The purpose of this study is to build a rural landscape industrial network system and establish the roles and relationships of stakeholders within that system. The rural landscape industrial network system was set up systematically, based on five business model components: value proposition, target customer, value chain/organization, delivery design, and revenue stream. The roles and relationships of stakeholders were established using a case study of the typical industrialization using rural landscape. The proposed rural landscape industrial network system consists of core industry, auxiliary industry, and the network service industry that connects the two. It was designed to have a system for landscapes to maintain their rurality, with the mutual effects among government agencies and local governments, specialized organizations, local residents, and visitors all described in the industries. Data from the rural landscape industrial network system proposed in this study can be used as baseline data to set the direction for industrialization using the rural landscape at villages.

Cockles(Tegillarca granosa) species that found throughout the Indo-Pacific region and this study was conducted in Yeosu from November 2015 through April 2016. Antioxidant activities (lipid peroxidation, DPPH radical scavenging, superoxide anion radical scavenging, reducing power, and iron chelating assays) were studied at different stages during the processing. The results showed that all cockle samples were related to antioxidant activities, they also possessed effective abilities as free radical scavengers, reducing agents, and iron chelators in most cases. Seasonal variations in antioxidant activities were also observed, characterized by high activity values in April, spring season, a period where phytoplankton is their primary food source which propagates considerably. Moreover, the harvested cockles exhibited the higher radical scavenging activities than marketed cockles by compared in the similar concentration and the activities increased with increasing concentration. The results also showed the useful in the assessment of the cockle potential for the development of functional foods, food ingredients or pharmaceuticals. Moreover, keeping the freshness of the cockle during processing chain is pivotal for keeping its antioxidant activities.

Social interactions have been established as a means to help promotions and sales for manufacturers and retailers. Word-of-mouth (WOM), in particular, is proven to increase awareness and drive purchases. Given that small offline retailers have limited resources in marketing, online WOM can play a key role for their offline business performance. In this paper, we focus on two types of online WOM, public discussion and social referral, and study their generation processes by taking into account the multichannel context of both online purchases and offline consumption. To this end, we combine data from three sources: product (or deal)-level sales from a major deal site in South Korea, social interaction records collected by web crawling, and retail revenues at a district level from Korea National Statistical Office. We use a multivariate poison lognormal model to estimate three equations in the same structure with correlated errors, which only differs by the following dependent variables: number of product discussion, number of social referral, and the number of social coupons sold. Our empirical analyses suggest the following. First, the two types of WOM respond in opposite directions for the influencers in the multichannel sales context: the greater number of co-located online deals decreases public discussion but increases social referral. Next, the larger offline retail size increases public discussion, but has no significant effect on social referral. Finally, the results provide practical insights that small offline retailers can improve sales in the multichannel context by effectively managing the generation of different types of online WOM.

