Remaining As A Leader or Not? Technology Spillover Answers

Much has been discussed about the advantages and disadvantages of being a first mover. However, discussion regarding the incentives encouraging a firm to remain as leader is absent in most studies. This paper aims to fill this gap and provide theoretical and empirical evidences vis-à-vis the incentives of remaining as a leader, by comparing profits between leader and follower when taking technology spillover and technological efficiency into consideration. The findings show that in regard to effective technological efficiency: (i) under the condition of a weak (strong) technology spillover, retaining the position of leader firm is (not) a dominant strategy because of higher (lower) profits than a follower; (ii) the half-shared technology spillover leads to an equal profit between firms, and implies a critical time of action for the leader firm to break the evenly-matched status by reconsidering first mover advantages; (iii) an empirical study on a data set of 352 high-tech and non-high-tech SMEs in manufacturing industry from 1999 until 2006 lends strong support to these results and may also provide useful clues for technology managers or practitioners to make better policies to benefit their market competitiveness

Modulation of Serum Antinuclear Antibody Levels by Levamisole Treatment in Patients With Oral Lichen Planus

Background/PurposeSerum autoantibodies, including antinuclear antibodies (ANAs), have been found in patients with oral lichen planus (OLP). This study evaluated whether Taiwanese OLP patients had significantly higher frequencies of serum ANAs than healthy control subjects, and whether levamisole treatment could modulate the antibody levels.MethodsThis study used an indirect immunofluorescence technique to measure the baseline serum levels of ANA in a group of 583 Taiwanese OLP patients and 53 healthy control subjects. Seventy-nine ANA-positive OLP patients were treated with levamisole under a regular follow-up schedule in our dental clinic, and their serum ANA levels were measured after treatment.ResultsWe found that the frequencies of serum ANA in patients with OLP (23.2%), erosive OLP (EOLP, 23.8%), major EOLP (31.5%), and minor EOLP (18.1%) were all significantly higher than that (5.7%) in healthy control subjects. In addition, major EOLP patients had a significantly higher serum ANA positive rate than minor EOLP or non-erosive OLP patients. Of 135 ANA-positive OLP patients, 79 were treated with levamisole under a regular follow-up schedule. We found that treatment with levamisole for a period of 2–38 months (mean, 12 ± 9 months) effectively reduced the high mean serum ANA titer (557 ± 98) at baseline to an undetectable level (0) in all ANA-positive OLP patients, regardless of different high initial serum titers of ANA.ConclusionThere was a significantly higher frequency of serum ANA (23.2%) in Taiwanese OLP patients than in healthy control subjects. Treatment with levamisole for 2–38 months reduced the high serum ANA to an undetectable level, and significantly improved the signs and symptoms in all treated OLP patients

THE NOVEL BIOMECHANICAL MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS SYSTEM FOR TUG-OF-WAR

Tug of war (TOW) is a kind of sport that has been accepted as one of the formal items in the Olympic game. Because of having well defined rule, the TOW has high potential to be extended to all over the world in the near future. To increase the possibility of success in the competition, athletes of the TOW should be subjected to a series of training courses. After experiencing certain training course, an athlete of TOW required to carry out pulling force test to evaluate his performance and consequently verify the effectiveness of the training course. In this study, a multi-purposes biomechanical measurement and analysis system is proposed in which various evaluations of the athlete performance. The idea of the proposed system is discussed and the associated theoretical methods are derived

Impacts of Techno-Dependence in The Mobile Instant Messaging Environment

Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) services such as LINE, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat have already established a mobile communication environment that extends beyond words and sounds. As MIM provides an effective way to communicate, it can improve workplace efficiency, whether within an organization or among offices spread around the world. Nowadays, MIM has been widely accepted as both a social and work tool. The social interaction overload generated by SNSs contributes to emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion, on the other hand, leads to dissatisfaction and discontinuous usage intentions. In the context of MIMs (since they are relative new apps), users whether are likely to experience emotional exhaustion that is generated by social interaction overload, and therefore discontinue their use of MIMs. In contrast to traditional research on IS continued use in the past which defines dependence as a routine and unconscious usage pattern. MIMs offer a communication method that is faster and easier than phone calls or SMS. It is possible that MIMs bring people closer by allowing their users to understand more of the situational matters related to their friends or family, without being limited by distance. Specifically, social-group functions offered by LINE can encourage users to join certain social groups (for instance, family, colleagues, classmates, or friends). Group members can not only discuss common topics, they can also share their “photo albums,” enabling members to enhance their sense of belonging. At the same time, they have the opportunity to feel a sense of being valued, loved, and needed. Although the mobility and accessibility of mobile devices allow users to instantly contact each other on MIMs and on real-time basis, excessive use of MIMs, or MIM techno-dependence, is likely to generate social-related stress among their users. Therefore, this research attempts to explore the possibility that MIM techno-dependency can have non-detrimental effects, and considers the positive and healthy results from MIM techno-dependency due to an increased sense of belonging. The questions explored include: do MIMs users develop a positive techno-dependence? Does this positive emotional reaction encourage MIMs users to continue their use of MIMs? Since LINE is a relative newcomer to MIM, there is still a dearth of research needed to explore issues related to using MIM as a research tool. This study considers how LINE combines a diverse range of communication approaches—such as voice, texts, maps, pictures, photos, locations, video, and audio—with a variety of community groups such as friends chat, group chat, dynamic news, and official accounts. It seems worthwhile to study characteristics of LINE’s users in order to further explore the issues related to MIM. Through the hypotheses development and a survey research on 685 LINE users, this study inferred that users make frequent use of LINE in the long-term mainly because of four kinds of techno-dependence: people, fun, information, and work. Such techno-dependence generates positive and negative consequences concurrently. On the one hand, because the user’s dependence on LINE enhances his or her belongingness through friends, colleagues, and family, this positive social and emotional reaction will make users satisfied with LINE, and thus increase continuous usage intention for LINE. On the other hand, the user’s dependence on LINE means that they experience social interaction overload resulting in emotional exhaustion. Dependence on LINE leads to users experiencing pressure from both social message overload and social demand overload, resulting in social interaction overload. This negative social and emotional reaction will cause a decrease in user satisfaction with LINE, thereby reducing the continuous usage intention of LINE. Based on these findings, we suggest that LINE-related techno-dependence can enable users to increase their sense of positive social belongingness, but can also cause negative social interaction overload. It is concluded that the consequences of techno-dependence are characterized by both positive and negative emotions. Users’ evaluations of LINE are simultaneously affected by positive and negative social and emotional factors

