• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.322-326
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• 2017

In 1992, the quality control program was introduced in Republic of Korea to improve the reliability of the work environment monitoring, which was introduced in the 1980s. The commission entrusted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute has conducted the program for industrial hygiene laboratories including designated monitoring institutions and spontaneously participating agencies. The number of institutions that participated in the program has increased from 30 to 161. The initial conformance ratio in the participants was 43% (organic solvents) and 52% (metals). Thereafter, the conformance ratio increased rapidly and it has remained in a stable state at more than 89% since 1996. As subject materials, 13 kinds of organic solvents and 7 kinds of metals were used. To improve the capability of measurement and analysis of private institutions, educational courses were conducted annually. An assessment at the actual sites of participants was additionally introduced into the program in 2013. Thus, the program turned into a system that administrates the overall process of participants. For the future, the scope of target materials will be extended through additional items. Thus, the reliability of the results of the work environment monitoring is expected to increase accordingly.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.282-292
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• 2008

This study was conducted to evaluate work environment monitoring program(WMP) under Industrial Safety and Health Act in Korea. WMP was evaluated by focusing on five key elements, such as purpose, subject, scope, method and workers' participation. The operation status of WMP was evaluated by using questionnaire to workers and data published by Ministry of Labor(MOL). Compliance rate of WMP was less 13 % in manufacturing workplaces. Over-exposure rate was steady state by annual trend. The degree of workers' satisfaction to WMP was just 24 %. A critical problem with the current WMP is that the employer and workers are not acting as main players. For a fundamental improvement in working condition to take place, participation of workers should be expanded and be guaranteed by law.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.250-260
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• 2013

Objectives: The aim of this study is to analyze the current status of the possession of measurement and analytical instruments among work environment monitoring organizations that have been designated by the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MoEL) in Korea. Methods: Data for measurement and analytical instruments were gathered by inspectors who had been assigned by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) and MoEL during the evaluation program for designated work environment monitoring service providers in 2012. Data for 11 monitoring instruments and nine analytical instruments were collected from 108 organizations. Basic data such as the type of service provides and the size of employment were also recorded by the inspector. Results: The total number of personal air samplers including high and low flow rates operated in Korea was 5,418, with average of 50.2. Average operation number of noise dosimeters was 35.0, while 3,780 dosimeters were used in 108 work environment monitoring organizations. There were 10,488 monitoring instruments in total. All service providers possessed at least one AAS and GC in their analytical laboratory. Total number of HPLC/MS was five, followed by ICP/MS of seven, with an average of 0.07. Conclusions: Based on the data, domestic work environment monitoring service providers possessed relatively reasonable measurement and analytical instruments. Nearly all instruments had been imported from advanced countries such as USA, UK and Japan. Periodic gathering of data on these instruments may help maintain good workplace monitoring results and the health of workers at the sites.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.182-192
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• 2014

Objectives: The aim of this study is to analyze the current status of possession of measurement and analytical instruments at work environment monitoring organizations and their relationships with human resources, including the number of professional engineers and evaluation scores resulting from evaluation programs in 2012. Materials: Data for measurement and analytical instruments were gathered by inspectors who had been assigned by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency(KOSHA) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor(MoEL) during the evaluation program for 2012. Data for 11 monitoring instruments and nice pieces of analytical equipment were collected from 103 organizations. Additional data such as the type of service provides and the number of professional engineers employed were also recorded by the inspectors. Evaluation scores could be acquired from KOSHA. Results: Comprehensive Occupational Health Service Providers showed good operation quality, while University or Hospital Subsidiary and Work Environment Monitoring Organizations recorded relatively poor results. Evaluation scores correlated well with the possession of measurement instruments and human resources for each organization. High yields provided by professional engineers also showed statistically-associated contributions to evaluation scores and monitoring instrument possession. Compared with monitoring instruments, the amount of analytical equipment had little positive impact on organizations' competence. Conclusions: The evaluation results for domestic monitoring organizations revealed that human resources, possession of instruments, and the quality of employees were critical factors for operating the corporations. Each organization should give considerable effort to improving their ability to strengtheninternal quality, resulting in high-yield production for workers and employers by providing improved workplace monitoring services.

• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제22권6호
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• pp.135-143
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• 2005

The shoes process management monitoring system for supporting SCM is developed in this study. This system consists of a monitoring program, a conveyer system, a pneumatic unit, a controller, an USB camera, and a server and a client computer. To operate the developed system easily, the monitoring program using LabVIEW in the Windows environment is developed. This program consists of 5 modules: production management, inventory control, media management, defective management, and communication management. The developed system has several advantages: reduced time for managing process work, decreased labor costs, effective operation, and continuous work without an operator. Nowadays advanced manufacturing companies are trying to find a way to check the performance of their production equipments and plants from remote sites. Thus, to manage the developed system from remote sites, communication network is constructed. In order to evaluate the performance of the monitoring system, experiments were performed. The experimental results showed that the developed system provided a reliable performance and a stable communication.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.87-103
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• 1995

