Social Determinants of Voice Outcomes: The Configurational Analysis of the Effects of LMX and Peer Relationships.

From the perspective of social relationships, this study extends the understanding of employee voice by examining voice outcomes, especially a voicer's influence in their work team. In particular, we explore how two different social relationships, LMX and peer relationship, separately and jointly affect the 'voice-influence' relationship. Drawing on social network theory, we propose that higher LMX and central positions in peer networks (i.e., centrality in the friendship network) strengthen the positive impact of voice on individual influence. From a sample of 128 employees from three firms in South Korea, we found that two types of voice (promotive and prohibitive) are positively related with individual influence. This study also found that LMX strengthened the positive effect of promotive voice on a voicer's influence. Moreover, LMX and peer relationship jointly affect the voice-influence relationship as follows: (1) a voicer with a high LMX-high centrality (in the peer network) is most influential within their team, (2) as for a low LMX-high centrality member, speaking up rather decreases individual influence. These results suggest that voice outcome is not unilateral. Rather, whose voice it is and where a voicer stands may matter more. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings in employee voice research.

Blood Pressure and Cholesterol-lowering Efficacy of a Fixed-dose Combination With Irbesartan and Atorvastatin in Patients With Hypertension and Hypercholesterolemia: A Randomized, Double-blind, Factorial, Multicenter Phase III Study.

PURPOSE: A fixed-dose combination of a stain and an antihypertensive drug may be useful for the treatment of patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia. It may also improve patient drug compliance to help control risk factors of cardiovascular disease. This study was designed to evaluate the blood pressure-lowering and cholesterol-lowering effect of a fixed-dose combination of irbesartan-atorvastatin compared with monotherapy by either agent over an 8-week treatment period. METHODS: Patients with comorbid hypertension and hypercholesterolemia were screened for this randomized, double-blind, Phase III study. Eligible study patients were randomly assigned to test groups receiving a combination of irbesartan 300 mg and atorvastatin 40 mg or 80 mg (IRB300 + ATO40 and IRB300 + ATO80). Comparator groups comprised monotherapy groups with irbesartan 300 mg (IRB300) or atorvastatin 40 mg (ATO40) or atorvastatin 80 mg (ATO80), or placebo. Patients who were eligible at screening were subjected to a 4- to 6-week washout period before commencing 8 weeks of therapy per their assigned group. The primary efficacy end points were percent change in LDL-C and sitting diastolic blood pressure (DBP) levels from baseline to end of therapy. Tolerability profiles of combination therapy were compared with other groups. FINDINGS: A total of 733 patients with comorbid hypertension and hypercholesterolemia were screened for this study; 230 eligible patients were randomized to treatment. The mean age of patients was 58.9 (8.5) years, and their mean body mass index was 25.8 (3.2) kg/m2. More than two thirds (70.9%) of the study patients were male. Mean LDL-C and sitting DBP levels at baseline were 149.54 (29.19) mg/dL and 92.32 (6.03) mm Hg, respectively. Percent reductions in LDL-C after 8 weeks were 46.74% (2.06%) in the IRB300 + ATO40 group and 48.98% (2.12%) in the IRB300 + ATO80 group; these values were 47.13% (3.21%) and 48.30% (2.98%) in the ATO40 and ATO80 comparator groups. Similarly, a reduction in sitting DBP after 8 weeks was -8.50 (1.06) mm Hg in the IRB300 + ATO40 group and 10.66 (1.08) mm Hg in the IRB300 + ATO80 group compared with 8.40 (1.65) mm Hg in the IRB300 group. The incidence rate for treatment-emergent adverse events was 22.27% and was similar between the monotherapy and combination groups. IMPLICATIONS: A once-daily combination product of irbesartan and atorvastatin provided an effective, safe, and more compliable treatment for patients with coexisting hypertension and hyperlipidemia. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01442987.

Low-voltage-driven pentacene thin-film transistors with cross-linked poly(4-vinylphenol)/high-k Bi55b3O15 hybrid dielectric for phototransistor.

