• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2020.12a
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• pp.96-102
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• 2020

The construction industry remains serious accidents, injuries, and fatalities due to it's unique, dynamic, and temporary nature. On workplace sites, Safety pre-task planning is one of the efforts to minimize injuries and help construction personnel to identify potential hazards. However, the working conditions are complicated. Many activities, including tasks or job steps, are executing at the same time and place. It may lead to an increase in the risks from simultaneous tasks. This paper contributes to addressing this issue by introducing a safety risk interaction analyzing framework. To accomplish this objective, accident reports of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are investigated. The pairs of task incompatibility, which have time-space conflicts and lead to incidents, are found. Ontology technology is applied to build the risk database, in which the information is acquired, structuralized. The proposed system is expected to improve pre-task planning efficiency and relieve the burdens encountered by safety managers. A user scenario is also discussed to demonstrate how the ontology supports pre-task planning in practice.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.90-103
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• 2005

Objective: This study was carried out to assess the status of working environments, to improve the working environments, and to be helpful to prevent occupational disease. Methods: The authors measured the noise level, concentration of dust, heavy metals, organic solvents, and other chemicals at 95 industries (22 working processes) by type of working process in manufacturing industry of parts and accessories for motor vehicles and its engines from January to December 2003. Samples were measured and analyzed by regulations of Korea Ministry of Labor, manuals of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Results: Results are as follows. 1. Major processes exceeding mean noise levels provided the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Value (TLV) were shakeout [97.5 dB(A)]. shot-blast [94.2 dB(A)], pressing [92.9 dB(A)], crushing [91.2 dB(A)], and cleaning [90.6 dB(A)]. 2. Mean concentrations of dusts were not exceeded to the TLV. But concentration on some points of processes as like welding (6.50 mg/m3), foundry (5.24 mg/m3) were exceeded. 3. Mean concentrations of heavy metals were not exceeded to the TLV. 4. Mean concentrations of organic solvents and chemicals were not exceeded to the TLV. 5. Improving rate for working environment were significantly higher in industries with health manager than without (p<0.05), and by increasing the year of working environmental measurement (p<0.01). Conclusions: The results suggest that working processes of exceeding to the TLV will be needed rapid improvement of the working environment, and also the others will be needed positive management of the working environment. Health managers must be recommended to employ in the workplace, and further studies for relationship between working environment and health effects for the workers must be carried out.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.48-55
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• 2019

For preventing the accidents generated from the chemical materials, thus far, MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) data have been made to notify how to use and manage the hazardous and chemical materials in safety. However, it is difficult for users who handle these materials to understand the MSDS data because they are only listed based on the alphabetical order, not based on the specific factors such as similarity of characteristics. It is limited in representing the types of chemical materials with respect to their characteristics. Thus, in this study, a lots of MSDS data are visualized based on relationships of the characteristics among the chemical materials for supporting safety managers. For this, we used the textmining algorithm which extracts text keywords contained in documents and the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) algorithm which visually addresses textual data information. In the case of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States, the guide texts contained in MSDS documents, which include use information such as reactivity and potential risks of materials, are gathered as the target data. First, using the textmining algorithm, the information of chemicals is extracted from these guide texts. Next, the MSDS map is developed using SOM in terms of similarity of text information of chemical materials. The MSDS map is helpful for effectively classifying chemical materials by mapping prohibited and hazardous substances on the developed the SOM map. As a result, using the MSDS map, it is easy for safety managers to detect prohibited and hazardous substances with respect to the Industrial Safety and Health Act standards.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2013

The prevention of safety accidents can be achieved through Harvey's 3E's: Engineering, Enforcement, and Education. On construction sites, however, enforcement and engineering did not prove to be valid ways of reducing the number of safety accidents, as enforcement and engineering have failed to overcome and/or supplement the realistic limits regarding the relatively lower education levels of construction workers and the communication issues with foreign workers. On the other hand, safety education can enable the advancement of safety management by enhancing the educational contents and their methods of delivery. To improve the efficiency of safety education via educational contents, this research conducted a qualitative and quantitative analysis on the validity of the newly educational contents by overviewing possible accident types in different work phases. Of the accident types identified by the qualitative analysis, neither highly important nor insignificant accident types were found, yet all the suggested types are found to be required. In addition, this study did not find any significant differences in the occurrence probability of safety accidents related to the level of importance of each type of accident. The qualitative analysis in this research verified that the suggested accident types can be valid, educational material that can take into account future safety accidents.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.131-144
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• 2006

For the purpose of preparing the fundamental data on working environment of small scale manufacturing industries and preventing the occupational diseases of workers in these industries, authors surveyed the status of working environment to several chemical substances and physical agents by types of industry and types of process in the small scale manufacturing industries with less than five workers in Gimhae including 235 workplaces, 14 types of industry and 25 types of process from January 2002 to December 2004. This measurement method was work environment measurement method (established in Ministry of Labor, Korea), analytical methods (2nd Ed.) of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and manual of analytical methods (4th Ed.) of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and collected data was analyzed by using SPSS 10.0 for windows, the results were as follows: 1. Noise generated in 14 types of industry and 22 types of process. an actual level of mean exposure (90.7 dB(A)) exceeded threshold limit values (TLVs) in manufacture of other transport equipment. An actual level of mean exposure (90.2dB) exceeded TLVs in the process of wire-drawing and 90.4dB in the process of wire-stranding. 2. Dusts of type I, II, III were generated in 9 types of industry and 8 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. 3. Heavy metals (Pb, Mn, Cr, Ni) were generated in 7 types of industry and 7 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. 4. 16 kinds of organic solvents were generated in 11 types of industry and 6 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. As the above results, chemical substances and physical agents were generated in the several different types of industry and process of the manufacturing industry with less than five workers, and only mean level of noise was exceeded TLVs. In case of exceeding threshold limit values, improvement of work environment is actively needed, and work environment management should be performed continuously for prevention of an occupational diseases and work related diseases.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.58-63
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• 2006

