• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.247-255
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• 2014

Objectives: We reviewed the CAREX (CARcinogen EXposure) program designed to estimate the prevalence of occupational exposure to carcinogens and summarized the advantages and limitations of this program. Methods: All literature, including reports on CAREX and the use of CAREX, were reviewed. The keyword search term was CAREX. Additional articles were identified from references cited in articles and reviewed. Results: An exposure information system, CAREX was developed based on data from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health of Finland and from the US. CAREX has been applied in several countries, including in the EU, in order to estimate national exposure patterns to carcinogens. The initial exposure assessment carried out through CAREX was aimed at estimating exposures over the period of 1990-1993. To estimate the number of workers exposed to carcinogens by using CAREX, reference exposure prevalence from Finland and the United States was computed, which was then reviewed and corrected by national experts. Finally the overall number of workers exposed to carcinogens can be estimated. We found that CAREX has been used in a total of 18 countries. No Asian country has used CAREX. Conclusions: CAREX can be applied not only to estimate the number of workers exposed to carcinogens in Korea, but also to identify high-risk industries with workers most exposed to carcinogens.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.3-26
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• 2005

In recent years, there is growing concern about the potential use of biological agents in war or acts of terrorism accompanied an increased realization that rapid preparedness and response are needed to prevent or treat the human damage that can be caused by these agents. The threat is indeed serious, and the potential for devastating numbers of casualties is high. The use of agents as weapons, even on a small scale, has the potential for huge social and economic disruption and massive diversion of regional and national resources to combat the threat, to treat primary disease, and to clean up environmental contamination. Biological weapons are one of weapons of mass destruction (or mass casualty weapons, to be precise. since they do not damage non-living entities) that are based on bacteria, viruses, rickettsia, fungi or toxins produced by these organisms. Biological weapons are known to be easy and cheap to produce and can be used to selectively target humans, animals, or plants. Theses agents can cause large numbers of casualties with minimal logistical requirements (in wide area). The spread of disease cannot be controlled until there is awareness of the signs of infection followed by identification of agents; and if the organism is easily spread from person to person, as in the case of smallpox, the number of casualties could run into the tens of thousands. Biological weapons could be used covertly, there can be a lot of different deployment scenarios. A lot of different agents could be used in biological weapons. And, there are a lot of different techniques to manufacture biological weapons. Terrorist acts that make use of Biological Agents differ in a number of ways from those involving chemicals. The distinction between terrorist and military use of Biological Weapon is increasingly problematic. The stealthy qualities of biological weapons further complicate the distinction between terrorism and war. In reality, all biological attacks are likely to require an integrated response involving both military and civilian communities. The basic considerations when public health agencies establish national defence plan against bioterrorism must be 1) arraying various laws and regulations to meet the realistic needs, 2)education for public health personnels and support of concerned academic society, 3)information collection and cooperative project with other countries, 4)Detection and surveillance(Early detection is essential for ensuring a prompt response to biological or chemical attack, including the provision of prophylactic medicines, chemical antidotes, or vaccines) and 5) Response(A comprehensive public health response to a biological or chemical terrorist event involves epidemiologic investigation, medical treatment and prophylaxis for affacted persons, and the initiation of disease prevention or environmental decontamination measures). The purpose of this paper is providing basic material of preparedness and response for biological terrorism in modern society.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.29
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• pp.223-249
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• 2011

In modern society, citizens' quality of life aspects of safety and crime prevention activities are actively considering the incidence of crime prevention in advance. It also can be quite important elicit the interest of who community members through effective crime prevention strategies. For crime prevention policies and techniques over time as more scientific and advanced methods are made. Today, A typical crime prevention strategies is private security zones and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a corresponding to the new strategy. CPTED is a diversification can be called a crime prevention approach that emphasizes the principle of natural surveillance, access control, territoriality, activity support, maintenance and management. The defensible space of the space area related to crime prevention setting the activities of private security and CPTED determine. Also, the reality of crime prevention and protection should be considered space. The emphasis on proactive prevention of crime in modern society for the prevention of crime how to approach differing perspectives and disparate aspects of private security and CPTED. Technical and professional areas that overlap to some extent in a homogeneous aspect. Ultimately, CPTED is a crime prevention through space and environmental approach for crime. In addition, Ultimate goal of convergence, crime prevention, with the same or higher is required to study for the area after looking for the characteristics and limitations of private security and CPTED.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.97-111
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• 2009

