• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2020

Purpose: This paper presents research evidence that the environmental design of the doffing area in a biocontainment unit (BCU) can have a measurable impact on increasing the safety of frontline healthcare workers (HCW) during doffing of high-level personal protective equipment (PPE), and proposes optimized biocontainment unit design. Methods: From 2016 to 2019, The SimTigrate Design Lab conducted 3 consecutive studies, focusing on ways in which the built environment may support or hinder safe doffing. In the first study, to identify the risky behaviors, we observed 56 simulation exercises with HCWs in 4 BCUs and 1 high-fidelity BCU mockup. In the second study, we tested the effectiveness of a redesigned doffing area on improving the HCWs performance and used simulation, observation, and rapid prototyping in 1 high-fidelity mockup of a doffing area. In a follow-up study, we used simulation and co-design with HCWs to optimize the design of a safer doffing area in a full-size pediatric BCU mock-up. Results: We identified 11 specific risky behaviors potentially leading to occupational injury, or contamination of the PPE, or of the environment. We developed design strategies to create a space for safer doffing. In the second study, in a redesigned doffing area, the overall performance of HCW improved, and we observed a significant decrease in the number of risky behaviors; some risky behaviors were eliminated. There was a significant decrease in physical and cognitive load for the HCWs. Finally, we propose an optimized layout of a BCU for a safer process of PPE doffing. Implications: The proposed BCU design supports better staff communication, efficiency, and automates safer behaviors. Our findings can be used to develop design guidelines for spaces where patients with other highly infectious diseases are treated when the safety of the patient-facing HCWs is of critical importance.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.49
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• pp.2.1-2.11
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• 2019

Nanomaterials (NMs) find widespread use in different industries that range from agriculture, food, medicine, pharmaceuticals, and electronics to cosmetics. It is the exceptional properties of these materials at the nanoscale, which make them successful as growth promoters, drug carriers, catalysts, filters and fillers, but a price must be paid via the potential toxity of these materials. The harmful effects of nanoparticles (NPs) to environment, human and animal health needs to be investigated and critically examined, to find appropriate solutions and lower the risks involved in the manufacture and use of these exotic materials. The vast number and complex interaction of NM/NPs with different biological systems implies that there is no universal toxicity mechanism or assessment method. The various challenges need to be overcome and a number of research studies have been conducted during the past decade on different NMs to explore the possible mechanisms of uptake, concentrations/dosage and toxicity levels. This review article examines critically the recent reports in this field to summarize and present opportunities for safer design using case studies from published literature.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.23-28
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• 2014

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.141-161
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• 2015

A significant portion of residential areas of Turkey is located in active earthquake zones. In Turkey occurred major earthquakes in last twenty years, such as Erzincan (1992), Kocaeli and $D{\ddot{u}}zce$ (1999), $Bing{\ddot{o}}l$ (2003), Van (2011). These earthquakes have demonstrated that reinforced concrete (RC) buildings having horizontal and vertical irregularities are significantly damaged, which in turn most of them are collapsed. Architectural design and arrangement of load-bearing system have important effect on RC building since architectural design criteria in design process provide opportunity to make this type of buildings safer and economical under earthquake loads. This study aims to investigate comparatively the effects of weak story irregularity on earthquake behavior and rough construction costs of RC buildings by considering different soil-conditions given in the Turkish Earthquake Code. With this aim, Sta4-CAD program based on matrix displacement method is utilized. Considering that different story height and compressive strength of concrete, and infill walls or their locations are the variables, a set of structural models are developed to determine the effect of them on earthquake behavior and rough construction costs of RC buildings. In conclusion, some recommendations and results related to making RC buildings safer and more economical are presented by comparing results obtained from structural analyses.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.43-53
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• 2022

