• Title/Summary/Keyword: technology level evaluation

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Non-chemical Risk Assessment for Lifting and Low Back Pain Based on Bayesian Threshold Models

  • Pandalai, Sudha P.;Wheeler, Matthew W.;Lu, Ming-Lun
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.206-211
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    • 2017
  • Background: Self-reported low back pain (LBP) has been evaluated in relation to material handling lifting tasks, but little research has focused on relating quantifiable stressors to LBP at the individual level. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Composite Lifting Index (CLI) has been used to quantify stressors for lifting tasks. A chemical exposure can be readily used as an exposure metric or stressor for chemical risk assessment (RA). Defining and quantifying lifting nonchemical stressors and related adverse responses is more difficult. Stressor-response models appropriate for CLI and LBP associations do not easily fit in common chemical RA modeling techniques (e.g., Benchmark Dose methods), so different approaches were tried. Methods: This work used prospective data from 138 manufacturing workers to consider the linkage of the occupational stressor of material lifting to LBP. The final model used a Bayesian random threshold approach to estimate the probability of an increase in LBP as a threshold step function. Results: Using maximal and mean CLI values, a significant increase in the probability of LBP for values above 1.5 was found. Conclusion: A risk of LBP associated with CLI values > 1.5 existed in this worker population. The relevance for other populations requires further study.

Porcine Blood Plasma Transgluataminase Combined with Thrombin and Fibrinogen as a Binder in Restructured Meat

  • Tseng, Tsai-Fuh;Tsai, Chong-Ming;Yang, Jeng-Huh;Chen, Ming-Tsao
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.19 no.7
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    • pp.1054-1058
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of this study was to use pig blood plasma transglutaminase (TGase) combined with thrombin and fibrinogen as a binder, which was applied to restructured meat, and to investigate its effect on the restructured meat quality. Pig meat was obtained 10 h post mortem from a traditional market was ground using a 10 mm aperture plate. A binder admixture was added (TGase:thrombin:fibrinogen mixed as 0.5:1:20 (v/v/v) to which was added 12% of its volume of 0.25 M calcium chloride) at 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% of meat weight. Measurements included cooking loss, shrinkage rate, shear value, total plate count, pH value, TBA value, color difference, tension strength and sensory evaluation. The results showed that ground meat containing 20% w/w of binder admixture had higher cooking loss, shrinkage rate and shear value (p<0.05). Addition of different percentages of binder admixture did not affect total plate count, pH value, TBA value, and sensory evaluation of restructured meat (p>0.05). Tension strength was increased with increased level of binder admixture. Addition up to 15% binder admixture to restructured meat showed better scores of sensory texture, flavor and total acceptability (p<0.05).

A Study on Development of a Plugging Margin Evaluation Method Taking Into Account the Fouling of Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers

  • Hwang, Kyeong-Mo;Jin, Tae-Eun;Kim, Kyung-Hoon
    • Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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    • v.20 no.11
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    • pp.1934-1941
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    • 2006
  • As the operating time of heat exchangers progresses, fouling caused by water-borne deposits and the number of plugged tubes increase and thermal performance decreases. Both fouling and tube plugging are known to interfere with normal flow characteristics and to reduce thermal efficiencies of heat exchangers. The heat exchangers of Korean nuclear power plants have been analyzed in terms of heat transfer rate and overall heat transfer coefficient as a means of heat exchanger management. Except for fouling resulting from the operation of heat exchangers, all the tubes of heat exchangers have been replaced when the number of plugged tubes exceeded the plugging criteria based on design performance sheet. This paper describes a plugging margin evaluation method taking into account the fouling of shell-and-tube heat exchangers. The method can evaluate thermal performance, estimate future fouling variation, and consider current fouling level in the calculation of plugging margin. To identify the effectiveness of the developed method, fouling and plugging margin evaluations were performed at a component cooling heat exchanger in a Korean nuclear power plant.

