The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan and the Territorial Disputes in East Asia

There are currently three territorial disputes over islands in East Asia in which Japan is a disputant: against Russia, over the Kurile Islands; against China and Taiwan, over the Senkaku Islands; and against Korea, over the Liancourt Rocks. Although all the claimants marshal support for their cases from historical sources, it cannot be denied that much of the uncertainty surrounding the territorial demarcation is a by-product of immediate post-World War II boundary decisions and territorial dispositions. The final disposition of territories in East Asia at the end of World War II was effected by the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. The San Francisco Peace Treaty failed to define the Kurile Islands, and further to specify the entity in whose favor Japan had renounced sovereignty over the disputed islands. Additionally, specific mention of the Senkaku Islands and the Liancourt Rocks did not appear in the territorial clauses of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Accordingly, there is a need for a careful examination of how a series of drafts of the Treaty defined the terms of the San Francisco Peace Treaty regarding these disputed islands in East Asia. The territorial clause of the San Francisco Peace Treaty regarding the Kurile Islands can be interpreted as follows: first, the Soviet Union is the only recipient of the Kurile Islands envisaged by the Allied Powers; second, there were no agreed definitions of the Kurile Islands among the Allied Powers; and third, there are strong indications that the Allied Powers preferred not to resolve the matter of the ultimate disposition of the Kurile Islands in the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Senkaku Islands were not included as either Chinese and Taiwanese or Japanese territory by the drafters of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty did not, to the point of specificity, define the territories that were placed within the area of the United Nations trusteeship with the United States as the sole administering authority. The territorial clause on the Liancourt Rocks could indicate that the San Francisco Peace Treaty assigns the Liancourt Rocks to Japan. However, due to the contradictory nature of the various drafts of the treaty, Korea may still be free to establish that the Korea renounced in the San Francisco Peace Treaty included the Liancourt Rocks

Knightian Uncertainty and Capital Structure.

My dissertation aims to understand a firm's optimal capital structure decision when it confronts Knightian uncertainty. It contains three chapters. In Chapter One, I derive the optimal capital structure of a firm when its manager is ambiguity-averse. My model predicts substantially lower leverage for such firms, in comparison to traditional static trade-off models. I use the 1982 Voluntary Restraint Agreement (VRA) on steel import quotas between the U.S. government and the European Community as an exogenous reduction in Knightian uncertainty faced by firms in the U.S. steel industry. Using a difference-in-difference methodology, I find that when uncertainty is resolved, a median firm in the U.S. steel industry increases its market and book leverage by approximately 12 percent relative to a matched control firm from another industry. The results are not explained away by changes in traditional risk factors or by a change in expected future profitability. In Chapter Two, I develop a new measure of Knightian uncertainty using a mixture of normal distributions. Using this novel measure, I find that a median firm in the sample decreases its market leverage by approximately 3.6 percent, when the firm's measure of uncertainty increases by one standard deviation. I also find an increase in a firm's uncertainty measure from the minimum to the maximum is associated with a 6.3 percent increase in the firm's propensity to take almost zero leverage. In Chapter Three, I consider a firm's decision to exercise real options, when the firm faces Knightian uncertainty about the evolution of project value. I provide two continuous time applications extended from the discrete time applications in Miao and Wang (2011) that show the value of waiting (which increases with risk) decreases with uncertainty. I incorporate ambiguity-averse investors who are uncertain about the evolution of a firm's assets into the dynamic capital structure model of Leland (1994). I show that even in this dynamic setting, uncertainty provides a more plausible explanation for firms taking on low leverage than risk alone.PHDBusiness AdministrationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99764/1/seokwoo_1.pd

Arctic Policy of the Republic of Korea

Korea has been aware of the humanitarian and national significance of the Arctic and Antarctic since before the millennium. On the one hand, Korea has strived in the field of scientific research by joining the Antarctic Treaty System. On the other hand, Korea has promoted various economic cooperation with the Arctic nations. Korea joined the Antarctic Treaty System in 1986, established the Antarctic King Sejong Station in 1988, established the Arctic Dasan Station in Ny-Ålesund, Norway in 2002, and joined the Svalbard Treaty in 2012. Furthermore, Korea has participated in summits with the Arctic nations since 2008. In 2012, President Lee, Myung-Bak visited Russia, Greenland, and Norway to promote cooperation over the Northern Sea Route, shipbuilding, and energy resources, among other things. Behind the government actions over Polar activities lie government policies and plans, such as the Basic Plan of Antarctic Research (2007-2011, 2012-2016), Measures for the Advancement of Polar Region Policy (2012), Comprehensive Arctic Plan (2013), and Korean Arctic Master Plan (2013). This article will focus on the background to Korea’s 2013 Basic Plan for Arctic Policy, and the remaining tasks that now lie before the Korean government

Innovation and Competition in Standard-Based Industries: An Analysis of the High Definition U.S. Home Video Market

This paper examines the competitive dynamics in a standard-based industry through a historical examination of the U.S. home video industry. It analyzes how the Blu-ray technology wins the battle of the high definition DVD market over HD-DVD technology, by focusing on the aspects of the first-mover advantages, network effects. The analysis suggests that the success in the network-based industry partially support to traditional argument on first-mover advantages; they were important only to the point that the first mover takes advantages of the lead time to develop a network of complementary products. This study illustrates that building a network of complementary products and installed base should be the primary goal to succeed in the standard setting competition

