• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제29권3호
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• pp.289-297
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• 2019

Objectives: To identify the positive rate of and the risk factors associated with latent tuberculosis infection(LTBI) in mine workers, the objectives of the present study evaluated those among former mine workers. Methods: Between January 2015 and May 2017, former male mine workers who had been subjects for epidemiology research for work-related chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) and had received QuantiFERON-$TB^{(R)}$ Gold In-Tube(QFT-GIT) from the Institute of Occupation and Environment(IOE) under Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service(KCOMWEL) were selected as the study subjects. To identify significant variables for increased risk of LTBI, logistic regression analysis was performed. Results: A total of 736 male former mine workers were selected as study subjects. The positive rate of LTBI among subjects was 69.2%(509/736). The current smoking[odds ratio(OR), 2.3; 95% confidence interval(CI), 1.1-4.9], COPD(OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 0.9-2.3), department loading(OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 0.9-3.4) and mining(OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 0.9-2.5), and working duration of over 20(OR, 1.6; 95% CI, 0.9-3.1) and over 30 years(OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 0.9-4.9) were associated with increased risk of LTBI. The interferon-gamma(IFN-${\gamma}$) level after stimulation with Mycobacterium tuberculosis(MTB)-specific antigens showed a significantly negative correlation with age(r=-0.126). Conclusions: The present study determined that the high positive rate of LTBI among mine workers was associated with not only the host factors but also the occupational exposure to mine dust.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제28권3호
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• pp.678-689
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• 1995

Chromium is one of the representative toxic substance by occupational exposure which damage the mucosa of respiratory tract including nasal septal perforation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of chromium exposure on olfactory function and to obtain the fundamental information about chromium exposure. The authors performed olfactory function test, laboratory tests and questionnaire interview on the subject of three groups, that is, two exposed groups and one nonexposed group from May 1 to June 30, 1994. Exposed group 1 was 15 male workers without nasal septal perforation, exposed group 2 was 15 male workers with nasal septal perforation among 103 workers in 22 chromium plating factories, and nonexposed group was 15 male medical students. The gathered informations were histories of chromium exposure, habits of smoking and alcohol drinking, the concentrations of chromium in serum and urine, and asparate aminotransferase(AST), alanine aminotransferase(ALT), gamma-glutamyl transferase, etc. Olfactory function was checked by T and T olfectometer using phenyl ethyl alcohol(material A), methyl cyclopentenolone(material B), iso-valeric acid(material C), $\gamma$-undecalactone(material D), skatole(material E) and the results were expressed by detection threshold(DT) and recognition threshold(RT). There was a significant difference between exposed groups and nonexposed group in A, B, C, D, E substances by DT and in A, B, C, D substances by RT(P<0.01). The degree of olfactory dysfunction was highest in the exposed group 2 and lowest in the nonexposed group in all five substances by DT and it was same in A B, D substances RT and the difference of RT and DT. As summary, olfactory dysfunction by chromium exposure was recognized and the degree of olfactory dysfunction was higher in the exposed group with nasal septal perforation. Therefore, it would be helpful to apply olfactory function test for the early detection of olfactory dysfunction, and this test would be considered as the basic tool within workers' compensation system.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.38-47
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• 2016

Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the exposure levels of forklift operators to diesel engine exhaust(DEE) using black carbon(BC), elemental carbon(EC), and nitrogen dioxide($NO_2$) as indicators. Methods: A total of eight forklift operators in six collection companies were assessed over a period of two months from July to September 2015. BC was measured using a real-time monitor and respirable EC samples were analyzed using the NIOSH method 5040. $NO_2$ samples were collected using a passive badge-type sampler. Results: The geometric mean of BC, EC and $NO_2$ were $3.1-19.1{\mu}g/m^3$, $2.1-23.8{\mu}g/m^3$, and 12.5-166.6 ppb at all companies. When forklifts were operating both outside and inside, BC concentrations increased 2.0-5.6 times. The highest increase was observed when forklifts were operating indoors. The increase in BC concentrations varied by company(company A: 2.0 times, B: 3.2 times, C: 5.6 times, D: 2.1 times, E: 5.1 times, F: 2.6 times). The geometric mean of BC, EC, and $NO_2$ for the forklift operators was $9.6{\mu}g/m^3$, $7.9{\mu}g/m^3$, and 48.9 ppb, respectively. The geometric mean of BC, EC, and $NO_2$ for manufacturing workers was $9.3{\mu}g/m^3$, $0.9{\mu}g/m^3$, and 85.2 ppb, respectively. The mean BC and EC exposure levels for the forklift operators were slightly higher than those for manufacturing workers, but $NO_2$ levels for manufacturing workers were higher than those for the forklift operators(p>0.05). Multiple regression analysis revealed that diesel exhaust emissions standard, forklift weight and forklift manufacturer were the most influential factors in determining worker exposure. Conclusions: In the DEE work environment, workers who perform tasks within the workplace as well as inside forklifts as operators are likely to be exposed to a lack of ventilation. Further study of forklift operators' exposure to DEE indicators should be conducted to include a wider range of occupational and environmental situations, such as collection procedures, seasonal situations, types of fuel used, and number of forklifts.

• 한국화재소방학회논문지
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• 제24권5호
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• pp.68-78
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• 2010

본 연구의 목적은 소방공무원들이 현장 활동 중에 석면함유 비산먼지로 위협되고 있는 현상에 대한 심각성을 사례 및 설문을 통해 발생 원인을 찾아 현장 활동 중에 석면노출을 효과적으로 예방하는데 있다. 소방관들의 현장 활동과 석면분진의 위험성에 대한 상관관계를 설문조사를 하여 분석하고 석면으로 인해 발생하는 석면폐암, 악성중피종과 같은 질병으로부터 소방공무원을 보호하고, 불합리한 여건들을 변화시킴으로써 조직운영의 최적화와 안전하고 쾌적한 근무여건을 통하여 소방공무원들이 현장 활동에서 치명적인 위해요소를 사전에 제거 하거하고자 한다. 또한 석면노출 기준에 따른 보호 장비 착용으로 철저한 소방 활동을 강화함은 물론, 소방 활동상 유해성인자의 심각성을 인식하고, 질환 피해보상에 대한 법적 제도를 마련하여, 아직까지 인정되고 있지 않은 질병에 대한 공무상 재해인정을 통한 제도적 미비점을 보완하여, 소방공무원의 사기진작 및 근무여건개선으로 대 국민 서비스 향상 등을 기대하고자 한다.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.92-100
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• 2012

Objectives: The French National Occupational Diseases Surveillance and Prevention Network (RNV3P) is a French network of occupational disease specialists, which collects, in standardised coded reports, all cases where a physician of any specialty, referred a patient to a university occupational disease centre, to establish the relation between the disease observed and occupational exposures, independently of statutory considerations related to compensation. The objective is to compare the relevance of disproportionality measures, widely used in pharmacovigilance, for the detection of potentially new disease ${\times}$ exposure associations in RNV3P database (by analogy with the detection of potentially new health event ${\times}$ drug associations in the spontaneous reporting databases from pharmacovigilance). Methods: 2001-2009 data from RNV3P are used (81,132 observations leading to 11,627 disease ${\times}$ exposure associations). The structure of RNV3P database is compared with the ones of pharmacovigilance databases. Seven disproportionality metrics are tested and their results, notably in terms of ranking the disease ${\times}$ exposure associations, are compared. Results: RNV3P and pharmacovigilance databases showed similar structure. Frequentist methods (proportional reporting ratio [PRR], reporting odds ratio [ROR]) and a Bayesian one (known as BCPNN for "Bayesian Confidence Propagation Neural Network") show a rather similar behaviour on our data, conversely to other methods (as Poisson). Finally the PRR method was chosen, because more complex methods did not show a greater value with the RNV3P data. Accordingly, a procedure for detecting signals with PRR method, automatic triage for exclusion of associations already known, and then investigating these signals is suggested. Conclusion: This procedure may be seen as a first step of hypothesis generation before launching epidemiological and/or experimental studies.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제32권1호
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• pp.17-29
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• 1999