This paper describes an attempt to improve and optimize the operational safety level of a domestic research reactor by conducting a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) under full-power operating conditions. The PSA was undertaken to assess the level of safety at an operating research reactor in Korea, to evaluate whether it is probabilistically safe and reliable to operate, and to obtain insights regarding the requisite procedural and design improvements for achieving safer operation. The technical objectives were to use the PSA to identify the accident sequences leading to core damage, and to conduct sensitivity analyses based thereon to derive insights regarding potential design and procedural improvements. Based on the dominant accident sequences identified by the PSA, eight types of sensitivity analysis were performed, and relevant insights for achieving safer operation were derived. When these insights were applied to the reactor design and operating procedure, the risk was found to be reduced by approximately ten times, and the safety was significantly improved. The results demonstrate that the PSA methodology is very effective for improving reactor safety in the full-power operating phase. In particular, it is a highly suitable approach for identifying the deficiencies of a reactor operating at full power, and for improving the reactor safety by overcoming those deficiencies.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.83-87
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• 2020

• IE interfaces
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.114-125
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• 2002

The objective of this paper is to describe a systematic accident scenario analysis method(SASA) adept at creating accident scenarios for the design of safer products. This approach was inspired by the Quality Function Deployment(QFD) method, which is conventionally used in quality management. In this study, the QFD provides a formal and systematic scheme to devise accident scenarios while maintaining objectivity. SASA consists of three key stages to be broken down into a series of consecutive steps:(1) developing an accident analysis tableau,(2) devising the accident scenarios using the accident analysis tableau,(3) performing a feasibility test, a clustering process and a patterning process, and finally(4) performing quantitative evaluation of each accident scenario. The SASA was applied to a case study of child safety seats. The accident analysis tableau devised 2828(maximum) accident scenarios from all possible relationships between the hazard factors and situation characteristics. Among them, 270 scenarios were devised through the feasibility test and the clustering process. The patterning process reduced them to 29 patterns representative of all accident scenarios. Based on an intensive analysis of the accident patterns, design guidelines for a safer child safety seat were recommended. The implications of the study on the child safety seat case were then discussed.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.211-219
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to propose the environmental planning guidelines of elementary school settings for a crime safety. The research methodologies To achieve the goal, the literature review analysis and the survey were used as main research methodologies. The survey is organized as follows. First, elementary education facilities were divided into 20 spaces based on the major space. Second, after analyzing the domestic and foreign CPTED Guidelines, elements of environmental planning were classified to fit in the space. Based on this, the expert survey was conducted. The results of this study are as follows; First, it is necessary to consider specific places such as 'toilets', 'parking lot', 'in-between space', 'main access road', 'sub-access road' and 'harmful facilities around school' for safer school environment. Second, it is significant to plan 'equipment facilities' and 'outdoor space in the school setting' with priority for elementary education environment. Third, environmental planning elements for safer elementary schools can be classified into 9 factors(types) including 'natural surveillance planning', 'territoriality reinforcement planning', 'mechanical surveillance planning', 'access control planning' and 'neighborhood reinforcement planning'. Forth, regarding 'indoor space', crime-free elementary school environment can be build through 'natural surveillance planning' and 'territoriality reinforcement planning'. Finally, regarding 'outdoor space', the crime can be prevented through 'natural surveillance planning' and 'access control planning'.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.128-136
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• 2001

This paper presents an optimum deck and girder system design for minimizing the life-cycle cost (LU) of steel box girder bridges. The problem of optimum LCC design of steel box girder bridges is formulated as that of minimization of the expected total LCC that consists of initial cost, maintenance cost, expected retrofit costs for strength, deflection, and crack. To demonstrate the effect of LCC optimum design of steel box girder bridges, the LCC optimum design is compared with conventional design method for steel box girder bridges design. From the numerical investigations, it may be positively stated that the optimum design of steel box girder bridges based on LCC will lead to more rational, economical and safer design.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.273-280
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• 2001

In this study, a comparison between the structural design criteria for a catenary system with the maximum design speed of 100km/h and that of 300km/h was performed in order to establish that of 200km/h. According to the result, catenary design criteria for 300km/h operation is more conservative than that for 100km/h operation. This result shows that higher wind pressure and safety factor are adopted to catenary design for 300km/h operation. So, for the purpose of the economic structural design for catenary system, it is necessary to review the adoption possibility of catenary system for 100km/h operation first. In order to review the adoption possibility for catenary system for 100km/h operation, design criteria for 300km/h operation should be chosen for safer catenary structure.