• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.433-445
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• 2015

Objectives: The major objectives of this study are to review the issues surrounding trade secret claims in the Chemicals Control Act and Amendment on Occupational Safety and Health Act(1917-227) and to propose a way of improving the reliability of chemical information in MSDSs, labels and National Chemical Survey results. Materials: To review the issues on trade secret claims, we made an analysis frame which was divided into three steps: Value and Problem Recognition; New Regulation Design; and Enforcement and Amendment. We then compared Korean issues with issues from the United States' Hazard Communication Standard and Emergency Planning & Community Right-to-Know Act, Canada's Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System and Hazardous Materials Information Review Act and the European Union's Regulation on Classification, Labelling and Packaging of substances and Mixtures. Results: The stage of right-to-know development in Korea has passed the Value and Problem Recognition phase, so efforts are needed to elaborately design new regulation. Conclusions: We recommend two ways to improve right-to-know in Korea. First, strict examination of the quality of documents for trade secret claims is very important. Second, trade secrets should be limited to less-hazardous substances.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.169-181
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• 2014

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to obtain information regarding classification and health hazards that may result from a 13-week inhalation exposure to 2-methylpentane by Sprague-Dawley rats. Materials: The testing method was conducted in accordance with OECD guidelines for the testing of chemicals No. 413. The rats were divided into four groups(ten male and ten female rats in each group) and exposed to 0 ppm, 290 ppm, 1,160 ppm, 4,640 ppm 2-Methylpentane in each exposure chamber for six hours per day, five days per week, for 13 weeks. Results: No death or particular clinical presentation including weight change and change of feed rate was observed. The relationships between dose, gender and response were also not significantly changed in urinalysis, hematologic examination, or biochemical examination of blood(except for total cholesterol being up, total protein being up, and chloride ion being down in males), and blood coagulation time. For the relative weight measurement of organs, in the male group the weight change of both kidney and liver were increased in proportion to dose. In histopathological examination, nephropathy in the kidney(cystic change of renal tubules, regenerative tubule, inflammatory cell infiltration and necrosis in the interstitial tissue) was increased in a dose-dependent manner in the male group(290 ppm, 1,160 ppm, 4,640 ppm). However, other organs were not affected by the test substance. Conclusions: 2-methylpentane was estimated as a chemical causing nephropathy in the male group. NOAEL(No Observable Adverse Effect Level) in the female group is more than 4,640 ppm, while inthe male group it is less than 290 ppm.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.42-49
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• 2019

This study statistically analyzed the laboratory accidents by investigating 806 laboratory accident survey reports which were officially submitted to government from 2013 to June 2017. After comparing domestic and foreign accident classification criteria, the laboratory accidents were classified using KCD7(Korean Standard Classification of Diseases) and OIICS(Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System) criteria. For the type and part of injury, KCD7 classification criteria was adopted. And, for the cause and occurrence type of accidents, OIICS was adopted to analyze the laboratory accidents. Most of injuries happened to the wrist and hand caused by sharp materials or chemical materials. The analysis of accident cause showed that accidents resulted in medical practice and accidents from handtools and chemical materials such as acid and alkali frequently occurred. The major occurrence types of laboratory accidents was body exposure to the chemical materials such as hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid. In addition, the accidents resulted in destroy of grasped object or falling object were frequently reported.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.230-237
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• 2022

It is difficult to predict industrial accidents in the construction industry because many accident factors, such as human-related factors and environment-related factors, affect the accidents. Many studies have analyzed the severity of injuries and types of accidents; however, there were few studies on the prediction of injured body parts. This study aims to develop a classification model to predict the part of the injured body based on accident-related factors. Construction accident cases from June 2018 to July 2021 provided by the Korea Construction Safety Management Integrated Information were collected through web crawling and then preprocessed. A naïve Bayes classifier, one of the supervised learning algorithms, was employed to construct a classification model of the injured body part, which has four categories: 1) torso, 2) upper extremity, 3) head, and 4) lower extremity. The predictor variables are accident type, type of work, facility type, injury source, and activity type. As a result, the average accuracy for each injured body part was 50.4%. The accuracy of the upper extremity and lower extremity was relatively higher than the cases of the torso and head. Unlike the other classifications, such as spam mail filtering, a naïve Bayes classifier does not provide a good classification performance in construction accidents. The reasons are discussed in the study. Based on the results of this study, more detailed guidelines for construction safety management can be provided, which help establish safety measures at the construction site.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2021

The study aims to investigate the effect on Philippine occupational choice of House Bill No.7787, also known as the National Wage Law, which was filled by the Philippine Congress that mandates the implementation of an across the board minimum daily wage of Php750.00 to all workers in the Philippines. This study had used the Computable General Equilibrium-Top-Down Behavioral Microsimulation approach to determine the effect of National Wage Law on occupational choice. The results of the study revealed that the implementation of said National Wage Law would affect the distribution of labor force across occupational classification such as wage workers, entrepreneurial farming activities workers, and entrepreneurial non-farming activities workers. This has resulted from a higher utility that will be derived from the wage working sector once the National Wage Law will be implemented. Further, among regions in the Philippines, the Calabarzon, National Capital Region, and Central Luzon had recorded the highest number of workers who prefer the wage income sector. The findings of the study also suggest that the Philippine agricultural sector will be greatly affected by the National Wage Law due to the preference of workers to shift from the entrepreneurial farming sector to belong to the wage sector.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.517-527
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• 2023

