• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.16-25
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• 2023

This study investigated health problems and work-relatedness for fishermen. In total, 121 fishermen (103 males and 18 females) were extracted from the data of the 6th Korean Working Conditions Survey. Two groups (Symptomatic and Asymptomatic) were statistically compared in terms of health problems and exposure to hazards. The most common health problems identified for fishermen were muscular pain in the shoulder, neck, and upper limbs (73.6%), backache (71.1%), muscular pain in the lower limbs (58.7%), overall fatigue (33.9%), headaches or eyestrain (22.3%), and anxiety (8.3%). These health problems were found to be related to the working conditions of the fishermen (low temperatures, tiring or painful postures, stance, sitting position, repetitive hand or arm placement, and the experience of stress). This study's findings may help us better understand the characteristics of the health problems and work-relatedness of fishermen and could be helpful for improving fishermen's overall health and safety.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.473-478
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• 2010

For the medical approaches of work-related musculoskeletal diseases, it is important to consider occupational relatedness and occupational fitness. Clinical approach includes physical examination, radiologic tests and other related tests and we should choose proper management which is suitable to workers' status for the prevention of early disease's progression and later disabilities. Also, it suggests that occupational prevention program consultation for work-related musculoskeletal diseases considering workers' variable circumstances should be done via occupational relatedness and occupational fitness.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.140-148
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• 2010

Objectives: Determining the work-relatedness of lung cancer developed through occupational exposures is very difficult. Aims of the present study are to develop a decision tree of occupational lung cancer. Methods: 153 cases of lung cancer surveyed by the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute (OSHRI) from 1992-2007 were included. The target variable was whether the case was approved as work-related lung cancer, and independent variables were age, sex, pack-years of smoking, histological type, type of industry, latency, working period and exposure material in the workplace. The Classification and Regression Test (CART) model was used in searching for predictors of occupational lung cancer. Results: In the CART model, the best predictor was exposure to known lung carcinogens. The second best predictor was 8.6 years or higher latency and the third best predictor was smoking history of less than 11.25 pack-years. The CART model must be used sparingly in deciding the work-relatedness of lung cancer because it is not absolute. Conclusion: We found that exposure to lung carcinogens, latency and smoking history were predictive factors of approval for occupational lung cancer. Further studies for work-relatedness of occupational disease are needed.

• Journal of the military operations research society of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.116-124
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• 2002

In just-in-time production systems, U-shaped production lines rather than traditional straight lines are often adopted since they have some advantages. The advantages of U-lines over straight lines are that the workstations required can be reduced and the necessary number of workers can be easily adjusted when the demand rates are changed. In this paper, we present a new genetic algorithm(GA) to minimize the number of workstations primarily and improve the work relatedness secondarily in the U-line production systems. Also, a new heuristic method is presented according to the work related factors and characteristics of U-line balancing. Some major aspects of the proposed GA are discussed, with emphasis on representation, decoding and evaluation function. Extensive experiments are carried out on well-known test-bed problems in the literature to verify the performance of our algorithm . The computational results show that our algorithm is a promising alternative to existing heuristics.

• 월간산업보건
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• s.131
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• pp.15-21
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• 1999

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1077-1081
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• 2010

In this work, we report the diagnostic relations among some primary pulse conditions such as the floating/sunken, deficient/forceful, large/fine, and the long/short pulses. For this purpose, we carried out a clinical test, in which 11 Oriental medical doctors had participated to diagnose the pulses for 1566 healthy subjects. The subjects were divided into 11 subgroups and each subgroup was allocated to an individual doctor. It resulted in that, for 847 subjects (54%), two or more than two pulse conditions were felt simultaneously, for which we counted the frequency of the pairs of the pulse conditions. For the statistical analysis, we used a Chi-square test. As a result, at high frequency, the forceful, large, and the long pulses were diagnosed in pairs or in their triplet, and a similar close relation was found between the deficient, fine, and the short pulses. The pairwise diagnoses of the pulse conditions between the forceful, large, and the long pulses, and between the deficient, fine, and the short pulses imply their close relatedness in clinics. This result is supported by the theory of deficiency/excess syndromes. Moreover, we show that the close relatedness among the pulse conditions can be understood in terms of the geometric features of the radial artery near the prominent bone. This is the first work which reports the relatedness between the primary pulses by an objective clinical test.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.32-41
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• 2012

Objectives: Information of chemical in electronics industry has not been known enough, although workers' health hazards by chemicals in this industry have been regarded serious. The who always contribute to reveal and control the health hazards and risks in electronics industry have not been the industry but the occupational or environmental victims and grassroot organizations. The similar phenomena can be observed in Korea. Methods: The experiences of individual workers on the occuapational safety and health in semiconductor factory were heard separately and integrated with related literatures. Results:: The first part of this article is largely based on the memories and experiences of individual workers of semiconductor factories, mainly from S semiconductor. Common features of those experiences can be a good resource for detail understanding of the workplace, especially under the situation without any transparent disclosure of information by the governments or the companies. The second part of this article deals with several factors to be considered for control of exposure in workplace; characteristics of workplace and workforce, types of chemicals used, and the way of using the chemicals. Then the current social issues on work-relatedness of cancers of S semiconductor workers are presented briefly. Conclusions: As a conclusion, current OSH situations and issues in Korean electronics industry raise the need of changes in OSH culture. General adaptation of precautionary principle, internalization of costs, and extended responsibility of producers are needed urgently. The OSH professionals both in public and private sectors should support these agendas under their social obligation to protect workers' health.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.136-138
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• 2021

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is a newly emerging infectious disease worldwide, can be categorized as an occupational disease, because employees, particularly in the healthcare system, can be infected at the workplace. As of December 15, 2020, we summarized the occupational safety and health practices in selected countries on the recognition of COVID-19 as one of the occupational risks. The situation has differed among countries, including the recognition status and whether a specific regulation existed. International organizations, namely the International Labour Organization, World Health Organization, and European Union, should plan and conduct studies on the work-relatedness of COVID-19, propose criteria for recognition, and add the infection to the occupational disease list to provide a basis for specific country regulations. Stakeholders should also act to adjust country-level legislation.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.77-97
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• 2009

This study evaluates the poverty experiences of low-income single mothers according to the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen. In this approach, the capability to achieve the basic functionings of life, not income itself, is the criterion of poverty. 26 single mothers were interviewed using focus-group interviews and in-depth interviews. 21 functionings on the existence level, 18 on the relatedness level, and 15 on the growth level were found in the areas of work, health, food consumption, clothing, housing, child rearing, and leisure. The results of this study suggest that low-income single mothers can achieve only some of the existence level functionings with significant help from welfare services. They can scarcely achieve higher level functionings in any of these areas.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.117-125
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• 2010

Cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a major cause of deaths among workers as well as in general population in Korea. Occupational stress like long working hours or overwork can cause sudden unexpected death in a worker who had been suffering from an aggravated preexisting condition such as hypertensive or arteriosclerotic diseases, The Korean government has compensated the cases of cerebrovascular disease and cardiovascular disease due to overwork, but neither a resonable definition of overwork nor detailed evaluation guideline has been officially provided to verify overwork, so that the prevention of, as well as compensation for workers' occupational stress-related cardiovascular attacks, cannot be carried out efficiently. A thorough understanding of the etiopathology of WR-CVDs can be very helpful in developing a prevention strategy.