A Study to Draw a Plan of Liquid Fertilizer Quality Certification Standards for Livestock Manure Management (가축분뇨의 관리를 위한 액비품질인증기준 방안도출 연구)

  • Jeon, Sang-Joon;Kim, Soo-Ryang;Hong, In-Gi;Kim, Ha-Je;Kim, Dong-Gyun;Lee, Myung-Gyu
    • Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.183-190
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    • 2013
  • Establishment of a new concept of environmental friendly livestock manure management is required based on the facts. But now liquid fertilizer quality in korea shows a large difference among regions and the regulations are uncertain. Focusing on precedent study on main level-grading factors of liquid fertilizer quality certification, the study collected laws and standards related to liquid fertilizer of livestock manure at home and abroad and produced evaluation standards. Liquid fertilizer was divided into four factors (fertilizing value, harmfulness, stability and uniformity). According to each item, scores were awarded based on 16 details: fertilizing value (Nitrogen concentration, the whole concentration of Nitrogen, Phosphoric acid and Kalium), harmfulness (heavy metals, pathogenic microorganism and antibiotics), stability (maturity degree and odour), uniformity (EC, BOD, SS, moisture content and salt). The grade of liquid fertilizer, A (42~48), B (34~41), C (26~33) were rated using total scores.

A Case Study of Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Home Automation System by Digital Home Residents - Focused on H Highrise Apartment - (디지털 홈 거주자의 홈오토메이션 시스템에 대한 거주 후 평가 사례 연구 - H 초고층 아파트 거주자를 중심으로 -)

  • Kwon, Oh-Jung
    • Journal of the Korean housing association
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.17-27
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    • 2008
  • Recently, newly built apartments in Korea are provided various home automation (HA) systems based on information technology(IT) for residents' safer, healthier and more convenient living. However, the residents in these digital apartments are often not able to use the home automation systems effectively because of lack of their IT knowledge, attitude, or education. However, there are few researches have been done to find out the HA systems' real problems with regard to residents' aspects who use those systems everyday. The purpose of this study was to find out residents' current uses, satisfaction level and existing problems of HA systems by residents' POE. The findings of this study will give useful information to digital home construction companies to provide user-friendly digital home services for increasing users' satisfaction. One distinctive apartment equipped with home automation systems located in Seoul was selected for in-depth personal interview. The researcher developed a survey instrument and collected the data from 58 residents in January, 2007 who had been living there for more than a year. The results of the study found that critical problems were existed in several systems and they caused a lot of dissatisfaction from the residents. Also, some residents do not use several systems although they need to use them due to the burden of maintenance fee. Further detail findings and suggestions of this study were discussed.

Development of Integrated Optical Pickup for Small Form Factor Optical Disc Drive (Small Form Factor 광 디스크 드라이브용 초소형 집적형 광픽업 개발)

  • Cho, Eun-Hyoung;Sohn, Jin-Seung;Lee, Myung-Bok;Suh, Sung-Dong;Kim, Hae-Sung;Kang, Sung-Mook;Park, No-Cheol;Park, Young-Pil
    • Transactions of the Society of Information Storage Systems
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    • v.2 no.3
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    • pp.163-168
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    • 2006
  • Small form factor optical pickup (SFFOP) corresponding to BD specifications is strongly proposed for the next-generation portable storage device. In order to generate SFFOP, small sized optical pickup has been fabricated. We have developed a small sited optical pickup that is called the integrated optical pickup (IOP). The fabrication method of this system is mainly dependant on the use of the wafer based micro fabrication technology, which has been used in MEMS process such as photolithography, reactive ion etching, wafer bonding, and packaging process. This approach has the merits for mass production and high assembling accuracy. In this study, to generate the small sized optical pickup for high recording capacity, IOP corresponding to BD specifications has been designed and developed, including three main parts, 1) design, fabrication and evaluation of objective lens unit, 2) design and fabrication of IOP and 3) evaluation process of FES and TES.

