• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.247-250
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• 2023

This case report aims to introduce the safety campaign activities for preventing chemical accidents that were cooperatively conducted by an environmental office and chemical-handling workplaces located in the Ulsan area. A chemical safety campaign was initiated to examine and manage chemical-handling facilities at high risk for chemical accidents, specifically valves, flanges, and switches (VFS) from October 2020 to December 2022. The VFS safety check campaign was conducted to raise workers' safety consciousness based on a campaign of advertisements in the workplace from October 2020 to December 2021. In addition, a VFS plus [+] campaign was initiated to encourage actual management activities for chemical-handling facilities at high risk of chemical accidents in 2022. A total of 49 corporations participated in the VFS plus [+] campaign. In contrast to the VFS safety check campaign, which simply focused on publicity and resulted in changes in worker awareness, practicable safety management activities focusing on the handling facilities were carried out. Although notable short-term impacts have yet to be discerned from the campaigns, it is expected that they will eventually serve as a starting point for developing a proper safety culture and environment.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.402-410
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to eliminate communication shadowing loss of the 'smart safety management system'. The 'smart safety management system' can monitor and relay real time data of workers working in high risk workplace (i.e: industrial scene, disaster scene). The data will provide the rescue team the 'golden hour' in their rescue operations. Method: In this research, safety tag was designed and implemented so that it acts as a repeater for the user. Result: In other words, when communication in-between the safety tag and headquarters' communication terminal is jeopardized, the safety tag will act as a repeater-terminal for other safety tags in the area. Conclusion: The research tested if a specific building with communication shadowing loss problem was resolved when safety tags were implemented. Communication shadowing was first identified in-between the safety tag and headquarters' communication terminal. When extra safety tags were deployed in the same situation, the results showed that the communication shadowing loss was resolved. The repeater safety tags could resolve communication shadowing loss of up to three basement levels in this test building.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.27-38
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• 2022

In developed countries, the number of accidents has significantly decreased with the introduction of the process safety management system, but it has a regulatory nature and it is difficult to show the actual situation of workplace safety management. Many organizations recommend the use of process safety performance indicators to comprehensively monitor process safety status. In this study, for the application of process safety performance indicators, the related guidelines were compared and analyzed, and the method of using the process safety system of the workplace as an indicator was reviewed. In literature indicators, compliance with procedures is mainly checked, whereas in system-based indicators, procedures or inspections for a specific purpose of the safety system can be clearly identified, and the operation status can be measured and monitored. It can be seen that this characteristic is more advantageous in terms of the clarity of the supplements derived in operating safety management activities. Using this, it is possible to effectively show the level of safety management in the workplace.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.130-135
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• 2003

This study is planned to investigate the compliance of small sized enterprises of under 5 employees directed by Industrial Safety and Health Act. Occupational safety regulation can be required for employer and employee to comply because that all members of workplace should be involved to protect worker's health. When all members of workplace comply with safety regulation, effectiveness of regulation will be realized as expectation. The study subject is composed of three groups as 501 employers, 501 employees of small sized enterprises of under 5 employees and 107 safety inspectors sampled by stratified random sampling for comparison. Data for analysis is collected from each sample using interview with structured questionnaires. Compliance is measured by 5 point scale composed by 8 sub items such as general perception, understanding, clearness, necessity, relevancy, implementation, penalty, and general compliance of the regulation. Among sub items of employer's compliance, the level of perception of regulation, necessity of regulation, relevancy of penalty are differentiated among three groups. The level of all 8 items of employee's compliance also differentiated among three groups. These results show that strategies for ensuring the same level of compliance among three groups will be needed through education, training and evaluation of regulation and feedback.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Industrial Safety Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.303-308
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• 2001

Various organic solvents are most commonly using material in various factories, for examples, paint producting process and other industries, actually most of them are toxic materials, If many kinds of organic chemicals are concurrently exposed to workplace, toxidities can be influenced as additive effect or synergistic effect.(omitted)

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.336-347
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• 2011

Objectives: In Korea, an average of 258 workers claim compensation for their noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) on an annual basis. Indeed, hearing disorder ranks first in the number of diagnoses made by occupational medical check-ups. Against this backdrop, this study analyzed the impact of 19 types of noise-generating machines and equipment on the sound pressure levels in workplaces and NIHL occurrence based on a 2009 national survey on work environments. Methods: Through this analysis, a series of statistical models were built to determine posterior probabilities for each worksite with an aim to present risk ratings for noise levels at work. Results: It was found that air compressors and grinding machines came in first and second, respectively in the number of installed noise-generating machines and equipment. However, there was no direct relationship between workplace noise and NIHL among workers since noise-control equipment and protective gear had been in place. By building a logistic regression model and neural network, statistical models were set to identify the influence of the noise-generating machines and equipment on workplace noise levels and NIHL occurrence. Conclusion: This study offered NIHL prevention measures which are fit for the worksites in each risk grade.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Fire Science and Engineering Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.82-92
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• 2009

