• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.497-510
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• 2019

Objectives: The aim of this study was to secure the reliability of using the CalTOX model when evaluating LADD (or ADD) and Risk (or HQ) among local residents for the emission of BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Xylene) and by closely examining the difference in the confidence interval of the assessment outcomes according to the difference in the probability density function of input variables. Methods: The assessment was made by dividing it according to the method ($I^{\dagger}$) of inputting the probability density function in meteorological variables of the model with log-normal distribution and the method of inputting ($II^{\ddagger}$) after grasping the optimal probability density function using @Risk. A T-test was carried out in order to analyze the difference in confidence interval of the two assessment results. Results: It was evaluated to be 1.46E-03 mg/kg-d in LADD of Benzene, 1.96E-04 mg/kg-d in ADD of Toluene, 8.15E-05 mg/kg-d in ADD of Ethylbenzene, and 2.30E-04 mg/kg-d in ADD of Xylene. As for the predicted confidence interval in LADD and ADD, there was a significant difference between the $I^{\dagger}$ and $II^{\ddagger}$ methods in $LADD_{Inhalation}$ for Benzene, and in $ADD_{Inhalation}$ and ADD for Toluene and Xylene. It appeared to be 3.58E-05 for risk in Benzene, 3.78E-03 for HQ in Toluene, 1.48E-03 for HQ in Ethylbenzene, and 3.77E-03 for HQ in Xylene. As a result of the HQ in Toluene and Xylene, the difference in confidence interval between the $I^{\dagger}$ and $II^{\ddagger}$ methods was shown to be significant. Conclusions: The human risk assessment for BTEX was made by dividing it into the method ($I^{\dagger}$) of inputting the probability density function of meteorological variables for the CalTOX model with log-normal distribution, and the method of inputting ($II^{\ddagger}$) after grasping the optimal probability density function using @Risk. As a result, it was identified that Risk (or HQ) is the same, but that there is a significant difference in the confidence interval of Risk (or HQ) between the $I^{\dagger}$ and $II^{\ddagger}$ methods.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.575-584
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• 2021

The critical low temperature and response of the behavioral tolerance of red sea bream Pagrus major fingerlings were determined using the continuous behavior monitoring system (CBMS). The behavior of the experimental organisms was observed by decreasing the water temperature by 2.0℃ and 4.0℃ every 12 hours and 24 hours in the range of 8.0-20.0℃. An unstable behavior pattern was observed in red seabream fingerlings exposed to water temperatures below 12.0℃, in which the swimming activity decreased and repeatedly stopped, regardless of the exposure time and water temperature fluctuation. The swimming ability of the organisms exposed to 8.0-10.0℃ decreased sharply, and the behavior of staying at the bottom of the test tank was observed. Only 50 % of the organisms survived due to the low-temperature stress, and all individuals died within six hours after the cold shock. In addition, the behavior index (BI) decreased rapidly, and the amplitude change of the coefficient of variation (CV) was found to have a greater variation than the other water temperatures (p<0.05). Low-temperature stress of red sea bream is promoted at 12.0℃, and it is interpreted as the tolerance limit, which can induce a sublethal response of the organisms exposed to cold shock of 8.0-10.0℃.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.907-913
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• 2020

There have been continuous controversies on medical X-ray protection and numerous researchers have been trying to prevent unnecessary exposure to radiation. As X-ray passes through the patient and obtains an image, it creates scattered ray due to interactions such as photoelectric effect and Compton scattering with the subject. As a result, both medical radiation staff and patient are exposed to unnecessary radiation on areas other than the target area. In response, this study will be assuming a body of a female, radiating X-ray on the phantom under the conditions of lumbar spine AP test, and measuring scattered ray around breasts and thyroid glands. Then, The experiment results were as follows. After application of non-shielding material, the average of scattered ray was 0.88 mR in thyroid measurement, 3.34 mR, Lt Axillary 3.54 mR, and Rt Axillary 3.03 mR in mamonary measurement but, After application of shielding material, the average of scattered ray was 0.16 mR in thyroid measurement, 0.60 mR, Lt Axillary 0.64 mR, and Rt Axillary 0.54 mR in mamonary measurement showing average scattered ray protection effect of about 82%. This study suggested the manufacturing method of a Jelly-type shielding material, identified the possibilities of researches on mixing various substances with radiology field, and verified the usability of the Jelly-type shielding material as a substitute for existing protection tools.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.553-561
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• 2020

