• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.257-267
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• 1997

This study focuses on the health risk assessment of airborne volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a petrochemical complex, with several emphases on a risk assessment method. The first emphasis is on the importance of hazard identification to determine the likely carcinogenic potential of a VOC. Without considering this type of information, a direct comparison of the carcinogenic risks of two pollutants is meaningless. Therefore, wer suggest that this type of information be prepared and be listed with the estimate of cancer risk in parallel. The second emphasis is on the selection of a better dose-response model to estimate unit risk or cancer potency factor of a carcinogenic VOC. Finally, probilistic risk assessment method is discussed and recommended to use within a comparison of conventional point-estimate method. A health risk assessment has also been carried out. For non-carcinogenic risk, even the highest hazard index for carbon tetrachloride is estimated to be less than 1 with the other VOCs less than 0.03. However, the lifetime cancer risk from the inhalation of airborne VOCs is estimated to be about $2.6 \times 10^{-4}$ which is higher than the risk standard of $10^{-6}$ or even $10^{-5}$. Therefore, the investigation into domestic petrochemical complexes should be strengthened to obtain more fine long-term airborne VOC data.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.627-638
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• 1998

For any hazardous operation or risky project to be carried out safely and economically, it is of the utmost importance to formulate proper risk management policies based on the rational assessment of the risk levels of various potential hazards. In this paper, a Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Making(FMCDM) method for risk assessment is proposed. The method evaluates, on the basis of fuzzy set theory, the risk level of a risky situation by aggregating the assessed levels of risk factors and their subjective weights. The method also allows some flexibility for the future users in the sense that, first, the relative importance weights for the three risk factors can be adjusted according to the nature of projects or systems and, second, the users have the choice between the two types of risk assessment results, that is, the assessed risk levels or the ranks of the risk situations. A numerical example for the proposed FMCDM method is provided to illustrate the computational procedure. To see how the suggested FMCDM method describes well people's perceived risk level, we compared the risk values derived from the suggested method with the subjective risk evaluations for ten risky situations.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.839-850
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• 2021

Risk-adjusted return is believed to be one of the optimal parameters to determine an optimum portfolio. A risk-adjusted return is a calculation of the profit or potential profit from an investment that takes into account the degree of risk that must be accepted to achieve it. This paper presents a new procedure in portfolio selection and utilizes these results to optimize the risk level of risk-adjusted Islamic stock portfolios. It deals with the weekly close price of active issuers listed on Jakarta Islamic Index Indonesia for a certain time interval. Overall, this paper highlights portfolio selection, which includes determining the number of stocks, grouping the issuers via technical analysis, and selecting the best risk-adjusted return of portfolios. The nominated portfolio is modeled using Quadratic Programming (QP). The result of this study shows that the portfolio built using the lowest Value at Risk (VaR) outperforms the market proxy on a risk-adjusted basis of M-squared and was chosen as the best portfolio that can be optimized using QP with a minimum risk of 2.86%. The portfolio with the lowest beta, on the other hand, will produce a minimum risk that is nearly 60% lower than the optimal risk-adjusted return portfolio. The results of QP are well verified by a heuristic optimizer of fmincon.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.80 no.2
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• pp.113-135
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• 2017

Asthma is traditionally regarded as a chronic airway disease, and recent literature proves its heterogeneity, based on distinctive clusters or phenotypes of asthma. In defining such asthma clusters, the nature of comorbidity among patients with asthma is poorly understood, by assuming no causal relationship between asthma and other comorbid conditions, including both communicable and noncommunicable diseases. However, emerging evidence suggests that the status of asthma significantly affects the increased susceptibility of the patient to both communicable and noncommunicable diseases. Specifically, the impact of asthma on susceptibility to noncommunicable diseases such as chronic systemic inflammatory diseases (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis), may provide an important insight into asthma as a disease with systemic inflammatory features, a conceptual understanding between asthma and asthma-related comorbidity, and the potential implications on the therapeutic and preventive interventions for patients with asthma. This review discusses the currently under-recognized clinical and immunological phenotypes of asthma; specifically, a higher risk of developing a systemic inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis and their implications, on the conceptual understanding and management of asthma. Our discussion is divided into three parts: literature summary on the relationship between asthma and the risk of rheumatoid arthritis; potential mechanisms underlying the association; and implications on asthma management and research.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.6251-6255
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• 2012

Radiation proctitis and radiation cystitis are major complications for patients with cervical carcinoma following radiotherapy. In the present study, we aimed to determine the potential risk factors for the development of radiation proctitis and radiation cystitis after irradiation. A total of 1,518 patients with cervical carcinoma received external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) followed by high-dose-rate intracavitary brachytherapy (HDRICB) in our hospital. The incidences of radiation proctitis and radiation cystitis were recorded and associations with different factors (age, time period, tumor stage) were analyzed with ${\chi}^2$ (chi-squared) and Fisher exact tests. We found that 161 and 94 patients with cervical carcinoma were diagnosed with radiation proctitis and radiation cystitis, respectively, following radiotherapy. The prevalence of Grade I-II radiation proctitis or radiation cystitis was significantly lower than that of Grade III (radiation proctitis: 3.82% vs. 6.76%, P < 0.05; radiation cystitis: 2.31% vs. 3.87%, P < 0.05) and was significantly enhanced in patients with late stage (IIIb) tumor progression compared to those in early stage (Ib, IIa) (P < 0.05). Moreover, the incidence of radiation proctitis and cystitis was not correlated with age or, time period following radiation, for each patient (P > 0.05). These observations indicate that a late stage of tumor progression is a potential risk factor for the incidence of radiation proctitis and cystitis in cervical carcinoma patients receiving radiotherapy.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.89-96
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• 2015

