• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.48 no.6
• /
• pp.324-330
• /
• 2022

Background: Lung injuries due to exposure to humidifier disinfectants (HDs) were reported in 2011 in South Korea. As a result of the government's epidemiological investigation and toxicity test study, it was found that HDs caused health damage such as lung disease. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to classify HD exposure ratings and analyze the affecting factors that could identify the relationship with lung disease. Methods: Exposure assessment for HDs was conducted using a questionnaire during face-to-face interviews with the applicants. Ratings of high exposure (Class 1) and low exposure (Class 2) were cross-tabulated with clinical ratings (acceptable and unacceptable). Logistic regression analysis was carried out by setting the clinical rating of lung disease as a dependent variable and the socio-demographic and exposure characteristics obtained through the questionnaire as independent variables. Results: The concentration in air of polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) was 71.96±107.47 ㎍/m³, and the exposure concentration was 15.21±23.28 ㎍/m³ . The exposure rating was overestimated with 97.1% of affected subjects having high exposure using margin of exposure (MOE), but only 9.9% matching the clinical class. In the overestimated group, it could be explained by the fact that the exposure time was long and the subjects had already recovered from damage symptoms. As a result of logistic regression analysis, ten variables were found to be significant influencing factors. Conclusions: A new exposure rating could be calculated based on the MOE, and factors affecting lung disease could be estimated through comparative evaluation with the clinical rating.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
• /
• v.14 no.1_spc
• /
• pp.367-390
• /
• 2008

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the college students' implicit theory of Korean creativity. This study deals with the degree to which the students exploit the creativity, and the obstacles for them to exploit the creativity. Another purpose of this study is to explore their implicit knowledge of Korean creative environments. The results are as follows. The implicit knowledge of Korean creativity could be characterized by the following key words: 'flexibility', 'application', 'transformation', 'originality', 'perseverance', 'not being stereotyped', 'esthetic flavor' and 'understanding-new-by-exploring-old'. Students thought themselves to be more or less creative. Students in art and physical education, and male students estimated themselves more creative than other discipline and female. They thought that socio-institutional factors such as educational system focused on the college entrance test are the most serious obstacles against creativity. About half of the students thought the creative persons would have been raised in poor family whereas other students thought differently. The home environment of the creative person was thought to be characterized by the words such as democratic, free and encouraging. Creative persons were thought to be maladaptive school life, but good at peer relations. This study will be used as a pioneer research which suggest a model of Korean creativity.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.39-57
• /
• 2012

Analysis of the economic impact on Korean bioindustry companies was approached after Korea access to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (hereinafter 'the Protocol') enters into force. Cost analysis of the economic impact is based on the size of bioindustry market, dependency ratio on genetic resources abroad, ABS (Access and Benefit Sharing) ratio for royalty ratio. Korean bioindustry companies would have had to pay extra ABS cost around 1.3-6.0 billion won for using genetic resources abroad, if the Protocol had entered into force in 2009. And this cost is estimated to be around 13.6 - 63.9 billion won in 2015. All ABS costs account only about less than 0.01% of total Korean bioindustry volume of target years. These show us that joining the Protocol will not significantly impact the bioindustry market in Korea. If the Protocol enters into force, genetic resources users have to pay PIC (Prior Informed Consent) and MAT (Mutually Agreed Terms) cost before accessing the genetic resources outside of their country, regardless of the accession status of the country. This ABS costs and terms on provided genetic resources will be determined by compliance between genetic resources users and providers. As a genetic resources provider, Korean bioindustry companies will have advantage over technology transfer agreements, royalties, licensing agreements, and taxes on profits from patents including traditional knowledge. Also, Korean bioindustry companies are expected to get various socio-economic benefits such as patent litigation and regulatory proceedings as a genetic resources provider. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of the Protocol that Korean bioindustry companies will face together, the socio-economic impact of the Nagoya Protocol on Korean bioindustry companies is negligible regardless of the accession status of Korea to the Nagoya Protocol.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.53 no.6
• /
• pp.427-436
• /
• 2020

It is uncertain how global climate change will influence future drought characteristics over the Korean peninsula. This study aims to project the future droughts using climate change and land use change scenarios over the Korean peninsula with the land surface modeling system, i.e., Weather Research and Forecasting Model Hydrological modeling system (WRF-Hydro). The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 are used as future climate scenarios and the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs), specifically SSP2, is adopted for the land use scenario. The using Threshold Level Method (TLM), we identify future hydrological and ecological drought events with runoff and Net Primary Productivity (NPP), respectively, and assess drought characteristics of durations and intensities in different scenarios. Results show that the duration of drought is longer over RCP2.6-SSP2 for near future (2031-2050) and RCP8.5-SSP2 (2080-2099) for the far future for hydrological drought. On the other hand, RCP2.6-SSP2 for the far future and RCP8.5-SSP2 for the near future show longer duration for ecological drought. In addition, the drought intensities in both hydrological and ecological drought show different characteristics with the drought duration. The intensity of the hydrological droughts was greatly affected by threshold level methods and RCP2.6-SSP2 for far future shows the severest intensity. However, for ecological drought, the difference of the intensity among the threshold level is not significant and RCP2.6-SSP2 for near future and RCP2.6-SSP2 for near future show the severest intensity. This study suggests a possible future drought characteristics is in the Korea peninsula using combined climate and land use changes, which will help the community to understand and manage the future drought risks.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.47 no.2
• /
• pp.180-191
• /
• 2023

