An Evaluation of Container Development Strategies in the Port of Taichung

AbstractThe objective of this study is to examine the container development strategies in the port of Taichung from the viewpoints of carriers, port authorities and shipping academics. The six most important strategic attributes from the all respondents perceptions are Enhancing the services of direct shipping with Mainland China, simplified customs procedures, simplified administrative procedures, developing service routes with Hong Kong and Mainland China, improving port information systems, and flexible rate to response market change. Based on a factor analysis, the findings reflect that price and incentive strategic dimension was the most import strategic dimension, followed by marketing and direct shipping with Mainland China as well as reorganization and information service strategic dimensions. In addition, the perceived implemented period for container development strategic attributes for the Taichung Port was also investigated in this study. Results indicated that four development strategies stood out as being short-term need to perform to all respondents were providing one-stop shopping services for carriers, flexible rate to response market change, enhancing employee training and knowledge, and strengthening port marketing and promotion. Theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings are discussed

Electronic structures of lanthanum, samarium, and gadolinium sulfides

In this study, we report our efforts to elucidate the electronic structures of two lattice structures of lanthanide sulfides (LnS and Ln3S4) and for three lanthanides (Ln = La, Sm and Gd) using density functional theory calculations performed with the CASTEP code. A DFT+U method was used for the corrections of on-site Coulomb interactions with U = 6 eV. The calculated electronic structures show that both lanthanum and gadolinium sulfides have metallic properties, consistent with the available experimental results. However, the calculated electronic structure of Sm3S4 is considerably different from those of the La3S4 and Gd3S4 and is predicted to have semiconducting properties

Efficient load balancing for bursty demand in web based application services via domain name services

In this paper, we propose an enhancement to the conventional Round Robin DNS load balancing technique which allows a single domain name to be associated with several web server IP addresses in a rotated order in a server cluster. Once the DNS server resolves the domain name to one of the web server IP address, the subsequent requests from the same client will be sent to the same server regardless of the current condition of the server. However, this conventional load balancing technique has a few disadvantages; Firstly, the DNS server is unaware of the status of web servers whether their services are available or not. Secondly, making changes to the DNS records can take days to propagate across the local DNS caches because the conventional DNS server will not delete their cached DNS records until the time to live (TTL) expires. Lastly, DNS server assumes all web application servers to have equal capability to offer their services without taking into account of the server's load and performance level. In this paper, a new approach is presented to enhance the DNS load balancing services to be more intelligent in load distribution. The DNS server is taking consideration of the status of the servers and will be distributing the services requests based on the performance matrix of the servers in the cluster

Efficient DNS based Load Balancing for Bursty Web Application Traffic

This research proposes a new efficient load balancing algorithm which applies to the local Domain Name Service (DNS) server for web based applications and services to ease the sudden increase in demand for the services. Owing to the existing load balancing algorithms still experience server’s resource congestion and slow connection to the system resulted by sudden bursty demand of services especially during special events. This is mainly due to the unbalanced distribution of workload and the insufficient of physical computing resources in service provision. To overcome this problem, most web based application service providers will have to constantly improve the capacity of their physical computing resources by either adding new server nodes to the existing server farm or renting cloud computing resources from cloud computing service provider to meet the sudden demands of the end users during the peak period. However, it is not economical to maneuver and reconfigure huge amount of permanent computing resources just to satisfy the instantaneous and short period of service demand. As a result, the need to have a more efficient load balancing algorithm which can adaptively utilize the resources available in the farm of computing resources will be of advantageous. The new algorithm will be able to directly decrease the operation cost and web services will no longer be interrupted by sudden high demand of traffic request. The proposed algorithm is evaluated via computer simulation and modeling where its performance is verified against the few selected algorithms of the same nature. Enhancement on the DNS system for load balancing is beneficial to most organizations such as government agencies and service providers running their own local DNS service, which allow the proposed algorithm to be easily implemented. Moreover, DNS setup is standard across the IP networks hence the adoption can be easy achieved with minimal changes without altering the architecture of the services provided especially in coding as well as physical set up of the server farm itself

Serologic Status for Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus, Taiwan

We studied preexisting immunity to pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus in persons in Taiwan. A total of 18 (36%) of 50 elderly adults in Taiwan born before 1935 had protective antibodies against currently circulating pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus. Seasonal influenza vaccines induced antibodies that did not protect against pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus

Excavatoids O and P, New 12-Hydroxybriaranes from the Octocoral Briareum excavatum

Two new 12-hydroxybriarane diterpenoids, designated as excavatoids O (1) and P (2), were isolated from the octocoral Briareum excavatum. The structures of briaranes 1 and 2 were established on the basis of extensive spectral data analysis. Excavatoid P (2) is the first metabolite which possesses a 6β -chlorine atom in briarane analogues

Lobocrassins A–E: New Cembrane-Type Diterpenoids from the Soft Coral Lobophytum crassum

Five new cembrane-type diterpenoids, lobocrassins A–E (1–5), were isolated from the soft coral Lobophytum crassum. The structures of cembranes 1–5 were established by spectroscopic and chemical methods and by comparison of the spectral data with those of known cembrane analogues. Lobocrassin A (1) is the first cembranoid possessing an α-chloromethyl-α-hydroxy-γ-lactone functionality and is the first chlorinated cembranoid from soft corals belonging to the genus Lobophytum. Lobocrassins B (2) and C (3) were found to be the stereoisomers of the known cembranes, 14-deoxycrassin (6) and pseudoplexaurol (7), respectively. Lobocrassin B (2) exhibited modest cytotoxicity toward K562, CCRF-CEM, Molt4, and HepG2 tumor cells and displayed significant inhibitory effects on the generation of superoxide anion and the release of elastase by human neutrophils

Natural Product Chemistry of Gorgonian Corals of Genus Junceella—Part II

The structures, names, bioactivities, and references of 81 new secondary metabolites obtained from gorgonian corals belonging to the genus Junceella are described in this review. All compounds mentioned in this review were obtained from sea whip gorgonian corals Junceella fragilis and Junceella juncea, collected from the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific Ocean