• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2010

Industrial Safety and Health Law (ISH Law) of Japan requires abnormalities identified in evaluations of worker health and working environments are reported to occupational physicians, and employers are advised of measures to ensure appropriate accommodations in working environments and work procedures. Since the 1980s, notions of a risk assessment and occupational safety and health management system were expected to further prevent industrial accidents. In 2005, ISH Law stipulated workplace risk assessment using the wording "employers shall endeavor." Following the amendment, multiple documents and guidelines for risk assessment for different work procedures were developed. They require ISH Laws to be implemented fully and workplaces to plan and execute measures to reduce risks, ranking them from those addressing potential hazards to those requiring workers to wear protective articles. A governmental survey in 2005 found the performance of risk assessment was 20.4% and common reasons for not implementing risk assessments were lack of adequate personnel or knowledge. ISH Law specifies criminal penalties for both individuals and organizations. Moreover, under the Labor Contract Law promulgated in 2007, employers are obliged to make reasonable efforts to ensure employee health for foreseeable and avoidable risks. Therefore, enterprises neglecting even the non-binding provisions of guidelines are likely to suffer significant business impact if judged to be responsible for industrial accidents or occupational disease. To promote risk assessment, we must strengthen technical, financial, and physical support from public-service organizations, encourage the dissemination of good practices to reduce risks, and consider additional employer incentives, including relaxed mandatory regulations.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.61-71
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• 2019

Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) is a phenomenon in which a protective coating on a metal surface is dissolved by a flow of fluid in a metal pipe, leading to continuous wall-thinning. Recently, many countries have developed computer codes to manage FAC in power plants, and the FAC prediction model in these computer codes plays an important role in predictive performance. Herein, the FAC prediction model was developed by applying a machine learning method and the conventional nonlinear regression method. The random forest, a widely used machine learning technique in predictive modeling led to easy calculation of FAC tendency for five input variables: flow rate, temperature, pH, Cr content, and dissolved oxygen concentration. However, the model showed significant errors in some input conditions, and it was difficult to obtain proper regression results without using additional data points. In contrast, nonlinear regression analysis predicted robust estimation even with relatively insufficient data by assuming an empirical equation and the model showed better predictive power when the interaction between DO and pH was considered. The comparative analysis of this study is believed to provide important insights for developing a more sophisticated FAC prediction model.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.416-420
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• 2018

Background: Urinary 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) has been widely used as a biomarker of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in occupationally exposed workers. The objective of this study is to investigate the concentration of urinary 1-OHP among charcoal workers as subjects and non-charcoal workers as controls. Methods: Early morning urine samples were collected from 68 persons (25 charcoal workers in Igbo-Ora, 20 charcoal workers in Alabata, and 23 non-charcoal workers) who volunteered to participate in this study. 1-OHP determination in urine samples was carried out using high performance liquid chromatography after hydrolysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis at p < 0.05. Results: The mean urinary 1-OHP concentration (${\mu}mol/mol$ creatinine) among charcoal workers at Igbo-Ora and Alabata and non-charcoal workers were $2.22{\pm}1.27$, $1.32{\pm}0.65$, and $0.32{\pm}0.26$ (p < 0.01). There existed a relationship between respondent type and 1-OHP concentration. Charcoal workers were 3.14 times more at risk of having 1-OHP concentrations that exceed the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists guideline of $0.49{\mu}mol/mol$ creatinine than non-charcoal workers (relative risk = 3.14, 95% confidence interval: 1.7-5.8, p < 0.01). Conclusion: Charcoal workers are exposed to PAHs during charcoal production and are at risk of experiencing deleterious effects of PAH exposure. Routine air quality assessment should be carried out in communities where charcoal production takes place. Assessment of urinary 1-OHP concentration and use of personal protective equipment should also be encouraged among charcoal workers.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.89-98
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• 2021

