Contrasting catching-up histories of the Korean and the Japanese heavy electrical industries in the 1970s-2000s

The thesis is motivated by contrasting catching-up performances of the Korean heavy electrical industry (HEI) across nuclear power and gas turbine, which have serious ramifications for energy policy as well as catching-up studies. When the opposite performance of Japanese counterparts across the two technologies is compared to the Korean case, the existing catching-up literature based on firm capabilities and sectoral approaches does not offer direct answers. Also, while most of government energy policies are focused on research and development (R&D) efforts, they pay little attention to a wide set of institutions, which might constrain and incentivise a specific technology catching-up. The idiosyncratic catching-up experiences and potential mismatch between catching-up policies and the institutional factors of the Korean HEI urge comparative and institutional perspectives for a generalisable claim. Therefore, the thesis adopts a partial comparative case study between the Korean HEI and the ‘earlier’ latecomer, namely Japanese HEI, as a reference case with mostly secondary evidences based on a broad version of national system of innovation system (NSI) approach (Freeman 1987; Lundvall 1988; Lundvall et al., 2002). The adopted NSI framework assumes a potential dichotomy of cross-technology and cross-nation performance attributes to contrasting institutional set-ups. It focusses on two salient institutions of the electricity supply industry (ESI), including business and environmental regulations, and their impact on the catching-up performances across the two technologies. It finds historically evolved ESI-HEI relationships based on the specific institutional set of ESI substantially influenced the dichotomy of cross-nation and cross-technology catching-up performances, regardless of R&D expenditures and relative technological capabilities of HEI firms. The result supplements the NSI literature by linking the variation of a set of institutions with catching-up performance variations. It also offers strategic implications to catching-up countries, such as the potential necessity for institutional reforms of the ESI in pursuing energy technology catching-up policies

Near-Field Pattern of Large Aperture Higher Order Mode Generator Using Backpropagated Fields in Free Space

This paper reports the estimation of the electric field from a large aperture cavity that generates a higher order mode by backpropagation of fields measured in free space. A higher order mode of a TE6,2 mode at 94 GHz is designed and fabricated using a quasi-optical manner for the analysis. The backpropagating field at the aperture is compared with the measured field. The field estimated at the aperture is used to analyze the mode information, such as the amount of mode mixture of two different rotating fields and the phase difference between two modes. This paper provides a quantitative way to analyze the rotating cylindrical modes generated from an oversized cavity.close2

Hippocampus-dependent cognitive enhancement induced by systemic gintonin administration

Background: A number of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases share impaired cognition as a common symptom. Therefore, the development of clinically applicable therapies to enhance cognition has yielded significant interest. Previously, we have shown that activation of lysophosphatidic acid receptors (LPARs) via gintonin application potentiates synaptic transmission by the blockade of K+ channels in the mature hippocampus. However, whether gintonin may exert any beneficial impact directly on cognition at the neural circuitry level and the behavioral level has not been investigated. Methods: In the current study, we took advantage of gintonin, a novel LPAR agonist, to investigate the effect of gintonin-mediated LPAR activation on cognitive performances. Hippocampus-dependent fear memory test, synaptic plasticity in the hippocampal brain slices, and quantitative analysis on synaptic plasticity-related proteins were used. Results: Daily oral administration of gintonin for 1 wk significantly improved fear memory retention in the contextual fear-conditioning test in mice. We also found that oral administration of gintonin for 1 wk increased the expression of learning and memory-related proteins such as phosphorylated cyclic adenosine monophosphate-response element binding (CREB) protein and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). In addition, prolonged gintonin administration enhanced long-term potentiation in the hippocampus. Conclusion: Our observations suggest that the systemic gintonin administration could successfully improve contextual memory formation at the molecular and synaptic levels as well as the behavioral level. Therefore, oral administration of gintonin may serve as an effective noninvasive, nonsurgical method of enhancing cognitive functions