• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.100-106
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• 2017

Outline map is used for the description and reconstruction of the traffic accident. One way to produce the outline map is by adopting detailed measurements from the accident site such as final position of the vehicle and pedestrian, width of the road, and locations of the oil and tire marks. This method consumes large amount of time not to mention that of the production of detailed version as fine as the picture of the site. Aerial recording equipment so called HeliCam can produce an outline map that can substitute that of manual method with even faster production time and higher resolution. However, the produced picture have errors which are resulted by distortion due to the characteristics of camera and direction of the photographing. This paper provides correction of the distortion of oultline map produced by HeliCam using Adobe Photoshop and PC-Rect. The result showed resonable error range less than 6 cm(0.1%) for $60m{\times}30m$ area taken by HeliCam. The presented method develops outline map with small error, which is useful to traffic accident analysis, and traffic accident cases analyzed in this study were also.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.315-320
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• 2012

For proper functioning, general machines usually need lubricant oil as a cooling, cleaning, and sealing agent at points of mechanical contact. The quality of lubricant oil can deteriorate during operation owing to various causes such as high temperature, combustion products and extraneous impurities. In this study, a heavy load stopped during operation, and the oil was analyzed to check whether any impurities were added. Extraction using acetonitrile followed by reaction with BSTFA(bistrimethylsilyl trifluoroacetamide) showed that, trimethylsilylated ethylene glycol was present in the lubricant oil. To quantify the ethylene glycol in the oil, deuterium-substituted ethylene glycol, which acted as an internal standard, was added to the sample and then extracted with the solvent. Next, the extract was reacted with the derivatizing agent(BSTFA) and then analyzed with GC/MS. The detection limit of this method was found to be $0.5{\mu}g/g$ and the recovery of oil containing $20,000{\mu}g/g$ of ethylene glycol was measured to be 94.8%. A damaged O-ring and eroded cylinder liner were found during the overhaul, which implied the leakage of coolant containing ethylene glycol into the lubricating system. The erosion of the cylinder liner was assumed to be due to cavitation of the coolant in the cooling system.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.135-140
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• 2017

This paper is on a study for discrimination on relative sequence as a most actively discussed topic in forensic document fields. This paper describes the application of the visual spectral comparator and infinite focus microscope as observation methods for overlapping region of printing and writing lines. As a result, we could categorize overlapping region images and identify the sequence of printing and writing lines by various inks.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.2413-2418
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• 2013

Forensic and legal medicine require reliable data to indicate excessive alcohol consumption. Ethanol is oxidatively metabolized to acetate by alcohol dehydrogenase and non-oxidatively metabolized to ethyl glucuronide (EtG), ethyl sulfate (EtS), phosphatidylethanol, or fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE). Oxidative metabolism is too rapid to provide biomarkers for the detection of ethanol ingestion. However, the non-oxidative metabolite EtG is a useful biomarker because it is stable, non-volatile, water soluble, highly sensitive, and is detected in body fluid, hair, and tissues. EtG analysis methods such as mass spectroscopy, chromatography, or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay techniques are currently in use. We suggest that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy could be used to monitor ethanol intake. As with current conventional methods, NMR spectroscopy doesn't require complicated pretreatments or sample separation. This method has the advantages of short acquisition time, simple sample preparation, reproducibility, and accuracy. In addition, all proton-containing compounds can be detected. In this study, we performed $^1H$ NMR analyses of urine to monitor the ethanol and EtG. Urinary samples were collected over time from 5 male volunteers. We confirmed that ethanol and EtG signals could be detected with NMR spectroscopy. Ethanol signals increased immediately upon alcohol intake, but decreased sharply over time. In contrast, EtG signal increased and reached a maximum about 9 h later, after which the EtG signal decreased gradually and remained detectable after 20-25 h. Based on these results, we suggest that $^1H$ NMR spectroscopy may be used to identify ethanol non-oxidative metabolites without the need for sample pretreatment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

In this paper, we describe fire risk of Kimchi refrigerator. The Kimchi refrigerator has been widely spread and used starting from the first half of 2000 and recently fire accidents caused by the Kimchi refrigerator emerged as social concern. In particular, in products of a specific manufacturer, it is not an environmental factor, but a characteristic that the fire is caused due to a defect of the product itself is shown. These features are judged to be formed by unique defects regardless of external factor by forming electrically arc mark in the relay element. In this paper, we analyzed the cause of the fire occurring in the Kimchi refrigerator and finally confirmed the characteristic that the fire occurred mainly in the relay element due to insufficient capacity of the relay element. Therefore, when a fire occurs in a product of the same maker as the Kimchi refrigerator mentioned in this paper, it is always judged that the inspection of the relay element should be carried out.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.615-622
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• 2015

Recently Digital-TachoGraph(DTG) was mounted mandatorily in commercial vehicles(Taxi, Bus, etc.). DTG records accurate and detailed information of the running state of vehicles related to traffic accident, such as Time, Distance, Velocity, RPM, Brake ON/OFF, GPS, Azimuth, Acceleration. Thus those standardized data can play an important role in traffic accident investigation and reconstruction. To develope the accurate and objective method using the DTG data for the reconstruction of traffic accident, we had conducted several tests such as driving test, high speed circuit test, braking test, slalom test at Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute(KATRI), and collision test at Korea Automobile insurance repair Research and Training center(KART) with the vehicle equipped with several DTG. Development of the program which enables the reading and analysis of the DTG data was followed. In the experiments, we have found velocity error, RPM error, brake signal error and azimuth error in several products, and also non-continuous event data. The cause of these errors was deduced to be related to the correction factor, the durability of electronic parts and the algorithm.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1290-1292
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• 2013

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2020

Alcohol, which can easily be obtained in the same way as ordinary beverages, is harmful enough to cause death due to excessive drinking and chronic alcohol intake, so it is important to maintain a proper amount of drinking and healthy drinking habits. In addition, the incidence of behavioral disturbances and impaired judgments that can be caused by chronic alcohol drinking of more than adequate amounts of alcohol is also significant. Accordingly it is very useful for forensic science to check whether the person involved is drunken or is alcoholism state in various accidents. Currently, in Korea, alcohol consumption is determined by detecting the level of alcohol or alcohol metabolism 'ethyl glucuronide (EtG)' in blood or urine samples. However, analysis of alcohol or EtG in blood or urine can only provide information about the current state of alcohol consumption because of a narrow window of detection time. Therefore, it is important to analyze the EtG as a long-term direct alcohol metabolite bio-marker in human hair and to investigate relationship between alcohol consumption and EtG concentration for the evaluation of chronic ethanol consumption. In this study, we established an analytical method for the detection of EtG in Korean hair efficiently and validated selectivity, linearity, limits of detection (LOD), limits of quantification (LOQ), matrix effect, recovery, process efficiency, accuracy and precision using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). In addition, the assay performance was evaluated in Korean social drinker's hair and the postmortem hair of a chronic alcoholism. The results of this study can be useful in monitoring the alcohol abuse of Korean in clinical cases and legal procedures related to custody and provide a useful tool to evaluate postmortem diagnosis of alcoholic ketoacidosis in forensics.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.1495-1504
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• 2014

Currently information related service such as internet banking, chatting, social network services are quite well smeared into our daily life. Moreover, a rapid growth of service using smart devices brought an importance of security in internet services and a research activation of digital forensic in a crime investigation. This paper presented a previous digital forensic research trend and based on this, suggested a technology-strategy integrated digital forensic process platform, taking a mid-long term government leading ICT R&D strategy and ICT paradigm shift into account.