Examining the Effect of Switching Costs to Operating System Switching Intention An Empirical Study

This study adopted the framework from the theory of the switching costs by Burnham et al., (2003) to discuss which customers’ switching costs will influence the switching intention of operating system. In the proposed model, financial switching costs, procedural switching costs, psychological and emotional costs directly influence switching intention of windows operation systems. This study collected 429 users from online questionnaire, conducted confirmatory factor analysis by structural equation modeling to verify the hypothesis with path analysis result. Results of the analysis showed that different types of switching costs have significantly and negative influence on customers’ switching intention of operating system such as economic risk costs, evaluation costs, learning costs, customers’ comfort and customers’ identification. The implications of this study are also discussed

The Impace of Elcetronic Word-of-Mouth and Flow Experience on Continuance Intention

Online gaming is a burgeoning market with growth potential and is developing rapidly. The entertainment-oriented features of such online games play experience motives for users. The global market of games will reach approximately US$ 1.3 billion annually. The technology acceptance model (TAM), including perceived ease of use (PE) and perceived usefulness (PU) and intention in accepting new technologies, is one of the most widely examined models used to test consumer acceptance of new information technology. Electronic word of mouth (EWOM) and flow experience (FE) also influence continuance intention of online games. However, the introduction of these factors was not utilized accurately. Therefore, the challenges for service providers are to identify key obstacles affecting the continuance intention of online games. In this study, we examined the role of TAM, FE and assess the influence of TRI on these factors toward continuance intention of online games. This model was tested with data from 686 current online game players who answered an online questionnaire. The structural equation model analysis confirmed that EWOM, FE and PU have a positive effect on continuance intention with statistical significance. The implications of this study are also discussed

Collaborative Integration between IT Industry and Logistics Industry in Taiwan: A Case Study on T Company\u27s E-Logistics Plan

The IT industry is Taiwan’s most thoroughly globalized industry. In the IT industry, suppliers and customers are spread all over the world, so making logistics management more efficient is very important. With government’s sponsorship, Taiwan’s IT industry has introduced e-Procurement (Plans A and B) to make the whole procurement process among enterprises an electronic one. Thus e-Procurement became the fundamentals of e-SCM. In order to extend the benefits of e-procurement, Taiwan government continuously promote the IT industry to introduce e-Logistics (Plan D). The objectives of this paper are to study the collaborative integration between IT industry and logistics industry in Taiwan, and to investigate the progress of introducing e-Logistics into the IT industry. A PC manufacturer, T Company was selected for use in the case study. It was found that the logistics visibility elevation through “Track and Trace” and the achievement of VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) are the objectives of e-Logistics implementation. IT manufacturers worked out common business models. Then each supply chain can follow the common specification and implement their e-Logistics individually. This study found that not only the IT manufacturers gain the competitive advantages, but LSPs (Logistics service providers) also learn from collaborative commerce and provide better service for customers with the implementation of e-Logistics. Then eight guidelines were induced as the reference for other industries to implement e-Logistics afterward. Besides, some suggestions were proposed to IT industry, logistics industry, and government

Ferulic Acid Induces Th1 Responses by Modulating the Function of Dendritic Cells and Ameliorates Th2-Mediated Allergic Airway Inflammation in Mice

This study investigated the immunomodulatory effects of ferulic acid (FA) on antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs) in vitro and its antiallergic effects against ovalbumin- (OVA-) induced Th2-mediated allergic asthma in mice. The activation of FA-treated bone marrow-derived DCs by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation induced a high level of interleukin- (IL-) 12 but reduced the expression levels of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor- (TNF-) α. Compared to control-treated DCs, FA significantly enhanced the expressions of Notch ligand Delta-like 4 (Dll4), MHC class II, and CD40 molecules by these DCs. Furthermore, these FA-treated DCs enhanced T-cell proliferation and Th1 cell polarization. In animal experiments, oral administration of FA reduced the levels of OVA-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) and IgG1 and enhanced IgG2a antibody production in serum. It also ameliorated airway hyperresponsiveness and attenuated eosinophilic pulmonary infiltration in dose-dependent manners. In addition, FA treatment inhibited the production of eotaxin, Th2 cytokines (IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13), and proinflammatory cytokines but promoted the Th1 cytokine interferon- (IFN-) γ production in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and the culture supernatant of spleen cells. These findings suggest that FA exhibits an antiallergic effect via restoring Th1/Th2 imbalance by modulating DCs function in an asthmatic mouse model

