Jo Dec 9, 2022
Ryang Song Ji, the main compiler of “Tonggukyojisungnam” (50 volumes), which was an important part of the geography book of our country, was a well-known scholar who made great achievements in several fields. He started learning at the age of six. From a very early age, he was so clever and good at composing poems that he attracted everybody’s attention. He thought that it was of utmost importance for everyone to be well aware of the geography of their native places and homeland, and that learning and technical research should be focused on both the prosperity of their country and making the lives of common people better.
Possessed of many-sided knowledge including history and geography, he was involved in compiling and publishing several books in the fifteenth century. In fact, almost all the geography books and maps of that time were related to him. Among them, geography part of “Sejong Sillok” (Chronicles of King Sejong) and “Tonggukyojisungnam” played very important parts in writing the geography book in the feudal age of our country. Together with 23 scholars including Ro Sa Sin and Kang Hui Maeng, Ryang Song Ji completed “Tonggukyojisungnam” (50 volumes) in 1481 on the basis of “Geography of Eight Provinces” compiled in 1432, geography part of “Sejong Sillok” compiled in 1454 by amending “Geography of Eight Provinces”, “Sinchan Geography” and “Tongmunson” compiled in 1477. With rich and detailed contents, “Tonggukyojisungnam” is a priceless classic of great value in the historical and geographical study of several fields of our country including society, economy, military affairs, culture, etc. around the fifteenth century.
In addition to it, Ryang Song Ji made several maps that demonstrated the level of the Korean cartology of that time.
As a scholar of noble birth, he presented to the feudal government a “reform plan” several times that reflected his creative opinion on making some changes to the affairs in several fields of the feudal system including military affairs and economy for building up the national power and defending the security of the country.
His exploits for the development of geography performed in those days are being conveyed through generations together with “Tonggukyojisungnam”.
Kim Kwang Jo, researcher at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Dec 8, 2022
Humidity is an important physical quantity in all fields of human life. In recent years, fiber-optic humidity sensors with compact size, high sensitivity and good resistance to chemical corrosion and insusceptibility to electromagnetic interference have been widely studied.
Yu Hyong Su, a researcher at the Semiconductor Institute, has proposed a novel optical humidity sensor which is simple in structure, easy to make and cost-effective with high sensitivity, a wide range of operation, and good safety and reproductivity. It consists of light source, a gap and an acrylic resin film coated on PSD.
Experimental results verified very satisfactory performance of the humidity sensor in terms of its sensitivity, hysteresis, linear response to the humidity and long-term stability.
You can find more information about it in his paper “Widely sensitive optical humidity module by using acrylic resin and a position sensitivity detector” published in the SCI Journal “Optical and Quantum Electronics”.
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Jo Dec 7, 2022
Ri Kwang Su, a researcher at the Faculty of Earth Science and Technology, studied an evaluation method by real problem solution and applied it to “geology information processing” to evaluate the real ability of students scientifically, objectively and quantitatively by combining theory and practice, knowledge and intelligence.
The aim of this method is to improve the creative power, application ability and zeal for study of students and to ensure generalization, objectivity, fairness and quantitativeness of evaluation by combining theory and practice, subject examination and ability test.
This method belongs to objective and open testing methods that can be applied to classroom-teaching and it is the one that estimates students' ability quantitatively and absolutely from the viewpoint of the evaluation type of studying processes.
The gist of this method is to compose test problems and essay tasks so that students' ability can be estimated quantitatively, objectively and scientifically.
To apply this new method, he tried to give lectures upon the principle of improving their application faculties and make test questions and essay tasks on the subject in line with the contents of the subject.
It is an effective method that ensures the attainment of evaluation aim and the consistency of teaching contents and evaluation results thanks to the rational relationships between the contents and forms, evaluation modes and marking of tests and essays, teaching contents and process.
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Jo Dec 6, 2022
A collar strip is a long, narrow piece of white cloth sewn onto the collar of Korean clothing for replacement.
Collar strips are based on the national sentiments of our people who have always preferred brightness and neatness and on the Korean jacket whose edges of collars were adorned with narrow pieces of cloth in the period of the Three Kingdoms. In those days, narrow strips different in color from the grounds of clothing were attached to the collar, cuffs or hems of a Korean jacket. In other words, dark-colored strips were chosen for bright grounds and vice versa.
