Jo Oct 14, 2022
Kayagum (Korean harp) was contrived by Uruk, a talented musician in Kaya in the early 6th century. It was called so because it was from Kaya.
After its birth, the kayagum was inherited without many changes in its shape through the periods of the Three Kingdoms, Palhae and Later Silla and Koryo to the feudal Joson dynasty as a unique national stringed instrument loved by our people. The ways of making and playing the kayagum was fixed in “Akhakgwebom” compiled at the end of 15th century.
According to Akhakgwebom, the kayagum has 12 strings stretched on the rectangular resonance box. They are tuned in pentachord. The resonance box was first made of paulownia. In modern days, the top plate stayed the same, but the under and the side ones were made of chestnut.
The kayagum was widely used as an instrument for solos, ensembles and accompaniment to songs for a long period of time and in the course of it, famous kayagum players and pieces were produced. In addition, a solo piece in the form of a chain like kayagum sanjo (a kind of solo) was born toward the end of the 19th century. The kayagum was handed down as an excellent musical instrument congenial to our people’s sentiments since it produced springy, elegant and soft sounds, but the prolonged feudal fetters and the Japanese obliteration policy of national culture before liberation from the Japanese rule prevented the kayagum from developing into a modern one and thus it had some drawbacks.
After liberation, the kayagum was developed into a modern instrument under the wise guidance of our Party. Compared to the conventional one, the improved kayagum has a clearer and greater resonance. The number of strings has increased to 21 and it has a wider range based on a heptatonic scale, which makes it possible to play any pieces freely on it. The ways of playing have also become more diverse and rich.
At present, the kayagum is used not only for solos but also for several kinds of ensembles such as duets, trios, quartets or accompaniments as a major instrument responsible for melodies and rhythms.
Ri Yong Ho, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Oct 12, 2022
“Expert System” is a subject that studies different methods of designing and developing Intelligent Systems for simulating the ability of an expert. It is closely related to different subjects including “Artificial Intelligence” and “Knowledge Engineering” and it has a wide range of application and a great diversity in designing.
Such characteristics of this subject caused some problems with raising the students’ abilities of systemization, generalization and application onto a due level.
As it was important to remedy such shortcomings, Kim Ok, a researcher at the Faculty of Information Science and Technology, has applied mind mapping to her subject to enhance students’ self-learning abilities and creativity.
As a result, there has been a radical improvement in the students’ learning methods and in the cognitive abilities and creativity for developing intelligent systems.
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Jo Oct 11, 2022
Paduk is a game in which two people place paduk pieces on the board in turns to win more positions. At first, paduk was as simple as a koni game (one of the Korean folk games), but it was combined with the outlook on the universe of ancient people to develop into the present-day paduk.
In ancient times, people had naïve opinions ― for example, the sky was round and the earth was rectangular. So the flatness of a paduk board denoted the ground and the rectangle of the board signified four seasons. And 361 crossing points meant one year. Why the point in the very middle of the board was called “chonwonjom” (center mark on the paduk board) was that people thought the earth was the center of the universe. It is said that the roundness of paduk pieces symbolized the round universe and the black and white colours of the two sides of the pieces meant the day and the night.
The term “paduk” is a native Korean word which means placing pieces on the board. It was first pronounced like “podol” and it gradually changed into “podok” → “padok” → “paduk”. Paduk is recorded as “padok” in “Hunmongjahoe” published in 1527 and it has been called so in some south coastal areas until today.
Paduk was widely played in the period of the Three Kingdoms as well as in ancient times and it exerted remarkable influences on foreign countries. According to “History of Koryo”, some Koryo people including Kwak Hui Bun and Jo Jong Thong made a playing tour of paduk to Yuan.
During the feudal Joson dynasty, paduk was an intelligent game that attracted interest of the feudal government as well as ordinary people.
Due to the Japanese wicked maneuvres to obliterate national culture, paduk was eclipsed for years, but under the people-centred socialist system of our own style, it was able to develop into a national sporting event, a popular intelligent game. Excellent paduk players display their paduk skills in the paduk events, which are held every year. Furthermore, our players have won medals in international amateur paduk games, exalting the honour of their motherland. In particular, paduk is even more popular with children of preschool age, schoolchildren and youth. They are constantly improving their knowledge and skills in paduk, winning medals in international competitions.
At present, our people enjoy themselves playing paduk in the cultural recreation centres that are found everywhere they go.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Oct 8, 2022
Class discussion plays a very important role in improving the writing and presentational skills of students.
Yu Un Ju, a researcher at the Faculty of Management of Industrial Economy, has successfully improved their presentational skills by arranging heated discussions and arguments among students.
First of all, she makes clear the points to be discussed in the next discussion class.
Considering the characteristics of the subject, she gives every student different questions and lets them take part in the discussion with enough study.
Sometimes it is impossible because students outnumber questions. Therefore, she puts students into as many groups as the number of questions so that the students in the same group can decide by themselves detailed topics on the same points.
As a result, every student tries to make a detailed study of their points in combination with reality rather than copying others.
