• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.27-35
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• 2015

Objectives: To investigate safety and health management, conditions in factories or facilities handling radiation-generating devices and radioactive isotopes were reviewed in terms of regulations of radiation safety control in Korea. Radiation exposure levels generated at those facilities were directly measured and evaluated for establishing an effective safety and health management plan. Methods: Government organizations with laws and systems of radiation safety and health were investigated and compared. There are three laws governing radiation-related employment such as occupational safety and health acts, nuclear safety acts, and medical service acts. We inspected 12 workplaces as research objects:four workplaces that manufacture and assemble semiconductor devices, three non-destructive inspection workplaces that perform inspections on radiation penetration, and five workplaces in textile and tire manufacturing. Monitoring of radiation exposure was performed through two methods. Spatial and surface monitoring using real-time radiation instruments was performed on each site handling radiation generating devices and radioactive isotopes in order to identify radiation leakage. Results: According to the occupational safety and health act, there is no legal obligation to measure ionizing radiation and set dose limits. This can cause confusion in the application of the laws, because the scopes and contents are different from each other. Surface dose rates in radiation generating devices such as implanters, thickness gages and accelerators, which were registered according to nuclear safety acts, using surveymeters, and seven of 36 facilities(19.4%) exceeded the international standards for surface radiation dose of $10{\mu}Sv/hr$. Conclusions: The results showed that occupational health and safety acts require a separate provision for measuring and assessing the radiation exposure of workers performing radiation work. Like noise, ionizing radiation will also periodically be controlled by including it in the object factors of work-environment measurement.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.445-451
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• 2021

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the self-administered questionnaire for Korean radiation workers. Methods: From May 24, 2016, to June 30, 2017, 20,608 participants completed the questionnaire, providing information on sociodemographics, lifestyle, work history and practices, medical radiation exposure, and medical history, which was linked to the National Dose Registry and the National Cancer Registry. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated using the responses of 20,608 workers, and reliability was evaluated using the responses of 3043 workers who responded to the survey twice. Results: Responses concerning demographic characteristics and lifestyle showed reliability with a moderate-to-high agreement (kappa: 0.43-0.99), whereas responses concerning occupation and medical radiation exposure had a wide range of agreement (kappa: 0.05-0.95), possibly owing to temporal variability during employment. Regarding validity, responses to the question about the first year of employment had an excellent agreement with the national registry (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.9); however, responses on cancer history had a wide range of agreement (kappa: 0.22-0.85). Conclusion: Although the reliability and validity of the questionnaire were not distinguished by demographic characteristics, they tended to be low among participants whose occupational radiation exposure was minimal. Overall, the information collected can be reliable for epidemiological studies; however, caution must be exercised when using information such as medical exposure and work practices, which are prone to temporal variability.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.26-30
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• 1998

We tried to study in order to furnish the data for medical exposure dose and scattered ray in radiography. As the tables(from 1 to 3) show, we can presume, by means of a concrete numerical value, the amount of results affected by patient radiation exposure dose and somatic effect in radiography. However, there are many difficulties in the difference of exposure factor in each hospital, the accuracy of measuring by tracebility, shortage of exposure dose data especially in the area of children, and portable radiography, etc. In the radiation examination, it is considered if the gained benefit to the patient due to radiation is more than the risk of radiation, then the medical exposure is thought to be justified. Therefore, the radiotechnologists should continually make an effort to develop and study new techniques so as to reduce patient exposure dose.

• 대한방사선방어학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.208-209
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• 2009

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.419-426
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• 2016

The research is done to analyze the change of personal dosimeter according to the elapsed times(24 hours, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks) and magnetic field and find out the effective exposure treatment for radiation workers. At first, research the heat treatment and radiation of grouped TLD and keep them in different environments-exposed separately to observe the consequences of glow curve and the level of radiation exposure. As a result, we could find that 24 hours passing TLD group showed the difference in glow curve and the level of radiation. This can be considered as the change caused by magnetic exposure. Also the average radiation exposure level of TLD group, unexposed to the magnetic field, was 15.41 mSv. And the average radiation exposure level of TLD group, exposed to the magnetic field, was 14.83 mSv which decreased the biggest amount(3.80%) among the other groups. If a radiation worker, who works in PET-MRI room, uses TLD as a personal dosimeter, the level of real radiation exposure caused by exposure to the magnetic field won't change significantly as recorded at a regular record cycle but with not regular record but interim record, the lower exposure dose will be appeared than the real level of radiation.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.177-188
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify factors influencing endoscopy nurses' protective behavior against radiation exposure. Methods: Data were collected using self-report questionnaires from 122 endoscopy nurses in 21 hospitals located in Seoul, Gyeonggi province and six metropolitan cities in Korea. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 program and included multiple regression analysis. Results: 1) There were significant relationships between protective behavior and protective environment (r=.74, p<.001), number of education sessions on radiation protection (r=.32, p<.001), number of protective devices (r=.28, p=.002), number of fellow nurses (r=.27, p=.003), and protective attitude (r=.18, p=.048). 2) Protective environment (${\beta}=0.79$, p<.001), type of hospital foundation (${\beta}=0.18$, p=.011) and marital status (${\beta}=-0.13$, p=.040) significantly predicted endoscopy nurses' protective behavior against radiation exposure (adjusted R square=.58, p<.001). The most powerful predictor for protective behavior against radiation exposure was a protective environment. Conclusion: Effective protective behavior of endoscopy nurses from radiation exposure requires improvement in their protective environment. Hospital administrators and managers should make efforts to increase protective facilities in endoscopy departments and provide endoscopy nurses with regular education on radiation protection.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.193-198
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• 2015