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Characterization of a Neutron Beam Following Reconfiguration of the Neutron Radiography Reactor (NRAD) Core and Addition of New Fuel Elements

  • Craft, Aaron E.;Hilton, Bruce A.;Papaioannou, Glen C.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.200-210
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    • 2016
  • The neutron radiography reactor (NRAD) is a 250 kW Mark-II Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) reactor at Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID, USA. The East Radiography Station (ERS) is one of two neutron beams at the NRAD used for neutron radiography, which sits beneath a large hot cell and is primarily used for neutron radiography of highly radioactive objects. Additional fuel elements were added to the NRAD core in 2013 to increase the excess reactivity of the reactor, and may have changed some characteristics of the neutron beamline. This report discusses characterization of the neutron beamline following the addition of fuel to the NRAD. This work includes determination of the facility category according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards, and also uses an array of gold foils to determine the neutron beam flux and evaluate the neutron beam profile. The NRAD ERS neutron beam is a Category I neutron radiography facility, the highest possible quality level according to the ASTM. Gold foil activation experiments show that the average neutron flux with length-to-diameter ratio (L/D) = 125 is $5.96{\times}10^6n/cm^2/s$ with a $2{\sigma}$ standard error of $2.90{\times}10^5n/cm^2/s$. The neutron beam profile can be considered flat for qualitative neutron radiographic evaluation purposes. However, the neutron beam profile should be taken into account for quantitative evaluation.

An Optimum Choice of Approximation Path for Derivation of New Class of Closed-Form Green's Functions (새로운 형태의 Closed-Form 그린함수의 유도를 위한 근사 경로의 최적선택)

  • Lee Young-Soon;Kim Eui-Jung
    • The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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    • v.16 no.4 s.95
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    • pp.418-426
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    • 2005
  • Based upon three level approximation and the steepest descent path(SDP) method, we consider an optimum choice of approximation path for derivation of new class of closed-flrm Green's functions which can lead to the analytic evaluation of MoM(Method of Moment) matrix elements. It is observed that the present method can give more accurate evaluation of the spatial Green's functions than the previous method, even without the advance investigation of the spectral functions, over a wide frequency range. In order to check the validity of the present method, some numerical results are presented.

Finding Subjects for Automated Container Terminal Development by Systems Approach (시스템적 접근에 의한 자동화컨테이너터미널 개발 과제 도출)

  • 박창호;노홍승;정의균
    • Journal of Korean Port Research
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.243-250
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    • 1998
  • This study is to find subjects for the Automated Container Terminal(ACT) development and container terminal system. Also we analyze the present condition of the container terminal system in Pusan port and its automation level by systems approach. And this paper aims at evaluating on the priority of R&D investment until the beginning of the second stage of New Pusan Port Project(2006). In this process we have considered 8 evaluation indexes(cost, labor, area, time, volume, reliability. safety, convenience) to analyze 6 subsystems. The priority of R&D until target year by sub-systems is as follow: 1. Cargo Handing System, 2. Transfer System, 3. Port Entry System, 4. Storage System (Distribution & Manufacturing System included), 5.Inland Transport System, 6.Port Management & Information System.

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Development of Evaluation Technique of Mobility and Navigation Performance for Personal Robots (퍼스널 로봇을 위한 운동과 이동 성능평가 기술의 개발)

  • Ahn Chang-hyun;Kim Jin-Oh;Yi Keon Young;Lee Ho Gil;Kim Kyu-ro
    • The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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    • v.52 no.2
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    • pp.85-92
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    • 2003
  • In this paper, we propose a method to evaluate performances of mobile personal robots. A set of performance measures is proposed and the corresponding evaluation methods are developed. Different from industrial manipulators, personal robots need to be evaluated with its mobility, navigation, task and intelligent performance in environments where human beings exist. The proposed performance measures are composed of measures for mobility including vibration, repeatability, path accuracy and so on, as well as measures for navigation performance including wall following, overcoming doorsill, obstacle avoidance and localization. But task and intelligent behavior performances such as cleaning capability and high-level decision-making are not considered in this paper. To measure the proposed performances through a series of tests, we designed a test environment and developed measurement systems including a 3D Laser tracking system, a vision monitoring system and a vibration measurement system. We measured the proposed performances with a mobile robot to show the result as an example. The developed systems, which are installed at Korea Agency for Technology and Standards, are going to be used for many robot companies in Korea.