The weapon systems development has some distinct characteristics in that a big size of government budget (derived from national tax) has been expended frequently and the completion of the development projects seems to take long. Thus, the impact of the potential changes in the required operational capability on the development activities can induce some type of project risks. As such, proper management of project risk has been one of crucial subjects in the weapon systems development. Although a variety of methods can be considered, an approach based on the test and evaluation (T&E) process has been selected in this paper in order to appropriately handle those potential risks. In the study of the underlying T&E process, the safety consideration (for instance, explosiveness) of weapon systems is also included. To achieve the objective of the paper, a step-by-step procedure is first presented in the analysis of the T&E process. Then, to pursue some enhancement on the process, a set of necessary and useful activities are added in terms of risk and safety management. The resultant process is further analyzed and tailored based on a design structure matrix method. The case study of a tank development is also discussed.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.9-14
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• 2009

This paper describes analysis of risk voltage for grounding electrode where earth leakage current is injected. To assess risk voltage of grounding electrode, the grounding simulator and CDEGS program were used to obtain measured data and theoretical results of this study. The grounding simulator was composed of a hemispherical water tank, AC power supply, a movable potentiometer, and test grounding electrodes. The shapes of grounding electrode model was ground rod. The potential rise was measured by grounding simulator, and the touch and step voltages were computed by CDEGS program. As a consequence, the potential rise of ground rod abruptly decreases with increasing the distance from the grounding electrode to the point to be tested. The touch voltage above the ground rod was low, but the step voltage was high. The measured results were compared with the computer calculated data and were known in good agreement.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.299-310
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• 2021

External fire spread has the potential to breach vertical compartmentation and violate the fire safety strategy of a building. The traditional design solution to this has been the use of non-combustible materials and spandrel panels but recent audits show that combustible materials are widespread and included in highly complex systems. Furthermore, most jurisdictions no longer require detailing of spandrel panels under many different circumstances. These buildings require rapid investigation using rational scientific methods to be able to adequately classify the fire risk. In this work, we use an extensive experimental campaign of material-scale data to explore the critical parameters driving upward flame spread. Two criteria are outlined using two different approaches. The first evaluates the time to ignition and the time to burnout to assess the ability for a fire to spread, and can be easily determined using traditional means. The second evaluates the preheated flame length as the critical parameter driving flame spread. A wide range of cladding materials are ranked according to these criteria to show their potential propensity to flame spread. From this, designers can use conservative approaches to perform fire risk assessments for buildings with combustible materials or can be used to aid decision-making. Precise estimates of flame spread rates within complex façade systems are not achievable with the current level of knowledge and will require a substantial amount of work to make progress.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.99-108
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• 2023

According to the COVID-19, development of various medical software based on IoT(Internet of Things) was accelerated. Especially, interest in a central software system that can remotely monitor and control ventilators is increasing to solve problems related to the continuous increase in severe COVID-19 patients. Since medical device software is closely related to human life, this study aims to develop central monitoring system that can remotely monitor and control multiple ventilators in compliance with medical device software development standards and to verify performance of system. In addition, to ensure the safety and reliability of this central monitoring system, this study also specifies risk management requirements that can identify hazardous situations and evaluate potential hazards and confirms the implementation of cybersecurity to protect against potential cyber threats, which can have serious consequences for patient safety. As a result, we obtained medical device software manufacturing certificates from MFDS(Ministry of Food and Drug Safety) through technical documents about performance verification, risk management and cybersecurity application.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.242-249
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• 2023

The aquarium pet trade is a source of potentially invasive crayfish species, which can be subsequently intentionally or unintentionally introduced into new environments. There were 34 species of freshwater crayfish imported into Korea for ornamental purposes. Starting with 1 species in 2008, it shows a trend of continuous increase every year with the maximum of 25 species in 2020. The number of freshwater crayfish imported into Korea for ornamental purposes was 1,172,159, with an annual average of 78,144 being imported. The population also recorded a record high in 2017 with a 38% increase in population imports compared to the previous year. Among the 34 pet crayfish imported into Korea, four species classified as high-risk and managed in the US and Europe were American crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), Cherax quadricarinatus, Cherax cainii, and Cherax destructor. In addition to American crayfish (P. clarkii), 3 types of high-risk invasive crayfish are designated as legally managed species by conducting an ecological risk assessment, raising awareness among importers, retailers and consumers through awareness-raising education on freshwater crayfish, and measures for route management such as species identification and improvement of labeling methods are needed.