• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.3 s.54
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• pp.565-577
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• 1996

This study was conducted to evaluate the association of work posture with cervical spine abnormality toward 106 microwave-oven assemblers. A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain a general characteristics and a work history of workers. The posture of neck and shoulder joint of workers were measured with video tape recording and the simple X-ray of cervical spine was checked-up to observe the X-ray abnormality including degenerative change, curvature abnormality, disc space narrowing or disc canal narrowing. The result were as follows. 1. The prevalence of degenerative change among cervicobrachial disorder workers was 44.3% (47 persons), curvature abnormality was 43.4%(46 persons), disc space narrowing was 21.7%(23 persons), and disc canal narrowing was 21.7%(23 persons). 2. The prevalence of degenerative change at cervical spine was increased with the degree of neck flexion(flexed versus neutral, odds ratio [OR]=2.7), the total work posture of neck(mild or severe awkward versus neutral ; OR=1.2, 3.4). 3. The prevalence of degenerative change at cervical spine was increased with the degree of the right shoulder flexion, the heaviness of the materials carried by the right hand and the degree of awkwardness at the total work posture of right shoulder(p<0.05). 4. There was no evidence of association between curvature abnormality, disc space narrowing, disc canal narrowing and work posture. In conclusion the awkward work posture was related with degenerative change of cervical spine among microwave oven assembling workers and the further study in these field must be made to prove the association objectively.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.177-183
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• 2012

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to discuss the importance of job stress and to introduce a model of job stress at the shipbuilding industry considering the characteristics of the shipbuilding works. Background: Shipbuilding works consist of grinding, painting, interior works, welding, and assembling and using heavy equipment in narrow space or work at outside or at high and dangerous places. The working environments aggravate the stress to the workers. Methods: Studies of job stress in industries including shipbuilding industries were reviewed and the characteristics of jobs of shipbuilding were analyzed to find causes of job stress. Results: A model was constructed based upon these findings and reviews. Conclusions: Job stress of shipbuilding workers are very high and thus job and working conditions need to be improved to attenuate the level of job stress of shipbuilding workers. Applications: This model can be used to identify the highly stressed workers and sources of stress.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.421-426
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• 2013

Nowadays in building construction field, workers become aged and avoid dirty, difficult, and dangerous work. Above all, a person who is in charge of beam assembling work in high and narrow space just relies on safety belt. So these workers should be highly trained. This paper deals with a new locomotion robot that can take this in charge, which will be able to provide less labor costs, less time to build a building and safer environments for workers. The geometric features of steel structure in building construction were carefully analyzed and developed a locomotion mechanism optimized to it. The robot was designed to be rugged, strong, and fast rather than having excessive mobility. Feasibility of the developed robot was verified through experiments.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.409-420
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the level of stress and depressive symptom and to assess the utilization of professional consultation. Data extracted from Community Health Survey (CHS), conducted by Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subjects were 174,975 (19-65 years). In result, 'Managers', 'Professionals and related workers', 'Clerks', 'Service workers', and 'Sales workers', 'Equipment, machine operating assembling workers', and 'Armed forces' were more in risk of stress. However, theses groups were less in probability of utilization for stress consultation. Based on these findings, mental health screening program for detecting risk group among occupation classification and employment status will be essential. It may be necessary to have sustainable strategies for utilizing mental health service to reduce the level of stress and depressive symptom of workers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.249-264
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• 1996

