• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.531-540
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• 2022

This study is a descriptive survey study attempted to find out the difference in stress by occupation before and after responding to COVID-19 among care facility for the elderly. In this study, a survey was conducted on workers in care facility for the elderly in Chungcheongnam-do and Gyeonggi-do from March 22 to April 25, 2021. Of a total of 220 questionnaires, 206 were collected, and the data were analyzed through t-test, one way ANOVA, and chi-square test. According to the research results, the difference in the sub-areas of job stress before and after the COVID-19 response of nursing home workers shows that nurses have job demands(t=-3.90, p<.001), job instablity(t=-3.30, p=.002), the nursing assistant has job demands(t=-2.45, p=.018), nursing care workers have job autonomy(t=-3.34, p=.001) showed a significant difference. Therefore, in order to effectively solve job stress according to the occupation of workers in care facility for the elderly in the COVID-19 era, stress relief programs for each occupation must be customized.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.511-521
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• 2022

Decommissioning of nuclear power plants generates a large amount of radioactive waste in a short period. Moreover, Radioactive waste has various forms including a large volumes of metal, concrete, and solid waste. The disposal of decommissioning waste using 200 L drums is inefficient in terms of economics, work efficiency, and radiation safety. Therefore, The Korea Radioactive Waste Agency is developing large containers for the packaging, transportation, and disposal of decommissioning waste. Assessing disposability considering the characteristics of the radioactive waste and facility, convenience of operation, and safety of workers is necessary. In this study, the exposure dose rate of workers during the disposal of new containers was evaluated using Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport code. Six normal and four abnormal scenarios were derived for the assessment of the dose rate in a near surface disposal facility operation. The results showed that the calculated dose rates in all normal scenarios were lower than the direct exposure dose limitation of workers in the safety analysis report. In abnormal scenarios, the work hours with dose rates below 20 mSv·y^-1 were calculated. The results of this study will be useful in establishing the optimal radiation work conditions.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.317-323
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• 2021

Background: The surface mining industry has one of the highest fatality rates among private industries in the United States. Despite recent decreases in the fatality rates of comparable industries, the fatality rate in the surface mining industry has increased. Meanwhile, a lack of safety research in surface mining has hindered efforts to improve safety strategies in the surface mining workplace. Method: This study examined quarry workers' hazard identification skills by conducting a case study of a surface mining facility in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Semistructured interviews were conducted with eight quarry workers who were employed at the mine facility. In addition to the interviews, data were collected through field notes, notes from an expert meeting with safety managers, and site photographs to explore quarry workers' safety behaviors in the workplace. Results: The results showed that quarry workers identified hazards and improved their safety performance by translating safety knowledge learned from training into practice, acquiring hands-on work experience, learning from coworkers, and sharing responsibilities among team members. Conclusion: This study contributes to understanding quarry workers' safe performance beyond what they have learned in safety training to include their interaction with other workers and hand-on experience in the workplace. This study informs practitioners in the surface mining industry to build a safe work environment as they design effective safety programs for employees.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.12-26
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• 2022

Objectives: This paper aimed to provide an in-depth analysis of the factors influencing the dietary habits of male and female workers at a facility in Gwangju and their awareness of the same. Methods: A total of 32 workers were divided into eight groups based on work type, gender, and age, and focus group interviews (FGIs) were conducted. The FGIs included cognitive, behavioral, and environmental questionnaires based on dietary habits and the social cognitive theory. The interviews were analyzed by subject and sub-subject using audio recordings and transcriptions. Results: Male workers in the concerned company favored meat while female workers preferred vegetables, yet by and large, the preferences were irregular. Male workers living alone frequently ate ready meals and female workers often skipped meals. An analysis of the factors influencing the study subjects' dietary habits from the cognitive, behavioral, and environmental perspectives showed that the main factors negatively affecting their dietary habits were shiftwork, living alone, and drinking. Workers were unaware of these factors and their poor eating habits. Instead, male workers complained of poor cooking skills, while female workers complained of loneliness. Workers thus appeared to need the support of nutrition education and a counseling assistant to cope with this situation. Conclusions: The study identified the fact that the absence of nutrition education left the workers unaware of their poor eating habits. The workers would need counseling and support to help them build healthy dietary habits. It would also be necessary to focus on raising the workers' cognitive awareness of dietary habits and enhancing their behavioral ability to cope with bad eating habits through nutrition education that reflects the reality of their situation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.7
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• pp.915-923
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• 2015

