Multimedia and the Hybrid City: Geographies of Techno cultural Spaces in South Korea

The purpose of this research is to explore how multimedia technologies such as the Internet, satellite TV, cable TV and mobile phones, combined with people's everyday practices, produce the hybrid city where the boundaries between binary territories are blurred; and to offer implications for understanding our everyday lives and cities. Here, multimedia technologies are crucial triggers by which the boundaries between binary categories such as time/space, actual/virtual, human/machine and so on are blurred. And, cities, where urban locales are connected to electronic networks and human bodies are wired to electronic machines, are locations where such boundary-blurring processes occur intensively. I call such a city the 'hybrid city' where we can observe various geographies of technocultural spaces formed by multimedia technologies. In this epistemological context, I investigate cities in South Korea, a country that is one of the most 'wired' to electronic networks in the world. My argument is that the hybrid city, composed of global-local networks, actual- virtual circuits, centripetal-centrifugal vectors and human-machine hybrids, cannot be explained as a singular and consistent space, but rather as multiple and complex spaces. This is because the hybrid city itself exists in between different categories or territories. That is, the hybrid city does not exist as A or B, but instead in between A and в which are deterritorialised towards each other through a-parallel evolution or co-evolution, and thus it can be seen as fractal and fluid. In this sense, the hybrid city can be defined as not a 'being', but 'becomings' always in motion through the continuous 'dis/appearances' or 'dis/connections' of heterogeneous networks. In Latour's, Deleuze and Guattari's and Haraway's terms, the hybrid city is not only composed of a number of actor-networks, rhizomes or cyborgs, but also a kind of actor-network, rhizome or cyborg itself. That is, the hybrid city is the 'middle kingdom' in Latour's terms

ETV2/ER71 regulates the generation of FLK1+ cells from mouse embryonic stem cells through miR-126-MAPK signaling

Previous studies including ours have demonstrated a critical function of the transcription factor ETV2 (ets variant 2; also known as ER71) in determining the fate of cardiovascular lineage development. However, the underlying mechanisms of ETV2 function remain largely unknown. In this study, we demonstrated the novel function of the miR (micro RNA)-126-MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) pathway in ETV2-mediated FLK1 (fetal liver kinase 1; also known as VEGFR2)+ cell generation from the mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). By performing a series of experiments including miRNA sequencing and ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation)-PCR, we found that miR-126 is directly induced by ETV2. Further, we identified that miR-126 can positively regulate the generation of FLK1+ cells by activating the MAPK pathway through targeting SPRED1 (sprouty-related EVH1 domain containing 1). Further, we showed evidence that JUN/FOS activate the enhancer region of FLK1 through AP1 (activator protein 1) binding sequences. Our findings provide insight into the novel molecular mechanisms of ETV2 function in regulating cardiovascular lineage development from mESCs

Stra13/DEC1 and DEC2 inhibit sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c in a hypoxia-inducible factor-dependent mechanism

Sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c) is a basic helix–loop–helix (bHLH) homodimeric transactivator, which induces itself and several lipogenic enzymes, notably fatty acid synthase (FAS). We demonstrated that hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) represses the SREBP-1c gene by inducing Stimulated with retinoic acid (Stra)13/Differentiated embryo chondrocyte 1(DEC1) and its isoform, DEC2. Stra13/DEC1 and DEC2 are bHLH homodimeric transcription repressors. We found that both Stra13 and DEC2 inhibit SREBP-1c-induced transcription by competing with SREBP-1c for binding to the E-box in the SREBP-1c promoter and/or by interacting with SREBP-1c protein. DEC2 is instantly and temporarily induced in acute hypoxia, while Stra13 is induced in prolonged hypoxia. This expression profile reflects the finding that Stra13 represses DEC2, thus maintains low level of DEC2 in prolonged hypoxia. DEC2-siRNA restores the hypoxic repression but Stra13-siRNA fails to do so, suggesting that DEC2 is the major initiator of hypoxic repression of SREBP-1c, whereas Stra13 substitutes for DEC2 in prolonged hypoxia. Our findings imply that Stra13 and DEC2 are the mediators to repress SREBP-1c gene in response to hypoxia. By doing so, HIF and its targets, Stra13 and DEC2 reduce the ATP consuming anabolic lipogenesis prior to the actual decrease of ATP acting as a feed-forward mechanism

Maximizing a submodular function by integer programming : a polyhedral approach

Ph.D.George L. Nemhause

An Energy-Efficient Cooperative Communication Method for Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficiency is one of the most important issues for operations of wireless sensor networks. To increase network lifetime and to reduce energy consumption of sensor nodes, many clustering and routing protocols have been studied. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient cooperative communication method which forms clusters and establishes intercluster routes directly or via relay nodes. Relay nodes selected by the cooperation of adjacent cluster heads along with their cluster members can prevent long-haul transmissions of cluster heads. This can reduce the energy consumption of cluster heads. We show the validity of using relay nodes and then compare the performance of the proposed method with that of a well-known clustering and routing protocol for wireless sensor networks. Our computational experiments demonstrate that network lifetime, energy consumption, and scalability of the proposed method are better than those of the compared method

The Role of Standards-Related Capacity Building on the Sustainable Development of Developing Countries: Focusing on the Korea’s Standards-Related AfT Case in Bolivia

Many countries provide standards-related aid for trade (AfT) to developing countries in association with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as sharing their experiences and providing training or infrastructure. Regarding the influence of standards-related AfT on the sustainable development of developing countries, we studied Korea’s standards-related AfT program to examine the role and features of standards-related AfT in terms of standards-related capacity building. In this study, we conducted a single case study with a focus on Korea’s standards-related AfT in Bolivia using qualitative descriptive analysis. The result indicated that Korea’s standards-related AfT is associated with three pillars of sustainable development in terms of standards-related capacity, namely standardization, conformity assessment, and metrology, and can be summarized with two key tasks: building testing infrastructure and improving Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) capacity. However, several limitations were found in Korea’s standards-related capacity building activities, such as limited scope, limited target of the program, and the lack of activities for building institutional foundations for standards-related capacity

Shaping a Circular Economy in the Digital TV Industry: Focusing on Ecopreneurship through the Lens of Dynamic Capability

In this study, we investigate how companies can contribute to achieving a circular economy (CE) in the electronics industry viewed through the lens of dynamic capability. In particular, we examine how companies can contribute through idiosyncratic ecopreneurship according to dynamic capabilities with three points: the dynamic capabilities of established companies, the formation of ecopreneurship according to idiosyncratic dynamic capabilities, and the shaping of a CE through the interplay of ecopreneurship and dynamic capabilities of established companies. We conducted a case study of five leading TV manufacturers (Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, and TCL) to verify our conceptual framework, which we derived from a literature review. The case study shows that a company’s contribution to the CE and ecopreneurship type largely depend on a combination of dynamic capabilities and business strategies. Based on the case study results, we derived managerial implications with three points: the approach of leading companies to CE with consideration of business strategies, leveraging ecopreneurship to gain competitiveness in the market, and the influence of micro- and meso-level dynamic capabilities on a company’s contribution to CE