• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.104-113
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• 2024

Unlike in general manufacturing process, safety management in laboratory-based research area is complicated because the latter generally involves trying untested methods or handling unusual substances in small amounts. Laboratory accidents in South Korea have recently shown an increasing trend. Unfortunately, statistics on such accidents are not officially published by any domestic public agencies. In this study, multivariate analysis was performed on the relationships between variables to develop effective strategies for preventing laboratory accidents. A Cross-Tabulation Analysis of accident-related factors in 179 accident cases revealed that the laboratory type, accident type, and unsafe-act type are all statistically significant, whereas the unsafe condition and management factors differ with the statistical criteria. Furthermore, the results of a Multiple-Correspondence Analysis showed that accidents can be divided largely into three groups having different accident causes and injury types; this confirms the necessity of different strategies to prevent accidents of each type. The findings also reveal differences between the distribution of accident types mentioned in the accident case collection books and actual reported cases. This suggests that an official statistical system administered by a public institution would be necessary for effective prevention of laboratory accidents.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.80-90
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• 2016

Purpose: Studies have been conducted to identify predictive factors of resistance to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) for Kawasaki disease (KD). However, the results are conflicting. This study aimed to identify laboratory factors predictive of resistance to high-dose IVIG for KD by performing meta-analysis of available studies using statistical techniques. Methods: All relevant scientific publications from 2006 to 2014 were identified through PubMed searches. For studies in English on KD and IVIG resistance, predictive factors were included. A meta-analysis was performed that calculated the effect size of various laboratory parameters as predictive factors for IVIG-resistant KD. Results: Twelve studies comprising 2,745 patients were included. Meta-analysis demonstrated significant effect sizes for several laboratory parameters: polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) 0.698 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.469-0.926), C-reactive protein (CRP) 0.375 (95% CI, 0.086-0.663), pro-brain natriuretic peptide (pro-BNP) 0.561 (95% CI, 0.261-0.861), total bilirubin 0.859 (95% CI, 0.582-1.136), alanine aminotransferase (AST) 0.503 (95% CI, 0.313-0.693), aspartate aminotransferase (ALT) 0.436 (95% CI, 0.275-0.597), albumin 0.427 (95% CI, -0.657 to -0.198), and sodium 0.604 (95% CI, -0.839 to -0.370). Particularly, total bilirubin, PMN, sodium, pro-BNP, and AST, in descending numerical order, demonstrated more than a medium effect size. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, laboratory predictive factors for IVIG-resistant KD included higher total bilirubin, PMN, pro-BNP, AST, ALT, and CRP, and lower sodium and albumin. The presence of several of these predictive factors should alert clinicians to the increased likelihood that the patient may not respond adequately to initial IVIG therapy.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.196-201
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• 2016

An effective strategy for obesity intervention should include demographic, health-related, and work-related factors that are most relevant to the target population. Factors most strongly associated with obesity may differ for groups of individuals across industries or age categories. The purpose of this study was to provide current knowledge about the possible association between psychosocial job stress and immune parameters in blood. We assessed obesity-related parameters as well as the natural killer cell activity (NKCA) in female workers. There was a significant difference in the obesity-related blood parameters, i.e. fasting blood sugar level, according to age (p<0.05). Moreover, it showed a significant difference in NK cell activity between the obese and non-obese factor groups (p<0.05). Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated that NKCA was closely correlated with obesity related factors. In the future, it would have to study the biological changes which increase the activity of the immune factors to the immunological response.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.397-405
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• 2005

Noise may cause damage of the auditory system, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. However, we haven't the data enough to be available for understanding various effects of noise on the human body. The current study was prospectively designed to investigate the changes of the cardiac factors and cerebral hemodynamics following a transient exposure to noise in young people. 80 subjects (mean aged $23.45\pm2.40$ years) participated in this experiment and were exposed to excavator-noise with 90 decibels for 15 minutes using ear-phone. Cardiac factors such as heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP) and heart rate-systolic pressure product (RPP), and cerebral hemodynamics such as mean blood flow velocities (Vm), pulsatility indexes (PI), resistance indexes (RI) and mean blood flow velocities at breathing-hold (Vh) in the middle (MCA), anterior (ACA) and posterior cerebral arteries (PCA) were measured before (baseline) and during the noise-exposure. Although there were individual differences in above mentioned parameters, HR, systolic and diastolic BP, RPP, MCA-Vm, MCA-PI, MCA-RI, ACA-Vm, ACA-PI, ACA-RI, PCA-Vm, PCA-PI, and PCA-RI during the noise-exposure decreased compared with the baselines (P<0.05 or P<0.01), The findings of the present study suggest that a transient exposure to excavator-noise at rest causes changes in the cardiac factors and cerebral hemodynamics with individual differences. Further studies need to be carried out for clarifying the effects of longer exposure and combined mental activity with noise exposure.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.spc
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• pp.79-88
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• 2023

