• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.201-206
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• 2023

Background: Despite workplaces having policies on fire evacuation, many employees still fail to evacuate when there is a fire alarm. The Reasoned Action Approach is designed to reveal the beliefs underlying people's behavioral decisions and thus suggests causal determinants to be addressed with interventions designed to facilitate behavior. This study is a uses a Reasoned Action Approach salient belief elicitation to identify university employees' perceived advantages/disadvantages, approvers/disapprovers, and facilitators/barriers toward them leaving the office building immediately the next time they hear a fire alarm at work. Methods: Employees at a large public United States Midwestern university completed an online cross-sectional survey. A descriptive analysis of the demographic and background variables was completed, and a six-step inductive content analysis of the open-ended responses was conducted to identify beliefs about leaving during a fire alarm. Results: Regarding consequence, participants perceived that immediately leaving during a fire alarm at work had more disadvantages than advantages, such as low risk perception. Regarding referents, supervisors and coworkers were significant approvers with intention to leave immediately. None of the perceived advantages were significant with intention. Participants listed access and risk perception as significant circumstances with the intention to evacuate immediately. Conclusion: Norms and risk perceptions are key determinants that may influence employees to evacuate immediately during a fire alarm at work. Normative-based and attitude-based interventions may prove effective in increasing the fire safety practices of employees.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.720-726
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• 2007

This study was performed to investigate effects of raw sea tangle products on idiopathic constipation. A total of thirty-eight women participated voluntarily in this study. They were placed into one of four groups by their total colonic transit time (TCTT) to make the four groups have the same TCTT. In the first trial, the subjects in Control group were fed 3 times of 150 mL of mineral water per day for 2 weeks, those in +Control group were fed a kind of stool softener as well as the same mineral water for 3 times, those in STT group were fed 3 times of 150 mL of sea tangle tea and those in STB group were fed 3 times of 150 mL of sea tangle beverage. After 6 weeks, a second trial was performed for another 2 weeks. Although the TCTT of the group exposed to of KolomarkTM was not significantly reduced, the subjects in STT group answered that their evacuation activities were significantly improved; evacuation frequency was increased, stool hardness was reduced, evacuation straining was lessened, stool amount was increased, incomplete sense of evacuation was lessened, and major evacuation time was improved like those in +Control group. The results imply that it is worthy to develop some products of raw sea tangle such as STT, which are effective in treating or preventing constipation.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.34-41
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• 2011

This research examines problem that can happen in partial smoke control method among contiguity area smoke control system through engineering examination and CFD. And the ultimate purpose of this is to secure safety of a person inhabiting at fire department by presenting improvement plan. Now a days, in large space-area such as department store or mega-mall in which mainly applies "Partial Smoke Control Method", air is suppled from adjacent area and smoke is exhausted in fire room. For various reason, however, it is confirmed through simulation that if air is suppled in one direction, this can cause a fatal result to people of fire area because of the difficulty in securing the evacuation time. As an improvement plan, air is supplied at the same time in surroundings to fire department.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.621-626
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• 2003

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of 40% sucrose replacement with oligosaccharides (fructo- orisomalto-) in sponge cakes. The 18 female college students were divided into two groups; fructooligosaccharide sponge cake group (FOS) and isomaltooligosaccharide sponge cake group (IMOS). In each group, the subjects received 50 g/d of sponge cake which contained about 8 g oligosaccharides for 2 weeks. The results were as follows: (1) Frequency of stool evacuation tended to increase after 1 week and significantly increased after 2 weeks in both groups. (2) Shape and color of stool did not change in FOS group but the IMOS group showed significant improvement. (3) The stool amounts per defecation were not significantly different in both groups. (4) The time of defecation decreased 50% after 1 week in FOS group and tended to decrease gradually in IMOS group. (5) Consistency of stool was significantly decreased after 1 week in both groups and continuously decreased until 2 weeks. (6) Effort for evacuation and comfort feeling after evacuation were significantly improved only in IMOS group after 2 weeks. (7) Gastrointestinal complaints concerning diarrhea, abdominal pains, nausea, flatulence, loss of appetite and weight and bloating were apparent. The symptoms such as abdominal pains, flatulence, and bloating in FOS group lasted for 2 weeks. However, the complaints appeared only during two or three days in IMOS group. In conclusion, our results suggest that isomaltooligosaccharide was more effective than fructooligosaccharide for preventing constipation because isomaltooligosaccharide worked safely in gastrointestinal lumen.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.28-41
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• 2011

Regulation of Escape and fire-prevention of Building of South Korea were enacted as a part of building codes in 1962. Since it was enacted, the law has gone through many changes. In this study, evaluated the fire safety of the law about the case of a hotel that the fire risk are expected to be higher whenever it was changed. As a result, the current law has gotten better in tire safety since it was enacted. However, especially it could be confirmed that the evacuation safety is insufficient in the lower level of hotel building. In the case of accommodation, because the occupants become aware of fire lately, they have not enough time to escape. Therefore, this study suggests that it is needed to come up with an effective counterplan about the interior finish materials, fire door and fire compartments that the smoke layer descending time is longer.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.20 no.2 s.62
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• pp.21-30
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• 2006

