• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.305-313
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• 2019

Background: The oil and gas industry is one of the riskiest industries for confined space injuries. This study aimed to understand an overall picture of the causal factors of confined space accidents through analyzing accident reports and the use of a qualitative approach. Methods: Twenty-one fatal occupational accidents were analyzed according to the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System approach. Furthermore, thirty-three semistructured interviews were conducted with employees in different roles to capture their experiences regarding the contributory factors. The content analyses of the interview transcripts were conducted using MAXQDA software. Results: Based on accident reports, the largest proportions of causal factors (77%) were attributed to the organizational and supervisory levels, with the predominant influence of the organizational process. We identified 25 contributory factors in confined space accidents that were causal factors outside of the original Human Factors Analysis and Classification System framework. Therefore, modifications were made to deal with factors outside the organization and newly explored causal factors at the organizational level. External Influences as the fifth level considered contributory factors beyond the organization including Laws, Regulations and Standards, Government Policies, Political Influences, and Economic Status categories. Moreover, Contracting/Contract Management and Emergency Management were two extra categories identified at the organizational level. Conclusions: Preventing confined space accidents requires addressing issues from the organizational to operator level and external influences beyond the organization. The recommended modifications provide a basis for accident investigation and risk analysis, which may be applicable across a broad range of industries and accident types.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.38-49
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• 2021

Slug flow is the most common multi-phase flow encountered in oil and gas industry. In this study, the hydrodynamic features of flow in pipes investigated numerically using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations for the effect of slug flow on the vertical and bent pipeline. The compressible Reynold averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation was used as the governing equation, with the volume of fluid (VOF) method to capture the outline of the bubble in a pipeline. The simulations were tested for the grid and time step convergence, and validated with the experimental and theoretical results for the main hydrodynamic characteristics of the Taylor bubble, i.e., bubble shape, terminal velocity of bubble, and the liquid film velocity. The slug flow was simulated with various air and water injection velocities in the pipeline. The simulations revealed the effect of slug flow as the pressure occurring in the wall of the pipeline. The peak pressure and pressure oscillations were observed, and those magnitudes and trends were compared with the change in air and water injection velocities. The mechanism of the peak pressures was studied in relation with the change in bubble length, and the maximum peak pressures were investigated for the different positions and velocities of the air and water in the pipeline. The pressure oscillations were investigated in comparison with the bubble length in the pipe and the oscillation was provided with the application of damping. The pressures were compared with the case of a bent pipe, and a 1.5 times higher pressures was observed due to the compression of the bubbles at the corner of the bent. These findings can be used as a basic data for further studies and designs on pipeline systems with multi-phase flow.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.508-513
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• 2011

Hemp is known as one of the most productive and useful plants, which grows quickly in a moderate climate with only moderate water and fertilizer. Traditionally in Korea, hemp bast is used to natural fibres, and remaining such as stem and root is treated as waste. Those of hemp by-products can be transformed to bio fuel such as bio-oil and activated carbon. To understand pyrolysis characteristics, thermogravimetric analysis were carried out in TGA, in which hemp by-products were mostly decomposed at the temperature range of $270{\sim}370^{\circ}C$. The corresponding kinetic parameters including activation energy and pre-exponential factor were determined by differential method over the degree of conversions. The values of activation energies for pyrolysis were increased as the conversion increased from 10 to 90%.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.673-682
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• 2020

The ground shear force at the expected failure surface and resistance force due to reinforced anchor can act as important factors according to a failure type from the stability viewpoint at a slope. Furthermore, the anchor's axial force may vary at an anchor-reinforced slope due to ground weathering, settlement, and corrosion in the incompletely anti-corrosion treated steel wire strand at a ground where the bearing plate is installed. However, in case that the resistance force of the anchor is locally lost due to the variation of the anchor's axial force, the resistance force may not play the role so that the external force tends to be transferred to the surrounding anchors, causing an increase in the tensile force in the surrounding anchors. Accordingly, a stability problem at the entire slope may occur, which requires much attention. Thus, this study proposed a method to monitor a variation trend of the tensile force of anchors installed at a slope and infer the external stability at the entire slope considering the monitoring result.