Image-based traffic information collection systems have entered widespread adoption and use in many countries since these systems are not only capable of replacing existing loop-based detectors which have limitations in management and administration, but are also capable of providing and managing a wide variety of traffic related information. In addition, these systems are expanding rapidly in terms of purpose and scope of use. Currently, the utilization of image processing technology in the field of traffic accident management is limited to installing surveillance cameras on locations where traffic accidents are expected to occur and digitalizing of recorded data. Accurately recording the sequence of situations around a traffic accident in a signal intersection and then objectively and clearly analyzing how such accident occurred is more urgent and important than anything else in resolving a traffic accident. Therefore, in this research, we intend to present a technology capable of overcoming problems in which advanced existing technologies exhibited limitations in handling real-time due to large data capacity such as object separation of vehicles and tracking, which pose difficulties due to environmental diversities and changes at a signal intersection with complex traffic situations, as pointed out by many past researches while presenting and implementing an active and environmentally adaptive methodology capable of effectively reducing false detection situations which frequently occur even with the Gaussian complex model analytical method which has been considered the best among well-known environmental obstacle reduction methods. To prove that the technology developed by this research has performance advantage over existing automatic traffic accident recording systems, a test was performed by entering image data from an actually operating crossroad online in real-time. The test results were compared with the performance of other existing technologies.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.281-286
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• 2022

This study was conducted to investigate the detection rate and serotypes of Salmonella spp. in conventional and welfare poultry farms. Ten welfare (five layer and five broiler) and 15 conventional farms (five layer and ten broiler farms) were visited to collect environmental samples for identification and serotyping of Salmonella spp. The detection rate of Salmonella spp. was higher in the welfare farms than in conventional farms in both layer and broiler farms. In layer farms, Salmonella spp. was detected in 0.76% (1 out of 130) of samples from one of five welfare layer farms, but was not detected in the five in conventional layer farms. No significan ifference (P>0.05) was observed between the welfare and conventional layer farms. In broiler farms, Salmonella spp. was detected in 10.5% (21 out of 200) of samples from four of five welfare broiler farms and 3.5% (7 out of 200) of samples from five of ten conventional broiler farms, and a significant difference (p <0.05) was observed between the welfare and conventional broiler farms. Among 29 Salmonella spp. isolates, five isolates were serotyped to Salmonella enterica subsp. Enteritidis (n=2), Salmonella enterica subsp. Grampian (n=1), Salmonella enterica subsp. Virchow (n=1), and Salmonella enterica subsp. Senftenberg (n=1). These results suggest that microbial risks could be higher in welfare farms than in conventional farms due to easy access to open-air areas, environmental enrichment, and reduced use of antibiotics. Therefore, continuous monitoring and surveillance for Salmonella spp. is necessary to improve the microbiological safety of poultry meat.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.208-217
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• 2024

There is so much research effort for developing and implementing deep learning-based surveillance systems to manage health and safety issues in construction sites. Especially, the development of deep learning-based object detection in various environmental changes has been progressing because those affect decreasing searching performance of the model. Among the various environmental variables, the accuracy of the object detection model is significantly dropped under low illuminance, and consistent object detection accuracy cannot be secured even the model is trained using low-light images. Accordingly, there is a need of low-light enhancement to keep the performance under low illuminance. Therefore, this paper conducts a comparative study of various deep learning-based low-light image enhancement models (GLADNet, KinD, LLFlow, Zero-DCE) using the acquired construction site image data. The low-light enhanced image was visually verified, and it was quantitatively analyzed by adopting image quality evaluation metrics such as PSNR, SSIM, Delta-E. As a result of the experiment, the low-light image enhancement performance of GLADNet showed excellent results in quantitative and qualitative evaluation, and it was analyzed to be suitable as a low-light image enhancement model. If the low-light image enhancement technique is applied as an image preprocessing to the deep learning-based object detection model in the future, it is expected to secure consistent object detection performance in a low-light environment.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.677-699
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• 2012

Climate changes may cause substantial changes in spatial patterns and distribution of vector-borne diseases (VBD's), which will result in a significant threat to humans and emerge as an important public health problem that the international society needs to solve. As global warming becomes widespread and the Korean peninsula characterizes subtropical climate, the potentials of climate-driven disease outbreaks and spread rapidly increase with changes in land use, population distributions, and ecological environments. Vector-borne diseases are typically infected by insects such as mosquitoes and ticks, and infected hosts and vectors increased dramatically as the habitat ranges of the VBD agents have been expanded for the past 20 years. Medical geography integrates and processes a wide range of public health data and indicators at both local and regional levels, and ultimately helps researchers identify spatiotemporal mechanism of the diseases determining interactions and relationships between spatial and non-spatial data. Spatial epidemiology is a new and emerging area of medical geography integrating geospatial sciences, environmental sciences, and epidemiology to further uncover human health-environment relationships. An introduction of GIS-based disease monitoring system to the public health surveillance system is among the important future research agenda that medical geography can significantly contribute to. Particularly, real-time monitoring methods, early-warning systems, and spatial forecasting of VBD factors will be key research fields to understand the dynamics of VBD's.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.379-388
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• 2013