The research shopping involves making use of multiple channels for a single shopping incident, such as searching from one channel and buying from another (Neslin et al. 2006, Neslin and Shankar 2009, Verhoef, Neslin and Vroomen 2007). This is an opportunistic behavior on the side of the consumers, and may result in an unfair advantage of the retailers in one channel consumers choose to purchase from. For instance, consumers may browse a product in a brick-and-mortar store, making use of the retail space and sales assistance, and proceed to buy online from another retailer which offers lower price. This is called a “showrooming” behavior (when focusing on the consumer), or channel-free riding (when focusing on the business) (Mehra, Kumar, & Raju 2013, Van Baal & Dach 2005). Offline retailers are wary of this phenomena that may lead to higher costs and lower sales, and attempt to discourage it (Rapp et al. 2015). For instance, Borders and Circuit City, the former US national chains with a substantial offline market presence, went out of business presumably due to the showrooming phenomenon (Gustin, 2012; Passariello, Kapner, & Mesco 2014). However, recent studies show that research shopping across multiple channels within one company can be managed and contributes to firm profitability in the long run (Verhoef, Kannan, & Inman 2015, Zheng et al. 2016). Kumar & Venkatesan (2005) reveal that consumers who uses multiple channels are the ones with greater customer lifetime value and with less churn intention (Blattenberg, Malthouse, & Neslin 2009, Stone, Hobbs, & Khaleeli 2002). Neslin & Shankar (2009) suggest a practical discussion on market strategy in which customers who visited offline stores can be encouraged to repeat-purchase or to foster brand involvement by maintaining contact in another channel (e.g., email newsletter). It is particularly desirable to lure online consumers to an offline site, since they tend to make greater amount of purchases in a brick-and-mortar store (Ansari, Mela, & Neslin 2008). In the age of effortless access to and switching among a plethora of channels by consumers, it is critical for a business to understand and make best of the situation. In this regard, understanding consumers in terms of who are more likely to display research shopping tendency is crucial. Depending on whether a person tends to do research shopping, business should suggest and offer different channels for different purposes (Verhoef, Kannan, & Inman 2015, Zheng et al. 2016). For instance, those with high tendency to research shop can be approached in one channel, and nudged to another for purchasing. Those with low tendency should be directed to the final purchasing channel. With this in mind, we aim to investigate research shopping behaviors and individual covariates of these shoppers using individual-level responses. We conducted an online survey in France during September 2014 in cooperation with an anonymous global marketing research firm. The survey focused mainly on exploring customers’ shopping behavior in the apparel industry, as customers’ research shopping behaviors are salient in this industry because of its experiential attributes (Girard, Silverblatt, & Korgaonkar, 2002; Klein, 1998), while traditional patterns of purchasing using only one channel is also prevalent. After a discussion with the research firm about the French apparel industry and main customers’ demographics, we restricted the respondent pool to those between the ages of 25 and 54 who have abundant experience and an active role in apparel shopping. Responses from a total of 400 participants were used in the analyses. The dataset includes individual-level shopping characteristics, demographic information, and the extent of their research shopping behavior. Specifically, each customer was asked about their apparel shopping history (purchase frequency and expenditures on apparel) over the last three months for both offline and online retailers. In addition, demographic information such as gender, age, and educational background were asked. Using multiple questions, we captured shopper’s shopping traits, such as deal-proneness, quality-consciousness, and the degree of their shopping budget flexibility. To explore the individual characteristics of research shoppers, we modeled the probability of being a research shopper using a logistic regression model. From our modeling results, we suggest two notable findings. First, customers’ qualityconsciousness significantly increases their research shopping behavior, while their deal-proneness exerts little to no influence. We conclude this is due to extensive and systematic search tendency shared by quality-conscious customers, based on previous findings in the literature. That is, quality-consciousness induces customers to search carefully across multiple channels to check on multiple quality dimensions of the options at hand, and possibly discover other similar options that may maximize their satisfaction (Lysonski, Durvasula, & Zotos 1996, Sprotles & Kendall 1986, Wesley, LeHew, & Woodside 2006). However, deal-proneness is not associated with research shopping behavior presumably because the one dimension that these customers value (i.e., price) can be easily searched in one channel—the online channel. The literature supports this finding, since studies show that deal-prone customers tend to shop more online (Close & Kukar-Kinney 2010, Devaraj, Fan, & Kohli 2002, Zhou, Dai, & Zhang 2007). We also find that the association between quality-consciousness and research shopping behavior is more pronounced when the shoppers are flexible with their shopping budget. That is, when shoppers are both quality-conscious and willing and able to consider other options or additional items beside the one they have originally planned before shopping, their research shopping tendency is enhanced. We explain that this is because consumer behaviors and decisions are made upon limited resources (e.g., time, effort, and money), and that customers with flexible resources are more likely to extend and manage their choice set (Maity, Dass, & Malhotra 2014, Malhotra 1982). These consumers do not refrain from including options that are better yet more expensive, as they can afford the superior option that suits their tastes (Becker, 1965; Ghose & Han, 2011), and without the fear of creating regrets due to discovering unaffordable options (Lenton, Fasolo, & Todd 2008). We expect our work on research shopping to provide insights to both researchers and practitioners, as today’s multi-channel environment provides opportunities for businesses to manage their customers strategically over several channels they are present in. Therefore, the research is expected to be a useful reference for understanding multi-channel shoppers for the academics, and a valuable guide to retail firms that aim to not only cope with the multi-channel environment but to become a true omni-channel player.