Water-soluble rubber asphalt-based waterproofing material, which is one of the waterproofing materials for building structures, is mainly used indoors (toilet, kitchen, balcony, etc.). In general, asphalt-based materials are used for non-exposed installation, rather than as exposed type as they do not deviate from their usual basic black pigmentation, and water-soluble rubber asphalt-based coating waterproofing materials are basically limited to indoors because of their low physical properties. Accordingly, in order to improve the tensile and elongation properties, a silane coupling agent, an inorganic filler, and a processor oil w ere added to improve the physical properties, and accordingly, the basic physical properties of the outdoor coating waterproofing material quality standard were analyzed. As a result, the water-soluble rubber asphalt coating waterproofing material compared with the exposure quality standard showed a result that exceeded the basic physical property quality standard of silicone rubber in all items under test evaluation, but the tensile strength and tear strength of the first class of urethane rubber were chloroprene. It was found that the performance compared to the quality standards of rubber-based tear strength was about 34.2% to about 40.8%.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_1
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• pp.1231-1244
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• 2022

The frequency of exposure of field crops to stress situations is increasing due to abnormal weather conditions. In South Korea, large-scale diseases in representative paddy rice cultivation area were happened. There are limits to field investigation on the crop damage due to large-scale. Satellite-based remote sensing techniques are useful for monitoring crops in cities and counties, but the sensitivity of vegetation index measured from satellite under abnormal growth of crop should be evaluated. The goal is to evaluate satellite-based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) retrieved from different spatial scales using drone imagery. In this study, Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 satellites were used and they have spatial resolution of 10 and 30 m. Drone-based NDVI, which was resampled to the scale of satellite data, had correlation of 0.867-0.940 with Sentinel-2 NDVI and of 0.813-0.934 with Landsat-8 NDVI. When the effects of bias were minimized, Sentinel-2 NDVI had a normalized root mean square error of 0.2 to 2.8% less than that of the drone NDVI compared to Landsat-8 NDVI. In addition, Sentinel-2 NDVI had the constant error values regardless of diseases damage. On the other hand, Landsat-8 NDVI had different error values depending on degree of diseases. Considering the large error at the boundary of agricultural field, high spatial resolution data is more effective in monitoring crops.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.282-289
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• 2022

Background: Airborne fungi are ubiquitous in the air and exposure to an airborne fungus can be a significant risk factor. The composition of fungi has been potentially important for human health, especially for respiratory diseases like asthma and atopic dermatitis. Therefore, we attempted to ascertain what kind of airborne fungi affect human health at a nationwide level. Objectives: This study was carried out to provide information on indoor fungi distribution at multi-use facilities throughout South Korea. Methods: We classified our data by region and public facility after collection, cultivation, and identification via the sequencing of the ITS (internal transcribed spacer) region. We investigated whether or not the proliferation of HaCaT cells was affected by the identified airborne fungi. Results: In our data, the most isolated airborne fungi by region were Penicillium spp (Seoul, Daegu), Periconia sp (Gyeonggi-do), Iprex sp (Gangwon-do), Phanerochaete sp (Busan), Bjerkandera sp (Gwangju), and Aspergillus sp (Jeju-do). In the public facilities, the most detected fungi were Cladosporium sp (public transport), Penicillium sp (apartment house, retail market, financial institution, karaoke room), Bjerokandera sp (underground parking lot, public toilet, medical institution), Periconia sp (retail store), and Fusarium sp (general restaurant). Next, we selected twenty airborne fungi to examine their cytotoxicity and proliferation of human skin cells. In this experiment, the proliferation of the cells was influenced by most of the identified fungi. In case of the cytotoxicity test, most genera except for Rhodotorula sp and Moesziomyces sp showed cytotoxicity in HaCaT cells. Conclusions: The distribution of mold in the indoor air in multi-use facilities in South Korea differs from region to region, and this is an indicator that should be considered in future health impact studies. In addition, as a result of culturing about 20 types of bacteria dominant in indoor air, it was found that most (90%) inhibit the growth of skin cells, which can be harmful to health. An in-depth study of the health effects of floating fungi is needed.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.328-334
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• 2022

