• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.899-904
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• 2022

As the world becomes an aging society due to a decrease in the birth rate and an increase in life expectancy, a system for health management of the elderly population is needed. Among them, various studies on occupancy and activity types are being conducted for smart home care services for indoor health management. In this paper, we propose a random forest model that classifies activity type as well as occupancy status through indoor temperature and humidity, CO2, fine dust values and UWB radar positioning for smart home care service. The experiment measures indoor environment and occupant positioning data at 2-second intervals using three sensors that measure indoor temperature and humidity, CO2, and fine dust and two UWB radars. The measured data is divided into 80% training set data and 20% test set data after correcting outliers and missing values, and the random forest model is applied to evaluate the list of important variables, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.382-392
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• 2018

Objective: Allergic diseases such as asthma due to fungal exposure in houses have increased, and proper management is urgent. Mold can grow in the air, floor, walls, and other areas according to environmental conditions, and there are many limitations to the conventional methodology for examining fungal exposure. For this reason, the degree of fungal contamination is being evaluated by ERMI (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index), a quantitative analysis method proposed by the EPA. In this study, we compared ERMI values between water-damaged dwellings and non-damaged ones to evaluate the effectiveness of Korean ERMI values. We also explored the association of ERMI values with the level of airborne mold and characteristics of dwellings. Methods: Floor dust was collected after installing a Dustream collector on the suction port of a vacuum cleaner. The collected samples were filtered to remove only 5 mg of dust, and DNA was extracted using the FastDNA SPIN KIT protocol. Results: The ERMI values were found to be 19.6 (-6.9-58.8) for flooded houses, 7.5 (-29.2-48.3) for leaks/condensation, and 0.8 (-29.2-37.9) for non-damaged dwellings. The airborne concentration of mold for flooded, leakage or condensed, and non-damaged houses were $684CFU/m^3$, $566CFU/m^3$, and $378CFU/m^3$, respectively. The correlation between ERMI values and the levels of airborne mold was low (R = 0.038), but a weakly significant association of the ERMI values with the concentration of particulate matter ($PM_{10}$) was observed as well(R=0.231,P<0.05). Conclusions: Our findings show that the reference value using ERMI can be used to distinguish water-damaged and non-damaged dwellings. It is believed that ERMI values could be a promising tool for assessing long-term fungal exposure in dwellings.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.37-42
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• 2010

Together with the concern about the indoor air quality as sick house syndrome, the Ministry of Environment announced "Indoor Air Quality Control Law for the Multi Purpose Facility," which made the interests to be focused in the urgent understanding of current condition and preparation of measures about the indoor air pollution. The law was revised to obligatorily notify the amount of Formaldehyde and Volatile Organic Compounds in the case of newly constructed apartments with more than 100 houses. School also have its own indoor air quality guideline. Indoor air quality in school is very important because, children who very weak to indoor pollutants reside long time in there. The purpose of this paper is to to survey indoor air quality in school by field measurement. Field measurements were performed in 11 schools which were selected from 3 major cities(Incheon, Dae-jeon, chuncheon) in korea, Totally concentration of indoor pollutants were determined in 32 classroom. Target air pollutants were TVOC, formaldehyde, dust, CO, CO2. For the result of this investigation, Indoor air quality in classroom was very poor and it was found that some pollutants(TVOC, float bacteria) exceed the guideline.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.63-74
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• 2007

Together with the concern about the indoor all quality as sick house syndrome, the Ministry of Environment announced "Indoor Air Quality Control Law for the Multi Purpose Facility," which made the interests to be focused in the urgent understanding of current condition and preparation of measures about the indoor air pollution. In Dec 2005, the law was revised to obligatorily notify the amount of Formaldehyde and Volatile Organic Compounds in the case of newly constructed apartments with more than 100 houses. School also have its own indoor air quality guideline, Indoor air quality in school is very important because, children who very weak to indoor pollutants reside long time in there. The purpose of this paper is to survey indoor air qualify in school by field measurement. Field measurements were performed in 11 schools which were selected from 3 major cities(Incheon, Dae-jeon, chuncheon) in korea, during July, 2004. Totally concentration of Indoor pollutants were determined in 27 classroom. Target air pollutants were TVOC, formaldehyde, dust, CO, CO2 and NO2. For the result of this investigation, Indoor air quality in classroom was very poor and it was found that some pollutants (TVOC, float bacteria) exceed the guideline.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2001

This study was carried out to investigate the microbial characteristics of the urban air pollution in the subway stations, streets, department stores, wholesale markets, underground shopping centers, buildings, parks, houses and apartments in the Seoul and the suburbs area. Total cell count, total mold count and the presence of opportunistic pathogens(Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Aspergillus spp., Penicillium spp.) were evaluated determine the microbial air quality. Total cell count and mold count of indoor air in the houses and apartments were 2.9$\times$10$^2$-6.3$\times$10$^2$cfu/㎥ and 60-1.8$\times$10$^2$cfu/㎥, respectively, and the department stores and wholesale markets had much lower cell count than the houses and apartments. Ground level of commercial stations were 2.6 fold higher than the general subway stations, and Apergillus spp. and Penicillium spp. which could cause the bronchus and lung diseases were detected 17 sampling site out of 45. Dust were collected from the commercial facilities and houses, and total cell and mold count of the dust were 4.3$\times$10$^3$-1.7$\times$10$^{6}$ cfu/g and 2.3$\times$10$^3$-6.5 $\times$10$^4$cfu/g, respectively. Therefore the dust might be one of the main reservoir of microorganims.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.509-517
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• 2006

