Earticle

Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station is a story that unfolds by the narrative of the deceased, and through the life of a man who died himself after suffering from poverty and bad luck, it illuminates the dark side of Japanese society that has continued since the war. Soon after his family dies one after another and the family collapses, the protagonist, who has been going into a living since childhood, lays down the old burdens that have supported his family and becomes a homeless person in Ueno Park. Unlike the father’s image commonly seen in the existing Yu Miri literature, the protagonist of this work can be said to be a devoted head full of family responsibilities and family love. However, contrary to the author’s walk to make efforts to restore disaster-affected areas and to have spoken hope, the dark atmosphere of the work and the desperate ending appear contrastive, which seems contradictory. Conscious of this, I read this work as a text suggesting that suicide cannot be the ultimate solution just because life is difficult, and attempts to derive the message at the era. Optimistic perception is emerging, which has no real basis for the posthumous world that the protagonist, who committed suicide while losing the power of his life had in his lifetime. However, his appearance in the posthumous period was completely different from his beliefs in his lifetime. In the end, this work presents the possibility that the posthumous world is different from what people like the protagonist would think, and seems to be wary of extreme choices that originally block the possibility of a new life. Like this, it can be said that Tokyo Ueno Station is a text which evokes the fiction of religious doctrine, and lays the ground for reconsideration for modern people who are prone to the dangerous temptation of suicide by a momentary impulse.

The paper deals with the problem of meromorphic functions sharing a small function with its differential polynomials and improves the results of Liu and Gu [9], Lahiri and Sarkar [8], Zhang [13] and Zhang and Yang [14] and also answer some open questions posed by Kit-Wing Yu [16]. In this paper we provide some examples to show that the conditions in our results are the best possible.

The essential oil extracted from Citrus × natsudaidai (Yu. Tanaka) Hayata peels is known to have various biological properties. However, the chemical composition of essential oil is influenced by the ripening stages of fruits, which then affects related biological activities. This study investigates the antioxidant activities of essential oils extracted from Citrus × natsudaidai peels at different ripening stages (immature, mature, and overripe). The essential oils were extracted using the hydro-distillation method. As a result of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis, d-limonene was dominant and was increased as matured. However, 𝛄-terpinene was decreased. The antioxidant properties and their total phenolic content (TPC) were influenced by the ripening stages. The TPC was highest in the immature stage of essential oil (1,011.25 ± 57.15 mg GAE/100 g). 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity was excellent in the immature stage (EC₅₀ = 15.91 ± 0.38 mg/mL). 2,2'-Azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) radical scavenging activity was superior in overripe stage (EC₅₀ = 20.43 ± 0.37 mg/mL). The antioxidant activity measured using ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay showed higher values for the essential oils in immaturity (1,342.37 ± 71.07 mg Fe²⁺/100 g). Comprehensively, the essential oil in the immature stage showed the best antioxidant activity. Finally, knowing the chemical composition and antioxidant activity at different ripening stages will provide data for selecting the right fruit.

The oxygen nonstoichiometry (x) of UO$_{2+x}$ and $(Ce_yU_{1-y})O_{2+x}$ (y=0.05, 0.25) has been measured as a function of oxygen activity (a02) at 100$0^{\circ}C$ by a solid state coulometri titration technique. The results for UO$_{2+x}$ are in a good agreement with literature data and the ao2-dependence of the nonstoichimetry has been well explained with (2:2:2) cluster model. The equilibrium oxygen activity of $(Ce_yU_{1-y})O_{2+x}$ increases with Ce-content (y) for given nonstoichiometry (x), which is ascribed to the fact that Ce is present as Ce$^{3+}\; and\; Ce^{4+}$, and, therefore, the addition of Ce reduces the oxidation capacity of UO$_{2+x}$. From the oxygen activity dependence of x in $(Ce_yU_{1-y})O_{2+x}$ the defect structure of $(Ce_yU_{1-y})O_{2+x}$ is discussed.

