• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.51-60
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• 2010

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate toxic exposures in emergency centers with using a toxic exposure surveillance system-based report form as a preliminary study. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of toxic exposure patients who visited emergency centers from January to December 2008. Results: 3,157 patients from 11 emergency centers were enrolled. Males were involved in 47.9% of the total cases of exposure and in 60.1% of the cases of fatal exposure. Suicidal intent was the most common (61.0%) reason and most (87.4%) fatal exposures were suicidal. Pesticides were involved in 30.7% of the cases and sedative/hypnotics/antipsychotics were involved in 20.5%. The substances most frequently involved in fatalities were pesticides, and a 48.4% fatality rate was recorded for paraquat exposure. Conclusion: The toxic exposure data showed the preliminary poisoning events in emergency centers. It is recommended that toxicology professionals should develop a toxic surveillance system and serial reporting should be performed.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.36-41
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• 2019

Purpose: In this study, we investigated the clinical features and prognostic factors of early-onset sepsis (EOS) in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on medical records from January 2010 to June 2017 (7.5 years) of a university hospital NICU. Results: There were 45 cases of EOS (1.2%) in 3,862 infants. The most common pathogen responsible for EOS was group B Streptococcus (GBS), implicated in 10 cases (22.2%), followed by Escherichia coli, implicated in 9 cases (20%). The frequency of gram-positive sepsis was higher in term than in preterm infants, whereas the rate of gram-negative infection was higher in preterm than in term infants (P<0.05). The overall mortality was 37.8% (17 of 45), and 47% of deaths occurred within the first 3 days of infection. There were significant differences in terms of gestational age (26.8 weeks vs. 35.1 weeks) and birth weight (957 g vs. 2,520 g) between the death and survival groups. After adjustments based on the difference in gestational age and birth weight between the 2 groups, gram-negative pathogens (odds ratio [OR], 42; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4-1,281.8) and some clinical findings, such as neutropenia (OR, 46; 95% CI, 1.3-1,628.7) and decreased activity (OR, 34; 95% CI, 1.8-633.4), were found to be associated with fatality. Conclusion: The common pathogens found to be responsible for EOS in NICU patients are GBS and E. coli. Gram-negative bacterial infections, decreased activity in the early phase of infection, and neutropenia were associated with poor outcomes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.56-62
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• 2019

Secondary accident is common type of accident which occurs in Korean highway tunnels. Fatality rate of secondary accidents in highway tunnels is six time higher than primary accidents. Video type VMS is a new way of providing information to road users which was recently introduced by Korean government to prevent secondary accidents in highway tunnels. In this study we compared changes in driver's behavior when information is provided by Text type and Video Type VMS. In addition to analyze effects of secondary accident reduction, driving behavior was analyzed based on providing advance information by video type VMS at tunnel entrance. Analysis showed that both text type and video type VMS has similar effect on driver behavior. Video type VMS showed positive effect on driver's behavior to prevent secondary accident when information is provided 1km ahead of accident. Considering there results and the short-term memory characteristics of driver, it was determined that information should be provide at about 650m from the entrance of the tunnel. The results of this study are consistent with the requirement that VMS should be installed at least 500m ahead of tunnel and produce more accurate providing information points. 650m is also appropriate interval for providing information in tunnel to cope with an accident ahead.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2021

This review describes the risk factors of the nutrition crisis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and suggests precision nutrition against long-term psychological and physiological stress. The mandatory quarantine and the social distancing are associated with an interruption of the lifestyle routine, resulting in psychological (i.e., boredom) and physiological stress. The stress with multiple causes and forms induces over-compensation of energy-dense food, such as sugary comfort food, and is defined as "food craving" because carbohydrates positively affect the psychological stability with serotonin secretion. The consumption of foods that promote an immune response against viral infections (vitamins & minerals; Cu, folate, Fe, Se, Zn, and Vit A, B6, B12, C, and D), reduce inflammatory cytokines (w-3 fatty acids, Vit D, fibers, and Mg), contain antioxidants (beta-carotene, Vit E, C, Se, and phenolics), and sleep-inducing proteins (serotonin, melatonin, and milk products) is essential. In addition, a reduced Vit D deficiency in winter due to less time spent outdoors under quarantine has been reported to be associated with viral infections. The case fatality rate of COVID-19 was significantly dependent on age, sex, race, and underlying health condition. To prevent malnutrition and cachexia in elderly people, weight loss and muscle wasting should be monitored and controlled. Inadequate protein intake, sedentary lifestyle, and inflammation are significant risk factors for sarcopenia. Moreover, relatively high intakes of fat or carbohydrate compared to low protein intake result in abdominal obesity, which is defined as "sarcopenic obesity." Keeping the food-safety guidelines of COVID-19, this study recommends the consumption of fresh and healthy foods and avoiding sugar, fat, salt, alcohol, and commercially frozen foods.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.348-355
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• 2021