This study analyzed the total number of 19,636 patients and radiation technologists, 11,433 of male and 8,203 of female by examined body parts, age, types of detectors, the using contrast enhancement and working condition of the technologists, regular staffs or rotation-duty staffs, based on the K-DOS program distributed by FDA with the DLP value of diagnostic evaluation. The result shows that the effective radiation dose was 0.7mSv~41.7mSv for each region and male patients had more radiation exposure than females. And the amount of exposure was also affected by the types and the method of detectors. Furthermore, the regular staffs took the role of helping the patient to get reduced amount of radiation exposure than rotation duty-staffs. Computed tomography (CT) use has increased dramatically over the past several decades. In this reason, to support the patients and the workers' health in the field, the hospitals should apply specialized regular working radiation technologist system and manufacturing companies of those CTs should develop low medical radiation exposure devices.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.37-50
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• 1987

The exposure of the population in the United States to ionizing radiation has recently been evaluated by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP). This was done by constituting six organizational groups to address various phases of the work and the results of this work are summarized in this article. The article is based on the report, by the same title, which is scheduled for publication by the NCRP in September, 1987. The six organizational groups are titled Radiation Exposure from Consumer Products, Natural Background Radiation, Radiation Associated with Medical Examinations, Radiation Received by Radiation Employees, Public Exposure from Nuclear Power, and Exposure from Miscellaneous Environmental Sources. These titles are descriptive of the subject areas covered by each of these separate groups. The data evaluated are for the years 1977-1984 with the majority of the data being for the period 1980-1982. Summary information is presented and discussed for the number of people exposed to given sources, the effective dose equivalent, the average effective dose equivalent to the U.S. population, and the genetically significant dose equivalent. The average annual effective dose equivalent from all sources to the U.S. population is approximately 3.6 mSv (360 mrem). Exposures to natural sources make the largest contribution to this total. Radon and radon decay products contribute 2.0 mSv (200 mrem) whereas the other naturally occurring radionuclides contribute 1.0 mSv (100 mrem). Among man-made or enhanced sources, medical exposures make the largest additional contributions, namely 0.39 mSv (39 mrem) for diagnosis and 0.14 mSv (14 mrem) for nuclear medicine. It was not possible to evaluate exposures for therapy. Most of the other sources of population exposure, including nuclear power and consumer products, are minor. A possible exception would be the use of tobacco products. These exposures are discussed in relation to a negligible individual risk level of $10{\mu}Sv/y$ (1 mrem/y). The NCRP considers exposures below the negligible individual risk level as trivial and as such should be dismissed.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2010

Embodying the safety of radioactive waste disposal requires the relevant safety criteria and the corresponding stylized methods to demonstrate its compliance with the criteria. This paper proposes a conceptual model of risk-based safety evaluation for integrating complex potential radiation exposure situations in radioactive waste disposal. For demonstrating compliance with a risk constraint, the approach deals with important exposure scenarios from the viewpoint of the receptor to estimate the resulting risk. For respective exposure situations, it considers the occurrence probabilities of the relevant exposure scenarios as their probability of giving rise to doses to estimate the total risk to a representative person by aggregating the respective risks. In this model, an exposure scenario is simply constructed with three components:radionuclide release, radionuclide migration and environment contamination, and interaction between the contaminated media and the receptor. A set of exposure scenarios and the representative person are established from reasonable combinations of the components, based on a balance of their occurrence probabilities and the consequences. In addition, the probability of an exposure scenario is estimated on the assumption that the initiating external factors influence release mechanisms and transport pathways, and its effect on the interaction between the environment and the receptor may be covered in terms of the representative person. This integrated approach enables a systematic risk assessment for complex exposure situations of radioactive waste disposal and facilitates the evaluation of compliance with risk constraints.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.409-415
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• 2023

Although pediatric X-ray examinations are continuously increasing, there are not many studies on the radiation exposure to children and X-ray examination assistants according to X-ray Exposure conditions. Accordingly, we measured the radiation exposure dose of pediatric and X-ray examination assistants according to the standard guidelines and clinical average X-ray Exposure conditions when X-ray examination 10-year-old children. The effective dose and organ dose to pediatric were measured using an Dose area production meter and Monte Carlo-based PCXMC program, and the exposure dose of X-ray examination assistants was measured using an ion-chamber. When performing abdominal supine AP projection, the effective dose to children was up to 2.38 times higher under clinical average X-ray Exposure conditions than the standard guidelines. In addition, during abdominal supine AP projection, the radiation exposure dose to the X-ray examination assistants was highest on the hands at 0.0148 ~ 0.0709 mSv, and exposure dose could be reduced by up to 35% when wearing protective gloves. In conclusion, because the X-ray Exposure conditions used in clinical are unnecessarily high, unnecessary medical radiation exposure could be reduced if appropriate X-ray Exposure conditions and the radiation field area were minimized and the assistant wore shielding gloves.