• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 2014

The purpose of the study is to develop self-management system that people can enhance physical and psychological health through repeating by themselves to relieve work-related stress. The regular respiration can help homeostasis of heart to maintain. Also the effect can be stabilized from irregular heart rhythm by work-related stress. People have optimal respiration cycle to stabilize heart rhythm and repeat training using their RSP(respiration) time including expiration and inhalation. This system is not only offering optimal respiration training service but also finding optimal respiration cycle. The adults who have stress from work participated in verification experiment. This study expects to help those people who are workers related to call center jobs in emotional labor can relieve their stress. It can also help to enhance their own health and increase their work efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.119-124
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• 2008

Many automobile assembly workers often do several cycles of tasks continuously, i.e., without breaks, to get a longer break. This is not recommended since the dose of fatigue increases exponetially with time and it takes much longer time to recover. In this study, a laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of work/rest schedules on workload of a repetitive upper-limb task. Eleven male subjects participated in the experiment, in which simulated screw driving tasks were carried out repetitively with 3 different work/rest schedules: standard breaks(1 cycle of work at a time, 60 20-s breaks), medium breaks(5 cycles of work at a time, 12 100-s breaks), and long breaks(10 cycles of work at a time, 6 200-s breaks). The result showed that medium- and long-breaks schedules significantly increased the level of perceived discomfort and %HRR as compared to the standard-break schedule. The subjects' preference was not statistically different among work/rest schedules, which might be caused from the absolutely low level of workload of the experimental tasks. From the results, it is recommended to have frequent and shorter breaks rather than infrequent and longer breaks to decrease the level of physical workload. A more expanded studies, however, should be carried out to provide more practical safety guidelines on the work practice of continuous working without breaks among automobile assembly workers.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.13-16
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• 2019

The analysis of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals facilitates the detection of various abnormal conditions of the human heart. The QRS complex is the most critical part of the ECG waveform. Further, different diseases can be identified based on the QRS complex. In this paper, a new algorithm based on the well-known Pan-Tompkins algorithm has been proposed. In the proposed scheme, the QRS complex is initially extracted by removing the background noise. Subsequently, the R-R interval and heart rate are calculated to detect whether the ECG is normal or has some abnormalities such as tachycardia and bradycardia. The accuracy of the proposed algorithm is found to be almost the same as the Pan-Tompkins algorithm and increases the R peak detection processing speed. For this work, samples are used from the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database, and the simulation is carried out using MATLAB 2016a.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.182-189
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• 2004

Objectives : The objective of this study is to compare the circadian patterns of heart rate variability assessed by 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic (ECG) recordings during day shift and night shift among the workers in the 5 days-concecutive-12-hour shift in an automobile factory in Korea. Methods : The study population consisted 300 workers, who were randomly selected among the 8700 total workers in one car factory. To analyse circadian variation, the 24-hour ECG recordings (Marquette) were measured during day shift (08:00-20:00 h) and night shift (20:00-08:00 h). Analysis was performed for all time and frequency domain measures of HRV. 233 workers completed taking 24-hour ECG recordings. Results : This study shows that the 24 hourcircadian variation mainly follows work/sleep cycle rather than day/night cycle among shift workers. This study also shows that among the night shift, the circadian variation between work and sleep cycle decreased compared to the work/sleep cycle among day shift workers. All time and frequency domain parameters (except LF/HF ratio) show significantly different between work and sleep in the day shift and night shift. Conclusion : These changes in heart rate variability circadian rhythms reflect significant reductions in cardiac parasympathetic activity with the most marked reduction in normal vagal activity among the shift workers. Especially, it suggests the circadian rhytm has blunted among the night workers. The quantification of the circadian variation in HRV can be a surrogates of workers' potential health risk, as well as suggests possible mechanisms through which the shift works compromise workers' health.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 1996

We investigated the energistics of the physiological heart model by comparing predictive indexes of the myocardial oxygen consumption (MOC), such as tension-time index (R), tension-time or force-time inteual (FTI), rate-pressure product (RPP), pressure-work index, and systolic pressure-volume area (PVA) when using the electro-hydraulic left ventricular device (LVAD). We developed the model of LVAD incorporated the closed-loop cardiovascular system with a baroreceptor which can control heart rate and time-varying elastance of left and right ventricles. On considering the benefit of the LVAD, the effects of various operation modes, especially timing of assistance, were evaluated using this coupled computer model. Overall results of the computer simulation shows that our LVAD can unload the ischemic (less contractile) heart by decreasing the MU and increasing coronary flow. Because the pump ejection at the end diastolic phase of the natural heart may increase the afterload of the left ventricle, the control scheme of our LVAD must prohibit ejecting at this time. Since the increment of coronary flow is proportional to the peak aortic pressure after ventricle contraction, the LVAD must eject immediately following the closure of the aortic valve to increase oxygen availability.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.20-34
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to establish modified physiological cost index (PCI) for predicting energy consumption by heart rate (HR) at isokinetic ergometer exercise testing. The subjects were twenty-eight healthy men in their twenties. All of them performed upper and lower extremity isokinetic ergometer exercise tests which had six loads (400, 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900 kg-m/min) and five loads (400, 500, 600, 700, and 800 kg-m/min) respectively. The exercise sessions were finished when HR was in plateau. HR and oxygen consumption were determined during the final minute. Resting heart rate and oxygen consumption were used for calculating heart rate, oxygen consumption changes and modified PCI. Regression analysis established the relationship between each variable to work load, HR and oxygen consumption. The results were as follows: 1) In the lower extremity ergometer exercise test, oxygen consumption increased continuously as work load increased, but in the upper extremity ergometer test, oxygen consumption only increased until work load was 700 kg-m/min. 2) HR increased as work load increased in both exercise tests, but in the upper extremity ergometer test, HR decreased from the 700 kg-m/min. 3) The modified PCI increased as work load mcreased until the 700 kg-m/min point in the lower extremity ergometer test and until the 500 kg-m/min point in the upper extremity ergometer test when it started to decrease in both tests. 4) In the lower extremity ergometer exercise test, regression analysis established the relation as $dVO_2$ = -.0215HR - .2141 where $dVO_2$ is given in l/min and HR in beat/min ($R^2$ = .2677, p = .000). ln the upper extremity ergometer exercise test. regression analysis established the relation as $dVO_2$ = -.0115HR + .2746 ($R^2$ = .1308, p = .000). The results of this study were similar to previous studies but were different under high work load conditions. So modified PCI should be used with only low intensity work load testing. Subjects for upper extremity ergometer exercise testing should complete a prescribed training course prior to testing, and only low intensity work load should be used for safety considerations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.174-180
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• 1999

