• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.119-125
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to examine the radioprotection effect of mixtures of selenium and arginine for development of radioprotection agents that can minimize radiation damage to police special operation unit in the event of radioactive terrorism. In this study 72 male rats were classified into 4 groups: normal group(NC Group), selenium and arginine mixtures administration group(SeAr Group), radiation exposure group(IR Group), and selenium and arginine mixture administration group followed by radiation exposure(SeAr+IR Group). The 7Gy of X-ray was irradiated to whole body of SD rats. And selenium and arginine were dministered orally at 3mg/kg and 150mg/kg once a day for 14 days. And then hematological and histological analyzes were performed on days 1, 7, and 21 after radiation exposure. In hemotological analysis, significant radioprotection wes observed in lymphocytes(p<0.05) on day 1, platelet(p<0.01) on day 7, red blood cell(p<0.01) on day 21 of radiation exposure in SeAr+IR group compared to IR group. In histological analysis, it was observed that the border of small crypt cells in the small intestine was less collapsed and the length of small crypts was relatively recovered on day 7 and showed that the number of cells and cell wall thickness were better in the prostate on day 21 in SeAr+IR group compared to IR group. Therefore, it is judged that selenium and arginine mixtures have radioprotection effect on blood and tissues due to radiation exposure. it will be helpful for research on radioprotection agents to reduce radiation damage to police special operation unit.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.225-232
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• 2024

This study focuses on the determination of the fracture mode in composite laminates using deep learning. With the increase in the use of laminated composites in numerous engineering applications, the insurance of their integrity and performance is of paramount importance. However, owing to the complex nature of these materials, the identification of fracture modes is often a tedious and time-consuming task that requires critical domain knowledge. Therefore, to alleviate these issues, this study aims to utilize modern artificial intelligence technology to automate the fractographic analysis of laminated composites. To accomplish this goal, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of fractured tensile test specimens are obtained from laminated composites to showcase various fracture modes. These SEM images are then categorized based on numerous fracture modes, including fiber breakage, fiber pull-out, mix-mode fracture, matrix brittle fracture, and matrix ductile fracture. Next, the collective data for all classes are divided into train, test, and validation datasets. Two state-of-the-art, deep learning-based pre-trained models, namely, DenseNet and GoogleNet, are trained to learn the discriminative features for each fracture mode. The DenseNet models shows training and testing accuracies of 94.01% and 75.49%, respectively, whereas those of the GoogleNet model are 84.55% and 54.48%, respectively. The trained deep learning models are then validated on unseen validation datasets. This validation demonstrates that the DenseNet model, owing to its deeper architecture, can extract high-quality features, resulting in 84.44% validation accuracy. This value is 36.84% higher than that of the GoogleNet model. Hence, these results affirm that the DenseNet model is effective in performing fractographic analyses of laminated composites by predicting fracture modes with high precision.

• Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.35-48
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• 2024

This study analyzed the value empathy of environmentally sustainable fashion products, encompassing environmental, economic, and social values, drawing from existing literature. We sought to verify the relationship between empathic value and the likability and purchase intention towards these products. To validate these relationships, we formulated research hypotheses and conducted an online survey targeting female college students residing in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, who have experience purchasing environmentally sustainable fashion products. The survey was conducted from August 10th to August 20th, 2023, with a total distribution of 352 questionnaires. Among the collected responses, 313 valid responses were utilized for data analysis. The collected survey data underwent frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis using SPSS 26.0 software. The analysis yielded the following results. First, the empathy value of environmentally sustainable fashion products was classified into environmental protection values, economic values, and social values. Second, the economic and social values of environmentally sustainable fashion products were found to have a positive effect on favorability. Third, it was found that the environmental protection value and social value of environmentally sustainable fashion products had a positive effect on purchase intention. Fourth, it was found that Chinese female college students' favorability toward environmentally sustainable fashion products had a positive effect on their purchase intention. Based on these results, it is judged that companies need to emphasize the characteristics of products such as environmental protective value, economic value, and social value in order to promote consumers' purchase of environmentally sustainable fashion products. The purpose of this study is to help develop marketing strategies for environmentally sustainable fashion products by providing basic data, development ideas, and methods useful for environmentally sustainable fashion-related industries and companies by analyzing the relationship between empathy value, favorability, and purchase intention.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.292-302
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• 2012

