• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.97-101
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• 2016

Background: Workplace violence (WPV) is becoming an issue that needs immediate attention in the United States, especially during this period as more states are adopting the "stand your ground laws to promote worker protection." This study was conducted to investigate how WPV has contributed to an unsafe environment for nurses and nursing assistants who work in long-term medical care facilities. Methods: A structure questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. Three facilities were sampled and 80 nurses and certified nursing assistants participated in the study. Ninety-two percent (n = 74) were female and 8% (n = 6) were male. Approximately 62% were black or African American, approximately 33% were Caucasians, and only 2% were from other ethnicities. Results: We found that 65% of the participants had experienced WPV while 41% believed that management shows little or no concern for their safety. Approximately 23% of respondents believed that reporting supervisor's WPV act is an unsafe action. In addition, 22% of those who reported that they have experienced WPV believed that the work environment is not safe to perform their duties. This significant difference in perception of workplace safety between those who had experienced WPV and those who had not was significant (t = 3.95, df = 158, p < 0.0001). Conclusion: WPV is an epidemic problem that affects all health-care professionals. The findings of this study could help long-term medical care facilities' management identify the areas to focus on mitigating, controlling, and/or eliminating incidents of WPV.

• 한국식품위생안전성학회지
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.143-147
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• 2010

만성으로 비소에 노출될 경우 암을 비롯하여 인체에 심각한 악영향이 나타날 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 우리나라의 광신인근에서 재배된 벼의 백미시료 300점에 함유된 총 비소를 분석하고, 이 백미 시료만을 섭취했을 경우의 인체위험도를 확률적 접근법을 이용하여 평가하였다. 300점의 백미에 함유된 총 비소의 함량은 0.09 mg/kg으로 lognormal 분포형태를 나타내었다. 우리나라 전체인구와 성별로 나눠 이 백미시료만을 섭취했을 경우 1일 총비소 노출량을 평가하였으며, EPA의 발암력과 기준참고치를 그거로 발암위해와 비발암위해를 정량화하였다. 광산인근 백미 섭취를 통한 발암위해의 평균은 만명기준 남성 2.16명, 여성 1.83에서 1.0 이하로 나타났다. 광산인근 백미만을 섭취하는 경우 전체 인근의 10% 미만이 비발암위해를 보이는 것으로 나타났다. 그러나, 이는 우리나라 광산인근에서 재배된 300점 백미시료에 대한 자료를 근거로 도출된 결과로서 우리나라 모든 광신인근 지역의 백미를 대표할 수 없는 한계가 존재한다.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.541-550
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• 2011

Objective: The objective of this study is to present varying cases of ergonomic improvements in equipments for agricultural work. Background: In Korean agricultural sector, many older people and females, who may be more vulnerable to musculoskeletal diseases than young males, are doing high stressful tasks such as manual materials tasks, harvesting, etc. For reducing the work stress of the farmers, the Korean government has been performing support projects to provide the farmers with agricultural implements specified for their crops. In the projects, ergonomics experts have participated and helped modify the equipments. Method: Fifty cases of equipment improvements, which were carried out in 33 farming organizations cultivating 13 different crops, were reviewed and presented by equipments and their parts. Results: In total, 283 cases of improvements for 12 equipments including 4-wheel, 1-wheel, and 3-wheel powered carts, grass cutter, conveyer, pest control machine, and so on, were presented. The improvements were also classified according to the ergonomic principles like compatibility, ease of use, safety and fitting to the anthropometry, etc. Frequencies of improvements by equipment and its part were the highest in carts and controls, respectively. Principles of safety and ease of use were adopted more frequently in improving equipments than others. Conclusion: The tables of examples of improvements of agricultural implements are main results of this study and the systematical summaries are expected to be widely used in the development of more improved agricultural implements. Application: The results could be used as practical guidelines in ergonomically developing and modifying agricultural implements by both the experts and non-experts in ergonomics. The improvements would contribute to reduction of stress in farm work, which result in increasing the level of safety and health of Korean agricultural society.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제33권12호
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• pp.2008-2020
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• 2020