This study analyzed the present operation state and cases of safety accidents of inflammables and explosives in army camps by focusing on staffs in charge for safety supervision of inflammables and explosives in army camps. Moreover, through this analysis, the study surveyed the actual safety supervision conditions in a workplace related to the hazardous materials, the safety plan for inflammables and explosives, the quality of education for safety supervision, the consciousness of safety supervisors for the safety supervision of inflammables and explosives, and so on. On basis of this research, the actual conditions of inflammables and explosives in army camps were investigated. By not only establishing the systematic safety plan but also developing the safety supervision education programs to manage inflammables and explosives in army camps safely, this study tries to arouse military officers' interest and ensure a safe workplace. Furthermore, this study presents public relations and revitalization of the education to make safety supervisors for inflammables and explosives and the interested parties recognize the hazards of safety accidents, by cutting them off from safety accidents in advance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.25 no.2_2
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• pp.257-262
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• 2022

With the shortage of labor force in small and medium-size industries, the Korean Employment Permit System (EPS) continues to bring migrant workers. However, the question remains of the health and safety management of their migrant workers. Considering that a significant part of safety and health problems are caused by migrant workers due to a lack of information on identifying risk and inexperience in the field. Telephone interviews were conducted to investigate the migrant workers' perspectives on workplace safety practices. The survey focused on workers' accident histories, understanding of safety practices, and responding to industrial accidents. A total of 66 accidents occurred among 30 participants. 10 accidents were not reported to the employer (company), which the foreign workers judged to be minor injuries that should not be reported as accidents. 80.0% of the participants expressed dissatisfaction with the PPE they were using. Among various reasons lack of understanding due to language barriers, lack of awareness of the importance of safety, communication difficulties were major reasons for the caused accidents and potential health issues. It is necessary to improve the safety and health support system by providing practical support through specialized educational institutes with experts in the field. A legal framework and a proper safety management system need to be maintained. This study suggests changing the current policy to improve the health and safety of migrant workers by, establishing specialized educational institutes with locally grown foreign experts in the field.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2017.10a
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• pp.80-88
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• 2017

Although hazard identification is one of the most important steps of safety management process, numerous hazards remain unidentified in the construction workplace due to the dynamic environment of the construction site and the lack of available resource for visual inspection. To this end, our previous study proposed the collective sensing approach for safety hazard identification and showed the feasibility of identifying hazards by capturing collective abnormalities in workers' walking patterns. However, workers generally performed different activities during the construction task in the workplace. Thereby, an additional process that can identify the worker's walking activity is necessary to utilize the proposed hazard identification approach in real world settings. In this context, this study investigated the feasibility of identifying walking activities during construction task using Wearable Inertial Measurement Units (WIMU) attached to the worker's ankle. This study simulated the indoor masonry work for data collection and investigated the classification performance with three different machine learning algorithms (i.e., Decision Tree, Neural Network, and Support Vector Machine). The analysis results showed the feasibility of identifying worker's activities including walking activity using an ankle-attached WIMU. Moreover, the finding of this study will help to enhance the performance of activity recognition and hazard identification in construction.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.9-15
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• 2023

Hydrogen is gaining attention as a sustainable and renewable energy source, potentially replacing fossil fuels. Its high diffusivity, wide flammable range, and low ignition energy make it prone to ignition even with minimal friction, potentially leading to fire and explosion risks. Workplaces manage ignition risks by classifying areas with explosive atmospheres. However, the effective installation of a blast wall can significantly limit the spread of hydrogen, thereby enhancing workplace safety. To optimize the wall installation of this barrier, we employed the response surface methodology (RSM), considering variables such as wall distance, height, and width. We performed 17 simulations using the Box-Behnken design, conducted using FLACS software. This process yielded two objective functions: explosion likelihood near the barrier and explosion overpressure affecting the blast wall. We successfully achieved the optimal solution using multi-objective optimization for these two functions. We validated the optimal solution through verification simulations to ensure reliability, maintaining a margin of error of 5%. We anticipated that this method would efficiently determine the most effective installation of a blast wall while enhancing workplace safety.