Search

Centralized high-throughput purification laboratories routinely produce large numbers of test tubes with fractions containing the purified compounds of interest interspersed with test tubes containing fractions collected from undesired peaks. Because the next step after purification entails the removal of the solvent in a centrifugal evaporator with multiple sample positions per rotor, select test tubes must be labeled prior to dry-down to track the identity of each compound. The diversity of test tube sizes and tray configurations from different chromatography system vendors complicates this labeling task. Therefore, the development of an automated tube labeler that can accommodate a multitude of test tube and tray sizes can reduce the chances of error as well as reduce the hands-on labor required to complete this tedious but essential task. Custom hardware and software have been implemented to inform and to enable the Pick-n-Place arm of a commercially available Tecan EVO robotic system to pick up and present select tubes, filled with purified chromatography fractions from a multitude of vendor trays, to a custom label application station integrated with a commercially available Zebra label printer. Particular challenges existed with accurately positioning tubes in Agilent G1364-84544 trays onto the deck of the instrument. The resulting instrument reduces hands-on time for labeling fractions by approximately 60%.

Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (EnCSR) literacy have gradually become emphasized. This study designed an EnCSR curriculum that was specifically designed for undergraduate tourism and hospitality students. Furthermore, we examined EnCSR through qualitative and quantitative instruments. The students in the experimental group showed significant progress in moral, EnCSR examinations, and the transformations of EnCSR literacy can be discovered. Moreover, an EnCSR curriculum model was drawn up that can provide the contributions of instructional content and the students' learning progress that can help educators be well-prepared for the course and can predict students’ progress.

A new MRAM reference and sensing circuit that can achieve $\mu \text{A}$ resolution and 17.5 nS read access from −40 °C to 125 °C is presented in this paper. A trimmable current-mode latch-type sense amplifier (CLSA) with hybrid-resistance-reference (HRR) and cell location compensation is proposed to resolve small read margin of MRAM. Silicon data measurement is presented to demonstrate a logic-process compatible, fully functional 16-Mb perpendicular MRAM in 40-nm CMOS process. Similar read circuit design concept can be applied to other technology nodes. Another test chip designed in 22 nm achieves wafer level average raw bit-error-rate (BER) of ~0.2 ppm and less than 2-ppm BER for 95th percentile chip.

Recognizing specific heart sound patterns is important for the diagnosis of structural heart diseases. However, the correct recognition of heart murmur depends largely on clinical experience. Accurately identifying abnormal heart sound patterns is challenging for young and inexperienced clinicians. This study is aimed at the development of a novel algorithm that can automatically recognize systolic murmurs in patients with ventricular septal defects (VSDs). Heart sounds from 51 subjects with VSDs and 25 subjects without a significant heart malformation were obtained in this study. Subsequently, the soundtracks were divided into different training and testing sets to establish the recognition system and evaluate the performance. The automatic murmur recognition system was based on a novel temporal attentive pooling-convolutional recurrent neural network (TAP-CRNN) model. On analyzing the performance using the test data that comprised 178 VSD heart sounds and 60 normal heart sounds, a sensitivity rate of 96.0% was obtained along with a specificity of 96.7%. When analyzing the heart sounds recorded in the second aortic and tricuspid areas, both the sensitivity and specificity were 100%. We demonstrated that the proposed TAP-CRNN system can accurately recognize the systolic murmurs of VSD patients, showing promising potential for the development of software for classifying the heart murmurs of several other structural heart diseases.

Lead poisoning in children has become a very topical issue, largely due to the realization that blood lead levels previously thought safe, could result in adverse long-term effects. In the Caribbean, cases of lead poisoning have been reported in Jamaica, involving children playing with discarded lead battery plates. Likewise, lead smelting and battery repair operations have resulted in elevated blood lead levels of children involved in, or living close to, these activities. This chapter is an example of severe environmental pollution that resulted from lead battery recycling operations, and subsequent toxicity to an entire extended family in Trinidad. Blood lead levels of the others showed that four other children suffered class V poisoning, requiring immediate medical and environmental management. Chelation therapy was administered to most of them, resulting in significant reduction in their blood lead levels.