This paper endeavors to open up multi-dimensional viewpoints on the plays of Yu Chijin, and more specifically Daechunamu (The Jujube Tree) and Wae Ssawo? (For What Are You Fighting?), which have led to controversial arguments. In keeping with Japanese colonial policy, Daechunamu encouraged emigration to Manchuria; however, it also promoted nationalism by opening a path to survival for Korean farmers. Yu Chijin strongly denied allegations that Daechunamu was a pro-Japanese play. Furthermore, he maintained that he not only projected agrarian nationalism onto it, but also highlighted his consistant passion to Korean agriculture over perceived collaboration with authorities. Nonetheless, agrarian nationalism was inherently linked to agrarian imperialism. This is the source of the objection of people who assert that Daechunamu and Wae Ssawo? are pro- Japanese works. The stances of nationalists and imperialists appear different, but in colonial countries nationalism and imperialism were connected to one another as if part of a single Mobius strip.

YU205, a bacteriolytic enzyme produced by Bacillus subtilis YU-1432 exhibited lytic activity against Porphyromonas gingivalis causing periodontal disease. Specific activity and purification yield of YU205 were increased by 522.0 times and 21.9%, respectively by 80% acetone precipitation, followed by DEAE-Sepharose and CM-Sepharose column chromatography. The molecular mass of YU205 was estimated to be 29.0 kDa by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), and N-terminal sequencing identified fifteen amino acid residues, AQSVPYGISQIKAPA. YU205 was stabilized against thermal inactivation at 1 mM of $CaCl_2$. The essential amino acids for the lytic activity were deduced to be tyrosine, methionine, and serine. YU205 showed at least 23.4 times higher substrate specificity to P. gingivalis than other proteolytic enzymes tested. These results suggest that the purified enzyme may have potential for the application to food or dental care products to prevent periodontal diseases.

Using Streptomyces sp. YU100 isolated from Korean soil, the fermentative production of phospholipase D was attempted along with its purification and characterization studies. When different carbon and nitrogen sources were supplemented in the culture medium, glucose and yeast extract were found to be the best. By varying the concentration of nutrients and calcium carbonate, the optimal culture medium was determined as 2.0% glucose, 1.5% yeast extract, 0.5% tryptone 0.3% calcium carbonate. During cultivation, the strain secreted most of the phospholipase D in the early stage of growth within 24 h. The phospholipase D produced in the culture broth exhibited hydrolytic activity as well as transphosphatidylation activity on lecithin (phosphatidylcholine). In particular, the culture broth showed 8.7 units/ml of hydrolytic activity when cultivated at $28^{\circ}C$ for 1.5 days. The phospholipase D was purified using 80% ammonium sulfate precipitation and DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B column chromatography, which produced a major band of 57 kDa on a 10% SDS-polyacrylamide gel with purity higher than 80%. The enzyme showed an optimal pH of 7 in hydrolytic reaction, and at pH 4 in a transphosphatidylation reaction. The enzyme activity increased until the reaction temperature was elevated to $60^{\circ}C$. The enzyme was relatively stable at high temperatures and neutral pH, but significantly unstable in the alkaline range. Among the detergents tested as emulsifiers of phospholipids, the highest enzyme activity was observed when 1.5% Triton X-100 was employed. However, no inhibitory effect by metal ions was detected. Under optimized reaction conditions, the purified enzyme not only completely decomposed PC to phosphatidic acid within 1 h, but also exhibited higher than 80% conversion rate of PC to PS by transphosphatidylation within 4 h.

Scholarship on Chos?n gratitude to the Ming in the wake of the Imjin Wars stresses Chos?nloyalism and nostalgia for a lost civilizational order then only remnant as a final human outposton the Korean peninsula standing firm before the tides of northern savagery. There wasa very different undercurrent, however, in which the Chos?n officialdom of the capital sawthe Ming as irrational and even culturally alien, if not barbarous, violators of propriety. This paper examines these tensions and contradictions through the construction of Chos?nstate temples to Guan Yu, known in his deified form as Kwan Wang, at the close of thesixteenth century and the roles the cult and its temples played as a discursive space in whichthe Ming and Chos?n governments negotiated the nature and dynamics of their relationship.

