• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.185-193
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• 2016

Background: Management and workers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often find it hard to comprehend the requirements related to controlling risks due to exposure to substances. An intervention study was set up in order to support 45 SMEs in improving the management of the risks of occupational exposure to chemicals, and in using the control banding tool and exposure model Stoffenmanager in this process. Methods: A 2-year intervention study was carried out, in which a mix of individual and collective training and support was offered, and baseline and effect measurements were carried out by means of structured interviews, in order to measure progress made. A seven-phase implementation evolutionary ladder was used for this purpose. Success and failure factors were identified by means of company visits and structured interviews. Results: Most companies clearly moved upwards on the implementation evolutionary ladder; 76% of the companies by at least one phase, and 62% by at least two phases. Success and failure factors were described. Conclusion: Active training and coaching helped the participating companies to improve their chemical risk management, and to avoid making mistakes when using and applying Stoffenmanager. The use of validated tools embedded in a community platform appears to support companies to organize and structure their chemical risk management in a business-wise manner, but much depends upon motivated occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, management support, and willingness to invest time and means.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.25-39
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• 2003

Risk and exposure assessment for subsurface environment is very important for both aspects of health and environmental protection as well as making decision of remedial goal for engineering activities. Exposure due to hazardous chemicals in the subsurface environment is essential to assess risk lev121 to individual person, especially from soil and groundwater environmental media. In this paper, the status of soil and groundwater contamination is presented to discuss on the problem for environmental risk assessment. The methodologies of fate and exposure models are also discussed by conducting the case studies of exposure assessment for heavy metals, organic compounds, and dioxin compounds. In addition, the structure of exposure models and available data for model calculation are examined to make clear more realistic exposure scenarios and the application to the practical environmental issues. Three kinds of advanced remediation techniques for soil and groundwater contamination are described in this paper, The most practical method for VOCs is the bio-remediation technique in which biological process due to consortium of microorganisms can be applied. For more effective remediation of soil contaminated by heavy metals we have adopted the soil flushing technique and clean-up system using electro-kinetic method. We have also developed the advanced techniques of geo-melting method for soil contaminated by DXNs and PCB compounds. These techniques are planed to introduce and to apply for a lot of contaminated sites in Japan.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1307-1313
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• 2019

Recent analysis results with realistic assumptions provide the variability of operator allowable time for the initiation of aggressive cooldown under small break loss of coolant accident or steam generator tube rupture with total failure of high pressure safety injection. We investigated how plant risk may vary depending on the variability of operators' failure probability of timely initiation of aggressive cooldown. Using a probabilistic safety assessment model of a nuclear power plant, we showed that plant risks had a linear relation with the failure probability of aggressive cooldown and could be reduced by up to 10% as aggressive cooldown is more reliably performed. For individual accident management, we found that core damage potential could be gradually reduced by up to 40.49% and 63.84% after a small break loss of coolant accident or a steam generator tube rupture, respectively. Based on the importance of timely initiation of aggressive cooldown by main control room operators within the success criteria, implications for improvement of emergency operating procedures are discussed. We recommend conducting further detailed analyses of aggressive cooldown, commensurate with its importance in reducing risks in nuclear power plants.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.80 no.3
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• pp.257-264
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• 1991

Korea has accomplished the afforestation of its forest land in the early 1980's. To meet the increasing demand for forest products and forest recreation, a development of scientific forest management system is needed as a whole. For this purpose the development of efficient forestfire management system is essential. In this context, the purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical foundation of forestfire danger rating system. In this study, it is hypothesized that the degree of forestfire risk is affected by Weather Factor and Man-Caused Risk Factor. (1) To accommodate the Weather Factor, a statistical model was estimated in which weather variables such as humidity, temperature, precipitation, wind velocity, duration of sunshine were included as independent variables and the probability of forestfire occurrence as dependent variable. (2) To account man-caused risk, historical data of forestfire occurrence was investigated. The contribution of man's activities make to risk was evaluated from three inputs. The first, potential risk class is a semipermanent number which ranks the man-caused fire potential of the individual protection unit relative to that of the other protection units. The second, the risk sources ratio, is that portion of the potential man-caused fire problem which can be charged to a specific cause. The third, daily activity level is that the fire control officer's estimate of how active each of these sources is, For each risk sources, evaluate its daily activity level ; the resulting number is the partial risk factor. Sum up the partial risk factors, one for each source, to get the unnormalized Man-Caused Risk. To make up the Man-Caused Risk, the partial risk factor and the unit's potential risk class were considered together. (3) At last, Fire occurrence index was formed fire danger rating estimation by the Weather Factors and the Man-Caused Risk Index were integrated to form the final Fire Occurrence Index.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.65-69
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• 2003

As complex mathematical models are increasingly adopted for business decision-making, difficulties arise in reusing solvers (i.e., model solving algorithms) against diverse models and data sets and thus the collaboration among users (model/solver builders and decision makers) in multiple departments becomes very difficult. To facilitate the solver reuse, this paper adopts the Web services technologies as the base technologies for linking the solvers to the models, both of which are created on different modeling paradigms and different system platforms, in unified system architecture. Specifically, this paper focuses on designing an ontology that represents the interfacing semantics of the model-solver interactions in a general and standardized form. By referring to the ontology, a model management system (MMS) can autonomously suggest a set of compatible solvers and apply them to individual models even though the decision makers are not knowledgeable enough about all the details of the models and the solvers. Thus, this Web services based MMS would improve the reusability of the solvers by relieving the decision makers from the risk of erroneous application of a solver to syntactically and semantically incompatible models and the burden of considerable understanding of model and solver semantics.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.135-164
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• 2005