The process that one may consciously focuses on necessary stimulation among tremendous amount of stimulation through human sensory systems is called attention in psychology. It is known that the attention can be affected by many factors such as room temperatures, humidity level, etc. In the field of sports science, ice packs are widely used for recovery from exercise fatigue providing fast heat transfer by conduction. However, the effect on attention by so-called iced-pack-cooling has not been tested. This research focuses on the attention levels when one is provided with a special cooling pad on their dorsal and lateral cervices. 40 subjects were divided into four groups and their attention level was evaluated based on the exposure conditions of combinations in reading and light walking with and without the cooling pad. The Frankfruter Aufmerksamkeits-Inventar, FAIR was used to evaluate the attention levels; the performance index, quality index, and continuity index consist of the FAIR test indicating the selectiveness of the attention, correctness of the attention, and maintaining term of the attention, respectively. Analysis of variance was carried out for those variables and post-hoc if applicable. When visual attention is constantly used for reading and studying, application of conductive heat transfer by the cooling pads is significantly helpful for improvement in selectiveness of the attention and maintaining terms of the attention levels. Also, light walking yielded improvement in selectiveness of the attention and maintaining terms of the attention levels; however one should presupposedly consider the loss of reading time.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.570-588
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• 2022

We scrutinized the acoustic outputs from the 70 shock wave generators of the 15 product models whose technical documents were available, among the 46 ballistic extracorporeal shock wave therapeutic devices of 11 domestic and 6 foreign manufacturers, approved by the Minster of Food & Drug Safety (Rep. Korea). We found that the acoustic Energy Flux Density (EFD), the most popular exposure parameter, was different by up to 563.64 times among shock wave generators at their minimum output settings and by up to 74.62 times at their maximum settings. In the same product model, the EFD was shown to vary depending on shock wave transmitters by up to 81.82 times at its minimum output setting and by up to 46.15 times at its maximum setting. The lowest EFD 0.013 mJ/mm² at the maximum output settings was much lower (2.1 %) than the maximum value 0.62 mJ/mm² at the minimum settings. The Large acoustic output differences (tens to hundreds of times)from the therapeutic devices approved for the same clinical indications imply that their therapeutic efficacy & safety may not be assured. The findings suggest the regulatory authority to revise her guideline to give clearer criteria for clinical approval and equality in performance, and recommend the authority to initiate a post-approval surveillance as well as a test in conformance between the data in technical documents and the real acoustic outputs clinically used.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.435-442
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• 2022

The heel effect creates a density difference in the X-ray images because the intensity of the anode and cathode side of the X-ray tube is not equal. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the density difference due to the heel effect by rotating the step wedge by 180 degrees and then changing the distance. After fixing the tube voltage and tube current to 72 kVp and 10 mAs, the forward and reverse directions were taken using a step wedge. At this time, the distance (80 cm ~ 130 cm) was taken at 10 cm intervals, and the density value was measured by setting the region of interest for each step of the step wedge through the M6 program. First, the difference in intensity between the anode and the cathode was confirmed through the radiation exposure test. In addition, when the distance (from 80 cm to 130 cm) was changed, the difference in density between the cathode and the anode decreased as the projection distance increased. As a result, images of uniform density can be obtained as the projection distance increases.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.285-295
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• 2023

With the development of technology, efforts to reduce the exposure dose received by patients in CT scans are continuing with the development of new reconstruction techniques. Recently, deep learning reconstruction techniques have been developed to overcome the limitations of repetitive reconstruction techniques. This study aims to evaluate the usefulness of images according to reconstruction techniques in pediatric chest CT images. Patient study conducted a study on 85 pediatric patients who underwent chest CT scan at P-Hospital in Gyeongsangnam-do from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022. The phantom used in the Phantom Study is the Pediatrics Whole Body Phantom PBU-70. After the test, the images were reconstructed with FBP, ASIR-V (50%) and DLIR (TF-Medium, High), and the images were evaluated by obtaining SNR and CNR values by setting ROI of the same size. As a result, TF-H of deep learning reconstruction techniques had the lowest noise value compared to ASIR-V (50%) and TF-M in all experiments, and SNR and CNR had the highest values. In pediatric chest CT scans, TF images with deep learning reconstruction techniques were less noisy than ASiR-V images with adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction techniques, CNR and SNR were higher, and the quality of images was improved compared to conventional reconstruction techniques.