• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.210-220
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• 2017

Objectives: This study was conducted to prepare fundamental data and prevention measures on health promotion and occupational disease, and to assess the effects of the working environment on subjective health status and absenteeism among workers using data from the third working environment survey in Korea. Methods: This study's subjects were composed of 29,711 wage workers from the 3rd working environment survey data. The dependent variables were several diseases, subjective health status and absences, and the independent variable was the working environment. The collected data were analyzed by One-Way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation and stepwise multiple analysis using the IBM SPSS(ver. 20.0) statistical package program. Results: The effecting factors for cardiovascular disease were age, working shift and emotional state. The effecting factors for anxiety and depression were years of education, working condition, duties, and emotional state. The effecting factors of insomnia were duty and emotional state. The positive effecting factors for absent days were work standing, working shift, number of night shifts, autonomy, and duties. The positive effecting factors of subjective health status were age, work standing, working years, working shift, appropriateness of working hours, leadership of superiors, duties and emotional state. Conclusions: Based on the above results, the author considers that it is necessary to improve the working environment to reduce absent days, such as by reducing of number of night shifts and giving autonomy regarding duties, and to improve the working environment for subjective health status such as by controlling the appropriateness of working hours and stability of the emotional state. In addition, this study provides fundamental data on health promotion and occupational disease among workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.203-209
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• 2018

Background: Night shift work is associated with many problems such as sleep deprivation, sleepiness, decreased cognitive performance, increased human errors, and fatigue. This study set out to measure cognitive performance, melatonin rhythms, and sleep after different consecutive night shifts (7 vs. 4) among control room operators (CORs). Methods: The participants included 60 CORs with a mean age of 30.2 years (standard deviation, 2.0) from a petrochemical complex located in Southern Iran. Cognitive performance was assessed using the n-back task and continuous performance test. To evaluate melatonin, saliva was collected and tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. To assess sleep and sleepiness, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Karolinska Sleepiness Scale were used, respectively. Results: Individuals who worked 7 consecutive night shifts had a significantly better cognitive performance and sleep quality than those who worked 4 consecutive night shifts. However, salivary melatonin profile and sleepiness trend were not affected by shift type. Conclusion: The main duty of CORs working night shifts at the studied industry included managing safety-critical processes through complex displays; a responsibility that demands good cognitive performance and alertness. It is suggested that an appropriate number of consecutive night shifts in a rotating shift system should be planned with the ultimate aim of improving CROs performance/alertness and enhancing safety.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.769-779
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was an experimental study to compare the inhalation effects of aroma essential oil on the quality of sleep (QOS) for shift nurses after working nights. Methods: The participants were 60 healthy adults who didn't have any disease. As an experimental treatment, the participants in the experimental group were asked to inhale essential oil for 3 minutes at a distance of approximately 10 cm from their nose and then they were asked to sleep with the aroma stone beside their head (within a 30 cm distance). QOS were measured four times on Pretest, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 after they slept. To measure QOS, Perceived QOS (Numeric Rating Scale), the Verran & Synder-Halpern (VSH) Sleep Scale were used, and number of awakenings (NoA) was measured by Actigraph. Results: There were no significant differences in the homogeneity tests for general characteristics and dependent variables prior to the experiments, except for VSH of subjective sleep quality. Also, there was no significant interaction between group and time. The VSH of the experimental group was higher than the control group (F=6.39, p=.002). The NoA between the experimental group and the control group was significantly different after experimental treatment 3rd day (F=13.35, p=.001). Conclusion: The findings show that the inhalation of aroma essential oil had effects to increase the quality of sleep. Therefore, the inhalation of aroma essential oil could be applied to general nursing interventions to improve the quality of sleep.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.55-67
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• 2007

Background : The goal of this study was to examine the health behaviors of nurses and provide basic information on health promotion for nurses. Materials and Methods : A self-administered questionnaire survey was completed by 340 nurses working at a university hospital in Daegu, Korea from March 6 to March 30, 2006. The questionnaire included demographic characteristics, working environment, health behaviors, self-assessed health status, and the practice of health promotion activities according to the work group(shift group vs. non-shift group). Results : There were significant differences in 'regular diet', 'drinking', 'ordinary health management', 'regular exercise', 'leisure activities', 'rest', and 'feeling of fatigue' between the two groups. The score for the practice of health promotion activities of the non-shift group was 121.9, which was higher than the 115.4 for the shift group. By field of practice of health promotion activities, there were significant differences in 'self-realization' and 'nutrition' between the two groups. Conclusion : The shift group did not appear to have enough time to take care of their health. It is therefore important to provide a working environment in which nurses are encouraged to increase their interest and efforts to maintain healthy behaviors. In addition, programs for education and training should be developed to help nurses adopt healthy life styles and enhance their self-esteem.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.664-675
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• 2016

