No abstract

PurposeNew business models, such as life‐cycle contracting, challenge the narrow and static understanding of contracts with hard and precise terms. The aim of this paper is to examine how flexibility could be incorporated into contracting processes.Design/methodology/approachThe data of the paper have been gathered applying the triangular method; first, by interviewing key personnel participating in contracting at eight Finnish firms; second, examining contract and other documents of those companies; and third, studying earlier research on contracting practices. Theoretically, the paper is based on relational contract and proactive approaches to law on the one hand and on organizational studies based on new institutional economics on the other.FindingsFlexibility is often introduced to contracts with relational methods, relying on good personal relationships between business partners or negotiation power and negotiation skills. Contract documents often do not contain mechanisms for dealing with contingencies, or “soft” contract terms. The paper finds the following reasons that may explain this. First, firms heavily rely on model contracts to develop their own templates and the lack of contract models in new business areas hinders firms to develop their templates. Second, unfamiliarity with using soft elements makes it difficult to use them. Additionally, in some cases firms may prefer using relational capability.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings need verification from further multidisciplinary empirical research.Practical implicationsThe findings support firms in developing their contracting capabilities to meet the requirements of the changing business environment and gain competitive advantage from well‐organized contracting.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first empirical studies comprising also the legal approach.

A multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was developed for simultaneous detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Bacillus cereus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus in various Korean ready-to-eat foods. The six specific primer pairs for multiplex PCR were selected based on the O157 antigen (rfbE) gene of E. coli O157:H7, the DNA gyrase subunit B (gyrB) gene of B. cereus, the toxin regulatory protein (toxR) gene of V. parahaemolyticus, the invasion protein A (invA) gene of Salmonella spp., the hemolysin (hly) gene of L. monocytogenes, and the thermonuclease (nuc) gene of S. aureus. The 16S rRNA gene was targeted as an internal control gene in the presence of bacterial DNA. The specificity and sensitivity assays for multiplex primer pairs were investigated by testing different strains. When this multiplex PCR assay was applied to evaluate the validity of detecting six foodborne pathogens in artificially inoculated several ready-to-eat food samples, the assay was able to specifically simultaneously detect as few as 1 colony-forming unit/mL of each pathogen after enrichment for 12 h. Their presence in naturally contaminated samples also indicates that the developed multiplex PCR assay is an effective and informative supplement for practical use.

Toxigenic Staphylococcus aureus contamination in ready-to-eat (RTE) food is a leading cause of foodborne illness in Korea. To monitor food contamination by S. aureus, a total of 3332 RTE food samples were selected from nationwide wholesale marts between 2003 and 2004 and examined. A total of 285 (8.6%) of the overall samples were contaminated by S. aureus. According to the analysis, 31.6% of the tested cream-cakes, 19.8% of the raw fish, and 19.3% of the rice cakes with filling were contaminated with S. aureus. Forty-seven percent of the strains isolated from the contaminated food were enterotoxigenic S. aureus. The phenotypic result of the strain isolated from food showed that 48% of the strains produced one or more toxins, such as staphylococcal enterotoxins A, B, and C (SEA, SEB, and SEC). At least one SEA was produced by over 90% of the toxigenic strains. Other toxins, such as SEB, SEC, SED, SEA+SEC, and SEC+SED, were each detected. Toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1), a causative agent of toxic shock syndrome, was detected in 13 strains of the toxigenic isolates from the food. As the result of genotyping, 22 strains with a toxin gene that was not detected in the phenotypic analysis were also detected. Sixty-nine percent of the toxigenic strains had at least one sea gene, and the most prevalent genotype was sea+seh (34.4%), followed by sea (18.8%) and sea+seg+sei (15.6%). The tst gene encoding TSST-1 was found in 13 strains (13.5%). The genes (eta and etb) encoding exfoliative toxins A and B were not detected in any of the samples.

The aim of the present work was to investigate the feasibility of employing the molecular imprinting polymer technique for detecting the mycotoxin zearalenone using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) transducer. The molecularly imprinted polypyrrole (MIPPy) film was prepared by electropolymerization of pyrrole onto the bare Au chip in the presence of a template zearalenone molecule. The MIPPy-SPR sensor exhibited a linear response in the range of 0.3-3000 ng/mL (R (2) = 0.993) for detection of zearalenone. The selectivity efficiencies of zearalenone and other structurally related analogues were 1.0 and 0.15-0.27, respectively. The limit of detection and average recovery of blank corn matrix spiked with 30 ng/g zearalenone were 0.3 ng/g and 89%, respectively, and these were found to be comparable to those obtained by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. These results suggest that a combination of SPR sensing with MIPPy film is a promising alternative method for the detection of zearalenone.

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women. We searched for qualified studies in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. The clinical characteristics of pregnant women with COVID-19 and their infants were reported as means and proportions with 95% confidence interval (CI). Nine studies involving with 93 pregnant women with COVID-19 and 103 infants were included in the meta-analysis. Pregnant women with COVID-19 have relatively mild symptoms. However, abnormal proportions of laboratory parameters were similar or even increased, compared to general population. Around 30% of pregnant women with COVID-19 experienced preterm delivery, whereas the mean birth weight was 3214.7g. Fetal death, severe neonatal asphyxia, and detection of SARS-CoV-2 were observed in about 2%, whereas no neonatal death was found. In conclusion, the current review will serve as an ideal basis for future considerations in the treatment and management of COVID-19 in pregnant women.

Bacillus cereus can cause emetic and diarrheal types of food poisoning, but little study has been done on the toxins and toxin-encoding genes of B. cereus strains isolated from Sunsik, a Korean ready-to-eat food prepared from grains, fruits, and vegetables. In this study, 39 unique B. cereus strains were isolated and identified from Sunsik samples, with an average contamination level of 10 to 200 CFU/g. The detection rates of the hblACD, cytK, and bceT genes among all the strains were 48.7, 66.7, and 87.1%, respectively. All 39 B. cereus strains carried nheABC and entFM genes, and 36 strains also had the ces gene, which encodes an emetic toxin. Nonhemolytic enterotoxin and hemolysin BL enterotoxin were produced by 39 and 26 strains, respectively. The strains were separated into 13 profiles based on the presence or absence of toxins and their genes, as determined by antibody tests and PCR analysis. Profile 1 was the largest group, comprising 30.7% (12 of 39) of the B. cereus strains tested; these strains harbored all toxins and their genes. The B. cereus strains were susceptible to most of the antibiotics tested but were highly resistant to β-lactam antibiotics. The repetitive element sequence polymorphism PCR fingerprints of the B. cereus strains were not influenced by the presence of toxin genes or antibiotic resistance profiles. Our results suggest that B. cereus strains from Sunsik could cause either the diarrheal or emetic types of food poisoning because all strains isolated contained at least one toxin and its gene, although the level of B. cereus contamination in Sunsik was low.

The purpose of the paper is to empirically study firms' practises of knowledge and intellectual property (IP) management in customer-supplier relationships. The work applies the qualitative methodology of multiple case studies, and the material was collected in semi-structured interviews with management personnel at 36 organisations in Finland and in the Netherlands. Almost every firm had innovation relationships with their customers and suppliers, but the forms these relationships took, and the kinds of practices they involved, varied greatly. As a result, the firms considered the management of knowledge and IP in these relationships very challenging. We argue that by distinguishing knowledge management in the exploration phase of new business from knowledge management in the exploitation phase of innovation outcome, the firms could manage the knowledge and IP better. Accordingly, the paper introduces three propositions to support the knowledge and IP management in customer-supplier relationships.