There was cross-sectional study on investigating the factors related asbestos-related disease on chest radiograph of workers exposed to asbestos in ship repair. According to Occupational Safety & Health Administration asbestos standard, medical surveillance, chest radiologic study, pulmonary function test and medical questionnaire are performed in 118 subjects exposed to asbestos for 10 years or more in ship repair. The sixteen out of 118 subjects $(13.6\%)$ were observed asbestos-related disease finding on chest radiography. Significant factors related to those finding on chest radiography were abnormal pulmonary function test, cough, sputum, past history of respiratory disease, work duration. Workers with Significant factors related asbestos-related disease finding on chest radiography should be managed on a strict program. Further, factors unrelated with asbestos-related disease finding on this study should be evaluated prospectively for medical surveillance program of workers exposed to asbestos.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.16-27
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• 2019

A burning test was conducted on the smoke and combustion gases generated from cypress wood treated with sodium silicate, 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane sol, 3-(2-aminoethylamino)propylmethyldimethoxysilane sol, and 3-(2-aminoethylamino) propyltrimethoxysilane sol. The silicone compound sol was applied to each of the cypress wood specimens three times with a brush. The smoke and combustion generation gas were analyzed using a cone calorimeter (ISO 5660-1) and the smoke was also evaluated by applying new smoke risk assessment method. The smoke performance index (SPI) of the cypress treated with silicone compound increased 1.66 to 8.42 times and the smoke growth index (SGI) was 11.8 to 88.2%, respectively. The smoke intensity (SI) is expected to be 1.0~50.5% lower than that of the base specimens, resulting in lower smoke and fire hazards. The third maximum carbon monoxide (CO_peak) concentration of the specimens treated with silicone compounds was 22.5~33.3% lower than that of the base specimens. On the other hand, it produced potentially fatal toxicity that was 1.48~1.72 times higher than the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) acceptance standard (PEL). Cypress wood itself produced a high carbon monoxide concentration, but the silicon compound played a role in reducing this level.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.670-676
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• 2018

Experiments on combustion gases generation of untreated cypress specimens or treated with boric acid, ammonium pentaborate, and boric acid/ammonium pentaborate additive were carried out. Test specimens were painted three times with 15 wt% boron compound aqueous solutions. After drying, the generation of combustion gas was analyzed using a cone calorimeter (ISO 5660-1). As a result, comparing to untreated specimen, the smoke performance index (SPI) of the specimens treated with the boron compound increased by 1.37 to 2.68 times and the smoke growth index (SGI) decreased by 29.4 to 52.9%. The smoke intensity (SI) of the specimens treated with boron compounds is expected to be 1.16 to 3.92 times lower than that of untreated specimens, resulting in lower smoke and fire hazards. Also, the maximum carbon monoxide ($CO_{peak}$) concentration of specimens treated with boron compounds was 12.7 to 30.9% lower than that of untreated specimens. However, it was measured to produce fatal toxicities from 1.52 to 1.92 times higher than that of permissible exposure limits (PEL) by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The boron compounds played a role in reducing carbon monoxide, but it did not meet the expectation of reduction effect because of the high concentration of carbon monoxide in cypress itself.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.187-191
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• 2003

In this study, biomonitoring methods were developed to measure BTEXs exposure level in the air, metabolites of benzene and toluene in human urine, individual susceptibility markers in human blood for evaluation of the health effects about environmental pollution. We have also performed a small-scaled molecular epidemiology study on residents in Chuncheon and workers in workplace for these method applications. The workers in workplace were surveyed as study areas, and the residents in Chuncheon which is in the suburban area were surveyed as comparative areas in this study. Actually, 31 workers in as target group and 33 residences in as control group this epidemiological study. The results obtained from this study were as follows: 1. Benzene is a well-known carcinogen, it's median concentrations were 0.00024∼0.02057ppm at suburban area and 0.002∼00.654ppm at work place, These benzene concentrations were not exceed the OSHA(Occupational Safety and Health Administration) threshold benzene level of 1ppm in the states. 2. Metabolites product of benzene(t,t-Muconic Acid) and toluene(Hippuric Acid) were not significant both in suburban and workplace area. The median concentration of t,t-MA and HA were 0.0122, 1.44277g/g creatinine, respectively. 3. In the case of individual susceptibility markers as CYPlAl, 41.8% of them has homozygous wild type(W) and who has heterozygous variant type(H) was 35.4% and 22.8% of homozygous variant type(M) genetic type. In the case of CYP2E1, 62.82% of them has homozygous wild type(D) type, 34.62% of each has heterozygous variant type (DC) and 2.56% of them has homozygous variant type (CC). Who doesn't have GSTM1 gene was 46.25% and who has GSTM1 gene was 53.75％. Who doesn't have GSTT1 gene was 40.0％ in study groups and who has GSTT1 gene was 60.0%. Who has W genetic type, which is homozygous wild type of GSTP1, was 69.18% and H genetic type, which is heterozygous variant type was 28.4%. M genetic type which is homozygous variant type was 2.4%. 4. Concentration differences of metabolites such as t,t-MA and HA in urine, which is generated by individual susceptibility marker of GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTP1 gene of Phase I and CYP1A1, CYP2E1 gene of Phase II, was examined. As a result, GSTP1 and GSTM1 indicate slight differences depend on the amount of metabolites in urine, it was not statistically significant.