Relationships of Coaching Leadership and Team Cohesion on Team Performance in Taiwanese College Basketball Programs

This research explored the relationships between perceived leadership behaviors of college basketball coaches, team cohesion, and team performance, according to conference levels, genders, and years of team participation in Taiwanese college basketball programs. The study employed stratified random sampling to select 640 subjects fiom male and female Taiwanese college conference Al, A2, and A3, participated in the University Basketball Association (UBA) of Taiwan in 2005. A total of 522 participants who responded were valid. This study employed a four-part questionnaire to measure the variables and consists of the Socio-Demographic Profile, Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS), Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ), and team performance, which was used to obtain the winning percentage of the subject\u27s team in the season competitions of University Basketball Association (UBA) of Taiwan in 2005. Varied statistical techniques were utilized to perform the collected data analysis in the study, including descriptive statistics, ANOVA, Pearson r Correlation Coefficients, and multiple regression analysis. Findings indicated that the Taiwanese college basketball conference A1 players perceived greater Democratic Behavior and Positive Feedback from coaches than conference A2 and A3 players. Male Taiwanese college basketball players perceived greater Training and Instruction Behavior from coaches while female Taiwanese college basketball players perceived more Autocratic and Social Support Behavior. The under 1 year Taiwanese college basketball players perceived more Social Support from their coaches than players in the 1 to under 2 year , 2 to under 3 year and 3 and above 3 year categories. These findings suggest that in order to enhance the team\u27s cohesion, the college basketball conference A1 and A2 players\u27 coaches should engage in a higher achievement goal to excite the aspirations. For Taiwanese college basketball conference A3 players, coaches should create an atmosphere where respect and concern are fostered through practice and play among team members. Coach\u27s Autocratic Behavior (from coach\u27s leadership behaviors), Individual Attraction to Group-Task and Group Integration-Task (from team cohesion) are significant predictors of team performance. The limitations and future research recommendations are also included in this study

An Empirical Study of Corporate Brand Image, Customer Perceived Value and Satisfaction on Loyalty in Shoe Industry

A positive corporate brand image is not only increasing competition but also encourage consumers to repurchase. With loyal customers, companies can reduce the operating cost and acquisition expenses. This initial study was from relevant literature, then set up research structure and hypotheses. Survey was employed, and respondents collected from the customers of ASO in Taiwan. There were 208 usable questionnaires to analyze descriptive statistics, reliability, validity, and SEM model. Based on the research results, corporate brand image significantly affects customer perceived value, customer satisfaction and loyalty; customer perceived value has strong impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty for the sample; and customer satisfaction significantly affects customer loyalty. Therefore, companies should have a positive brand image to customers, and specifically focus on those factors in order to build a long-term and mutually profitability relationships with customers and create loyalty as competitive advantages in the markets. The study focuses on the industry of shoes in Taiwan, and adopts only a quantitative method. Future research could employ a different design to examine the causal relationships posited by the theories, and extension the study to discuss mediation or moderation among dimensions

The Effect of Service Quality, Customer Perceived Value and Satisfaction on Loyalty

The service industry has become more and more important for business activities. Service industry contributes about 60% of the annual GDP and 70% of new jobs in America. According to the statistics of Executive Yuan of Taiwan, the service industry contributes over 70% of the annual GDP in 2008. The ultimate goal for companies is to build customer loyalty. With loyal customers, companies can reduce the operating cost and acquisition expenses. An improvement of 5 percent in customer retention leads to an increase of 25 percent to 75 percent in profit. It costs more than five times as much to obtain a new customer than to keep an existing one. This initial study was from relevant literature, then set up research structure and hypotheses. Survey was employed, and respondents were from the customers of TKEC in Taipei area. There were 199 usable questionnaires to analyze descriptive statistics, reliability, validity, and SEM model. The research found that service quality significantly affects customer perceived value and customer satisfaction, and customer perceived value and customer satisfaction have strong impact on customer loyalty for the sample. Therefore, firms have to specifically focus on these factors in order to build a long-term and mutually profitability relationship with a customer and create loyalty as competitive advantages in the market

Multi-Segment Foam Flow Field in Ambient Pressure Polymer Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

In order to produce low-cost flow field plates for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, we used nickel foam in this study rather than conventional flow field. Nickel foam has high electron conductivity, thermal conductivity, and mechanical strength. Electrochemical impedance spectrum analysis is carried out to evidence the use on flow field plates of nickel foam. From the impedance fitting results, the nickel foam cases showed the lower contact resistance than the serpentine. However, such plates have poor performance at low temperatures and ambient pressure. In order to overcome this, a multi-segment foam flow field is designed in this study. This increased the performance of the polarization curve by 70% from 162 to 275.5 mw cm-2 than the original nickel foam design. Also, the mass transfer resistance was reduced, and the Warburg impedance value of the operation voltage decreased by 0.4 V. The numerical analysis results demonstrate that increased segment numbers can increase the performance of the multi-segment foam flow field

