Western drywood termite, Incisitermes minor, is distributed southwestern USA and northern Mexico. Invasions had been reported to Canada, China, Hawaii and Japan. Incisitermes minor may be introduced through wooden structures. In California and Arizona, it caused economic damage of about $250 million. In September 2023, it was discovered in a house in Changwon-city, Korea and a joint investigation was conducted by APQA and other government agencies. The 16S rRNA sequence was used in the molecular epidemiological investigation to trace the origin of the invasion. Five individuals found in Changwon and 18 foreign sequences collected by NCBI were compared. A total of 462bp of base sequences were compared, and the genetic distance was observed to range from a minimum of 0.000 to a maximum of 0.1791. They were most genetically similar to the California individual in the United States.

Drywood termite (Cryptotermes domesticus), native to South East Asia, is distributed in India, China, Taiwan, Australia and so on. In China, it is considered an economically important pest causing damage to wood. It lives in dry wood environments such as furniture, buildings, and structural timber. It is difficult to find drywood termite within a structure but it can be detected by the presence of alate flight and small egg-like pellets of excreta. It was found in a house in Seoul, Korea in July 2023 and was investigated joint by APQA, National Institute of Ecology, National Institute Biological Resources, National Institute of Forest Science, Cultural Heritage Administration and Gyeongsang National University. The COII barcode region was analized with PCR method and compared with the sequences of all C. domesticus registered in NCBI 557bp of base sequence. Genetic difference ranged from a minimum of 0.0072 to a maximum of 0.0557. Among these, the individual with the minimum genetic distance was from Guangdong Province, China.

Fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a polyphagous agricultural pest that damages about 80 species of plants. It mainly damages Poaceae and plants used as food resources for humans. Its original habitat is the American continent, but it unintentionally settled in tropical and subtropical Asia, including Africa, India, and Sri Lanka. It occurs every year even in southern China, which is geographically adjacent to the Korean Peninsula, causing damage to crops. In Korea, it was first discovered on Jeju Island in June 2019 and is being discovered every year in Jeju and some inland areas. In 2023, there were a total of 13 discoveries, including those in the Jeju and Jeonbuk regions. Quarantine agency identified the maternal genotypes of all currently discovered individuals using COI and identified differences in genetic traits between individuals using the sex-related Z-chromosome. For comparison with the information on the individuals that invaded the country, 15 individuals from Guangxi and Guangdong provinces in China were collected and secured. Through the analysis of overseas samples, a database has been added to compare genetic information with domestic invasive species, and the reliability of the analysis is expected to increase.

Solenopsis invicta, known as the red imported fire ant, is an insect native to South America. This species was unintentionally introduced into Australia, New Zealand, several Asian countries, Caribbean countries, and the United States. It shows a high survival rate and settlement potential in human-habitable and non-living areas such as tropical rainforests, disturbed areas, deserts, grasslands, and roads. In Korea, invasions of red fire ants have been reported every year since 2017, and two invasions were discovered in 2023. Quarantine agency analyzing the haplotype and colony social type of S. invicta for surveillance and control. Population genetic analysis using Microsatellite Alleleic data of 66 loci to trace the origin of the invasion. Through research cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), we have received samples and expanded our genetic information database. This study analyzed genetic differences between 15 invasive populations and 44 reference groups. As a result of microsatellite analysis, the domestic invasive population showed a genetic structure similar to those in Guangzhou, China, and Florida, USA.

This study examines how service innovation influences consumers’ perceived service luxuriousness and willingness to pay more. Service innovation influences willingness to pay more when service luxuriousness mediates. Type of service (functional vs. emotional) and level of brand equity (high vs. low) moderate the relationship between service innovation and service luxuriousness.

As ESG (environmental, social, and governance) has become a major business trend, many firms put ESG into their business practice to fulfill market and stakeholders' demands (Wang et al., 2016). With a growing emphasis on ESG, firms must decide how to integrate ESG into their organizational strategy. Although ESG is a popular business trend, it is meaningless if ESG reduces firm value. For successful ESG implementation, ESG strategy must be integral to the business model (Duque-Grisales and Aguilera-Caracuel, 2021). With the integration of ESG into the firm's business process, sustainable activities enable firms to improve their economic and social performance by tapping into the synergies between business and societal agendas (Duque-Grisales and Aguilera-Caracuel, 2021). Core competence refers to an organization's accumulated strength compared to other organizations in the industry (Wheelen, 2019). It is the unique integration of leadership, technologies, specialized skills and knowledge, organizational culture, and the working possesses (Wheelen, 2019). Even though the literature on ESG emphasizes integrating ESG into firms’ core capabilities, there are only a few studies that developed ESG implementation and integration framework in specific dimensions (Fatima & Elbanna, 2022) and the literature shows mixed results. Since previous research presents unclear results regarding ESG implementation and firms' core competencies, this study aims to 1) investigate how ESG strategy could integrate with firms' core competencies and 2) clarify ESG embeddedness drivers. The findings provide significant implications for academics and managers by clarifying how firms can enhance their value through ESG with firms' core competencies.

