• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 2019

Background: Few studies have examined the effects of a forward rotating shift pattern on police employee performance and well-being. This study sought to compare sleep duration, cognitive performance, and vigilance at the start and end of each shift within a three-shift, forward rotating shift pattern, common in United Kingdom police forces. Methods: Twenty-three police employee participants were recruited from North Yorkshire Police (mean age, 43 years). The participants were all working the same, 10-day, forward rotating shift pattern. No other exclusion criteria were stipulated. Sleep data were gathered using both actigraphy and self-reported methods; cognitive performance and vigilance were assessed using a customized test battery, comprising five tests: motor praxis task, visual object learning task, NBACK, digital symbol substitution task, and psychomotor vigilance test. Statistical comparisons were conducted, taking into account the shift type, shift number, and the start and end of each shift worked. Results: Sleep duration was found to be significantly reduced after night shifts. Results showed a significant main effect of shift type in the visual object learning task and NBACK task and also a significant main effect of start/end in the digital symbol substitution task, along with a number of significant interactions. Conclusion: The results of the tests indicated that learning and practice effects may have an effect on results of some of the tests. However, it is also possible that due to the fast rotating nature of the shift pattern, participants did not adjust to any particular shift; hence, their performance in the cognitive and vigilance tests did not suffer significantly as a result of this particular shift pattern.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.569-576
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• 2019

Objectives: The main purpose of this study was to assess firefighters' daily personal noise exposure and explore noise levels related to specific tasks and their contributions to total noise exposure using 24-hour full-shift noise exposure measurements with task-based data. Methods: Noise exposure was assessed for eight firefighters (two rescuers, two drivers, and four suppressors) using time-activity diaries. We collected a total of 24 full-shift personal noise sample sets (three samples per a firefighter). The 24-hour shift-adjusted daily personal noise exposure level (L_ep,d), eight weekly personal noise exposures (L_eq,w), and 40 task-specific L_eq values (L_{eq activity}) were calculated via the ISO/NIOSH method. Results: The firefighter noise-sample datasets showed that most firefighters are exposed to noise levels above EU recommended levels at a low-action value. The highest noise exposure was for rescuers, followed by drivers and suppressors. Noise measurements with time-at-task information revealed that 82.3% of noise exposure occurred when checking equipment and responding to fire or emergency calls. Conclusions: The results indicate that firefighters are at risk of noise-induced hearing loss. Therefore, efforts at noise-control are necessary for their protection. This task-specific noise exposure assessment also shows that protective measures should be focused on certain tasks, such as checking and testing equipment.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.37 no.5A
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• pp.290-297
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• 2012

In this paper, we proposed new modulation schemes, Offset Phase Rotation Shift Keying (OPRSK) and Phase Shift Rotation Shift Keying (PSRSK), for medical in-body wireless body area network (WBAN) systems. In IEEE, the WBAN system is assigned as 802.15. Task Group (TG) 6, and the related standardization is being progressed. Recently, in this Group, Phase Silence Shift Keying (PSSK), Phase Silence Position Keying (PSPK) and Phase Rotation Shift Keying (PRSK), which can obtain higher power efficiency, are proposed as new modulation schemes for low-power operation of WBAN system. However, they have a disadvantage for non-linear amplifier distortion. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed OPRSK and PSRSK, which are robust to non-linear amplification, by employing a phase offset in constellation and a power distribution in symbol duration, and verified that the proposed methods have good perfomance and stable operation through performance evaluation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.43-49
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• 2012

This paper describes the categorical effects of pitch accent contrasts in a mimicry task. It focuses, specifically, on examining how fundamental frequency (f0) variation reflects phonological contrasts from speakers of two distinct varieties of Korean (i.e., North Kyungsang and South Cholla). The results showed that, in a mimicry task using synthetic speech continua, there was a categorical effect in f0 peak timing for North Kyungsang speakers, but the timing of f0 peaks and valleys in the responses of South Cholla speakers was more variable, presenting a gradient or non-categorical effect. Evidence of categorical effects was represented as the shift of f0 peak times along an acoustic continuum for North Kyungsang speakers. The range for the shift of f0 valley times was much narrower, compared to that of f0 peak times. The degree of a shift near the middle of the continuum showed variability across individual mimicry responses. However, the categorical structure in mimicry responses regarding the clustering of f0 peak points was more significant for North Kyungsang speakers than for South Cholla speakers. Additionally, the finding of the current study implies that the location of f0 peak times depends on individuals' imitative (or cognitive) abilities.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.389-408
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• 2012