Acute kidney injury in patients with COVID-19 compared to those with influenza: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundCOVID-19 and influenza can both lead to acute kidney injury (AKI) as a common complication. However, no meta-analysis has been conducted to directly compare the incidence of AKI between hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and influenza. The objective of our study aims to investigate the incidence and outcomes of AKI among hospitalized patients between these two groups.Materials and methodsA systematic search of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases was conducted from December 2019 to August 2023 to identify studies examining AKI and clinical outcomes among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and influenza. The primary outcome of interest was the incidence of AKI, while secondary outcomes included in-hospital mortality, recovery from AKI, hospital and ICU stay duration. The quality of evidence was evaluated using Cochrane and GRADE methods.ResultsTwelve retrospective cohort studies, involving 17,618 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and influenza, were analyzed. COVID-19 patients showed higher AKI incidence (29.37% vs. 20.98%, OR: 1.67, 95% CI 1.56–1.80, p < 0.01, I2 = 92.42%), and in-hospital mortality (30.95% vs. 5.51%, OR: 8.16, 95% CI 6.17–10.80, p < 0.01, I2 = 84.92%) compared to influenza patients with AKI. Recovery from AKI was lower in COVID-19 patients (57.02% vs., 80.23%, OR: 0.33, 95% CI 0.27–0.40, p < 0.01, I2 = 85.17%). COVID-19 patients also had a longer hospital stay (SMD: 0.69, 95% CI 0.65–0.72, p < 0.01, I2 = 98.94%) and longer ICU stay (SMD: 0.61, 95% CI 0.50–0.73, p < 0.01, I2 = 94.80%) than influenza patients. In our study, evidence quality was high (NOS score 7–9), with low certainty for AKI incidence and moderate certainty for recovery form AKI by GRADE assessment.ConclusionCOVID-19 patients had higher risk of developing AKI, experiencing in-hospital mortality, and enduring prolonged hospital/ICU stays in comparison to influenza patients. Additionally, the likelihood of AKI recovery was lower among COVID-19 patients

Reconstruction for Mandibular Implant Failure

Mandibular defects may result from tumor ablations, trauma, or radiation necrosis. Significant segmental mandibular loss or hemimandibular loss may sometimes be replaced with mandibular implants by ENT surgeons/oral surgeons/head and neck surgeons. However, this may bring about mandibular implant failure in long-term follow-up. Mandibular implant failures usually manifest as: soft tissue atrophy, mandibular implant extrusion, infection, facial nerve involvement, facial asymmetry, derangement of occlusion and mastication, orocutaneous fistula, etc. Over 30 years, the authors have treated 102 patients with mandibular implant failure. Reconstruction may involve removal of the mandibular implant and immediate replacement of the mandibular defect with a piece of vascularized bone flap, not only to compensate for bone loss but also to replace neighboring soft tissue and possible skin defects. Frequently used flaps have been vascularized iliac bone (89/102) or vascularized fibula grafts (13/102). During follow-up, iliac bone flap reconstruction has yielded more favorable results due to its ample bone bulk and adequate soft tissue coverage. Fibula flaps with osteotomies have been associated with an increasing incidence of malunion/nonunion and subsequent easy deformation

Age- and gender-specific population attributable risks of metabolic disorders on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in Taiwan

[[abstract]]ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The extent of attributable risks of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components on mortality remains unclear, especially with respect to age and gender. We aimed to assess the age- and gender-specific population attributable risks (PARs) for cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related mortality and all-cause mortality for public health planning. METHODS: A total of 2,092 men and 2,197 women 30 years of age and older, who were included in the 2002 Taiwan Survey of Hypertension, Hyperglycemia, and Hyperlipidemia (TwSHHH), were linked to national death certificates acquired through December 31, 2009. Cox proportional hazard models were used to calculate adjusted hazard ratios and PARs for mortality, with a median follow-up of 7.7 years. RESULTS: The respective PAR percentages of MetS for all-cause and CVD-related mortality were 11.6 and 39.2 in men, respectively, and 18.6 and 44.4 in women, respectively. Central obesity had the highest PAR for CVD mortality in women (57.5%), whereas arterial hypertension had the highest PAR in men (57.5%). For all-cause mortality, younger men and post-menopausal women had higher PARs related to Mets and its components; for CVD mortality, post-menopausal women had higher overall PARs than their pre-menopausal counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: MetS has a limited application to the PAR for all-cause mortality, especially in men; its PAR for CVD mortality is more evident. For CVD mortality, MetS components have higher PARs than MetS itself, especially hypertension in men and waist circumference in post-menopausal women. In addition, PARs for diabetes mellitus and low HDL-cholesterol may exceed 20%. We suggest differential control of risk factors in different subpopulation as a strategy to prevent CVD-related mortality