• Toxicological Research
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.195-205
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• 2016

This study was performed to select single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related to the body burden of heavy metals in Koreans, to provide Korean allele frequencies of selected SNPs, and to assess the difference in allele frequencies with other ethnicities. The candidate-gene approach method and genome-wide association screening were used to select SNPs related to the body burden of heavy metals. Genotyping analysis of the final 192 SNPs selected was performed on 1,483 subjects using the VeraCode Goldengate assay. Allele frequencies differences and genetic differentiations between the Korean population and Chinese (CHB), Japanese (JPT), Caucasian (CEU), and African (YIR) populations were tested by Fisher's exact test and fixation index ($F_{ST}$), respectively. The Korean population was genetically similar to the CHB and JPT populations ($F_{ST}$ < 0.05, for all SNPs in both populations). However, a significant difference in the allele frequencies between the Korean and CEU and YIR populations were observed in 99 SNPs (60.7%) and 120 SNPs (73.6%), respectively. Ten (6.1%) and 26 (16.0%) SNPs had genetic differentiation ($F_{ST}$ > 0.05) among the Korean-CEU and Korean-YIR comparisons, respectively. The SNP with the largest $F_{ST}$ value between the Korean and African populations was cystathionine-${\beta}$-synthase rs234709 ($F_{ST}$: KOR-YIR, 0.309; KOR-CEU, 0.064). Our study suggests that interethnic differences exist in SNPs associated with heavy metals of Koreans, and it should be considered in future studies that address ethnic differences in heavy-metal concentrations in the body and genetic susceptibility to the body burden of heavy metals.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.397-406
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• 1988

The changes in the dietary pattern of Koreans during the last one century and its consequences are summarized as follows; 1. Until the beginning of 20th century, Koreans used variety of cereals, vegetables and fruits for their staple food, but the variety has been largely reduced by the agricultural development and urbanized life style. 2. The well balanced traditional dietary pattern of Korean had been deeply deteriorated by the food shortage during the Japanese occupation and Korean war. 3. The deteriorated nutritional condition of Korean was not remedied by the restoration of traditional dietary pattern, but attempted to overcome it by the adoption of Western food habit. 4. The people were trained to eat milk and flour-meals during the starvation of Korean war, and it was continued after Korean war through the animal husbandry promotion policy. 5. The importation of food and feed cereals has been increased rapidly during the economic growth in 1970's and the food self-sufficiency droped below 50%. 6. In 1970's, the food supply pattern of Korean was restored to the level of early 1900, but the consumption of lipid increased extraordinarily. 7. The overconsumption of animal food and lipid continues in 1980's, and it coincides with the rapid increase in the occurence of food related degenerative deseases. 8. The establishment of Korean dietary goal which is based on the traditional dietary pattern is needed.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.24
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• pp.46-61
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• 2011

This paper considers how Koreans found their positions in the complex, overlapping, disjunctive, and interconnected "Oriental" repertoires in the early Cold War years. When we use the term, Oriental, it should require careful translation from context to context because it may be subject to very different sets of contextual circumstances. Klein views Cold War Orientalism in the complex of various regions including East Asian and Southeast Asian countries; however, when Koreans are contextualized at the center of the discussion the Orientalism produces another discursive meaning. Even though many great researches have been done on Korean immigrations, Korean American literatures, and US-Korea economic, political, and foreign relations, not many discussions about Korean American popular cultures have been discussed in the basis of the Oriental discourse in the United States.For this argument, this paper investigates the performative trajectory of a girl group "Kim Sisters" who began to sing at the US military show stages in South Korea in 1952 during the Korean War. They moved to Las Vegas show stages in 1959 and later appeared in Ed Sullivan Show more than thirty times during the 1960s and 70s. Meanwhile, they not only returned to South Korea often times to perform at the stages for Korean audiences in South Korea but also played at the shows for Korean immigrants in the United States. Korean American immigration to the United States has followed a different route from the majority of Asian American population such as Chinese or Japanese Americans, which means that efforts to compare this particular group to the others may be unnecessary. Rather doing comparative studies, this paper, therefore, focuses on the formation of the intersecting and multiple identities of Korean female entertainers who were forced or forced themselves to be incorporated into the American popular "Oriental" imagination, which I would call "embedded" identities. This embeddedness has been continuously maintained in the configuration of Korean characters in the United States. This will help not only to observe the discursive aspect of Asian American identity politics but also to claim a space for comparatively invisible Korean characters in the United States which has been often times neglected and not brought into a major Asian American or Oriental historical discourse. This paper starts with American scenes at the beginning of the twentieth century to trace Americans Oriental imagination which was observable in the various American cultural landscape and popular music soundscape. It will help us more clearly understand the production and consumption of the Korean "Oriental" performances during the early Cold War period and especially the Korean performance in the American venue, silently overshadowed into the political, social, and cultural framework.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.62
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• pp.225-258
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• 2019