Since being granted permission for self-assessment of the work environment by the Department of Labor in 1992, POSCO's Industrial Hygiene Laboratory has participated in domestic and Foreign Quality Control Programs 8 times and has obtained remarkable results. It has made a lot of effort to be a proficient laboratory with the ability to observe and analyse environmental monitoring data. The summary of results is as follows: 1. POSCO's Industrial Hygiene Laboratory has received a "P(Proficient)" grade from the round 115 to round 119 of AIHA/NIOSH PAT Program for analysis of such metals as lead, cadmium, zinc, and chromium, and also has received a "P(Proficient)" grade from its round 119 of for organic solvent analysis, i,e,. Trichloroethylene(TCE), Carbon Tetr-achloride(CTC), 1,2-Dichloroethane(DCE), 1,1,1-Trichloroethane(MCM), Tetrachloroethylene (PCE), Chloroform(CFM), Benzene(BNZ), toluene(TOL), and O-xylene(OXY). 2. In the Quality Control Evaluation Program performed by the Industrial Health Research Institute,Korea Industrial Safety Corporation, POSCO has passed impressively in the3-metal analysis test for lead, cadmium, cupper, and in the 6 organic solvent analysis test for Benzene(BNZ), toluene(TOL), O-xylene(OXY), Trichloroethylene(TCE) and Methyl isobutyl keton(MIBK), n-Hexane with 2 standard deviations. These analytic techniques should be practically applied to various fields, and reliable results of environmental monitoring should be considered to improve the work environment and to keep workers from occupation related diseases.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제81권5호
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• pp.647-664
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• 2022

The powerful data mapping capability of computational deep learning methods has been recently explored in academic works to develop strategies for structural health monitoring through appropriate characterization of dynamic responses. In many cases, these studies concern laboratory prototypes and finite element models to validate the proposed methodologies. Therefore, the present work aims to investigate the capability of a deep learning algorithm called Sparse Autoencoder (SAE) specifically focused on detecting structural alterations in real-case studies. The idea is to characterize the dynamic responses via SAE models and, subsequently, to detect the onset of abnormal behavior through the Shewhart T control chart, calculated with SAE extracted features. The anomaly detection approach is exemplified using data from the Z24 bridge, a classical benchmark, and data from the continuous monitoring of the San Vittore bell-tower, Italy. In both cases, the influence of temperature is also evaluated. The proposed approach achieved good performance, detecting structural changes even under temperature variations.

• 한국공작기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국공작기계학회 2002년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.625-631
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• 2002

In the previous study, a polishing robot system was developed to automate the polishing process and to cope with the shortage of skilled workers. This polishing robot system has several advantages: reduced time for setting polishing work, decreased labor costs, effective operation, continuous polishing work without an operator, improved machine accuracy, and the ability to polish a free curved surface die. However, still the problem remains that a worker must stay to monitor the polishing process in the poor working conditions for a long time. Nowadays some advanced manufacturing companies need to find a way to check the performance of their production equipments and plants from remote sites. Thus, this study constructed the communication network and developed the monitoring programs (a servo program and a client program) to operate the polishing robot from remote sites. Using these programs, workers are able to monitor and control the polishing robot on the web page, in any place where internet service is possible. To guarantee a stable operation in spite of a variable computer operating environment, the monitoring system is implemented in Java. The experimental results showed that the developed monitoring programs provided a stable communication.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제28권5호
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• pp.78-82
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to review the labor force partitpation rate and work environment characteristics of female workers to provide basic information for establishment and implementation of effective policies related to accident prevention and workers health protection for female workers. It was analyzed employment status, work environment and injuries and illnesses based on economic activity census results, compensation of industrial injury and the second working condition survey. According to economic activity census results, female labor force participation rate has been steadily increased, whereas male labor force participation rate has been decreased since 1970. Industrial accident rate has been declined in male workers but that in female workers has been steadily increased even though male workers were higher accident rate than female workers. It was evaluated that female workers are vulnerable to industrial injuries and illnesses in the aspect of their working environment and employment status. Also, Substantial differences between female and male workers in occupational exposure patterns, occupational disease and occupational environments were observed. Therefore it was recommended that special care programs for female workers such as a specialized monitoring and management program should be introduced in the near future.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제28권1호
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• pp.108-116
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• 2018

Objectives: This study investigated to the analytical work environment, analyst's expert and status of analytical instrument in the designated organization's laboratory for measuring work environment, and carried out to ensure reliability of analytical results. Methods: This study was conducted by 114 analysts who work in designated organization's laboratory for measuring work environment. Information on the working environment and personal characteristics of the analysts were collected using a self-reported questionnaire and were analyzed using the SPSS program through analysis of frequency and t-test. Results: The speciality of subjects was occupational health(57.0%), environmental health(38.6%) and environmental engineering(4.4%), and they had a higher level of academic ability than workers in other industries. Analysts had to handle a large number of sample analysis and many tasks other than analytical work. The analysts answered that it was difficult to analyze organic substances than inorganic substances, and the difficult parts were the analytical methods setting of new substances(55.3%), instrument analysis(24.6%) and principle of analysis(23.7%). Analytical instruments mainly have legally required instruments. The difficulty of the analysis is solved from the senior analyst in the laboratory and analytical information is mainly exchanged through seminar organized by the Association of Occupational Health Analysts. The analysts who are planning to move or considering the company were 48.2%, and the reasons for moving the company were difficult to work(14.0%), low salary(9.6%), employment type(8.8%) and job stress(7.0%). Conclusions: The conclusions of our study were that it was possible to secure reliability by solving the problems such as implementing professional education to improve expertise of analysts, strengthening analytical instruments through institutional improvement and improving work environment.