The e-commerce chapters in South Korea's Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) cover a wide range of issues, ranging from non-discrimination to electronic signatures. Across the agreements, the country's provisions on consumer protection, paperless trading, and data protection are uniquely consistent, while those on other issues are not. With the aid of a framework (Framer v. Follower) that captures the dynamics of bilateral negotiations, this paper argues that in Korea's case, the more consistent a particular set of provisions is portfolio-wide, the more likely it was for Korea to have prioritized the relevant issue and actively pushed its preferred terms in the FTAs.

We assessed characteristics associated with community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) carriage among residents of 22 nursing homes. Of MRSA-positive swabs, 25% (208/824) were positive for CA-MRSA. Median facility CA-MRSA percentage was 22% (range, 0%–44%). In multivariate models, carriage was associated with age less than 65 years (odds ratio, 1.2; P < .001) and Hispanic ethnicity (odds ratio, 1.2; P = .006). Interventions are needed to target CA-MRSA.

GaN films and GaN/AlGaN heterostructures have been gro wn by MBE. GaN films doped with varying levels of Mg indicate effective mass acceptor at low doping concentrations, as determined from strong photoluminescence emission at about 380 nm. As the Mg concentration is increased the photoluminescence emission line red shifts considerably, indicating the formation of Mg-related or induced complexes whose lifetimes are relatively short. GaN/AlGaN separate confinement heterostructures grown on sapphire show strong near ultraviolet stimulated emission at room temperature in a side-pumping configuration. The pumping threshold for stimulated emission at room temperature was found to be ∼90 kW/cm2. Initial GaN films grown on ZnO substrates show the A exciton in low temperature photoluminescence. ZnO is being considered for nitride growth because of its stacking order and close lattice match.