• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.40
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• pp.185-212
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• 2015

Bruno Dumont's film P'tit Quinquin (2014) trends toward 'the new extremism' in contemporary European cinema. This criminal-mystery-comedy film achieves the cinematic recognition of reality in the new extremist way: like typical new extremist films, P'tit Quinquin contains a lot of 'unwatchable' content, including disembodied parts of human body, carcasses, and the body of a boy who has killed himself. The reality, however, remains confidently invisible, despite everything that is visible within the film. In understanding Dumont's attempt to reach cinematic recognition, the relationship between 'the visible' and 'the invisible' is reconsidered. In the context of the film, the relationship between cinema and reality becomes indirect. The reality can be only felt, not seen. The invisible reality can be perceived only as a void, just like the criminal who is unknown even though he is sought after. To reveal this void, the film strives to give its viewers as much explicitly visible content as possible during its 200-minute run. This essay is an interdisciplinary attempt to examine the working and the effects of this cinematic attempt by Bruno Dumont; aspects of film theory, visual anthropology, (inter-)mediology, posthumanism in cultural theory, etc., are related for this purpose.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2006

This study examines the social meaning of the CosPlay, the growth potential of CosPlay culture and its effect on the related industry through the perspectives and language of the youths who enjoy CosPlay, based on the ethnographic research. Also, this study presents a comparative description of Korea and Japan CosPlay culture by the ethnographic methodology whose purpose is to define relationship of cause and effect with phenomenon. For further step, this study plans to emphasize the need to link culture, clothes and related industry in order to create a cultural environment where diversity co-exists. CosPlay is the mania culture of Japan that emulated the Halloween party of the West and that developed the party into a unique form. In Korea, this practice was accepted for the first time among a handful of youths, starting from the 1990s, after which, it was introduced to the masses while holding CosPlay related events. While CosPlay is succeeded as an industry in Japan, CosPlay in Korea is considered childish play due to the Korean culture of considering cartoon as a childish and low class genre which is enjoyed by youths. CosPlay in Korea faces the following changes: aging of the members who comprised the CosPlay culture at the initial stage; population increase, centered on middle and high school students; interest of the government and the businesses that wish to produce economic wealth by organizing CosPlay events into events for youths; and changes in the environment that comprised the surrounding of the CosPlay culture. CosPlay is an honest play that demonstrates one's effort on the stage through performance. Moreover, most of the middle and high school students who comprise the CosPlay culture demonstrate similar characteristics as mania type of people when it came to the reason that they enjoy CosPlay. However, they did not consider CosPlay culture as an important aspect of their lives. Instead, most of them said that they participate to relieve stress. Thus, they have the potential to move onto another form of youth culture that may appear more attractive to them. To them, it is not the CosPlay culture that is important, but the fact that CosPlay provides a forum where they can freely engage in play.

• Anatomy & Biological Anthropology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.133-142
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• 2018

3D histology is a imaging system for the 3D structural information of cells or tissues. The synchrotron radiation propagation phase contrast micro-CT has been used in 3D imaging methods. However, the simple phase contrast micro-CT did not give sufficient micro-structural information when the specimen contains soft elements, as is the case with many biomedical tissue samples. The purpose of this study is to develop a new technique to enhance the phase contrast effect for soft tissue imaging. Experiments were performed at the imaging beam lines of Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PAL). The biomedical tissue samples under frozen state was mounted on a computer-controlled precision stage and rotated in $0.18^{\circ}$ increments through $180^{\circ}$. An X-ray shadow of a specimen was converted into a visual image on the surface of a CdWO4 scintillator that was magnified using a microscopic objective lens(X5 or X20) before being captured with a digital CCD camera. 3-dimensional volume images of the specimen were obtained by applying a filtered back-projection algorithm to the projection images using a software package OCTOPUS. Surface reconstruction and volume segmentation and rendering were performed were performed using Amira software. In this study, We found that synchrotron phase contrast imaging of frozen tissue samples has higher contrast power for soft tissue than that of non-frozen samples. In conclusion, synchrotron radiation propagation phase contrast cryo-microCT imaging offers a promising tool for non-destructive high resolution 3D histology.