Hantaan virus(HTNV) causes hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome(HFRS) with a case fatality rate ranging from <1 to 15 % in human. Hantavax^Ⓡ is a vaccine against the Hantavirus, which has been conditionally approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety(MFDS). However, only 50 % of volunteers had neutralizing antibodies 1 year following the boost. Effective antiviral treatments against HTNV infection are limited. Hantaviruses generally cause asymptomatic infection in adult mice. On the other hand, infection of suckling and newborn mice with hantaviruses causes lethal neurological diesease or persistant infection, which is different from the disease in humans. The development of vaccines and antiviral strategies for HTNV has been partly hampered by the lack of an efficient lethal mouse model to evaluate the efficacy of the candidate vaccines or antivirals. In this report, we established a lethal mouse model for HTNV, which may facilitate in vivo studies on the evaluation of candidate drugs against HTNV. The median lethal dose value of HTNV was calculated by probit analysis of deaths occurring within two weeks. Five groups of ten ICR mice were injected intracranially with serial 2-fold dilutions (from 50 to 3.125 PFU/head) of HTNV. Mice injected with HTNV began to die at 8 days post-infection. The lethal dose required to kill 50 % of the mice (LD₅₀) was calculated to be 2.365 PFU/head.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2021

In the modern society, traffic problems are occurring as vehicle ownership increases. In particular, the incidence of highway traffic accidents is low, but the fatality rate is high. Therefore, a technology for detecting an abnormality in a vehicle is being studied. Among them, there is a vehicle anomaly detection technology using deep learning. This detects vehicle abnormalities such as a stopped vehicle due to an accident or engine failure. However, if an abnormality occurs on the road, it is possible to quickly respond to the driver's location. In this study, we propose a deep learning-based vehicle anomaly detection using road CCTV data. The proposed method preprocesses the road CCTV data. The pre-processing uses the background extraction algorithm MOG2 to separate the background and the foreground. The foreground refers to a vehicle with displacement, and a vehicle with an abnormality on the road is judged as a background because there is no displacement. The image that the background is extracted detects an object using YOLOv4. It is determined that the vehicle is abnormal.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.257-262
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• 2021

Accidents caused by black ice occur frequently every winter, and the fatality rate is very high compared to other traffic accidents. Therefore, a systematic method is needed to predict the black ice formation before accidents. In this paper, we proposed a black ice prediction model based on heterogenous and multi-type data. To this end, 12,574,630 cases of 46 types of land, infrastructure, transport public data and meteorological public data were collected. Subsequently, the data cleansing process including missing value detection and normalization was followed by the establishment of approximately 600,000 refined datasets. We analyzed the correlation of 42 factors collected to predict the occurrence of black ice by selecting only 21 factors that have a valid effect on black ice prediction. The prediction model developed through this will eventually be used to derive the route-specific black ice risk index, which will be utilized as a preliminary study for black ice warning alart services.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.351-358
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• 2022

Recently, the fatality rate in the construction industry has not decreased any more and is in a stagnant state, and there are efforts by various construction participants such as ordering, design, and construction, management to improve it. In order to reduce serious accidents in the construction industry, which is higher than in other industries, the government evaluates the safety level of construction participants and announces it to raise awareness. However, in the items, standards, and procedures of the safety management level evaluation, there are points that do not match the site situation, and it is necessary to improve them. In this study, in order to improve the safety management level evaluation for construction technology service providers who are in the worst situation for safety management, the safety management level evaluation result analysis and Focus-Group-Interview(FGI) were conducted. improvement direction was suggested.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.146-160
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• 2023

Purpose: The construction industry is a complex mechanism in which multiple processes are carried out at the same time, and the frequency and severity of accidents account for a higher proportion than other industries, and the accident fatality rate also accounts for more than 50% of all industries. In order to reduce such accidents, the government's disaster investigation method analyzes the limitations from the system safety point of view and proposes improvement plans. Method: The main contents of the government's serious accident investigation were identified, and the effectiveness/adequacy was analyzed from the system safety point of view. Result: Disaster investigation and analysis techniques tailored to violations and compliance were limited in providing fundamental solutions, and alternatives for accident prevention were possible for each component of the system when safety constraints, controls, and hierarchical interactions were combined. Conclusion: When combining the disaster investigation and analysis method from the current accident analysis method from the perspective of system safety, it is possible to identify the problems of interaction by class and communication process, so it is possible to suggest alternatives to prevent accidents from an integrated perspective.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.10-19
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• 2023

Fall accidents account for the highest accident fatality rate in the construction industry. In addition, wearing and using a safety belt is the most realistic and important preventive measure to reduce fall accidents. Safety belts are protective devices worn by individual workers; they prevent workers from falling and allow for time to rescue the workers. However, the legal standards for safety belts only stipulate the materials, specifications, and strength of parts; there is no provision for an auxiliary rope fixing method to fix the safety belts safely. Due to this reason, workers in industrial sites arbitrarily fix and use the auxiliary rope. Currently, the most used method to fix the auxiliary rope is to tie a knot, which significantly lowers the strength of the material compared to the standard strength. Moreover, many construction sites are located outdoors, so the strength of the materials used in the auxiliary rope is inevitably reduced due to various external environmental conditions. Therefore, to solve this problem, this study was conducted to evaluate the strength of the material of the auxiliary rope for fixing the safety belt and the knot-tying method for the auxiliary rope. In this study, the exposure conditions for the effects of temperature and moisture were set to reflect the characteristics of the construction industry. The results of this study are expected to be used for standards establishment and the safe use of the auxiliary rope for safety belts in actual field applications.