• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.26-38
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• 2023

This study aimed to develop a visually differentiated quarantine suit design for giving 119 paramedics comfort to work and psychological stability and to awaken awareness without fear or pressure of the public through literature review and practical research. Basic research was conducted on firefighting uniforms and quarantine suits in Korea and abroad, focusing on domestic and foreign related literature. An interview survey was conducted to identify the current status, problems, and preferences of the design. Research subjects were eight dispatched paramedics and two executives in Seoul and Gwangju. The survey period was from September 15, 2022 to October 10, 2022. Interviews were conducted through phone calls. Results of this study were as follows. Most of the quarantine suits currently worn were Level D style ready-made clothes without coverall patterns. The current quarantine suit was designed without reflecting the symbolism of the National Fire Agency. They were wearing a generous size without having to think about the fit. Most of these quarantine suits were white. In addition, the quarantine suit could not be equipped with a camera for the safety of paramedics. After identifying improvements based on results of the above interview analysis, the following quarantine suit design was proposed. First, it would be differentiated from other institutions by designing suits with symbolism. Second, the convenience of size, camera equipment, and better breathability and style than Level D should be considered. Based on these results, a total of five quarantine suits were designed.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2022

Purpose: This secondary data analysis study evaluated the effects of ICT enhanced home-visit nursing in long-term care insurance on health-related quality of life among community-dwelling older adults. Methods: This study included data of 131 older adults who had experienced a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing. ICT enhanced home-visit nursing refers to a method of sharing health records and teleconference between a visiting nurse and a doctor during the home-visit nursing services to community-dwelling older adults. Health-related quality of life and influencing factors were analyzed by t-tests, logistic regression analysis using the Stata 17/SE program. Results: After a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing, their health-related quality of life increased. The teleconferencing method had a significant effect on the increase in health-related quality of life. Conclusion: The findings indicate a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing can be applied to the domestic community-based healthcare service model in terms of health management. In the future, the advanced service model of a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing in which subjects conduct detailed for each health problem, and a well-designed evaluation system should be developed.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.234-242
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• 2022

Objectives: This study assessed the validity and reliability of the Health-related Quality of Life Instrument with 8 Items (HINT-8) in patients with diabetes. HINT-8 is a newly-developed, generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument. Methods: Three HRQoL instruments-HINT-8, EuroQoL 5-Dimension 5-Level (EQ-5D-5L), and Short Form Health Survey version 2.0 (SF-36v2)-were provided to 300 patients with diabetes visiting a tertiary hospital for follow-up visits in Korea. The HRQoL scores obtained using the HINT-8 were evaluated for subgroups with known differences based on demographics and diabetes-related characteristics (known-group validity). The mean scores of the instruments were compared between groups segmented by their responses to the HINT-8 (discriminatory ability). Correlation coefficients of the HINT-8 with other instruments were calculated (convergent and divergent validity). The Cohen kappa and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) were also evaluated (test-retest reliability). Results: The average HINT-8 indexes were lower among women, older, and less-educated subjects. Subjects who did not list any problems on the HINT-8 had significantly higher HRQoL scores than those who did. The correlation coefficients of the HINT-8 with the EQ-5D-5L index and EuroQoL visual analogue scale were 0.715 (p<0.001) and 0.517 (p<0.001), respectively. The correlation coefficients between the HINT-8 index and the scores of 8 domains of the SF-36v2 ranged from 0.478 (p<0.001) to 0.669 (p<0.001). The Cohen kappa values for the HINT-8 ranged from 0.268 to 0.601, and the ICC of the HINT-8 index was 0.800 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.720 to 0.860). Conclusions: This study showed that the HINT-8 is a valid and reliable HRQoL instrument for patients with diabetes.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.379-386
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• 2022

Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel are at high risk for adverse mental health outcomes during disease outbreaks. To support the development of evidence-informed mitigation strategies, we conducted a scoping review to identify the extent of research pertaining to EMS personnel's mental health during disease outbreaks and summarized key factors associated with mental health outcomes. We systematically searched three databases for articles containing keywords within three concepts: EMS personnel, disease outbreaks, and mental health. We screened and retained original peer-reviewed articles that discussed, in English, EMS personnel's mental health during disease outbreaks. Where inferential statistics were reported, the associations between individual and work-related factors and mental health outcomes were synthesized. Twenty-five articles were eligible for data extraction. Our findings suggest that many of the contributing factors for adverse mental health outcomes are related to inadequacies in fulfilling EMS personnel's basic safety and informational needs. In preparation for future disease outbreaks, resources should be prioritized toward ensuring adequate provisions of personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control training. This scoping review serves as a launching pad for further research and intervention development.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.387-393
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• 2022

Background: Problem drinking is a perennial concern in the US fire service. A large literature has documented the importance of addressing alcohol norms in intervention research. The purpose of this study was to explore alcohol norms in a national cohort of firefighters (FFs) to inform intervention development in this occupational group. Methods: Data were from a national online survey of career and volunteer FFs (N = 674). Participants were recruited through national fire service listservs and a database of FFs who had agreed to be contacted for research. Results: When asked about "acceptable" levels of alcohol consumption, FFs on average suggested levels which exceeded public health guidelines. Further, approximately half of career and volunteer FFs believed that, at least under some circumstances, drinking until intoxicated was normative. When asked how long should elapse between a FFs last drink and reporting for duty, the average suggested lag was 11.2 hours (sd = 4.6). However, among male volunteer FFs who reported heavy drinking, the average was 6.68 hours (sd = 4.77). Conclusions: Given the high prevalence of heavy and binge drinking in the fire service, it is not surprising that the alcohol norms found in this study were consistent with a culture of drinking. Participants' reports of alcohol use among their peers were consistent with the actual prevalence of problem drinking. Thus, education and prevention efforts in this occupation should focus on changing norms about alcohol use, including linking heavy drinking to other health and safety issues they face.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.421-428
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• 2022

