• Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.187-198
• /
• 2002

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide and one of the most commonly and widely used insecticide. However, a little known about the dermal risk of chlorpyrifos on human being. Therefore, this study was conducted for the dermal risk assessment after exposure to chlorpyrifos in Korean farmers. First, skin irritation by chlorpyrifos (10 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$, 50 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$, 100 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$, 250 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ in acetone) was determined in rabbits for 5 days considering the usage of chlorpyrifos short term highly exposure. The index of skin irritation by chlorpyrifos was increased in each dose and length of exposure dependent manners. Next, using benchmark dose (BMD$_{5}$) approach, the dose-response relationship was assessed to calculate the reference dose (RfD). The value of RfD was 2.84 $\mu\textrm{g}$/kg/day from 142.16 $\mu\textrm{g}$/kg/day BMD5 value divided uncertainty factor 50. Finally, we assessed human dermal risk of chlorpyrifos with exposure level and RfD. Skin absorbed levels were assumed with several exposure scenarios encounting the circumstances of exposure that application method, protection equipment and cloth, exposure time and exposure frequency during chlorpyrifos spraying. By the comparison of skin absorbed dose with the reference dose, it was identified that risk values (risk index) to skin chlorpyrifos exposure were 0.958 from the point of above results and it was recommended that the occurrence of hazard effect (skin irritation toxicity) of chlorpyrifos would not be expected. Risk index was smaller than 1 in the case of spraying vehicle mounted application, 1hour exposure time and wearing protective cloth exposure. Whereas, risk index was above 1 in the case of hand-held application, 2hour exposure time and wearing common cloth. Comparing two kinds of application method, total risk index of the hand held application (1.67) was higher than vehicle mounted (0.27). Therefore, chlorpyrifos skin exposure was mainly affected by application equipment and applied form. The results of risk assessment on the human dermal toxicity of chlorpyrifos should be required to control in keeping safety rules, skin surface area available for contact, spraying time ,and spraying frequency.y.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.195-213
• /
• 2005

Objectives: This study aims to determine fostering stress and mental health state that mothers of handicapped children perceive as primary care givers and to analyze their demand for information assistance in order to release their stress so that it can provide materials that contribute to establishment of assistance system for families with handicapped children. Methods: The research subjects were 340 mothers whose children went to a nursery for special children, 3 general nurseries and 6 special schools in Daegu, and the data were collected using structures questionnaires. The survey analyzed mothers' fostering stress, their demand for fostering information assistance, children's daily activity abilities. Component concepts of each scale was validated by adopting confirmatory factor analysis, and factors affecting demand for fostering information assistance were analyzed by adopting covariance structural analysis. Results: Younger mothers tend to have higher demand for information, and mothers with younger children or children with double handicaps also have higher demand. Mothers under 30 have the lowest demand for public health and medical care assistance and for home and community life assistance, while mothers with children with physical handicaps have the highest. The validity of component concepts was verified by categorizing as cognitive structure models fostering stress, information demand, children's daily activity abilities, and their appropriateness was evaluated through confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modelling. And then, GFI (more than 0.9), CFI (more than 0.9), TLI (more than 0.9) and RMSAE (less than 0.08) were used to evaluate the appropriateness. It was found that all the component concepts are valid, as every item is within appropriate range. The result of analyzing information demand demonstrated that children's handicap levels significantly affect their mothers' mental health, while fostering stress significantly affect mothers' metal health, information demand. As well, it was confirmed that mothers' mental health has a significant effect on information demand. Conclusions: Therefore, to reduce special children's mothers' uncertainty, helplessness and fostering burden, it is necessary to provide them with information on children's challenges, development and fostering and to offer them quality public health, medical care and welfare assistance along with family and local community life assistance.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.15 no.4 s.57
• /
• pp.264-274
• /
• 2005

The optimum blasting pattern to excavate a quarry efficiently and economically can be determined based on the minimum production cost which is generally estimated according to rock fragmentation. Therefore it is a critical problem to predict fragment size distribution of blasted rocks over an entire quarry. By comparing various prediction models, it can be ascertained that the result obtained from Kuz-Ram model relatively coincides with that of field measurements. Kuz-Ram model uses the concept of rock factor to signify conditions of rock mass such as block size, rock jointing, strength and others. For the evaluation of total production cost, it is imperative to estimate 3-D spatial distribution of rock factor for the entire quarry. In this study, a sequential indicator simulation technique is adopted for estimation of spatial distribution of rock factor due to its higher reproducibility of spatial variability and distribution models than Kriging methods. Further, this can reduce the uncertainty of predictor using distribution information of sample data The entire quarry is classified into three types of rock mass and optimum blasting pattern is proposed for each type based on 3-D spatial distribution of rock factor. In addition, plane maps of rock factor distribution for each ground levels is provided to estimate production costs for each process and to make a plan for an optimum blasting pattern.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.497-514
• /
• 2017