This paper reviews comparison analysis of current and latest application for stock identification methods of Todarodes pacificus, and the pros and cons of each method and consideration of how to compensate for each other. Todarodes pacificus which migrates wide areas in western North Pacific is important fishery resource ecologically and commercially. Todarodes pacificus is also considered as 'biological indicator' of ocean environmental changes. And changes in its short and long term catch and distribution area occur along with environmental changes. For example, while the catch of pollack, a cold water fish, has dramatically decreased until today after the climate regime shift in 1987/1988, the catch of Todarodes pacificus has been dramatically increased. Regarding the decrease in pollack catch, overfishing and climate changes were considered as the main causes, but there has been no definite reason until today. One of the reasons why there is no definite answer is related with no proper analysis about ecological and environmental aspects based on stock identification. Subpopulation is a group sharing the same gene pool through sexual reproduction process within limited boundaries having similar ecological characteristics. Each individual with same stock might be affected by different environment in temporal and spatial during the process of spawning, recruitment and then reproduction. Thereby, accurate stock analysis about the species can play an efficient alternative to comply with effective resource management and rapid changes. Four main stock analysis were applied to Todarodes pacificus: Morphologic Method, Ecological Method, Tagging Method, Genetic Method. Ecological method is studies for analysis of differences in spawning grounds by analysing the individual ecological change, distribution, migration status, parasitic state of parasite, kinds of parasite and parasite infection rate etc. Currently the method has been studying lively can identify the group in the similar environment. However It is difficult to know to identify the same genetic group in each other. Tagging Method is direct method. It can analyse cohort's migration, distribution and location of spawning, but it is very difficult to recapture tagged squids and hard to tag juveniles. Genetic method, which is for useful fishery resource stock analysis has provided the basic information regarding resource management study. Genetic method for stock analysis is determined according to markers' sensitivity and need to select high multiform of genetic markers. For stock identification, isozyme multiform has been used for genetic markers. Recently there is increase in use of makers with high range variability among DNA sequencing like mitochondria, microsatellite. Even the current morphologic method, tagging method and ecological method played important rolls through finding Todarodes pacificus' life cycle, migration route and changes in spawning grounds, it is still difficult to analyze the stock of Todarodes pacificus as those are distributed in difference seas. Lately, by taking advantages of each stock analysis method, more complicated method is being applied. If based on such analysis and genetic method for improvement are played, there will be much advance in management system for the resource fluctuation of Todarodes pacificus.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.23-43
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• 2016

As a result of the growth of Internet data and the rapid development of Internet technology, "big data" analysis has gained prominence as a major approach for evaluating and mining enormous data for various purposes. Especially, in recent years, people tend to share their experiences related to their leisure activities while also reviewing others' inputs concerning their activities. Therefore, by referring to others' leisure activity-related experiences, they are able to gather information that might guarantee them better leisure activities in the future. This phenomenon has appeared throughout many aspects of leisure activities such as movies, traveling, accommodation, and dining. Apart from blogs and social networking sites, many other websites provide a wealth of information related to leisure activities. Most of these websites provide information of each product in various formats depending on different purposes and perspectives. Generally, most of the websites provide the average ratings and detailed reviews of users who actually used products/services, and these ratings and reviews can actually support the decision of potential customers in purchasing the same products/services. However, the existing websites offering information on leisure activities only provide the rating and review based on one stage of a set of evaluation criteria. Therefore, to identify the main issue for each evaluation criterion as well as the characteristics of specific elements comprising each criterion, users have to read a large number of reviews. In particular, as most of the users search for the characteristics of the detailed elements for one or more specific evaluation criteria based on their priorities, they must spend a great deal of time and effort to obtain the desired information by reading more reviews and understanding the contents of such reviews. Although some websites break down the evaluation criteria and direct the user to input their reviews according to different levels of criteria, there exist excessive amounts of input sections that make the whole process inconvenient for the users. Further, problems may arise if a user does not follow the instructions for the input sections or fill in the wrong input sections. Finally, treating the evaluation criteria breakdown as a realistic alternative is difficult, because identifying all the detailed criteria for each evaluation criterion is a challenging task. For example, if a review about a certain hotel has been written, people tend to only write one-stage reviews for various components such as accessibility, rooms, services, or food. These might be the reviews for most frequently asked questions, such as distance between the nearest subway station or condition of the bathroom, but they still lack detailed information for these questions. In addition, in case a breakdown of the evaluation criteria was provided along with various input sections, the user might only fill in the evaluation criterion for accessibility or fill in the wrong information such as information regarding rooms in the evaluation criteria for accessibility. Thus, the reliability of the segmented review will be greatly reduced. In this study, we propose an approach to overcome the limitations of the existing leisure activity information websites, namely, (1) the reliability of reviews for each evaluation criteria and (2) the difficulty of identifying the detailed contents that make up the evaluation criteria. In our proposed methodology, we first identify the review content and construct the lexicon for each evaluation criterion by using the terms that are frequently used for each criterion. Next, the sentences in the review documents containing the terms in the constructed lexicon are decomposed into review units, which are then reconstructed by using the evaluation criteria. Finally, the issues of the constructed review units by evaluation criteria are derived and the summary results are provided. Apart from the derived issues, the review units are also provided. Therefore, this approach aims to help users save on time and effort, because they will only be reading the relevant information they need for each evaluation criterion rather than go through the entire text of review. Our proposed methodology is based on the topic modeling, which is being actively used in text analysis. The review is decomposed into sentence units rather than considering the whole review as a document unit. After being decomposed into individual review units, the review units are reorganized according to each evaluation criterion and then used in the subsequent analysis. This work largely differs from the existing topic modeling-based studies. In this paper, we collected 423 reviews from hotel information websites and decomposed these reviews into 4,860 review units. We then reorganized the review units according to six different evaluation criteria. By applying these review units in our methodology, the analysis results can be introduced, and the utility of proposed methodology can be demonstrated.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.600-612
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• 1996