Annulation of O-silyl N,O-ketene acetals with alkynes for the synthesis of dihydropyridinones and its application in concise total synthesis of phenanthroindolizidine alkaloids

The formation of N-heterocycles with multiple substituents is important in organic synthesis. Herein, we report a novel method for the construction of functionalized dihydropyridinone rings through the annulation of an amide α-carbon with a tethered alkyne moiety. The reaction of the amide with the alkyne was achieved via O-silyl N,O-ketene acetal formation and silver-mediated addition. Furthermore, the developed method was applied for the total synthesis of phenanthroindolizidine and phenanthroquinolizidine alkaloids. By varying the coupling partners, a concise and collective total synthesis of these alkaloids was achieved

Heavy quarkonium with finite three momentum near TcT_c

We investigate the non-trivial 3-momentum effects on the masses of heavy quarkonium states that are moving in a hot medium using QCD sum rules. For all charmonium states, we observe a negative mass shift near $T_c$ that is less than 3$\%$ at a momentum of 1$\rm{GeV}$. Specifically, we first investigate the difference between the longitudinal and transverse modes of both $J/\psi$ and $\chi_{c1}$. We find that the transverse mode of the $J/\psi$ experiences larger modification than the longitudinal mode, while the $\chi_{c1}$ has the opposite behavior. By comparing the $\eta_c$ and $\chi_{c0}$, and also the unpolarized $J/\psi$ and $\chi_{c1}$, we recognize that the P-wave particles have stronger momentum dependencies on their masses than the S-wave ones. We also find $\Upsilon$(1S) has negligible 3-momentum dependence compared to the charmonium states, e.g. less than 0.01$\%$ even at 1.4$T_c$ and at a momentum of 4$\rm{GeV}$.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Electronic alert outpatient protocol improves the quality of care for the risk of postcontrast acute kidney injury following computed tomography

Background Prevention and diagnosis of postcontrast acute kidney injury (AKI) after contrast-enhanced computed tomography is burdensome in outpatient department. We investigated whether an electronic alert system could improve prevention and diagnosis of postcontrast AKI. Methods In March 2018, we launched an electronic alert system that automatically identifies patients with a baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate of <45 mL/min/1.73 m2, provides a prescription of fluid regimen, and recommends a follow-up for serum creatinine measurement. Participants prescribed contrast-enhanced computed tomography at outpatient department before and after the launch of the system were categorized as historical and alert group, respectively. Propensity for the surveillance of postcontrast AKI was compared using logistic regression. Risks of AKI, admission, mortality, and renal replacement therapy were analyzed. Results The historical and alert groups included 289 and 309 participants, respectively. The alert group was more likely to be men and take diuretics. The most frequent volume of prophylactic fluid in historical and alert group was 1,000 and 750 mL, respectively. Follow-up for AKI was more common in the alert group (adjusted odds ratio, 6.00; p < 0.001). Among them, incidence of postcontrast AKI was not statistically different. The two groups did not differ in risks of admission, mortality, or renal replacement therapy. Conclusion The electronic alert system could assist in the detection of high-risk patients, prevention with reduced fluid volume, and proper diagnosis of postcontrast AKI, while limiting the prescribing clinicians’ burden. Whether the system can improve long-term outcomes remains unclear

Lysosomal Lipid Peroxidation Regulates Tumor Immunity

Lysosomal inhibition elicited by palmitoyl-protein thioesterase 1 (PPT1) inhibitors such as DC661 can produce cell death, but the mechanism for this is not completely understood. Programmed cell death pathways (autophagy, apoptosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, and pyroptosis) were not required to achieve the cytotoxic effect of DC661. Inhibition of cathepsins, or iron or calcium chelation, did not rescue DC661-induced cytotoxicity. PPT1 inhibition induced lysosomal lipid peroxidation (LLP), which led to lysosomal membrane permeabilization and cell death that could be reversed by the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) but not by other lipid peroxidation antioxidants. The lysosomal cysteine transporter MFSD12 was required for intralysosomal transport of NAC and rescue of LLP. PPT1 inhibition produced cell-intrinsic immunogenicity with surface expression of calreticulin that could only be reversed with NAC. DC661-treated cells primed naive T cells and enhanced T cell-mediated toxicity. Mice vaccinated with DC661-treated cells engendered adaptive immunity and tumor rejection in immune hot tumors but not in immune cold tumors. These findings demonstrate that LLP drives lysosomal cell death, a unique immunogenic form of cell death, pointing the way to rational combinations of immunotherapy and lysosomal inhibition that can be tested in clinical trials

South China Sea Arbitration and its Application to Dokdo

On 12 July 2016, the Arbitral Tribunal formed under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea issued its decision on the proceeding brought by the Philippines against China relating to certain activities in the South China Sea. The Tribunal\u27s decision was hotly anticipated as it dealt with various important issues relating to law of the sea and the interpretation of the Convention. It dealt with issues including the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, the legal status of maritime features, historic rights, and duty to preserve the marine environment. Although it remains to be seen whether states will follow the Tribunal\u27s precedent, questions arose on whether such precedent can be applied to other unresolved issues in other parts of the world. This paper looks at the application of the precedent established by the South China Sea arbitration to the situation involving Dokdo between Korea and Japan