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The primary purpose of this essay is to survey the recent zombie craze in Northeast Asian films from Japan and South Korea. While the concept of the zombie may have originated in colonial Haiti, with its ghoulish images and supernatural lore, zombies were later imported to North America and reformulated as popular cultural entertainment by Hollywood. They are now flourishing in an East Asian cinematic context preserved in a globalized form. The films under investigation – I Am a Hero and Train to Busan – share similar cultural subtexts despite their incommensurable experiences of global capitalism in Asia and its latest ideological phase, neoliberalism. Both films critique the current neoliberal order and were nurtured by historical traumas experienced by both countries as well as the pandemic spread of viruses, both real and imaginary, that have ravaged the region. Nevertheless, the most prominent issue explored by Japanese and Korean zombie films is the continuity of society and its reproduction: as cultural artifacts of the neoliberal world, these films offer dystopian visions in which exploitation accelerates to such an extent that states cannot protect themselves against the viral and capitalist onslaught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microencapsulation condition of vitamin A with β-lactoglobulin (β-Lg) was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Microencapsulation efficiency (MEE) of the microencapsulated β-Lg-vitamin A was determined with respect to four variables including molar ratio of β-Lg to vitamin A, reaction time, pH and reaction temperature. Optimal conditions for microencapsulation of β-Lg-vitamin A were 4.74:1 of the molar ratio, 1.43 h, pH 6.87, and 48.68C. The maximum MEE under the optimized condition was 82.2%. The optimized microcapsules of β-Lg-vitamin A observed by transmission electron microscope were sphere-shaped in a regular order. Vitamin A was observed by Fourier transform infrared to be inserted in the central cavity of β-Lg. These results indicate that the microencapsulation conditions for β-Lg and vitamin A were optimized by RSM successfully forming microcapsules. Practical Applications Microencapsulation of vitamin A could be widely used in various types of foods as a nutritional supplement. Optimization of the microencapsulation conditions of vitamin A with β-lactoglobulin as a wall material could provide a useful information for food industry which is interested in production of low fat dietary products with high content of vitamin A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of a spark kernel ejected by a sunken fire igniter into a turbulent, fuel-air stratified crossflow was studied both experimentally and using a model in a configuration that is similar to the conditions found in turbine engine combustors. This study allows for variations in the transit time of the kernel across a uniform nonflammable region, before entering a second stream containing a flammable fuel-air mixture. High speed schlieren and emission imaging systems are used to visualize the evolution of the kernel and determine the probability of ignition based on measurements over many spark events. Experiments are performed for a range of mean velocities, transit times, inlet (preheat) temperatures, flammable zone equivalence ratios, and nonflammable zone equivalence ratios. In addition to the typical dependence of ignition on the equivalence ratio of the flammable mixture, the results indicate the strong influence of the kernel transit time and the inlet flow temperature on the probability of ignition. The entrainment between the kernel and the surrounding flow appears to be primarily controlled by the kernel ejection-induced flowfield. Reduced-order modeling suggests that the lowering of the kernel temperature associated with entrainment of the nonflammable mixture significantly reduces the ignition probability, and leads to the conclusion that the presence of fuel close to the igniter is necessary to ensure reliable ignition under adverse conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a close reading of Shakespeare'sKing Lear,this essay surveys English nationalism in a very specific moment—at the time of King James's accession and his propagation of the Union of kingdoms, which was soon followed by his edict of “Naturalization of the Scots”. This political claim of the Scottish monarch was in conflict with his English subjects' allegiance to English nationhood, thus creating an ambiguous allegiance between the two. Shakespeare, as James's English subject, had to negotiate between the absolutist claim of the Union propagated by the Scottish monarch and his own allegiance to English territory. Thus how this ruptured consciousness creates textual-national ambiguities in Shakespeare's play and how his political negotiation develops what Hans Kohn calls “national messianism” are the most important concerns in this essay. InKing Lear,along with Cordelia's redemptive features, if the national messianic craving is expressed through regional identity, it is through Kent. In early-modern literature, Kent, which includes Canterbury (the locus of the national shrine) was often a geographical symbol of essential Englishness. The regional topography of Kent expresses past English identity as uncompromised by Scottish contamination. This chorographical allegiance to English regional territory properly explains the reason why at the end of the play the stage heavily gravitates toward Dover—the end of Kent/England—embodying all the national messianic images. The Shakespearean geopolitics represented inKing Learthus negotiates the huge gap between the Scottish monarch's absolutist rhetoric of Union and English nationhood forming a national ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT In wireless network convergence, each mobile host is expected to have multiple kinds of wireless interfaces. Multicast-based applications are expected to be widely deployed. In this paper, a new network selection scheme is proposed for a mobile host to select the most appropriate wireless access network to maximize user satisfaction and ISP's profit, simultaneously. We have devised a metric to measure a user's satisfaction and we also developed a 'normalized network resource' metric for system profit measure. We have compared our scheme with three other reference schemes, through simulations. Depending on the network deployment situations, our scheme exhibits one-fifth service disruption time of other reference schemes, while the resource consumption of our scheme is comparable to that of the minimum resource scheme. Overall, the gain of our scheme becomes higher as users move faster and/or the population density increases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]