Background: The exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation is a significant risk factor generally underestimated by outdoor workers and employers. Several studies have pointed out that occupational solar exposure increased eye and skin diseases with a considerable impact on the lives and productivity of affected workers. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness against ultraviolet radiation of some measures recently undertaken for the protection of lifeguards in a coastal area of Tuscany. Methods: Different shading structures (gazebos and beach umbrella) were tested during a sunny summer's day on a sandy beach by means of two radiometers; the UV protection offered by some T-shirts used by lifeguards was also tested in the laboratory with a spectrophotometer. Results: The analysed shading structures strongly reduced the ultraviolet radiation by up to 90%, however a not always negligible diffuse radiation is also present in the shade, requiring further protective measures (T-shirt, sunglasses, sunscreen, etc.); the tested T-shirts showed a very good-excellent protection according to the Australian/New Zealand standard. Conclusion: Results obtained in this study suggest how the adoption and dissemination of good practices, including those tested, could be particularly effective as a primary prevention for lifeguards who are subjected to very high levels of radiation for long periods.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.154-162
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• 2023

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is caused by X-linked recessive disorderliness. It induces severe anemia when a patient with G6PD deficiency is exposed to oxidative stress that occurs with administration of an antimalarial drug, primaquine. The distribution of G6PD deficiency remains unknown while primaquine has been used for malaria treatment in Myanmar. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of G6PD deficiency and its variants in Chin State, Myanmar. Among 322 participants, 18 (11 males and 7 females) demonstrated a G6PD deficiency. Orissa variant was dominant in the molecular analysis. This would be related to neighboring Indian and Bangladeshi population, in which Orissa variant was also reported as the main mutation type. The screening test for G6PD deficiency before primaquine treatment appears to be important in Myanmar.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.32-38
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• 2023

In a chemical plant, while supplying corrosive fluid to a storage tank with a pump, an accident occurred where the corrosive fluid leaked through the upper exhaust vent because the level indicator was not accurately determined. There are various causes of leakage accidents, but we focused on the sticking of the level indicator of the level gauge, which is the direct cause. As a result of the analysis, the level indicator used in the workplace where the accident occurred was randomly replaced, and in the summer when the accident occurred, the tubular type level gauge was found to be more likely to stick than other types because thermal expansion easily occurs. In addition, there were difficulties in reviewing the proper installation because the installation standards for measuring instruments installed in storage tanks were not clear in Korea. Therefore, in this study, based on accident cases and overseas standards, we are going to find out about precautions when installing storage tank instrumentation.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.274-283
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• 2022

Korea is facing a number difficulties arising from rising housing prices. As 'housing' takes the lion's share in personal assets, many difficulties are expected to arise from fluctuating housing prices. The purpose of this study is creating housing price prediction model to prevent such risks and induce reasonable real estate purchases. This study made many attempts for understanding real estate instability and creating appropriate housing price prediction model. This study predicted and validated housing prices by using the LSTM technique - a type of Artificial Intelligence deep learning technology. LSTM is a network in which cell state and hidden state are recursively calculated in a structure which added cell state, which is conveyor belt role, to the existing RNN's hidden state. The real sale prices of apartments in autonomous districts ranging from January 2006 to December 2019 were collected through the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport's real sale price open system and basic apartment and commercial district information were collected through the Public Data Portal and the Seoul Metropolitan City Data. The collected real sale price data were scaled based on monthly average sale price and a total of 168 data were organized by preprocessing respective data based on address. In order to predict prices, the LSTM implementation process was conducted by setting training period as 29 months (April 2015 to August 2017), validation period as 13 months (September 2017 to September 2018), and test period as 13 months (December 2018 to December 2019) according to time series data set. As a result of this study for predicting 'prices', there have been the following results. Firstly, this study obtained 76 percent of prediction similarity. We tried to design a prediction model of real estate transaction price with the LSTM Model based on AI and Bigdata. The final prediction model was created by collecting time series data, which identified the fact that 76 percent model can be made. This validated that predicting rate of return through the LSTM method can gain reliability.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.453-464
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• 2023

To this day, conflicts have intensified between managers who want to preserve biosphere reserves and citizen who want to develop them. Based on this problem, this study seeks to investigate the establishment of a forum for communication between various stakeholders and to promote the economic development of local communities while preserving biodiversity. First, in terms of conservation, the results indicated that Gyeonggi Province and Namyangju City highly valued direct conservation activities in biosphere reserves, whereas Pocheon and Uijeongbu City highly valued indirect conservation functions through management or monitoring. Second, in terms of development, it was found that there were differences in the roles, perceptions and responsibilities with respect to biosphere reserves among the different layers of government: the central government agency, the Cultural Heritage Administration, the metropolitan government, Gyeonggi-do, and the local governments, Pocheon, Namyangju, and Uijeongbu. Third, in terms of logistical support, which serves as a function for communication and practical participation among management entities, the results suggested that it was necessary to establish a comprehensive decision-making organization for efficient management and operation and to provide opportunities for active participation. The study can be utilized as a basic reference for developing efficient communication by management entities in protected areas with similar challenges.