Throwing off the Corset: A Contemporary History of the Beauty Resistance Movement in South Korea

The tal-corset movement, a beauty resistance campaign, swept South Korea’s feminist scene in 2018 and became a phenomenon bringing about unprecedented social changes in South Korea. This article explains sociocultural contexts to South Korea’s tal-corset movement through group interviews and examination of online materials. It documents the contemporary history of the development of the movement from a feminist perspective. Findings show that movement participants see beauty practice as social oppression imposed on women’s bodies and appearances and the marker of women’s low social status. The new wave of an online feminist movement that emerged in 2015 created women-only communities that enabled South Korean women to share their personal experiences as women and to reach the conclusion that in order to reject femininity and sexual objectification of women, they needed to take off the corset collectively. Awareness was manifested by encouraging other women to reject beauty practice and display their own tal-corset practice online and offline. This article argues that tal-corset movement is a feminist political movement that aims to eradicate femininity as social oppression. Female solidarity and connectedness played an essential role in forming the rationale and the tactics of the movement

Effect of accumulated vs continuous exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption

Background: A continuous aerobic exercise program is an effective method of improving calorie consumption on the metabolism of skeletal muscle. However, studies report that accumulated exercise of 30 minutes divided into three sessions of 10 minutes is as effective as one continuous exercise session for 30 minutes. As yet, no study has compared the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption associated with accumulated exercise and continuous exercise over these timeframes. Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to compare the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption associated with performing continuous exercise for 30 minutes and three sessions of accumulated exercise for 10 minutes at the same intensity of 60% VO2max. Method: Posters about the study were posted on the February 2019 Konkuk university homepage and bulletin board, and a total of 34 college students (males, n=18; females, n=16) volunteered to participate. Using a balanced repeated-measures crossover design, the subjects randomly took two exercises: continuous exercise (1 x 30 minutes) or accumulated exercise (3 x 10 minutes), and the washout period between the two exercises was a week. All exercises were performed using an ergometer at 60% maximal oxygen consumption. Oxygen consumption and heart rate were monitored and measured during exercise and after exercise. Lipid profile and lactate acid were measured at rest, exercise end, exercise end plus 30 minutes, and exercise end plus 60 minutes. IBM SPSS Statistics 23 was used to perform a paired t-test, and the statistically significant difference was set at <.05. Results: Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption parameters (e.g., total oxygen consumption, total calorie, and summation of heart rate) were higher in accumulated exercise than in continuous exercise (p<.05). No significant difference in the calorie during exercise between CEx and AEx (p = .140). No significant difference was observed in the lipid profile between accumulated exercise and continuous exercise (p>.05). No significant differences were observed at rest, exercise end plus 30 minutes, exercise end plus 60 minutes in lactic acid in the blood (p <.05). However, at exercise end, it was significantly higher in the accumulated exercise (p<.01). Conclusions: This study confirmed that after equalizing energy expenditure for continuous exercise and accumulated exercise in participants in their 20s, accumulated exercise results in higher excess post-exercise oxygen consumption than continuous exercise. The data suggests that accumulated exercise may be more effective in reducing body fat than continuous exercise for a given amount of energy expenditure. [Ethiop.J. Health Dev. 2020;34(Special issue-3):84-90] Keywords: Continuous exercise, accumulated exercise, excess post-exercise oxygen consumptio

GM2Calc: Precise MSSM prediction for (g−2)(g - 2) of the muon

We present GM2Calc, a public C++ program for the calculation of MSSM contributions to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, $(g-2)_\mu$. The code computes $(g-2)_\mu$ precisely, by taking into account the latest two-loop corrections and by performing the calculation in a physical on-shell renormalization scheme. In particular the program includes a $\tan\beta$ resummation so that it is valid for arbitrarily high values of $\tan\beta$, as well as fermion/sfermion-loop corrections which lead to non-decoupling effects from heavy squarks. GM2Calc can be run with a standard SLHA input file, internally converting the input into on-shell parameters. Alternatively, input parameters may be specified directly in this on-shell scheme. In both cases the input file allows one to switch on/off individual contributions to study their relative impact. This paper also provides typical usage examples not only in conjunction with spectrum generators and plotting programs but also as C++ subroutines linked to other programs.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, 4 listings; version sent to EPJ

The Effectiveness of Moxibustion: An Overview During 10 Years

Moxibustion has been used to treat various types of disease. However, there is still insufficient evidence regarding its effectiveness. This study was performed to summarize and evaluate the effectiveness of moxibustion. A search was performed for all randomized controlled trials in PubMed between January 1998 and July 2008 with no language restriction. The results yielded 47 trials in which six moxibustion types were applied to 36 diseases ranging from breech presentation to digestive disorders. Moxibustion was compared to three types of control group: general care, Oriental medical therapies or waiting list. Moxibustion was superior to the control in 14 out of 54 control groups in 46 studies. There were no significant differences among groups in 7 studies, and the outcome direction was not determined in 33 studies. Seven studies were included in a meta-analysis. Moxibustion was more effective than medication in two ulcerative colitis studies (relative risk (95% CI), 2.20 (1.37, 3.52), P = .001, I2 = 0%). Overall, our results did not support the effectiveness of moxibustion in specific diseases due to the limited number and low quality of the studies and inadequate use of controls. In order to provide appropriate evidence regarding the effectiveness of moxibustion, more rigorous clinical trials using appropriate controls are warranted

Decreased Peripheral and Central Responses to Acupuncture Stimulation following Modification of Body Ownership

Acupuncture stimulation increases local blood flow around the site of stimulation and induces signal changes in brain regions related to the body matrix. The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is an experimental paradigm that manipulates important aspects of bodily self-awareness. The present study aimed to investigate how modifications of body ownership using the RHI affect local blood flow and cerebral responses during acupuncture needle stimulation. During the RHI, acupuncture needle stimulation was applied to the real left hand while measuring blood microcirculation with a LASER Doppler imager (Experiment 1, N = 28) and concurrent brain signal changes using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Experiment 2, N = 17). When the body ownership of participants was altered by the RHI, acupuncture stimulation resulted in a significantly lower increase in local blood flow (Experiment 1), and significantly less brain activation was detected in the right insula (Experiment 2). This study found changes in both local blood flow and brain responses during acupuncture needle stimulation following modification of body ownership. These findings suggest that physiological responses during acupuncture stimulation can be influenced by the modification of body ownership

Acupuncture Enhances the Synaptic Dopamine Availability to Improve Motor Function in a Mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is caused by the selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) and the depletion of striatal dopamine (DA). Acupuncture, as an alternative therapy for PD, has beneficial effects in both PD patients and PD animal models, although the underlying mechanisms therein remain uncertain. The present study investigated whether acupuncture treatment affected dopamine neurotransmission in a PD mouse model using 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). We found that acupuncture treatment at acupoint GB34 improved motor function with accompanying dopaminergic neuron protection against MPTP but did not restore striatal dopamine depletion. Instead, acupuncture treatment increased dopamine release that in turn, may lead to the enhancement of dopamine availability in the synaptic cleft. Moreover, acupuncture treatment mitigated MPTP-induced abnormal postsynaptic changes, suggesting that acupuncture treatment may increase postsynaptic dopamine neurotransmission and facilitate the normalization of basal ganglia activity. These results suggest that the acupuncture-induced enhancement of synaptic dopamine availability may play a critical role in motor function improvement against MPTP