• Toxicological Research
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.132-139
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• 2009

The toxicity test of ammonium persulfate was conducted to ensure of its potential toxic effects according to the single-dose acute oral toxicity study (OECD Guideline 423) and 90-day repeated dose sub-chronic oral toxicity study guideline (OECD Guideline 408) for establishing national chemical management system, and matching in the Globally Harmonized Classification System (GHS) category. In acute oral toxicity study, pasty stool, perineal contamination and temporary body weight decrease were observed after dosing 1st and 2nd challenge (300 mg/kg body weight). All test animals were dead within 6 hours after dosing at 3rd challenge (2000 mg/kg body weight). Therefore, the GHS class of test substance is considered class 4. In sub-chronic toxicity study, body weight changes, food consumptions, hematological, biochemical and pathological examination did not show any noticeable and significant differences between the administered (5, 20, 80 mg/kg body weight) and control (vehicle only) group animals. Based on these results, the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) is considered above 80 mg/kg body weight.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.61-68
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• 2018

In general, defects cause a lot of maintenance costs and serious damage to various stakeholders, such as the owners, contractors or occupants of apartments. For this reason, a systematic and efficient defect management method is needed to minimize defect disputes. This paper derives a defect classification framework and proposes a defect risk assessment model for different types of defects. For this purpose, 6,000 defect items are allocated to the defect classification framework; these items are associated with 34 apartment projects over ten years old. As a result of this analysis, it was confirmed that the defect risks are concentrated in the areas of RC and finishing work. Based on these results, it is necessary to prevent the major risks of defects according to their priority. Based on this research, it is judged that further research to develop a method of managing the risks of defects may be necessary.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.223-231
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• 2020

Older drivers have an increased risk of accidents due to poor function, but they also develop self-regulation ability to check their own changes. Thus, information on whether the actual elderly driver responds to changes in driving ability and risk may provide a meaningful basis for the clinic and research of the elderly's driving ability assessment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide basic data for the evaluation of elderly drivers by analyzing the driving risk self-perception characteristics in terms of driving behavior and function with Korean elderly drivers. A self-reporting assessment was conducted on 500 elderly drivers living in the community and the characteristics of driving risk perception were analyzed. As a result, it was confirmed that many elderly drivers are aware of the driving risk when their vision and hearing are impaired or when they find it difficult to adapt to changes in driving conditions. On the other hand, the characteristics of insensitive reactions to changes in medical health conditions, such as drug use or epilepsy, seizures, and loss of consciousness, were identified. The researcher hopes this study will contribute to the safety management of elderly drivers in Korea, where aging is accelerating.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the legibility of one-syllable Korean characters with the participation of sixteen subjects. The experiment considered nine factors including age (young and old), gender (male and female), illuminance (150lx and 600lx), viewing distance (50cm and 200cm), material type (paper and LCD), typeface (Ming and Gothic), thickness (plain and bold), color contrast (black letter/white background and white letter/black background), and complexity (simple, complex, and number) to examine main effects with a $2^{6-3}\times3$ fractional factorial design. The dependent variables were minimum character size of 100% correctness, maximum character size of 0% correctness, and minimum character size of comfortable reading preference. The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that age, illuminance, viewing distance and complexity were significant for all dependent variables, except gender which was significant only for the minimum character size of comfortable reading preference. In general, the young could see twofold smaller size letters than the elderly. The subjects could see smaller sized letters with the illuminance of 600lx and viewing distance of 50cm than 150lx and 200cm, respectively and also with numbers, simple characters, and complex characters in that order. The findings of this study could be characterized about the legibility of Korean characters and be good resources for developing its standard.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.140-151
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• 2019

It is to assess the indoor air quality of the chemical hazardous materials exposed to the fire after firefighters returned to the fire scene. The research subject randomly selected four fire stations located in Seoul, Korea. Two fire stations were set up as control groups after the return of the firefighting activities at the actual fire scene, and two other fire stations were set up as control groups to measure the air quality of the room at normal levels regardless of the action. We conducted 24-hour monitoring for all fire accidents that occurred in Seoul Metropolitan using fire safety map computer system. Also, indoor air quality was measured immediately after homecoming if the experiment group was to be dispatched due to an accident of intermediate or larger scale. 11 hazardous substance items such as fine dust, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, PAH, VCM, acidity, asbestos, CO₂, NO₂, O₃ were measured according to the process test method. Three of 11 types of harmful substances exceeded domestic and foreign standards, and one of them was found to be close to foreign standards. In particular, total volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide and sulfuric acids were 2.5 times, 2.2 times and 1.1 times higher than the standard. Also, for formaldehyde and sulfuric acid, it was measured higher in the control group than in the case group. This findings could be used in policies to improve indoor air quality in the fire station of the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.30-39
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• 1999

