive nursing service system.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.297-302
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• 2015

Replacing a manual switch installed in a feeder for a distribution system with an automatic one increases the reliability of the electric power system. This is because the automatic switch can shorten the duration of a fault the customer experiences by splitting the faulty section faster than the manual one does. However, improving the reliability of the distribution system may increase investment costs. Here, the investment costs include automatic switch cost, replacement work cost and labor cost. For this reason, importance should be attached to the proper balance between the increase of the investment costs and the improvement of the reliability of the distribution system. This article analyzed reliability index and economics when manual switches installed in a feeder (RBTS Bus2 model) was replaced by automatic ones. In addition, it attempted to draw the optimum rate of automation of manual switches by automatic ones using the GRG optimization method, considering the current economic requirements.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.235-242
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• 2012

Mikania micrantha, a neo-tropical vine, is spreading rapidly in the tropical part of Nepal and is now threatening the rural ecosystem including biodiversity and rural livelihoods. However, no attempt has been made to control the spread of M. micrantha. As a result, the vines are spreading freely and rapidly. After a thorough literature review and assessment of forest management practices, we proposed a manual cutting method, as it suits the Nepalese situation for several reasons: required labor is readily available, as local communities are managing forest patches, and the method does not have any potential adverse effects on non-target native species. Experimental plots were laid out in August 2011 to examine the effectiveness of manual cutting. Two different site types based on canopy coverage were selected and divided into three blocks based on cutting strategy. Four treatments were assigned across the experimental plots following a complete block design. We harvested above-ground biomass according to the assigned treatment. The results suggested that there should be at least two consecutive cuttings within a 3-week interval before flowering, and that three consecutive cuttings resulted in 91% mortality of the vines. In addition, cutting promoted regeneration of native plant species. Employing regular cutting operations can modify understory shade enhancing regeneration of native species, which is a desirable condition to constrain proliferation of M. micrantha. Periodic cuttings reduced the competitiveness of M. micrantha regardless of canopy openness, but native ground cover should be retained.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.83-92
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• 2020

In South Korea, problems caused by material deterioration of time-worn concrete structures have been increased recently. Because severe material deterioration could damage the structure's safety, it's important to evaluate the old structure's condition and structural capacity regularly to keep its proper performance. The safety evaluation of concrete structures has been initiated and performed periodically since 1995 according to a guideline in accordance with a law in Korea. The guideline prescribes the evaluation types, intervals and methods of the target structure. A lot of cost and labor have been invested every year to carry out the regular safety evaluation. However, it's not clear that the current manual could inspect the old structure's condition and assess the structural capacity precisely. Thus, the verification study initiated to figure out the Korean safety evaluation manual's practicalness. First, the Korean manual was analyzed and then compared with that of other countries for concrete bridges which are representative concrete structure. After that, the previously written evaluation reports were collected and analyzed to find out how the safety evaluation has been carried out. Based on the study results, the parts requiring verification of the manual were drawn. A research program is in progress in order to verify the parts by performing tests with actual structural members from decommissioned concrete bridges.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.541-552
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• 2019

Recently, social welfare officers are suffering from a lot of job stress due to increasing work and are carrying out emotional labor. This study assessed the effect of emotional labor on the quality of welfare service through a questionnaire survey on 937 civil servants in Sejong city and Chungcheongnam-do provinces. First, social welfare officers experienced more than average level of emotional labor, and they performed more internal behavior than surface behavior. Second, the services provided by the social welfare officers were higher than usual, followed by tangibility, assurance, reliability, empathy, and responsiveness. Third, deeping acting had a positive (+) influence on service quality among the sub-factors of emotional labor. In other words, the quality of service increases as the emotional state itself changes, On the other hand, deeping acting did not affect service quality. In the future, policy responses to excessive work burden of social welfare officers should be needed and a manual for responding to emotional labor should be provided.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.107-137
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• 1996

Under-utilization of Korean women's education in the labor market has been observed and pointed out as a waste of valuable human resources. Although education provides women with positive returns when they work, it has been found that Korean women's education is not much related to the likelihood of women's labor force participation. This tendency cannot be explained by micro-economic theory, which says that educated women are more likely to participate in the labor force. Thus, in this analysis, a macro-level explanation is attempted to understand Korean women's economic behaviors in relation to education. Korea's rapid industrialization since 1960 has provided ample job opportunities mostly for less educated women. On the other hand, increasing demand for educated female labor has been moderate. Various restriction against women, especially married women, have prevailed in the Korean labor market. Restrictions against women and the marriage bar tend to be selectively applied to decent white-collar jobs, mostly affecting educated women. Furthermore, there has been no shortage of educated male labor due to its adequate supply. Since Korean women spend most of their adult lives in marriage, married women's low participation in the labor force is a critical factor for the low economic returns to women's education throughout their lifetime. Restriction against married women in the labor market also existed in the past of the United States and the Great Britain. However, along with the expansion of the service sector, married women in great numbers flowed into non-manual jobs. The post-1940 increase of married women in the labor force in those countries can be understood to be a result of a labor shortage for non-manual jobs. Also in Taiwan, which shares many common cultural and economic backgrounds with Korea, the marriage bar has been in decline since the late 1970s, along with an increasing demand for female labor in the service sector. In sum, the changes in the demand structure and the supply of educated male labor force will contribute to the lift of the marrige bar in Korea.