STT-MRAM is a promising solution for next-generation embedded non-volatile memory (NVM), supporting a wide range of applications. Compared to traditional embedded Flash [1]–[2], STT-MRAM is a CMOS-compatible low-temperature back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) memory, requiring only 2-to-5 extra masks. It is a byte-alterable NVM with excellent write speed, write endurance (>1M cycles), and high-temperature data retention capability. In this work, a 32Mb STT-MRAM using a 0.0456µm2 bit cell is fabricated using a 22nm ultra-low leakage (ULL) CMOS process. A WL-voltage generation system, with distributed local constant-current kickers, and power-gating switches is used to overdrive the WL to achieve a higher read margin, while maintaining low-standby current and fast wake-up. Sense amplifiers (SAs) with segment trimming and adaptive timing control are designed to support reliable reads from −40 to 125°C. A smart write, with multiple write pulses controlled by adaptive write-verify and a temperature compensated write bias, is used for efficient write operation. Magnetic field interference is reduced by six orders of magnitude by adding a shielding film to the packaged die.

Four bluff-body cones with/without rifled v-grooves were installed behind a non-premixed traditional combustion nozzle to intensify the bluff-body effects and swirl flow. The spiral rifles transformed axial momentum (or axial velocity) into tangential momentum (or tangential velocity). The interaction between the fuel tangential component and axial air flow increased turbulence intensity ( T . I .). The Schlieren photography was utilized to visualize the flame structures and classify three flame patterns—jet flame, recirculation flame, and turbulence flame. The jet flame occurs when fuel-jet velocity is high and air-jet velocity ( u a ) is low. However, the turbulence flame exists at the high air-jet velocity. The flame lengths were measured using the direct photography scheme. The flame length at high u a is significantly shorter than that at low u a . Furthermore, the increase of rifle number ( i . e ., increasing T . I .) induces the high maximum temperature and low nitric-oxide concentration.

Background and aims Renal dysfunction is a potent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, including stroke. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of admission estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) levels on short-term (1-month) and long-term (1-year) mortality in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Methods From the Taiwan Stroke Registry data, we classified ischemic stroke patients, identified from April 2006 to December 2015, into 5 groups by eGFR at admission: ≥ 90, 60–89, 30–59, 15–29, and Results Among 52,732 ischemic stroke patients, 1480 died within one month. The 1-month mortality rate was over 5-fold greater in patients with eGFR Conclusions After acute ischemic stroke, patients with reduced eGFR are at elevated risks of short-term and long-term deaths in a graded relationship.

PurposeThis study aims to determine essential attributes of sustainable service innovation (SSI) in the Taiwan hospitality industry.Design/methodology/approachBy combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies while considering perspectives on sustainable management and service innovation, the present study extends the related literature on SSI and presents a new framework. The decision-making trail and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) analytical approaches are used to identify relations between dimensions and their causality attributes.FindingsThe findings of the DEMATEL result indicate that innovation diffusion has direct and indirect effects on dimensions of sustainable innovation and on organizational factors. Furthermore, sustainable innovation emerged as the most important attribute while the analytic network process analysis was used.Practical implicationsThe critical dimensions identified in this study may serve as guidelines that hospitality practitioners or hotel managers may use when engaging in SSI.Social implicationsSustainability management is ranked the most important criterion of sustainable practice, which indicates that considerations of sustainability are necessary when hospitality managers wish to carry out a sustainability project in an organization. Furthermore, organizational capabilities were ranked the most important criteria among all organizational factors. This finding implies that the first step involves establishing a shared vision.Originality/valueThe current study integrates and applies Rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovations theory (DIT) to identify how to facilitate sustainability through service innovation. In so doing, this study can add to our knowledge in the hotel industry by using the DIT.

