1,914 research outputs found
K-pop and K-car: The underpinnings of 21st century Korean cultural/industrial successes
Purpose: The 21st century has witnessed an explosive growth of both South Korean popular culture (K-pop) and automobiles (K-car) in Western societies. However, K-pop appears to maintain its success better than K-car. This paper will evaluate the origins of K-pop and K-car and determine the distinguishing factors that led to continued K-pop compared to K-car success.
Design/methodology/approach: Suggested claims of artistic/cultural and social/industrial traditions unique to South Korea as causes of the growth in K-pop and K-car success in literature will be evaluated based on historical growth in sales of both products in the US market. Factors of continued success will be evaluated based on how well both industries have been able to maintain their (perceived) brand authenticity, which emphasizes ‘Korean’ cultural values.
Findings: Unlike claims regarding the importance of traditional culture in shaping business success in emergent states, this paper shows that the success of Korean music and cars is not due to artistic/cultural values. Rather, while optimally identifying progress within industries such as digitization in music, South Korea’s unique ability is to deploy its industrial machinery to transform bolder performances and designs originating elsewhere into inoffensive forms with broad cross-cultural appeal. Especially, K-pop’s continued success can be explained through better attention to perceived authenticity, without distinguishing its products too much from known, Western perspectives. Results also indicate that Korean products do not perform well when companies attempt to take on a leadership role in the industry or develop bold new designs that deviate strongly from Western principles.
Originality/Value: The paper provides unique insights in the similarity of product design and branding, providing tools for evaluating perceived authenticity of a brand and its potential impact on sales. It shows that attention to traditional cultural values may not be a (sufficiently) appropriate strategy for international success. From a Central European perspective, lessons learned by the Korean car and culture industries may lead to new strategic uses of branding and marketing local products and of different forms of governmental/industrial structures to emerge out of the periphery
Converting nascent technologies into mainstream sports
Although technology is an important aspect of every type of sport, only some sports are so dependent on technology that they could not exist without strong financial and technological contributions of other businesses seeing benefits in sponsoring teams. One such sport originated at the end of the 19th century: motorsports. Roughly a century later, another sport strongly dependent on technology started its rise: e-sports. To maintain interest in these sports, there continues to be a need to make the technology attractive to the general public. As e-sports’ popularity is soaring, it is of interest to reflect on which factors played a role in this rise in popularity, how they continue to influence e-sports’ popularity and to what extent they compare to early factors involved in raising the popularity of motorsports. The paper will show that, for both motorsports and e-sports, the real drivers to develop these technologies into mainstream sports did not arise from the athletes nor from industries directly benefitting from enhanced public exposure to these sports. Rather, media and other industries attempting to reach out to specific consumer communities and looking to remain modern were strongly involved in evolving both types of sports into their current popularity. Based on the effects of media portrayal of the popularity of motorsports throughout its history, the paper identifies several contemporary issues e-sports will need to resolve in order to maintain its popularity
real world comparative effectiveness of nab paclitaxel plus gemcitabine nab p g vs folfirinox ffx in patients pts with advanced pancreatic cancer apc
n/
Scalar brane backgrounds in higher order curvature gravity
We investigate maximally symmetric brane world solutions with a scalar field.
Five-dimensional bulk gravity is described by a general lagrangian which yields
field equations containing no higher than second order derivatives. This
includes the Gauss-Bonnet combination for the graviton. Stability and
gravitational properties of such solutions are considered, and we particularily
emphasise the modifications induced by the higher order terms. In particular it
is shown that higher curvature corrections to Einstein theory can give rise to
instabilities in brane world solutions. A method for analytically obtaining the
general solution for such actions is outlined. Genericaly, the requirement of a
finite volume element together with the absence of a naked singularity in the
bulk imposes fine-tuning of the brane tension. A model with a moduli scalar
field is analysed in detail and we address questions of instability and
non-singular self-tuning solutions. In particular, we discuss a case with a
normalisable zero mode but infinite volume element.Comment: published versio
Electromagnetic response of superconductors and optical sum rule
The interrelation between the condensation energy and the optical sum rules
has been investigated. It has been shown that the so called 'partial' sum rule
violation is related mainly to a temperature dependence of the relaxation rate
rather than to the appearance of superconductivity itself. Moreover, we
demonstrate that the experimental data on the temperature dependence of the
optical sum rule can be explained rather well by an account of strong
electron-phonon interaction.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to Solid State Communication
Analysis of the doubly heavy baryons in the nuclear matter with the QCD sum rules
In this article, we study the doubly heavy baryon states ,
, and in the nuclear matter using the QCD
sum rules, and derive three coupled QCD sum rules for the masses, vector
self-energies and pole residues. The predictions for the mass-shifts in the
nuclear matter , , and
can be confronted with the
experimental data in the future.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Aspects of Puff Field Theory
We describe some features of the recently constructed "Puff Field Theory,"
and present arguments in favor of it being a field theory decoupled from
gravity. We construct its supergravity dual and calculate the entropy of this
theory in the limit of large 't Hooft coupling. We also determine the leading
irrelevant operator that governs its deviation from N=4 super Yang-Mills
theory.Comment: 31 pages, 1 figur
Energy conditions, traversable wormholes and dust shells
Firstly, we review the pointwise and averaged energy conditions, the quantum
inequality and the notion of the ``volume integral quantifier'', which provides
a measure of the ``total amount'' of energy condition violating matter.
Secondly, we present a specific metric of a spherically symmetric traversable
wormhole in the presence of a generic cosmological constant, verifying that the
null and the averaged null energy conditions are violated, as was to be
expected. Thirdly, a pressureless dust shell is constructed around the interior
wormhole spacetime by matching the latter geometry to a unique vacuum exterior
solution. In order to further minimize the usage of exotic matter, we then find
regions where the surface energy density is positive, thereby satisfying all of
the energy conditions at the junction surface. An equation governing the
behavior of the radial pressure across the junction surface is also deduced.
Lastly, taking advantage of the construction, specific dimensions of the
wormhole, namely, the throat radius and the junction interface radius, and
estimates of the total traversal time and maximum velocity of an observer
journeying through the wormhole, are also found by imposing the traversability
conditions.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, Revtex
Analysis of the baryons in the nuclear matter with the QCD sum rules
In this article, we study the and baryons in the
nuclear matter using the QCD sum rules, and obtain the in-medium masses
, , the
in-medium vector self-energies ,
, and the in-medium pole residues
,
. The mass-shifts are
and
, respectively.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, revised versio
Confusing the extragalactic neutrino flux limit with a neutrino propagation limit
We study the possible suppression of the extragalactic neutrino flux due to a
nonstandard interaction during its propagation. In particular, we study
neutrino interaction with an ultra-light scalar field dark matter. It is shown
that the extragalactic neutrino flux may be suppressed by such an interaction,
leading to a new mechanism to reduce the ultra-high energy neutrino flux. We
study both the cases of non-self-conjugate as well as self-conjugate dark
matter. In the first case, the suppression is independent of the neutrino and
dark matter masses. We conclude that care must be taken when explaining limits
on the neutrino flux through source acceleration mechanisms only, since there
could be other mechanisms for the reduction of the neutrino flux.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Important changes implemented. Abstract
modified. Conclusions remain. To be published in JCA
- …