A Study on Taiwan Consumers’ Adoption of Online Financial Services

Despite Taiwan financial institutions’ huge investments in online financial services systems, Taiwan consumers’ adoption of online financial services has been slower than anticipated. So far, online financial services research in Taiwan is still in its infancy, hence receiving little academic attention. This suggests a need to understand Taiwan Internet users’ adoption behavior of online financial services and to identify the potential factors that may motivate or impede Taiwan Internet users’ acceptance of online financial services. The research framework of this study is constituted by the extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2). Other variables, which have proven academically important in influencing consumers’ intentions to use information technology, were added to the conceptual framework. The results strongly support that the extended TAM (TAM2) is a valid model to predict Taiwan consumers’ intention to use online financial services and to explain the intention difference between adopters and non-adopters. The results also demonstrated that perceived privacy protection, perceived security, and consumer innovativeness not only have a significant, positive relationship with Taiwan consumers’ intention to use online financial services but also can significantly predict who is more likely to be an online financial service adopter in Taiwan. The research findings may help Taiwan financial institutions and other interested parties to formulate appropriate marketing strategies and design effective online financial services systems and accelerate the diffusion of online financial services in the future

Topological entanglement entropy for torus knot bipartitions and the Verlinde-like formulas

The topological R\'enyi and entanglement entropies depend on the bipartition of the manifold and the choice of the ground states. However, these entanglement quantities remain invariant under a coordinate transformation when the bipartition also undergoes the same transformation. In the context of topological quantum field theories, these coordinate transformations reduce to representations of the mapping class group on the manifold of the Hilbert space. We employ this invariant property of the R\'enyi and entanglement entropies under coordinate transformations for TQFTs in (2 + 1) dimensions on a torus with various bipartitions. By utilizing the replica trick and the surgery method to compute the topological R\'enyi and entanglement entropies, the invariant property results in Verlinde-like formulas. Furthermore, for the bipartition with interfaces as two non-intersecting torus knots, an $SL(2, \mathbb{Z})$ transformation can untwist the torus knots, leading to a simple bipartition with an effective ground state. This invariant property allows us to demonstrate that the topological entanglement entropy has a lower bound $-2 \ln D$, where $D$ is the total quantum dimensions of the system.Comment: ref.[20] is corrrected to Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 060401 (2007); Fig. 3.15 is also modifie

Set voltage distribution stabilized by constructing an oxygen reservoir in resistive random access memory

In this letter, the instability mechanism of RRAM was investigated, and a technique was developed to stabilize the distribution of high resistance state (HRS) and better concentrate the SET voltage. In previous research, we found that an interface-type switching characteristic was observed on the I-V curve beneath the filament-type switching behavior, owing to the oxygen accumulation effect. In this letter, this interface-type switching characteristic is used to fit the natural distribution of HRS for an analysis of the instability mechanism. According to the results, the reason for the HRS distribution is the accumulation of extra oxygen ions which are left over from a lower degree of oxygen and oxygen vacancy recombination during the reset process. We propose a solution which creates an extra oxygen reservoir by changing the surface topography of the electrode to store the surplus oxygen ions from the reset process, eliminating the accumulation effect, and indeed improving stability. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Mechanism of thermal field and electric field in resistive random access memory using the high/low-k side wall structure

In the Internet of things (IoT) era, low power consumption memory will be a critical issue for further device development. Among many kinds of next-generation memories, resistive random access memory (RRAM) is considered as having the most potential due to its high performance. To prevent unrecoverable hard break-down of a RRAM device, the RRAM should be collocated with a transistor for external current compliance. With decreasing device cell size, however, the operating voltage of the transistor will become smaller and smaller. Previous study has determined that the forming voltage of RRAM increases when device cell size is reduced, which is a very crucial issue especially when the device is scaled down. We have proposed a high-k sidewall spacer structure in RRAM to solve the dilemma of increasing forming voltages for device cell scaling down. Based on the COMSOL-simulated electrical field distributions in the high-k RRAM. In addition, thermal conductivity of sidewall spacer influenced resistive switching behavior. Suitable thermal conductivity of sidewall materials can enhance resistive switching behavior. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Extraction of single-trial cortical beta oscillatory activities in EEG signals using empirical mode decomposition

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Brain oscillatory activities are stochastic and non-linearly dynamic, due to their non-phase-locked nature and inter-trial variability. Non-phase-locked rhythmic signals can vary from trial-to-trial dependent upon variations in a subject's performance and state, which may be linked to fluctuations in expectation, attention, arousal, and task strategy. Therefore, a method that permits the extraction of the oscillatory signal on a single-trial basis is important for the study of subtle brain dynamics, which can be used as probes to study neurophysiology in normal brain and pathophysiology in the diseased.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper presents an empirical mode decomposition (EMD)-based spatiotemporal approach to extract neural oscillatory activities from multi-channel electroencephalograph (EEG) data. The efficacy of this approach manifests in extracting single-trial post-movement beta activities when performing a right index-finger lifting task. In each single trial, an EEG epoch recorded at the channel of interest (CI) was first separated into a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Sensorimotor-related oscillatory activities were reconstructed from sensorimotor-related IMFs chosen by a spatial map matching process. Post-movement beta activities were acquired by band-pass filtering the sensorimotor-related oscillatory activities within a trial-specific beta band. Signal envelopes of post-movement beta activities were detected using amplitude modulation (AM) method to obtain post-movement beta event-related synchronization (PM-bERS). The maximum amplitude in the PM-bERS within the post-movement period was subtracted by the mean amplitude of the reference period to find the single-trial beta rebound (BR).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results showed single-trial BRs computed by the current method were significantly higher than those obtained from conventional average method (<it>P </it>< 0.01; matched-pair Wilcoxon test). The proposed method provides high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) through an EMD-based decomposition and reconstruction process, which enables event-related oscillatory activities to be examined on a single-trial basis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The EMD-based method is effective for artefact removal and extracting reliable neural features of non-phase-locked oscillatory activities in multi-channel EEG data. The high extraction rate of the proposed method enables the trial-by-trial variability of oscillatory activities can be examined, which provide a possibility for future profound study of subtle brain dynamics.</p