In various industries, system availability assessment has been extensively investigated. Particularly, a stable power supply system is essential and critical in many service systems such as communication networks, mass transit systems, data storage centers and product manufacturing processes, etc. When an unreliable power supply unit fails, the repair services may be unavailable and a random period of (retrial) time for contact and confirmation is needed. Thus, this paper compares four retrial power supply systems with general repair time, warm standby units, and imperfect coverage possibility. That is, the power generation equipment is assumed unreliable and may fail anytime. The steady-state probabilities and the associated availabilities of four retrial systems are derived explicitly. A comparative analysis of the availability and the cost-benefit ratio among four retrial systems is presented. The efficiencies of four considered retrial systems are sorted and the optimal retrial system is provided. Based on the calculated numerical results, the management insights for practical applications are also proposed for decision making.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gradually become a concern of many companies in the tourism industry. A substantial number of companies have implemented CSR programmes to pursue economic and environmental win–win situations while acting in a socially responsible manner. This study constructs an assessment model of CSR practice in the tourism industry to provide for more effective implementation of CSR. First, the researchers reviewed CSR-related literature and conducted in-depth interviews with industry experts. Based on the literature and the interviews, five dimensions, including Economy, Environment, Society, Culture and Consequence, and 15 criteria were extracted to form the assessment model. Second, the study examined the model's validity and established a consensus among the perspectives of academia, government and industry using the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM). Finally, the study adopted the DEMATEL and DEMATEL-based Analytical Network Process (ANP) technique to understand the causa...

This study examines ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Taiwanese tourism industry from the standpoints of the government, academia, and industry through the perspective of Conf...

IoTtalk is a platform for Internet of Things (IoT) device interaction, which nicely integrates a reconfigurable multi-sensor device called MorSensor with the proposed IoT management platform in the network domain. The sensors can be dynamically plugged in/out of a MorSensor device without being turned off, and IoTtalk automatically generates/reuses the application software for these sensors. We propose a dynamic ranging concept that automatically specifies the value range of a sensor so that it can send “meaningful” data to any connected output IoT device. Therefore, a MorSensor device can “talk” to other IoT devices, such as a light bulb or an electric fan. We also show that IoTtalk is a simple yet almost free solution for automatic sensor calibration. Finally, we illustrate that IoTtalk is a powerful tool for developing interactive science experiments.

We investigated the impact of serum cholesterol levels on 30-day mortality after ischemic stroke in dialysis patients.From the Taiwan Stroke Registry data, we identified 46,770 ischemic stroke cases, including 1101 dialysis patients and 45,669 nondialysis patients from 2006 to 2013.Overall, the 30-day mortality was 1.46-fold greater in the dialysis group than in the nondialysis group (1.75 versus 1.20 per 1000 person-days). The mortality rates were 1.64, .62, 2.82, and 2.23 per 1000 person-days in dialysis patients with serum total cholesterol levels of 120 mg/dL, 120-159 mg/dL, 160-199 mg/dL, and ≥200 mg/dL, respectively. Compared to dialysis patients with serum total cholesterol levels of 120-159 mg/dL, the corresponding adjusted hazard ratios of mortality were 4.20 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.01-17.4), 8.06 (95% CI = 2.02-32.2), and 6.89 (95% CI = 1.59-29.8) for those with cholesterol levels of 120 mg/dL, 160-199 mg/dL, and ≥200 mg/dL, respectively.Dialysis patients with serum total cholesterol levels of ≥160 mg/dL or 120 mg/dL on admission are at an elevated hazard of 30-day mortality after ischemic stroke.

This study explores the effects of different arrangements such as side-by-side and tandem in wind turbine towers under various Reynolds numbers. The Reynolds number was changed from 1.2×103 to 4×106. The wake-flow behaviors, velocity characteristics, and wake vortex shedding were studied. The effects of side-by-side gap ratio (G*) and tandem gap ratio (L*) were considered. Smoke-wire flow visualization technique was used to render the flow characteristics. At different heights, the flow characteristics were observed in four sections: the blade at tower top, bluff body of blade and generator, cylinder of wind turbine tower, and junction at the bottom. A hot-wire anemometer was used to measure the vortex-street frequency. The characteristic flow modes for the side-by-side configuration are the anti- and in-phase vortex modes, and those for the tandem arrangement are the single, attached, and bi-vortex modes. For side-by-side wind towers, the wake flow field behaved like that of single one when G*> 1.0. For tandem wind turbine towers, the flow behaviors are independent when L*> 0.85.