Since Daegu subway arson fire disaster in 2003, there have been several copycat crimes such as at Seoul Metro line number seven and Hongkong Chuiwan line cases. Oil and gas were used for fire propagation in most cases as in Daegu case and such fire could be expanded to a whole subway cabin within several minutes. The fire may eventually cause the whole subway system stop. Fire damage can be minimized when fire occurrence and diffusion are blocked by stages or isolated rapidly. This study suggests an effective early response system that separates passengers from fire and a real-time fire extinguishment program by stages. Based on the subway arson case studies, the early response scenario has been structured by three stages, i.e., confirmation of fire and damage, early fire extinguishment, and information dissemination and passengers evacuation.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.467-488
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• 2023

Seismic retrofit of an existing steel-reinforced concrete hospital building that features innovative use of a continuous energy-dissipative steel column (CEDC) system is presented in this paper. The special system has been adopted to provide an efficient solution taking into account the difficulties of applying traditional intervention techniques to minimize the impact on architectural functionality and avoid the loss of building function and evacuation during the retrofit implementation. The lateral stiffness and strength of the CEDC system were defined based on the geometric and mechanical properties of the steel strip dampers. The hysteretic behavior under cyclic loadings was defined using a simplified numerical model. Its effectiveness was validated by comparing the results of full-scale experimental data available from the literature. All the main design considerations of the retrofitting plan are described in detail. The effectiveness of the proposed retrofitting system was demonstrated by nonlinear time-history analyses under different sets of earthquake-strong ground motions. The analysis results show that the CEDC system is effective in controlling the deformation pattern and significantly reducing damage to the existing structure during major earthquakes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.197-208
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• 2007

Enormously sized buildings are appearing world-wide with the advancement of construction techniques. Large-scaled and complicated structures will have increased difficulties for dealing with safety, and will demand well-matched safety measures. This research introduced up-to-date techniques and systems which are applied in buildings in foreign nations. Furthermore, it proposed s direct guidance plan for buildings in case of fire. Since it is possible to install wireless sensor networks which detect fires or effects of fire, the plan makes use of this information. Accordingly, the authors completed a direct guidance plan that was based on omnidirectional guidance lights. It is possible to select a route with concern about both time and capacity with a concept of a non-dominated path. Finally, case studies showed that quickest path algorithms were effective for guiding efficient dispersion routes and in case of restriction of certain links in preferred paths due to temperature and smoke, it was possible to avoid relevant links and to restrict demand in the network application. Consequently, the algorithms were able to maximize safety and minimize evacuation time, which were the purposes of this study.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.107-114
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• 2011

The building infrastructures such as high-rise buildings, shopping malls, exhibition centers, etc. are becoming larger in magnitude and more complex in complexity. Considering a large number of tenants and visitors are staying in these facilities, it is upper most important to keep those in safe from fire outbreak. In this paper, a u-Disaster Prevention System has been presented to provide effective fire evacuation when fire breaks out in building infrastructures. The ubiquitous sensor network (USN) technology was applied to detect heat and smoke from fire outbreak. The information then is transmitted wirelessly to a host computer. The tenants and visitors residing in the facility can evacuate following the instruction that is displayed in LED sign boards of the u-Disaster Prevention System. A case study shows that the ubiquitous environment can help people evacuate faster in time, shorter in distance with the assistance of the u-Disaster Prevention System.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.191-196
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• 2008

This study is a case study for application of the RTI warning model to Korea which was previously developed to predict landslide potential and occurrence time during a rainfall event. The rainfall triggering index (RTI) is defined as the product of the rainfall intensity I (mm/hr) and the effective accumulated rainfall $R_t$ (mm). This index is used to evaluate the landslide and debris-flow occurrence potential at time t during a rainfall event. The upper critical value ($RTI_{UC}$) of RTI and the lower critical value ($RTI_{LC}$) of RTI can be determined by historical rainfall data of a certain area. When the rainfall intensity exceeds the upper critical value, there are high potential to occur land-slides. The analysis result can predict landslide occurrence time of an area during a rainfall event as well as land-slide potential. The result can also be used as an important data to issue early-warning of landslides. In order to apply the RTI warning model to Korea this study analyzed rainfall data and landslides data in Inje county, Gangwon province, Korea from July 13 to July 19, 2006. According to the analysis result, the rainfall intensity exceeded the upper critical value 23 hours ago, 11 hours ago, and 9 hours ago from 11:00 in the morning, July 16. Therefore, landslide warnings would be issued three times for people evacuation for avoiding or reducing hurts and dam-ages from landslides in mountainous areas of Inje.