BACKGROUND: Lighting is one of the environmental factors affecting the performance of the control room operators. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the control room operators’ visual performance in two different illumination conditions at a combined cycle power plant through field-work. METHODS: Sixteen operators in day shift were evaluated with the Freiburg Visual Acuity test (FrACT) software at two lighting systems with different intensities. It includes the first phase with fluorescent illumination system (Power: 40 W, Color Temperature: 4000 Kelvin, Luminous Flux: 2780 Lumen and Model: Pars Shahab) and the second phase with a combined illumination system includes fluorescent and LED (Power: 48 W, Color Temperature: 4000 Kelvin, Luminous Flux: 5400 Lumen and Model: Mazinoor). RESULTS: Based on the results, visual performance index and visual acuity significantly increased after the intervention (p < 0.001). As to contrast, more lighting significantly reduced the percentage of recognized contrast (p < 0.001) and increased the contrast performance index (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study showed that increasing the intensity of light from the values below the allowable limit to the values above the allowable limit would increase the visual indicators in individuals.
Lighting ; Power Plants ; Visual Acuity

OBJECTIVETo compare the results of noise hazard evaluations based on area sampling and personal sampling in a new thermal power plant and to analyze the similarities and differences between the two measurement methods.

METHODSAccording to Measurement of Physical agents in Workplace Part 8: Noise(GBZff 189.8-2007), area sampling was performed at various operating points for noise measurement, and meanwhile the workers under different types of work wore noise dosimeters for personal noise exposure measurement. The two measurement methods were used to evaluate the level of noise hazards in the enterprise according to the corresponding occupational health standards, and the evaluation results were compared.

RESULTSArea sampling was performed at 99 operating points, the mean noise level was 88.9 ± 11.1 dB (A)(range, 51.3-107.0 dB (A)), with an over-standard rate of 75.8%. Personal sampling was performed (73 person times),and the mean noise level was 79.3 ± 6.3 dB (A), with an over-standard rate of 6.6% ( 16/241 ). There was a statistically significant difference in the over-standard rate between the evaluation results of the two measurement methods ( x2=53.869, ?<0.001 ).

CONCLUSIONBecause of the characteristics of the work in new thermal power plants, the noise hazard evaluation based on area sampling cannot be used instead of personal noise exposure measurement among workers. Personal sampling should be used in the noise measurement in new thermal power plant.

OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to investigate the systematic error, such as seasonal change or inadequate food items, in a food frequency questionnaire administered to workers in a Nuclear Power Plant, Korea. METHODS: We performed three repeat-tests with 28 subjects on May 13, July 8 and Dec 16, 1992. Our food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) comprised 84 foods organized into 7 food-groups, and was composed of the items of usual intake frequency (8 categories) and the amount per intake (3 or 4 categories) over the previous year. We compared the means of intake frequency and the frequency of the portion-size according to each season using Repeated Measures ANOVA and Pearson's chisquare test with Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: We found the significant seasonal changes of several food items in intake frequency measurement. These items were typical seasonal foods such as mandarin orange, plum and green vegetables, while the single questions consisted of inadequate food items such as thick beef or similar soup and various kimchi products. Significant seasonal changes in portion-size were found in only two items: cooked rice-brown and fresh.frozen fishes. CONCLUSIONS: The systematic errors observed could caused loss of validity in the FFQ. Consideration should be given for seasonal variation in FFQ survey and methodological concerns are needed to improve the quality for measuring usual diet pattern.
*Diet Surveys ; Humans ; Korea ; *Power Plants ; Questionnaires ; Reproducibility of Results ; *Seasons

No abstract available.
Korea* ; Mass Screening* ; Nuclear Power Plants* ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroid Neoplasms*

No abstract available.
Korea* ; Mass Screening* ; Nuclear Power Plants* ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroid Neoplasms*

Dust ; analysis ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; analysis ; Power Plants