Sustainable innovation is a critical attribute in modern hotel management, as is widely recognized by experts and hotel managers alike. This paper develops and tests a new integrated theoretical model of associations among innovation diffusion, environmental marketing strategy, sustainability innovations, and the organizational environment. This research also considers the mediating effect of environmental marketing strategy and the moderating role of the organizational environment. The results of a study that included 367 managers of eco-friendly hotels in Taiwan provide support for this model across various dimensions of hotels’ sustainable innovation. The present study found relationships among innovation diffusion, environmental marketing strategy and sustainability innovations, and a mediating effect of environmental marketing strategy. The results also confirmed that the organizational environment moderates the relationship between innovation diffusion and environmental marketing strategy. That is, a supportive organizational environment will enhance the effect of innovation diffusion on environmental marketing strategy.

Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is one of the most important disease in ophthalmology with high prevalence and risk of irreversible blindness. If diagnosed before the age of 35, it is usually categorized as juvenile open-angle glaucoma (JOAG). The WDR36 gene is reckoned as one of the major causative genes of POAG, and had been studied to be related to the pathogenesis of POAG in the literature. We have selected 61 JOAG patients and 61 JOAG-free individuals, and by next-generation sequencing method, the WDR36 gene of the subjects were analyzed. We identified 26 variations exclusively in JOAG group. Among these 26 variations, there were 3 noteworthy variations. First, a novel variation c.460-650A>G was found in our study which might cause premature termination of splicing of the conserved domain in WDR36; second, c.1494+1111G>T (rs13178997) had significantly different frequency in our JOAG patients compared to the reference frequency on NCBI; third, a variation c.710+30C>T (rs10038177) was found in our study, which had already been reported to be related to high-pressure glaucoma. We offer the profile of WDR36 in JOAG in Taiwan population, and we suggest that WDR36 gene is involved in the pathogenesis of JOAG as a subordinate modifier gene.

Objective: To compare P6 acupuncture plus ondansetron with either ondansetron or P6 acupuncture in the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) in patients submitted to spinal anesthesia. Methods: A randomized controlled trial was performed with 90 patients undergoing orthopedic surgery under spinal anesthesia with bupivacaine, 15 to 17.5 mg, and morphine, 100 μg. They were assigned to one of the three groups: Group Ondansetron (n = 30), patients were given ondansetron, 8 mg intravenously, before spinal block was performed; Group P6 acupuncture (n = 30), patients were subjected to bilateral electrical stimulation of P6 acupoint for 30 minutes before anesthesia; and Group P6 acupuncture plus ondansetron (n = 30), the exact combination of the groups Ondansetron and P6 acupuncture. Results: In the post anesthesia care unit, the incidence of nausea and vomiting ranged from 13.3% to 26.7% and from 6.7% to 13.3%, respectively, with no significant differences among groups (p > 0.05). Ondansetron group had the highest incidence of nausea (73.3%) (p < 0.001) and vomiting (43.3%) (p < 0.001) at the ward from 0 to 24 hours, followed by P6 acupuncture (33.3% and 26.7%) and P6 acupuncture plus ondansetron groups (16.0% and 0%). Conclusion: Preoperative stimulation of P6 acupoint in combination with ondansetron has higher efficacy than either P6 acupoint stimulation or the administration of ondansetron on the prevention of PONV in patients submitted to bupivacaine-morphine spinal anesthesia.