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of carrying postures and weight of load carried one time on a worker when carrying heavy loads. Six male students participated in this study to perform a manual materials carrying task as subjects. To make comparison of work loads with physical work capacity, maximal oxygen uptake measurement tests were performed with submaximal test. The average oxygen consumption for the tasks of this study was 27.59~31.93% $VO_2$max. The results showed that the weight of load carried one time affects on working heart rate and oxygen consumption($VO_2$). It was found that the workload was significantly lower when handling a 20kg load at a frequency rate of 3times/min than when handling a 40kg load at a frequency rate of 1.5 times/min. There was no difference between carrying postures. It is concluded from the results of this study that the workload can be reduced by controlling conditions of a manual materials handling task.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.9-19
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• 2009

Repetitive movement, inadequate working posture, overuse of force, physical contact with sharp edge, vibration and temperature were well known risk factors of WMSDs (Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders). Many researchers have investigated the relationship between inadequate working postures and incidences of WMSDs of the upper extremities, whereas relatively few researchers have tried to evaluate workload associated with the lower-body postures. The effects of lower-limb postures including various knee flexion angles on the subjective discomfort, heart rate and EMG of lower-limb muscles were investigated in this study. Thirty graduate students were asked to maintain thirteen different body postures, and heart rate and EMG data of five muscle groups (electro spine, biceps femoris, vastus medialis, gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior) from each posture were collected during fifteen minutes sustaining tasks. All participants were also asked to report their discomfort ratings of body parts. Results showed that high subjective discomfort ratings and heart rates were reported at the postures of knee angles of $60^{\circ}$ and $90^{\circ}$, whereas low discomfort ratings were founded at the postures of chair heights with 20cm, 40cm, and sitting with crossed legged. The change of median frequency for each muscle group during fifteen minutes tasks was investigated for each body posture to evaluate the relationship between muscle fatigue and body posture. It was found that the trends of changes of median frequency were different based on muscle group as well as lower-limb body posture from this study.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.132-142
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to present an effective methodology that can measure heart rate, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiration rate, mental stress level, and blood pressure using mobile front camera that can be accessed most in real life. Face recognition was performed in real-time using Blaze Face to acquire facial image data, and the forehead was designated as ROI (Region Of Interest) using feature points of the eyes, nose, and mouth, and ears. Representative values for each channel of the ROI were generated and aligned on the time axis to measure vital signs. The vital signs measurement method was based on Fourier transform, and noise was removed and filtered according to the desired vital signs to increase the accuracy of the measurement. To verify the results, vital signs measured using facial image data were compared with pulse oximeter contact sensor, and TI non-contact sensor. As a result of this work, the possibility of extracting a total of six vital signs (heart rate, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, stress, and blood pressure) was confirmed through facial images.

• Korean Journal of Rural Living Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.111-117
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• 1997

In this study we tried to give a decision on propriety of working conditions, to present ideas on reducing work loads. and to grope for efficiency of agricultural works. For this we examined the actual conditions of working environment, farmer's clothes, working posture, working methods, working time, resting state, fatigue recovery methods during cultivating lettuce in the winter greenhouse. And Ive improved harmful factors that affect farmer's health by considering results of previous study and farmer's subjective sensation. And we measured, compared, and analyzed the farmer's work loads before and after improvement. The results of this study are as follows ; 1. According to examine the actual conditions of cultivating lettuce in the winter greenhouse, farmers have experienced physical and mental chronic fatigue on the basis of the hot and humid crops-centered working environment, the rough ground condition, inconsistent arrangement of working stand and sorter, heavy-weared habits. and unsuitable working posture. 2. When we improved harmful factors that affect farmer's health, conformed the positive effects on important work efficiency index such as heart rate, electromyovolume, body temperature, and microclimate inside clothing and work loads were decreased by improving the hot and humid working environment, eliminating the hillock and obstacles of working path. deliver way, arranging the working stand and sorter consistantly, decreasing the clothing weight, improving the working postures and methods as using assistant appliances, alloting the working time and sequence effectively and presenting the light gymnastic exercises and rest for fatigue restoration.