• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.1420-1427
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• 2023

Seismic risk has received increased attention since the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan. The seismic risk of a nuclear power plant is evaluated via seismic probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), for which several methods are available. Recently, the discrete approach has become widely used. This approximates the seismic risk by discretizing the ground motion level interval into a small number of subintervals with the expectation of providing a conservative result. The present study examines the effect of the number of subintervals upon the results of seismic risk quantification. It is demonstrated that a small number of subintervals may lead to either an underestimation or overestimation of the seismic risk depending on the ground motion level. The present paper also provides a method for finding the boundaries between overestimation and underestimation regions, and illustrates the effect of the number of subintervals upon the seismic risk evaluation with an example. By providing a method for determining the effect of a small number of subintervals upon the results of seismic risk quantification, the present study will assist seismic PSA analysts to determine the appropriate number of subintervals and to better understand seismic risk quantification.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.233-240
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• 2014

Epidemiology studies indicate that diet or specific dietary components can reduce the risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. An underlying cause of these diseases is chronic inflammation. Dietary components that are beneficial against disease seem to have multiple mechanisms of action and many also have a common mechanism of reducing inflammation, often via the $NF{\kappa}B$ pathway. Thus, a plant based diet can contain many components that reduce inflammation and can reduce the risk for developing all three of these chronic diseases. We summarize dietary components that have been shown to reduce cancer risk and two studies that show that dietary walnut can reduce cancer growth and development. Part of the mechanism for the anticancer benefit of walnut was by suppressing the activation of $NF{\kappa}B$. In this brief review, we focus on reduction of cancer risk by dietary components and the relationship to suppression of inflammation. However, it should be remembered that most dietary components have multiple beneficial mechanisms of action that can be additive and that suppression of chronic inflammation should reduce the risk for all three chronic diseases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.376-385
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• 2021

Probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) has improved its elemental technologies used for assessing external events since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident in 2011. HRA needs to be improved for analyzing tasks performed under extreme conditions (e.g., different actors responding to external events or performing operations using portable mitigation equipment). To make these improvements, it is essential to understand plant-specific and scenario-specific conditions that affect human performance. The Nuclear Risk Research Center (NRRC) of the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) has developed an HRA guide that compiles qualitative analysis methods for collecting plant-specific and scenario-specific conditions that affect human performance into "narratives," reflecting the latest research trends, and models for analysis of tasks under extreme conditions.

• 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 the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.35-42
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• 2017

Process Hazard Analysis(PHA) have been performed for a risk management of process (petrochemical) industry for nearly 50 years. There are many PHA methods for application in the process industry, Hazop Study method has been recognized as a good method used typically in most of phase of process plant. And also there was inconvenient opinion that Hazop Study is too resource (man power, time etc.) consuming comparing its result performance (a quality of recommendations) for a good operating and existing plant. In this study, two types of PHA method - checklist and K-PSR - were performed respectively for a new para-xylene(PX)plant and 30 year old PX plant. Past history and experience of incident, operation, maintenance and so on are very important in PHA by those two methods. The higher effectiveness were realized in PHA by a checklist and K-PSR Method than prior Hazop study. And also some suggestions including PHA cycle determination, RBPS application, Follow-up plan of PHA result etc. were proposed about PHA improvement measures for a best risk management.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.199-207
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• 2014

In this paper, to systematically assess the abandonment risk of main control room (MCR) fire, fire simulations with Fire Dynamics Simulator were performed and abandonment probabilities were estimated for the MCR bench-board fire of domestic reference nuclear power plant. The fire simulation scenarios performed in this study included propagating and non-propagating fires of the MCR bench-board, and the availability and unavailability of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVACS). The following results were obtained. First, temperature was the major abandonment impact factor for the MCR bench-board fire if the HVACS was available and optical density was that if the HVACS was unavailable. Second, the fire scenario contributing the MCR bench-board fire abandonment risk was identified to be only the propagating fire. Third, it was confirmed that the abandonment probability of the MCR bench-board fire for domestic reference nuclear power plant could be reduced by using the fire modeling.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.2924-2932
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• 2022

Motivated by learning from experience and exploiting existing knowledge in civil nuclear operations, we have developed in-house generic Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) models for pressurized and boiling water reactors. The models are computationally light, handy, transparent, user-friendly, and easily adaptable to account for major plant-specific differences. They cover the common internal initiating events, frontline and support systems reliability and dependencies, human-factors, common-cause failures, and account for new factors typically overlooked in many PSAs. For quantification, the models use generic US reliability data, precursor analysis reports, the ETHZ Curated Nuclear Events Database, and experts' opinions. Moreover, uncertainties in the most influential basic events are addressed. The generated results show good agreement with assessments available in the literature with detailed PSAs. We envision the models as an unbiased framework to measure nuclear operational risk with the same "ruler", and hence support inter-plant risk comparisons that are usually not possible due to differences in plant-specific PSA assumptions and scopes. The models can be used for initial risk screening, order-of-magnitude precursor analysis, and other research/pedagogic applications especially when no plant-specific PSAs are available. Finally, we are using the generic models for large-scale precursor analysis that will generate big picture trends, lessons, and insights.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.54-64
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• 2018

Currently, as construction businesses develop and diversity, risk became one of the most crucial considerations. Risks are potential and difficult to predict by nature. Also, they are important as they influence delay in construction period and increase of project costs. In construction projects in South Korea and elsewhere, the importance of risk management widely recognized and relevant research is being conducted continuously. The companies use PRM checklist but apply different criteria and items. For efficient risk management in plants, plant PRM checklist is necessary. This study analyzed risk factors that are taken into account in construction projects and proposed a plant PRM checklist based on case analysis and opinions of experts. Also, it rated the frequency and importance of each risk.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.39-44
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• 2013

There have been large explosions at some chemical plants recently. Accidents in chemical plants have been caused mainly by servicing for maintenance. There is a need to find a key target for effective injury prevention in maintenance. In this paper, facilities were selected as a key target and the risk priority numbers of the facilities were calculated in order to prioritize preventative measures. The research method was based on the followings; the list of the facilities is found through injury analysis. Then, the risk of each facility was calculated by the frequency of accidents and the working day loss through injuries. In addition, the risk of the facilities was calculated again by the frequency and the severity based on knowledge and experience of experts. As a result, the facilities in chemical plant maintenance are ranked in order of high to low risk priority number; reactor, dryer, tank lorry, etc. In the future, special measures and attention should be directed according to the risk priority number during the maintenance of chemical plants.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.406-417
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• 2020

Early warning services for crop diseases are valuable when they provide timely forecasts that farmers can utilize to inform their disease management decisions. In South Korea, collaborative disease controls that utilize unmanned aerial vehicles are commonly performed for most rice paddies. However, such controls could benefit from seasonal disease early warnings with a lead time of a few months. As a first step to establish a seasonal disease early warning service using seasonal climate forecasts, we developed the EPIRICE Daily Risk Model for rice blast by extracting and modifying the core infection algorithms of the EPIRICE model. The daily risk scores generated by the EPIRICE Daily Risk Model were successfully converted into a realistic and measurable disease value through statistical analyses with 13 rice blast incidence datasets, and subsequently validated using the data from another rice blast experiment conducted in Icheon, South Korea, from 1974 to 2000. The sensitivity of the model to air temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation input variables was examined, and the relative humidity resulted in the most sensitive response from the model. Overall, our results indicate that the EPIRICE Daily Risk Model can be used to produce potential disease risk predictions for the seasonal disease early warning service.