This paper examines the impact of cross-ownership on the strategic incentive of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) within a green managerial delegation contract in a triopoly market engaged in price competition. It demonstrates that bilateral cross-ownership between insiders provides weak incentives to undertake ECSR, which has a non-monotone relationship with cross-ownership shares, while it provides strong incentives for outsiders, which increases the ECSR level as cross-ownership increases. It also compares unilateral cross-ownership and finds that a firm that owns shares in its rival has a greater incentive to undertake ECSR than its partially-owned rival, while an outsider has more incentive than firms in bilateral scenarios. These findings reveal that a firm's incentive to increase a market price through ECSR critically depends on its cross-ownership share, while it decreases environmental damage and increases social welfare when the environmental damage is serious.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a main pathogen causing community-acquired pneumonia in children and young adults. Since the emergence of macrolide-resistant M. pneumoniae in the early 2000s in Japan, it has been increasingly reported worldwide as a growing problem in treatment for children. With increasing macrolide-resistant M. pneumoniae and limited data regarding its characterization and molecular analysis, we investigated the dominant M. pneumoniae strains during the recent outbreak in South Korea, and evaluated if there was an association between a specific type and macrolide resistance. Between October 2014 and December 2016 in South Korea, 249 respiratory specimens obtained from patients with confirmed M. pneumoniae pneumonia were genotyped the P1 adhesin gene, and the mutations associated with resistance (A2063G and A2064G) were tested by sequencing the targeted domain V regions of the 23S ribosomal RNA gene. Results revealed that M. pneumoniae type 1 were predominant, which was strongly associated with macrolide-resistance during the whole study period. This is the first study assessing whether M. pneumoniae subtype is related to macrolide resistance during the outbreak of M. pneumoniae.

It has not been well established whether dietary folate intake reduces the risk of diabetes development. We aimed to clarify the prospective association between dietary folate intake and type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk among 7333 Korean adults aged 40 years or older who were included in the Multi-Rural Communities Cohort. Dietary folate intake was estimated from all 106 food items listed on a FFQ, not including folate intake from supplements. Two different measurements of dietary folate intake were used: the baseline consumption and the average consumption from baseline until just before the end of follow-up. The association between folate intake and T2D risk was determined through a modified Poisson regression model with a robust error estimator controlling for potential confounders. For 29 745 person years, 319 cases of diabetes were ascertained. In multivariable analyses, dietary folate intake was inversely associated with risk of T2D for women, not for men. For women, the incidence rate ratio of diabetes in the third tertile compared with the first tertile was 0·57 (95 % CI 0·38–0·87, Pfor trend=0·0085) in the baseline consumption model and 0·64 (95 % CI 0·43–0·95, Pfor trend=0·0244) in the average consumption model. These inverse associations was found in both normal fasting blood glucose group and impaired fasting glucose group among women. Among non-users of multinutrients and vitamin supplements, the significant inverse association remained. Thus, higher dietary intake of folate is prospectively associated with lower risk of diabetes for women.

A total of forty weaned pigs ((Landrace×Yorkshire)×Duroc) were used to evaluate the effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus on inflammatory activity after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge. Experimental treatments were as follows: (T1) control diet+saline challenge; (T2) control diet with 0·1 % L. acidophilus+saline challenge; (T3) control diet+LPS challenge; and (T4) control diet with 0·1 % L. acidophilus+LPS challenge. On d-14, piglets were challenged with saline (T1 and T2) or LPS (T3 and T4). Blood samples were obtained at 0, 2, 4, 6 and 12 h after being challenged and analysed for immune cell cytokine production and gene expression pattern. The L. acidophilus treatment increased the average daily weight gain (ADWG) and average daily feed intake (ADFI) compared with the control diet. With the control diet, the LPS challenge (T3) increased the number of immune cells and expression of TNF-α and IL-6 compared with the saline challenge (T1). Whereas with the saline challenge L. acidophilus treatment (T2) increased the number of leucocytes and CD4 compared with the control diet (T1), with the LPS challenge L. acidophilus treatment (T4) decreased the number of leucocytes, lymphocytes, CD4+ and CD8+ and expression of TNF-α and IL-6 compared with the control diet (T3). L. acidophilus treatment decreased the expression of TRL4 and NF-κB in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) after LPS challenge, which leads to inhibition of TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-8 and IL1B1 and to induction of IL-4 and IL-10. We suggested that L. acidophilus improved ADWG and ADFI and protected against LPS-induced inflammatory responses by regulating TLR4 and NF-κB expression in porcine PBMC.

During the past decade, carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) has emerged and spread across the world.1 The major carbapenemase enzymes currently being reported are KPC, NDM-1, VIM, IMP, and OXA.2 Because carbapenemase can be effectively transmitted via mobile genetic elements, and current therapeutic options for CPE infections are extremely limited, CPE may be one of the most serious contemporary threats to public health. However, very little is known about the characteristics of CPE carriage during hospitalization. The aims of this study were to investigate the clearance rate of CPE carriage and determine the number of consecutive negative cultures required to confirm CPE clearance. We also examined CPE transmission among hospitalized patients.

Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2015;36(11):1361–1362

We report on the formation of highly flexible and transparent TiO2/Ag/ITO multilayer films deposited on polyethylene terephthalate substrates. The optical and electrical properties of the multilayer films were investigated as a function of oxide thickness. The transmission window gradually shifted toward lower energies with increasing oxide thickness. The TiO2 (40 nm)/Ag (18 nm)/ITO (40 nm) films gave the transmittance of 93.1% at 560 nm. The relationship between transmittance and oxide thickness was simulated using the scattering matrix method to understand high transmittance. As the oxide thickness increased from 20 to 50 nm, the carrier concentration gradually decreased from 1.08 × 1022 to 6.66 × 1021 cm−3, while the sheet resistance varied from 5.8 to 6.1 Ω/sq. Haacke's figure of merit reached a maximum at 40 nm and then decreased with increasing oxide thickness. The change in resistance for the 60 nm-thick ITO single film rapidly increased with increasing bending cycles, while that of the TiO2/Ag/ITO (40 nm/18 nm/40 nm) film remained virtually unchanged during the bending test.

The solid-state reaction of yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG, Y3Al5O12) during the heat treatment of Y2O3 and Al2O3 powder mixtures, differing in particle size and size ratio, was quantified using in situ high-temperature x-ray analysis and Rietveld refinement. Y2O3 particle size has the most profound effect on YAG formation. When the Y2O3 particle size was decreased from 5000 to 30 nm (on reaction with 270 nm Al2O3), the YAG formation rate increased from 20 to 48 vol% min−1 over the temperature range of 1350–1450 °C. In this case, the final YAG content increased from 75 to 91 vol%. A simple model that includes the reactant particle coordination number, and thus particle size ratio, shows that when the size ratio (dA/dY) is >1 diffusion through the alumina powder is rate controlling whereas when the ratio is <1, diffusion through the yttria, intermediate phases, and YAG is rate controlling.

This work demonstrates design methods that can achieve remarkable enhancement in the stopband response of microstrip coupled-line filters. The frequencies of resonance and/or the transmission zeros of a coupled-line section can be controlled by its length. Therefore, by constructing a filter with coupled lines of incommensurate lengths such that these frequencies do not overlap, substantial improvement in the stopband response can be obtained. Besides its compact structure and simple design procedure, an unprecedented performance is demonstrated experimentally in which the transmission level is maintained below −20 dB up to as high as 11.9 f0 for a third-order filter, where f0 is the center frequency.

The electroluminescent characteristics of blue organic light-emitting diodes(BOLEDs) were fabricated with single emitting layer using host-dopant system and doped charge carrier transport layers. The structure of the high efficiency BOLED device was; NPB(600Å)/NPB:BCzVBi-7%(100Å)/ADN:BCzVBi-7%(300Å)/BAlq:BCzVBi-7%(100Å)/BAlq(200Å)/Liq(20Å)/Al(1200Å) to optimize probability of exciton generation by doping BCzVBi in emitting layer and hole/electron transport layers(HTL/ETL) as well. Luminance and luminous efficiency of BOLED doped BCzVBi in EML and HTL/ETL improved from 10090 cd/m2 at 9.5V and 6.44 cd/A at 4.0V to 13190 cd/m2 at 9.5V and 7.64 cd/A at 4.0V about 30% and 18%, respectively, with CIE coordinates of (0.14, 0.17) comparing to BOLED doped BCzVBi in EML only

In this study, we fabricated blue OLEDs with quantum well structure (QWS) using four different blue emissive materials such as DPVBi, ADN and DPASN, and BAlq as QWS material. Conventional QWS blue OLEDs used to be composed of emissive layer and charge blocking layer with lower HOMO-LUMO energy level, but we designed triple emitting layer for more significant hole-electron recombination in EML and a wider region of exciton generation as forming QWS spontaneously. The structure of triple emitting layered blue OLED is ITO / NPB(700 Å) / X(100 Å) / BAlq(100 Å) /X (100 Å) / Bphen(300 Å) / Liq(20 Å) / Al(1200 Å) (X= DPVBi, ADN, DPASN). HOMO-LUMO energy levels of DPVBi, ADN, DPASN and BAlq were 2.8-5.9, 2.6-5.6, 2.3-5.2 and 2.9-5.9 eV, respectively. The maximum luminous efficiency was 5.32 cd/A at 3.5 V in a blue OLED with DPASN / BAlq / DPASN QWS.

Here we report an epoch-making simple fabrication for wrinkle formation. The present wrinkle formation process is a solution for controlling the area, shape and direction of wrinkle area by forming wrinkles on the liquid state polydimethylsiloxane directly exposed to sputtered metal particles in the low vacuum plasma chamber in various vacuum states and deposition conditions. Also the process allows us to make extremely flexible metal thin film electrode with approved adhesion. These bring us possibilities of actual electrical and biological applications.