Objectives: We examine cases of chemical poisoning that occurred in the cleaning of metal parts and the regulations on halogenated solvents in other countries and propose regulations necessary to prevent chemical poisoning from halogenated solvents. Methods: We collected cases of chemical poisoning through the website of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. A review of the literature was conducted focusing on regulations related to halogenated solvents in the United States and the European Union, particularly for cleaning metal parts. Among the Material Safety Data Sheets submitted to the government, MSDS containing eleven substances were extracted to confirm the composition and product use. We investigated cleaning methods for metal parts used in South Korea. For the hazard classification, the European Chemicals Agency or Japan's NITE's website was used. Results: In the case of poisoning, the cleaning methods involving trichloromethane were dipping and dry, which was not found in the literature. It was confirmed that many halogenated solvents and dimethyl carbonate were used for metal cleaning in South Korea. In vapor degreasing using TCE in the USA, even if the facility is strictly managed, such as by installing cooling coils in open cleaning facilities, the risk of exposure to TCE is considered to be not only carcinogenic but also a concern for acute and chronic effects. In comparison, exposure through Korean work methods such as dipping and drying operations is inevitably much higher. Conclusions: The transition to water-based cleaning with low-hazard chemicals should be a priority in the cleaning process. In the case of metal parts that require precise cleaning, if the use of a halogenated solvent is inevitable, a closed degreasing facility should be used to minimize exposure. The current regulations in the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Chemical Substances Control Act, and the Air Environment Conservation Act do not require cleaning facilities to minimize emissions. To protect the health of workers using halogenated solvents to clean metal parts, regulations that require a fundamental reduction in exposure will be necessary.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2015

The study conducted questionnaire analysis to 413 industrial safety field employees in order to examine the necessity and validity of industrial safety field's 17th neo-job classification based on National Competency standards(NCS). As a result, 50.1% of industrial safety management field and 43.3% of industrial health management field answered that classification details of occupational safety and health management field are classified by job(duty) performance. Industrial safety management field recognizes that management and engineering section play a significant role in their work, while industrial health management field recognizes worker's health care and work environment management and overall control of work environment assessment to be significant in their work. Furthermore, industrial safety management field recognizes that separating qualification and foundation of 'construction safety manager', 'chemicals(safety and health) manager', '(toxic)risk assessment evaluator or risk factor manager' to be highly significant. The study is meaningful in that it suggests industrial safety field's qualification items practical in industrial sites.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.279-288
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• 2015

Background: In this study, the measurement of job stress of electric overhead traveling crane operators and quantification of the effects of operator and workplace characteristics on job stress were assessed. Methods: Job stress was measured on five subscales: employee empowerment, role overload, role ambiguity, rule violation, and job hazard. The characteristics of the operators that were studied were age, experience, body weight, and body height. The workplace characteristics considered were hours of exposure, cabin type, cabin feature, and crane height. The proposed methodology included administration of a questionnaire survey to 76 electric overhead traveling crane operators followed by analysis using analysis of variance and a classification and regression tree. Results: The key findings were: (1) the five subscales can be used to measure job stress; (2) employee empowerment was the most significant factor followed by the role overload; (3) workplace characteristics contributed more towards job stress than operator's characteristics; and (4) of the workplace characteristics, crane height was the major contributor. Conclusion: The issues related to crane height and cabin feature can be fixed by providing engineering or foolproof solutions than relying on interventions related to the demographic factors.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.416-420
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• 2021

Hazardous area classification design is required to reduce the explosion risk in process plants. Among the international design guidelines, only IEC 60079-10-1 proposes a new type of zone, namely zone 2 NE, to prevent explosion hazards. We studied how to meet the zone 2 NE grade for a facility handling hydrogen gas, which is considered as most dangerous among explosive gases. Zone 2 NE can be achieved considering the grade of release, as well as the availability and effectiveness of ventilation, which are factors indicative of the facility condition and its surroundings. In the present study, we demonstrate that zone 2 NE can be achieved when the degree of ventilation is high by accessing temperature, pressure, and size of leak hole. The release characteristic can be derived by substituting the process condition of the hydrogen gas facility. The equations are summarized considering relation of the operating temperature, operating pressure, and size of leak hole. Through this relationship, the non-hazardous condition can be realized from the perspective of inherent safety by the combination of each parameter before the initial design of the hydrogen gas facility.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.17-26
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• 2020

In Korea, primary school (also junior high school) is compulsory and free since 2004. But it looks high school is also compulsory, as over 80% of adults has a high school diploma currently. For 20 years improving high school education is only education-oriented, rather than occupation-oriented. And, the mismatch between the occupational requirement and the lesson from school is getting larger. To resolve this issue, the Korean government builds and utilizes National Competency Standards(NCS) to realize a competence-oriented society. With NCS, the government enables to run of a work-study program and tries to suggest the fundamental solution to improve occupational ability and the unemployment of young people. However, the prejudice against the education level and occupation is still engrained, and it is hard to match the education-career-qualification based on NCS. Therefore, we study NCS from the definition to the utilization, suggest an improving method to flexibly utilized the standards in the fields, and continuously improve and develop the NCS.