Unpacking the Network Pictures of the ICT industry in Taiwan

This study analyzes how a developmental state fosters its ICT industries through the network alliances among a boundary organization and ICT industries. The cooperative networks of ICT industries play a strategic role for the national development in a global networked economy. We argue that different network pictures lead to different managerial strategies and capabilities. Drawing on studies of network pictures, this study details an interpretive case study in a major semi-government sponsored ICT marketing research institute in Taiwan. We explore the relationships between this boundary organization, ICT businesses and their dynamic networking relationship. The findings highlight how the inertia of network pictures stabilizes value creation activities and capabilities in the boundary organization, thus limiting it opening to a more radical future-oriented strategic network

Single-Year and Multi-year Insurance Policies in a Competitive Market

This paper examines the demand and supply of annual and multi-year insurance contracts with respect to protection against a catastrophic risk in a competitive market. Insurers who offer annual policies can cancel policies at the end of each year and change the premium in the following year. Multi-year insurance has a fixed annual price for each year and no cancellations are permitted at the end of any given year. Homeowners are identical with respect to their exposure to the hazard. Each homeowner determines whether or not to purchase an annual or multi-year contract so as to maximize her expected utility. The competitive equilibrium consists of a set of prices where homeowners who are not very risk averse decide to be uninsured. Other individuals demand either single-year or multi-year policies depending on their degree of risk aversion and the premiums charged by insurers for each type of policy

Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides in human monocytic leukemia cells: from gene expression to network construction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Ganoderma lucidum </it>has been widely used as a herbal medicine for promoting health and longevity in China and other Asian countries. Polysaccharide extracts from <it>Ganoderma lucidum </it>have been reported to exhibit immuno-modulating and anti-tumor activities. In previous studies, F3, the active component of the polysaccharide extract, was found to activate various cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, IL-12, and TNF-<it>α</it>. This gave rise to our investigation on how F3 stimulates immuno-modulating or anti-tumor effects in human leukemia THP-1 cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we integrated time-course DNA microarray analysis, quantitative PCR assays, and bioinformatics methods to study the F3-induced effects in THP-1 cells. Significantly disturbed pathways induced by F3 were identified with statistical analysis on microarray data. The apoptosis induction through the DR3 and DR4/5 death receptors was found to be one of the most significant pathways and play a key role in THP-1 cells after F3 treatment. Based on time-course gene expression measurements of the identified pathway, we reconstructed a plausible regulatory network of the involved genes using reverse-engineering computational approach.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results showed that F3 may induce death receptor ligands to initiate signaling via receptor oligomerization, recruitment of specialized adaptor proteins and activation of caspase cascades.</p

Paternal Tobacco Smoke Correlated to Offspring Asthma and Prenatal Epigenetic Programming

Rationale: Little is known about effects of paternal tobacco smoke (PTS) on the offspring’s asthma and its prenatal epigenetic programming.Objective: To investigate whether PTS exposure was associated with the offspring’s asthma and correlated to epigenetic CG methylation of potential tobacco-related immune genes: LMO2, GSTM1 or/and IL-10 genes.Measurements and Main Results: In a birth cohort of 1,629 newborns, we measured exposure rates of PTS (23%) and maternal tobacco smoke (MTS, 0.2%), cord blood DNA methylation, infant respiratory tract infection, childhood DNA methylation, and childhood allergic diseases. Infants with prenatal PTS exposure had a significantly higher risk of asthma by the age of 6 than those without (p = 0.026). The PTS exposure doses at 0, &lt;20, and ≧20 cigarettes per day were significantly associated with the trend of childhood asthma and the increase of LMO2-E148 (p = 0.006), and IL10_P325 (p = 0.008) CG methylation. The combination of higher CG methylation levels of LMO2_E148, IL10_P325, and GSTM1_P266 corresponded to the highest risk of asthma by 43.48%, compared to other combinations (16.67–23.08%) in the 3-way multi-factor dimensionality reduction (MDR) analysis. The LMO2_P794 and GSTM1_P266 CG methylation levels at age 0 were significantly correlated to those at age of 6.Conclusions: Prenatal PTS exposure increases CG methylation contents of immune genes, such as LMO2 and IL-10, which significantly retained from newborn stage to 6 years of age and correlated to development of childhood asthma. Modulation of the LMO2 and IL-10 CG methylation and/or their gene expression may provide a regimen for early prevention of PTS-associated childhood asthma.Descriptor number: 1.10 Asthma Mediators.Scientific Knowledge on the Subject: It has been better known that maternal tobacco smoke (MTS) has an impact on the offspring’s asthma via epigenetic modification. Little is known about effects of paternal tobacco smoke (PTS) on the offspring’s asthma and its prenatal epigenetic programming.What This Study Adds to the Field: Prenatal tobacco smoke (PTS) can program epigenetic modifications in certain genes, such as LMO2 and IL-10, and that these modifications are correlated to childhood asthma development. The higher the PTS exposure dose the higher the CG methylation levels are found. The combination of higher CG methylation levels of LMO2_E148, IL10_P325 and GSTM1_P266 corresponded to the highest risk of asthma. Measuring the DNA methylation levels of certain genes might help to predict high-risk populations for childhood asthma and provide a potential target to prevent the development of childhood asthma