This study quantitatively analyzes the effects of emission inventory choices on the simulated particulate matter (PM) concentrations and the domestic/foreign contributions in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) with an air quality forecasting system. The forecasting system is composed of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE)-Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ). Different domestic and foreign emission inventories were selectively adopted to set up four sets of emissions inputs for air quality simulations in this study. All modeling cases showed that model performance statistics satisfied the criteria levels (correlation coefficient >0.7, fractional error <50%) suggested by previous studies. Notwithstanding the apparently good model performance of total PM concentrations by all emission cases, annual average concentrations of simulated total PM concentrations varied up to $20{\mu}g/m^3$ (160%) depending on the combination of emission inventories. In detail, the difference in simulated annual average concentrations of the primary PM coarse (PMC) was up to $25.2{\mu}g/m^3$ (6.5 times) compared with other cases. Furthermore, model performance analyses on PM species showed that the difference in the simulated primary PMC led to gross model overestimation in general, which indicates that the primary PMC emissions need to be improved. The contribution analysis using model direct outputs indicated that the domestic contributions to the annual average PM concentrations in the SMA vary from 44% to 67%. To account for the uncertainty of the simulated concentration, the contribution correction factor method proposed by Bae et al. (2017) was applied, which resulted in converged contributions(from 48% to 57%). We believe this study shows that it is necessary to improve the simulated concentrations of PM components in order to enhance the accuracy of the forecasting model. It is deemed that these improvements will provide more accurate contribution results.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.155-162
• /
• 2014

Objectives Advanced researches on the relationship between obesity and heart rate variability (HRV), heretofore, focused on characteristics of HRV depending on the state of obesity. However, the previous researches have not quantified predictive power of HRV toward the obesity-related variables, which is rather more meaningful for clinicians who regularly treat obese patients. Hence, we designed a research to investigate whether HRV could predict serum levels of obesity-related metabolites. Methods Ninety obese premenopausal women meeting the inclusion criteria were recruited. The HRV test, blood sampling, and measurement of physical traits were conducted. Multiple regression analysis of the measurement data was carried out, putting obesity-related metabolites (insulin, glucose, triglyceride, hs-CRP, HDL, LDL, total cholesterol) as outcome variables and the others as predictors. To select appropriate predictive variables, the Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) was applied. Normality and homoskedasticity of residuals for each model were tested to identify if there were any violations of the regression analysis's basic assumption. Logarithm transformation was used for the values of the concentration of metabolites and the HRV. Results The regression model including Total Power (TP) value and BMI had significant predictive power for serum insulin concentration (F(2, 88)=835.7, p<0.001, $R^2=0.95$). The regression coefficient of ln (TP) was -0.1002. However, it was not sure if the HRV could predict concentrations of other metabolites. Conclusions The results suggest that the Total Power (TP) value of the HRV can predict the level of serum insulin. If the BMI could be assumed as being constant, when the TP value is multiplied by n, the predicted change of insulin could be drawn by multiplying $n^{-0.1002}$. The uncertainty of this model can be assumed as approximately 5%.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.237-242
• /
• 1998

The goal of this work was to optimize the liquid scintillation counting techniques for the determination of C-14 in environmental samples such as biological and air samples. Carbon-14 activities in most environmental samples were measured with direct $CO_2$ absorption method. The highest figure of merit was found through the variation of Carbosorb $E^{TM}$ and Permatluor $V^{TM}$ ratio, in the measurement windows. The best condition was 1:1 volume ratio. Average 2.35 g of $CO_2$ was reproducibly absorbed in the 20 ml mixture within 40 min. The counting efficiency determined by repeated analysis of NIST oxalic acid standard and the background count rate were measured to be $58.8{\pm}1.4%$ and $1.88{\pm}0.06\;cpm$, respectively in case of saturated solution. The correction curves of counting efficiency for partially saturated solutions and for saturated solutions with quenching were prepared, respectively. The overall uncertainty of the sample specific activity for near background levels was estimated to be about 7 % for 4 hours counting at 95 % confidence level. The long-term stability of samples has been checked for all the counting techniques over a two week periods, and no apparent change in counting efficiency and background level was found at that time.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.789-796
• /
• 2009

