• Perspectives in Nursing Science
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.67-76
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• 2009

Recently, small and medium-sized hospitals which are located in rural areas have many difficulties in securing high quality nurses. That is because working environments for nurses in small and medium-sized hospitals in rural areas are poor compared with those of big hospitals in urban. As a result, the migration of nurses from small and medium-sized hospitals in rural areas to big hospitals in urban is continuously happening. In general, big hospitals provide nurses with high level of salary and fringe benefits. To prevent the migration of nurses, chief executive officers of small & medium hospitals in rural areas have been interested in improving nurses' working conditions including wages. Also, they have raised nurses' salary and improved working conditions. But, basically these individualized efforts have some limit. In connection with this, medical interest groups have produced various voices in terms of interpretation and solutions for these issues. However, from the future perspectives, it seems evident that two approaches for both manpower supply and demand plans of nurses are necessary. They should contain not only accurate estimation of the supply-demand of nursing manpower but also the improvement of working conditions and wages of nurses. Estimation of nursing manpower supply-demand depends on the standards and criteria being used. Supply and demand may be met or not in accordance with the points emphasized on the decision. In the articles, issues regarding nursing manpower, levels of salary, other working conditions and social support system for child care are discussed. According to Joe's report (2005), most health institutions did not meet the guidelines of nurse staffing in Medical Law. The wages of nurse vary on every hospital and there is a big difference in wages' range. The average starting salary for a nurse is 22 million won a year. In case of tertiary hospitals, it reaches up to 30 million won a year. Nurse as a profession should have a strong responsibility and should take care of the patients for 24 hours with three working shifts. Also, most of them are female who have the burden of child rearing. Therefore, it is suggested to increase the salary, to provide comfortable working conditions, and to have social support system for nurses with household affairs.

• 한국직업건강간호학회지
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.316-324
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aimed to identify differences in physical working environments, psychosocial working environments, and health outcomes according to the employment type of delivery workers. Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of data collected from the Fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS). Participants were 84 Korean delivery workers. Data were analyzed using the SAS 9.4 Version, χ² test and Fisher's exact test. Results: Statistically significant differences were found according to the employment type of delivery workers (special types, wage) including "noise", "vibrations", "repetitive movements", "supervisor support", "colleague support", "manuals on emotional expression", "existence of trade union, works council or similar body". Conclusion: This study suggests the necessity of improving the working environment and health outcomes of delivery workers belonging to special employment types. In developing these, the laws and systems must be reorganized to enable the recognition of delivery workers as wage workers. In addition, delivery companies should be held responsible for managing delivery workers.

• 한국직업건강간호학회지
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• 제24권3호
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• pp.183-193
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• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe cleaning workers' working experiences in Korea. Methods: The data were collected in two focus-group interviews with 9 cleaning workers. The phenomenological analytic method suggested by Colaizzi was used to analyze the data. Results: Five theme clusters and thirteen themes emerged from the analysis. The first theme clusters, 'Dead-end choice' included Limits of elderly women workers, Financial difficulties, Lowered self-esteem. The second theme clusters, 'Facing with discriminatory working environments' included Fear and unfair working conditions. The third theme clusters, 'Potential health problems' included Physical overload, Repeated exposure to hazardous substances and Emotional labor. The fourth theme clusters, 'Excluded from protection of the law' included Gloomy reality and Sexual harassment. The fifth theme clusters, 'Desire to get out of social isolation' included Efforts to maintain the status, Desire to live confidently and Desire to change social recognition. Conclusion: The findings of the study provide understanding on cleaning workers' working experiences to explain by their vision and language and should ensure proper working conditions and environment to live a better life.

• 한국직업건강간호학회지
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of work environment on health problems of nurses. Methods: The subjects of the study were 395 nurses who were wage workers among KWCS (Korean Working Conditions Survey) respondents in 2014. The work environments were measured by the KWCS questionnaire. Results: 48.5% of the 395 nurses had health problems. The prevalence of musculoskeletal diseases (34.7%) was the highest among all health problems. The ergonomic work environment was significantly related to musculoskeletal disorders, headache and eye strain, and fatigue. In addition, the increase in work-individual interface area was significantly related to fatigue. Conclusion: The work environment of nurses affects health problems. It is therefore important to develop strategies that improve the health problems of nurses by reducing ergonomic and psycho-social risk factors.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제30권5호
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• pp.671-681
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• 2011

Objective: The purpose of this study is to compare the workload level at each lower limbs posture and suggest the ergonomic workstation guideline for working period by evaluating the imbalanced lower limbs postures from the physiological and psychophysical points of view. Background: Many workers like welders are working in various imbalanced lower limbs postures either due to the narrow working conditions or other environmental conditions. Method: Ten male subjects participated in this experiment. Subjects were asked to maintain 3 different lower limbs postures(standing, squatting and bending) with 3 different working conditions(balanced floor with no scaffold, imbalanced floor with 10cm height of scaffold, and imbalanced floor with 20cm height of scaffold). EMG data for the 4 muscle groups(Retus Femoris, Vastus Lateralis, Tibialis Anterior, Gastrocnemius) from each lower limbs posture were collected for 20 seconds every 2 minutes during the 8 minutes sustaining task. Subjects were also asked to report their discomfort ratings of body parts such as waist, upper legs, lower legs, and ankle. Results: The ANOVA results showed that the EMG root mean square(RMS) values and the discomfort ratings(CR-10 Rating Scale) were significantly affected by lower limbs postures and working time(p<0.05). The correlation was analyzed between the EMG data and the discomfort ratings. Also, prediction models for the discomfort rating for each posture were developed using physical condition, working time, and scaffold height. Conclusion: We strongly recommend that one should not work more than 6 minutes in a standing or squatting postures and should not work more than 4 minutes in a bending posture. Application: The results of this study could be used to design and assess working environments and methods. Furthermore, these results could be used to suggest ergonomic guidelines for the lower limbs postures such as squatting and bending in the working fields in order to prevent fatigue and pain in the lower limbs body.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
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• 제26권3호
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• pp.101-106
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• 2024