Streptococcus mutans has the capacity of inducing dental caries. Thus, to develop a novel way of preventing dental caries, a cell wall hydrolase-producing strain was isolated and its characteristics were investigated. Among 200 alkalophilic strains isolated from soil, 8 strains exhibited lytic activities against Streptococcus mutans. However, strain YU5215 with the highest cell wall hydrolase activity was selected for further study. Strain YU5215 was identified as a novel strain of Bacillus based on analyzing its 16S rDNA sequence and Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, and thus designated as Bacillus mutanolyticus YU5215. The optimal conditions for the production of the cell wall hydrolase from Bacillus mutanolyticus YU5215 consisted of glucose ($0.8\%$), yeast extract ($1.2\%$), polypeptone ($0.5\%$), $K_{2}HPO_{4}\;(0.1\%$), $MgSO_{4}{\cdot}7H_{2}O$ ($0.02\%$), and $Na_{2}CO_{3}\;(1.0\%$) at pH 10.0. Bacillus mutanolyticus YU5215 was cultured at 30^{circ}C for 72 h to produce the cell wall hydrolase, which was then purified by acetone precipitation and CM-agarose column chromatography. The molecular weight of the lytic enzyme was determined as 22,700 Da by SDS-PAGE. When the cell wall peptidoglycan of Streptococcus mutans was digested with the lytic enzyme, no increase in the reducing sugars was observed, while the free amino acids increased, indicating that the lytic enzyme had an endopeptidase-like property. The amino terminus of the cell wall peptidoglycan digested by the lytic enzyme was determined as a glutamic acid, while the lytic site of the lytic enzyme in the Streptococcus mutans peptidoglycan was identified as the peptide linkage of L-Ala and D-Glu.

An analysis of the 2015 Spring Gala indicates that Chinese feminism needs to assume a softer or quieter voice compared with western feminism. The phenomenological approach is employed as the paper’s theoretical framework to understand Chinese feminism. Li Yu’s realistic representation in her films not only elicits recognition but also empathy from the audience, stimulating a progressive discourse in women’s issues in China. Her two films, Hong Yan and Lost in Beijing, are closely scrutinized. These present issues of teen pregnancy, abortion, patriarchy, rape, domestic violence, sex trade, monogamy, fidelity, er nai (lit. second breast; fig. second wife), xiao san (lit. little three; fig. mistress)1 and escape as a solution. With this examination, we conclude that media representation about women in China is leading to greater discourse on women’s rights.

This paper examines how a new nation-wide school system implemented in 1910 created the Korean student population of that time and the three decades that followed. Moreover, it shows the effects of the colonial examination system imposed by the Japanese government. My argument is that the new educational system engendered "cultural hybridity" in Korean students who successfully passed examinations in their attempt to climb the ladder of success. A remarkable consequence of receiving an education and being subjected to the examinations was that successful candidates took advantage of their literacy in order to pursue learning beyond the official curriculum. Although elite students were more assimilated into the Japanese system than were their less favored contemporaries in the colonial society, this assimilation could have the paradoxical effect of destabilizing the regime rather than reinforcing it. As "mimic men," therefore, elite Korean students can illuminate the complex trajectory of Korean cultural history under Japanese rule. I make this argument by analyzing the 1927 diary and short story Kim Kangsa wa T Kyosu (Lecturer Kim and Professor T) of Yu Chin-o, a graduate of Keijo Imperial University, thereby shedding new light on the daily politics and multiplicity of Korean identities under Japanese colonial rule.

This study examines the literary representation of proxy-test takers, focusing on “The tale of Yu Kwango˘k” by Yi Ok 李鈺 (1760–1815). This tale sympathetically portrays Yu Kwango˘ k as a talented but impoverished scholar who made a living drafting answers for rich civil service examination applicants. It therefore reveals that poverty and insignificant political background drove poor yangban to facilitate cheating as proxy examination takers. The tale also criticizes the corruption of the examination system, which failed to serve as a reliable ladder to success for poor yangban from politically insignificant families. Minimizing Yu’s ethical responsibility and emphasizing his social vulnerability, the tale carefully presents Yu as a victim of the corrupt examination system and evokes readers’ sympathy for him. Through this depiction of a proxy examination taker as a symptom of a corrupt system, utilizing and expanding biographical practices, the writer, himself a politically isolated yangban, expressed his personal anxieties and his critique of society.

