• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.35-42
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• 2008

Most of tasks for vertical surface work in shipyard have been accomplished by human workers. However, such manual work often causes injury to workers, also the production cost becomes high due to increasing individual wage. To cope with the circumstance, shipbuilding companies try to introduce wall-climbing robots for carrying out such kind of tasks. In designing a wall-climbing robot, it is essential to minimize its own weight to improve the performance such as moving speed and power saving. For such purpose. this study proposes a method of optimal design for a wall-climbing robot using a genetic algorithm with multi-objective function. Specifically, the thickness of the robot base is minimized to reduce the weight while maintaining the allowable strength and avoiding the resonance frequencies. The proposed method is applied to the design of a wall-climbing robot, and the result shows that the method is useful at an early design stage.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.248-251
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• 2015

High injury and fatality rates remain a serious problem in the construction industry. Many construction injuries and fatalities can be prevented if workers can recognize potential hazards and take actions in time. Many efforts have been devoted in improving workers' ability of hazard recognition through various safety training and education methods. However, a reliable approach for evaluating this ability is missing. Previous studies in the field of human behavior and phycology indicate that the visual focus of attention (VFOA) is a good indicator of worker's actual focus. Towards this direction, this study introduces an automated approach for estimating the VFOA of equipment operators using a head orientation-based VFOA estimation method. The proposed method is validated in a virtual reality scenario using an immersive head mounted display. Results show that the proposed method can effectively estimate the VFOA of test subjects in different test scenarios. The findings in this study broaden the knowledge of detecting the visual focus and distraction of construction workers, and envision the future work in improving work's ability of hazard recognition.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.203-209
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• 2014

Background: Coal mining is of significant economic importance to the Australian economy. Despite this fact, the related workforce is subjected to a number of psychosocial risks and musculoskeletal injury, and various psychological disorders are common among this population group. Because only limited research has been conducted in this population group, we sought to examine the relationship between physical (pain) and psychological (distress) factors, as well as the effects of various demographic, lifestyle, and fatigue indicators on this relationship. Methods: Coal miners (N = 231) participated in a survey of musculoskeletal pain and distress on-site during their work shifts. Participants also provided demographic information (job type, age, experience in the industry, and body mass index) and responded to questions about exercise and sleep quality (on-and off-shift) as well as physical and mental tiredness after work. Results: A total of 177 workers (80.5%) reported experiencing pain in at least one region of their body. The majority of the sample population (61.9%) was classified as having low-level distress, 28.4% had scores indicating mild to moderate distress, and 9.6% had scores indicating high levels of distress. Both number of pain regions and job type (being an operator) significantly predicted distress. Higher distress score was also associated with greater absenteeism in workers who reported lower back pain. In addition, perceived sleep quality during work periods partially mediated the relationship between pain and distress. Conclusion: The study findings support the existence of widespread musculoskeletal pain among the coal-mining workforce, and this pain is associated with increased psychological distress. Operators (truck drivers) and workers reporting poor sleep quality during work periods are most likely to report increased distress, which highlights the importance of supporting the mining workforce for sustained productivity.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.231-244
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• 2017

Objective: This study aims to understand the occupational injury characteristics of the workers in the motor vehicle parts (automobile parts) manufacturing industry and to present basic guidelines on accident prevention through accident analysis. Background: There occur many occupational injuries in the motor vehicle parts manufacturing industry. But there were few researches for the occupational injuries of the workers in the motor vehicle parts manufacturing industry. Method: This study analyzed the data of occupational injuries of 1,609 workers in the motor vehicle parts manufacturing industry in 2015. The accident characteristics were analyzed by dividing them into worker related factors and accident related factors. Results: Among the occupational injuries of the workers in the motor vehicle parts manufacturing industry, 80.6% of the victims were males, 64.0% were older than 40. 57.8% of the victims were employed by the companies with less than 50 workers. In addition, there was a difference in accident characteristics according to age, work experience, employment type, events or exposures, accident time of the day, agents, natures of injuries and illnesses, injured organs and injured body part. Conclusion: It is important to prevent equipment/machinery accidents. For this purpose, more efforts should be made to establish safety measures faithful to the basics of safety devices and safety work procedures. It is also suggested that prevention of disasters should be intensively carried out for workplaces with less than 50 employees and middle-aged and elderly people. Application: The result can be used to present guidelines for preventative measures for the workers in the motor vehicle parts manufacturing industry including safety education/training.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.158-168
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• 2011

Objectives: The present study aims to determine the causal relationship between self-rated depression and experiences of injury and accidents in municipal firefighters. Methods: A panel survey of 186 municipal firefighters measured with depressive symptoms according to the Beck's depression index (BDI) was conducted. The effects of job-related injuries and accidents were evaluated using self-administered questionnaires that were taken once in a 12-month period from 2005 to 2006. Firefighters were classified into the Depression Group or Control Group based on follow-up BDI results with a cutoff level that was set to having "over mild depression." Results: The depression Group was comprised of 17 (9.1%) workers, including 9 firefighters who met had sufficient BDI scores twice in the 2-year test period and newly sufficient BDI scores in the follow-up test. A significantly higher number of subjects in the Depression Group experienced injuries and accidents in the 2-year test period as compared to the Control Group (15.4% vs. 1.5%, p=0.04). Firefighters who experienced injuries and accidents in the 2-year test period had a 7.4 times higher risk of being in the Depression Group than those who had not. As compared to accidents, near-miss accidents revealed stronger risks related to being classified as in the Depression group (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 4.58, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.15-18.18 vs. Adjusted OR = 4.22, 95% CI = 1.08-16.58). Conclusion: The above results suggest that we should establish an effective program to promote mental health for groups at high risk for self-rated depression, including persons who have experienced consecutive injuries and accidents as well as near-miss injuries.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.308-313
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• 2018