This study was conducted for the purpose of obtaining the fundamental data on improvement of working environment and contributing to health improvement of workers who dealed with metal by assessing the metal concentration in air of industries located in Chang-Won Industrial Complex. Authors measured the concentration of metals(Al, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sn and Zn) is the air to 25 working processes of 73 industries by flame atomic absorption spectrometry from February to December 1994. Personal air sampler was used for air sampling with mixed cellulose-ester membrane filter. The results were as follows : 1. The geometric means(range) of metal concentration; 1) Al: $0.1505mg/m^3$ ($0.0147-18.6100mg/m^3$) 2) Cd: $0.0077mg/m^3$ ($0.0003-7.0710mg/m^3$) 3) Cr: $0.0163mg/m^3$ ($0.0013-1.1510mg/m^3$) 4) Cu: $0.0097mg/m^3$ ($0.0009-0.4950mg/m^3$) 5) Mn: $0.0412mg/m^3$ ($0.0006-4.7877mg/m^3$) 6) Ni: $0.0088mg/m^3$ ($0.0001-1.0170mg/m^3$) 7) Pb: $0.0152mg/m^3$ ($0.0015-0.4499mg/m^3$) 8) Sn: $0.0486mg/m^3$ ($0.0037-0.1500mg/m^3$) 9) Zn: $0.1911mg/m^3$ ($0.0122-8.2920mg/m^3$) 2. The geometric mean of lead exceeded TWA in assembling process of other general purpose machinery not elsewhere classified products manufacturing industries.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.83-88
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• 2019

The 7,993 cases of Survey Report of Fatal Industrial Accidents conducted jointly by the MEOL and the KOSHA for the recent seven years(2007-2013) were categorized according to personal and occupational characteristics, industry types, business sizes, job types, activities at the time accident, types of accidents, material agents(assailing materials), unsafe conditions, and unsafe acts. And it is found that among the 72.2 percent of fatal occupational accidents in the construction and manufacturing industries are caused by falling, sticking, bumping and being caught under objects & overturning. For this study, through the empirical analysis on causes of fatal industrial accidents, was used to identity high risk groups based on total data of 7,993 victims of occupational accidents. An annual fatal occupational injury (FOI) rate per 10,000 workers was about 0.47‱. The middle-aged group and the elderly group showed the highest FOI rates per 10,000 workers (0.73‱, 0.80‱), and the daily workers showed the highest FOI rate (1.46‱), and the craft and related trades workers showed the highest FOI rate (2.17‱). In case of industry type the mining industry (7.26‱) showed the highest FOI rate, followed by the sewerage, waste management, materials recovery and remediation activity industry (3.91‱) and the construction industry (2.71‱). The primary high risk target group that requires a strategy designed to reduce fatal occupation injuries caused by falling and bumping & contact(collision) is the construction industry, and the secondary high risk target group in the construction industry is classified as the equipment, machine operating and assembling workers in the construction industry, those aged 50 years old and above need the prevention measures against bumping & contact(collision) and being caught under an object & falling(objects), while those aged less than 50 years old need prevention measures against falling(persons).

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.49-55
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• 1994

It is not difficult to find risky manual material handling which requires various arm exertion for moving and assembling irregular stuffs in industries. Many of workers have been hurt on their muscular and skeletal system due to the manual material handling. This study is to provide data for isokinetic muscular strength elbow flexors and extensors of Korean male and female adults. Provided standard data for isokinetic muscular strength of elbow flexous and extensors can be used for scientific and systematic analysis of arm exertionl.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.808-813
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• 2022

This study presents the problems of data imbalance, varying difficulties across target objects, and small objects in construction object segmentation for far-field monitoring and utilize compound loss functions to address it. Construction site scenes of assembling scaffolds were analyzed to test the effectiveness of compound loss functions for five construction object classes---workers, hardhats, harnesses, straps, hooks. The challenging problem was mitigated by employing a focal and Jaccard loss terms in the original loss function of LinkNet segmentation model. The findings indicates the importance of the loss function design for model performance on construction site scenes for far-field monitoring.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.59-77
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• 1990

