One and Holy: A Proposal for A Korean Reformed Ecclesiology

The dissertation attempts to bring the unity and holiness of the Church together in Reformed ecclesiology in Korean context. The context of the inquiry is the history of division and the ongoing dividedness of Korean churches – especially among the Reformed churches. Their conflicting attitudes towards the World Council of Churches against the backdrop of the 10th Assembly at Busan in 2013 showcased the reality of division, as their perspectives on the unity and holiness of the Church were sharply divided. This phenomenon reflects the history of division among the Presbyterian churches, and proved that an adequate understanding of the unity and holiness of the Church was still indeed an ongoing problem for them. An adequate and constructive theological thesis is called for that brings the unity and holiness of the Church together. While being mainly theological in dealing with the principles in ecclesiology, the dissertation addresses the Korean ecclesial context with its own unique characteristics and sensitivities. To seek a constructive theological thesis, first of all, the Faith and Order’s convergence document on ecclesiology The Church: Towards A Common Vision (2013) is investigated along with the context of its ecumenical development. The convergence document was an ecumenical achievement in ecclesiology after the long process of ecumenical discussions, publications and other major achievements. Many churches from the Reformed tradition participated in this ecumenical process, as well. Chapter 2 studies the relevant contextual aspects and historical development of Faith and Order and the ecclesiology of the document itself. Another dialogue partner for a thesis is Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer. As a Reformed theologian, Berkouwer wrote his ecclesiological works De Kerk I, II (1970, 1972) later in his career after his ecumenical engagements, indicating the maturity of his ecclesiological thinking and its uniqueness. Thus, in Chapter 3, the development of his theological and ecclesiological thoughts as well as the concept of "correlation" he employs consistently in his Dogmatische Studiën, of which his works on ecclesiology are the last ones, are investigated. Following this, his ecclesiological works are looked into and analysed. In Chapter 4, the relevant information is provided on the ecumenical context of the Reformed churches in Korea, followed by the theological investigation of the ecclesiological perspectives of three Korean theologians: Young-yup Cho, Jang-hyun Ryu and Hong-seok Choi. The contextual research revolves around the event of the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 2013. The points of conflict are presented, and further analysis is given to the relevant historical events and points of debate. Then, the ecclesiological thoughts of the three theologians are analysed and critiqued. They profess distinct ecclesiological ideas with dissimilar takes on the subject of the unity and holiness of the Church. Cho firmly stands on the confessional, militant and conservative ground, and he consistently showed a great interest in the World Council of Churches in his writings. Ryu is more on the progressive side in theology, and has continued to write on ecclesiology in his career. Choi is studied because of his uniqueness in resisting both objectivism and subjectivism in theologising. The constructive thesis is to find a way in which unity and holiness are formed together in ecclesiological discourse, so that it would do justice to “credo ecclesiam”. Chapter 5 conducts critical examination on the primary sources together with identifying ecclesiological insights for a constructive thesis. The resultant proposal is a "concurrent" approach or "concurrence", which is rather a loaded concept and combined with "correlation" from Berkouwer's theology. This concept addresses principles in ecclesiology. Still, several relevant ecclesiastical practices in Korean context are discussed. Further conceptual articulation of "concurrence" is provided in Chapter 6

Two Essays on Momentum

One of the most controversial topics in recent investment literature has been stock return momentum. If an investor buys past winners and sells past losers, he will earn positive profits in the intermediate-term horizon (3 to 12 months). While behavioral theories seem to dominate as an explanation for the momentum phenomenon since momentum has been regarded as direct counter evidence for the efficient market hypothesis, Chordia and Shivakumar (2002) find that momentum can be explained by a set of macroeconomic variables. Chordia and Shivakumar argue that momentum is caused by time-varying expected returns that can be predicted by a set of macroeconomic variables, which might be associated with time-varying risk. However, the first essay of my dissertation shows that even if the macroeconomic variables are independent of stock returns, they can appear to predict momentum profits if they exhibit high persistence and the momentum portfolio period overlaps with the parameter estimation period. I am able to produce results similar to those of Chordia and Shivakumar with randomly generated variables, while I show that once the parameter estimation periods are changed, the predictive power of the macroeconomic variables for momentum disappear. My results provide evidence that the predictive power of the macroeconomic variables comes from a spurious relation between stock returns during the momentum portfolio formation period and predicted returns from the macroeconomic variables. My results further suggest that Chordia and Shivakumar’s argument that the predictive power of macroeconomic variables for momentum is a challenge to behavioral theories is indeed premature. The second essay shows that the ratio of the 50-day moving average to the 200-day moving average has significant predictive power for future returns. Stocks with a high moving average ratio tend to outperform stocks with a low moving average ratio for the next six months. This predictive power is distinct from that of the nearness of the current price to the 52-week high, which was first documented by George and Hwang (2004). The moving average ratio, combined with the nearness to the 52-week high, can explain most of the intermediate-term momentum profits. This suggests that an anchoring bias in which investors use moving averages and the 52-week high as their reference points for estimating fundamental values is the main source of momentum effects. Momentum profits caused by the anchoring bias do not disappear in the long-run, confirming George and Hwang’s argument that intermediate-term momentum and long-term reversals are separate phenomena

