Shoot multiplication of Paphiopedilum orchid through in vitro cutting methods

Paphiopedilum orchids are generally propagated through the division of axillary buds from mother plant, which limits commercial production due to its unproductive proliferation and time consuming. In this study, the effect of in vitro cutting methods and medium composition on efficient shoot multiplication of Paphiopedilum Hsinying Rubyweb was investigated. Among three different in vitro stem cutting methods used, vertical cutting was able to produce more new shoots than horizontal and cross cutting when cultured on Hyponex based medium. After 12 weeks of culture, plantlets regenerated from vertical cutting were able to produce new healthy and well rooted shoots higher than without cutting on the same medium. Moreover, the newly-formed shoots which were divided into single plantlets and subcultured onto half-strength Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium without growth regulators could remain higher shoot multiplication than in other media. The micropropagation procedure developed in this study provides a simple means to in vitro propagate Paphiopedilum plantlets which are able to produce large numbers of uniform plantlets in a shorter time compared to the conventional propagation method.Key words: Micropropagation, shoot multiplication, cutting, Paphiopedilum

Controlled Heterogeneous Nucleation and Growth of Germanium Quantum Dots on Nanopatterned Silicon Dioxide and Silicon Nitride Substrates

Controlled heterogeneous nucleation and growth of Ge quantum dots (QDs) are demonstrated on SiO_2/Si_3N_4 substrates by means of a novel fabrication process of thermally oxidizing nanopatterned SiGe layers. The otherwise random self-assembly process for QDs is shown to be strongly influenced by the nanopatterning in determining both the location and size of the QDs. Ostwald ripening processes are observed under further annealing at the oxidation temperature. Both nanopattern oxidation and Ostwald ripening offer additional mechanisms for lithography for controlling the size and placement of the QDs

Stationary Light Pulses in Cold Atomic Media

Stationary light pulses (SLPs), i.e., light pulses without motion, are formed via the retrieval of stored probe pulses with two counter-propagating coupling fields. We show that there exist non-negligible hybrid Raman excitations in media of cold atoms that prohibit the SLP formation. We experimentally demonstrate a method to suppress these Raman excitations and realize SLPs in laser-cooled atoms. Our work opens the way to SLP studies in cold as well as in stationary atoms and provides a new avenue to low-light-level nonlinear optics.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Online Auction Buyers’ Brain Images When Making Purchasing Decisions Involving Different Types of Rewards

In the past year, online auction sales on sites such as eBay and Yahoo!Auction have increased over 100 percent due to the pandemic, and the growth opportunities for the global online auction market are anticipated to continue until 2028 (Absolute Markets Insights 2020). When online auction buyers have a demand for a product, they usually buy it by going through a process of bidding behaviors to ensure that the final bidding price is commensurable to the product attributes. As indicated in prior studies, most consumers are sensitive to discounts and promotions, such as coupons and rebates (Akar and Nasir 2015; Dominique-Ferreira et al. 2016). More specifically, coupons are distributed in various forms, such as membership coins or points, and free or express delivery services. These different discount mechanisms influencing consumers’ purchasing decision-making processes can be generally categorized into two types of rewards: price-related and not price-related. The purpose of the current experimental study is to explore which type of rewards significantly influences online buyers’ purchasing intention in the context of bidding. The participants, who have experience in purchasing products on auction websites, are placed in a simulated online bidding context. Since brain imaging techniques have been validated in many research fields, this study’s participants’ brain images are also scanned and recorded during the entire experiment to further determine the significant level of neuron activities related to decision-making tasks in certain brain regions (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex/nucleus accumbens, and insula). Other brain regions, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, are also observed to find any significant activation during the experiment (Dimoka 2012; Knutson et al. 2007). Each bidding product (ranging from 8 to 30 USD) gives 1% of the product price as membership coins (price-related) or points (not price-related) to the participants while they view different types of products presented on the screen. The participants have to click on a yes-no button to indicate whether they have the intention to purchase the product. After the experiment, face-to-face interviews are carried out to verify their neural and behavioral responses. This study expects to make contributions to the e-commerce and neuromarketing fields

A CMMI-based approach for medical software project life cycle study

In terms of medical techniques, Taiwan has gained international recognition in recent years. However, the medical information system industry in Taiwan is still at a developing stage compared with the software industries in other nations. In addition, systematic development processes are indispensable elements of software development. They can help developers increase their productivity and efficiency and also avoid unnecessary risks arising during the development process. Thus, this paper presents an application of Light-Weight Capability Maturity Model Integration (LW-CMMI) to Chang Gung Medical Research Project (CMRP) in the Nuclear medicine field. This application was intended to integrate user requirements, system design and testing of software development processes into three layers (Domain, Concept and Instance) model. Then, expressing in structural System Modeling Language (SysML) diagrams and converts part of the manual effort necessary for project management maintenance into computational effort, for example: (semi-) automatic delivery of traceability management. In this application, it supports establishing artifacts of “requirement specification document”, “project execution plan document”, “system design document” and “system test document”, and can deliver a prototype of lightweight project management tool on the Nuclear Medicine software project. The results of this application can be a reference for other medical institutions in developing medical information systems and support of project management to achieve the aim of patient safety. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-266) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

A thermal boundary control method for a flexible thin disk rotating over critical and supercritical speeds

In practice a rotating flexible thin annular disk has to be operated at low speed, because three types of dynamic instabilities inevitably occur around critical and supercritical speeds, namely: aeroelastic, parametric and thermoelastic. The rotating disk is clamped and driven by a drive shaft attached to the disk inner edge. The external action of the flowing surrounding air causes the aeroelastic instability; a slider mass-damper-spring-friction moving load causes parametric instability; and disk/slider interface friction heat can cause thermoelastic instability. A thermal boundary control method is used to induce disk thermal membrane stresses utilizing drive shaft temperature increments to stabilize these dynamic instabilities. Fundamental investigations are made of disk temperature distribution, thermal stress, natural frequency, dynamic stability and steady state amplitude to validate and demonstrate the viability of the new control method. The thermal boundary control method offers valuable opportunities for rotating disk applications operating over critical and supercritical high speeds with high efficiency

Activation of Endothelial Cells by Antiphospholipid Antibodies—A Possible Mechanism Triggering Thrombosis in Patients with Antiphospholipid Syndrome

Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an antibody-mediated hypercoagulable state characterized by recurrent venous and arterial thromboembolic events. The presence of serum antibodies are collectively termed as antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and is the hallmark of the disease. Interest in the pathogenesis has mostly been focused on the blood coagulation factor. However, endothelial cells might play an important role. When stimulated, cell membrane would flip to expose negatively charged phospholipids and activation markers such as adhesive molecules may appear. We consider that these changes may play an important role in the initiation of the thrombotic process when endothelial cells encounter aPL. In this study, we incubated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) with IgG isolated from patients with APS and found that the HUVECs were activated by the expression of negatively charged phospholipids, as shown by high annexin V binding and negative propidium iodide staining and by an increase in the level of intracellular cell adhesion molecule-1 on the cell surface. The above findings indicate that endothelial cells can be activated on exposure to aPL and trigger the thrombotic event