• International Journal of Contents
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.7-16
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• 2018

The extent and depth of the event plan determines the scope of pedagogical experience in situations and consequently the quality of immersive learning based on our simulated world. In contrast to planning in conventional narrative-based systems mainly pursuing dramatic interests, planning in virtual world-based pedagogical systems strive to provide realistic experiences in immersed situations. Instead of story plot comprising predetermined situations, our inter-event planning method aims at simulating diverse situations that each involve multiple events coupled via their associated agents' conditions and meaningful associations between events occurring in a background world. The specific techniques to realize our planning method include, two-phase planning based on inter-event search and intra-event decomposition (down to the animated action level); autonomous and independent agents to behave proactively with their own belief and planning capability; full-blown background world to be used as the comprehensive stage for all events to occur in; coupling events via realistic association types including deontic associations as well as conventional causality; separation of agents from event roles; temporal scheduling; and parallel and concurrent event progression mechanism. Combining all these techniques, diverse exogenous events can be derived and seamlessly (i.e., semantically meaningfully) integrated with the original event to form a wide scope of situations providing chances of abundant pedagogical experiences. For effective implementation of plan execution, we devise an execution scheme based on multiple priority queues, particularly to realize concurrent progression of many simultaneous events to simulate its corresponding reality. Specific execution mechanisms include modeling an action in terms of its component motions, adjustability of priority for agent across different events, and concurrent and parallel execution method for multiple actions and its expansion for multiple events.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.503-513
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• 2019

Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative articular disorder. Formation of bone spurs, synovial inflammation, loss of cartilage, and underlying bone restructuring have been reported to be the main pathologic characteristics of osteoarthritis symptoms. The onset and progression of osteoarthritis are attributed to various inflammatory cytokines in joint tissues and fluids that are produced by chondrocytes and/or interact with chondrocytes, as well as to low-grade inflammation in intra-articular tissues. Disruption of the equilibrium between the synthesis and degradation of the cartilage of the joint is the major cause of osteoarthritis. Hence, developing a promising pharmacological tool to restore the equilibrium between the synthesis and degradation of osteoarthritic joint cartilage can be a useful strategy for effectively managing osteoarthritis. In this review, we provide an overview of the research results pertaining to the search for a novel candidate agent for osteoarthritis management via restoration of the equilibrium between cartilage synthesis and degradation. We especially focused on investigations of medicinal plants and natural products derived from them to shed light on the potential pharmacotherapy of osteoarthritis.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.234-263
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• 2020

This study aims to assess the quality of the EU's public diplomacy efforts through social media. Specifically, this research explores the headquarters of European public diplomacy (European External Action Service, EEAS) and its subordinate agent (EU Delegation to South Korea, EUDK). The main research question is "how coherently and effectively does the EU execute public diplomacy strategies in the third countries?'' This study employs both quantitative and qualitative approaches―the former for the results presentation and the latter for the results interpretation. The results are summarized in two points. First, both the EEAS and the EUDK maintained an objective position by posting only neutral perspectives on their social media. Second, the narratives of the main actors were the same, but the main themes were different according to their contexts. The analysis discusses the effectiveness of the EU's strategic narratives by focusing on measuring message reception. Its limited findings were that social media postings could not induce the audiences' active discussion of the EU's diplomatic performances. The conclusion suggests that the EU should identify the expectations from its global counterparts and use these to forge the Union's strategic narratives.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.457-472
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• 2011

The word "subject," like its apparent antonym "agent" is ambiguous. By "speaking subject" I intend both meanings: the spoken about, and the speaker, and the spoken about, in more or less that order. The paper contrasts the way women are spoken about in the 19^th Century debate over the role of women between John Ruskin and John Mill, and then in literary criticism of feminists nearer our own time, Kate Millet and Elizabeth Langland. I then move on to women as speaking subjects, first in the form of an imaginary speaking subject created by a male speaker, Charles Dickens channeling the confessional journal of Esther Summerson in Bleak House. The comparison with Elizabeth Gaskell, a genuine speaking subject, is highly instructive. I draw attention to symmetrical, in the sense of opposite, narrative strategies. Where Dickens begins in journalese, with a gritty, realistic opening that only gradually reveals a Cinderella in the ashes, Gaskell begins with a nursery rhyme, in an actual nursery, but goes on to reveal some rather sordid economic facts. Where Dickens creates a ventriloquist's doll, Gaskell succeeds in creating recognizable, if not always admirable, female voices. I conclude that just as the novel may be read as a real utterance in a real conversation, it is also possible to read the true emergence of women novelists in the 19^th Century as nothing more and nothing less than the creation of the first truly womanly words about women: women as speaking subjects in both senses of the word.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.71
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• pp.9-32
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• 2015