Despite the importance of technology-based innovation and customer participation for both practitioners and academics, the impact of different customer participation types in new product innovation has rarely been addressed. Since consumers' positive assessment of new technologies leads to positive outcomes in the market, consumer evaluation of new technologies is important. Thus, examining the consumer perception of technology-based innovation including the different levels of customer participation is meaningful to new theoretical and practical insights.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations have become increasingly important for firms' sustainability. Mandates for ESG information disclosure have been implemented in over 25 countries, including the EU, Australia, and China (Krueger et al., 2021). However, little attention has been paid to the drivers and mechanisms of ESG, which remain unclear. The existing literature has mainly focused on the consequences of ESG which shows mixed results and paid little attention to the drivers of ESG (Paolone et al., 2021). The majority of prior research suggests that ESG activities positively affect firms' financial performance (Nekhili et al., 2019). On the other hand, some researchers show a significant and negative relationship between ESG performance and a firm's financial performance (Duque-Grisales and Aguilera-Caracuel, 2021). To fill the research gap, this study attempts to identify 1) firms' internal and external factors that lead to ESG performance as drivers of ESG, and 2) firm performance as the consequences of ESG. The study found that environmental innovation activities, ESG committees, external audits, and ESG compensations related to environmental innovation could be drivers of ESG application and performance, leading to better firm performance. Moreover, the findings indicate that ESG performance positively affects firms' financial and non-financial performance. Understanding the adoption of ESG is crucial for firms since ESG requires a long-term perspective. This study contributes to the literature on ESG and firm sustainability and suggests new directions for managers to implement ESG in their business model. Especially, this study argues that taking a carrot-and-stick approach could lead to better ESG performance and firm performance. Therefore, managers might consider internal policies to encourage ESG that can lead to better firm performance.

To improve light absorption ability in the visible light region and the efficiency of the charge transfer reaction, Pd nanoparticles decorated with reduced TiO2 nanotube photocatalyst were synthesized. The reduced TiO2 nanotube photocatalyst was fabricated by anodic oxidation of Ti plate, followed by an electrochemical reduction process using applied cathodic potential. For TiO2 photocatalyst electrochemically reduced using an applied voltage of -1.3 V for 10 min, 38% of Ti4+ ions on TiO2 surface were converted to Ti3+ ion. The formation of Ti3+ species leads to the decrease in the band gap energy, resulting in an increase in the light absorption ability in the visible range. To obtain better photocatalytic efficiency, Pd nanoparticles were decorated through photoreduction process on the surface of reduced TiO2 nanotube photocatalyst (r10-TNT). The Pd nanoparticles decorated with reduced TiO2 nanotube photocatalyst exhibited enhanced photocurrent response, and high efficiency and rate constant for aniline blue degradation; these were ascribed to the synergistic effect of the new electronic state of the TiO2 band gap energy induced by formation of Ti3+ species on TiO2, and by improvement of the charge transfer reaction.

For the purpose of manufacturing a high efficiency TiO2 photocatalyst, B-doped TiO2 photocatalysts are synthesized using a plasma electrolytic oxidation method in 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte with different concentrations of H3BO3 as additive. For the B doped TiO2 layer fabricated from sulfuric electrolyte having a higher concentration of H3BO3 additive, the main XRD peaks of (101) and (200) anatase phase shift gradually toward the lower angle direction, indicating volume expansion of the TiO2 anatase lattice by incorporation of boron, when compared with TiO2 layers formed in sulfuric acid with lower concentration of additive. Moreover, XPS results indicate that the center of the binding energy peak of B1s increases from 191.45 eV to 191.98 eV, which suggests that most of boron atoms are doped interstitially in the TiO2 layer rather than substitutionally. The B doped TiO2 catalyst fabricated in sulfuric electrolyte with 1.0 M H3BO3 exhibits enhanced photocurrent response, and high efficiency and rate constant for dye degradation, which is ascribed to the synergistic effect of the new impurity energy band induced by introducing boron to the interstitial site and the improvement of charge transfer reaction.