• Journal of Platform Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.56-67
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• 2023

Recently, de-identification of personal information, which has been a long-cherished desire of the data-based industry, was revised and specified in August 2020. It became the foundation for activating data called crude oil[2] in the fourth industrial era in the industrial field. However, some people are concerned about the infringement of the basic rights of the data subject[3]. Accordingly, a development study was conducted on the Batch De-Identification Tool, a personal information de-identification automation tool. In this study, first, we developed an image labeling tool to label human faces (eyes, nose, mouth) and car license plates of various resolutions to build data for training. Second, an object recognition model was trained to run the object recognition module to perform de-identification of personal information. The automated personal information de-identification tool developed as a result of this research shows the possibility of proactively eliminating privacy violations through online services. These results suggest possibilities for data-based industries to maximize the value of data while balancing privacy and utilization.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.419-426
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• 2023

Objectives: This study aims to develop an Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) guide for the safe cleaning of contaminated machinery, equipment, and parts used in the electronics manufacturing process. Methods: A literature review, field investigations, and discussions were conducted. An initial draft of an OSH guide was developed and reviewed by experts with significant experience in maintenance work in the electronics manufacturing process in order to refine the guide. Results: Workers involved in cleaning processes with chemicals, solvents, and abrasive blasting can face exposure to a wide range of chemicals, abrasives, and noise. Identifying potential risks associated with each cleaning technique was an essential first step toward enhancing safety measures. The OSH guide comprises approximately eleven to twelve sections spanning 20-25 pages. It includes engineering and administrative protocols systematically organized to address the necessary actions before, during, and after cleaning tasks, depending on the technique. It is recommended that airline respirator masks be used in conjunction with an air purification system to ensure adherence to air quality standard "D" for atmosphere level. The use of an oil-free air compressor is advised, preferably a stationary model that does not rely on fuel sources like diesel. Conclusions: This OSH guide is designed to protect workers involved in maintenance activity in the electronics industry and aligns with global standards, such as those from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Semiconductor Equipment and Material International, ensuring a higher level of safety and compliance.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.23 no.11
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• pp.128-132
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• 2023

Investment authorities are broad financial institutions that carefully manage investments on behalf of the national government using a long-term value development approach. To provide a stronger structure or framework for In-vestment Authorities to govern the distribution of funds to public and private markets, we've started research to create a blockchain-based prototype for managing and tracking numerous finances of such authorities. We have taken the case study of Oman Investment Authority (OIA) of Sultanate of Oman. Oman's wealth is held in OIA. It is an organization that oversees and utilizes the additional capital generated by oil and gas profits in public and private markets. Unlike other Omani funds, this one focus primarily on assets outside the Sultanate. The operation of the OIA entails a huge number of transactions, necessitating a high level of transparency and administration among the parties involved. Currently, OIA relies on various manuals to achieve its goals, such as the Authorities and Responsibilities manual, the In-vestment Manual, and the Code of Business Conduct, among others. In this paper, we propose a Blockchain based framework to manage the operations of OIA. Blockchain is a part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and it is re-shaping every industry. The main components of every blockchain are assets and participants. The funds are the major assets in the proposed study, and the participants are the various fund shareholders/recipients. The block-chain's transactions are all safe, secure, and immutable, and it's part of a trustless network. The transactions are simple to follow and verify. By replacing intermediary firms with smart contracts, blockchain-based solutions eliminate any middlemen in the fund allocation process.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.5 no.10
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• pp.2575-2583
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• 1998