Objectives. This study was carried out to analyze the hearingthreshold levels and relating factors of 1,048 workers with noiseinduced hearing loss$(D_1)$. Methods. We analyzed the hearing-threshold levels and relating factors of 1,048 workers with noise-induced hearing loss$(D_1)$ examined by the summary reports of specific health examination results of industries and personal reports of specific health examination results reported by 58 specific health examination institutes and 8 secondary pneumoconiosis examination institutes in 1996. Results. Among 1,048 workers at 510 workplaces, male workers were 1,009 (96.3%) and female workers were 39 (3.7%). The mean ages of workers initially exposed to noise and at present were 28.7 and 47.2, respectively. The duration of total exposure was 16.5 years. Average hearing-threshold levels analyzed by three-divided classification of the study subjects were 43.7dB(Lt) and 42.6dB(Rt). Those analyzed by six-divided classification were 50.5dB(Lt) and 48.6d8(Rt). Among workers with noise-induced shearing loss$(D_1)$, 16.3% was unilateral hearing loss and 84.6% was classified to compensation case. 8.8%(Rt) and 10.2%(Lt) of them were suspected to be conductive hearing loss by differences of air-bone hearing-threshold levels. Hearing-threshold levels of workers in manufacturing industry were significantly increased during the short exposure compared with the levels in mining industry. Among manufacturing industries, hearing-threshold levels of workers in trailer and other transportation equipment manufacturing industry were significantly increased. Age and duration of total noise exposure were not significantly related to the average hearing-threshold levels analyzed by three-divided classification. Hearing-threshold levels of female workers were significantly increased during the short exposure compared with those of male workers. Hearing-threshold levels of workers at the high risk group, ages of 20s, 30s and total exposure duration of less than 10 years, were not significantly increased compared with those of the other groups. However, they were exposed at young ages. The 3 leading industries of workers at high risk group were trailer and other transportation equipment manufacturing, automobile manufacturing and assemble-metal manufacturing industries. Conclusions. This study was the first nationwide analysis of the hearing-threshold levels and relating factors of workers with noise. induced hearing loss$(D_1)$. We found the differences of the real number by the statistics of the department of labour and the expected number of worker' s compensations for occupationally-induced hearing loss estimated by this study. According to the results of this study, we should carefully examine the methods to narrow this difference.

• 한국산림과학회지
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• 제95권2호
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• pp.183-187
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• 2006

This study investigated concentrations of the several air pollutants and compared antioxidative enzyme activities on Platanus occidentalis because this tree species is one of the widespread street trees in Korea. This species has been emerging the ambient air pollutants during its growing periods. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between air pollution on the tree species and antioxidant enzyme activities on the trees. $O_3$, $NO_2$, CO and $SO_2$ concentrations of several cities in Korea were compared for last decades. Among the air pollutants, $O_3$ and $NO_2$ concentrations in six big cities in Korea showed similar increasing trends during this period. In contrast, $SO_2$ and CO concentrations in the same cities dramatically decreased between 1994 and 2005. Platanus occidentalis trees were controlled to investigate, ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and glutathione reductase (GR) activity. Ozone exposure generally increased APX and GR activities of tree seedlings. It is a typical compensatory strategy of stressed trees.

• 한국공작기계학회논문집
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.128-132
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• 2008

The noise levels and individual employee noise exposure levels within a factory will determine the need for hearing conservation program. The difficulty in not having an effective hearing conservation program is the risk of hearing loss that employees may sustain. In the last few years the claims for hearing loss compensation have grown due to class action litigation brought against the employer and companies that have equipment in the factory alleged to have caused hearing loss. The Blower in the factory generates the noise of 98.3dB(A) in the frequency range of 2,000Hz, which may cause occupational hearing loss. By designing close type enclosures which are made of absorption material, about 24.4dB(A) reduction has been in the factory. It is demonstrated that this kind of enclosures can be effectively used to reduce the noise in the factory.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.74-79
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• 1999