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major risk factor of mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Streptococcus pneumoniae (colloquially known as pneumococcus) is one of important pathogens of CAP in patients with COPD. Preventive interventions for pneumonia include pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations. A prospective, cohort study has been performed to investigate the protective effects of pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations on the severity of community-acquired pneumonia requring hospital admission in patients with COPD. Seven university-affiliated hospitals in Korea have participated in the study. The aim of this study was to construct an online registration system for the multi-institutional researchers that facilitates efficient collection and management of COPD patient data. This study has presented three basic strategies-accurate data input, convenient data completion, and real-time data management-to supplement the demerits of existing offline clinical study. The proposed online registration system has already been applied to a multi-institutional clinical study and was acknowledged for its high performance.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.45-54
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• 2021

The skin is the body's first line of defense against external infection. When a skin disease strikes, the skin's protective role is compromised, necessitating quick diagnosis and treatment. Recently, as artificial intelligence has advanced, research for technical applications has been done in a variety of sectors, including dermatology, to reduce the rate of misdiagnosis and obtain quick treatment using artificial intelligence. Although previous studies have diagnosed skin diseases with low incidence, this paper proposes a method to classify common illnesses such as warts and corns using a convolutional neural network. The data set used consists of 3 classes and 2,515 images, but there is a problem of lack of training data and class imbalance. We analyzed the performance using a deep metric loss function and a cross-entropy loss function to train the model. When comparing that in terms of accuracy, recall, F1 score, and accuracy, the former performed better.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.136-147
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze four cases of firefighter burns in various fire scenes and to find prevention measures to decrease firefighter injuries. Among the analysis reports prepared by the National Fire Research Institute of Korea from 2016 to 2020, four burn-related accidents are summarized and the main causes are conveyed. The four accidents include second-degree burns from using extinguishers during containment of fires; nine firefighters burned due to re-ignition in the LPG car repair shop; two firefighters injured with third-degree burns from using fire extinguishers during life-saving events in residential housing; and injuries from the radiant heat of the tank BLEVE near the factory fire. These cases are comprehensively investigated in their respective scenes and analyzed based on the fire site investigation reports from the fire department and related theoretical explanations of risk for each accident scene. In the third case study, some experimental research is conducted to evaluate the risk involved with the use of safety gloves. This is evaluated by reviewing Fire Tactics and Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) to determine improvements and recommendations for an efficient firefighting response. Results show that the main causes of burn accidents are the insufficient use of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as safety gloves, and the failure to follow firefighting tactics or SOPs. Through the accident investigation and assessment, it is concluded that to reduce the frequency of burn accidents, the performance of firefighting equipment, SOPs, protection tactics, and safety policy systems require improvement.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

Objectives : Jakyakgamcho-tang has been used as analgesic and spasmolytic for muscle pain. It has reported to anti-diabetes, anti-inflammation, and neuro-protective effects. A clinical study of muscle fatigue and pain improvement effect of Jakyakgamcho-tang has been reported with increasing frequency of clinical use. However, the anti-fatigue effect of Jakyakgamcho-tang in animal model has not been studied. In this study, we compared anti-physical fatigue effects of water and 30% ethanol extract of Jakyakgamcho-tang. Methods : The amounts of components contained in water and 30% ethanol extract of Jakyakgamcho-tang were compared by ultra-performance liquid chromatography. Anti-physical fatigue effects were evaluated using weight-loaded forced swimming test. We also investigated the effects of Jakyakgamcho-tang on the change of fatigue parameters by blood biochemical analysis. Results : The relative amount of components of Jakyakgamcho-tang were about 19-53% higher in the 30% ethanol extract than in the water extract. In the swimming test, 30% ethanol extract showed a significantly greater anti-fatigue effects than conventional water extract of Jakyakgamcho-tang. The 30% ethanol extract of Jakyakgamcho-tang improved the exhausted swimming time (54%), and serum lactate dehydrogenase (48%) and lactic acid (60%) levels compared with water extract of Jakyakgamcho-tang. Conclusions : These results showed that differences in the amounts of components by different extraction were associated with differences of anti-fatigue effect of Jakyakgamcho-tang. Thus, the 30% ethanol extraction method could be applied to dose-reducing formulations of traditional herbal medicines.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.197-217
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• 2022