The objective of this study is to integrate image processing, pattern recognition, RFID, and fuzzy theory into an omnidirectional wheeled mobile robot for receiving and delivering documents between rooms. In image pre-processing, the Hue-Saturation-Lightness color space is applied to avoid light interference, and then grayscale image threshold is used to obtain binary image. The median filter is utilized to filter the noises of speckle and salt-and-pepper, so color segmentation is then applied to capture desired color for tracking control. Pattern recognition is performed by the Adaptive Resonance Theory. RFID reader and room tag is used to verify the room number of the destination so that the recognition error from image processing can be avoided. Fuzzy theory is implemented into an omnidirectional wheeled mobile robot control design for driving the wheels of the robot. Experimental results show that the proposed control scheme can make the omnidirectional mobile robot move to destination, receive and deliver documents between offices.

The blade airfoil significantly influences the performance of wind turbine. This study designs a new hybrid blade airfoil (abbreviated as HBA) based on the previous airfoils (S809 and NACA 63215). The surface-flow modes, wake-flow characteristics, and aerodynamic performance of HBA were tested using various Reynolds numbers and angles of attack. The experimental methods involved (1) the smoke-wire visualization at low wind speeds, (2) the surface-oil flow visualization at high wind speeds, (3) the hot-wire anemometry, and (4) the six force–moment balancer. At blade stall, the lift coefficient of 2.12 for HBA is approximately twice that of 1.07 for S809 and NACA63215. The maximum lift–drag ratio of 6.11 for HBA is approximately twice those (3.63 and 3.13) of S809 and NACA 63215. Moreover, the HBA has a higher stall angle than those of the other two blades. The (pitch) moment coefficient of HBA is also higher than those of S809 and NACA 63215.

We investigate the reliability and sensitivity analysis of a controllable repairable system.Warm standbys and working breakdown condition are considered.The explicit expressions for reliability function R Y ( t ) and MTTF are derived.Perform sensitive analysis and relative sensitivity analysis on the system reliability and the mean time to system failure.Discuss the order of magnitude of the sensitivity to R Y ( t ) and MTTF. This paper deals with the reliability and sensitivity analysis of a controllable repair system with M operating units, S warm standby units, and an unreliable service station. Failure times and service times of operating units or standby units are assumed to follow exponential distributions. When the service station normally operates, it is subject to breakdowns; while a breakdown occurs, the service station requires repair at the repair facility. The times to breakdown and repair times of the service station are also assumed to be exponentially distributed. During a breakdown period of the service station, the service station is allowed to provide partial service with lower service rate. A practical justification of the system is also provided. This paper develops the expressions for system reliability, R Y ( t ) , as well as the mean time to first failure, MTTFF. The sensitivity and relative sensitivity analyses of R Y ( t ) and MTTFF are performed. Finally, some numerical experiments are designed and performed to demonstrate the effects of system performance measures are affected by the change of each system parameter.

This study explores the effect of proactive personality on creativity and intrinsic motivation enhancement within the tourism and hospitality industry. Using a questionnaire survey, this study generated 283 valid questionnaires. Background variables and moderating effects were analyzed, and causal path relationships were confirmed with structural equation modeling. Proactive personality fosters a positive moderating effect of creativity-supporting physical work environments on intrinsic motivation. In the hospitality and tourism industry, creativity can be practically fostered by recruiting passionate talents, supporting new ideas, and providing creativity-supporting physical environments.

This study draws on tourism and hospitality literature to develop a new creativity scale that highlights the importance of creativity in the tourism and hospitality industry. It is important for practitioners to develop greater creativity so as to solve problems and obtain competitive advantages. However, few studies have comprehensively examined the impact of creativity on changes in the tourism and hospitality industry, and there is a lack of empirical research on the critical attributes of creativity from the perspective of tourism and hospitality practitioners. This study seeks to fill this gap by constructing and testing a new theoretical model in the tourism and hospitality sector. The scale’s reliability and validity are examined through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), using samples collected from 854 tourism and hospitality practitioners (579 college students majoring in tourism and hospitality and 275 practitioners in the tourism and hospitality industry). The results identify five critical attributes of creativity: process, creativity, culture, proactive personality, and satisfaction. The implications for theoretical and practical applications are also discussed.

