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This research, conducted in the particular space–time of university classes transitioning online due to a global pandemic, describes a kairotic moment particularly concerned with the accessibility of learning resources, pedagogical interaction, and students' mental health. Our research was conducted with a focus on online general education electives delivered across all undergraduate years at a university in South Korea, to formulate online facilitation methods for identity formation writing using the universal cultural framework of K-culture. We asked students to read K-webtoons, to understand the relation between self-esteem and self-doubt, and to diagnose their current situations. Then, we asked them to write a self-examination essay using the media literacy of K-pop to induce empathy. In their rough drafts, we observed their will to overcome their obstacles, even though their writing described negative experiences from the past and the limitations they currently faced. During virtual office hours, we instructed students to think critically about the structure of Korean society, beyond their personal self-examination, and in their second, edited drafts, we found a heightened sense of civic awareness. This research is significant, therefore, because it provides a detailed account of the abstract process of writing identity essays utilising K-culture media literacy, and the process of seeking a method of communication for critical awareness of social structures and action in a community through virtual office hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the realities of diaspora through novels depicting North Korean (NK) refugee women and investigates how communities extend hospitality to their gender. The characters in these novels stand their ground as proactive subjects with critical consciousness despite sexual exploitation and social oppression, and therefore they also urge a rethinking of the writer's role in representing the subaltern's voice. I focus on Youth Sonata by Kim Yukyeong and A Third Home by Yi Kyoung-ja, examining the identity choices of NK refugee women as objects of hospitality, the issues of membership in their receiving country, the role of the subject of hospitality, and boundary crossing between subject and object of hospitality. The women depicted in Youth Sonata each have a complicated past and must confront the other within themselves and accept them, becoming the object of their own self-hospitality. In A Third Home with identity conflict between her past and present, a NK refugee woman opens a third space that can accept difference. A scene of intersection in China, where the subject of hospitality becomes a foreigner and the object of hospitality becomes a foreigner with agency, demonstrates the (im)possibility of unconditional hospitality. Presenting NK women refugees' gendered suffering as part of history and the process of accommodating the coexistence of difference in everyday life, the novel suggests that hospitality is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

para -Phenylediamine (PPD), a major component of hair dyeing ingredients, can induce allergenic sensitization and exert mutagenic, tumorigenic and cytotoxic effect. In this study, we determined the cytotoxic effect of PPD on human keratinocytes and evaluated the protective effect of Rhus semialata M. extracts (RSE) on PPD induced cytotoxicity for the first time. We observed that RSE is a strong inhibitory agent against PPD-induced toxicity in human keratinocytes. The results indicated that RSE pretreatment significantly could suppress PPD induced cytotoxic effects, including decrease of cell viability, accumulation in subG1 phase of cells, and relocation of phosphatidylserine on keratinocytes. Also, we found that PPD caused cytotoxicity was associated with mitochondrial membrane potential loss and subsequent activation of caspase and PARP degradation. However, pretreatment of RSE showed preventive activities against PPD induced mitochondrial membrane potential loss and ROS production in keratinocytes. In conclusion, the results of present study suggest that RSE was able to protect the skin from several cytotoxic effects of PPD and could be a meaningful material in many industries using PPD., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V.)