Background : Recent studies deported that untreated patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome had high long-term mortality rates, and cardiovascular complications of these patients clad a major effect on mortality. Several data indicates that obstructive sheep apnea syndrome contributes to the development of diurnal systemic hypertension. But the pathophysiological mechanism of the development of systemic hypertension in these patients is still uncertain. This study was performed to evaluate the possible role of sympathetic nervous system activity for the development of systemic hypertension in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Method : 35 patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome(OSAS) and 13 Control subjects(control) were included in this study. 21 patients of OSAS were normotensives(OSAS-NBP), and 14 patients of OSAS were hypertensives(OSAS-HBP). Full night polysomnography was undertaken to all subjects. We measured plasma norepinephrine(NE) and epinephrine(EP) concentrations during waking and sleep, using high performance liquid chromatography, in all patients and control subjects. Results : In OSAS, OSAS-NBP and control, plasma NE and EP concentrations during sleep were lowed than during waking(p<0.01). But, in OSAS-HBP, these was no difference between during waking and sleep. Plasma NE concentrations during sleep of OSAS, OSAS-NBP and OSAS-HBP were higher than Control(p<0.05). In OSAS-HBP, daytime systolic blood pressure correlated with plasma NE concentration during sleep(r=0.7415, p<0.01), arid correlated inversely with mean arterial oxygen saturation(r=-0.6465, p<0.05) or arterial oxygen saturation nadir(r=-0.6) 14, p<0.05) during sleep. Conclusion : The sympathetic activity during sleep of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome patients was higher than control subjects. In obstructive sleep apnea syndrome patients with systemic hypertension, there was no diurnal variation of sympathetic activity, and there was correlation between daytime systolic blood pressure and sympathetic activity during sleep. These data suggests that chronic hyperactivity of sympathetic nervous system may contribute to the development of diurnal systemic hypertension in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.93-112
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• 2015