Pyroprocess technology has been considered as a fuel cycle option to solve the spent fuel accumulation problems in Korea. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea has been studying pyroprocess technology, and the conceptual design of an engineering-scale pyroprocess facility, called the Reference Engineering-scale Pyroprocess Facility, has been performed on the basis of a 10 ton heavy metal throughput per year. In this paper the concept of Reference Engineering-scale Pyroprocess Facility is introduced along with its safety requirements for the protection of facility workers, collocated workers, the off-site public, and the environment. For the identification of safety structures, systems, and components and/or administrative controls, the following activities were conducted: (1) identifying hazards associated with operations; (2) identifying potential events associated with these hazards; and (3) identifying the potential preventive and/or mitigative controls that reduce the risk associated with these accident events. This study will be used to perform a safety evaluation for accidents involving any of the hazards identified, and to establish safety design policies and propose a more definite safety design.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.31-49
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• 2008

This study has been performed to explore verbal and behavioral expression of sexual desires among male elderly residents who have been living in long tenn care facilities. There are three topics covered in this study; first, in what situations and how seriously do care workers encounter expression of sexual desires of the elderly residents? Second, what kind of negative consequences do they believe those sexual behaviors will lead to? Third, how can we implement defensive measures against the sexual behaviors? In this study, twenty three care workers working full time in five retirement and care facilities were asked about their experience and perception of the above study agendas, and answers of the qualitative interview were drawn as follow; first, the elderly residents apparently show a variety of sexual harassment and provoking behaviors such as sticking to specific women, physically touching and attacking, and induce obscenely activities against female residents, care workers, and volunteer visitors. Second, their sexual behaviors are often influenced by their isolated and abandoned emotionality as well as living situation in rural areas. Third, their sexual behaviors often critically affect care work plan and facility managements by severely discouraging female care givers and community supporters. Therefore in this study, suggestions and defensive measures were made as follows: first, education and counselling programs toward female workers and volunteers need to be developed, and the programs should cover psychological and behavioral mechanism of sexuality in later life. Second, self control plans need to be empowered toward the elderly residents; in the plans, the elderly residents shall be encouraged to evaluate primary cause and proper solutions of sexual behaviors of their peering residents. Third, combination of healthy housing and care facilities for frail elderly need to be integrated in a neighboring location, so that when residents and workers encounter extreme episodes of sexuality of healthy residents in a housing facility, the problematic sexual residents are partially transferred into a neighboring care facility and thereafter other residents and cafe givers are relieved from stressful contacts with the extremely sexual residents.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.1 s.79
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• pp.55-69
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• 2006