The randomness in the strength of a RC member is caused mainly by the variability of the mechanical properties of concrete and steel, the dimensions of concrete cross sections, and the placement of reinforcing bars and so on . Among those variations, the randomness and uncertainty of mechanical properties of concrete, such as compressive strength, tensile strength, and elastic modulus give the most significant influences and show relatively large statistical variations. In Korea, there has been little effort for the construction of its own statistical models for mechanical properties of concrete and steel, thus the foreign data have been utilized till now. In this paper, variability of compressive strength, tensile strength and elastic modulus of normal-weight structural concrete with various specified design compressive strength levels are examined based on the data obtained from a number of published and unpublished sources in this country and additional laboratory tests done by the authors. The inherent probabilistic models for compressive and tensile strength of normal-weight concrete are proposed as Gaussian distribution. Also, the relationships between compressive and splitting tensile strength and between compressive strength and elastic modulus in current KCI Code are verified and new ones are suggested based on local data.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.45 no.2
• /
• pp.76-80
• /
• 2020

Background: To improve the measurement accuracy of liquid-scintillation counting for activity standardization, it is necessary to significantly reduce the background caused by thermal noise or after-pulses. We have therefore improved a movable 3 photomultiplier (3PM)-γ coincidence-counting method using the logical sum of three double coincidences for β events. Materials and Methods: We designed a new data-acquisition system in which β events are obtained by counting the logical sum of three double coincidences. The change in β-detection efficiency can be derived by moving three photomultiplier tubes sequentially from the liquid-scintillation vial. The validity of the method was investigated by activity measurement of ¹³⁴Cs calibrated at the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) with 4π(PC)β-γ(NaI(Tl)) coincidence counting using a proportional counter (PC) for the β detector. Results and Discussion: Measurements were taken over 14 counting intervals for each liquidscintillation sample by displacing three photomultiplier tubes up to 45 mm from the sample. The dead time in each β- and γ-counting channel was adjusted to be a non-extending type of 20 ㎲. The background ranged about 1.2-3.3 s^-1, such that the contributions of thermal noise or after-pulses were negligible. As the β-detection unit was moved away from the sample, the β-detection efficiencies varied between 0.54 and 0.81. The result obtained by the method at the reference date was 396.3 ± 1.7 kBq/g. This is consistent with the KRISS-certified value of 396.0 ± 2.0 kBq/g within the uncertainty range. Conclusion: The movable 3PM-γ method developed in the present work not only succeeded in reducing background counts to negligible levels but enabled β-detection efficiency to be varied by a geometrical method to apply the efficiency extrapolation method. Compared with our earlier work shown in the study of Hwang et al. [2], the measurement accuracy has much improved. Consequently, the method developed in this study is an improved method suitable for activity standardization of β-γ emitters.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.106 no.2
• /
• pp.111-120
• /
• 2017

The best source of information on the conservation status of species at a global scale is the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Until now, 236 vascular plants from Korean peninsula have been evaluated using the IUCN red list categories and criteria. It indicated that five taxa were considered as critically endangered, 20 as endangered and nine as vulnerable species as a threatened status. On the other hand, the rest (189 taxa) were assessed as a least concern, which did not qualify for threatened species categories. Korea Ministry of Environment published a revised version of 57 species list by re-classifying endangered species with idiosyncratic qualitative criteria for two levels (I and II) followed by status reviews in 2011. However, two thirds species proposed by Ministry of Environment do not qualify as threatened. The major difficulties found in applying IUCN Red List criteria at the global scale was a lack of knowledge on the status of species at broader geographic scales and the perceived difficulty the causes. The lack of consistency between two lists constrains the prioritization of species-based conservation work at the national level. Due to a lack of centralized monitoring data for most species, this status is largely qualitatively and so it carries a high level of uncertainty. This is reflected in the high number of species with an unknown population trend. The current list of endangered species of flora and fauna by the Ministry of Environment should be recognized as the national list (local and population extinction), which is different from the IUCN Red list due to the different geographical contexts. Also, it is necessary to improve the quality of evaluation and conservation management system rather than presenting massive number of endangered species list.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.16 no.10
• /
• pp.6905-6916
• /
• 2015

The primary purpose of this paper is to find out the environmental regulation in our global society with complex system concept. After the industrial revolution, there were working toward solving various problems while there has been an industry advancement. But, there are various issues that a simple international trade or economic technologic levels were not solved. The evolution of technologies through complex systemic thought are not accidental issues. These issues build and provide a predictable technology innovation that system was emergent a new order. With complex systemic thought, the earth that was facing environmental problems was in the phrase edge of chose. These conditions played the trigger role for the solving various problems in environmental regulations but they don't get along well together. There were no causal relationship between structural elements. This paper describes an emergence of new order through these interactions in environmental regulation. These environmental regulations make desperate efforts not only public sectors but also private or/and firms that make an emergence of new order with the critical point reached. Also, we provide the understanding base an environmental regulation with new order for uncertainty.