The 5p15.33 Locus Is Associated with Risk of Lung Adenocarcinoma in Never-Smoking Females in Asia

Genome-wide association studies of lung cancer reported in populations of European background have identified three regions on chromosomes 5p15.33, 6p21.33, and 15q25 that have achieved genome-wide significance with p-values of 10−7 or lower. These studies have been performed primarily in cigarette smokers, raising the possibility that the observed associations could be related to tobacco use, lung carcinogenesis, or both. Since most women in Asia do not smoke, we conducted a genome-wide association study of lung adenocarcinoma in never-smoking females (584 cases, 585 controls) among Han Chinese in Taiwan and found that the most significant association was for rs2736100 on chromosome 5p15.33 (p = 1.30×10−11). This finding was independently replicated in seven studies from East Asia totaling 1,164 lung adenocarcinomas and 1,736 controls (p = 5.38×10−11). A pooled analysis achieved genome-wide significance for rs2736100. This SNP marker localizes to the CLPTM1L-TERT locus on chromosome 5p15.33 (p = 2.60×10−20, allelic risk = 1.54, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.41–1.68). Risks for heterozygote and homozygote carriers of the minor allele were 1.62 (95% CI; 1.40–1.87), and 2.35 (95% CI: 1.95–2.83), respectively. In summary, our results show that genetic variation in the CLPTM1L-TERT locus of chromosome 5p15.33 is directly associated with the risk of lung cancer, most notably adenocarcinoma

Вихретоковый анизотропный термоэлектрический первичный преобразователь лучистого потока

Представлена оригинальная конструкция первичного преобразователя лучистого потока, который может служить основой для создания приемника неселективного излучения с повышенной чувствительностью

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors from 1980 to 2010: A comparative risk assessment

Background: High blood pressure, blood glucose, serum cholesterol, and BMI are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and some of these factors also increase the risk of chronic kidney disease and diabetes. We estimated mortality from cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes that was attributable to these four cardiometabolic risk factors for all countries and regions from 1980 to 2010. Methods: We used data for exposure to risk factors by country, age group, and sex from pooled analyses of population-based health surveys. We obtained relative risks for the effects of risk factors on cause-specific mortality from meta-analyses of large prospective studies. We calculated the population attributable fractions for each risk factor alone, and for the combination of all risk factors, accounting for multicausality and for mediation of the effects of BMI by the other three risks. We calculated attributable deaths by multiplying the cause-specific population attributable fractions by the number of disease-specific deaths. We obtained cause-specific mortality from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study. We propagated the uncertainties of all the inputs to the final estimates. Findings: In 2010, high blood pressure was the leading risk factor for deaths due to cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes in every region, causing more than 40% of worldwide deaths from these diseases; high BMI and glucose were each responsible for about 15% of deaths, and high cholesterol for more than 10%. After accounting for multicausality, 63% (10·8 million deaths, 95% CI 10·1-11·5) of deaths from these diseases in 2010 were attributable to the combined effect of these four metabolic risk factors, compared with 67% (7·1 million deaths, 6·6-7·6) in 1980. The mortality burden of high BMI and glucose nearly doubled from 1980 to 2010. At the country level, age-standardised death rates from these diseases attributable to the combined effects of these four risk factors surpassed 925 deaths per 100 000 for men in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, but were less than 130 deaths per 100 000 for women and less than 200 for men in some high-income countries including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Spain. Interpretation: The salient features of the cardiometabolic disease and risk factor epidemic at the beginning of the 21st century are high blood pressure and an increasing effect of obesity and diabetes. The mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors has shifted from high-income to low-income and middle-income countries. Lowering cardiometabolic risks through dietary, behavioural, and pharmacological interventions should be a part of the global response to non-communicable diseases. Funding: UK Medical Research Council, US National Institutes of Health. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

Genome-wide association study of lung adenocarcinoma in East Asia and comparison with a European population

Lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer. Known risk variants explain only a small fraction of lung adenocarcinoma heritability. Here, we conducted a two-stage genome-wide association study of lung adenocarcinoma of East Asian ancestry (21,658 cases and 150,676 controls; 54.5% never-smokers) and identified 12 novel susceptibility variants, bringing the total number to 28 at 25 independent loci. Transcriptome-wide association analyses together with colocalization studies using a Taiwanese lung expression quantitative trait loci dataset (n = 115) identified novel candidate genes, including FADS1 at 11q12 and ELF5 at 11p13. In a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of East Asian and European studies, four loci were identified at 2p11, 4q32, 16q23, and 18q12. At the same time, most of our findings in East Asian populations showed no evidence of association in European populations. In our studies drawn from East Asian populations, a polygenic risk score based on the 25 loci had a stronger association in never-smokers vs. individuals with a history of smoking (P interaction  = 0.0058). These findings provide new insights into the etiology of lung adenocarcinoma in individuals from East Asian populations, which could be important in developing translational applications