Depending on the change in consumer's consumption pattern, existing retail shop has evolved in hypermarket or convenience store offering grocery and daily products mostly. Therefore, it is important to maintain the inventory levels and proper product configuration for effectively utilize the limited space in the retail store and increasing sales. Accordingly, this study proposed proper product configuration and inventory level strategy based on RFM(Recency, Frequency, Monetary) model and SOM(self-organizing map) for manage the retail shop effectively. RFM model is analytic model to analyze customer behaviors based on the past customer's buying activities. And it can differentiates important customers from large data by three variables. R represents recency, which refers to the last purchase of commodities. The latest consuming customer has bigger R. F represents frequency, which refers to the number of transactions in a particular period and M represents monetary, which refers to consumption money amount in a particular period. Thus, RFM method has been known to be a very effective model for customer segmentation. In this study, using a normalized value of the RFM variables, SOM cluster analysis was performed. SOM is regarded as one of the most distinguished artificial neural network models in the unsupervised learning tool space. It is a popular tool for clustering and visualization of high dimensional data in such a way that similar items are grouped spatially close to one another. In particular, it has been successfully applied in various technical fields for finding patterns. In our research, the procedure tries to find sales patterns by analyzing product sales records with Recency, Frequency and Monetary values. And to suggest a business strategy, we conduct the decision tree based on SOM results. To validate the proposed procedure in this study, we adopted the M-mart data collected between 2014.01.01~2014.12.31. Each product get the value of R, F, M, and they are clustered by 9 using SOM. And we also performed three tests using the weekday data, weekend data, whole data in order to analyze the sales pattern change. In order to propose the strategy of each cluster, we examine the criteria of product clustering. The clusters through the SOM can be explained by the characteristics of these clusters of decision trees. As a result, we can suggest the inventory management strategy of each 9 clusters through the suggested procedures of the study. The highest of all three value(R, F, M) cluster's products need to have high level of the inventory as well as to be disposed in a place where it can be increasing customer's path. In contrast, the lowest of all three value(R, F, M) cluster's products need to have low level of inventory as well as to be disposed in a place where visibility is low. The highest R value cluster's products is usually new releases products, and need to be placed on the front of the store. And, manager should decrease inventory levels gradually in the highest F value cluster's products purchased in the past. Because, we assume that cluster has lower R value and the M value than the average value of good. And it can be deduced that product are sold poorly in recent days and total sales also will be lower than the frequency. The procedure presented in this study is expected to contribute to raising the profitability of the retail store. The paper is organized as follows. The second chapter briefly reviews the literature related to this study. The third chapter suggests procedures for research proposals, and the fourth chapter applied suggested procedure using the actual product sales data. Finally, the fifth chapter described the conclusion of the study and further research.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.77-98
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• 1993

The intent of this study is to analyze the characteristics of distribution, patter, and deposits of the exposed debris slope landform by aerial photography interpretation, measure-ment on the topographical maps and field surveys in the southern part Taebaek mountains. It also aims to research the arrangement types of mountain slope and the landform development of debris slopes in this area. In conclusion, main observations can be summed up as follows. 1. The distribution characteristics 1)From the viewpoint of bedrocks, the distribution density of talus is high in case of the bedrock with high density of joints, sheeting structures and hard rocks, but that of the block stream is high in case of intrusive rocks with the talus line. 2)From the viewpoint of bedrocks, the distribution density of talus is high in case of the bedrock with high density of joints, sheeting structures and hard rocks, but that of the block stream is high in case of inrtusive rocks with the talus line. 2) From the viewpoint of distribution altitude, talus is mainly distributed in the 301~500 meters part above the sea level, while the block stream is distributed in the 101~300 meters part. 3) From the viewpoint of slope oriention, the distribution density of talus on the slope facing the south(S, SE, SW) is a little higher than that of talus on the slope facing the north(N, NE, NW). 2. The Pattern Characteristics 1) The tongue-shaped type among the four types is the most in number. 2) The average length of talus slope is 99 meters, especially that of talus composed of hornfels or granodiorite is longer. Foth the former is easy to make free face; the latter is easdy to produce round stones. The average length of block stream slope is 145 meters, the longest of all is one km(granodiorite). 3) The gradient of talus slope is 20~45${^\circ}$, most of them 26-30${^\croc}$; but talus composed of intrusive rocks is gentle. 4) The slope pattern of talus shows concave slope, which means readjustment of constituent debris. Some of the block stream slope patterns show concave slope at the upper slope and the lower slope, but convex slope at the middle slope; others have uneven slope. 3. The deposit characteristics 1) The average length of constituent debris is 48~172 centimeters in diameter, the sorting of debris is not bad without matrix. That of block stream is longer than that of talus; this difference of debris average diameter is funda-mentally caused by joint space of bedrocks. 2) The shape of constituent debris in talus is mainly angular, but that of the debris composed of intrusive rocks is sub-angular. The shape of constituent debris in block stream is mainly sub-roundl. 3) IN case dof talus, debris diameter is generally increasing with downward slope, but some of them are disordered and the debris diameter of the sides are larger than that of the middle part on a landform surface. In block stream, debris diameter variation is perpendicularly disordered, and the debris diameter of the middle part is generally larger than that of the sides on a landform surface. 4)The long axis orientation of debris is a not bad at the lower part of the slope in talus (only 2 of 6 talus). In block stream(2 of 3), one is good in sorting; another is not bad. The researcher thinks that the latter was caused by the collapse of constituent debris. 5) Most debris were weathered and some are secondly weathered in situ, but talus composed of fresh debris is developing. 4. The landform development of debris slopes and the arrangement types of the mountain slope 1) The formation and development period of talus is divided into two periods. The first period is formation period of talus9the last glacial period), the second period is adjustment period(postglacial age). And that of block stream is divided into three periods: the first period is production period of blocks(tertiary, interglacial period), the second formation period of block stream(the last glacial period), and the third adjustment period of block stream(postglacialage). 2) The arrangement types of mountain slope are divided into six types in this research area, which are as follows. Type I; high level convex slope-free face-talus-block stream-alluvial surface Type II: high level convex slope-free face-talus-alluvial surface Type III: free face-talus-block stream-all-uvial surface Type IV: free face-talus-alluval surface Type V: talus-alluval surface Type VI: block stream-alluvial surface Particularly, type IV id\s basic type of all; others are modified ones.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.149-161
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• 2014