In addition, she confines presentation time to 5 minutes so that as many students as possible can give presentations in 90 minutes. Thus, students get rid of the outdated idea to fill their presentations with unnecessary contents and instead they try to think and study more deeply to give clear presentations in a short time.
Secondly, she changes the way of presentation and evaluates it accurately.
She encourages students to give an appealing presentation with their own words instead of reading the text at the desk as if they gave a lecture to other students. This makes students master their points and even those who lack presentational skills competitively run to the teaching desk with confidence, leading to animated discussions and arguments.
She evaluates students’ presentations with the main aim to fire the zeal of discussion. Mark is one of the means for making students take an active part in class discussions.
She has the result of discussion and presentation of each student evaluated by other students, not by the teacher. All the students listen to the speakers carefully and then express their opinions and give marks for each presentation. Every student puts themselves in teacher’s place, gives their own good views and has a heated argument. This has brought discussions and arguments onto a higher level.
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Jo Oct 7, 2022
In Koguryo, a nationwide atmosphere of giving priority to martial arts was established and national military arts like riding, archery, etc. were encouraged. Koguryo people trained their strong spiritual and physical strength and will by doing martial arts.
The neighbouring countries were foreign forces of aggression that were constantly threatening the sovereignty of Koguryo. They showed their undisguised aggressive attempts and made constant invades. To make matters worse, the countries of the same blood, Paekje and Silla, too, were hindering Koguryo’s policy of unifying the three kingdoms in every possible way by invading the territory of Koguryo.
From such pressing requirements, Koguryo created the atmosphere of doing martial arts and took measures to encourage it so that all the people would possess patriotism and spirit of defending their native places, and regard defending their country from foreign invasions as their obligation and glory.
First, Koguryo made it a social climate to do martial arts throughout the country. The people considered displaying courage in battlefields as their obligation.
Next, necessary measures were taken to encourage it. Having fully recognized the might and importance of martial arts on horses with great capabilities of mobility, attack and strike in the wars in the middle ages, Koguryo laid stress on increasing the number of cavalrymen when organizing the army and intensified horse-riding martial arts training such as archery, fencing, spearing and doing acrobatics and galloping, etc. Infantry forces were also strengthened and martial arts training with and without equipment were actively conducted among them. In addition, national competitions on martial arts were frequently held and the system of offering government services to qualified warriors on the basis of those competitions was established. On March 3 every year, hunting contests were held on Rangnang Hill. Here, people were tested on their martial arts practised for a year, and winners were awarded commendations. The story of Ondal, a man of low birth, who was appointed to a government post by displaying in a hunting contest his high skills in martial arts gained through his constant practice, is recorded in Samguksagi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms).
Ordinary people also made doing martial arts a part of their everyday life and a system of teaching martial arts was established for this. Not only martial arts matches but also other national sports games and amusements held on several occasions including holidays were all focused on practicing martial arts and building up physical strength.
In order to bring up coming generations to be able ones equipped with ample knowledge and strong physical strength, they prepared a place called kyongdang for teaching ordinary people martial arts. Here, young people trained their martial arts and bodily force, and matches for testing their skills were frequently arranged in various forms and ways.
On the basis of the historical environments and conditions and the atmosphere of doing martial arts, Koguryo enriched the contents and methods of the national martial arts of the Middle Ages in keeping with the developing reality.
The climate of doing martial arts in Koguryo provided the people with high national pride and confidence, strong physical strength and courage, and it gave positive influences on vigorously pushing ahead with the cause of unifying the three kingdoms and exalting the honour and dignity of Koguryo, a thousand-year power, by successfully repulsing constant large-scale aggressions of foreign forces.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Oct 6, 2022
“Digital Signal Processing” is a subject which studies mathematical methods for the digital processing of signals. It covers several mathematical methods for digital signal processing such as analog signal conversion, Fourier transform of signal, design of an infinite impulse response (IIR) digital filter, and design of a finite impulse response (FIR) digital filter.
In order to acquire application abilities of understanding the mathematical principles covered in the subject and of applying them to practice, students must develop the ability to convert various analog signals into digital ones and to send them to computers to analyze various kinds of information.
In order to solve this problem, Jong Kyong Su, a researcher at the Faculty of Communications, has employed LabVIEW in his teaching to enhance the abilities of cognition and creation.
First, he made his students active in acquiring mathematical knowledge in signal processing by planning his lectures so that students could develop a comprehensive DSP that covers all the contents of the lecture.
Second, he planned his lectures so that students could put their mathematical knowledge touched in lectures into use by using LabWIEW, thus raising their application ability.
Third, he led students to writing a comprehensive program that runs through the whole course from the subprograms prepared in each lecture, thus increasing the ability of students to apply their mathematical knowledge for digital signal processing.
In the lectures, he made students develop a comprehensive program using LabVIEW that enables digitization, communication, Fourier transform, digital filtering, and reproduction of audio signals to digitize analog signals for digital communication and to process digital signals.
The new teaching method helped raise enthusiasm for study and cognition effect of the students. The students could be able to have a good understanding of what they learnt and make simulations by themselves using LabVIEW.
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