The health and working conditions of employees have become increasingly important issues in modern society. In recent years, there has been a continuous rise in problems related to the deterioration of workers' alth, which seriously affects their safety and overall quality of life. Although existing research has investigated various factors affecting workers' health and working conditions, there is still a lack of studies that scientifically analyze and identify key variables from the vast number of factors. This study employs the Lasso (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator) technique to mathematically analyze the key variables influencing workers' health status and satisfaction with their working environment. Lasso is a technique used in machine learning to identify a small number of variables that impact the dependent variable among a large set of variables, thereby reducing model complexity and improving predictive accuracy. The results of the study can be utilized in efficiently improving workers' health and working environments by focusing on a smaller set of impactful variables.

• 대한간호학회지
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• 제39권4호
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• pp.549-561
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• 2009

Purpose: Work-related stress and risk factors among Korean employees were identified in this study. Methods: Data were obtained from employees aged 20 to 64 using the Korean Working Conditions Survey 2006 (KWCS). Multiple logistic regression analysis using SAS version 9.1 was performed to examine risk factors of work-related stress by gender. Results: The age-adjusted prevalence of work-related stress among male and female employees was 18.4% and 15.1% respectively. After adjustments for multiple variables among both male and female employees, there was a significant relationship between work-related stress and risk factors including education, company size, work time, ergonomic risks, biological chemical risks, and job demands. The significant variables for male employees were housework load, occupational class, and shift work, and for female employees, type of employment. Conclusion: There is a need to develop and support intensive stress management programs nationally giving consideration to work-related stress associated with working time, physical working environment, and job demands. Based on gender specific approaches, for male employes, stress management programs should be developed with consideration being given to occupational class and shift work. For stress management programs for female employees, consideration needs to be given to permanent employment status, specifically those in small companies.

• 한국태양에너지학회 논문집
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• 제38권6호
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• pp.65-72
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• 2018

Since data-driven building technologies have been widely applied to building energy systems, the accuracy of building sensors has more impacts on the building performance and system performance analysis. Various building sensors, however, can have typical errors including a random error (noise) and a systematic error (bias). The systematic error is indicated by the difference between the mean of measurements and their true value. It may occur due to the sensor's physical condition, measured phenomena, working environments inside the systems. Unfortunately, a conventional calibration method has limitations in calibrating the systematic errors because of the difference between working environments and calibration conditions. In such situations, a novel sensor calibration method is needed to handle various sensor errors, especially for systematic errors, in building energy systems having various thermodynamic environments. This study proposes a building sensor calibration method named Virtual In-situ Calibration (VIC) and shows how it is applied into a real building system and how it solves the sensor errors.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 제어로봇시스템학회 2003년도 ICCAS
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• pp.1184-1189
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• 2003

Map building and position estimation capabilities are practically indispensable for a mobile robot to execute its given tasks in its working environments. An autonomous map building method and a smart localization method is proposed in our previous works. The experimental verifications are carried out in this paper. We applied the proposed algorithms to mobile service robots in large-scale indoor buildings. Experimental results show that our strategy is reliable and feasible in tough conditions like non-polygonal and dynamic environments. The advantages of the algorithms are well-illustrated through real experiments.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.287-301
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• 2022

Objectives: This study compared the characteristics of the work environment between agricultural and general workers and analyzed the effects of agricultural working characteristics on work-related health problems. Methods: The participants of this study were 2,347 agricultural workers and 48,042 general workers who were selected by applying standardized weights to the raw data of 50,538 respondents from the 6th Korean Working Condition Survey (KWCS). Variables applicable to both worker groups and related to exposure to hazardous risk factors in the working environment, working hours and intensity of work, health problems and work-related status, and satisfaction with the work environment were selected. Chi-square tests and independent sample t-tests were performed to evaluate the differences in the variables between the two groups. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to analyze the effects of work environment characteristics on work-related health problems. Results: Compared to general workers, agricultural workers were more exposed to hazardous environments, irregular work patterns such as working on Saturday/Sunday, and short repetitive tasks. They reported more work-related and general health problems, including back pain, upper extremity muscle pain, lower extremity muscle pain, and general fatigue. Agricultural workers showed lower satisfaction with their work environment than general workers. Factors affecting one or more work-related health problems included gender, working years, hazardous factors, irregular work pattern, working hours, and labor intensity. Conclusions: Our findings showed that agricultural workers were relatively more vulnerable to safety issues compared to other occupational groups. Therefore, it is necessary to establish standardized safety and health standards and strengthen systematic safety and health management policies and services for agriculture.