• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.191-199
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• 2020

Noni has been used for medicinal purposes for more than 2,000 years in South Pacific Polynesia, China and India, and has been heavily ingested as an extract for its excellent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. However, a recent study found that the noni extract causes digestive disorders, kidney problems, and liver diseases, which made it necessary to use it for other purposes than as an extract. In this study, we want to evaluate the potential of noni as an anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-wrinkling agent. Methods: Noni was freeze-dried, extracted in water, and concentrated. Skin cells were treated with the noni extract for 24 hrs and then were exposed to UVB (55 mJ/cm²). After 48 hrs of incubation, pro-inflammatory cytokine, elastase, MMP-1 and type-1 procollagen levels were measured by ELISA. Results: To find out the antioxidant effect of the noni extract, the DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activity experiments were conducted and the noni extract showed 97.0 % and 92.0 % antioxidant efficacy at 200 ㎍/mL respectively. The noni extract (50 and 100 ㎍/mL) decreased IL-6 and TNF-α in RAW 264.7 cells induced by LPS in a concentration-dependent manner. In the RT-PCR experiment involving NO production, the noni extract (50 and 100 ㎍/mL) inhibited NO production by strongly inhibiting iNOS mRNA expression, and also inhibited the elevation of MMP-1 and elastases caused by UVB irradiation by 25.0 % and 7.0 % respectively. In addition, type-1 procollagen was elevated by 20.0 % by the noni extract treatment in HaCaT cells. Conclusion: The noni extract has photoprotective ability by reducing proinflammatory mediators, elastase and MMP-1 production, and elevation of collagen synthesis. Our findings suggest that the noni extract might be a good natural substance to protect against UVB-induced premature skin aging.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.171-207
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper investigates the potential effect of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on trade liberalization among member countries in order to answer key questions in our research on whether the RCEP will be a cornerstone or just collaboration. Furthermore, it aims to measure the likely magnitude of the economic impact it has on its members. Design/methodology - Toward achieving research objectives, we developed a regional CGE model based on the GTAP 9 database. Findings - The simulation results show Korea, Australia, India, and Japan ranked the top countries with an average growth in GDP of 0.38 %, 0.36%, 0.29%, and 0.23%, respectively. Moreover, China and New Zealand followed with a percentage of 0.12% each. The lower economic performing group is the ASEAN group due to a contraction in GDP by 0.13%. Accordingly, there was a positive impact of the RCEP agreement on all member states, as empirically demonstrated. Furthermore, Korea is one of the countries that will benefit most from joining this agreement. Finally, this agreement is important; it has many economic benefits to member states, but it is not a cornerstone. Originality/value - The examination of the quantitative effects of tariff removal among the RCEP's countries is its value. We will address all member countries of the convention simultaneously using a regional CGE model GAMS language, where we employed a Mathematical Programming System for General Equilibrium (MPSGE) to establish a Regional CGE model. This study is directed to policymakers looking at evaluating RCEP agreement.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.71-86
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• 2022

This study examines the process of the introduction of stupa, which has originated in India, to the Xinjiang Uyghur region and the features of the stupas in the Xinjiang Uyghur region in detail. This study examines the layout of the buildings in temple compounds and the types, structural elements, and construction methods of the stupas in the Xinjiang Uyghur region in particular by looking into the content of the Da Tang Xi Yu Ji and remaining stupas, which provide examples of stupas at the time. This study finds that due to the characteristics of dry deserts, stupas in Xinjiang Uyghur region, where assimilation between Eastern and Western cultures is seen, were mostly made by pressing clay into a mold and had no interior spaces. Also, construction materials and techniques had been developed and improved in a way that enabled stupas to combat the challenging desert conditions. However, the stupas in this region differed significantly from the wooden tower-like stupas discovered in central China(zhongyuan 中原). The shape of the dome of most stupas in Xinjiang Uyghur region was chosen under the influence of the Gandharan style. Some of the stupas in the region have taken the general forms of the wooden stupas and the others have taken many forms, from cylindrical drums to towers. Also, there have been forests of stupas and stupas similar in form to chaityas and stupas of Vajrayana. Such different forms were transformed and modified through regional history and it was related to the peoples and cultures that produced and used stupas. Stupas evolved into distinct forms in Xinjiang Uyghur region in this way.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.61-76
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to derive exotic products handled by Bon Marche department store, examine characteristics, and reveal the meaning of exotic taste in the 19th century. The research method is literature research centered on original materials of the time, such as old literature related to department stores, and films, newspapers, magazines, and periodicals as well as books and papers. Commercial catalogs and Agenda-Buvard published by Bon Marché were used as visual materials. Results are as follows. Exotic tastes of products of the Bon Marche department store in the late 19th century showed an oriental style centered on Persia, India, China, and Japan. Products from various regions such as Turkey, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, England, Italy, and Russia were also accepted. These exotic tastes had the following contributions and meanings. First, they expanded items and product development and activated domestic industry through production of imitations and replicas. Second, before the advent of department stores, foreign items that came to Europe were exclusive properties of a few privileged classes. However, in the late 19th century, as the number of consumers who wanted to have a new status higher than themselves increased, exotic products of the Bon Marche department store became the object of desire for material pursuits toward the upper class rather than sentimental fantasies. Third, exotic tastes gradually spread to the public as production of products imitating foreign products became possible industrially with an easy access to them. From this, it can be seen that department stores were mediators of trends and the epicenter of popularizing exotic tastes.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.121-142
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• 2018

