• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.11-19
• /
• 2013

Backgrounds: Occupations are grouped on the basis of similarity in tasks and duties performed. Standard occupational classification (SOC) is a tool for organizing all professions into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the respective jobs. Objectives: The major objective of this study is to comprehensively review how a SOC system is used in occupational and safety fields such as surveillance, exposure monitoring, occupational epidemiological study, management of carcinogens and analysis of occupational accidents. Methods: We summarized the cases, policies and regulations used in SOC systems in advanced countries and as they appear in articles Results: We found that SOC systems have been widely used in various areas of occupational safety and health in the US, the UK, Finland, and the EU. In general, it is highly common to use SOC in the analysis of occupational accidents and diseases and to identify factors causing those accidents. The SOC system is also used not only for surveillance of exposure to hazardous agents and occupational health, but to manage carcinogens. In order to adjust the effects of a particular job, SOC is used in the general population health area. The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) has never used or introduced an SOC system. There have been no cases of the application of a SOC system to either the occupational safety and health field or to health surveillance for the general population in Korea. Conclusions: We suggested a need to introduce an SOC system in several occupational safety and health activities, such as work environment measurement, analysis of occupational accidents, specific physical examination and surveillance systems, etc.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.505-512
• /
• 2020

Background: In monitoring exposure to environmental smoke (ETS), biomarkers can overcome the subjectivity and inaccuracy of self-reporting measurements, and have the advantage of reflecting ETS exposure in all places. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of ETS exposure measurement using biomarkers such as urine cotinine. Methods: This study used the Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey data from 2009 to 2018. A total of 28,574 non-smokers with urine cotinine data were selected for the study. The cotinine concentration and ETS exposure rate using urine cotinine was estimated and then compared with the self-reporting measurements. The degree of agreement among measurements of ETS exposure was confirmed. Results: As a result of measuring ETS exposure with urine cotinine, 23,594 (83.8%) out of 28,574 subjects were classified as to exposure groups. This estimate differs significantly from measurements made by self-reporting. In addition, the average concentration of cotinine in non-smokers has decreased to a 10th level over the past 10 years. Based on the biomarker, the sensitivity of the self-reporting was 8.5%-29.0%, the specificity was 16.4%-19.5%, and the kappa value was 2.0%-5.8%. Conclusion: The findings of our study show that self-reporting measurement does not well reflect the extent to which non-smoker's exposure to smoking materials. Whereas cotinine concentration has decreased significantly over the past 10 years, the ETS exposure rate has not reduced. It strongly suggests the need for intervention in the group of non-smokers exposed to low concentrations of smoke. Therefore, an assessment using biomarkers such as cotinine-based measurement should be made in the Health Plan 2030.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.21-29
• /
• 2020

The wind field measurement of severe winds such as hurricanes (or typhoons), thunderstorm downbursts and other gales is important issue in wind engineering community, both for the construction and health monitoring of the wind-sensitive structures. Although several wireless data transmission systems have been available for the wind field measurement, most of them are not specially designed for the wind data measurement in structural wind engineering. Therefore, the field collection is still dominant in the field of structural wind engineering at present, especially for the measurement of the long-term and high-frequency wind speed data. In this study, for remote wind field measurement, a novel wireless long-term and high-frequency wind data acquisition system with the functions such as remote control and data compression is developed. The system structure and the collector are firstly presented. Subsequently, main functions of the collector are introduced. Also novel functions of the system and the comparison with existing systems are presented. Furthermore, the performance of this system is evaluated. In addition to as the wireless transmission for wind data and hardware integration for the collector, the developed system possesses a few novel features, such as the modification of wind data collection parameters by the remote control, the remarkable data compression before the data wireless transmission and monitoring the data collection by the cell phone application. It can be expected that this system would have wide applications in wind, meteorological and other communities.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.383-399
• /
• 2015

Today, as railways increase their capacity and speeds, it is more important than ever to be completely aware of the state of vehicles fleet's condition to ensure the highest quality and safety standards, as well as being able to maintain the costs as low as possible. Operation of a modern, dynamic and efficient railway demands a real time, accurate and reliable evaluation of the infrastructure assets, including signal networks and diagnostic systems able to acquire functional parameters. In the conventional system, measurement data are reliably collected using coaxial wires for communication between sensors and the repository. As sensors grow in size, the cost of the monitoring system can grow. Recently, auto-powered wireless sensor has been considered as an alternative tool for economical and accurate realization of structural health monitoring system, being provided by the following essential features: on-board micro-processor, sensing capability, wireless communication, auto-powered battery, and low cost. In this work, an original harvester device is designed to supply wireless sensor system battery using train bogie energy. Piezoelectric materials have in here considered due to their established ability to directly convert applied strain energy into usable electric energy and their relatively simple modelling into an integrated system. The mechanical and electrical properties of the system are studied according to the project specifications. The numerical formulation is implemented with in-house code using commercial software tool and then experimentally validated through a proof of concept setup using an excitation signal by a real application scenario.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.249-263
• /
• 2004

Objectives: The objectives of the present study were to establish the exposure monitoring method of chlorpyrifos and chlorothalonil application to pear and field red pepper by vehicle-mounted sprayer, hand-held sprayer and to assess the risk. Methods and Results: Chlorpyrifos met all of requirements of sampling and analysis method(U.S. EPA), but chlorothalonil met only dermal patch method. Potential dermal and inhalation exposure was evaluated in 42 farmers. Compared with the hand-held sprayer application, vehicle mounted sprayer demonstrated producing relatively lower dermal exposure levels with statistical significance. In dermal exposure during hand-held application, there is no significant difference between pear and red pepper. Conclusions: This results show that application method is the main factor of dermal exposure. There was no statistically significant difference between each group of respiratory exposure level. The margin of safety (MOS) was calculated to assess the risk of pesticide exposure. All Chlorpyrifos MOS values are lower than 0.2, which mean working conditions are unsafe. In order to protect farmers, big efforts to control exposure are needed.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2003