This research aims to validate the effectiveness of the "Specialized Entrepreneurship University Program," which was conducted as part of government entrepreneurship support initiatives from 2018 to 2022. Based on previous studies, a research model was derived consisting of three laboratory entrepreneurship support factors that influence program satisfaction and entrepreneurial outcomes (infrastructure support, educational mentoring support, and business linkage support). Surveys were collected and analyzed from 126 laboratory entrepreneurship firms participating in the program, and empirical analysis of the research model was conducted using SPSS 23.0 statistical software. The analysis results indicated that the three variables, namely infrastructure support, educational mentoring support, and business linkage support, were significant factors affecting program satisfaction, and program satisfaction was confirmed to influence entrepreneurial outcomes. Furthermore, it was found that the three business operation factors indirectly influenced entrepreneurial outcomes by partially mediating program satisfaction. This study is considered significant as an empirical study for the initial stage of the second-phase program enhancement, verifying the effectiveness of laboratory entrepreneurship support factors. The findings can be applied to similar government entrepreneurship support initiatives and contribute to the effective strategy and planning of stakeholders involved. The limitations of this study include the need for further research on the perception of the extent to which it contributes to entrepreneurial outcomes, emphasizing caution in interpreting the research model, and the necessity for expanding the survey population and improving survey items in future research.

• BMB Reports
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.344-349
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• 2009

Angiogenesis is crucial for solid tumor growth. By secreting angiogenic factors, tumor cells induce angiogenesis. However, targeting these angiogenic factors for cancer therapy is not always successful, suggesting that other factors may be involved in tumor angiogenesis. This work shows that 25 protein spots were differentially expressed by two-dimensional gel electrophoretic analysis when HepG2 cells induced endothelial cell differentiation to tube in vitro, and most of them were upregulated. Twenty-one proteins were identified with MALDITOF-MS, and the other four were identified by LTQ-MS/MS. Keratins were identified as one class of these upregulated proteins. Further study indicated that the expression of keratin 17 in cultured endothelial cells is likely microenvironment regulated, because its expression can be induced by HepG2 cells and bFGF as well as serum in culture media. Increased expression of keratins in endothelial cells, such as keratin 17, may contribute to the angiogenesis induced by HepG2 cells.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.81-90
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• 2016