The purpose of the study was to explore the nurses' perception of flexible working and present an operational guideline for implementation. The data were collected from a survey of 532 nurses conducted from 10 February to 24 February, 2015, using simple random sampling. SPSS 21.0 was used to analyze the data. This study found that the demanding for shorter hour shifts was highest ($M=3.89{\pm}0.87$) and 242 participants (46.2%) intended to apply the shift, followed by a fixed night shift, fixed weekend shift, and 12 hour shift. The common reasons identified were the poor environment of shift work and the challenges of child care. The increased time for personal development, relaxation activity to improve the quality of life and child care was highlighted and work-life balance was noted as a positive impact of flexible working. The negative impacts of flexible working were being likely to become temporary workers. These results can help establish uniform working conditions of nurses in the future by providing a standardized operational guideline as a precondition for reasonable compensation and working environment according to a flexible working pattern.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.514-524
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of clinical nurses over 40 years of age who were shift workers. Methods: Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 10 clinical nurses over 40 years of age who had at least 10 years of clinical experience and who worked in 5 acute care hospitals. The data were analyzed using Braun & Clark's thematic analysis. Results: One main theme, 3 themes, and 9 subthemes were derived. The main theme was "Sustaining a position still in conflict", and themes were as follows; "Being trained as a professional nurse", "Having unfavorable working conditions and damaged self-esteem", "Trying hard to get a sense of value as an experienced nurse" Conclusion: The results of this study show the issues of age and generational diversities in nurses in acute care hospitals. It is necessary to explore various ways to utilize the experience of older clinical nurses for the integrity of nursing organization and the development of the nursing profession.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.78-96
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• 1986

The sympathico-adrenergic system and the hypophyseal-adrenocortical system mediates the regulation of the internal milieu. And the kidneys regulate both water and electrolyte balance of the body fluid. The kidneys are the sites of production of renin which participate indirectly in maintaining renin. angiotensin-aldosterone system. These system de-serve special attention in the context of adjustment the effects on the body function. And so, maximal exercise and work load are associated with home-osthetic function. The nurses working in the hospital have been complained of fatigue and stress by frequent duty changes and overload. In order to define this, the possible changes of hormonal excretion during three-shift nursing practice were investigated. Urine samples were collected at pre-duty and post-duty, and were measured with chemical assay and radioimmunoassay in 30 nursing students, in nursing practice and 43 nursing students, in studying. The results obtained were as follows. 1. In nursing practice, urinary norepinephrine concentration showed a marked increase during day duty, urinary cortisol concentration showed a marked increase during evening duty, and urinary renin concentration was increased in night duty, 2. Corrected ratio of urinary sodium excreted by the urinary excretion of creatinin (UNa/UCr) and UCl/UCr showed a marked decrease during night duty. Nursing practice did not affect on the UK/UCr and urinary concentrating ability. From these results, it is suggested that further studies the define the effects on some physiological function of the three-shift nursing practice against circadian rhythm are needed for better working condition of nurses.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.543-550
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• 2012

The decrease in the fracture toughness of ferritic steels in a reactor pressure vessel is an important factor in determining the lifetime of a nuclear power plant. A surveillance program has been in place in Korea since 1979 to assess the structural integrity of RPV steels. In this work, the surveillance data were collected and analyzed statistically in order to derive the empirical relationship between the embrittlement and strengthening of irradiated reactor pressure vessel steels. There was a linear relationship between the yield strength change and the transition temperature shift change at 41 J due to irradiation. The proportional coefficient was about $0.5^{\circ}C$/MPa in the base metals (plate/forgings). The upper shelf energy decrease ratio was non-linearly proportional to the yield strength change, and most of the data lay along the trend curve of the US results. The transition regime temperature interval, ${\Delta}T_T$, was less than the US data. The overall change from irradiation was very similar to the US results. It is expected that the results of this study will be applied to basic research on the multiscale modeling of the irradiation embrittlement of RPV materials in Korea.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.17-26
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• 2023

A forklift is an industrial vehicle that lifts or transports heavy objects using a hydraulically operated fork, and is equipped with an automatic transmission for the convenience of repetitive transportation, loading, and unloading work. The Transmission Control Unit (TCU) is a key component in charge of the shift control function of an automatic transmission. It consists of an electric circuit with an input/output signal interface function and firmware running on a microcontroller. To develop TCU firmware, the development process of shifting algorithm design, firmware programming, verification test, and performance improvement must be repeated. A simulator is a device that simulates a mechanical system having dynamic characteristics in real time and simulates various sensor signals installed in the system. The embedded transmission simulator is a simulator that is embedded in the TCU firmware. information related to the mechanical system that is necessary for TCU normal operation. In this study, an embedded transmission simulator applied to the originally developed forklift TCU firmware was designed and used to verify various forklift shift control algorithms.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.6-9
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• 2024

HscA is a Hsp70-type chaperone protein that plays an essential role to mediate the iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster biogenesis mechanism in Escherichia coli. Like other Hsp70 chaperones, HscA is composed of two domains: the nucleotide binding domain (NBD), which can hydrolyze ATP and use its chemical energy to facilitate the Fe-S cluster transfer process, and the substrate binding domain (SBD), which directly interacts with the substrate, IscU, the scaffold protein of an Fe-S cluster. In the present work, we prepared the isolated SBD construct of HscA (HscA(SBD)) and conducted the solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments to have its backbone chemical shift assignment information. Due to low spectral quality of HscA(SBD), we obtained all the NMR data from the sample containing the peptide LPPVKIHC, the HscA-interaction motif of IscU, from which the chemical shift assignment could be done successfully. We expect that this information provides an important basis to execute detailed structural characterization of HscA and appreciate its interaction with IscU.