The causative role of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in human carcinogenesis is undisputed. Measurements of PAH-DNA adduct levels in easily accessible white blood cells therefore represent useful early endpoints in exposure intervention of chemoprevention studies. The successful applicability of DNA adducts as early endpoints depends on several criteria:i.adduct levels in easily accessible surrogate tissues should reflect adduct levels in target-tissues, ii. toxicokinetics and the temporal relevance should be properly defined.iii. sources of inter- and intra-individual variability must be known and controllable, and finally iv. adduct analyses must have advantages as compared to other markers of PAH-exposure. In general, higher DNA adduct levels or a higher proportion of subjects with detectable DNA adduct levels were found in exposed individuals as compared with non-exposed subjects, but saturation may occur at high exposures. Furthermore, DNA adduct levels varied according to changes in exposure, for example smoking cessation resulted in lower DNA adduct levels and adduct levels paralleled seasonal variations of air-pollution. Intra-individual variation during continuous exposure was low over a short period of time (weeks), but varied significantly when longer time periods (months) were investigated. Inter-individual variation is currently only partly explained by genetic polymorphisms in genes involved in PAH-metabolism and deserves further investigation. DNA adduct measurement may have three advantages over traditional exposure assessment: i. they can smooth the extreme variability in exposure which is typical for environmental toxicants and may integrate exposure over a longer period of time. Therefore, DNA adduct assessment may reduce the monitoring effort. ii. Biological monitoring of DNA adducts accounts for all exposure routes. iii. DNA adducts may account for inter-individual differences in uptake, elimination, distribution, metabolism and repair amongst exposed individuals. In conclusion, there is now a sufficiently large scientific basis to justify the application of DNA adduct measurement as biomarkers in exposure assessment and intervention studies. Their use in risk-assessment, however, requires further investigation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.13-29
• /
• 2015

With the era of big data, the big data has been expected to have a large impact in the NPP safety areas. Although high interests of the big data for the NPP safety, only a limited researches concerning this issue are revealed. Especially, researches on the logical/physical structure and systematic design methods for the big data platform for the NPP safety were not dealt with. In this research, we design a new big data pilot platform for the NPP safety especially focusing on health monitoring and early warning services. For this, we propose a tailored design process based on SE approaches to manage inherent high complexities of the platform design. The proposed design process is consist of several steps from elicitate stakeholders to integration test via define operational concept and scenarios, and system requirements, design a conceptual functional architecture, select alternative physical modules for the derived functions and assess the applicability of the alternative modules, design a conceptual physical architecture, implement and integrate the physical modules. From the design process, this paper covers until the conceptual physical architecture design. In the following paper, the rest of the design process and results of the field test will be shown.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.97-119
• /
• 2013

This paper presents numerical and experimental results on the use of guided waves for structural health monitoring (SHM) of crack growth during a fatigue test in a thick steel plate used for civil engineering application. Numerical simulation, analytical modeling, and experimental tests are used to prove that piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) can perform active SHM using guided wave pitch-catch method and passive SHM using acoustic emission (AE). AE simulation was performed with the multi-physic FEM (MP-FEM) approach. The MP-FEM approach permits that the output variables to be expressed directly in electric terms while the two-ways electromechanical conversion is done internally in the MP-FEM formulation. The AE event was simulated as a pulse of defined duration and amplitude. The electrical signal measured at a PWAS receiver was simulated. Experimental tests were performed with PWAS transducers acting as passive receivers of AE signals. An AE source was simulated using 0.5-mm pencil lead breaks. The PWAS transducers were able to pick up AE signal with good strength. Subsequently, PWAS transducers and traditional AE transducer were applied to a 12.7-mm CT specimen subjected to accelerated fatigue testing. Active sensing in pitch catch mode on the CT specimen was applied between the PWAS transducers pairs. Damage indexes were calculated and correlated with actual crack growth. The paper finishes with conclusions and suggestions for further work.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.386-394
• /
• 2017

FANET is an ad hoc network formed among the unmanned aircraft in the three-dimensional space for data transfer. Most of the research on FANET application has focused on the use of the camera sensor mounted on the unmanned aircraft to collect data from the ground, and process and delivery of the data for a specific purpose. However, the research on the fusion of WBAN and FANET that collects the data of the human body and passes through the FANET has not been studied much until now. Therefore, in this study, we study the data transmission system that collects the human body data of people working in the areas that are vulnerable to communication difficulties and passes the collected data through the FANET. In particular we analyze the possible methods to transfer the emergency data of the body in the fusion network of WBAN and FANET and provide a data transfer model that can be transmitted most efficiently.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.328-338
• /
• 2007

One of main advantages of composite using smart material as reinforcement can be controlled cracks behavior inside the composite. If the smart composite is applied as part of the structure, the use of the shape memory effect of the smart material is the best way to protect the propagation of cracks generated in the structure while use. In this study, the optical manufacturing conditions for the smart composite were derived. In order to evaluate the shape memory effect by shape memory alloy, the tensile load was applied to the smart composite and stress distribution was inspected. And then, the smart composite was heated to a certain temperature and the shape memory alloy would shrink to the original shape. Finally, at this point the recovering status of stress using photoelastic instrument was discussed.