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This article tries to assess the international competitiveness of Korean RES related products in the global market and its determinants. Many industrialized countries tires to take advantage in the newly growing market along with their national energy plans to develop renewables. The Republic of Korea is one of the represen-tative countries seeking the advantage. Therefore, assessing the international competitiveness of Korea in the RES related products market and analyzing determinants affecting the competitiveness has significances in both ways of understanding features of the Korean energy industry and features of the global RES related products market. RCA (Revealed Comparative Advantage) index is employed for assessing the international export competitive-ness of Korea in the global RES related products market and determinants affecting the index are estimated by using DOLS (Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares). RES related products of Korea have competitiveness in the global market. In particular, solar energy products have the higher competitiveness than other sources and it has shown a rapid growth rate for the last decade. To improve competitiveness it is effective for Korea to take economic policies that help technological advancement and improvement of productivity such as investments and education than energy policy for increasing production of renewable energy.

This article tries to assess the energy import diversity of the Republic of Korea and Japan, which are 2 of the biggest energy importing countries and have a higher level of dependency on energy import. Diversity in energy import is one of the major concepts composing the concept of energy security, which is considered as the basement of national energy policy in those countries. In order to assess the energy import diversity, we employ Shannon’s diversity index that is one of the widely used diversity indexes in the field of energy diversity and measure the index from 2000 to 2015. The import diversity indexes of major fossil fuel resources, which are oil, natural gas, and coal, show different levels and trends in both countries. The composite diversity index of energy import of the countries has improved from 2009 and it has been stimulated by the import diversity index of natural gas. Russian natural gas has contributed to the increase in the diversity index of natural gas and it is expected that the diversity index of natural gas could be increased more in the future by the increased volume of imported Russian natural gas. Meanwhile, it is still necessary for both countries to improve oil import diversity, despite the decreasing share of oil in their TPES considering the importance of oil in the industries of the countries and very high dependency of oil imports on the Middle East.

Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) clinically benefits cancer treatment. However, the ICI responses are only achieved in a subset of patients, and the underlying mechanisms of the limited response remain unclear. 160 patients with non‐small cell lung cancer treated with anti‐programmed cell death protein‐1 (anti‐PD‐1) or anti‐programmed death ligand‐1 (anti‐PD‐L1) are analyzed to understand the early determinants of response to ICI. It is observed that high levels of intracellular adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) in tumors and plasma of patients are associated with prolonged survival. Further reverse translational studies using murine syngeneic tumor models reveal that soluble ICAM‐1 (sICAM‐1) is a key molecule that increases the efficacy of anti‐PD‐1 via activation of cytotoxic T cells. Moreover, chemokine (CXC motif) ligand 13 (CXCL13) in tumors and plasma is correlated with the level of ICAM‐1 and ICI efficacy, suggesting that CXCL13 might be involved in the ICAM‐1‐mediated anti‐tumor pathway. Using sICAM‐1 alone and in combination with anti‐PD‐1 enhances anti‐tumor efficacy in anti‐PD‐1‐responsive tumors in murine models. Notably, combinatorial therapy with sICAM‐1 and anti‐PD‐1 converts anti‐PD‐1‐resistant tumors to responsive ones in a preclinical study. These findings provide a new immunotherapeutic strategy for treating cancers using ICAM‐1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how an organization's access to the media reflects two sets of influences--its public relations (PR) expertise and legitimacy. A context of stem cell and the cloning debate is used to test the relationships. Two surveys and a content analysis show that the legitimacy of sources perceived by journalists has an impact on the regularity and valence of those sources' media coverage, whereas the PR expertise of sources does not have an impact on any of the media access indicators. Public relations expertise, however, shows some impact on the legitimacy of sources as perceived by journalists, indicating that legitimacy operates as an intervening variable between PR expertise and media access of sources. Keywords: media access; legitimacy; public relations; stem cell; cloning