• Toxicological Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.39-44
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• 2014

Bisphenol A (BPA) is widely used in the production of polycarbonate plastics, epoxy resins, and food and beverage containers. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between urinary concentrations of BPA and waist circumference in Korean adults. A total of 1,030 Korean adults (mean age, $44.3{\pm}14.6$ years) were enrolled in the study on the integrated exposure to hazardous materials for safety control, conducted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety from 2010 to 2012. Abdominal obesity was defined as having a waist circumference of at least 90 cm and 85 cm for men and women, respectively. The participants were divided into 4 groups according to the urinary BPA concentration quartile. Waist circumference was significantly higher among subjects with a urinary BPA concentration in the highest quartile relative to those in the lowest quartile (p = 0.0071). Linear regression analysis revealed a significant positive association between urinary BPA concentrations and body mass index, body fat, after adjusting for potential confounders. Moreover, subjects with urinary BPA concentrations in the fourth quartile were more likely to be obese compared to those with urinary BPA concentrations in the first quartile (odds ratio, 1.938; 95% CI: 1.314~2.857; p for trend = 0.0106). These findings provide evidence for a positive association between urinary BPA concentration and waist circumference in Korean adults.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.5 no.2 s.14
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• pp.9-13
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• 2001

A complete spectrum of risk assessment including qualitative and quantitative approaches were performed for the POSCO's Batch Annealing Furnace (BAF) gas systems. The purpose of BAF is to enhance the quality of steel by annealing it with either hydrogen/nitrogen mixture gas or pure hydrogen gas. Number of gas leak scenarios were identified to generate frequency of their occurrences. With the hypothetical accident scenarios given, fire/explosion impact studies were performed to estimate magnitude of significant consequences. Several different indices were also presented from which practical safety improvement action items could be established.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.76-87
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• 2022

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have attracted much interest for their high energy density (>150 mAh/g), high capacity, low self-discharge rate, and high coulombic efficiency. However, with the successful commercialization of LIBs, fire and explosion incidents are likely to increase. The thermal runaway is known as the major factor in battery-related accidents that can lead to a series of critical conditions. Considering this, recent studies have shown an increased interest in countering the safety issues associated with LIBs. Although safety standards for LIB use have recently been formulated, little attention has been paid to the safety around the manufacturing process for battery products. The present study introduces a risk assessment method suitable for assessing the safety of the LIB-manufacturing process. In the assessment method, a compensation parameter (Z-factor) is employed to correctly evaluate the process's safety on the basis of the type of material (e.g., metal anode, liquid electrolyte, solid-state electrolytes) utilized in a cell. The proposed method has been applied to an 18650 cell-manufacturing process, and three sub-processes have been identified as possibly vulnerable parts (risk index: >4). This study offers some crucial insights into the establishment of safety standards for battery-manufacturing processes.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.321-333
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• 2022

In this study, the concentration and distribution characteristics of BTEX (benzene toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) emitted from Daesan Petrochemical Industrial Complex were examined to determine their potential hazards to local residents. Residents living nearby the complex areas may be exposed to the chemicals through various media (air, water, and soil), especially by air. This study evaluated human health risks by inhalation using both deterministic and probabilistic risk assessment approaches. As a result of the deterministic risk assessment, the non-cancer risk was much lower than the regulation limit of hazard index (HI 1.0) for all the points. However, in case of cancer risk evaluation, it was found that the risk of excess cancer for benzene at point A located in the industrial complex was 2.28×10^-6, which slightly exceeded the standard regulatory limit of 1.0×10^-6. In addition, the probabilistic risk assessment revealed that the percentile exceeding the standard of 1.0×10^-6was found to be 45.3%. The sensitivity analysis showed that exposure time (ET) had the greatest impact on the results. Based on the risk assessment study, it implied that ethylbenzene, toluene, and xylene had little adverse effects on potential human exposure, but benzene often exceeded the cancer risk standard (1.0×10^-6). Further studies on extensive VOCs monitoring are needed to evaluate the potential risks of industrial complex areas.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.125-133
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• 2016

We investigated the distribution of organic matter and trace metals in surface sediment from Tonyeong coast. To determine the status of trace metal pollution, we also conducted an ecological risk assessment. Relatively high concentration of TN (total nitrogen), TOC (total organic carbon), and AVS (acid volatile sulfide) was found in surface sediment located in the narrow channel (site 35-38). Spatial distribution of Cd, Cr, Ni, Co, Hg, and Zn in surface sediment was similar and high Cu concentrations were found in narrow channel. The assessment of heavy metal pollution was derived using the Enrichment factors (EF). The enrichment factor indicated that Cd was no enrichment (EF<1), Pb, Cr, Ni, Co, Zn, and Hg were minor enrichment (1

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.299-315
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• 2020