We investigated the change of symptoms and preventive behaviors before and after the Asian Dust events among indoor workers (teachers) and outdoor workers (taxi drivers and bus drivers). On February 2004, we recruited 195 taxi drivers, 135 bus drivers and 93 school teachers. Symptoms and behaviors related the Asian Dust events during 1 week were questioned by self administrated questionnaires. We surveyed pre-event and post-event. The symptom were not changed in bus drivers during the events. In taxi drivers and teachers,'Bad or smoky smell on the air' and 'eye congestion' symptoms were increased during the events. The preventive behaviors were decreased or not changed in taxi drivers and bus drivers. In teachers,'close the window','diminishing the outdoor activities', 'diminishing the going out', 'wearing the sunglasses', 'washing the eyes after going out'. This results suggest that the outdoor worker's guideline during the Asian dust eventsneeds to be developed.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.271-278
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• 2021

This paper is a study on the implementation of smart filter system that recognizes the external environment and automatically removes pollutants according to pollution level. Recently, the occurrence of various pollutants in indoor and outdoor space has adversely affected the human body. Especially, various fine dust generated in the atmosphere becomes worse in closed residential space or office space. Although air pollution can be temporary lowered through ventilation, it is difficult to respond to fine dust changes in real time, and such problems become serious in the space where many people reside, such as at home or industry. Therefore, it is necessary to measure the pollution level of fine dust inside the residential space in real time and to reduce the pollution of indoor ventilation through automatic ventilation with the outside. To improve these problems, this paper proposes the implementation of smart filter system for external environment recognition. The structure of smart filter system that automatically measures air quality inside and outside, removes pollutants, implements the function, and confirms the operability by manufacturing prototypes. Finally, the effectiveness of the smart filter system for solving fine dust problems was examined.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.69-74
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• 2005

In this paper, the indoor air environment in a large welding factory applied to displacement ventilation was investigated with experiment and numerical analysis for previous and new ventilation system. Concentration of fumes was analyzed for three cases with wind direction of outdoor. For experimental results, the dust concentration with new ventilation system decreased about 42-60% and the visibility increased about 11-18%. For numerical analysis, the exhaust efficiency of fumes was low when the wind and exhaust flow direction was inverse. It was found that the fumes in the factory decreased about 77% in case of the northern wind.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.751-762
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• 2015

This study was performed to investigate the stability of soil moisture in controlling air ventilation rate within a horizontal biofilter, and to compare removal efficiency (RE) of indoor air pollutants including fine dust, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and formaldehyde (HCHO), depending on whether dieffenbachias (Diffenbachia amoena) were planted in the biofilter. The relative humidity, air temperature, and soil moisture contents showed stable values, regardless of the presence of D. amoena, and the plants grew normally in the biofilter. REs for number of fine dust particles (PM10 and PM2.5) within the biofilter filled with only soil were at least 30% and 2%, respectively. REs for number of fine dust particles (PM10 and PM2.5) within the biofilter including the plants were above 40% and 4%, respectively. RE for fine dust (PM10) weight was above 4% and 20%, respectively, in the biofilter containing only soil or soil together with plants. In the case of the biofilter filled with only soil, REs for xylene, ethylbenzene, toluene or total VOC (T-VOC) were each more than 63%; however, REs for benzene and formaldehyde (HCHO) were above 22% and 38%, respectively. In the biofilter with the plants, REs for xylene, ethylbenzene, toluene, and T-VOC were each above 72%, and REs for benzene and HCHO were above 39%. Thus, RE of the biofilter integrated with plants was found to be higher for volatile organic compounds than for fine dust. Hence, the biofilter was very effective for indoor air quality improvement and the effect was higher when integrated with plants.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 2020

In this study, we compared efficiency of different aquatic plants in removing indoor pollutants and examined their potential to purify indoor air. Two liter of water in chamber was used as the control, while the other chambers containing water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes), water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), and water coin (Hydrocotyle umbellata) were used as treatment groups. Temperatures inside all the chambers were maintained between 20 ℃ and 23 ℃. Humidity in the chambers with aquatic plants increased by 30% and 50% control respectively. The removal of formaldehyde per unit leaf area was examined in each aquatic plant. It turned out that water hyacinth removed the highest amount of formaldehyde, followed by water lettuce and water coin. Both water hyacinth and water lettuce increased the amount of removal of formaldehyde until the end of the experiment. In the case of airborne dust (PM 10) and fine dust (PM 2.5), water coin, which had the highest number of leaves, removed more PM 10 and PM 2.5 than the other aquatic plants, with statistically significant difference. In addition, both water coin and water hyacinth smoothly opened and closed stomata before and after the experiment. Consequently, as the aquatic plants were effective in controlling humidity and removing pollutants, they can be used as air purifying plants.