The purpose of this study was to investigate the preferred SSI topics of students and teachers in elementary, middle, and high schools. It analyzed the similarity of students' and teachers' preferred SSI topics by school level using the cosine similarity measure. A total of 566 students and 327 teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools participated in the study. Sixty topics were identified and listed in the areas of environment, science and technology, health and medicine, and other social issues based on the literature and SSI programs. Students and teachers were asked to select five of their favorite topics. The data was collected online using SurveyMonkey. The collected data was divided into six groups of students and teachers, and the frequency of topic selection was analyzed within each group. The topic preference similarity was analyzed by calculating vector values based on the frequency of the selected topics and measuring the cosine similarity between students, teachers, and teachers and students by school level. The results are as follows: First, the cosine similarity of SSI Preferred Topics between students' school-level cohorts was higher between middle and high school students (0.982) than between elementary and middle school students (0.651) or between elementary and high school students (0.662). Second, the cosine similarity of SSI Preferred Topics between teachers' school-level cohorts was similar for all comparison groups between elementary, middle, and high school. Third, the SSI topic preference similarity between students and teachers by school level had a higher cosine similarity between the elementary student and teacher cohorts (0.974) than the other school level comparisons, middle school (0.621) or high school (0.645). Access to topics of interest to students in SSI education is strongly associated with motivation and persistence in learning, as well as an enjoyable learning experience and positive attitudes toward learning. Therefore, when designing SSI lessons, it is important to examine topics from the perspective of student interest, especially if the teacher has selected SSI topics that are different from students' preferences. Careful instructional design will be needed to overcome the gap.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.31-44
• /
• 1990

This study was carried out to investigate the changes of rural residential environmemts accompanied by the rural village improvement projects. The results of this study can be a guidoline for further betterment works of rural village envirnments. This sutdy is composed of the survey of two major parts, one Is the interview of the residents and the survey of existing conditions of residential environments, and the other is a questionnaire survey of the mental image, preference and satisfaction for each village residential environments. Based on preliminary investigation, five rural villages, located In Kyungsamgun., Kyungbuk province, were selected as sutdy sites. The major results are summarized as follows; 1. In socio-cultural enveronments, the ratio of compound and non - agricultural household are increased with the modernization of rural villages. On the ocher hand, the numbers of neighbor's association are considerably decreased. This means the traditional community of korean rural villages are diminishing. 2. In physical environments, the ratio of improved western type gouses are increased In modprnized villages. And the modernization is most remarkable in the palls of fences and gardens. 3. By the result of the analysis of residfnt's environmental image and preference, the image scores of urban, formal, mdoern, etc. are showed to be high. And the preference is also high in modernized villages. But in general, the Preference for the village environment is comparatively low in all villages. This means the improvememt work should be continuous and systematic. 4. By the result of stepwise regression analysis, the variables, affecting the preference of village environment. are regularity, familiarity, amount of greenery, beauty of surrounding scenery, convenience, cleanness, etc. The R2s of the perference models were 0.4486 ∼0.9395, Which are considered to be high. 5. In the satisfaction for each residences, the toilets are mostly dis - satisfying. With the modernization of vilelages, the needs for environmental quality by residents are increased. 6. In the satisfaction for village enveironments, the satisfaction level is most low in service facilities, such as public bath, barbershop. And the satisfaction for the scenic beauty, the amenity of surrondings, and the com munity of the traditional villages, are commparatively high in conventional villges. 7. The imporvement works, based on the characteristics of each rural villages, are recommended. And the tradition of Jung - ja tree spaces and harmony with surrounding landscape of traditional villages, must be conserved with good regards.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.511-524
• /
• 2007

