• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.192-205
• /
• 2023

Objectives: Previous studies have evaluated the association between mercury exposure and obesity but have yielded mixed conclusions. The aim of this study was to systematically review and summarize scientific evidence regarding the association between mercury exposure and obesity in the human population. Methods: We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct for articles related to mercury exposure and obesity. Meta-analyses of the highest and lowest categories of mercury levels were evaluated using a random effects model. Begg's test was used to detect publication bias. Results: A total of 9 articles were included. The pooled random effects odds ratio (OR) for mercury exposure and obesity of all 9 studies was 1.66 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.16-2.38). This positive association was evident in adults (OR: 1.61, 95% CI: 1.02-2.54) and among studies with Asian populations (OR: 2.00, 95% CI: 1.53-2.59), but not among those with North America/African populations (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.50-1.65). Conclusions: The present meta-analysis identified a positive association between mercury exposure and obesity. These findings suggest that toxic environmental metals such as mercury may be an important risk factor for obesity along with dietary habits and lifestyles.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2022.06a
• /
• pp.744-751
• /
• 2022

Construction is among the most dangerous industries with numerous accidents occurring at job sites. Following an accident, an investigation report is issued, containing all of the specifics. Analyzing the text information in construction accident reports can help enhance our understanding of historical data and be utilized for accident prevention. However, the conventional method requires a significant amount of time and effort to read and identify crucial information. The previous studies primarily focused on analyzing related objects and causes of accidents rather than the construction activities. This study aims to extract construction activities taken by workers associated with accidents by presenting an automated framework that adopts a deep learning-based approach and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to automatically classify sentences obtained from previous construction accident reports into predefined categories, namely TRADE (i.e., a construction activity before an accident), EVENT (i.e., an accident), and CONSEQUENCE (i.e., the outcome of an accident). The classification model was developed using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) showed a robust accuracy of 88.7%, indicating that the proposed model is capable of investigating the occurrence of accidents with minimal manual involvement and sophisticated engineering. Also, this study is expected to support safety assessments and build risk management systems.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2020.12a
• /
• pp.50-59
• /
• 2020

The 21st century is witnessing a rapid growth of tall buildings in urban centers globally to create more urban space for an anticipated urban population. Tall buildings, however suffer from incessant delays and sometimes total abandonment. Consequently, this study investigated and ranked the causes of delay in tall building projects, while focusing on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Initially, 36 common delay causes investigated globally were categorized into 9 groups, and then further ranked utilizing the Relative Importance Index (RII) through a questionnaire survey. Tall building professionals in the GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar) were contacted. The respondents' categories include Consultants, Contractors, and Clients' Representatives/Facility Managers. The results reveal that the top three causes include "client's cash flow problems/delays in contractor's payment", "contractor's financial difficulties", and "poor site organization and coordination between various parties". The findings from this study could help construction professionals develop guidelines and controls for delay mitigation, as well as support them in risk-based decision making in the planning of tall building projects.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2015.10a
• /
• pp.602-603
• /
• 2015

Despite all efforts to reduce construction disaster, construction site accident rate has steadily increased in Korea since 2008. As a different approach from traditional research, there is a growing issue about design for safety concept to prevent construction disaster. The notion is that construction worker's safety need to be considered at design phase, not only at construction phase. Globally, the notion has been noted that to improve the safety of the worker and used in practice. However, in Korea, most of safety management guidelines are limited to construction phase. From recent statistics, only 1.4 percent of designer feel responsible for safety accident at construction site. In this circumstance, this research find out safety guidelines through literatures reviews and practical experience of safety management in other country which apply design for safety concept. Selected guidelines are verified by survey which is evaluated with risk, function, cost, time and aesthetic view categories. Through the survey, define guidelines which could be effectively applied in Korea. By using proposed safety guidelines for design phase, preventing construction accident and improving designer's recognition of safety issue at design phase are expected.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.96-106
• /
• 2024

