• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.55.1-55.12
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• 2022

Background: ASF was first reported in Kenya in 1910 in 1921. In China, ASF spread to 31 provinces including Henan and Jiangsu within six months after it was first reported on August 3, 2018. The epidemic almost affected the whole China, causing direct economic losses of tens of billions of yuan. Cause great loss to our pig industry. As ELISA is cheap and easy to operate, OIE regards it as the preferred serological method for ASF detection. P54 protein has good antigenicity and is an ideal antigen for detection. Objective: To identify a conservative site in the African swine fever virus (ASFV) p54 protein and perform a Cloth-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detecting the ASFV antibody in order to reduce risks posed by using the live virus in diagnostic assays. Method: We used bioinformatics methods to predict the antigen epitope of the ASFV p54 protein in combination with the antigenic index and artificially synthesized the predicted antigen epitope peptides. Using ASFV-positive serum and specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), we performed indirect ELISA and blocking ELISA to verify the immunological properties of the predicted epitope polypeptide. Results: The results of our prediction revealed that the possible antigen epitope regions were A23-29, A36-45, A72-94, A114-120, A124-130, and A137-150. The indirect ELISA showed that the peptides A23-29, A36-45, A72-94, A114-120, and A137-150 have good antigenicity. Moreover, the A36-45 polypeptide can react specifically with the mAb secreted by hybridoma cells, and its binding site contains a minimum number of essential amino acids in the sequence 37DIQFINPY44. Conclusions: Our study confirmed a conservative antigenic site in the ASFV p54 protein and its amino acid sequence. A competitive ELISA method for detecting ASFV antibodies was established based on recombinant p54 and matching mAb. Moreover, testing the protein sequence alignment verified that the method can theoretically detect antibodies produced by pigs affected by nearly all ASFVs worldwide.

• Journal of the Korean Orthopaedic Association
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.534-539
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• 2020

The management of severe scoliosis remains a challenge to spine surgeons. The rapid intraoperative correction of severe scoliosis may increase the risk of perioperative complications, such as neurological compromise and implant failure. To minimize these risks, various preoperative traction methods have been employed to achieve partial correction before performing definitive corrective surgery. On the other hand, some studies have shown that one of the complications associated with halo traction could lead to cranial nerve palsy, with the sixth nerve (abducens nerve) being most commonly affected. To reduce the complications, gradual increases in the traction weight and detailed neurological examinations are needed, particularly for patients who have previously undergone brain or cervical surgery. The authors report a case of sixth cranial nerve palsy by preoperative halo-pelvic traction in patients with severe scoliosis who underwent previous decompression surgery for a Chiari I malformation with a review of the relevant literature.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.242-252
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• 2022

Objectives: Firefighters and police officers are exposed to various occupational hazards. No studies in Korea have investigated the occurrence of cancer by type of cancer for the two occupations. This study aims to investigate the risk of occurrences associated with types of cancers in firefighters and police officers. Methods: Utilizing National Health Insurance(NHI) Claims data from 2006-2015, the study included 8,871,468 general workers, 25,001 firefighters, and 102,274 police officers. Using general workers as a control group, we calculated the standardized incidence ratios(SIR) by types of cancer for firefighters and police officers. After calculating the SIR for all subjects, the SIR was calculated by stratifying according to gender. Results: SIR of colon cancer 1.38(95% CI, 1.11-1.69), cancer of the liver and intrahepatic bile ducts 1.27(95% CI, 1.04-1.54), and 1.88(95% CI, 1.28-2.65) bladder cancer were higher firefighters than general workers. SIR of Lip, oral cavity, and pharynx 1.26(95% CI, 1.07-1.47), Stomach 1.14(95% CI, 1.06-1.23), colon 1.33(95% CI, 1.21-1.46), liver and intrahepatic bile ducts 1.21(95% CI, 1.10-1.32), pancreas 1.24(95% CI, 1.02-1.49), other skin 1.60(95% CI, 1.26-2.00), bladder 1.27(95% CI, 1.04-1.54), other urinary tract 1.46(95% CI, 1.27-1.68), other parts of central nervous system 1.68(95% CI, 1.10-2.46) were higher police officers than general workers. Conclusions: Both firefighters and police officers are exposed to various cancer occurrence risks, necessitating the development of occupational medical protection measures to reduce risk exposure factors.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.207-215
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• 2021