Social skills deficits and their association with Internet addiction and activities in adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The aims of this study were to examine the association between social skills deficits and Internet addiction and activities in adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as the moderators for this association. Methods A total of 300 adolescents, aged between 11 and 18 years, who had been diagnosed with ADHD participated in this study. Their Internet addiction levels, social skills deficits, ADHD, parental characteristics, and comorbidities were assessed. The various Internet activities that the participants engaged in were also examined. Results The associations between social skills deficits and Internet addiction and activities and the moderators of these associations were examined using logistic regression analyses. Social skills deficits were significantly associated with an increased risk of Internet addiction after adjustment for the effects of other factors [odds ratio (OR) = 1.049, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.030–1.070]. Social skills deficits were also significantly associated with Internet gaming and watching movies. The maternal occupational socioeconomic levels of the participants moderated the association between social skills deficits and Internet addiction. Conclusions Social skills deficits should be considered targets in prevention and intervention programs for treating Internet addiction among adolescents with ADHD

Using Family-Based Imputation in Genome-Wide Association Studies with Large Complex Pedigrees: The Framingham Heart Study

Imputation has been widely used in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to infer genotypes of un-genotyped variants based on the linkage disequilibrium in external reference panels such as the HapMap and 1000 Genomes. However, imputation has only rarely been performed based on family relationships to infer genotypes of un-genotyped individuals. Using 8998 Framingham Heart Study (FHS) participants genotyped with Affymetrix 550K SNPs, we imputed genotypes of same set of SNPs for additional 3121 participants, most of whom were never genotyped due to lack of DNA sample. Prior to imputation, 122 pedigrees were too large to be handled by the imputation software Merlin. Therefore, we developed a novel pedigree splitting algorithm that can maximize the number of genotyped relatives for imputing each un-genotyped individual, while keeping new sub-pedigrees under a pre-specified size. In GWAS of four phenotypes available in FHS (Alzheimer disease, circulating levels of fibrinogen, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and uric acid), we compared results using genotyped individuals only with results using both genotyped and imputed individuals. We studied the impact of applying different imputation quality filtering thresholds on the association results and did not found a universal threshold that always resulted in a more significant p-value for previously identified loci. However most of these loci had a lower p-value when we only included imputed genotypes with with ≥60% SNP- and ≥50% person-specific imputation certainty. In summary, we developed a novel algorithm for splitting large pedigrees for imputation and found a plausible imputation quality filtering threshold based on FHS. Further examination may be required to generalize this threshold to other studies

Molecular events associated with epithelial to mesenchymal transition of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells in the absence of Epstein-Barr virus genome

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an important process in tumor metastasis. The EMT-related events associated with metastasis of NPC in the absence of EBV have not been elucidated. We established an EBV-negative NPC cell line from a bone marrow biopsy of an NPC patient. Using a Matrigel system we isolated an invasive and non-invasive sublines, designated NPC-BM29 and NPC-BM00. NPC-BM29 acquired an invasive-like phenotype characterized by EMT, marked by down-regulation of E-cadherin and β-catenin with concomitant increased expression of Ets1. NPC-BM29 cells expressed ≥ 10-fold higher of MMP-9 than NPC-BM00 cells. NPC-BM29 cells grew better in 2% serum than NPC-BM00 cells, with a population doubling-time of 26.8 h and 30.7 h, respectively. A marked reduction in colony-formation ability of NPC-BM00 cells compared to NPC-BM29 was observed. Wound-healing assay revealed that NPC-BM29 cells displayed higher motility than NPC-BM00 and the motility was further enhanced by cell treatment with TPA, a PKC activator. Cell surface markers and tumor-associated molecules, AE3, MAK6 and sialyl-Tn, were up-regulated in NPC-BM29 cells, whereas the expression of HLA-DR and CD54 was significantly increased in NPC-BM00 cells. NPC-BM29 consistently released higher levels of IL-8 and IL-10 than NPC-BM00, with low levels of IL-1α expression in both cell lines. Higher level of VEGF production was detected in NPC-BM00 than NPC-BM29 cells. These data show that EBV is not required for exhibiting multiple metastatic phenotypes associated with EMT. More studies that target right molecules/signalings associated with the EMT may offer new therapeutic intervention options for NPC invasion and metastasis