This study aimed to provide the basis of treatment effects by analyzing randomized control trials (RCTs) on the use of thread embedding acupuncture (TEA) for low back pain that were published between February 2018 and July 2023. In total, 2,865 articles were retrieved from international and Korean databases. Nine of these articles were selected and evaluated based on the following categories: (1) year of publication, (2) type of disease, (3) sample size, (4) treatment interventions, (5) treatment frequency and duration, (6) insertion point and depth of thread embedding, (7) types and sizes of threads and needles, (8) evaluation indexes, (9) treatment outcomes, and (10) side effects. The risk of bias in RCTs was also assessed. This study also emphasizes the importance of further research on TEA for clinical treatment and the use of objective approaches. Furthermore, detailed method descriptions and results are important in determining the efficacy of TEA.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.383-396
• /
• 2007

The studies on efficiency of flood control reservoir has been introduced into four categories including direct flood control contribution by reservoir, flow-duration change and environmental-ecological change in downstream of dam and flood damage estimation of flood plain. In spite of all the previous approaches, the quantification of the effect of reservoir on the flood control in planning stage is quite complex due to lack of a standard for quantifying feasibility of project. In this study, we develop a methodology that can clearly and accurately quantify the flood damage reduction together with the existing flood level reduction at downstream. The proposed approach uses three appraisal standards of flood control: 'potential safety', 'relative risk' and 'absolute risk' according to the risk by stage. The developed methodology was applied to the Namhan river basin with the storm event of July, 2006. The result shows the damage reduction of 4,189 billion won was estimated. The economic benefits for the flood control effect by dam will greatly contribute to the public understanding of the importance and the effect of the flood control by dam.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.14
• /
• pp.5539-5544
• /
• 2014

Background: To evaluate the location of tumor relapse and imaging modality for detection according to the breast cancer subtype: luminal A, luminal B, HER2 positive luminal B, nonluminal HER2 positive, and triple negative. Materials and Methods: A total of 1244 patients with breast cancer with known estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), Ki-67 and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), who underwent breast surgery from 2009 to 2012 were analyzed. Patients were classified into the following categories: luminal A (n=458), luminal B (n=241), HER2 positive luminal B (n=227), nonluminal HER2 positive (n=145) and triple negative (n=173). A total of 105 cases of relapse were detected in 102 patients: locoregional recurrence (n=46), recurrence in the contralateral breast (n=28) and distant metastasis (n=31). Comparison of proportions was used to determine the difference between subtypes. Results: Relapse rates by subtypes are as follows: luminal A 23 of 458 (5.02%), luminal B 19 of 241(7.88%), HER2 positive luminal B 15 of 227 (6.61%), nonluminal HER2 postive 19 of 145 (13.10%) and triple negative 29 of 173(16.76%). Luminal A tumors had the lowest rate of recurrence and had significantly lower recurrence rate in comparison with nonluminal HER2 postive (p=0.0017) and triple negative subtypes (p<0.0001). Compared with all other subtypes except nonluminal HER2 positive, triple negative tumors had the highest rate of tumor recurrence (p<0.01). Triple negatives were most likely to develop contralateral recurrence against all subtypes (p<0.05). Detection rate of locoregional and contralateral tumor recurrence were 28.3% on mammography (n=17/60). Conclusions: Luminal A tumors are associated with a low risk of recurrence while triple negative lesions have a high risk. In case of triple negative tumors, the contralateral breast has much more recurrence as compared with all other subtype. In terms of detection rates, breast USG was the best modality for detecting tumor recurrence, compared with other modalities (p<0.05). Subtyping of breast tumors using a molecular gene expression panel can identify patients who have increased risk of recurrence and allow prediction of locations of tumor recurrence for each subtype.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.115-123
• /
• 2013