We present a simple design rule for a passive temperature-compensating optical package. We also present experimentally that a package fabricated by using the design rule compensates the temperature dependence of the resonant wavelength of an optical long period fiber grating by varying the strain inside the fiber, The package fabricated in this work consists of two pieced of brass tube, 10 mm long, and a piece of nylon rod, 45.4 mm long. It is shown that the package can compensate the temperature-induce wavelength shifts of the long period grating to a range of 6.8 pm/$^{\circ}C$, compared with 0..48 nm/$^{\circ}C$ for an uncompensated grating. The reduced strength of the fiber caused by exposure to ultraviolet limits the performance of the package to the range operating temperature form -3 $^{\circ}C$ to 7$0^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제27권4호
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• pp.711-734
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• 1994

Among chemical agents in herbicides, dioxin (2, 3, 7, 8-tetrachloro dibenzo-$\rho$-dioxin : TCDD), a chemical contaminant in herbicides sprayed during the Vietnam War has been known to be the major agent causing toxic effects. Approximately 320,000 korean soldiers participated the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1974. Although the potential hazards of the herbicides among Korean veterans exposed were implicated, the problem had not been a public issue until 1991 when Korean veterans were informed U.S. companies, the herbicides manufacturer payed fund, from which a trust fund for New Zealand and Australian Class members were established in 1985. After a series of appeals and demonstration by the Korean Veterans demanding medical care and compensation for their serious health damages, a bill of medical care and compensation for herbicides victims was promulgated in March 1993 and become effective from May 1993, This study was carried out with two major objectives : the first to understand the health problems caused from the herbicides by reviewing literatures published, and the second to examine the nature and extent of health impacts among Korean veterans exposed and to develop valid study methods for the major study by interviewing and reviewing records on a part of veterans (638 persons) registered and completed medical examination in Seoul Veterans Administration Hospital from June to October 1993. The results obtained are as followings: 1. The literature review of 107 papers revealed that 1) Dioxin is teratogenic, carcinogenic and affects almost all organs including nervous, endocrine, and reproductive systems in animal experiments. 2) The diseases showing evidence of causal association were Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's disease, lung cancer, lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloroacne and polyneuropathy when judged on the basis of consistency in study results and biological plausibility. 2. Interview and medical record review study on 638 veterans, though limited validity owing to lack of control group, crude estimates of dioxin exposure levels (no biomarkers measurable), and uncertainty of diagnosis, showed that: 1) Most of the study subject's were in their 40's of age and had been dispatched to Vietnam during the period from $1965{\sim}1970$ around one year. 2) Most frequently complained symptoms in medical examination were motor weakness (32%), sensory abnormalities in extremities (23%), skin diseases (22%), and pain in extremities (20%) whereas in Interview they were more frequent in order of skin problem (44%), motor weakness (38%), sensory abnormalities and pain in extremities(17% and 19% each). Kappa indices on the same category of complaints between two sources of information were variable and relatively low. 3) On medical examination, only a part of the 638 subjects had initial impression (442 pts) and final diagnosis (218 pts) suggesting decision making on diagnosis appeared to be difficult even with all available modern medical technologies: in initial impression disorders from peripheral and central neuropathy were predominant whereas in final diagnosis various types of skin disorder were most frequent 4) When dose-response relationship between several conditions (from questionnaire) and arbitrary exposure scores were examined by CMH linear trend test, spontaneous abortion, sexual problems and health problem of offsprings showed statistically significant linear trends. However, pregnancy, accident and suicidal attempts did not show any relationship in this study capacity. 5) Among complaints, psychosis and neurosis (anxiety, phobia) in interview study, and memory disorder and psychosis in medical record study revealed linear trend. 6) Skin disorder was the only condition showing linear trend in initial impression and none in final diagnosis on medical examination. Even though objective to select out dioxin-related disease or group of diseases from this study was not achieved the research experiences provided firm basis for developing various methodological approaches. 3. From this preliminary study we concluded that a larger scale major epidemiologic study on health impacts of herbicides among Korean veterans exposed is not only Indispensible but also well designed study with more valid exposure information and diagnosis may be able to establish causal relationship between certain groups of diseases and exposure to the herbicides among Korean veterans.