Area studies are sometimes framed as focused on specific localities, rooted in deep linguistic, cultural and historical knowledge, and hence empirically rich but, as a result, as yielding non-transferable/non-translatable findings and hence as theoretically poor. In Europe and North America some social science disciplines like sociology, economics and political science routinely dismiss any reference to local specifics as parochial "noise" interfering with their universalizing pretensions which in reality obscure their own Euro-American parochialism. For more qualitatively oriented disciplines like history, anthropology and cultural studies the inherent non-universality of (geographically constricted) area studies presents a predicament which is increasingly fought out by resorting to philosophical concepts which usually have a Eurocentric pedigree. In this paper, however, I argue that concepts with arguably European pedigree - like religion, culture, identity, heritage and art - travel around the world and are adopted through vernacular discourses that are specific to locally inflected histories and cultural contexts by annexing existing vocabularies as linguistic vehicles. In the process, these vernacularized "universal" concepts acquire different meanings or connotations, and can be used as powerful devices in local discursive fields. The study of these processes offer at once a powerful antidote against simplistic notions of "global"/"universal" and "local," and a potential corrective to localizing parochialism and blindly Eurocentric universalism. I develop this substantive argument with reference to my own professional, disciplinary and theoretical trajectory as an anthropologist and historian focusing on Vietnam, who used that experience - and the empirical puzzles and wonder encountered - in order to develop theoretical interests and questions that became the basis for larger-scale, comparative research projects in Japan, China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Europe. The subsequent challenge is to bring the results of such larger, comparative research "home" to Vietnam in a meaningful way, and thus overcome the limitations of both area studies and Eurocentric disciplines.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2021.06a
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• pp.144-144
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• 2021

The rapid urbanization in many Asian countries has taken millions of people from the rural countryside to concentrated megacities, which eventually putting pressure on the existing water resources. The over-growing population and increasing living standard of people in the urban region of developed as well as developing countries such as Korea, China, Japan and India have witnessed a drastic change in terms of domestic water demand for the past few decades. In this study, we used the concept of potential surface water availability in the form of surface runoff for future vulnerability assessment. We focused on 42 megacities having population more than 5 million as per the United Nations (UN) census data 2020. The study shows that 30 out of 42 cities having more than 180L/p/d demand for domestic use based on various references. We have predicted the domestic water demand for all the cities on the basis of current per capita demand up to 2035 using UN projected population data. We found that the projected water demand in megacities such as Seoul, Busan, Shanghai, Ghuanzou are increasing because of high population as well as GDP growth rate. On the contrary, megacities of Japan considered in our stud shows less water demand in future due to decreasing trend of population. As per the past records provided by the local municipalities/authorities, we projected different scenarios based on the future supply for various megacities such as Chennai, Delhi, Karachi, Mumbai, Shanghai, Wuhan, etc. We found that the supply to demand ratio of these cities would be below 75% for future period and if such trend continues then the inhabitants will face serious water stress conditions. Outcomes of this study would help the local policy makers to adopt sustainable initiatives on urban water governance to avoid the severe water stress conditions in the vulnerable megacities.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.16
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• pp.151-166
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• 2003