The 52-Week High And The January Effect

The predictive power of past returns for January reversal is compared with that of the nearness of current prices to the 52-week high.  When compared jointly, past returns lose their forecasting power for January returns and the nearness of current prices to the 52-week high assumes the dominant role in explaining the January reversal.  This suggests that tax-loss selling is not the primary factor explaining the January effect.  A behavioral explanation consistent with the window-dressing argument is proposed in that the 52-week high acts as an “anchor,” a highly visible reference price to fund holders, increasing fund managers’ incentives to window-dress by temporarily adding (removing) stocks that are perceived by fund holders as good (bad) investments, based on the nearness of these stocks’ current prices to the 52-week high

Current Developments in Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass to Fuels and Chemicals

Biomass is one of the largest concentrated carbon source available for producing renewable energy. Thermochemical conversion of biomass has been used for centuries in various settings. Biomass typically has a higher oxygen and volatile matter content than other solid carbon feedstocks, resulting in increased reactivity during conversion by thermochemical pathways. Moisture content of the biomass feedstock exerts significant influence on the conversion process and is an important criteria used to classify various thermochemical conversion technologies. This chapter discusses the current status and future outlook of thermochemical biomass conversion processes

Conventional Vickers and true instrumented indentation hardness determined by instrumented indentation tests

We evaluate Vickers hardness and true instrumented indentation test (IIT) hardness of 24 metals over a wide range of mechanical properties using just IIT parameters by taking into account the real contact morphology beneath the Vickers indenter. Correlating the conventional Vickers hardness, indentation contact morphology, and IIT parameters for the 24 metals reveals relationships between contact depths and apparent material properties. We report the conventional Vickers and true IIT hardnesses measured only from IIT contact depths; these agree well with directly measured hardnesses within ±6% for Vickers hardness and ±10% for true IIT hardness

Tunable electron scattering mechanism in plasmonic SrMoO3_3 thin films

4d transition metal perovskite oxides serve as suitable testbeds for the study of strongly correlated metallic properties. Among these, $SrMoO_{3}$ (SMO) exhibits remarkable electrical conductivity at room temperature. The temperature-dependent resistivity $(\rho(T))$ exhibits a Fermi-liquid behavior below the transition temperature $T^{*}$, reflecting the dominant electron-electron interaction. Above $T^{*}$, electron-phonon interaction becomes more appreciable. In this study, we employed the power-law scaling of $\rho(T)$ to rigorously determine the $T^{*}$. We further demonstrate that the $T^{*}$ can be modified substantially by ~40 K in epitaxial thin films. It turns out that the structural quality determines $T^{*}$. Whereas the plasma frequency could be tuned by the change in the electron-electron interaction via the effective mass enhancement, we show that the plasmonic properties are more directly governed by the electron-impurity scattering. The facile control of the electron scattering mechanism through structural quality modulation can be useful for plasmonic sensing applications in the visible region

Lupus Myocarditis Presenting as Acute Congestive Heart Failure: A Case Report

A young woman who had a delivery history 3 months previously presented with dyspnea and orthopnea. Initial findings of physical examination, chest radiography, and echocardiogram showed typical congestive heart failure with severe left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. At first, we considered peripartum cardiomyopathy because she had given birth to a baby 3 months previously. However, even though we massively tried conventional drug therapy for 10 days, the patient still remained with refractory heart failure. We performed additional laboratory studies such as complement level and autoantibodies, of which the results supported systemic lupus erythematosus. We could make the diagnosis of acute lupus myocarditis and treated her with corticosteroid. The symptoms were dramatically disappeared and LV function also improved

Anti-Inflammatory Activity of the Methanol Extract of Moutan Cortex in LPS-Activated Raw264.7 Cells

Moutan Cortex (MCE) has been used in traditional medicine to remove heat from the blood, promote blood circulation and alleviate blood stasis. This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of MCE on regulatory mechanisms of cytokines and nitric oxide (NO) involved in immunological activity of Raw264.7 cells. Cells were pretreated with methanolic extracts of MCE, and further cultured for an appropriate time after lipopolyssacharide (LPS) addition. During the entire experimental period, 0.1 and 0.3 mg ml−1 of MCE had no cytotoxicity. In these concentrations, MCE inhibited the production of NO and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), the expression of inducible NO synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and phosphorylated inhibitor of κBα (p-IκBα), and the activation of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB). MCE also reduced the concentration of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the Raw264.7 cells that were activated by LPS. These results demonstrate that MCE has anti-inflammatory effects through the inhibition of iNOS and COX-2 expression by suppressing the phosphorylation of I-κBα and the activation of NF-κB

Experimental Observation on Variation of Rheological Properties during Concrete Pumping

Workability of concrete varies during pumping. Even though concrete satisfies the required workability before pumping, it often does not satisfy the required standard after pumping. Moreover, serious problem could happen such as segregation and blockage. In this study, the rheological properties of concrete change during pumping from the pressure distribution over the pipe length was investigated. The rheological properties and the pressures measured from seven different real-scale pumping tests with 116 m to 1000 m long pipelines and 24 MPa to 100 MPa concrete were analyzed. As a result, it was found that the rheological properties vary gradually along the pipeline, and could abruptly change inside the pump. The variation of rheological properties during pumping seems to be attributed in part to the increase of water absorption in aggregates under high pressure and the additional mixing effect, namely, intensive shearing under high pressure inside pump. Document type: Articl