A forklift is an industrial vehicle with a power-operated fork for lifting and moving heavy loads over short distances. A significant number of accidents are caused by forklifts every year. Most of them are known to be caused by the unsafe acts of workers. However, only a few studies have focused on the risks of forklift work from the perspective of human error. In addition, various methods have been developed to analyze the risk of human error, while it is hard to find studies that directly compare the effectiveness or strengths/weaknesses of those methods. This study aims to analyze risk factors related to unsafe behavior in forklift operations using two representative human error analysis techniques, i.e., .SHERPA and HE-HAZOP, and compare their advantages and disadvantages. The analysis was performed on three main forklift operations ('unloading from the truck', 'moving and loading into the storage', and 'loading on the truck'). As a result, 118 errors and 34 remedial measures were derived by SHERPA. Through HAZOP, 139 errors and 54 measures were derived. The two techniques were compared in terms of the number of results and the method of deriving errors and remedial measures, cause analysis, and risk assessment. This study might be used to reduce human error related disasters in workplaces using forklifts. In order to provide a guide for choosing an appropriate analysis method, more comparative studies on different techniques involving wide range of tasks are needed in the future.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.507-522
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• 2021

Specific survey objectives often cannot be met using only one geophysical method, as each method's results are influenced by the specific physical properties of subsurface materials. In particular, areas susceptible to geological hazards require investigation using more than one method in order to reduce risks to life and property. Instead of analyzing the results from each method separately, this work develops a four-quadrant criterion for classifying areas of levees as safe or weak. The assessment is based on statistically determined thresholds of seismic velocity (P-wave velocity from seismic refraction and S-wave velocity from multichannel analysis of surface waves) and electrical resistivity. Thresholds are determined by subtracting the standard deviation from the mean during performance testing of this correlation technique applied to model data of four horizontal and inclined fracture zones. Compared with results from the crossplot of resistivity and P-wave velocity, crossplot analysis using resistivity and S-wave velocity data provides more reliable information on the soil type, ground stiffness, and lithological characteristics of the levee system. A loose and sandy zone (represented by low S-wave velocity and high resistivity) falling within the second quadrant is interpreted to be a weak zone. This interpretation is well supported by the N values from standard penetrating test for the central core.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.397-404
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• 2021

The web-based crowdfunding platform provides small-cap companies the opportunity to reduce financial risks and to reliably produce new products through pre-orders. Meanwhile, crowdfunding projects are also helping companies as a channel to test new products before mass production. Despite these advantages, from the point of view of businesses and consumers, it is true that web-based crowdfunding platforms have limitations in the retail environment. For example, the limited social elements of a web-based platform are somewhat in conflict with the basic characteristics of crowdfunding projects - which inevitably demand high social influences for the success. As such, understanding the mechanisms of social factors of crowdfunding platforms from the consumers' perspective is important. Therefore, in this study, we empirically tested the effect of social factors of crowdfunding platform on consumer participation and evaluation. Based on the Social Influence Theory and Social Presence Theory, we developed a conceptual framework where the social group size and social presence of other backers were the independent variables and the purchaser's intention to participate as the dependent variable. In the results, the size of the social group size and the perceived social presence have a significant positive effect on purchaser's participation intent. In addition, the social presence had a greater influence on the purchaser's intention to participate than the size of the sponsor's social group. We believe that our findings contribute to the extant literature by empirically demonstrating the valid effect of social factors of crowdfunding platforms on consumer evaluations.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.359-370
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• 2022