The productionof the highly relible softwae systems and theirs performance evaluation hae become important interests in the software industry. The software evaluation has been mainly carried out in ternns of both reliability and performance of software system. Software reliability is the probability that no software error occurs for a fixed time interval during software testing phase. These theoretical software reliability models are sometimes unsuitable for the practical testing phase in which a software error at a certain testing stage occurs by causes of the imperfect debugging, abnornal software correction, and so on. Such a certatin software testing stage needs to be considered as an outlying stage. And we can assume that the software reliability does not improve by means of muisance factor in this outlying testing stage. In this paper, we discuss Bavesian software reliability growth modeling and estimation procedure in the presence of an imidentitied outlying software testing stage by the modification of Jehnski Moranda. Also we derive the Bayes estimaters of the software reliability panmeters by the assumption of prior information under the squared error los function. In addition, we evaluate the proposed software reliability growth model with an unidentified outlying stage in an exchangeable model according to the values of nuisance paramether using the accuracy, bias, trend, noise metries as the quantilative evaluation criteria through the compater simulation.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.21-32
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• 2017

Motivated by the recent cases of negligent social responsibility as manifested by foreign luxury fashion brands in Korea, this study investigates whether agency costs depend on the sustainability of different types of corporate governance. Agency costs refer either to vertical costs arising from the relationship between stockholders and managers, or to horizontal costs associated with the potential conflicts between majority and minority stockholders. The firms with luxury fashion brand could spend large sums of money on maintenance of magnificent brand image, thereby increasing the agency cost. On the contrary, the firms may hold down wasteful spending to report a gaudily financial achievement. This results in mitigation of the agency cost. Agency costs are measured by the value of the principal component. First, three ratios are constructed: asset turnover, operating expense to sales, and earnings before interest, tax, and depreciation. Then, the scores of each of these ratios for individual firms in the sample are differenced from the ratios for the benchmark firm of S-OIL. S-OIL was designated as the best superior governance model firm for 2013 by CGS. We perform regression analysis of each agency cost index, luxury fashion brand dummy and a set of control variables. The regression results indicate that the agency costs of the firms with luxury fashion brand exceed those of control group in the fashion industry in the part of operating expenses, but the agency cost falls short of those of control group in the part of EBITD, thus the aggregate agency costs are not differential of those of the control group. In sensitivity test, the results are same that the agency cost of the firms are higher than those of the matching control group with PSM(propensity matching method). These results are corroborated by an additional analysis comparing the group of the companies with the best brands with the control group. The results raise doubts about the effectiveness of management of the firms with luxury fashion brand. This study has a limitation that the research has performed only for 2013 and this paper suggests that there is room for improvement in the current research methodology.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.231-245
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• 2023

In the cosmetics industry, it is important to develop new materials for functional cosmetics such as whitening, wrinkles, anti-oxidation, and anti-aging, as well as technology to increase absorption when applied to the skin. Therefore, in this study, we tried to optimize the nanoemulsion formulation by utilizing response surface methodology (RSM), an experimental design method. A nanoemulsion was prepared by a high-pressure emulsification method using Glabridin as an active ingredient, and finally, the optimized skin absorption rate of the nanoemulsion was evaluated. Nanoemulsions were prepared by varying the surfactant content, cholesterol content, oil content, polyol content, high-pressure homogenization pressure, and cycling number of high-pressure homogenization as RSM factors. Among them, surfactant content, oil content, high-pressure homogenization pressure, and cycling number of high-pressure homogenization, which are factors that have the greatest influence on particle size, were used as independent variables, and particle size and skin absorption rate of nanoemulsion were used as response variables. A total of 29 experiments were conducted at random, including 5 repetitions of the center point, and the particle size and skin absorption of the prepared nanoemulsion were measured. Based on the results, the formulation with the minimum particle size and maximum skin absorption was optimized, and the surfactant content of 5.0 wt%, oil content of 2.0 wt%, high-pressure homogenization pressure of 1,000 bar, and the cycling number of high-pressure homogenization of 4 pass were derived as the optimal conditions. As the physical properties of the nanoemulsion prepared under optimal conditions, the particle size was 111.6 ± 0.2 nm, the PDI was 0.247 ± 0.014, and the zeta potential was -56.7 ± 1.2 mV. The skin absorption rate of the nanoemulsion was compared with emulsion as a control. As a result of the nanoemulsion and general emulsion skin absorption test, the cumulative absorption of the nanoemulsion was 79.53 ± 0.23%, and the cumulative absorption of the emulsion as a control was 66.54 ± 1.45% after 24 h, which was 13% higher than the emulsion.