Food safety management should be based on scientific evidences. FAO and WHO presented risk analysis as one of four principles in food safety management. WTO also admits the self safety regulation only when it is made on the basis of risk assessment. Without scientific analysis, tracing and eliminating the cause of food poisoning is impossible. Research and development plays a key role to produce scientific evidences. The Korean government ran over 40 programs in 11 agencies from 2008 to 2010. However, there is no statistics on food safety R&D at present. In this research, food safety projects conducted from 2008 to 2010 are listed up by means of analysing National Science and Technology Information Service (NTIS). The analytical criteria are the name of programs, national standard classification of science and technology, and keywords. As result, Korea Food and Drug Administration, Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Rural Development Administration play major role in the food safety R&D. The portion of more than one year projects should rise up in order to achieve the data for risk assessment, which is strongly required to improve. Besides, the research should be deeper so as to publish more SCI papers. The R&D portfolio should be changed in direction to raise up the portion of biological hazards such as norovirus. In order to do so, a large number of food safety programs should be emerged. The categories of food safety management and the hygiene/quality management of the agricultural and livestock products in the national standard classification of science and technology should be emerged because they are set up reflecting agencies' interests in spite of few differences between them.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.119-133
• /
• 2014

Prior to the 2000s, internal control had not been among the high priority issues in the management's agenda. Since then, however, it has become one of the hottest issues, and has received a significant attention as the means of improving the transparency, sustainability, and competitiveness of a company. The objectives of this paper are to examine if there has been any noticeable changes in the level of internal controls of Korean companies before and after the 2010, and to analyze the underlying drivers and issues thereto. Accounting manipulation and moral hazard were among the factors to cause the Korean financial crisis in 1997 and 2008. Since then, the capital market has had a strong pressure on Korean companies to enhance the transparency of management and accounting while the government has made the laws, requirements, and recommendations to alleviate the moral hazard problems of management and enhance the accounting transparency. Both market and government have driven companies to put more priority on the reliability of financial reporting and the compliance of applicable laws and regulations. Thereby, the market and governmental forces has led companies to enhance the level of internal controls which contribute to the reliability of financial reporting and the compliance The pressure on companies to enhance the level of internal controls may be different across industries. The capital market and government experiencing the severe financial crisis in 1997 and 2008 put even more pressure on financial companies such as banks to upgrade the reliability of financial reporting and the compliance of regulations to the global level than on non-financial companies. A survey is performed on the changes in the level of internal controls of 54 major companies consisting of 10 financial and 44 non-financial companies in Korea. The survey results show that the average level of internal controls of Korean companies has noticeably improved and that the change in the level of control environment factor is higher than that of IT control factor. The analysis on the industry differences shows that financial companies increased the level of control environment factor more than non-financial companies did while non-financial companies upgraded the level of IT control factor more than financial companies did relatively. Among internal control categories, the most improved area since the economic crisis is "Risk Assessment." The global best practices for risk management have been developed primarily in the financial industry and then spread to other industries. The general level of control practices of Korean companies has been improving significantly, but still appears below the global advanced practices.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.187-196
• /
• 2004

The health effects resulting from severe accidents of typical 1,000MWe KSNP(Korea Standard Nuclear Plant) PWR and typical 600MWe CANDU(CANada Deuterium Uranium) plants were estimated and compared. The population distribution of the site extending to 80km for both site were considered. The releaese fraction for various source term categories(STC) and core inventories were used in the estimation of the health effects risks by using the MACCS2(MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System2) code. Individuals are assumed to evacuate beyond 16km from the site. The health effects considered in this comparative study are early and cancer fatality risk, and the results are presented as CCDF(Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function) curves considering the occurrence probability of each STC's. According to the results, the early and cancer fatality risks of PHWR plants we lower than those of PWR plants. This is attributed the fact that the amount of radioactive mateials that released to the atmosphere resulting from the postulated severe accidents of PHWR plants are smaller than that of PWR plants. And, the dominating initiating event of STC that shows maximum early and cancer fatality risk is SGTR(Steam Generator Tube Rupture) for both plants. Therefore, the appropriated actions must be taken to reduce the occurrence probability and the amounts of radioactive materials released to the environment in order to protect the public for both PWR and PHWR plants.