We analyze trade and balance records of 10,000 stock investment accounts of individual investors for the period of 1998 to 2003. Individual investors em an annual gross return of 12.3% while the KOSPI and the value weighted composite including KOSDAQ stocks yield 13.6% and 9.7% respectively during the same period. Net return performance is 8.3%, a drop of 5.3% mainly due to heavy trading. Individual investors' annual turnover amounts to over 270 percent. In an analysis of groups formed on the month's end position value, the performance of the top quintile is found comparable to the market while the rest yield significantly lower risk-adjusted returns than the market. We also find evidence rejecting the rational expectation model while supporting the overconfidence hypothesis which states overconfidence leads to a higher level of trading, resulting in poor performance. Individuals tilt their stock investment toward high-beta, small, and value stocks.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.528-534
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• 2010

This study explores the influence of health behaviors and individual attributes on adolescent overweight and obesity using data from Wave II (Add Health). Structural equation model/ path analysis using maximum likelihood estimation was utilized to analyze the relationships of health behaviors and attributes with obesity. Results of the model reveal that the causal paths (adolescents' attributes and health behaviors) for overweight and obesity were different for African American and Caucasian adolescents. Generally, African Americans were more susceptible to overweight and obesity than Caucasians. Although increasing levels of vigorous physical activities lowers the risk for obesity among African American and Caucasian adolescents alike, low family SES and being sedentary were associated with overweight and obesity among Caucasians. No significant associations were found among African Americans. Increased hours of sleep at night relate positively with obesity among African Americans. These findings suggest important elements in the consideration of race in developing effective intervention and prevention approaches for curbing the obesity epidemic among U.S. adolescents.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.363-374
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• 2020

Fingerprint authentication identifies a user based on the individual's unique fingerprint features. Fingerprint authentication methods are used in various real-life devices because they are convenient and safe and there is no risk of leakage, loss, or oblivion. However, fingerprint authentication methods are often ineffective when there is contamination of the given image through wet, dirty, dry, or wounded fingers. In this paper, a method is proposed to remove noise from fingerprint images using a convolutional neural network. The proposed model was verified using the dataset from the ChaLearn LAP Inpainting Competition Track 3-Fingerprint Denoising and Inpainting, ECCV 2018. It was demonstrated that the model proposed in this paper obtains better results with respect to the methods that achieved high performances in the competition.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.300-306
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• 1990

Colorectal cancer is second only to lung cancer as a cause of death due to cancer in the united States. Studies have shown that fecal occult blood(FOB) tests are effective in detecting colorectal cancer in its early stages. To motivate worksite FOB testing, a randomized controlled trial was conducted. Employees 40 years or older from three federal agencies in Washington State were randomized to a control group(n＝139) which received a letter stating the availability of the FOB test at the worksite clinic or to an intervention group(n＝139) which received the letter about facts on colorectal cancer and a Colorectal Cancer Risk Appraisal. The Colorectal Cancer Risk Appraisal included a feedback on an individual's risk of developing colorectal cancer compared to his / her peers in terms of ‘normal’, ‘moderate’, or ‘high’ risk status. After 3 months, a follow-up questionnaire was sent to all participants to measure the effectiveness of the intervention. In the analysis of the three major outcomes, two possible confounding factors(dietary fat and family history of colorectal cancer) were controlled by logistic regression. Based on a review of the worksite clinic records, the Intervention group had 4.3% higher compliance rate with the FOB test during the follow-up period compared to the control group(p＝.10). The largest effect of the intervention was on the employees' intention to get a FOB test within the next year(62.6% in the intervention group vs. 36.2% in the control group, OR＝3.18, p＜.001). In the final Multivariate logistic model, the employees who were more likely to intend to get a FOB test within the next year were in the intervention group ; were at ‘moderate’ or ‘high’ risk of colorectal cancer ; knew more about the availability of the FOB test at the worksite clinic ; and had a FOB test during the last three years.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.3501-3505
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• 2012

Links between the CHEK2 1100delC heterozygote and breast cancer risk have been extensively explored. However, both positive and negative associations with this variant have been reported in individual studies. For a detailed assessment of the CHEK2 1100delC heterozygote and breast cancer risk, relevant studies published as recently as May 2012 were identified using PUBMED and EMBASE and selected using a priori defined criteria. The strength of the relationship between the CHEK2 1100delC variant and breast cancer risks was assessed by odds ratios (ORs) under the fixed effects model. A total of 29,154 cases and 37,064 controls from 25 case-control studies were identified in this meta-analysis. The CHEK2 1100delC heterozygote was more frequently detected in cases than in controls (1.34% versus 0.44%). A significant association was found between CHEK2 1100delC heterozygote and breast cancer risk (OR=2.75, 95% CI: [2.25, 3.36]). The ORs and CIs were 2.33 (95% CI: [1.79, 3.05]), 3.72 (95% CI: [2.61, 5.31]) and 2.78 (95% CI: [2.28, 3.39]) respectively in unselected, family, early-onset breast cancer subgroups. The CHEK2 1100delC variant could be a potential factor for increased breast cancer risk in Caucasians. However, more consideration is needed in order to apply it to allele screening or other clinical work.