• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.311-325
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• 2023

This study was conducted to analyze the habitat suitability of the major honey trees including Kalopanax septemlobus Koidz., Prunus spp., Tilia spp., and Styrax obassia Siebold & Zucc. indigenous to mountain Gariwang and Yumeong using the machine learning approach (i.e., MaxEnt model). The AUC values of the model predictions were mostly above 0.7, and the results of the response curves showed that the environmental drivers that had effects on the habitat suitability of the major honey trees were elevation, mean annual precipitation, and mean annual temperature. These results indicate that climatic drivers along the elevation gradient are the main environmental drivers in explaining the distribution patterns of the major honey trees. In addition, the results of the response curves of Prunus spp. and Styrax obassia Siebold & Zucc. differed slightly in terms of slope and mean annual solar radiation as the main environmental drivers. The results of this study will be valuable for the establishment of honey tree forests and management plans for the natural and artificial forests in South Korea, as well as for the mapping the distribution of honey trees. Further studies at different regional levels, reflecting biotic drivers, will be needed to expand the production of honey and pollen at different strata and to produce honey annually.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.46-55
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• 2015

Background: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are often the main pillar of an economy. Minor accidents, ergonomics problems, old and outdated machinery, and lack of awareness have created a need for implementation of safety practices in SMEs. Implementation of healthy working conditions creates positive impacts on economic and social development. Methods: In this study, a questionnaire was developed and administered to 30 randomly chosen SMEs in and around Mumbai, Maharashtra, and other states in India to evaluate safety practices implemented in their facilities. The study also looked into the barriers and drivers for technology innovation and suggestions were also received from the respondent SMEs for best practices on safety issues. Results: In some SMEs, risks associated with safety issues were increased whereas risks were decreased in others. Safety management practices are inadequate in most SMEs. Market competitiveness, better efficiency, less risk, and stringent laws were found to be most significant drivers; and financial constraints, lack of awareness, resistance to change, and lack of training for employees were found to be main barriers. Conclusion: Competition between SMEs was found to be major reason for implementation of safety practices in the SMEs. The major contribution of the study has been awareness building on safety issues in the SMEs that participated in the project.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.18-35
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• 1997

The purpose of this study were to determine causes of low back pain in bus drivers who usually work in prolonged sitting position and to find the relationship of back pain with general characteristics and work environmental characteristics, stress symptoms, to com맹re lordosis angle of habitual driving posture and resting posture in low back pain group and non-low back pain group, and to use this result as a basis for improvement of work environment and comprehensive rehabilitative management of low back pain. Ninety-eight bus drivers were selected from the membership of an urban transit union in Seoul. These informations were collected from May 1, 1997 to May 25, 1997 by means of structured questionnaires and X-ray findings. These data were analyzed by $x^2$ test, t-test, logistic regression using SAS. The major results were as follows: 1. Of the respondents, 66.3% of bus drivers were found to be experiencing back pain. 2. Of the respondents of low back pain groups, 78.5% reported that major cause of low back pain was due to prolonged sitting. 3. The group with experiences of frequent or continuous vibration had more low back pain (p<0.05). There were no significant differences among other work environmental factors. 4. Average stress score was significantly higher in the group with low back pain than in the group without low back pain (p<0.05). 5. The results of the logistic regression analyses were statistically significant vibration from seat and stress score among the risk factors (p<0.05). 6. Averaged lordosis angle of habitual driving posture was $7.6{\pm}14.9$ degrees in low back pain group, $16.5{\pm}8.7$ degrees in non-low back pain and averaged lordosis angle of resting sitting posture was $10.8{\pm}13.7$ degrees in low back pain, $18.9{\pm}9.6$ degrees in non-low back pain group but the difference in mean lordosis angles of two groups was not statistically significant. The results of this study indicate that professional drivers developed chronicity of low back pain due to unfit seat, poor habitual posture and stress from vibration or other risk factors. Therefore, there is need to improve work environment, i.e. enough resting, to set a seat to support lumbar spine properly and to provide comprehensive rehabilitation program including early diagnosis, proper treatment and education for self help management.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.148-154
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• 2022