This paper aims to expand our understanding on the success factors of small businesses, which comprise of more than 90 percent of all businesses in U.S. in 2016. One of the most critical issues behind small business success is the competition, which becomes increasingly intense. Not only small businesses fiercely compete with larger competitors (e.g. Emergence of mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart has intensified the competition in the grocery industry, and, as a result, many mom and pop stores have gone out of business.), but also the competition against each other (i.e. competition between small businesses) becomes increasingly aggressive. Yet, the current literature in marketing have less investigated the issue of competition between small businesses, while issues on competition between small and large businesses have been somewhat explored. Another phenomenon in small business that has not received much attention is the competition between generalist and specialist firms. This phenomenon of specialist versus generalist competition is in fact frequently observed in many industries. Therefore, we study competition between small businesses, focusing on the competition between generalist and specialist small businesses. We examine how competitive intensity, as well as market environmental factors, affect the performance of small businesses. Specifically, we decompose the competitive intensity into two types, one between generalists and the other between specialists, in order to identify the differential effects of competition between generalist and specialist, and examine their impacts on the generalist and specialist performance. Given the research questions above, we develop the following hypotheses based on the past research in marketing. First, we expect competition has a positive effect on generalist performance, while we expect the opposite effect on specialist performance. We also expect that the effect of competition becomes weaker, as the competition becomes more intense. That is, the positive (negative) impact of competition on generalist (specialist) performance becomes less significant as there are more competitors in the market. We further expect that competition between the same type of businesses (e.g. between generalists) has a positive effect on their performance, while competition between the difference types (e.g. between generalist and specialist) has a negative effect on their performance. Moreover, we expect that market environmental factors have differential effects on the performance of generalist and specialist. To test the aforementioned hypotheses on the small business competition between generalist and specialist, we collected data from the health care industry on private physician practices (offices) in Korea. Out data contain, for each practice, monthly sales, number of doctors, number of nurses, type of practice, number of beds and zip code it is located in. We also have data on average consumer spending, average medical spending, percentage of patients over sixty years old for each zip code. Moreover, we have data on competition between the same type of offices (e.g. between generalists and between specialists) and competition between different types (e.g. between generalist and specialist). Note that our data collected from the Korean health care industry fit our research questions well. First, the majority of medical service providers in Korea are small private practices with an average number of two doctors, and the share of generalist and specialist practices are about half-and-half. Second, unlike the U.S. health care industry, generalist physicians in Korea usually practice a number of different fields, while specialist physicians focus on their own specialties. Third, patients in Korea do not usually distinguish between generalist and specialist offices, and they do not usually have a primary care physician. As a result, patients can easily switch between physicians, and in fact the switching is highly likely, as all medical information is centralized by government. Our main findings are as follows. First, we find that competition has a positive effect on generalist performance, while it has a negative effect on specialist performance. Specifically, we find that generalist benefits from competition with both generalist and specialist, while specialist suffers from the competition with both specialist and generalist. As competition becomes intense, meaning the number of physician offices increases, it would attract more patients to visit the area where physician offices are clustered (clustering effect), while it becomes easier for patients to switch from one to the other nearby offices. In particular, as generalist usually treats multiple fields (specialties), generalist tends to benefit from the patients who switch from specialist. In other words, generalists benefit from competition, as they free ride on clustering of physicians including specialists, while specialists would suffer from competition. Second, our findings show that as the competition becomes more intense, its effect on business performance becomes weaker. That is, a high level of competition weakens the benefits and damages imposed on the performance of generalist and specialist, respectively. When there are more physician offices to switch, the effect of free riding becomes weaker, as patients have more options to choose from. Thus, the benefit of generalist from free riding becomes weaker, as well as the negative effect on specialist performance. Moreover, our findings suggest that market environmental factors do influence the business performance. Specifically, the performance of both generalist and specialist improves as the number of doctors increases. However, an increase in the number of nurses has a different effect on generalist and specialist. Employing a larger group of nurses has a negative effect on generalist because it might cause the operation of the office to be less efficient. However, since specialist’s practice usually involves a more technical and sophisticated processes, a larger group of nurses could make the office more efficient having a positive impact on the sales performance. Similarly, we find the effects of other environmental factors have differential impacts on the performance of specialist versus generalist.

Organometal halide perovskite materials, due to the tunability of their electronic and optical properties by control of composition and structure, have taken a position of significant importance in optoelectronic applications such as photovoltaic and lighting devices. Despite numerous studies on the structure - property relationship, however, practical application of these materials in electronic and optical devices is still limited by their processability during fabrication. Achieving nano-sized perovskite particles embedded in a polymer matrix with high loading density and outstanding photoluminescence performance is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that the careful control of nanoparticle formation and growth in the presence of poly(methyl methacrylate) results in perovskite nanoparticle - polymer nanocomposites with very good dispersion and photoluminescence. Furthermore, this approach is found to prevent further growth of perovskite nanoparticles, and thus results in a more uniform film, which enables fabrication using the perovskite nanoparticles.

