• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.141-147
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• 2022

Background: On the basis of its role for the development of occupational health research, information, good practices, the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) launched the present survey to collect information on public health and prevention policies put in place by the governments of the countries in the world to contain the pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted through an online questionnaire focused on COVID-19 data, public health policies, prevention measures, support measures for economy, work, and education, personal protective equipment, intensive care units, contact tracing, return to work, and the role of ICOH against COVID-19. The questionnaire was administered to 113 ICOH National Secretaries and senior OSH experts. Collected data refer to the period ranging from the beginning of the pandemic in each country to June 30, 2020. Results: A total of 73 questionnaires from 73 countries around the world were considered valid, with a 64.6% response rate. Most of the respondents (71.2%) reported that the state of emergency was declared in their country, and 86.1% reported lockdown measures. Most of the respondents (66.7%) affirmed that the use of face masks was compulsory in their country. As for containment measures, 97.2% indicated that mass gatherings (meetings) were limited. Regarding workplace closing, the most affected sector was entertainment (90.1%). Conclusion: The results of this survey are useful to gain a global view on COVID-19 policy responses at country level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.56-61
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• 2022

In this study, a systematic survey was employed to investigate managers' awareness on the safety culture project in small- to medium-sized industries. The existing regulatory and technology-oriented disaster prevention strategy has been implemented to reduce industrial accidents within a short timeframe, but it is essential to reduce fundamental accidents as well by improving the organizational safety culture or software elements, such as safety awareness. Questionnaires and interviews were conducted to examine the managers' awareness about safety culture, consisting of 17 questions related to safety consulting and with the participation of 191 executives and safety managers. The results showed a significant difference in the self-pay rate of safety consulting depending on the size of the workplace under evaluation. Based on the results, the safety-consulting business focused on providing differentiated consulting support and realistic improvement plans according to the workplace size. The study concluded that it is possible to reduce fundamental human errors and improve organizations' safety awareness or safety culture by employing safety consulting differentiated by workplace size.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.835-843
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• 2022

Deinococcus radiodurans is an extremophilic bacterium that can thrive in harsh environments. This property can be attributed to its unique metabolites that possess strong antioxidants and other pharmacological properties. To determine the potential of D. radiodurans R1 lysate (DeinoLys) as a pharmacological candidate for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), we investigated the antiinflammatory activity of DeinoLys in bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) and a colitis mice model. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated BMDCs treated with DeinoLys exhibited alterations in their phenotypic and functional properties by changing into tolerogenic DCs, including strongly inhibited proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-12p70) and surface molecule expression and activated DC-induced T cell proliferation/activation with high IL-10 production. These phenotypic and functional changes in BMDCs induced by DeinoLys in the presence of LPS were abrogated by IL-10 neutralization. Furthermore, oral administration of DeinoLys significantly reduced clinical symptoms against dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis, including body weight loss, disease activity index, histological severity in colon tissue, and lower myeloperoxidase level in mice. Our results establish DeinoLys as a potential anti-inflammatory candidate for IBD therapy.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.294-301
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• 2022

Background: In the early stage of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, small- and midsized enterprises (SMEs) may be an important transmission consideration. The study aimed to identify the pattern of COVID-19 prevention measures during the outbreaks in Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do at the early stage of COVID-19. Moreover, we investigated whether SME size and past experiences affected the preventive measures implemented in the region. Methods: A survey detailing the general characteristics and implementation of 12 preventive activities was conducted in 122 SMEs in Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do. The survey was analyzed by size and operation period. Results: The study subjects consisted of 53 (43.4%) workplaces with 1-5 employees, 50 (40.9%) workplaces with 6-30 employees, and 19 (15.6%) workplaces with 31-49 employees. The lowest three items among those surveyed were 'symptomatic workers to stay home for 3-4 days' (17.2%), 'work remotely' (18.9%), and 'video meetings' (20.5%). There were significant differences in the rate of several preventive measures implemented. The larger sized SMEs, the higher the number of implementations (p < 0.01). The operation period had no significant relationship with the implementation of preventive measures. The same pattern was observed in multiple generalized linear regression with covariate adjustment. Conclusion: Preventive measures among SMEs with fewer than 50 employees were identified. Even within SMEs, a gap in preventive measures according to size was confirmed. To prevent the spread of infection and protect workers' right to health, different support for different sized SMEs is necessary.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2022