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary corn resistant starch (RS) on the intestinal morphology and barrier functions of broilers. Methods: A total of 320 one-day-old broilers were randomly allocated to 5 dietary treatments: one normal corn-soybean (NC) diet, one corn-soybean-based diet supplementation with 20% corn starch (CS), and 3 corn-soybean-based diets supplementation with 4%, 8%, and 12% corn resistant starch (RS) (identified as 4% RS, 8% RS, and 12% RS, respectively). Each group had eight replicates with eight broilers per replicate. After 21 days feeding, one bird with a body weight (BW) close to the average BW of their replicate was selected and slaughtered. The samples of duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caecum digesta, and blood were collected. Results: Birds fed 4% RS, 8% RS and 12% RS diets showed lower feed intake, BW gain, jejunal villus height (VH), duodenal crypt depth (CD), jejunal VH/CD ratio, duodenal goblet cell density as well as mucin1 mRNA expressions compared to the NC group, but showed higher concentrations of cecal acetic acid and butyric acid, percentage of jejunal proliferating cell nuclear antigen-positive cells and delta like canonical Notch ligand 4 (Dll4), and hes family bHLH transcription factor 1 mRNA expressions. However, there were no differences on the plasma diamine oxidase activity and D-lactic acid concentration among all groups. Conclusion: These findings suggested that RS could suppress intestinal morphology and barrier functions by activating Notch pathway and inhibiting the development of goblet cells, resulting in decreased mucins and tight junction mRNA expression.

• 한국식품위생안전성학회지
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• 제37권4호
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• pp.238-248
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• 2022

본 연구에서는 울산지역에서 유통되는 건조농산물의 잔류농약 실태를 조사하기 위해 150건을 수거하여 잔류농약 분석을 실시하였다. 잔류농약 208항목을 식품공전 다성분 분석법을 이용하여 실시하였으며 29건(19.3%)에서 잔류농약이 검출되었다. 품목별로 분류하면 고추 품목에서 7건, 취나물에서 4건, 곤드레에서 3건, 대추, 무(잎), 가지에서 각 2건, 귤, 부지깽이, 고구마줄기, 여주, 고사리, 무(뿌리), 사과, 감잎차, 고추잎에서 각 1건씩 검출되었다. 검출된 잔류농약을 성분별로 분류하면 살균제성분이 60%, 살충제성분이 23.8%, 살충제, 살비제로 작용하는 성분이 16.3% 검출되어 살균제가 가장 많이 검출되었다. 가장 많이 검출된 잔류농약은 Tebuconazole, Pyraclostrobin, Difenoconazole, Azoxystrobin이다. 분석결과 2건에서 3항목의 잔류농약이 잔류허용기준을 초과하여 부적합으로 판정되었으나, 위해도 평가결과 0.00002-0.3140%범위로 나타나 모두 안전한 것으로 판단되었다.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.115-121
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• 2014

Background: Frequent outbreaks of foodborne illness have been increased awareness of food safety. CDC estimates that each year roughly 48 million people gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases in US. In Korea, 6,058 were hospitalized and 266 incidents were reported in 2012. It is required to develop rapid methods to identify hazard substances in food products for protecting and maintaining safety of the public health. However, conventional methods for pathogens detection and identification involve prolonged multiple enrichment steps. Purpose: This review aims to provide information on biosensors to detect pathogens in food products to enhance food safety. Results: Foodborne outbreaks continue to occur and outbreaks from various food sources have increased the need for simple, rapid, and sensitive methods to detect foodborne pathogens. Conventional methods for foodborne pathogens detection require tremendous amount of labor and time. Biosensors have drawn attentions in recent years because of their ability to detect analytes sensitively and rapidly. Principles along with their advantages and disadvantages of a variety of food safety biosensors including fiber optic biosensor, impedimetric biosensor, surface Plasmon resonance biosensor, and nano biosensor were explained. Also, future trends for the food safety biosensors were discussed.

• 산경연구논집
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• 제5권2호
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• pp.21-28
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• 2014

Purpose - This study aims to understand the brand marketing of agricultural products and redefine their status in South Korea by analyzing impacts on consumer buying behaviors. Research design, data, and methodology - Products, with independent variables, were divided into agricultural brand products and generic products. Dependent variables were limited to expanding sales of a specialty brand through consumer awareness, consumer buying behavior, and confidence in agricultural products' quality. Control variables were based on characteristics of products such as freshness, safety, quality, and their category. Moderating effects were examined on consumer characteristics, including income levels and age. Results - Consumers increasingly purchased agricultural brand products rather than generic agricultural products because of the general reliability of quality assurance. Conclusions - Large agricultural specialty stores have enhanced the perceptions of quality assurance, freshness, safety, and diversity. Through a critical analysis of the domestic consumer income levels and age, gender, and demographic factors, such as agricultural consumer buying behavior not affecting consumers' health and life, this study proposes positive changes in quality perception.