Since the opening of Joseon in 1876, the photographic records of the late Joseon Dynasty and the period of the Korean Empire exist more than expected, considering the technological level and the social situations at that time. Photographs related to Korea can be distributed in various forms, such as illustrations of books printed to introduce Korea to Western society, plates of graphic journalism like newspapers or magazines, vintage prints, photo-postcards, stereo-photographs, card-type photographs, and lantern slides. There are still a great deal left in various archives of the Europe, America, Japan and Korea. According to related researchers, Korean-related photographs taken between 1863 and 1910, since Koreans were first photographed, were at least 3,000 to 4,000 cuts and the photo postcards issued was 25,000. It is said that most of them exist. This paper categorizes two ways of producing and distributing photographic records related to Korea, which were early modern times. The subjects of the photographs are clearly Korea or Koreans, but most of the producers of these photographs were Westerners and Japanese, who were imperial servants of imperialism. In the case of photography, there is a great possibility of distortion of the facts depending on the needs or perspectives of the producers. In order to correct the distortion, not only the contents of the photograph but also the intention of the producer, the production and the communication status should be grasped. This is because the problem of reading photograph records accurately and fairly in an age where there is no real experience is the cornerstone for understanding modern Korea correctly and broadly studying the Modern History of Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.613-630
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• 2009

This thesis, which involves honest life stories of members of the ìtraditionalî Korean generation that lived through the turbulent times of the first half of the twentieth century, assesses the meaning and import of Korean cuisine during an individual Korean's lifetime, as well as the relevant properties of the culinary culture of the traditional generation and how those properties continue to influence the present generation of Koreans. Thus, traditional Korean culinary culture was subdivided into the following four aspects, each of which were exemplified by representative examples. The first of these is slow-food dietary life, which is exemplified by fermented foods. The development of side dishes (panchan) based on fermentation - kimchi, different types of soy and bean paste, salted seafoods, dishes of dried radish or cucumber slices seasoned with soy sauce, and so on - made the quantitative and qualitative supplementation of food possible for traditional Koreans. The second of these aspects, referred to as friendly dietary life, is exemplified by self-sufficiently produced foods. The system of many species and small production suitable with the season made it possible to produce food from sustainable ecological systems and to maintain locally grown food-cultures, each of which was distinguished from others by a local specialty product. The third aspect of the traditional Korean culinary culture involves the same use of medicinal roots and plant materials for foodstuff, and this is exemplified by the use of foods to cure and prevent diseases. The notion, for example, that 'boiled rice is an invigorant' is characteristic of the notion that diet can function in a preventative medical context, and other similar Korean notions illustrate the importance, also, of the curative properties of food. The fourth and final aspect of traditional Korean culinary culture identified herein is creative dietary life, which can be viewed essentially as a Korean adaptation to the turbulence of life during the early $20^{th}$ century in Korea. This trend is exemplified by many Korean foods that were created in response to foreign influences, such as onions, cabbages, curry, etc. which found their place in overall Korean culture through the age of Japanese settlement, as well as the Korean war.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.583-598
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• 2011