The ability of plants to endure environmental stress factors, which are going to be more severe due to global warming, is important especially for forest plants. Because obtain trait of resistance to temperature using conventional breeding for woody plants is a time consuming way. In this study, chloroplast-localized OsHSP26 gene was overexpressed in Populus alba L. to breed tolerant transgenic poplar to temperature stress. The plantlets of OsHSP26-overexpressed transgenic poplar showed more heathy phenotypic response than wild-type plants under both prolonged low- and high-temperature stress. While the SPAD value, which refers chlorophyll content, in wild-type plants decreased depending on the exposure time to the temperature stress, higher SPAD value were shown in the transgenic plants. The contents of total phenolic compounds in the transgenic plants were lower than those of the wild-type plants, and not significantly changed except in the treatment of prolonged low-temperature. However, the total flavonoids contents of the transgenic plants were dramatically increased under prolonged temperature stress. The DPPH scavenging activities of the transgenic plants were higher than those of the wild-type plants under temperature stress. Consequently, it was revealed that overexpressing OsHSP26 allow for P. alba to be tolerant to temperature stress.

Purpose: Diabetes is a metabolic disease that occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin (Type I diabetes) or when the body does not effectively use the insulin (Type II diabetes). One of the most common complication of diabetes is diabetic retinopathy(DR). DR is a time-dependent disease and induces blindness. DR produces reactive oxygen species (ROS) and superoxide is mainly made from mitochondria electron chain and it is harmful to eyes. Methods: In this study, eyes were enucleated from glucose-immersed zebrafish which is good model to generate diabetes and then mitochondria were isolated to evaluate activities of mitochondria electron transfer complex. Activity of mitochondrial electron transfer complex in eyes was measured by UV-vis spectrometer. Results: After the glucose immersion, the amount of mitochondria in eyes was increased compared to non-glucose-immersed zebrafish. Mitochondrial complex I, II, III, and IV activities of glucose-immersed zebrafish was improved compared to non-glucose-immersed zebrafish. Conclusions: These results indicated that 3 days or 7 days glucose immersion on zebrafish to induce the early stage of diabetes on zebrafish. Zebrafish might contribute to metabolic compensatory mechanisms in eyes to restore their mitochondrial homeostasis on the early stage of diabetes.

The red ginseng is known to have effects on antioxidativity and cytotoxicity. Nanoscale active substances have various advantages such as improved bioavailability and permeation ability into the cell. However, few studies conducted with the nanoparticles of red ginseng due to its low yield rate and difficulty of manufacturing the product in pilot scale. This study, therefore, investigated the size effects of ultra-fine powder of red ginseng on antioxidativity and cytotoxicity. Red ginseng powder (6, 8, or 158 μm) prepared using a pilot scale was provided by a local company. Antioxidativity was measured by the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2′-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) assays, and cytotoxicity was tested by methylthiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay. The results of DPPH and ABTS radical electron donating ability IC50 of red ginseng were ranged from 2.27 to 3.34 mg/ml and 2.94 to 3.09 mg/ml, respectively, which were not significantly different between all samples. However, the results of cytotoxicity clearly showed a pattern of decreased toxicity in 6 and 8 μm power compared to 158 μm powder. Unexpectedly, particle sizes of red ginseng did not significantly affect antioxidativity. It is believed that these were related to the process of pilot scale production. These phenomena are also believed to be caused by aggregation of low size power particle that increases water holding capacity. From our result, it is concluded that this range of particle size of red ginseng affected the reduction of cytotoxicity.

Recently, Gryllus bimaculatus and the larva of Tenebrio molitor, Protaetia brevitarsis, and Allomyrina dichotoma were enlisted as general food ingredients by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. As the interest in these insects is growing, the detailed investigation is needed for the standardization of suitable and safe rearing techniques. This survey was conducted via personal interviews about edible insect rearing farms in Korea. The basic feed is fermented oak sawdust for P. brevitarsis and A. dichotoma and wheat bran for T. molitor. The various feed additives are blended with each farm’s own recipes. It seems that larval weight was correlated with the rearing density and duration of the larval period. The heavy metal contents were analyzed after 48 hour starvation and they were very small amount or not detected. We believe that the present data will contribute to develop and standardize the safe rearing techniques of edible insects in Korea.