The purpose of this study was to provide the basic data for the effective health management of the industrial workers, by classifying factors influencing their perceived symptoms to examine their health status and identifying the inter' relationship of their perceived symptom with their working department. the environment of working area and their general characteristics. The study was undertaken from October 1 to November 30. 1989. The subjects were 999 workers who had worked in Industrial Corps located in Chungbuk Province. The results of this study were as follows: I . Worker's perceived symptoms were classified according to the following eight factors; 1) musculo - skeletal symptoms of shoulder, neck, back and arm 2) optical symptoms 3) symptoms in head(such as headache and dull) 4) musculo - skeletal symptoms of leg and lower back 5) gastro - intestinal symptoms 6) mental symptoms. 7) neural symptoms 8) lung and heart symptoms II . The degrees of workers' perception of perceived symptoms; Mean score of perceived symptoms:7.0 The rank of degrees of perceived symptoms: The highest:musculo - skeletal symptoms of shoulder, neck, back, and arm The second:optical symptoms The third:musculo - skeletal symptoms of leg and lower back The fourth:mental symptoms the fifth:gastro-intestinal symptoms m . Analysis of the inter-relationship of perceived symptoms with working department, environment of working area and general characteristics; 1) sexuality The difference of degrees of perceived symptoms was significant;femanle was higher than male(P<0.000). 2) level of education The difference of degrees of perceived symptoms according to the level of education was significant; The higher the level of education, the higher the degree. 3) working department The working department played a significant part in the degrees of perceived symptoms of workers; Workers of assembling department:musculo-skeletal symptoms both of shoulder. neck, back and arm and of leg and lower back(P<0.000). Workers of inspection department:optical symptoms(P<0.05). Office workers:mental symptoms(P<0.05). 4) kinds of job The difference of the degrees of perceived symptoms according to kinds of job was significant; Workers dealing with chemical materials and workers dealing with job with high tension:gastro-intestinal symptoms and symptoms in head. Workers dealing with weighty things or working a long time with the same posture:musculo-skeletal symptoms both of shoulder, neck, back and arm and of lower back(P<0.000). 5) working posture The difference of the degrees of perceived symptoms related with working posture was significant; Sitting:optical symptoms(P<0.0000) and symptoms in head(P<0.005) Standing:musculo-skeletal symptoms of leg and lower back(P<0.0000). 6) satisfaction with their own duty The more dissatisfien they were. the higher became the degrees of their perceived symptoms(P<0.0001). 7) satisfaction with their working condition The more dissatisfied with their working condition they were, the higher became the degrees of their perceived symptoms(P<0.001). 8) environment of working area The environment of working area played a significant part in the degrees of perceived symptoms of workers; Workers exposed to most of the factors of the environment of working area were higher than those not exposed in the degrees of musculoskeletal symptoms. Workers in the noisy environment:optican symptoms(P<0.000), symptoms in head(P<0.005). Workers in the damp environment:optical symptoms(P<0.005) and lung and heart symptoms(P <0.01). Workers with illumination problem:optical symptoms(P<0.000), mental symptoms(P<0.005) and neural symptoms(P<0.01). Workers with ventilation problem:optical symptoms and lung and heart symptoms(P<0.001)

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2007

Trichloroethylene(TCE) is widely used as a degreasing solvent in workplaces. TCE is primarily toxic to the nervous system, however, systemic disorder like Stevens-Johnson syndrome has been recently reported in small-scale factories, where the government has had limited information of chemical use. A survey was performed to investigate the actual condition of using TCE and to provide practical information to occupational health service agencies and professionals. This survey was carried out on 103 factories out of 430 factories which were conducted periodic work environment measurement for TCE. Degreasing was the most popular reason for using TCE in Korea, which reached to 94%. TCE was also used as a solvent for rubber in the coating or molding process, and adhesives in the bonding process. Metal fabrication was the most common as 23%, followed by assembling automobile parts (17%), and machinery (12%). Workers exposed to TCE during full-shift were 52% while 48% were exposed during short period of the shift or intermittently. Manual or semi-automatic work occupied 87% while automatic work was just 13%. Though automatic work by a closed system was generally lower exposed to TCE, compared to manual work, it can cause a high exposure when the maintenance system is improper. Semi-automatic work especially like open-top degreasing process can cause a high exposure when local exhaust system with condensing and refrigerating coils in the degreaser does not work well. In conclusion, the survey showed nationwide status of TCE exposure in various aspects. It can be used to monitor workplaces and workers exposed to TCE to prevent occupational diseases.