Objectives. This study was carried out to evaluate hearing impairment judgement and to investigate the differences in various diagnostic criteria for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) among workers who required for close observation (C). Methods. Out of 731,029 workers who had taken the specific periodic health examination in 1994, we used the audiometric data on 37,999 workers (C) eliminating the employees who had previous otologic problems. Many investigators have being using different criteria for the evaluation of hearing impairment. In this study, we used the criteria of early (1989-1994), current, compensation for NIHL in Korea, 2-, 3-, 4-divided classification and hearing loss at 4,000 Hz and compared the evaluation results. Results. The prevalences of C and workers who had occupational disease $(D_1)$ diagnosed for NIHL were 11.1 % and 0.44 %. There were significant difference in the prevalences of C and $D_1$, depending on different province of Korea. Pure tone averages (PTAs) were not appropriately applied in their evaluation 97% of workers whom we studied on were below the level of mild hearing loss judged by ISO standard. However, there were wide variations in the prevalence rate of mild hearing loss by diagnostic criteria. Thus, there were different judgements in determining the degree of NIHL depending on which diagnostic criteria were utilized. PTAs were found 20.54 (Rt) and 20.74 (Lt) when the method of 3-divided classification was applied for audiometric data. The degree of hearing impairment of the left ear was more severe than that of right ear. The prevalence of normal hearing threshold below 20 dB was 75.4% and the range of difference in both ear was below 10 dB. Right sided hearing threshold levels were 21.08 dB (500 Hz), 18.44 dB (1,000 Hz), 22.09 (2,000 Hz) and 52.36 dB (4,000 Hz). There was typical high frequency loss (C5-dip at 4,000 Hz) above 30 - 40 dB in normal hearing level. The increasing trend in hearing threshold level was gradually decreased by the increase of PTAs. The difference between PTAs and threshold at 4,000 Hz was about 10 dB. Conclusions. We could found that PTAs in the previous examination were not appropriately evaluated. This study revealed that they did not use unique criteria for managing the workers of NIHL. For the prevention of NIHL, it was found that the quality control on diagnosis and comprehensive management program were required, especially for those of hearing loss (C).

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.487-499
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• 2021

Purpose:The purpose of the paper is to review the problems of performance enhancement of safety certification standards and to suggest directions for improvement in order to rationalize safety certification standards for future industrial development and environmental changes. Method: The problems and limitations of the safety certification system are summarized through literature review and interview with manager, and the status of safety certification standards is classified into design standards, performance standards, and detailed standards, and the status analysis is performed. In addition, by synthesizing the results of the investigation and analysis, improvements are suggested to improve the performance of the safety certification standards. Result: Through the survey, the problems and limitations of safety certification could be grouped into six categories: government-led certification system operation, standardized certification standards, long time required to improve certification, poor certification standards preparation system, and lack of reflection of industry opinions. And, as a result of analyzing the certification standards by dividing them into performance and design standards, in the case of machinery, equipment, and protection devices, the design standards were high at 69.7% and 64.9%, whereas in the case of protective equipment, the performance standards were high at 61.1%. In order to improve the performance of safety certification standards centered on design standards, it is necessary to determine the possibility of performance enhancement of the certification standards and determine the feasibility of the inspection test method. In order to improve performance, it was reviewed that it was necessary to establish a systemic foundation and infrastructure, such as strengthening the Product Liability Act, systematizing market monitoring, etc., distributing certification test tasks, and participating in the preparation of certification standards by the private sector. Conclusion: Through this study, the problems and limitations of Korea's safety certification system were summarized and the necessity for performance improvement was reviewed. Performance improvement of safety certification standards is a matter that requires preparatory work, such as legislative revision and infrastructure construction, and requires mid-to-long-term promotion. In addition, rather than improving the overall safety certification standards, the performance requirements for each item subject to certification should be reviewed and promoted, and details should be specified through additional research.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.151-179
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to make an empirical analysis on the factors affecting the intention for the continuous use of the BSC system, which has been recently spread in the public sector. Because the object of acceptance is the performance management system based on BSC (Balanced Scorecard) implemented in the form of information systems, this study proposes a research model by applying TAM (Technology Acceptance Model). Independent variables are factors affecting the acceptance of BSC system such as training, communication, IS support, CEO support and personal innovativeness, and we examine their effects on the dependent variable, namely, intention on continuous use via mediating variables: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. A questionnaire survey was conducted with public institutions(firms) that had introduced and were operating the BSC system; 264 valid questionnaires are adopted. Collected data are analyzed using SPSS 16.0 and AMOS 7.0. Results of reliability test show that all analyzed data are reliable. In validity test, one item regarding communication was excluded; 9 latent variables and 34 observed variables are used in the final analysis. Based on the results of the hypothesis test through path analysis using a structural equation model, 10 out of 16 hypotheses are accepted. Factors affecting perceived usefulness are training and IS(Information System) support. The analysis results indicate that perceived ease of use is mainly affected by IS support, CEO support, and personal innovativeness among the factors related to the acceptance of the BSC system. This suggests that, contrary to the expectation that the BSC system may be used without difficulty, the management's active support is required in order to attain expected improvement in productivity and work efficiency. This was also pointed out in case studies on the construction of the BSC system in public sectors. On the other hand, perceived ease of use is found to affect perceived usefulness. This supports the results of previous researches on TAM. Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are found to affect the attitude towards the use of the system. The intention on continuous use is affected more by perceived usefulness than by the attitude towards the use of system. This result supports the results of previous researches on TAM, showing that the BSC system is utilized substantially in worksites. This study is considered meaningful in that it was actually performed on users at public institutions(firms) that had introduced the BSC system and that it empirically tested hypotheses on the acceptance of the BSC system by applying TAM to the research model.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.382-392
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• 2018