This study was intended to outline the characteristics of the food culture in the area of Kyungsangnamdo and its modernization by interpretation and analysis of the novel Toji, which was set in Hadong, Jinjoo in the area of Kyungsangnamdo in the early 20th century. The characteristics of the Kyungsangnamdo area's native dish during the Japanese ruling era in the latter half of the Choson dynasty are as follows. In the first part of the novel, which spans from 1897 to 1908, vegetable and grain food development can be seen in the area of Hadong, the interior plains of Kyungsangnamdo, where there is a typical farming village in the mountains. The second part of the novel, which spans from 1911 through 1917, includes some mentions of the properties of Kyungsangnamdo area's native dishes through the lens of emigrated Koreans living on Gando island. Gando island is in China, and is where Seohee, the heroine, escapes from her homeland and remains for a period of years. There is a unique type of seafood in the Gando area using fresh marine products, exactly the same as in the Kyungsangnamdo area. The third part of the novel spans 1919 through 1929, after Seohee returns to her own country and regains her house. There is a noticeable description of food culture in the area of Jinjoo in Kyungsangnamdo through the description of Seohee focusing on the education of her children. The well-described features of Jinjoo are boiled rice with soup of beef leg bones and Jinjoo bibimbob, with vegetables and a variety of foods using cod. Cod are caught in large quantities in Kyunjgsangnamdo, and cities in the area grow to medium size as the area became traffic-based. The fourth part of the novel spans from 1929 through 1938, and includes very detailed descriptions of characters and background locations. Salted fish combined with the wild ingredients of Mt. Jiri feature prominently in the Kyungsangnamdo's area descriptions. The fifth part spans from 1940 through 1945, and as the Japanese colonization era ends, the foods described in Kyungsangnamdo seem to develop the usage of soybean paste. With abundant fish and shellfish Kyungsangnamdo, the dishes that evolve to use soybean paste include mussel soybean paste soup, picked bean leaves in soybean paste, chaitgook - cold soup from soybean paste, and seolchigook used with seaweed and sea laver.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.479-484
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• 2013

Given the CYP3A4 and CYP3A5's impact on the efficacy of drugs, the genetic backgrounds of individuals and populations are regarded as an important factor to be considered in the prescription of personalized medicine. However, genetic studies with Korean population are relatively scarce compared to those with other populations. In this study, we aimed to identify CYP3A4/5 polymorphisms and compare the genotype distributions among five ethnicities. To identify CYP3A4/5 SNPs, we first performed direct sequencing with 288 DNA samples which consisted of 96 Koreans, 48 European-Americans, 48 African-Americans, 48 Han Chinese, and 48 Japanese. The direct sequencing identified 15 novel SNPs, as well as 42 known polymorphisms. We defined the genotype distributions, and compared the allele frequencies among five ethnicities. The results showed that minor allele frequencies of Korean population were similar with those of the Japanese and Han Chinese populations, whereas there were distinct differences from European-Americans or African-Americans. Among the pharmacogenetic markers, frequencies of $CYP3A4^*1B$ (rs2740574) and $CYP3A5^*3C$ (rs776742) in Asian groups were different from those in other populations. In addition, minor allele frequency of $CYP3A4^*18$ (rs28371759) was the highest in Korean population. Additional in silico analysis predicted that two novel non-synonymous SNPs in CYP3A5 (+27256C>T, P389S and +31546T>G, I488S) could alter protein structure. The frequency distributions of the identified polymorphisms in the present study may contribute to the expansion of pharmacogenetic knowledge.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.129-157
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• 2011