Contemporary Buddhist scholarship in Korea has been strongly affected by its origins in the Victorian era, when Western religious scholars sought to rationalize and historicize the study of religion. Modern Korean scholars, trained within the Western scholarly paradigm, share this prejudice which tends toward the rational. The result is a skewed understanding of Buddhism, emphasizing its philosophical and theoretical aspects at the expense of seemingly "irrational" religious elements based on the direct experience of meditation practice. This paper seeks to look at the historical context in which modern Korean Buddhist scholarship had been shaped during the colonial period of Japan. Two case studies will be examined particularly in the light of post-colonial perspectives of Buddhist studies: the case of Jonghong Bak(1903-1976) and the case of Donghwa Gim(1902-1980), two pioneering scholars in the field of Buddhist studies. They share similarities as well as differences. Both were born and active at almost the same period, during which Korean peninsula experienced modernization forced upon by Japanese colonialism. And thus, the experience of colonialism and modernization brought them into conflict between tradition and modernity. Their responses, however, were different. Pak, originally trained in Western philosophy, especially German philosophy, wanted to study Korean Buddhism in the context of the so-called Korean Philosophy per se. He was motivated to seek for the national and cultural identity of Korea. And thus his scholarship on Korean Buddhism naturally led him to look for an original Korean Buddhism distinct from the Buddhism of India, China and Japan. On the other hand, Gim, who became a monk in his youth, later went to Japan for college where he was exposed to modern Buddhist scholarship. He was the first to introduce modern Buddhist scholarship to Korea, and since then, contemporary Korean Buddhist scholarship owes much to his contributions. Despite his contributions to contemporary Korean Buddhist scholarship, if we look at his efforts in the light of post-colonial perspective, his ideas need to be reevaluate.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.213-228
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• 2023

Unmanned exploration rovers serve as tools for investigating mineral resources, mining, and carrying out various scientific on celestial bodies beyond Earth, acting on behalf of humans. Recently, not only the United States but also other countries such as Japan, India and China have been attempting to develop unmanned planetary exploration rovers for space development or have successfully operated them on other celestial bodies. This has accelerated the enthusiasm for space exploration and development. However, the development and operation of unmanned rovers for planetary exploration still entail significant costs and high risks, making it difficult for universities or companies to undertake such project independently without the guidance of financial backing from government entities. In this paper, we describe the recent development trends of micro-rovers, known as Cube Rovers, which inherit the concepts and definitions of traditional Cube Sat. We also introduce the potential and expectations of Cube Rovers through the necessity of their development and ongoing planetary exploration cases.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2020.08a
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• pp.48-48
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• 2020

Assessment of plant genetic resources is applicable when breeding improved plant caltivars. In Korea, early maturing wheat germplasm is anticipated for wheat-rice double-cropping. In this study, we assessed five agronomical traits including days of heading after sowing(HD), days of maturity after sowing(MD), culm length(CL), ear length(EL), and thousand grain weight(TW) of 500 wheat germplasms collected form 10 different countries (Mexico, the United States, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, India, Japan, China, Turkey, Pakistan and Portugal), and grown in Korea. Besides, the correlation between the agronomical traits was analyzed using XLSTAT softerware version 2019 (Addinsoft, NY, USA). The result showed wide-ranging maturity period. Among the entire population, 2 accessions (K256306/JPN/breeding line and K256328/JPN/breeding line) that matured early were identified. Furthermore, HD showed strong correlation with MD (r=0.684) and CL (r=0.610), and weak correlation with the rest two agronomical traits (EL and TW). Overall, the results of our study provides wide spectrum of prospects, and could be applicable to breed new wheat varieties with early maturity.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2020.08a
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• pp.96-96
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• 2020

Soybean seeds are important sources of non-nutritive health promoting metabolites. The contents of these metabolites are affected by both genetic and environmental factors. In the present study, the contents of five common isoflavones including daidzin, genistin, glycitin, malonyldaidzin, and malonylgenistin were analyzed in 72 soybeans of different seed coat colors, diversity, and of different origins including China (22), Japan (9), USA (12), India (4), and Korea (25). The average total isoflavone content (TIC) was maximum in Indian soybeans (3302.36 ㎍/g) and minimum in Chinese landraces (1214.95 ㎍/g). The Korean landraces had higher average TIC (2148.05 ㎍/g) than the USA genetic materials (1580.23 ㎍/g) and Japanese landraces (1485.99 ㎍/g). The content of malonylgenistin was in the range of 54.31 - 2385.68 ㎍/g in the entire population, and was the most abundant isoflavone irrespective of origin although there was content variation among individual soybeans. Besides, glycitin was the least concentrated isoflavone, and its content ranged from 0.00 to 79.79 ㎍/g. With respect to seed coat color, green soybeans from all countries displayed the maximum malonylgenistin and TIC contents. Exceptions were those of Korean and Indian origins where black and yellowish-green soybeans presented the highest malonylgenistin and TIC contents, respectively. In multivariate analysis, 92.72% of the variance was explained by the first two principal components, and the soybeans were grouped in to three clusters based on isoflavone contents. Overall, our findings signify the importance of seed coat color and origin as discriminant parameters, and provide wide spectrum of routes for breeding soybean cultivars.