• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.66-72
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• 2024

Background: This study examines the relationship between functional disability and work ability in workers affected by low back pain (LBP) through an analysis of correlations between the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Work Ability Index (WAI). The role of personal and work factors on functional disability/work ability levels has also been studied. LBP is the most common musculoskeletal problem and a major disabling health problem worldwide. Its etiology is multifactorial. Multidisciplinary approaches may help reduce the burden of pain and disability and improve job continuity and reintegration at work. Methods: A cohort of 264 patients affected by LBP from an Italian outpatient clinic were included in a clinical diagnostic/therapeutic trial aiming at rehabilitation and return to work through an integrated investigation protocol. Data were collected during the first medical examination using anamnestic and clinical tools. The final sample is composed of 252 patients, 57.1% man, 44.0 % blue collars, 46.4% with the high school degree, 45.6% married. Results: WAI and ODI reported a negative and fair correlation (r = -0.454; p = .000). Workers with acute LBP symptoms have a higher probability of severe disability than those with chronic LBP symptoms. White collars without depressive symptoms reported higher work ability - even in chronic disability conditions-than those with depressive symptoms. Conclusion: The study found that ODI and WAI have a convergent validity and this suggests that the two tools measure capture distinctive aspects of disability related to personal, environmental, and occupational characteristics. The most important and modifiable prognostic factors found for ODI and WAI were depressive symptoms, workday absence, and intensity of back pain. The study also found a mild association between age and ODI. The study's findings highlight the importance of using a multidisciplinary approach to manage and prevent disability due to LBP.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.22 no.1 s.25
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• pp.90-101
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• 1989

Recently concerns on work stress and mental health status of industrial workers were increased. The purpose of this study was to investigate the work stress measured by PSI (psychiatric symptom index) according to socio-demographic variables. The study population was consisted with two types of group; manual and clerical workers. The major findings of this study were as follows; Mean scores of psychiatric symptom in manual workers were higher in female, youth, educated, unmarried and divorced, noisy condition, that in clerical workers was higher in aged. Mean scores of psychiatric symptom were highly affected by degree of work autonomy, self-esteem, and self-efficacy in both groups. The higher the work autonomy, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, the lower the mean scores of work stress it showed. Psychiatric symptom index was explained with the work autonomy, self-esteem, self-efficacy through multiple stepwise regression. The annual admission rates were high in highly ranked groups on each psychiatric symptom dimension.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.125-130
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• 2012

According to the Korea National Statistical Office data in 2010, the population over ages of 65 years would possess to 11.3% whole population of Korea in 2011 denoting Korea is already in the aging society. Old age is associated with inevitable time-dependent losses in physical capabilities. However the maintenance of physical capabilities is essential for continuing independence in old age. The work ability index(WAI) was constructed to reveal how well a worker is able to perform his work. This study focused on the discovery of an industrial and age-related influences on the work ability and job stress of workers in the shipbuilding, house managing, apartment construction industry. For this, the study conducted a job stress test using the Korean Occupational Stress Questionnaire Short Form, and employee performance evaluations using the Work Ability Index (WAI) of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) on 3,228 workers in the shipbuilding, house managing and apartment construction industry. SPSS 12.0 K statistics program was used for statistics analysis and significance was verified with the Kruskal-Wallis test, a corporate body of nonparametric statistical analysis. As a result, employee performance had significant differences, depending on age, an industrial and years of service. The mean WAI score of the shipbuilding industry was lower than that of the other industry. Additionally, it was found that employee work ability decreased more as job stress increased.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 1987

The purpose of this work is to establish the basic calibration data for the efficiency of grinding by investigating the Bond's Work Index employing Korean Kaolin as a reference mateial with the laboratory-scale ball mill. A small ordinary ball mill has a dimension of 133 inside diameter and 144mm long. The analysis of the experimental results in this work sets up a equivalent calibration method with the laboratory-scale ball mill to those with special mill. The theoretical expression, derived from the rate equation proposed by Miwa, is obtained to anticipitate the stable revolution number for the next grinding cycle. The proposed equation is more systematic and acurate than lshihara's empirical equation is more systematic and acurate than lshihara's empirical equation for the measurement of gindability of a ball mill.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.9-10
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• 2015

In this paper, we classified the work for electrical safety and reviewed the performance measurement methods. In addition, we developed an electrical safety indicators and index.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.102-107
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• 2022