As the number of households that raise dogs and cats is increasing, there is growing interest in animal health. The gut plays an important role in animal health. In particular, the microbiome in the gut is known to affect both the absorption and metabolism of nutrients and the protective functions of the host. Using probiotics on pets has beneficial effects, such as modulating the immune system, helping to reduce stress, protecting against pathogenic bacteria and developing growth performance. The goals of this review are to summarize the relationship between probiotics/the gut microbiome and animal health, to feature technology used for identifying the diversity of microbiota composition of canine and feline microbiota, and to discuss recent reports on probiotics in canines and felines and the safety issues associated with probiotics and the gut microbiome in companion animals.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.187-195
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• 2023

A shield was made by mixing materials such as bismuth(Bi) and barium(Ba) with silicon to evaluate its shielding ability. Bismuth was made into a shield by mixing a bismuth oxide(Bi₂O₃) colloidal solution and a silicon base and applied to a fibrous fabric, and barium was made by mixing lead oxide(PbO) and barium sulfate(BaSO₄) with a silicon curing agent and solidifying it to make a shield. The test was conducted according to the lead equivalent test method for X-ray protective products of the Korean Industrial Standard. The experiment was conducted by increasing the shielding body one by one from the test condition of 60 kVp, 200 mA, 0.1sec and 100 kVp, 200 mA, 0.1 sec. At 60 kVp, 2 lead oxide-barium sulfate shields, 2 bismuth oxide 1.5 mm shields, and 5 bismuth oxide 0.3 mm shields showed shielding ability equal to or higher than that of lead 0.5 mm. At 100 kVp, 2 lead oxide-barium sulfate shields and 2 bismuth oxide 1.5 mm shields showed shielding ability equal to or higher than that of lead 0.5 mm. It was confirmed that when using 2 pieces of lead oxide-barium sulfate and 1.5 mm of bismuth oxide, respectively, it has shielding ability equivalent to that of lead. Bismuth oxide and lead oxide-barium sulfate are lightweight and have excellent shielding ability, thus they have excellent properties to be used as an apron for radiation protection or other shielding materials.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.237-253
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• 2022

The methyl 2-(1,3-dithietan -2- ylidene)-3-oxobutanoate (MDYO) and 2-(1,3-dithietan-2-ylidene) cyclohexane -1,3-dione (DYCD) were synthesized and tested at various concentrations as corrosion inhibitors for 316L stainless steel in 1 M HCl using weight loss, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), potentiodynamic polarization (PDP), surface analysis techniques (SEM / EDX and Raman spectroscopy) and Functional Density Theory (DFT) was also used to calculate quantum parameters. The obtained results indicated that the inhibition efficiency of MDYO and DYCD increases with their concentration, and the highest value of corrosion inhibition efficiency was determined in the range of concentrations investigated (0.01 × 10^-3 - 10^-3 M). Polarization curves (Tafel extrapolation) showed that both compounds act as mixed-type inhibitors in 1M HCl solutions. Electrochemical impedance spectra (Nyquist plots) are characterized by a capacitive loop observed at high frequencies, and another small inductive loop near low frequencies. The thermodynamic data of adsorption of the two compounds on the stainless steel surface and the activation energies were determined and then discussed. Analysis of experimental results shows that MDYO and DYCD inhibitors adsorb to the metal surface according to the Langmuir model and the mechanism of adsorption of both inhibitors involves physisorption. SEM-EDX results confirm the existence of an inhibitor protective film on the stainless steel surface. The results derived from theoretical calculations supported the experimental observation.