East Asian Languages and Cultures

i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements are more than a list of names; it is recognition of those who have been crucial in making this thesis possible and gratitude to all the important people in my life who have always inspired and supported me during my research.

A previously healthy 54-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of nausea and increasing weakness. On physical examination, blood pressure was 100/60 and he was afebrile. Heart and lung exam were normal and the liver was of normal size. There was no peripheral edema. Laboratory studies showed hemoglobin of 8.1 g/dL, BUN of 169 mg/dL, and creatinine level of 12.2 mg/dL. Liver function tests were normal. Coagulation profile showed a prothrombin time (PT) of 47 s (normal: 13-15) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) of 71 s (normal: 24-35). Both kidneys appeared hyperechoic but no hydronephrosis on ultrasound. He was anuric on admission and was started on intermittent hemodialysis. Renal biopsy was not performed due to coagulopathy. Attempt to correct the coagulation abnormality with Vitamin K and fresh frozen plasma was unsuccessful. Further evaluation of the prolonged PT and APTT showed a factor X deficiency. Bone marrow aspiration revealed 3% kappa clonal plasma cells and amyloid deposits. Hospitalization was complicated with gastrointestinal bleed and hemoperitoneum. Recombinant factor VIIa was given but he continued to have uncontrollable bleeding. His condition deteriorated rapidly and died.

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are widely used as bone graft substitutes in spinal fusion, but are associated with numerous adverse effects. The growth factor Nel-like molecule-1 (Nell-1) is mechanistically distinct from BMPs and can minimize complications associated with BMP therapies. This study evaluates the efficacy of Nell-1 combined with demineralized bone matrix (DBM) as a novel bone graft material for interbody spine fusion using sheep, a phylogenetically advanced animal with biomechanical similarities to human spine. Nell-1 + sheep DBM or Nell-1 + heat-inactivated DBM (inDBM) (to determine the osteogenic effect of residual growth factors in DBM) were implanted in surgical sites as follows: (1) DBM only (control) (n = 8); (2) DBM + 0.3 mg/mL Nell-1 (n = 8); (3) DBM + 0.6 mg/mL Nell-1 (n = 8); (4) inDBM only (control) (n = 4); (5) inDBM + 0.3 mg/mL Nell-1 (n = 4); (6) inDBM + 0.6 mg/mL Nell-1 (n = 4). Fusion was assessed by computed tomography, microcomputed tomography, and histology. One hundred percent fusion was achieved by 3 months in the DBM + 0.6 mg/mL Nell-1 group and by 4 months in the inDBM + 0.6 mg/mL Nell-1 group; bone volume and mineral density were increased by 58% and 47%, respectively. These fusion rates are comparable to published reports on BMP-2 or autograft bone efficacy in sheep. Nell-1 is an independently potent osteogenic molecule that is efficacious and easily applied when combined with DBM.

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for aneuploidy using cell-free DNA in maternal plasma has been widely adopted. Recently, NIPT coverage has expanded to detect subchromosomal abnormalities including the 22q11.2 deletion. Validation of a SNP-based NIPT for detection of 22q11.2 deletions demonstrating a high sensitivity (97.8%) and specificity (99.75%) has been reported. We sought to further demonstrate the performance of a revised version of the test in a larger set of pregnancy plasma samples. Blood samples from pregnant women (10 with 22q11.2-deletion‒affected fetuses and 390 negative controls) were successfully analyzed using a revised SNP-based NIPT for the 22q11.2 deletion. The sensitivity and specificity of the assay were measured. Sensitivity of the assay was 90% (9/10), and specificity of the assay was 99.74% (389/390), with a corresponding false positive-rate of 0.26%. The data presented in this study add to the growing body of evidence demonstrating the ability of the SN...

"Frederic Jameson's "Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism" holds that the developed world's critics had best interpret the developing world's literature as a collection of national allegories. I challenge this view, arguing that the most well-known examples of such are obviously national allegories, and are well-known for this reason. Works that are not national allegories are more difficult to understand from the perspective of the West, and works that have never been translated into Latin languages - or were written by authors who have never learned Latin languages - even moreso.

Jameson's primary example - Lu Xun -  is presented as a man obsessed with and highly knowledgable of Western literature; an all-too-perfect subject of Jameson's study. I argue that he typifies the developing-world author who has made themselves easily incorporable into an international modern canon that still has not moved beyond the confines of European culture."

"This paper traces the outlandish and essentializing claims of Neil Jamieson in Understanding Vietnam through his sources to the orientalist, adventurer, and son of a French colonial administrator in Vietnam, Paul Mus. It attempts to show that Mus' work was orientalist and that some major works citing him have been encouraged by his work to take that tack.

This is pretty straightforward. It rehashes an argument out of Buddhology in the 80's and early 90's, over whether it's right to faithfully accept the word of the Meiji state of over a century ago by parsing Buddism and Shinto as they did, and considering the latter to be a genuinely "Japanese" belief system. It also addresses the question of to what extent European concepts of distinct and implicitly competitive religions can be exported to premodern Japan.

This presentation compares descriptions of 2 polities foreign to the Ming, written in the first half of the 15th century by Ma Huan, a Chinese Muslim eunuch serving aboard the Treasure Fleet of Admiral Zheng He.

The polities are the kingdom of Champa in present-day northern Vietnam, and the city-state of Calicut along the spice trade on India's southwest coast (present-day Kozhikode). The presentation establishes that Ma Huan derided the near and familiar Champan kingdom, while praising the distant and exotic city-state, and aligns this with Ming state interests at this time.

This paper establishes that, in the English language, the study of Byzantine court eunuchs has been much more fruitful than that devoted to Chinese court eunuchs. It outlines some stereotypical assumptions concerning all eunuchs, to which sinologists still cleave but which historians of the Eastern Roman Empire have overcome with the help of insights from gender studies.

This presentation examines the origins of the translinguistic super-sign referred to in the title. It shows primarily how the term 封建, once associated with utopian visions of the ancient Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE), came to become a catchall term in China and Japan for all things backward and exploitative.

This MA thesis for Columbia's East Asian Languages & Cultures program identifies and loosely traces what I translate as "investiture-prefecture" discourse in Chinese imperial thought from the late Tang (8th c.) dynasty to the turn of the 20th century. It includes the most complete English translation of Liu Zongyuan's (773-819)  "On Investiture" - my own rendering of the title of his essay. And it takes issue with certain conventions in the translation of the Chinese character 封 and related characters, exemplifying the more sound practice that it espouses.

This presentation, based on my 2nd dissertation chapter, shows ways in which the Chinese Ming dynasty of 1368-1644 reacted against the pan-continental diversity of its predecessor the Mongol empire.

(The chapter topic is adapted to the theme of the Consortium for Asian & African Studies' 2021 symposium at the School of Oriental & African Studies, 'Representing Diversity & Diversifying Representation.')