Background: Bus driving is a mentally demanding activity that requires prolonged attention to ensure safety. The aim of the study was to assess mental fatigue caused by driving a public bus and to find a profile of workers at higher risk. Methods: We evaluated changes of critical flicker fusion (CFF) (index of central arousal) and heart rate variability (HRV) (index of autonomic balance) in a 6-hour driving shift on a real route, in 31 professional bus drivers, and we tested the influence of personal factors such as sleep quality, BMI, and age. Paired t-test was used to test differences of CFF and HRV between both initial and final phase of driving, while multiple linear regression tested the influence of personal variables on the indexes of mental fatigue. Results: Results showed that CFF significantly decreased after 6 hours of bus driving (41.91 Hz, sd 3.31 vs. 41.15 Hz, sd 3.15; p = 0.041), and heart rate significantly decreased in the final phase of driving, with respect to the initial phase (85 vs. 78 bpm, p = 0.027). Increasing age (beta = -0.729, p = 0.022), risk of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (beta = -0.530, p = 0.04), and diurnal sleepiness (beta = -0.406, p = 0.017) showed a significant effect on influencing mental fatigue. Conclusion: Elderly drivers at higher risk of sleep disorders are more prone to mental fatigue, when exposed to driving activity. Monitoring indexes of central arousal and autonomic balance, coupled with the use of structured questionnaires can represent a useful strategy to detect profile of workers at higher risk of mental fatigue in such duty.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.61-70
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• 2015

There is an increasing trend each year in the number of subway users due to increase in the traffic volume. As the number of train service has risen, the subway drivers are given heavy work and from the same, are put at risk of mental health deterioration due to stress. As this is directly connected to safety, there is an urgent need for improvement of the situation. Therefore, as a way to appropriately relieve such stress, resting space where mental and physical energy can be recharged is necessary. Thus, this research conducted a survey of demand with subway drivers as subjects in order to provide resting space that can offer healthy rest and increase work effectiveness. 50 subway drivers were the subjects of this survey. As a result of analyzing the contents of the survey, environmental satisfaction was shown to be the lowest compared to psychological and morphological satisfaction. In the case of sleeping room, they wanted more comfortable and individual space. And the waiting room had the highest rate of usage frequency. The storage space was where the subway drivers showed the strongest attachment and was shown to be the only personal space. Most were shown to be satisfied with the outdoor space, but it had the lowest usage frequency. In addition, it is nessasery customized storage cabinet designed for subway drivers should be produced, which can effectively arrange the limited space. I hope that these direction of improvement can increase the healthy rest and work effectiveness of the locomotive engineers as it is directly being connected to the health and safety of the citizens.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.41-59
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• 2002

The present study explored the major behavior patterns of drivers and the environmental settings having an effect on traffic accident using the data collected from drivers and traffic police. Drivers and traffic police read questionnaire which contain the passible causes of traffic accident and selected the major causes on the basis of their latest accidents. Unexperienced drivers were forced to answer the questionnaire by referring to their friends and neighborhoods. The results showed that the major causes of traffic accident were connected with the driver's factors. The most important cause of traffic accidents was inattention/incautiousness. The next were lack of competence, skill, and experience. One interesting fact was that drivers and traffic police attributed differently. Drivers pointed out the lack of ability coping with an emergency and the insufficient skill of defensive driving as causes of the traffic accident. On the other hand, traffic polices indicated the intentional violations such as the disregard for traffic rules, trespassing on the central line of the roadway, speed limit violation, and breaking into the vehicle's line. The implications for appling the this results to driver education institutions were discussed.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1D
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• pp.11-19
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• 2008

Currently, existing car following models among several basic systems of advanced vehicle systems are almost developed related to the physical relation between two vehicles except for the driver's behavior or environmental factors. But the consideration of driver's character and environmental factors on driving are very essential factors for actual application. Hence, we suggested calibrating the degree of driver's discomfort on driving that is the former study to develop a new car following model of advanced vehicle to use in actuality. The degree of driver's discomfortness (Measure-of-Alarmness; MOA)is measured related to the relationship between the following vehicle and the preceding vehicle, the environmental factors and driver's characters in ubiquitous traffic. We made up questions to drivers to obtain the general and the objective measurement of driver's MOA. And the fuzzy logic model for measurement of MOA was constructed based on the results of survey. We verified the suitability of fuzzy logic model through the computation of MOA with several scenarios. And we measured the quantitative degree of driver's discomfortness on car following related to several factors which affect drivers. In accordance with this study, development of car following model applying driver's MOA will promote the actual application of advanced vehicle more effectively than the existing models. Finally, we thought the measurement of driver's MOA will be applied significantly to evaluate safety and comfort of drivers on driving.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.89-125
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• 2017