'Verbal overshadowing' refers to the phenomenon whereby the verbal reporting of a visual memory of a face interferes with subsequent visual recognition of that face. Schooler (2002)[1] suggested that verbalization causes a shift from a holistic/global processing orientation towards a more analytic/local processing orientation that is detrimental to face recognition. The present research investigated whether this processing shift occurs or not by assessing performance of Navon task following face recognition task, interposing verbalization between encoding stage and retrieval stage. The face recognition task showed the verbal overshadowing effect. In the Navon task, while non-verbalization group showed global precedence, verbalization group showed local precedence. This results imply that the cause of verbal overshadowing effect is a processing shift induced by verbalization.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.455-462
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of hemiplegia on weight shift when mediating task-oriented activities in stroke patients. To this end, from September to December 2019, 33 patients with stroke were randomly assigned and divided into 17 experimental groups and 16 control groups. The experimental group provided task-oriented activities, and the control group general occupational therapy was conducted 3 times a week, 35 minutes per session for a total of 4 weeks. The weight shift of the left and right body was evaluated by the MTD balance system, and an initial evaluation before intervention and a re-evaluation was performed after 4 weeks of intervention. The result were as follows: 1) When evaluating the pre- and post-intervention within the group, the weight shift to the hemiplegia side showed an improvement in the weight shift to the hemiplegia side in both the experimental group(p<.001), and control groups(p<.001, p<.05). 2) In the pre- and post-intervention evaluation between groups, the experimental group showed a statistically significant improvement in weight shift to the control group(p<.01, p<.05). Through future supplementary studies, it is thought that task-oriented activities in the treatment of stroke patients could be usefully applied to promote weight transfer to the paralysis side.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1995.04b
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• pp.504-509
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• 1995

In this paper, we developed a position correction system of industrial robot for door-chassis assembly task. With the aid of a dedicated vision system, industrial robot accomplished visually acceptable door-chassis's assembly task. The alogorithm of the position detection of notch and 2 dimesional position correction algorithm are noteworthy. The obtained algorithms were satisfatorily implemented for a real door-chassis model.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.57-69
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• 2003

This study was performed to investigate the isometric endurance time as percentages of maximum voluntary contraction. Electromyogram(EMG) and Borg's CR-I0 value were measured by push-pull-up-down tasks for 10 healthy males. The normalized EMG value and the MPF(mean power frequency) were used to estimate the muscle recruitment pattern and the development of muscle fatigue. The subjects exerted and maintained 5 levels of %MVC(maximum voluntary contraction) in $90^{\circ}$ shoulder flexion/ 180oelbow extension at sitting posture. The up-task showed the lower endurance time and higher Borg's CR-I0 value than the other task types. Comparing Rohmert's curve with the endurance time of task types. Rohmert's curve overestimated the endurance time of up-task and underestimated the endurance time of push-pull-down tasks. The normalized EMG value showed that muscles recruitment patterns were different from task types. The 4 muscles(biceps brachii muscle, tricep brachii muscle. middle deltoid muscle. trapezius muscle) recruitment patterns of up-task were higher than those of other tasks. The MPF value decreased with the endurance time, and the shift of MPF at up-task was larger than that of the other task types.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.98-104
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• 2014

The fire servant's three shift working system tried out from 2009, and the performance rate of the fire servant's three shift working system is currently 98%. The Domestic study on fire servant's three shift working system is very elementary and puerile level, and its study is almost zero. Accordingly, this study aimed to sort through problems and prior task of the three shift working system implementation, and to suggestion for effectiveness secure of Fire servant's three shift working system.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.73-79
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• 2011

The growing interest in nanotechnology has resulted in increasing concern and a number of published environmental and workplace measurements for assessing occupational exposure to engineered nanomaterials. However, the amount of previous exposure data remains limited. Furthermore the data available was collected with extensive variation in terms of exposure measurement strategy, which limits the ability to pool the data in the future. In response, this paper reviewed several pertinent issues related to exposure measurement strategy to suggest a harmonized measurement strategy which would make exposure data more useful in the future, e.g. correlation between exposure metrics, relationship between activity and exposure, task-based or shift-based assessment, background concentration, limitation of personal exposure monitoring and other determinants of exposure/modeling. An improved sampling strategy for nanomaterial exposure assessment should be considered in order to maximize the use of the data from various real time monitoring instruments.