Objective: Allergic diseases such as asthma due to fungal exposure in houses have increased, and proper management is urgent. Mold can grow in the air, floor, walls, and other areas according to environmental conditions, and there are many limitations to the conventional methodology for examining fungal exposure. For this reason, the degree of fungal contamination is being evaluated by ERMI (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index), a quantitative analysis method proposed by the EPA. In this study, we compared ERMI values between water-damaged dwellings and non-damaged ones to evaluate the effectiveness of Korean ERMI values. We also explored the association of ERMI values with the level of airborne mold and characteristics of dwellings. Methods: Floor dust was collected after installing a Dustream collector on the suction port of a vacuum cleaner. The collected samples were filtered to remove only 5 mg of dust, and DNA was extracted using the FastDNA SPIN KIT protocol. Results: The ERMI values were found to be 19.6 (-6.9-58.8) for flooded houses, 7.5 (-29.2-48.3) for leaks/condensation, and 0.8 (-29.2-37.9) for non-damaged dwellings. The airborne concentration of mold for flooded, leakage or condensed, and non-damaged houses were $684CFU/m^3$, $566CFU/m^3$, and $378CFU/m^3$, respectively. The correlation between ERMI values and the levels of airborne mold was low (R = 0.038), but a weakly significant association of the ERMI values with the concentration of particulate matter ($PM_{10}$) was observed as well(R=0.231,P<0.05). Conclusions: Our findings show that the reference value using ERMI can be used to distinguish water-damaged and non-damaged dwellings. It is believed that ERMI values could be a promising tool for assessing long-term fungal exposure in dwellings.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.445-453
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• 2012

The aim of this paper was to prove that if the risk level in combined tasks was improved through evaluation of postural load of liquid weight measurement process, the workload level and ratio of exposure time would be changed, and the time of process would be seen concurrently. Background: According to results of epidemiological studies conducted by Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency, 122 musculoskeletal disorders occurred during 1992 to 2008, in which manufacturing industry covers 96(78.7%) of total. However, this is an insufficient level and only occupies 39% based on the South Korea's manufacturing standard industrial classification(246 industries). Method: Firstly, the number of batches weighed on one day(460min) was investigated based on the work performed and Weight measured weekly. VCR recording was taken based on the level of liquid ingredients prescribed for 1batch using the Camcorder. After dividing a 356 sec video into 1 sec using the screen capture function in Gom player, the job classification was performed by analyzing the change of working postures, which revealed 148 working postures. Time measurement was decided by time of the postures was being maintained. Then, the REBA analysis was performed for the working postures. The ratio of Exposure time was calculated based on the measurement time and REBA Score. In addition, the recommendations were designed and implementation was carried out for the working postures with REBA Score higher than 3. Finally, after the intervention, REBA measurement, time measurement, and ratio of exposure time were calculated for the comparison of works before and after improvement. Results: The number of work elements was decreased by 30.4% from 148 to 103 after improvement. The results of time measurement showed that the time was reduced by 46.3% from 356 sec to 191 sec. And the ratio of exposure time was also improved by 52.1% from 0% to 52.1% after improvement. Conclusion: The reduction of time was found to improve the productivity of management. Furthermore, because the reduction of ratio of exposure time and the improvement of workload level are the improvement of discomfort, it would contribute to the improvement of the worker's psychological working posture. Application: These results would contribute to musculoskeletal disease prevention and management performance. Further studies for other industries would be needed based on this case study.