Objectives: This study aims to develop a community care model in traditional Korean medicine (TKM) by developing a community care participation model for the health of the elderly and deriving tasks to implement it. Methods: This study implemented a group interview with experts. A fact-finding survey was conducted targeting 16 local governments that are implementing a leading project to identify the status of TKM service provision and welfare service linkage in all regions. An expert group interview (FGI) targeted public and private sector experts for each job role, the former represented by those in charge of the central government's health care policy and administrative delivery system, and the latter by professors majoring in social welfare, professors majoring in health, and local TKM societies. After forming the expert groups, three expert group interviews were conducted. Results: Through collective interviews with experts, a model for providing TKM and welfare services in community integrated care was derived by dividing it into local and central government levels. The strategies and tasks for promoting TKM-oriented health welfare services were derived from 3 strategies, 8 tasks, and 20 detailed tasks. Conclusion: The core direction of the TKM health care model is the region-centered provision of TKM and welfare services. To this end, policy support for the use and linkage of health care service resources is required at the central government level, and linkage and provision of health welfare services centered on TKM are necessary through linkage and convergence between service subjects and between government health care projects.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.291-298
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• 2022

This study is a descriptive study to investigate the association between current smoking, high-risk alcohol drinking and depressive symptoms among female college students. The participants were 515 female college students, and data collection was conducted through online and mobile surveys from September 2020 to August 2021. Multivariable ordinal logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between current smoking, high-risk drinking and depressive symptoms, and as a result, current smoking was significantly associated with depressive symptoms (OR= 2.524, 95% CI=1.051-6.061). Therefore, in order to improve the depressive symptoms of female college students, adequate support such as reducing the smoking rate through active smoking cessation education and preparing various on-campus programs should be provided.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.159-165
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• 2022

Rare earth elements, which are important components of motors, are in high demand and thus constantly get more expensive. This tendency is driven by the growth of the electric vehicle market, as well as environmental issues associated with rare-earth metal manufacturing. TC 298 of the ISO manages standardization in the areas of rare-earth recycling, measurement, and sustainability. Korea, a resource-poor country, is working on international standardization projects that focus on recycling and encouraging the domestic adoption of international standards. ITU-T has previously issued recommendations regarding the recycling of rare-earth metals from e-waste. ISO TC 298 expands on the previous recommendations and standards for promoting the recycling industry. Recycling-related rare earth standards and drafts covered by ISO TC 298, as well as Korea's strategies, are reviewed and discussed in this article.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.523-529
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• 2022

This study looked at how children's mental health is affected by Domestic violence and school violence at home and school after Covid-19, as well as how these victim experiences relate to children's mental health. This study surveyed 650 students from 14 middle schools in Wanju, Korea. The moderating effect of smartphone overdependence in the experience of violence and mental health was investigated. Major research findings: First, children's exposure to domestic violence and school violence has a significant impact on smartphone dependence. Second, children's exposure to domestic and school violence has a significant impact on their mental health. Third, it has been demonstrated that smartphone dependence is statistically significant in the relationship between domestic and school violence. Based on these findings, we present a convergent intervention and practice strategy for children in the Covid-19 era to cope with mental health problems and expand the support system.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.733-739
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• 2022

A survey was conducted on safety and health managers to analyze what change have occurred in the safety health management system of companies since the enforcement of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. As a result, it was confirmed that most of the safety and health budgets increased, and most of the safety and health organization operations and safety and health tasks were strengthened. However, further research is needed to see if this has a practical effect on worker safety and reduction of serious accidents, and realistic measures are needed to allow safety and health managers to focus on practical helpful tasks rather than formal ones. In addition, it was confirmed that active support from business owners or management managers and strengthening education on the Serious Accidents Punishment Act were needed through cross-analysis between the education of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and positive change in safety and health.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.741-747
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• 2022

Fatigue lowers an individual's ability and makes it difficult to perform work. As fatigue accumulates, concentration decreases and thus the possibility of causing a safety accident increases. Awareness of fatigue is subjective, but it is necessary to quantitatively measure the level of fatigue in the actual field. In previous studies, it was proposed to measure the level of fatigue by expert judgment by adding objective indicators such as bio-signal analysis to subjective evaluations such as multidisciplinary fatigue scales. However this method is difficult to evaluate fatigue in real time in daily life. This paper is a study on the fatigue classification model that determines the fatigue level of workers in real time using speech data recorded in the field. Machine learning models such as logistic classification, support vector machine, and random forest are trained using speech data collected in the field. The performance evaluation showed good performance with accuracy of 0.677 to 0.758, of which logistic classification showed the best performance. From the experimental results, it can be seen that it is possible to classify the fatigue level using speech signals.