Despite continuous efforts to reduce on-site safety accidents, the construction industry remains a high-risk sector with a high rate of fatal accidents. Design for Safety(DFS), which manages safety risk factors at the design stage, is being used as a method to lower the construction safety accident rate. However, due to limited knowledge, designers are unaware of the design-results risks during the different of the project lifecycle, including construction, operation, and maintenance. Effective DFS can be conducted if the designer understands the effect of the building shape on the safety accident rate and corresponding safety management cost(SMC). The cost of safety facilities such as fall prevention nets and safety fences will vary depending on the shape of the building. This study analyzes the outer perimeter length's impact on SMC. Following the data collection from 21 projects for this study, an analysis was conducted using the independent variables of the building perimeter(BP), building shape factor(BSF), and building area(BA), the dependent variable of SMC. The correlation R2 was found to be 0.876, 0.801 and 0.792 between the BP and SMC, BSF and SMC, BA and SMC, respectively, indicating that these factors were closely related.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.28-41
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• 2022

A road system with CV(Connected Vehicle)s, which is often referred to as a cooperative intelligent transportation system (C-ITS), provides various road information to drivers using an in-vehicle warning system. Road environments with CVs induce drivers to reduce their speed or change lanes to avoid potential risks downstream. Such avoidance maneuvers can be considered to improve driving behaviors from a traffic safety point of view. Thus, empirically evaluating how a given in-vehicle warning information affects driving behaviors, and monitoring of the correlation between them are essential tasks for traffic operators. To quantitatively evaluate the effect of in-vehicle warning information, this study develops a method to calculate compliance rate of drivers where two groups of speed profile before and after road information is provided are compared. In addition, conventional indexes (e.g., jerk and acceleration noise) to measure comfort of passengers are examined. Empirical tests are conducted by using PVD (Probe Vehicle Data) and DTG (Digital Tacho Graph) data to verify the individual effects of warning information based on C-ITS constructed in Seoul metropolitan area in South Korea. The results in this study shows that drivers tend to decelerate their speed as a response to the in-vehicle warning information. Meanwhile, the in-vehicle warning information helps drivers to improve the safety and comport of passengers.

• Journal of Platform Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.24-31
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• 2023

Recently, interest in UAM (Urban Air Mobility, UAM), which can take off and land vertically in the operation of urban air transportation systems, has been increasing. Therefore, various start-up companies are developing related technologies as eco-friendly future transportation with advanced technology. However, studies on ways to increase safety in the operation of UAM are still insignificant. In particular, efforts are more urgent to improve the safety of risks generated in the process of attempting to land in the city center by UAM equipped with autonomous driving. Accordingly, this study proposes a plan to safely land by avoiding dangerous region that interfere when autonomous UAM attempts to land in the city center. To this end, first, the latitude and longitude coordinate values of dangerous objects observed by the sense of the UAM are calculated. Based on this, we proposed to convert the coordinates of the distorted planar image from the 3D image to latitude and longitude and then use the calculated latitude and longitude to compare the pre-learned feature descriptor with the HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradients, HOG) feature descriptor to extract the dangerous Region. Although the dangerous region could not be completely extracted, generally satisfactory results were obtained. Accordingly, the proposed research method reduces the enormous cost of selecting a take-off and landing site for UAM equipped with autonomous driving technology and contribute to basic measures to reduce risk increase safety when attempting to land in complex environments such as urban areas.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.3
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• pp.382-392
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• 2023

Recent reports have indicated a rapid increase in the frequency of sediment disasters due to climate change and other changes in the geological environment. Given this alarming situation and the recent increase in the frequency of land creep in Korea, systematic and efficient recovery and management of land creep areas is essential. The purpose of this study is to identify disaster vulnerability by conducting a physical exploration of land creep in San 4-1, Jayeon-ri, Gaegun-myeon, Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, and examine stability by identifying the overall geological structure of the affected ground. In addition, drilling surveys are conducted to verify the reliability of the measured data. The results of the study reveal that low specific resistance abnormalities are distributed in the upper part of the soil layer and weathering zone and that this section is a 50-120 m exploration line. It is also confirmed to be a low-hardness ground area where tensile cracks are observed. Therefore, there is a need for research focused on developing measures to reduce economic and social damage within the domestic context by continuously monitoring indicators of land creep and identifying land creep risks.