Avian paramyxovirus (APMV) type 4 and 6 were isolated during an avian influenza (AI) surveillance program of wild birds. This study also conducted experimental infection of wild-bird-origin APMV type 4 and 6 in specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens to study pathogenicity and transmission within domestic flocks. In addition, serological prevalence data of APMV type 4 and 6 in domestic fowls was conducted with chicken sera collected from 2007 to 2009 in order to understand infection status. The results of the animal experiment showed that APMV type 4 and 6 had the ability to infect chickens with sero-conversion and to transmit the virus from infected birds to contacted birds, but showed low pathogenicity. Serological tests revealed that APMV type 4 was widespread in the poultry industry, especially in layer flocks, but the positive rate for APMV type 6 was very low. This study concluded that wild bird-origin APMV type 4 and 6 could infect the chickens by inter-species transmission and the seroprevalence of APMV type 4 was quite high in Korean poultry. However, since almost all the chicken flocks had a high level of antibody titer against APMV type 1, there was possibility of cross reaction between APMV type 1 and 4, which made the interpretations more complicated. In order to understand infection status in the natural environment, additional study is necessary regarding the seroprevalence of APMV type 4 and 6 in the wild bird population.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.81-90
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• 2015

Purpose: Group A rotavirus (RV) is most common etiologic agent of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in children worldwide. Recently, vaccination has been introduced in several countries to reduce the disease burden caused by RV infections, but continuous surveillance of RV strains is necessary to detect the emergence of potential variants induced by vaccine-immune pressure. This study aimed to investigate the changing pattern of RV genotypes in children with AGE, following the introduction of vaccination in Korea. Methods: Genotyping of RVs by RT-PCR on the basis of VP7 and VP4 gene segment sequence was carried out on 201 rotavirus-positive stool samples, from children hospitalized with AGE between August 2009 and June 2013. We have directly sequenced PCR products and analyzed the phylogenetic tree. Results: The most prevalent G genotype was G9 (33.3%), followed by G1 (22.4%), G3 (15.9%), G2 (6.0%), G4 (3.0%), G10 (1.5%), and mixed G-type (15.4%), with some nontypeable cases (2.5%). The detected P genotypes were P[4] (45.3%), P[8] (43.8%), mixed P-type (10.4 %), and P[2] (0.5%). The G9P[4] genotype was predominantly observed in hospitalized cases in Seoul in 2010/2011, however G1P[8] has been re-emerged as the predominant genotype in the following season (P =0.004). Conclusions: It seems that the periodic fluctuation in predominance of the G1, G3, and G9 strains occurred in Korea during 2009-2013, following the introduction of RV vaccination.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.535-542
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• 2010

Objectives: Exposure assessment is a major challenge faced by studies that evaluate the association between pesticide exposure and adverse health outcomes. The objective of this study was to investigate the reliability of information that farmers self-report regarding their pesticide use. Methods: Twenty five items based upon existing questionnaires were designed to focus on pesticide exposure. In 2009, a selfadministrated survey was conducted on two occasions four weeks apart among 205 farmers residing in Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces. For a reliability measure, we calculated the percentage agreement, the kappa statistics and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the two reports according to the characteristics of the subjects. Results: Agreement for ever-never use of any pesticide was 96.4% (kappa 0.61). For both 'years used' and 'age at the first use' of overall pesticides, high agreement was obtained (ICC: 0.88 and, 0.78, respectively), whereas those of 'days used' and 'hours used' were relatively low (ICC: 0.42 and, 0.66, respectively). The kappa value for the use of personal protective equipment ranged from 0.46 to 0.59, and hygiene activities came out at 0.19 to 0.37. The agreement for individual pesticide use ranged widely and there was relatively low agreement due to the low response rates. The reliability scores did not significantly vary according to gender, age, the education level, the types of crop or the years of farming. Conclusions: Our results support that carefully designed, self-reported information on ever-never pesticide use among farmers is reliable. However, the reliability of data on individual pesticide exposure may be unstable due to low response rates and needs to be refined.