This study attempts to analyze the effect of level of education on the attitudes toward immigrants or foreign workers. More specifically, we examine whether there is significant difference in the effects of the level of education and global mind on the attitude among three East Asian countries (South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), controlling other socio-demographic factors in relation to increase in immigrants and foreign workers. Using EASS data, we employs sequential logit model to the general attitudes toward immigrant workers into the weighted sum of transition probability within each educational level. One major finding is that there is clear and significant difference in the relationship between the level of education and the attitudes toward foreign workers among three countries. In general, while Japanese and Taiwanese tend to have more open-minded attitudes toward foreign workers as they have higher level of education, Koreans are opposite case that they are little bit more hostile toward to foreign workers with higher level of education. Especially, there is strong positive effect of education on the attitude in Taiwanese case. Another finding is that while there is strong resistance against increase in migrant population in Korea and Taiwan, Japanese respondents want current level of foreign population to remain in the similar level. Our findings imply that there is no one converging pattern of relationship between the level of education and the positive attitudes toward foreign workers which can be applied to any country. Therefore, this paper suggests that unique political, social, and cultural characteristics of each country should be considered to better understand the effect of education on the attitude toward immigrants and foreign workers. Also, we conclude that systematic comparative-demographic analyses should be utilized to provide more comprehensive picture of how difference in educational level affects the attitude toward immigrants and foreign workers.

• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.267-282
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• 2002

For the effective study of Korean modernization from the 18th century to the present, three areas have been investigated in my paper: the age of dawn in recognizing the necessity of modernism, the era of experimentation from recognition to practice, and the development of modernism in literature: from the 1930s to the present. Through whole process of discussing those matters, Koreanity- identifying itself to be Korean - has been emphasized. While the so-called traditional values confronted with the whole turmoil of socio-political demolitions in the name of modernization, westernization, and culturalization, Korean intellectuals tried to emphasize how important it was to keep Korean identities, namely the Koreanity. Such examples can be seen in the activities of Northern School and Moderate School. Though Koreans had to have a short hair cut in contradiction with their traditional morality to be modernized/westernized/cultivated, it was a turning point for them to take a step toward the international world. During the period of Korean modernization through the impact of Western world, Korean language-hangul- has been cultivated to the highest level in comparison with two foreign languages: Japanese and English. Those Korean linguists who were familiar with these two languages made Korean grammar systematic and they understood the importance of preserving Koreanity in the course of pursuing modem western society. In this sense, Korean modernism is related to the cultural glocalism(globalism+ localism), not to the cultural globalism. Through the help of socio-political modernization, Korean literature in modernism has been full bloomed in the early years of 1930s. One of the leading poets was Sang Lee whose poetic heritage is inherited by those groups of 1950s and I 960s. Among many others, Chunsu Kim and Sunghun Lee were the main figures in realizing the fact the poetry is written in Korean which they considered the body, the soul, and the mother land.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.163-167
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• 2009

Since its first release in 2007, the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation (NIFDS) has provided pharmacogenomic and comparative information specific to Koreans to allow regulatory reviewers and researchers to adapt their working practices to pharmacogenomics. The highlights of this year's additions include "Drug Information", "Gene Information" and "Pharmacogenomic information in the drug labels" sections. These new additions provide information on 737 genes, 719 drugs and pharmacogenomic data of the labels or relabels of 253 approved drugs as of November 2008. The latest version of the Korean Pharmacogenomic Database (KPD, release 2.0) has expanded significantly since its previous release. More SNP and haplotype information has been added to the database with the latest version of the KPD containing approximately four times as many SNPs and haplotypes than the previous version (719 vs. 152, and 30 vs. 7 respectively). Through the "SNP" and "Haplotype" sections, the KPD provides unique Korean SNP and haplotype information as well as comparative information of other populations (Japanese, Chinese, European, African) to offer a range of pharmacogenomic data that can help reviewers and the public understand pharmacogenomic information. The quality and quantity of information in the KPD has also been improved considerably. This data can be found at: http://www.nitr.go.kr/nitr/contents/m134700/view.do/.