Adorning their clothes with contrasting colors was a peculiar dressing custom reflecting the requirements of life and aesthetic requirements of our people who tended to dress themselves in neat and beautiful clothes. Collars, cuffs and hems usually get dirty and frayed first. In order to keep them clean and new, our people came up with an idea of sewing strips in contrasting color on those parts. These strips, in combination with ornamental aspects, were gradually made more delicate and elegant by the growing cultural standards, aesthetic sense and requirements of life of people. Consequently, it became a custom to sew white strips around the collars on the basis of the national sentiments of our people who respected brightness, neatness and white. White collar strips guaranteed perfect harmony with the ground colors of Korean jackets, providing a lot more beauty and sophistication.
Thus, collar strips that emphasize the neatness, cleanliness and conspicuousness of jackets became the number one feature of a Korean jacket.
Pak Sin Jong, researcher at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Dec 5, 2022
Complex chemistry is an interdisciplinary discipline that elucidates the mechanism of the reaction of inorganic materials, including catalysts, in organic synthesis reactions and theoretically guarantees the development of more appropriate catalysts. Therefore, instructors should focus on experimental education to help student understand more vividly the chemical phenomena occurring in the microscopic world.
Ri Su Ryon, a researcher at the Faculty of Applied Chemistry, developed a virtual laboratory and a structural design support program of complexes that can provide conditions similar to actual experiments needed for complex chemistry. She has been using them to enhance the students’ faculties of analysis and structural design of complexes.
To this end, unlike previous lectures that relied solely on teacher’s explanation, she touches only important things in the lectures and gives secondary things as an assignment. She organizes experiments for application and independent structural design for the influence of factors so that they can learn everything by themselves.
Let us go through her teaching steps for crown ether metal complexes.
First of all, she touched key points only on the basis of enough self-learning.
She presented questions to be discussed in a pointed lecture as a preparation task and asked them to conduct virtual experiments related to their application in groups in advance.
On the basis of this, she led the students to draw new concepts from the similarities and differences in the structure and combination with metal ions in comparison with chain ligands, a chelating agent similar to crown ether.
Second, she developed her students’ analysis faculty through virtual experiments.
The group experiments conducted to dissolve potassium permanganate, an inorganic oxidant that can replace organic oxidant, in an organic solvent were shown for students to find faults. Then, she explained good points of the best one so that students could consolidate what they had learnt in the gist lecture. After that, she asked them to analyze by themselves the essence of the chemical phenomena occurring in the test tube by augmented reality technology.
Third, the structural design program was employed to enhance students’ independent structural design abilities.
She created a situation of which crown ether should be selected to separate Rh+ ions with a size similar to K+ ions from acetic acid solutions, allowing students to identify them based on what they had learned in the virtual laboratory.
Understanding the reason for differences in the stability constants of the 18-c-6 complexes of potassium and rhodium with very similar ionic radii and the need to modify the structure of the crown ether according to the nature of metal ions, each group was asked to propose a structure design and present it.
Finally, practical questions were presented to assess students’ abilities of analysis, judgment and overall systematization and each student’s performance was examined through the complex chemistry assessment system.
As mentioned above, while choosing reagents, performing experiments, finding out problems and learning how to draw conclusions all by themselves, the students’ abilities of creative thinking and practice have been significantly increased.
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Jo Dec 4, 2022
“Sinau” is a unique piece of music for tungso (Korean bamboo flute) composed by the people in Hamgyong Province. Singing and dancing was popular there from early days, so everybody had fine bamboo flutes in their homes. It was their practice to play the tungso whenever they wanted to. Such practice produced a large number of accomplished flutists and a tungso solo “Sinau”, which was played in traditional events like “Field Dance” and on other occasions
In modern ages, solo pieces like kayagum sanjo, komungo sanjo, haegum sanjo and flute sanjo were created with rapid progress of folk instrumental music in our country. Meanwhile, tungso sinau was dominant in Hamgyong Province, where there was a conspicuous development in tungso music.
“Sinau” in Hamgyong Province consisted of a series of pieces in several movements, every one of which was different in time, tempo and emotional color. Handed down through generations among them is passionate, enterprising and triumphant Hwimori Movement, which reflects the anti-aggressive, anti-feudal struggle and optimism of the people in Hamgyong Province. This high-toned movement has been developed with great artistic influences as it gives a vivid description of the locals’ personal qualities and patriotic fighting spirits.
After liberation, under the wise leadership of our Party to carry forward and develop our national music, “Sinau” was improved into a tungso solo and national orchestral music, an ensemble of national instrumental music, and chorus and orchestral music “For the Revolution”. It still resounds across the country, further boosting our people’s enthusiasm for the revolution and struggle.
Jong Son Ha, researcher at the Academy of Social Sciences
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