Tuna fisheries were applied to an integrated ecosystem-based fishery risk assessment method using indexes of target species status, inhabited species in a target ecosystem, habitat quality and socio-economic benefit of affected fisheries. This study suggested more effective and efficient management measures to break away from traditional management methods, such as limitation of catch and fishing effort. The results presented that the objective risk index (ORI_S) on sustainability of bigeye and yellowfin tunas by purse seine fishery was estimated high due to the high catch ratio of small fishes. The ORIs of biodiversity (ORI_B) and habitat quality (ORI_H) of purse seine fishery were also estimated at a high level from using fish-aggregating devices (FAD). However, due to skipjack tuna's high catches, the ORI of socio-economic benefit (ORI_E) was estimated at a very low level. Due to the high bycatch rate, ORI_B was high, and ORI_S and ORI_H were evaluated at a low level in longline fishery. Due to strengthern of fishing restrictions and increase of fishing costs, the ORI_E was assessed to be very high. The ecosystem risk index (ERI) for two tuna fisheries was assessed low, but the overall FAD management by purse seine fishery is necessary at the ecosystem level.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.3 s.58
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• pp.530-539
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• 1997

This study was conducted to assess the health risk on the volatile organic compounds such as toluene, xylene, and styrene in painting workplace. It was monitored through personal air sampling during working time in selected 5 workplaces and analysed using gas chromatography. For the settlement of exposure situation, there were regarded working conditions such as working hours, yearly working days, and working years. Also, Monte-Carlo simulation was used for the induction of hazard index using toxicity value from IRIS(Integrated risk information system) database. The results of risk assessment were summarized as follows. 1. The air concentration of toluene was $7.096{\pm}15,644ppm,\;2.586{\pm}4.275ppm\;for\;xylene,\;1.914{\pm}5.320ppm$ for styrene in blast painting workplaces. The level of toluene was different significantly compared with the level of xylene and styrene. 2. Computated chronic daily intake values of 95th percentile on toluene, xylene and styrene treated by Monte-Carlo simulation were 9.616, 3.567, 2.782 mg/kg/day, respectively. 3. Computated hazard index values of 75th percentile on toluene, xylene and styrene treated by Monte-Carlo simulation were 3.5, 1.0 and 1.6, respectively. Adverse health effects on the toluene, xylene and styrene would be expected by working exposure in selected 5 workplaces since the hazard indices of three compounds were exceeded 1 in the surroundings of 75th percentile though having the low emerged frequency.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.4 no.2 s.10
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• pp.37-45
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• 2000

The underground buried pipelines of Natural gas are relatively safer than any other pipelines of chemical plants, because Natural gas is non-corrosive fluid. But Natural gas is supplied normally the downtown area. So, it may be a disaster because of corrosion which is caused interference facilities, environment and third party accident which is caused facilities construction. Especially, it is very difficult to find out and inspect damages of pipeline because of buried pipelines. Therefore this paper approached to select and manage risk region pipelines according to introduction of underground buried pipeline's risk concept. Risk was indicated three parts - corrosion factor, design and construction factor, maintence and management factor - in this paper, Therefore qualitive risk of pipelines showed score as quantitative number. Also it was thought to be helpful in confidence and safety management that the concept of key index and failure supplementation measures to cost introduces this program. We developed this risk assessment program using visual basic tool and interfaced GIS.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.397-406
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• 2014

Objectives: Perchloroethylene (PCE) is a volatile chemical widely used as a solvent in the dry-cleaning and textile processing industries. It was evaluated as Group 2 "probably carcinogenic to humans" by the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) of the United State Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) in 2012. In order to provide a scientific basis for establishing risk management measures for chemicals on the national priority substances list, aggregate risk assessment was conducted for PCE, included in the top-10 substances. Methods: We conducted the investigation and monitoring of PCE exposure (e.g., exposure scenario, detection levels, and exposure factors, etc.) and assessed its multi-media (e.g., outdoor air, indoor air, and ground water) exposure risk with a deterministic and probabilistic approach. Results: In human risk assessment (HRA), the level of human exposure was higher in the younger age group. The exposure level through inhalation at home was the highest among the exposure routes. Outdoor air or uptake of drinking water represented less than 1% of total contributions to PCE exposure. These findings suggested that the level of risk was negligible since the Hazard Index (HI) induced by HRA was below one among all age groups, with a maximum HI value of 0.17 when reasonable maximum exposure was applied. Conclusion: In conclusion, it was suggested that despite low exposure risk, further studies are needed considering main sources, including occupational exposure.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2021

This study investigated the fire risk assessment of woods and plastics for construction materials, focusing on the fire performance index-III (FPI-III), fire growth index-III (FGI-III), and fire risk index-IV (FRI-IV) by a newly designed method. Japanese cedar, red pine, polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were used as test pieces. Fire characteristics of the materials were investigated using a cone calorimeter (ISO 5660-1) equipment. The fire performance index-III measured after the combustion reaction was found to be 1.0 to 15.0 with respect to PMMA. Fire risk by fire performance index-III increased in the order of PVC, red pine, Japanese cedar, and PMMA. The fire growth index-III was found to be 0.5 to 3.3 based on PMMA. Fire risk by fire growth index-III increased in the order of PVC, PMMA, red pine, and Japanese cedar. COpeak concentrations of all specimens were measured between 106 and 570 ppm. In conclusion, it is understood that Japanese cedar with a low bulk density and PMMA containing a large amount of volatile organic substances have a low fire performance index-III and high fire growth index-III, and thus have high fire risk due to fire. This was consistent with the fire risk index-IV.