The Relationships among Buyers’ Perceived Risk, Exhibitors’ Brand Equity, Purchase Postponement and Switching Intention-From the Perspectives of Perceived Risk Theory and Expectancy Theory

This study explores the effects of buyers’ perceived risk on their purchase postponement and switching intention in an international industrial fair, as well as examines the moderating effect of exhibitors’ brand equity on the above relationships. This study uses the purposive sampling method to survey buyers of the famous International Woodworking Machine Fair in Hanover, Germany. Of the 200 surveys distributed, 105 valid questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 52.50%. Analytical results show that higher buyers’ perceived risk is associated with buyers’ higher purchase postponement, and stronger switching intention. Furthermore, when facing high-brand equity exhibitors’ products, if buyers perceive low risk of use, they are unlikely to delay purchase and switch suppliers; in contrast, if they perceive high risk of use, they are more likely to delay purchase and switch suppliers. Finally, when buyers face low-brand equity exhibitors’ products, if they perceive low risk of use, they will delay purchase and switch suppliers; in contrast, if they perceive high risk of use, they will tend not to delay purchase and switch suppliers

Palpation of preoperatively inserted indwelling angiocatheter facilitates intraoperative localization of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding of small intestinal origin

SummaryBackgroundPalpation of the indwelling angiographic catheter inserted before operation to localize obscure gastrointestinal bleeding of small intestinal origin during laparotomy has rarely been reported in the literature.PurposeThe purpose of the study is to investigate the role of palpable indwelling angiocatheter inserted before operation in localizing obscure gastrointestinal bleeding of small intestinal origin during laparotomy.MethodsBetween January 2003 and December 2010, seven patients who had a clinical impression of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding of small intestinal origin and angiographic extravasation from the mesenteric artery had an angiocatheter inserted into the distal mesenteric branch. During laparotomy the catheter was palpated to guide subsequent resection of the intestine. The clinical outcomes of these patients were retrospectively reviewed.ResultsDuring laparotomy the retained catheter failed to be palpated in one patient. Six patients underwent segmental resection of intestine under guidance of the palpated catheter. All six patients had positive identification of small bowel bleeding. The yield rate of intraoperative localization was 86% (6 out of 7). Two of the six patients ceased bleeding after operation, but died of underlying disease progression. Four of the six patients had an uneventful postoperative clinical course without recurrent bleeding after a median follow-up period of 25 months.ConclusionPalpation of the indwelling angiographic catheter selectively left before operation is effective for precisely locating obscure gastrointestinal bleeding of small intestinal origin during laparotomy

Resource Slack, Innovation Ambidexterity, and Quality Performance: Knowledge Heterogeneity Perspective

Abstract. Resource slack and innovation ambidexterity can both be represented and connected conceptually with heterogeneous knowledge structure. Hypothesizing with the logic of knowledge heterogeneity, the present study empirically examined ambidexterity’s mediation effect in the relationship between two forms of resource slacks (i.e., human and financial resources) and product quality. Companies in Taiwanese manufacturing industry were located based on the random inspection conducted by the Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of the Government in 2011, and surveyed. Our findings demonstrated that slack resource is only an indirect factor for product quality evaluated by internal developers and producers (i.e. development and delivery processes) and external customers (product-specific quality). Specifically, first, different resource slacks influence differently on ambidexterity; second, both exploration and exploitation positively influence quality of innovation; third, ambidexterity plays a significant mediator’s role that may strategically alter the relationship between slack and quality. Research has paid increasing attention to ambidexterity (i.e., exploration and exploitation) in organizational innovation. Mostly, however, focus on the influencing factors leading to possible ambidextrous design or implementation of innovation. Few have examined ambidexterity’s effects on specific dimensions of innovation as outcomes.Keywords. Resource slacks, Ambidexterity, Quality, Knowledge heterogeneity.JEL. M10; M11; M14

NCNet: Deep Learning Network Models for Predicting Function of Non-coding DNA

The human genome consists of 98.5% non-coding DNA sequences, and most of them have no known function. However, a majority of disease-associated variants lie in these regions. Therefore, it is critical to predict the function of non-coding DNA. Hence, we propose the NCNet, which integrates deep residual learning and sequence-to-sequence learning networks, to predict the transcription factor (TF) binding sites, which can then be used to predict non-coding functions. In NCNet, deep residual learning networks are used to enhance the identification rate of regulatory patterns of motifs, so that the sequence-to-sequence learning network may make the most out of the sequential dependency between the patterns. With the identity shortcut technique and deep architectures of the networks, NCNet achieves significant improvement compared to the original hybrid model in identifying regulatory markers

Usage of central venous catheter for delayed traumatic pneumothorax

Pneumothorax, whether spontaneous, iatrogenic or traumatic, frequently requires drainage, especially in the face of positive pressure ventilation or general anesthesia. The traditional approach with large-bore, rigid chest tube is associated with significant pain and various complications. Recently, less invasive modalities such as pigtail catheter or fine-needle aspiration have been used in selected patients. We report a case of delay-onset pneumothorax after trauma and the patient was treated successfully with the easily available central venous catheter for drainage

Reduction in magnetic coercivity of Co nanomagnets by Fe alloying

We measured the magnetic hysteresis and coercivity of individual Co and Co$_{0.8}$Fe$_{0.2}$ bilayer nano-sized island structures formed on Cu (111) substrate using spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy. From the hysteresis taken on various sizes of islands, we found that the alloyed islands are ferromagnetic with out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy, same as the pure islands. Coercivity of the alloy islands, which is dependent on their size, was significantly reduced to ≈40% of that of the pure islands. Based on the Stoner–Wohlfarth model, we evaluated the amount of magnetic anisotropic energy and anisotropy constant for both pure and alloy islands. Since tunneling spectra taken on the alloy islands show upward shifts of the valence electronic states as compared to the pure ones, fewer electrons populated in the valence band of the alloy islands are presumably responsible for the reduction in the magnetic anisotropic energy