Research and development activities have been actively conducted at universities, research institutions and research laboratories which belong to corporations. Because of blooming research and development activities in various fields, safety accidents in the laboratories happen consistently. The government office established Act on the establishment of safe laboratory environment to decrease safety accident rates and make environment of laboratories better, and it is effective slowly. However, in the case of laboratory safety management of the laboratory where various research and development activities are carried out. So it is difficult to closely monitor them. Even though safety inspections and periodic inspections is regularly conducted, these are focused on facilities and environment. According to a study of Dea-deok science town safety council, accidents in laboratories of 73% have arisen out of careless actions. Therefore, it is important for researchers to know to potential harmful factors in research. there is necessary to make a system to prevent laboratory accidents. The purpose of this study is that the researchers discovered potential hazard factors in laboratories. For that, foreign laboratory safety management systems has applied to domestic laboratories. Four laboratories in targeted institution has been selected to apply the appropriate personal protection equipments, job safety assessment and standard operating procedures. And I found the limitations of the process according to the excavations harmful factors in the research process. To overcome these limitations, Suggest a laboratory safety management system. This study discovered current laboratory safety system limitations and provides alternatives so that effective safety management can be achieved.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.131-153
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to identify the accidents happened in the college dental laboratory technique classes and to realize the level of safety education for the dental laboratory technique major students. The research data were collected from a self-administered survey distributed to the conveniently selected college students whose majors were dental laboratory technology in Suwon, Daejeon, Daegu, Kimcheon, and Icsan. The study participants were 422 freshmen, sophomore and junior students in the selected cities. All collected survey responses were encoded and analyzed in SPSS 12.0. The findings were as follows. 1. The students who had any accidents in their laboratory classes were 36% and the other 64% answered 'no.' 2. Most injuries which the participants had were not significant. 3. The medical treatment periods of most injury cases were less than one week; however, approximately 20% of the self-reported injury cases reported that their treatment periods were longer than one week. 4. The body parts frequently injured from accidents were hands with 84.7% and arms, eyes, face, head, and legs in order. 5. Concerning the materials involved in the laboratory classes, most accidents happened when working with wax in 59.9%, with plaster in 52.3%, with wire in 39.8%, with alcohol in 34.6%, and casting iron in 22.2% in order. 6. The accident-prone laboratory methods were polishing with 53.5%, pickling or sanding with 17.4%, and casting or burning with 5.8% in order. 7. Most students wore their laboratory gowns well; however, few students wore mask before dust-involved jobs. Furthermore, only 57.1% students answered their laboratory fans worked during the polishing job. 8. Approximately 54% participant students answered that they took laboratory safety education when necessary only from the class instructors. 9. The 76.1% students responded that they needed laboratory safety education at least 1-2 times every semester. 10. The survey participants answered that the primary factors for injury prevention in their laboratory were taking safety education, wearing safety equipments, and providing safety-focused facilities. Concludingly, comprehensive evaluation and monitoring for potential risk factors from both the human side and the environment side should be continually provided to minimize the college laboratory accidents.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.146-151
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• 2012

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections and is predominantly caused by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). UPEC strains generally possess several genes encoding virulent factors, which are mostly adhesins, toxins, bacteriocin and siderophores. E. coli is composed of four main phylogenetic group (A, B1, B2, D) and virulent extra-intestinal strains mainly belong to groups B2 and D. Prescription of ciprofloxacin, a kind of fluoroquinolone group antibiotics, is increasing now a days, but resistance to this drug is also increasing. A total of 188 strains of E. coli were collected. Thirteen strains were collected from healthy students in 2011 and 175 strains from patients with urinary tract infection in 2010. Virulence factor genes (papC, fimG/H, sfaD/E, hlyA, cnf1, and usp) were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods for phylogenetic group (A, B1, B2, D) detection. Ciprofloxacin susceptibility test was performed by disk diffusion method. The identified virulence factors (VFs), phylogenetic groups and ciprofloxacin resistance in 13 E. coli strains isolated from healthy students were papC (15.4%), fimG/H (76.9%), sfaD/E (30.8%), hlyA (23.1%), cnf1 (23.1%), usp (7.7%), phylogenetic group A (23%), B1 (8%), B2 (46%), D (23%) and ciprofloxacin resistance (7.7%), while those of in 175 E. coli strains isolated from patients with UTI were papC (41.1%), fimG/H (92.5%), sfaD/E (30.3%), hlyA (10.3%), cnf1 (30.3%), usp (27.4%), phylogenetic group A (9.1%), B1 (5.1%), B2 (60.6%), D (25.1%) and ciprofloxacin resistance (29.7%). In this study, 10 out of 13 E. coli strains (76.9%) from healthy students were found to possess more than one virulence factor associated with adhesion. In addition, one E. coli strain isolated from healthy students who had never been infected with UPEC showed ciprofloxacin resistance. According to these results between the virulence factors and phylogenetic groups it was closely associated, and UPEC strains isolated from patients showed high level of ciprofloxacin resistance.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.123-129
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• 1986

Using Cs-137 and Co-60 gamma-ray irradiation systems, the buildup factors for 2.9 cm thick lead absorber and the air scattering factors are determined for different beam solid angles from$2.4{\pi}{\times}10^{-3}sr\;to\;17.3{\pi}{\times}10^{-3}sr$. The corresponding buildup factors are turned out to be the values from 1.054 to 1.194 and the scattering factors to be the values from 1 to 1.064, respectively. To verify our results, calculated values using these factors and experimental values are compared. The differences between them are not more than 3. 3%.