This study has been performed to investigate group differences and determining factors of burnout of the workers in elderly living facilities. In this study, 131 male and female workers composed of social workers, health practitioners, and other management workers were selected among 23 retirement and nursing facilities in Korea between 2003 and 2005. They were asked about their socioeconomic background, working environment, and their perceptions on burnout in the working places. As for main dimensions of the burnout, there were three elements such as emotional weariness, diminishing personal accomplishment, and depersonalized behaviors. Particularly in this study, the depersonalized behaviors were defined as aggressive or rude verbal and behavioral outbursts from anger. As a result of this study, the following results were found: Most workers have medium level of perception on their commitment and burnout, but there. are some risk factors; newly married young workers were less satisfied or fairly rewarded with their job and as a result, they have significantly higher level of emotional weariness but lower feeling of personal accomplishments. In addition, they occasionality practiced aggressive or rude behaviors such as yelling, threatening, and physically harassing As for the influence of determining variables, long-time workers of long established facilities were more satisfied and less burnout. In addition, there are some impacts of job category; health practitioners were more burnout than social workers. In this study, suggestions are made as follows: first, guiding and settlement programs should be developed for the newly started young married workers, particularly at early stage of their career. Second, future aspects of facility visions should be guided for the workers, so that they are relieved from stressful routines without any future plan. Third, medical workers such as physical therapists and nurses should be further monitored for main reasons of increasing their stress.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.331-339
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to examine wandering behaviors of the elderly with dementia at elderly care facilities, thus finding out the current status of supportability and safety of wandering space for facility residents and looking into the convenience of management for the control and Support of the elderly with dementia in wandering space, from the aspect of managers. Study methods consisted of literature examination, on-site assessment and investigation, observation and questionnaire survey. And via a questionnaire survey of facility workers at study subject facilities, the current status and facility workers' perception of wandering space and their job-satisfaction were examined. Collected data of 133 respondents were used for analysis. Data were processed with the SPSS 18.0 program, and such analytic techniques as frequency, percentage, mean, multiple response analysis, chi-square test and correlation analysis were carried out. The problems of physical environment of wandering space for the elderly with dementia: First, it is urgent to establish wandering space. Second, thoughtlessly installed chairs in the corridor impeded wandering behaviors. Third, the grips installed in the corridor space were irregular, thus causing inconvenience for wandering behaviors. Thus making residents' use of it difficult. In order to improve these problems, it is necessary to newly or additionally establish wandering space and modify the location of chairs or establish alcoves, thus reducing impedimentary elements for wandering behaviors. Providing a proper wandering space is important for facility residents. And it is also important for facility workers to manage facility residents.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.251-261
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to improve welfare services for the socially underprivileged, the disabled, by improving and streamlining the work environment of workers at day care facilities for the disabled. The research question consisted of three issues: conflict between employees, psychological exhaustion, and growth factors experienced as a Christian worker at a day care facility for the disabled. As a research method, from January 2024 to April 2024, 10 Christian workers working at a day care facility for the disabled were interviewed and collected facts about their experiences during the work process using Colaizzi's phenomenological research method. analyzed. According to the research results, the psychological processes experienced by workers are, first, 'conflict' between internal workers in the experience at a day care facility for the disabled, and second, exhaustion, such as symptoms of emotional exhaustion, dehumanization, and decreased sense of accomplishment, experienced by workers in 'burnout'. It was a traumatic experience. Third, in 'growth', workers overcame internal conflict and psychological exhaustion through spirituality and experienced growth with a sense of stability. This study is expected to provide useful data to improve the morale and work environment of workers at day care facilities for the disabled in the future.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.121-133
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• 2011

This study suggests criteria to conduct a risk assessment of VOCs and formaldehyde in uncontrolled public facilities. Pollutants and facilities were selected based on two years of monitoring data and exposure scenarios in 573 uncontrolled public facilities, composed of 10 types of public institutions. With the exception of social welfare facilities, lifetime ECRs of formaldehyde and benzene in each facility were higher in employees than in users, except in social welfare facilities. In social welfare facilities, the risk of benzene for users ($1{\times}10^{-5}$) was higher than that of workers ($1{\times}10^{-6}$) because facility users live in the facility 24 hours per day, compared to workers who spend an average of 8 hours per day in the facility. The risk of benzene to workers in restaurants, academies, performance halls, internet cafe and pubs were estimated as high as $1{\times}10^{-4}$ and the risk to workers in the theaters and karaoke bars were recorded as $1{\times}10^{-5}$. Because lifetime ECRs of carcinogens exceeded $1{\times}10^{-4}$ for workers and users in most facilities, risk management of formaldehyde and benzene in these facilities is necessary. Although HQs of toluene and xylenes did not exceed 1.0, their HQs did exceed 0.1 in some facilities, so they were evaluated as potentially harmful materials. Additionally, criteria for health protection in IAQ by facility are suggested at $60-100\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for formaldehyde, $400-500\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for TVOCs, $10-20\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for benzene, $150-170\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for toluene and $100\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for xylenes, based on the survey on IAQ and HRA methodology. The excess rates of IAQ to health protection criteria in all facilities were 16% for formaldehyde, 8% for TVOCs and benzene, 9% for toulene, and 5% for xylenes.