Many Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have been used in applications for money flow, logistics flow, people flow, interactive art design, and so on. To manage these increasing disparate devices and connectivity options, ETSI has specified end-to-end machine-to-machine (M2M) system architecture for IoT applications. Based on this architecture, we develop an IoT EasyConnect system to manage IoT devices. In our approach, an IoT device is characterized by its “features” (e.g., temperature, vibration, and display) that are manipulated by the network applications. If a network application handles the individual device features independently, then we can write a software module for each device feature, and the network application can be simply constructed by including these brick-like device feature modules. Based on the concept of device feature, brick-like software modules can provide simple and efficient mechanism to develop IoT device applications and interactions.

Retrial systems have been extensively used to model many practical problems in communication network, data center, cloud service computing center, computer network, etc. This paper deals with the cost benefit analysis of four different retrial systems with warm standby units and imperfect coverage. Each retrial system contains various amount of primary and warm standby units. Failure times and repair times of the primary and warm standby units are exponentially distributed. We assume that the coverage factor is the same for a primary-unit failure as that for a standby-unit failure and is denoted by c. We derive the explicit expressions of the mean time-to-failure and the steady-state availability for each retrial system and perform comparisons. The cost/benefit is also compared among four retrial systems with given to the distribution parameters, and to the cost of the primary and warm standby units.

A new MRAM reference and sensing circuit that can achieve < ±1μA resolution and 17.5nS read access from −40C to 125C is presented in this paper. A trimmable current-mode latch-type sense amplifier (CLSA) with hybrid-resistance-reference (HRR) and cell location compensation is proposed to resolve small read window of MRAM. Silicon data measurement is presented to demonstrate a logic-process compatible, fully functional 16Mb perpendicular MRAM in 40nm CMOS process.

Metabolic risk factors, such as obesity, fatty liver, high lipidemia, and diabetes mellitus are associated with increased risk for nonviral hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); however, few nonviral HCC studies have stratified patients according to underlying etiologies. From 2005 to 2011, 3,843 patients with HCC were recruited into the Taiwan Liver Cancer Network. Of these patients, 411 (10.69%) who were negative for hepatitis B virus (HBV), surface antigen, HBV DNA, and anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibody were classified as non-HBV non-HCV (NBNC)-HCC. Detailed clinical analyses of these patients were compared with age- and sex-matched patients with HBV-HCC or HCV-HCC for the associated metabolic risk factors. For this comparison, 420 patients with HBV-HCC and 420 patients with HCV-HCC were selected from the 3,843 patients with HCC. Multivariate analyses showed fatty liver (by echography), high triglyceride levels (>160 mg/dL), and diabetes mellitus history to be significantly associated only with NBNC-HCC and not with the matched patients with HBV- or HCV-HCC. When the patients with HCC were further divided into four groups based on history of alcoholism and cirrhotic status, the group without alcoholism and without cirrhosis exhibited the strongest association with the metabolic risk factors. Based on trend analyses, patients with NBNC-HCC with or without alcoholism were significantly different from the matched patients with HBV- or HCV-HCC, except for patients with alcoholism and cirrhosis, in having more than two of the above three risk factors. Conclusion: Metabolic risk factors are significantly associated with nonviral HCC, especially for patients without alcoholism in Taiwan. Because the prevalence of viral HCC is decreasing due to the success of universal vaccination and antiviral therapy, strategies for cancer prevention, prediction, and surveillance for HCC will require modification. (Hepatology Communications 2018;2:747-759).

There is increasing concern globally, regarding the consumption of foods contaminated with heavy metals such as cadmium (Cd), with consequent implementation of stringent food safety standards for consumer protection. Cd contents of cocoa beans can affect whether shipments of beans can be sold and whether cocoa products manufactured from beans with Cd can meet food safety standards. Cd determinations in bean exports are usually carried out on whole beans, which are comprised of nibs and the covering testae/shells, the latter being impossible to completely remove from the nibs used in chocolate and cocoa powder manufacture. The aim of this study was to evaluate the distribution of Cd levels between the nibs and shells of cocoa beans. This can allow for assessment of possible implications of the analytical protocols used for Cd determination in cocoa beans and the possible consequences for the safety of cocoa products made from such beans. Fermented and dried cocoa bean samples from different cacao-growing a...