When international law of Western origin was introduced into East Asia, conflict with the Sinocentric order, which already existed there, was a more conspicuous feature than mergence. For Korea, this conflict raised the problem of her legal status under international law, as Korea had been a tributary state to China under the Sinocentric order and this fact might have been reflected to the eyes of international law as vassalage. This problem of re-comprehension of the status of Korea in the framework of international law had a very practical significance, because Korea might or might not conclude treaties with Western states, send and receive diplomatic missions to the Western states and owe responsibility for the legal problems that occurred between Korea and Western states according to the answer to this question. YU Kil-chun’s theory of the ‘Yangjul System’ (Twice Folded System) was a response by a Korean intellectual to this problem. The theory, suggested in Chapter 3 of ‘Seoyugyenmun’ (Observations on Travels in the West), argues that both Korea and China were under two different normative systems. According to one system, the Sinocentric System, Korea was a tributary state to China. However, this could not affect the sovereign and independent status of Korea under another system, the system of international law. Therefore, Korea was a state with full fledged rights bestowed by international law. This was what YU tried to demonstrate in his book using the concept of ‘Yangjul’, a concept which is called a intuition of genius. This concept is a theoretical concept as it conceptualizes the unique state of the relationship between Korea and China under the two competing and conflicting orders of Sinocentrism and international law. At the same time, it is a practical concept as it is a concept invented to contribute to demonstrating Korean sovereignty and independence. It is a descriptive concept as it states that the relation between Chosun and Qing was an unequal one as the former had paid tribute to the latter. However it is also a concept of prescription as it asserts that the legal status of Chosun under international law should not be misunderstood as vassalage. It is both a theoretical and a practical concept and both a descriptive and a prescriptive concept. In this sense it in itself is a twice folded concept.

Korean Buddhist temples rarely dedicate shrines to tutelary deities or enshrine visual representations of them in worship halls. The Temple God (1885), hung in the main hall of Heungcheonsa temple in today’s Seoul, is a rare example. In this painting, the main deity sits at the center, solemnly facing front. Its iconographical features demonstrate visual affinities with cultic images of Guan Yu, the legendary Chinese marshal who was deified and worshipped as Gwanwang or “King Gwan” in late Joseon Korea. Intriguing visual similarities between this Buddhist deity and Guan Yu have not been examined thoroughly in previous studies of late Joseon Buddhist paintings. The cult of the Chinese god, which enjoyed unparalleled support from the royal court and commoners during King Gojong’s reign, seems to have been a major factor behind this unlikely iconographical borrowing. By closely analyzing the Temple God against the religious and visual culture of the late 19th century, this study sheds new light on the religious syncretism reflected in the painting and implications behind the royal patronage of the Guan Yu cult in a time of political chaos and upheaval.

This paper discusses two poems about daffodils and their respective ideas about poetry: one poem by British Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770?1850) and one poem by twentieth-century Korean poet Yu Chi-hwan (1908?1967). Although scholars have performed comparative studies on Wordsworth and Korean poets including Kim Jeoung-hee, Kim So-wol, and Hwang Seok-woo, there is no research comparing Wordsworth and Yu. Thus, this study expands the field of comparative studies of Korean and British poets and enhances our understanding of British Romanticism and the Korean Life School. It argues that both poets used their poems as a medium for expressing resistance under repressive social atmospheres. On the one hand, presented in the preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1807) epitomizes his poetic principles by challenging conventional poetic practices to introduce his own approach. By using plain language and choosing daffodils as his subject matter, he demonstrates the possibility of composing a beautiful poem without following convention. On the other hand, Yu used his poem “Daffodil” (1939) to imply his resistance to the Japanese colonial government’s oppression. Given the likely difficulty explicitly expressing anti-Japanese sentiments and longing for independence, Yu describes the situations around the speaker and the daffodils, tacitly criticizing Japan’s brutal rule over Koreans. The poem’s focus on the resilient nature of the daffodil encourages both readers and himself not to give up hope for independence. This paper argues that despite their differences, Wordsworth and Yu both employ poetry in defiance against the things they object to.