The frequency and time of the outbreak of insect diseases were investigated among the insect-rearing farms by regional groups. The purpose of this study was to predict the insect diseases and reduce the spread of diseases. From February to October 2016, 87 of diseased insects were collected in seven regions. It turned out that the pathogens for fungal diseases were identified as Metarhizium anisopliae. But in case of bacterial diseases, the pathogenicity of the bacteria isolated from the diseased insects were not confirmed. Bacterial diseases occurred mainly in June and August in Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon-do, while in Chungcheong-do, bacterial and viral disease raged. In Jeolla-do, both fungal and bacterial diseases occurred in June. Generally, bacterial diseases occurred mainly from June to October, while the frugal diseases occurred from January to March. It was concluded that the entomopathogenic fungi, Metarhizium anisopliae, tended to cause diseases during late-winter and early spring and bacteria, uncertain, was prone to cause diseases during summer. Therefore, it necessary to adequately control depending on the type of the entomopathogen.

The purpose of this case study was to identify the effects of posteroanterior (PA) mobilization on the cervical spine in a patient with chronic whiplash-associated disorder (WAD). The subject of this study was a 58-year-old woman who sustained a chronic WAD as a result of a motor vehicle accident two years prior. The subject has progressively worsening neck pain and stiffness. The subject was determined to have a grade Ⅱb WAD the use of the Modified Quebec Classification. The intervention was central and unilateral PA mobilization on the spinous process of C4 and C5. The PA mobilizations were performed at the end of range to Maitland grade Ⅳ. The PA mobilization was conducted once daily for a total of eight days. Two sets of measurements were done one before and one after the intervention. Neck pain, cervical stiffness, range of motion and lordosis of the cervical spine were measured. Experimental intervention decreased the neck pain, and increased the neck stiffness and cervical ROM (range of motion) such as flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation. X-ray photographs also represented that cervical curvature increased from 35° to 40°. This study suggested that PA cervical mobilization applied to hronic WAD is effective in decreasing pain, increasing cervical ROM and cervical curvature.

Pilomatricoma is the second most common benign dermal-subcutaneous tumor of the head and neck region, after epidermoid cyst, originating from the outer sheath cells of the hair follicle. It can be easily treated with surgical excision. However, it is a relatively unknown skin lesion to maxillofacial surgeons. Therefore, we report a case of pilomatricoma occuring inferolateral area of the parotid gland in a 54-year-old man; with a review of the relevant literature.

This work focuses on the electrical conduction mechanism in a lead free (Na0.5K0.5NbO3 ; NKN) ceramics system with LiNbO3 content of approximately critical concentration x ≥ 0.2. Lead free (1-x)(Na0.5K0.5)NbO3 - x(LiNbO3), NKN-LNx (x = 0.1, 0.2) ceramics were synthesized by solid-state reaction method. Crystal structures are confirmed by X-ray diffraction. The electric-mechanical bond coefficient k p decreases and the phase transition temperature T c increases with increasing x content, as determined by dielectric and piezoelectric measurements. The value of the real dielectric constants ε' and kBTε'' showed anomalies around T c (462 oC in the NKN-LN0.1 and 500 oC in the NKN-LN0.2). For the ionic conduction of mobile ions, the activation energies are obtained as EI = 1.76 eV (NKN-LN0.1) and EI = 1.55 eV (NKN-LN0.2), above T c, and EII = 0.78 (NKNLN0.1) and EII = 0.81 (NKN-LN0.2) below T c. It is believed that the conduction mechanisms of NKN-LNx ceramics are related to ionic hopping conduction, which may arise mainly due to the jumping of Li+ ions.

We investigate the change of leaf chlorophyll content according to iron content in brown rice when cultivated on the iron limited solid MS medium. By cultivating wild-type and transgenic brown rice in a solid MS medium, we confirmed that iron deficiency chlorosis did not occur in MS media which were contained over 20% of iron content compared to normal MS condition. After selecting twenty kinds of Korean rice varieties, those brown rice were cultivated in solid MS media which were contained from 0 to 15% of iron content compared to normal MS condition then the leaf chlorophyll content was measured. The leaf chlorophyll content was changed according to iron content in brown rice when cultivated in solid MS medium which was contained 0 and 5% of iron content,. There was a strong correlation between iron content in brown rice and leaf chlorophyll content cultivated in solid MS medium with 5% of Fe content. Therefore we expect that analysis of leaf chlorophyll content after cultivated on MS medium with 5% iron content compared to normal MS media condition will be more simple and effective method to screening high iron content brown rice without measurement of iron content.