• 농촌의학ㆍ지역보건
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• 제31권1호
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• pp.63-79
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• 2006

Korea's self-sufficient food ratio on a quantity basis remained a low 27.6 per cent for cereals in year 2004. Even the public auction of imported rice from the United States kicked off a couple of days ago to allow foreign rice to be sold directly to consumers on the Korea market for the first time. Therefore the safety of imported food must be a great concern of Korean consumers. All imported agricultural products are supposed to be quarantined for controlling the insect and inspected for the potent risk like residual pesticides, aflatoxin, sulfur dioxide and genetically modified. agricultural products. The 12 percent of agricultural products contained the insects detected by National Plant Quarantine was fumigated with methyl bromide or aluminum phosphide and entered the custom. The most large portion of violated agricultural products (24 cases in 2004) inspected by Korea Food and Drug Administration was dried herbal medicinal foods contaminated by sulfur dioxide which must be treated when they were dried in China. The second factor made the imported agricultural products to be criminals (19 cases in 2004) was residual pesticides. Genetically modified agricultural products like soybean and corn are under control by labelling in Korea. Genetically modified soybean and corn have been used for oil expression mostly. It is the time to set up realistic risk assessment system for our consumer with the pouring imported agricultural products.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.440-447
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• 2022

Background: Agricultural handle equipment is present on all production areas' farms. They are handy and portable; however, excessive use can lead to acute traumas or accidental injuries. Repetitive movements, awkward postures, and hand-arm vibrations predispose them to pain and work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The purpose of this study was to observe the interaction of handle equipment in terms of electromyographic activity and analyze the postural work-related alterations. Materials and methods: Twenty male agricultural operators, mean age 24±1.54 years, underwent the electromyographic analysis testing their muscular activities with a brushcutter, electric saw, and hedge trimmer in four different test conditions. Results: The brushcutter proved to be the agricultural handle equipment with the higher mean frequency (3.37±0.38 Hz) and root mean square (5.25±1.24 ms^-2). Furthermore, the digital postural analysis showed a general asymmetry of the main arm and the respective side of the trunk. The head resulted right inclined in the anterior frontal plane by 5.7°±1.2°; the right scapula lower than the left in the posterior frontal plane (8.5°±1.8°), and a working trunk inclination of 34.15°±5.7°. Conclusions: Vibrations of handle equipment and awkward working postures represent a risk for agricultural operators. Preventive measures are required to avoid young operators from experiencing musculoskeletal disorders all lifelong.

• 농촌지도와개발
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• 제21권4호
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• pp.1007-1028
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• 2014

핀란드는 한국과 유사하게, 자영농 및 소규모 기업농 위주로 농업구조가 구성되어 있으며, 일반 산업과는 별도의 농업안전보건 체계를 운영하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 핀란드의 농업보건서비스(Farmers' Occupational Health Services, FOHS) 제도를 검토하여 한국 농업 안전보건 체계의 발전 방향을 도출하고자 하였다. 분석결과, 핀란드 농업안전보건체계는 자영농을 대상으로 국립 농업보건센터의 조율 하에 각 지자체의 산업보건 및 농업 전문기관이 농업인에게 농업보건서비스를 제공하고, 비용에 대해서는 사회보장제도에서 지원하는 형태로 운영되고 있다. 이에 따른 시사점은 첫째, 예방방안에 대한 국가 표준을 제시하고 재해통계, 원인연구 등을 수행할 수 있는 국립농업보건센터가 필요하다. 둘째, 저비용, 저난이도의 농작업 환경 평가 및 개선 기술의 개발이 필요하다. 셋째, 보험할인 및 사회보장제도를 활용한 서비스를 통해 농업인의 참여를 유도해야 한다. 넷째, 안전보건 기관 및 전문가의 육성, 지역 및 작목별 맞춤 서비스 등 지역특성에 맞는 안전보건 서비스의 제공이 확보되어야 한다.