Background: A behavior-based safety initiative card-issuing system was introduced at a cement-manufacturing company in Zimbabwe in 2008 to try and curb accident occurrence. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Behaviour Based Safety Initiative card system as a tool used for reducing accident frequencies. Methods: A mixed-method approach that involving administering piloted questionnaires to 40 out of 244 randomly selected employees, making observations, and reviewing secondary data were done to collect data from different sources in the organization in 2013. A paired t-test was conducted to test whether there was significant difference in accident occurrence before and after the implementation of the BBSI. Scatterplots were also used to establish the correlation between the issuance of cards and the accident and injury occurrence. Results: The findings suggest that the introduction of the card system brought a significant decrease in accident and injury occurrence. A negative correlation between card issuance and accident occurrence was observed, i.e., the greater the number of cards issued, the fewer the number of accidents. It was also noted that the card system positively influenced the mindset of workers towards safe work practices. Conclusion: The card system had an influence on the reduction of accidents and injuries. The organization should leverage on issuing more cards to further reduce the number of accidents and injuries to zero.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.7-16
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• 2013

As workplace incidents has been being declining in Korea, there is criticism of the effectiveness of occupational safety policy implementation. It is unknown that which policy target group needs to be targeted to yield effective injuries prevention. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and reveal the policy intervention group with a high priority in terms of industrial incident prevention and the related investment cost. A Policy Priority Model(PPM) is composed of 6 indicators regarding influences of both the incident reduction and the cost reduction. Z-score analyses are used to confirm the high policy priority area or policy target group. Overall, workplace with worker below 50 persons, construction site with the sales of more than a hundred million won, workplace with relatively small percentage of female employees and relatively higher percentage of older worker should be prioritized to reduce workplace injuries. This paper provides an analytic way that can be used to decide the policy priority workplace in order not only to reduce work-related injuries&illnesses and the related investment cost but to further lessen the related societal costs.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.21 no.1 s.23
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• pp.113-120
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• 1988

A total of 181 cases of industrial ocular injuries hospitalized and treated at the St. Mary's Hospital, Seoul during the 5-year period was studied on their epidemiological characteristics. Of these patients 96.7% were males, and 43.6% were in twenties, 49.7% of the cases were injured on left eyes. There were no statistically significant differences in frequencies of study subjects by day of the week and month of the year. Most common injury hour were between 10- <12 AM(13.6%) and between 2- <4 PM(20%). Of the total 101 cases, 37.6% were working less than 6 months, and 73.7%, less than 2 years. Of the total, 42.3% were involved in machinary work and 13.9%, in construction work. According to the American National Standard Method of recording basic facts relating to the nature and occurrence of work injuries, 62%, among all source of injuries was metal item and the most common accident type was struck by flying objects(76.2%). Among 181 cases, only 2 cases were wearing protective equipment when the accidents occurred.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.224-229
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• 2009

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of turtle neck syndrome, so called, on muscular fatigue and muscle activity. Six subjects (males) participated and performed the prolonged casual computer work in the study. EMG signals from six muscles of the dominant neck-back region were acquired and recorded for 10 seconds at the beginning and the end of three hours computer work. EMG was recorded from six muscles by using a computerized data recording and analysis system. Power spectrum function of EMG was calculated off-line by means of a signal processing software package. Power spectrum functions were smoothed with a moving average filter of 21 points and normalized with respect to the maximal value achieved during the trials. Muscle activity and median frequencies of Sternocleidomastoid(SCM) in turtle neck posture was approximately 51%, which were less than those in normal neck posture. SCM also showed the biggest decrease in median frequency. Results will provide the insight into the neck-back injury mechanism of turtle neck patients. Furthermore, they will be helpful in developing rehabilitation programs for restoring patients' neck-back functions.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.302-312
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of knowledge, attitude and compliance with standard precautions and to identify predicting factors of compliance with standard precautions in ICU and ER nurses. Methods: The participants were 228 ICU and ER nurses working in one of three university hospitals and one general hospital. Collected data included general characteristics, features related to infection risk, and knowledge, attitude and compliance with standard precautions. For the final analysis, 218 questionnaires were used. Results: Within the previous one year, 103 (47.3%) nurses experienced pricking injury from syringe needles or other sharp materials, 111 (50.9%) nurses reported exposure to patients' blood and body fluid. In general, the scores for knowledge, attitude and compliance were all high. Compliance scores for nurses in intensive care units were significantly higher than those of nurses in emergency. There were significant correlations of knowledge, attitude, and compliance with standard precautions. Attitude and work place were significant factors predicting compliance with standard precautions. Conclusion: The results indicate that to increase nurse's compliance with standard precautions, continuous efforts to enhance positive attitudes and at the same time, improve work environments and use individualized approaches based on the work units are needed.