Trace uranium detection measurement was performed using DNA immobilized on a graphite pencil electrode (DGE). The developed probe was connected to the portable handheld voltammetric systems used for seawater analysis. The sensitive voltammogram was obtained within only 30 s accumulation time, and the anodic stripping working range was attained at 100~800 microg/l U and 10~50 microg/l. The statistic relative standard deviation of 30.0 mg/l with the 15th stripping was 0.2115. Here, toxicological and analytical application was performed in the seawater survey in a contaminated power plant controlling water. The results were found to be applicable for real-time toxicological assay for trace control.
DNA ; Electrodes ; Graphite ; Power Plants ; Seawater ; Uranium ; Seawater

Since the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, radiation safety has become an important issue in nuclear medicine. Many structured guidelines or recommendations of various academic societies or international campaigns demonstrate important issues of radiation safety in nuclear medicine procedures. There are ongoing efforts to fulfill the basic principles of radiation protection in daily nuclear medicine practice. This article reviews important principles of radiation protection in nuclear medicine procedures. Useful references, important issues, future perspectives of the optimization of nuclear medicine procedures, and diagnostic reference level are also discussed.
Disasters ; Nuclear Medicine ; Nuclear Power Plants ; Radiation Protection

BACKGROUND: Increasing the establishment of integrated management systems (IMSs) is done with the purpose of leaving traditional management methods and replacing them with modern management methods. Thus, the present study sought to analyze the events and investigate the impact of IMS on health and safety performance indices in an Iranian combined cycle power plants. METHODS: This case study was conducted in 2012 in all units of the Yazd Combined Cycle Power Plant on accident victims before and after the implementation of IMS. For data analysis and prediction of indices after the implementation of IMS, descriptive statistics and Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Chi-square, linear regression, and Cubic tests were conducted using SPSS software. RESULTS: The number of people employed in the power plant in an 8-year period (2004–2011) was 1,189, and 287 cases of work-related accidents were recorded. The highest accident frequency rate and accident severity rate were in 2004 (32.65) and 2008 (209), respectively. Safe T-score reached to below −3 during 2010–2011. In addition, given the regression results, the relation between all predictor variables with outcomes was significant (p < 0.05), except for the variable X1 belonging to the accident severity rate index. CONCLUSION: The implementation of safety programs especially that of IMS and its annual audits has had a significant impact on reducing accident indices and improving safety within the study period. Accordingly, health and safety management systems are appropriate tools for reducing accident rate, and the use of regression models and accident indices is also a suitable way for monitoring safety performance.
Accidents, Occupational ; Linear Models ; Power Plants ; Safety Management ; Statistics as Topic

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate the reliability of a questionnaire from an epidemiological study for nuclear power plants workers in Korea. METHODS: Among a total of 8,832 nuclear power plants workers who participated in the questionnaire survey, we selected 646 workers who repeatedly submitted the self-reported questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire for the categorical items was measured using kappa statistics and percentages of exact agreement, false disagreement and positive disagreement. Significance was evaluated for the continuous items by paired t-tests and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs). RESULTS: The questionnaire was observed to be highly reliable for the smoking history (kappa=0.85), which is known as an important confounding factor in assessing the cancer risk among radiation workers. Education level as a surrogate for the socio-economic status also appeared to be highly reliable with a kappa=0.89 and 95.09% of exact agreement. The history of alcohol drinking, medical exams and diseases showed more than moderately good agreement between the first and second responses (kappa>0.4). The self-reported values for physical measurements, the smoking period and smoking amount, and the period of alcohol drinking were highly correlated between the two responses (ICC>0.7). CONCLUSIONS: The questionnaire from an epidemiological study for nuclear power plants workers in Korea was found to be reliable for most items. To estimate the cancer or noncancer risk for nuclear power plants workers, we need to use the national database for incidence of diseases or death from diseases and the exposure history, and the medical records as well as the data collected from this study.
Alcohol Drinking ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Incidence ; Korea ; Medical Records ; Nuclear Power Plants ; Questionnaires ; Smoke ; Smoking