The media, traditionally, serves to reinforce one's limited memory and transform those personal memories of society's members into collective memories. Notably, the mass media collects countless pieces of personalized memories for the creation of collective memories. Through the process of recollecting as well as recreating the past in the present, mass media exerts influence on the means the public appreciates and understands the history. Although numerous new medias like Internet overflows in today's society, television continues to stand firm as the salient means to construct the memories in daily lives. In this context, the research aims to analyze the televised news as the principal agent of memory producer to determine through which memories it recreates the $5{\cdot}18$ in today's media. The analysis of news values clarifies that every government placed distinctive news values on $5{\cdot}18$ within its historical context. Even so, such values were often fixed based on its relations to the existing political issues. Furthermore, through the discourse analysis, this research concludes that today's coverage of $5{\cdot}18$ is softening and becoming conventional.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.231-242
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• 2019

(2014) directed by British-born second generation Iranian-American Ana Lily Amirpour, set in 'the Iranian ghost-town Bad City' attempts to make how the hybridization of multi-cultures makes interesting interpretations culture-politically, presenting a female vampire skateboarding in a striped t-shirt and a black chador. In traditional horror films, mainly male-Dracula was the center of the vampire narrative as other, but since the post-modernism era, vampire films try to shift women from the passive and dependent victim to the subjective and independent main agent. And the main character of the film, 'The Girl' who is a female Muslim vampire takes a step forward to punish men who commit gender violence. Shot in black and white, the film puts images ahead of narrative, while featuring Iranian actors, speaking Farsi. Furthermore, the film crosses over Iranian politics into American-European pop cultures with this eclectic mix of Iran's rock, British electro-pop and Ennio-Morricone-like western stylings. This study focuses on the style featured in which has successfully transformed and transplanted a vampire story into a critical contemporary discourse, mixing multiple genres and citing cultural trends while not following the traditional conventions of vampire films.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.21-28
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• 2022

Currently, as we enter the 21st century, the level and interest of society, culture, economy, and science are rapidly developing, but science education is still struggling. In order to increase the efficiency of science education, it is most important to focus on elementary education based on basic science. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the main causes of Korea's science museum's regression as a museum focusing on experience, interest, and fun such as simple science experience centers and science theme parks. To this end, the influencing factors were identified by applying the algorithm of the actor-based model based on the data on the exhibition space and the exhibition movement of the science museum completed and operated in Korea over the past 5 years, and the problem of the visitor movement in the exhibition space was analyzed through the space system. In this study, it was confirmed that the exhibition environment was the best when the linear plot movement system and the picalesque plot were applied simultaneously in the museum's exhibition narrative theory, and the arrangement of major exhibition spaces, width of exhibition spaces, and separation of spaces for exhibition purposes were derived.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.484-495
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• 2023

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) can be defined as a progressive chronic pulmonary disease showing scarring in the lung parenchyma, thereby resulting in increase in mortality and decrease in the quality of life. The pathophysiologic mechanism of fibrosis in IPF is still unclear. Repetitive microinjuries to alveolar epithelium with genetical predisposition and an abnormal restorative reaction accompanied by excessive deposition of collagens are involved in the pathogenesis. Although the two FDA-approved drugs, pirfenidone and nintedanib, are under use for retarding the decline in lung function of patients suffered from IPF, they are not able to improve the survival rate or quality of life. Therefore, a novel therapeutic agent acting on the major steps of the pathogenesis of disease and/or, at least, managing the clinical symptoms of IPF should be developed for the effective regulation of this incurable disease. In the present review, we tried to find a potential of managing the clinical symptoms of IPF by natural products derived from medicinal plants used for controlling the pulmonary inflammatory diseases in traditional Asian medicine. A multitude of natural products have been reported to exert an antifibrotic effect in vitro and in vivo through acting on the epithelial-mesenchymal transition pathway, transforming growth factor (TGF)- β-induced intracellular signaling, and the deposition of extracellular matrix. However, clinical antifibrotic efficacy of these natural products on IPF have not been elucidated yet. Thus, those effects should be proven by further examinations including the randomized clinical trials, in order to develop the ideal and optimal candidate for the therapeutics of IPF.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.86 no.2
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• pp.82-93
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• 2023

Tuberculosis (TB) is a significant public health concern. Globally, TB is among the top 10 and the leading cause of death due to a single infectious agent. Providing standard anti-TB therapy for at least 6 months is recommended as one of the crucial strategies to control the TB epidemic. However, the long duration of TB treatment raised the issue of non-adherence. Non-adherence to TB therapy could negatively affect clinical and public health outcomes. Thus, directly observed therapy (DOT) has been introduced as a standard strategy to improve anti-TB medication adherence. Nonetheless, the DOT approach has been criticized due to inconvenience, stigma, reduced economic productivity, and reduced quality of life, which ultimately could complicate adherence issues. Apart from that, its effectiveness in improving anti-TB adherence is debatable. Therefore, digital technology could be an essential tool to enhance the implementation of DOT. Incorporating the health belief model (HBM) into digital technology can further increase its effectiveness in changing behavior and improving medication adherence. This article aimed to review the latest evidence regarding TB medication non-adherence, its associated factors, DOT's efficacy and its alternatives, and the use of digital technology and HBM in improving medication adherence. This paper used the narrative review methodology to analyze related articles to address the study objectives. Conventional DOT has several disadvantages in TB management. Integrating HBM in digital technology development is potentially effective in improving medication adherence. Digital technology provides an opportunity to improve medication adherence to overcome various issues related to DOT implementation.