Bacteria in the apical root canals of teeth with apical periodontitis

Background/PurposeBacteria in the tooth root canal may cause apical periodontitis. This study examined the bacterial species present in the apical root canal of teeth with apical periodontitis. Antibiotic sensitivity tests were performed to evaluate whether these identified bacterial species were susceptible to specific kinds of antibiotics.MethodsSelective media plating and biochemical tests were used first to detect the bacterial species in samples taken from the apical portion of root canals of 62 teeth with apical periodontitis. The isolated bacterial species were further confirmed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry.ResultsWe found concomitant presence of two (32 teeth) or three species (18 teeth) of bacteria in 50 (80.6%) out of 62 tested teeth. However, only 34 bacterial species were identified. Of a total of 118 bacterial isolates (83 anaerobes and 35 aerobes), Prophyromonas endodontalis was detected in 10; Bacteroides, Dialister invisus or Fusobacterium nucleatum in 9; Treponema denticola or Enterococcus faecalis in 8; Peptostreptococcus or Olsenella uli in 6; and Veillonella in 5 teeth. The other 25 bacterial species were detected in fewer than five teeth. Approximately 80–95% of bacterial isolates of anaerobes were sensitive to ampicillin/sulbactam (Unasyn), amoxicillin/clavulanate (Augmentin), cefoxitin, and clindamycin. For E. faecalis, 85–90% of bacterial isolates were sensitive to gentamicin and linezolid.ConclusionRoot canal infections are usually caused by a mixture of two or three species of bacteria. Specific kinds of antibiotic can be selected to control these bacterial infections after antibiotic sensitivity testing

Assessing Computational Amino Acid β-Turn Propensities with a Phage-Displayed Combinatorial Library and Directed Evolution

SummaryStructure propensities of amino acids are important determinants in guiding proteins' local and global structure formation. We constructed a phage display library—a hexa-HIS tag upstream of a CXXC (X stands for any of the 20 natural amino acids) motif appending N-terminal to the minor capsid protein pIII of M13KE filamentous phage—and developed a novel directed-evolution procedure to select for amino acid sequences forming increasingly stable β-turns in the disulfide-bridged CXXC motif. The sequences that emerged from the directed-evolution cycles were in good agreement with type II β-turn propensities derived from surveys of known protein structures, in particular, Pro-Gly forming a type II β-turn. The agreement strongly supported the notion that β-turn formation plays an active role in initiating local structure folding in proteins

Successful treatment of an early invasive oral squamous cell carcinoma with topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy

Our previous studies showed successful treatment of a series of 36 oral verrucous hyperplasia lesions and of an extensive oral verrucous carcinoma with a topical 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA)-mediated photodynamic therapy (topical ALA-PDT) protocol (with a fluence rate of 100 mW/cm2 and a light exposure dose of 100 J/cm2) using a 635-nm light-emitting diode (LED) light source. In this case report, we tested whether an enhanced topical ALA-PDT protocol (with a fluence rate of 200 mW/cm2 and a light exposure dose of 200 J/cm2) could be used to treat an early invasive oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) with a verrucous appearance of the left lower posterior edentulous alveolar mucosa of a 67-year-old male former areca-quid chewer and ex-smoker. The main verrucous lesion showed complete regression after eight treatments with PDT. However, 10 extra treatments were needed to eradicate the multiple residual leukoplakia lesions on the edentulous alveolar mucosa. Moderate to severe post-PDT pain was noted during the initial eight treatments, and the patient needed analgesics (codeine phosphate, 30 mg three times daily) to control the pain. No recurrence of the OSCC lesion was found after a follow-up period of 4 years. We suggest that our enhanced topical ALA-PDT protocol may have good potential to be used as a treatment of choice for a superficially invasive OSCC without regional or distant metastasis before the commencement of other effective therapies

Factors Affecting Daughter Cells' Arrangement during the Early Bacterial Divisions

On agar plates, daughter cells of Escherichia coli mutually slide and align side-by-side in parallel during the first round of binary fission. This phenomenon has been previously attributed to an elastic material that restricts apparently separated bacteria from being in string. We hypothesize that the interaction between bacteria and the underneath substratum may affect the arrangement of the daughter bacteria. To test this hypothesis, bacterial division on hyaluronic acid (HA) gel, as an alternative substratum, was examined. Consistent with our proposition, the HA gel differs from agar by suppressing the typical side-by-side alignments to a rare population. Examination of bacterial surface molecules that may contribute to the daughter cells' arrangement yielded an observation that, with disrupted lpp, the E. coli daughter cells increasingly formed non-typical patterns, i.e. neither sliding side-by-side in parallel nor forming elongated strings. Therefore, our results suggest strongly that the early cell patterning is affected by multiple interaction factors. With oscillatory optical tweezers, we further demonstrated that the interaction force decreased in bacteria without Lpp, a result substantiating our notion that the side-by-side sliding phenomenon directly reflects the strength of in-situ interaction between bacteria and substratum