South Korea will soon be a super-aged society, as more than 20.6% of its population will be 65 years and older by 2025. As of 2022, 17.5% of the total population in South Korea is 65 years and older, which exceeds the set threshold for an aged society, where more than 14% of the population is 65 years and older. The proportion of older subway construction workers has increased. Aging workers and their work stress negatively impact their workability. A previous study demonstrated that the stress index measured using the uBioMacpa measurement device (Macpa stress index) had a significant correlation with work stress in South Korea. The device tests vascular health and measures stress levels via Macpa signal analysis. In this study, the pulse waves of subway construction workers were measured using uBioMacpa to identify their stress levels. The stress levels were analyzed by age, years of service, job position, employment type, and work type. Herein, these statistics could not be easily represented by a normal distribution; therefore, the Kruskal-Wallis test, a nonparametric statistical method, was used for the analysis of data. The results showed that age, job position, employment type, and working type affected the Macpa stress index and the stress levels of workers increased with age. In terms of job position, technical engineers were more stressed than other workers because of their poor working environment. In terms of employment type, daily-wage workers were more stressed than other workers. In terms of working type, tunneling, waterproofing, and construction scored the highest Macpa stress indexes without any significant difference, whereas earthworks scored the lowest. Based on the analysis of Macpa stress index, safety and health management plans were proposed to reduce the stress levels of workers. Moreover, a manual for efficient stress management must be developed for subway construction workers.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.168-174
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• 2004

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.357-365
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• 2019

This study was conducted to identify correlations in clinical nurses' personality, resilience and happiness index to provide basic resources for nurses' happiness at work. Methods: From May 1 to 15, 2019, self-report questionnaires were distributed and collected from 307 of clinical nurses in 10 hospitals located in P-metropolitan city and K-province. Analyses included descriptive statistics, t-test, Analysis of Variance, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression, conducted using IBM SPSS/WIN 24.0. Mean scores were nurses' personality 3.67, resilience 3.28, and happiness index 3.28. There were significant differences on the happiness index for: clinical experience, type of work, and leisure activities and a positive correlation between personality and resilience, between personality and happiness index and between happiness index and resilience. Happiness index was influenced by clinical experience 'Less than 1-5' (${\beta}=-.41$), '${\geq}10$' ${\beta}=-.39$), 'Less than 5-10' (${\beta}=-.34$), resilience (${\beta}=.35$), personality (${\beta}=.29$), type of work '3 shifts' (${\beta}=.12$), leisure activities (${\beta}=.10$). Explanatory power of these variables was 41%. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, so it is necessary to operated the career management, work management, personality training, support for resilience promotion program and leisure activities in order to increase the happiness index of hospital nurses.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.335-346
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• 2020

Background: Nursing service is a nonroutine work with an excessive physical load and diverse tasks. This study derived representative common tasks based on the frequently occurring tasks with a high physical load in the nursing workers' daily work and developed indicators to evaluate the work risk by reflecting the characteristics of nonroutine work. Methods: Common tasks were classified through the following stages: literature review, first focus group interview (FGI) with experts, first classification of common tasks, second FGI with hospital health managers, a survey of nursing service workers, and the final classification of common tasks for each task type. To develop an objective risk index for physical load assessment, we investigated the frequency and duration of the derived common tasks via survey. Results: Nursing common tasks were categorized into six task types and 56 subtasks. To evaluate the risks of various tasks in nonroutine works, three frequencies and three working time levels were defined by examining the task frequency and working hours. Exposure time was defined to reflect the characteristics of a nonroutine job. The final risk assessment was the product of the exposure time level and job intensity level. From this, four risk action levels were derived. Conclusion: This study has the advantage of solving the problem of focusing on some tasks in evaluating the physical load. It was meaningful in that a new risk assessment index based on exposure time was proposed based on the development of an evaluation scale for frequency and time by reflecting the characteristics of nonroutine work.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.10-19
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• 2017

It is studied the effect of crystal structure of domestic High-Ca limestones using absorbent for desulfurization on the grinding characteristics and dissolution rates in wet flue gas desulfurization process of domestic coal fired power plant. It compared the crystal structure, grinding work index and dissolution rates with 4 Limestones from Jecheon-Danyang with different crystal structure, and we found that grinding work index differ in crystal size and crystal structure of limestones : The lower the value of the grinding work index is, the higher the dissolution rates of limestones. Confirmed that we have important indicators of grinding characteristics for crystal structure with CaO content of limestones.