In this study, we developed and tested a new model of how organizational support affects the organizational work environment and atmosphere that facilitates creativity. A field study of 320 employees showed that organizational support was positively related to the work environment for knowledge sharing, motivation, procedural justice, and promotion. Further, the work environment plays a mediating role between organizational support and employee creativity. These measures of an organization's environment of procedural justice are related to employees’ motivation and knowledge sharing, which predict employees’ promotion.

This study investigates how perceived insider status influences employee creativity in hospitality industry settings. Specifically, the study examines mediator of promotion focus and three-way interaction roles of perceived insider status and creative process engagement. Using a sample of 232 employees of the Taiwanese hospitality industry, we found that a promotion focus was positively related to employee creativity. Moreover, a promotion focus mediates perceived insider status and creativity. Finally, the study confirms the existence of three-way interactions characterized by creative process engagement, perceived insider status, and a promotion focus on creativity. The results show that a high degree of perceived insider status coupled with a high level of creative process engagement generates a strong relationship between promotional focus and creativity.

Based on the componential theory of creativity, this research built and tested a new theoretical model that links the 4P model (people, product, place, and process) with creativity via several intervening variables. Survey data and two-step structural equation modeling were used to evaluate a sample of 338 employees surveyed from 57 tourism and hospitality organizations in Taiwan. As anticipated, we found that people (e.g. personality) positively affected place (e.g. organizational environment and participation) and creative process (e.g. data collection, idea generation, and confirmation), which in turn influenced product outputs of creativity and satisfaction.

Background The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of metformin on head and neck cancer in patients with diabetes. Methods We compared 66,600 patients, all with diabetes and all newly diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2002. Half were being treated with metformin for diabetes (Met+) and half were not (Met−: controls). All were matched for comorbidities (obesity, coronary artery disease, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension), sex, and age. The risk of head and neck cancer at the end of 2011 was determined. Results The incidence of head and neck cancer was 34% lower in the Met+ cohort than in the Met− cohort (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 0.66; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.55–0.79). The risks for oropharyngeal cancer (adjusted HR = 0.66; 95% CI = 0.17–0.74) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC; adjusted HR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.31–0.80) were significantly lower in the Met+ cohort than in the Met− cohort. Conclusion Metformin is associated with a lower risk of developing head and neck cancer in patients with diabetes. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 37: 1268–1273, 2015

We have designed and fabricated the 14-inch RGBW AMOLED using tandem white-OLED with RGB color-filter. In this paper, we also verified the pixel compensation, RGBW conversion, white OLED color-compensation, and optical compensation, and the comparison of RGBW-quad and RGBW-stripe on this panel.

Liver cancers and lung cancer are the 2 leading cancer deaths in Taiwan. Thus, these 2 cancers are the most important cancers in Taiwan, and both have been chosen as the main target diseases by National Research Program for Genomic Medicine. For Liver cancers, only the early stage patients (10. Since TLCN has become NHRI Biobank, which is supported by Government fund and has been approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it can accept the application not only from the scientists, but also the industries directly. The final goal of this project is to improve the treatment and survival of liver cancer patients in Taiwan through successful researches in the liver carcinogenetic mechanism, prevention, screening, early detection and therapies.

This study applies fuzzy set theory in attempting to evaluate important attributes of the tourism and gourmet business environment in Taiwan. This business environment is composed of various attributes that are difficult to measure. To overcome these challenges, we integrated the fuzzy Delphi method, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method, and the analytic network process to evaluate the business environment. We found that the most significant aspect of the tourism and gourmet business environment is human resources and that the least significant aspect of this industry is market development. The most significant criteria are enhanced industry competitiveness and opportunities to develop the industry.