This paper describes the fabrication of pentacene thin-film transistors (TFTs) with an organic/inorganic hybrid gate dielectric, consisting of cross-linked poly(4-vinylphenol) (PVP) and Bi5Nb3O15. A 300-nm-thick Bi5Nb3O15 dielectric film, grown at room temperature, exhibits a high dielectric constant (high-k) value of 40 but has an undesirable interface with organic semiconductors (OSC). To form better interfaces with OSC, a cross-linked PVP dielectric was stacked on the Bi5Nb3O15 dielectric. It is shown that, with the introduction of a hybrid dielectric, our devices not only can be operated at a low voltage (- -5 V) but also have improved electrical characteristics and photoresponse, including a field-effect mobility of 0.72 cm2/V x s, current sub-threshold slopes of 0.29 V/decade, and a photoresponse of 4.84 at a gate bias V(G) = 0 V under 100 mW/cm2 AM 1.5 illumination.

Investigation on fabrication of nanoscale patterns using laser interference lithography.

Nanoscale patterns are fabricated by laser interference lithography (LIL) using Lloyd's mirror interferometer. LIL provides a patterning technology with simple, quick process over a large area without the usage of a mask. Effects of various key parameters for LIL, with 257 nm wavelength laser, are investigated, such as the exposure dosage, the half angle of two incident beams at the intersection, and the power of the light source for generating one or two dimensional (line and dot) nanoscale structures. The uniform dot patterns over an area of 20 mm x 20 mm with the half pitch sizes of around 190, 250, and 370 nm are achieved and by increasing the beam power up to 0.600 mW/cm2, the exposure process time was reduced down to 12/12 sec for the positive photoresist DHK-BF424 (DongJin) over a bare silicon substrate. In addition, bottom anti-reflective coating (DUV-30J, Brewer Science) is applied to confirm improvements for line structures. The advantages and limitations of LIL are highlighted for generating nanoscale patterns.

Organic thin film transistor with poly(4-vinylbiphenyl) blended 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene on propyleneglycolmonomethyletheracetate dielectric surface.

This paper presents the latest results in the use of soluble materials, such as organic semiconductors (OSCs) and gate-dielectrics, for simplified processing of organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). In this work, the fabrication of a solution-processed OTFT, with 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) and TIPS-pentacene mixed with poly(4-vinylbiphenyl) (PVBP) as the OSC, and propyleneglycolmonomethyletheracetate (PGMEA) as the gate-dielectric, is described. From electrical measurements, we observed exemplary I-V characteristics for these TFTs. Device performance characteristics have been obtained, including the charge carrier mobility (micro) of 1.47 x 10(-2) cm2Ns, threshold voltage (V(T)) of -11.36 V, current on/off ratio (I(ON/OFF)) of 1.08 x 10(4), sub-threshold swing (SS) of 2.13 V/decade for an OTFT with PVBP blended TIPS-pentacene and micro of 1.39 x 10(-4) cm2/Vs, V(T) of 0.7 V, I(ON/OFF) of 1.64 x 10(3), SS of 4.21 V/decade for an OTFT without polymer binder, individually.

A flexible amorphous Bi(5)Nb(3)O(15) film for the gate insulator of the low-voltage operating pentacene thin-film transistor fabricated at room temperature.

The amorphous Bi(5)Nb(3)O(15) film grown at room temperature under an oxygen-plasma sputtering ambient (BNRT-O(2) film) has a hydrophobic surface with a surface energy of 35.6 mJ m(-2), which is close to that of the orthorhombic pentacene (38 mJ m(-2)), resulting in the formation of a good pentacene layer without the introduction of an additional polymer layer. This film was very flexible, maintaining a high capacitance of 145 nF cm(-2) during and after 10(5) bending cycles with a small curvature radius of 7.5 mm. This film was optically transparent. Furthermore, the flexible, pentacene-based, organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) fabricated on the poly(ether sulfone) substrate at room temperature using a BNRT-O(2) film as a gate insulator exhibited a promising device performance with a high field effect mobility of 0.5 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), an on/off current modulation of 10(5), and a small subthreshold slope of 0.2 V decade(-1) under a low operating voltage of -5 V. This device also maintained a high carrier mobility of 0.45 cm(2) V(-1 )s(-1) during the bending with a small curvature radius of 9 mm. Therefore, the BNRT-O(2) film is considered a promising material for the gate insulator of the flexible, pentacene-based OTFT.