Complex product systems (CoPs) is a engineering-intensive products with high-ended design technology, which are closely linked with national economic growth and development of social infrastructures. Accordingly, in order to understand the technological evolution of CoPs, it is necessary to identify the macro-environmental drivers surrounding the CoPs and their impact on the technological evolution of the CoPS. Therefore, we investigate the effect of policy, economic and social drivers on the technological evolution of CoPS by implementing the longitudinal case study on nuclear power plant during the periods between 1950 and 2010s. Based on the analysis of various sources of secondary data and primary data through interviews, we found that the technological evolution of nuclear power plant is progressed as "Phase 1: Application research for peaceful utilization of nuclear energy" between 1950s and 1960s, "Phase 2: The first renaissance of nuclear energy" during 1970s, "Phase 3: Enhancement of safety and the catch-up of latecomers in nuclear energy" between 1990s and 2000s, and "Phase 4: Top prioritization of safety and the development of next generation reactors for the second renaissance of nuclear energy" since 2010s. We also found that various kinds of policy, economic and social drivers, such as energy policy, investment in technology development, economic growth and energy demand, social acceptability and environmental concern, have affected the technology evolution of nuclear power plant at each phase. We emphasize the role of macroenvironmental drivers in the technological evolution of CoPS. We also suggest that countries that endeavor to develop CoPs need to utilize those drivers for enhancing competitiveness and sustaining leadership.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1591-1601
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• 2013

In this study, It is conducted for novice drivers about driving behavior and psychological characteristics analysis to reduce traffic accident risk and provide the basic data of education program development. Therefore, this study classified by the category-specific characteristics and hazard prediction through survey of the novice driver and unpredictable behavior and psychological characteristics were studied. The novice and general characteristics and driving behavior with vehicle simulators, comparison and analysis of the novice driver traffic safety education basic research direction based on the statistical results. Prediction the results of this study, the Hazard of the driver, speeding, traffic violation, information providing omission, abrupt change, the number of accidents in all areas novice driver is high compared to the general driver. In addition, Novice driver showed a statistically significant level of Hazard compared to the general driver target novice drivers and the general ability to predict Hazard of violation, abrupt change, and a number of traffic accidents were omitted level of speeding and other information providing level drivers all showed similar results. Vehicle simulator. The experimental results showed that novice drivers compared to drivers poorly overall driving performance. It showed a notable difference in the number of collisions, especially novice drivers compared to drivers in complex road traffic conditions due to a lack of driving experience and learning ability are considered.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.112-123
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• 2012

Different from general roads, intersections are the points where roads having different geometric structure and traffic operation system are met, and thereby they have complicated road structure and environmental factors. Various changes in driving patterns such as collision between vehicles approaching from roads adjacent to intersections, sudden stop of vehicles upon stop sign, quick start upon green lights kept increasing traffic accidents. It is known that traffic accidents are mainly derived from human factors. This study, in order to find out factors affecting drivers' behaviors within intersections, measured physiological responses such as brain wave, sight, driving speed, and so on by using state-of-the-art measuring device. As to concentration brain wave at individual intersections, it was found out that brain wave of testes was higher at main Arterial and accident-prone intersections compared with that of subsidiary Arterial. In addition, it was detected that drivers' visual activity was widely distributed at accident-prone intersections, meaning that it enhanced cautious driving from nearby vehicles. As to major factors causing drivers' workloads, factors from nearby vehicles such as deceleration, acceleration, lane change of nearby vehicles appeared as direct factors causing drivers' workloads, clarifying that these factors were closely related to causes of traffic accidents at intersections. Results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for evaluation of safety at intersections in consideration of physiological response of drivers.