The export of domestic public services to overseas markets contains many potential obstacles, stemming from different export procedures, the target services, and socio-economic environments. In order to alleviate these problems, the business incubation platform as an open business ecosystem can be a powerful instrument to support the decisions taken by participants and stakeholders. In this paper, we propose an ontology model and its implementation processes for the business incubation platform with an open and pervasive architecture to support public service exports. For the conceptual model of platform ontology, export case studies are used for requirements analysis. The conceptual model shows the basic structure, with vocabulary and its meaning, the relationship between ontologies, and key attributes. For the implementation and test of the ontology model, the logical structure is edited using Prot$\acute{e}$g$\acute{e}$ editor. The core engine of the business incubation platform is the simulator module, where the various contexts of export businesses should be captured, defined, and shared with other modules through ontologies. It is well-known that an ontology, with which concepts and their relationships are represented using a shared vocabulary, is an efficient and effective tool for organizing meta-information to develop structural frameworks in a particular domain. The proposed model consists of five ontologies derived from a requirements survey of major stakeholders and their operational scenarios: service, requirements, environment, enterprise, and county. The service ontology contains several components that can find and categorize public services through a case analysis of the public service export. Key attributes of the service ontology are composed of categories including objective, requirements, activity, and service. The objective category, which has sub-attributes including operational body (organization) and user, acts as a reference to search and classify public services. The requirements category relates to the functional needs at a particular phase of system (service) design or operation. Sub-attributes of requirements are user, application, platform, architecture, and social overhead. The activity category represents business processes during the operation and maintenance phase. The activity category also has sub-attributes including facility, software, and project unit. The service category, with sub-attributes such as target, time, and place, acts as a reference to sort and classify the public services. The requirements ontology is derived from the basic and common components of public services and target countries. The key attributes of the requirements ontology are business, technology, and constraints. Business requirements represent the needs of processes and activities for public service export; technology represents the technological requirements for the operation of public services; and constraints represent the business law, regulations, or cultural characteristics of the target country. The environment ontology is derived from case studies of target countries for public service operation. Key attributes of the environment ontology are user, requirements, and activity. A user includes stakeholders in public services, from citizens to operators and managers; the requirements attribute represents the managerial and physical needs during operation; the activity attribute represents business processes in detail. The enterprise ontology is introduced from a previous study, and its attributes are activity, organization, strategy, marketing, and time. The country ontology is derived from the demographic and geopolitical analysis of the target country, and its key attributes are economy, social infrastructure, law, regulation, customs, population, location, and development strategies. The priority list for target services for a certain country and/or the priority list for target countries for a certain public services are generated by a matching algorithm. These lists are used as input seeds to simulate the consortium partners, and government's policies and programs. In the simulation, the environmental differences between Korea and the target country can be customized through a gap analysis and work-flow optimization process. When the process gap between Korea and the target country is too large for a single corporation to cover, a consortium is considered an alternative choice, and various alternatives are derived from the capability index of enterprises. For financial packages, a mix of various foreign aid funds can be simulated during this stage. It is expected that the proposed ontology model and the business incubation platform can be used by various participants in the public service export market. It could be especially beneficial to small and medium businesses that have relatively fewer resources and experience with public service export. We also expect that the open and pervasive service architecture in a digital business ecosystem will help stakeholders find new opportunities through information sharing and collaboration on business processes.

• MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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• v.98
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• pp.226-241
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• 2020

Located on the right side of the third floor of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the "Art of Central Asia" exhibition boasts the world's finest collection of artworks and artifacts from the Silk Road. Every item in the collection has been classified by region, and many of them were collected in the early twentieth century through archaeological surveys led by Russia's Pyotr Kozlov, Mikhail Berezovsky, and Sergey Oldenburg. Some of these artifacts have been presented around the world through special exhibitions held in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Korea, Japan, and elsewhere. The fruits of Russia's Silk Road expeditions were also on full display in the 2008 exhibition The Caves of One Thousand Buddhas - Russian Expeditions on the Silk Route on the Occasion of 190 Years of the Asiatic Museum, held at the Hermitage Museum. Published in 2018 by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in collaboration with the Hermitage Museum, Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia introduces the Hermitage's collection of artifacts from the Kuche (or Kucha) region. While the book focuses exclusively on artifacts excavated from the Kuche area, it also includes valuable on-site photos and sketches from the Russian expeditions, thus helping to enhance readers' overall understanding of the characteristics of Kuche art within the Buddhist art of Central Asia. The book was compiled by Dr. Kira Samosyuk, senior curator of the Oriental Department of the Hermitage Museum, who also wrote the main article and the artifact descriptions. Dr. Samosyuk is an internationally renowned scholar of Central Asian Buddhist art, with a particular expertise in the art of Khara-Khoto and Xi-yu. In her article "The Art of the Kuche Buddhist Temples," Dr. Samosyuk provides an overview of Russia's Silk Road expeditions, before introducing the historical development of Kuche in the Buddhist era and the aspects of Buddhism transmitted to Kuche. She describes the murals and clay sculptures in the Buddhist grottoes, giving important details on their themes and issues with estimating their dates, and also explains how the temples operated as places of worship. In conclusion, Dr. Samosyuk argues that the Kuche region, while continuously engaging with various peoples in China and the nomadic world, developed its own independent Buddhist culture incorporating elements of Gandara, Hellenistic, Persian, and Chinese art and culture. Finally, she states that the culture of the Kuche region had a profound influence not only on the Tarim Basin, but also on the Buddhist grottoes of Dunhuang and the central region of China. A considerable portion of Dr. Samosyuk's article addresses efforts to estimate the date of the grottoes in the Kuche region. After citing various scholars' views on the dates of the murals, she argues that the Kizil grottoes likely began prior to the fifth century, which is at least 100 years earlier than most current estimates. This conclusion is reached by comparing the iconography of the armor depicted in the murals with related materials excavated from the surrounding area (such as items of Sogdian art). However, efforts to date the Buddhist grottoes of Kuche must take many factors into consideration, such as the geological characteristics of the caves, the themes and styles of the Buddhist paintings, the types of pigments used, and the clothing, hairstyles, and ornamentation of the depicted figures. Moreover, such interdisciplinary data must be studied within the context of Kuche's relations with nearby cultures. Scientific methods such as radiocarbon dating could also be applied for supplementary materials. The preface of Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia reveals that the catalog is the first volume covering the Hermitage Museum's collection of Kuche art, and that the next volume in the series will cover a large collection of mural fragments that were taken from Berlin during World War II. For many years, the whereabouts of these mural fragments were unknown to both the public and academia, but after restoration, the fragments were recently re-introduced to the public as part of the museum's permanent exhibition. We look forward to the next publication that focuses on these mural fragments, and also to future catalogs introducing the artifacts of Turpan and Khotan. Currently, fragments of the murals from the Kuche grottoes are scattered among various countries, including Russia, Germany, and Korea. With the publication of this catalog, it seems like an opportune time to publish a comprehensive catalog on the murals of the Kuche region, which represent a compelling mixture of East-West culture that reflects the overall characteristics of the region. A catalog that includes both the remaining murals of the Kizil grottoes and the fragments from different parts of the world could greatly enhance our understanding of the murals' original state. Such a book would hopefully include a more detailed and interdisciplinary discussion of the artifacts and murals, including scientific analyses of the pigments and other materials from the perspective of conservation science. With the ongoing rapid development in western China, the grotto murals are facing a serious crisis related to climate change and overcrowding in the oasis city of Xinjiang. To overcome this challenge, the cultural communities of China and other countries that possess advanced technology for conservation and restoration must begin working together to protect and restore the murals of the Silk Road grottoes. Moreover, centers for conservation science should be established to foster human resources and collect information. Compiling the data of Russian expeditions related to the grottoes of Kuche (among the results of Western archaeological surveys of the Silk Road in the early twentieth century), Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia represents an important contribution to research on Kuche's Buddhist art and the Silk Road, which will only be enhanced by a future volume introducing the mural fragments from Germany. As the new authoritative source for academic research on the artworks and artifacts of the Kuche region, the book also lays the groundwork for new directions for future studies on the Silk Road. Finally, the book is also quite significant for employing a new editing system that improves its academic clarity and convenience. In conclusion, Dr. Kira Samosyuk, who planned the publication, deserves tremendous praise for taking the research of Silk Road art to new heights.