Korea has 30 years of experiences in environmental impact assessment (EIA). Although EIA includes sanitation-public health factor, considering health impacts, among 74 unit projects of 17 sections, health impacts haven't been properly considered or have been ignored in many cases. The increasing awareness on the importance of health impacts has triggered this study to seek an optimal introduction scheme of health impact assessment (HIA). The processes of EIA already include screening, scoping, analysis, impact assessment, consultation, document review, decision making and monitoring, in which they would be the essential parts of HIA. In this context, integrating HIA into the existing EIA process could be the most effective way to use the benefits in both legal and procedural processes existed and to avoid the confusion and overlapping since the close relationships between environment and health impacts might be. Furthermore, it is desirable that the existing sanitation-public health factor should be substituted by and extended to environment-health factor with sufficient determinants to properly consider health impacts. When considering the first step of HIA, the prospective and qualitative approach is suitable more than the retrospective and quantitative one due to the lack of database accumulated. Similarly, an approach based on epidemiology and toxicology could analyze the limited evidences and impacts related to human disease, whereas one based on socio-science and psychology could provide the effective means available for predicting how the people and community will act by the change of surroundings. Checklist approach with various and comprehensive health determinants focused on prospective and qualitative methods will be very useful for more convenient and progressive dissemination of HIA. Various checklist approaches of toolkits could be found from HIA documents elsewhere, for example Westminster Toolkit, and they would be helpful to figure out how to develop common procedures and health determinants for checklist, in which the unique characteristics on korean cultural and political context compared to abroad should be carefully considered since checklist would be the most basic and essential part of HIA. After the establishment of checklist and procedural processes, the pilot projects should be conducted. Main purpose of pilot projects is to apparently prove the effectiveness and profitability of HIA. Pilot projects should be implemented to decide the effectiveness and suitability of HIA for future projects, programs and policies, and should be provided as the positive cases that can be achieved through the proper implementation and progress.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.55 no.5
• /
• pp.523-532
• /
• 2017

A field survey studying intestinal parasites in humans and microbial pathogen contamination at environment was performed in a Laotian rural village to identify potential risks for disease outbreaks. A parasitological investigation was conducted in Ban Lak Sip village, Luang Prabang, Lao PDR involving fecal samples from 305 inhabitants as well as water samples taken from 3 sites of the local stream. Water analysis indicated the presence of several enteric pathogens, i.e., Aeromonas spp., Vibrio spp., E. coli H7, E. coli O157: H7, verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (VTEC), Shigella spp., and enteric adenovirus. The level of microbial pathogens contamination was associated with human activity, with greater levels of contamination found at the downstream site compared to the site at the village and upstream, respectively. Regarding intestinal parasites, the prevalence of helminth and protozoan infections were 68.9% and 27.2%, respectively. Eight helminth taxa were identified in fecal samples, i.e., 2 tapeworm species (Taenia sp. and Hymenolepis diminuta), 1 trematode (Opisthorchis sp.), and 5 nematodes (Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Strongyloides stercoralis, trichostrongylids, and hookworms). Six species of intestinal protists were identified, i.e., Blastocystis hominis, Cyclospora spp., Endolimax nana, Entamoeba histolytica/E. dispar, Entamoeba coli, and Giardia lamblia. Questionnaires and interviews were also conducted to determine risk factors of infection. These analyses together with a prevailing infection level suggested that most of villagers were exposed to parasites in a similar degree due to limited socio-economic differences and sharing of similar practices. Limited access to effective public health facilities is also a significant contributing factor.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 2009

This study aims to provide preliminary data needed for establishing policies on the environment and disasters of Goryeong county. The main results are as follows. First, the present master plan of the region does not reflect local socio-economic and environmental conditions and the local people's opinion. Second, The air conditions of Gyeongbuk province and Goryeong county are within the permitted limit of air pollution of Korea. Third, the analysis of water pollution index in Nakdong river system shows improvement of water quality in both Andong and Goryeong. Fourth, the conditions of waste collection and disposal are improved in both Gyeongbuk province and Goryeong county. Fifth, in case of environmental pollutant emitting facilities of Gyeongbuk province, the proportion of 1st to 4th grade(relatively much more environmental pollutant emitting quantity than 5th grade) tends to be increasing. Sixth, environmental pollutant emitting facilities of Goryeong county are remarkably increasing in Dasan, Gaegin, Ssangrim, involving industrial complex. Finally, in case of disasters, it is relatively stable in Yecheon, Gumi, Uiseong, Yeongju and Cheongdo, while relatively unstable in Seongju, Gunwi, Yeongcheon, Chilgok, Mungyeong, Bonghwa and Goryeong.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.57 no.9
• /
• pp.599-613
• /
• 2024

Unlike other disasters, the water shortage problem caused by drought is characterized by the long-lasting ripple effect of the social and economic sectors in all regions of Korea, and the types and purposes of water mainly used are different depending on the type of region, so the factors and scale of water shortage damage are different. In this study, a methodology to evaluate the risk of water shortage based on socioeconomic characteristics was developed and applied to Gwangju and Jeollanam-do to analyze the results. To this end, 20 impact indicators for risk, exposure, and vulnerability items were selected according to the climate risk concept of IPCC AR6. The results of the water shortage risk evaluation reflecting socioeconomic characteristics were different from the risk results considering only the existing meteorological and hydrological factors. The areas with the greatest risk of water shortage were calculated as Yeonggwang-eup in Yeonggwang-gun, Yeonsan-dong and Haean-dong 4-ga in Mokpo-si, Jeokryang-dong in Yeosu-si and Geumsan-myeon in Goheung-si. Through the evaluation results, risk factors and countermeasures for water shortage were derived in consideration of detailed characteristics of the region, which can be used as data contributing to the establishment of measures to reduce drought damage tailored to the region in the future.