An Economic Perspective On Self-reported Happiness In Taiwan

Happiness research has become a topic of interest in recent years. The OECD\u27s Better Life Index, the U.N.\u27s World Happiness Report, and Taiwan\u27s National Happiness Indicator are examples of initiatives to understand better and evaluate the well-being of people. After the well-known Easterlin Paradox was proposed, more and more economists started researching the economics of happiness. Economists studied the relationship between reported happiness and income and the relationship between reported happiness and socioeconomic factors and demographic factors. In this study, I use data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey of 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 to analyze potential factors affecting or at least correlated with people\u27s reported happiness. To analyze these factors, I estimate an ordered logit model with data on reported happiness. Being female, having a higher educational level, believing in Western Religion, having a higher income, and being a student are statistically significant and positively correlated with a higher likelihood of reporting being very happy. This result is consistent with the Easterlin paradox. At a point in time, individuals with higher incomes in Taiwan are more likely to report being very happy. Also, while the Taiwanese GDP doubled from 1995 to 2015, there was no noticeable increase in the likelihood of reporting being fairly happy or very happy

A SEEMINGLY UNRELETED REGRESSION ANALYSIS ON THE TRADING BEHAVIOR OF MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS

This paper provides a comprehensive investigation on the causality relationship between fund performance and trading flows. We analyze if investors behave asymmetrically in fund purchasing and selling by seemingly unrelated regression which comprises several individual relationships that are linked by the fact that their disturbances or the error terms are correlated. The empirical result shows a significantly negative relationship between fund performance and purchase flows for domestic funds. The magnitude of domestic funds redemption negatively affects current return, but not for international funds. As previousfund return positively affects current net flows,the further lagged performances have no significant impact on the trading flows, revealing that fund investors are sensitive only to short-term past performance. Most importantly, while negative fund performance leads to the increases in redemption, positive performance contrarily leads to the decreases in purchase. The evidences strongly indicate an asymmetry behavior of fund investors in the return-purchase causality relations

pKNOT: the protein KNOT web server

Knotted proteins are more commonly observed in recent years due to the enormously growing number of structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Studies show that the knot regions contribute to both ligand binding and enzyme activity in proteins such as the chromophore-binding domain of phytochrome, ketol–acid reductoisomerase or SpoU methyltransferase. However, there are still many misidentified knots published in the literature due to the absence of a convenient web tool available to the general biologists. Here, we present the first web server to detect the knots in proteins as well as provide information on knotted proteins in PDB—the protein KNOT (pKNOT) web server. In pKNOT, users can either input PDB ID or upload protein coordinates in the PDB format. The pKNOT web server will detect the knots in the protein using the Taylor's smoothing algorithm. All the detected knots can be visually inspected using a Java-based 3D graphics viewer. We believe that the pKNOT web server will be useful to both biologists in general and structural biologists in particular

Primary ovary transitional cell carcinoma after renal transplantation

AbstractTransitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urinary tract is the most frequent malignancy following renal transplantation reported in Taiwan. A 67-year-old female underwent bilateral nephrouretectomy and bladder cuff excision because of bilateral hydronephrosis 5 years after cadaveric renal transplantation. The pathologic report was only atrophied kidney. Pelvic sonography and abdominal computed tomography showed a pelvic mass 8 years after transplantation. After gynecological surgery, the pathologic report of the left ovarian tumor was TCC, high grade, stage IIA. The patient then underwent four cycles of postoperative chemotherapy with carboplatin and gemcitabine. TCC of the ovary is a rare, recently recognized subtype of ovarian surface epithelial cancer. We present the first case of primary ovarian TCC following renal transplant

PERCEPTION FIELD FOR A MOBILE DEVICE TO PROVIDE REAL-TIME DEPTH ESTIMATION FOR DETECTED OBJECTS

A mobile computing device (e.g., a mobile phone, camera, tablet computer, wearable and/or headset device) may include an integrated display device (e.g., a presence-sensitive screen) at which a user interface is presented to provide perception field functionality, which enables real-time depth estimation for static or moving objects that are detected by the mobile computing device based on sensory input from an onboard camera. In various examples, this functionality may be embodied in a portable and flexible library (e.g. Android library) that is installed on the mobile computing device. The purpose of perception field monitoring is to provide fast and efficient algorithms for spatial object mapping to enable real-time distance estimation of static and moving objects on a mobile computing device. The implementation of these algorithms may provide spatial location information of targeted objects, as well as distance information associated with objects that are detected by the device. In certain cases, mobile applications executing on the device may utilize such information to provide assistance to visually impaired users by creating audible alerts

Energy dissipation behaviours and seismic reduction performance of a proposed velocity and displacement dependent hydraulic damper (VDHD)

A new oil‐pressure Velocity and Displacement Dependent Hydraulic Damper (VDHD) is proposed by adding an additional Relief Valve parallel to the Throttle Valve with a different aperture size. This objective is to obtain an adaptive control by changing the damping coefficient of the VDHD for better control of structural movement during earthquake. In order to simulate its actual energy elimination, a mathematical analysis model is developed based on the Maxwell Model, which is modified by adding a serial friction model and a small damper parallel to the friction model in this study. The mathematical simulated results are compared with the actual energy‐dissipating behaviours of this proposed damper. The comparison shows that this proposed mathematical modelling could accurately simulate the relation of force and displacement as well as the relation of force and velocity during the process of energy dissipation. In addition, results of both the laboratory shaking table test and simulation analyses are used to test and verify the seismic reduction performance of this proposed damper. The experimental and simulation results show that in spite of the magnitude of the earthquake, the proposed VDHD device has a superior effect on the control of structural displacement by achieving effective acceleration reduction. Santrauka Siūlomas naujas hidraulinis i greiti ir poslinki reaguojantis slopintuvas (HGPS), sukurtas prie droselinio vožtuvo su kintama apertūra pridejus atbulini vožtuva. Buvo siekiama užtikrinti geresne adaptyvia konstrukcijos judejimo žemes drebejimo metu kontrole keičiant HGPS slopinimo koeficienta. Norint modeliuoti tikraji energijos pašalinima, buvo sukurtas matematinis modelis, pagristas Maksvelo modeliu. Šis modelis buvo pakeistas prie trinties modelio pridejus nuosekluji trinties modeli ir nedideli slopintuva. Matematinio modeliavimo rezultatai lyginami su tikraja siūlomo gesintuvo energijos sklaida. Palyginimas rodo, kad matematinio modeliavimo rezultatai atitinka tikraja siūlomo gesintuvo elgsena. Lyginant skaičiavimo rezultatus su eksperimentiniais matyti, kad siūlomas matematinis modeliavimas leidžia tiksliai išreikšti jegos ir poslinkio bei jegos ir greičio ryšius, susidarančius energijos sklaidos metu. Laboratoriniai rezultatai, gauti naudojant vibracini stala, ir modeliavimo rezultatai taikomi tirti bei tikrinti siūlomo gesintuvo itaka mažinant seismines konstrukcijos charakteristikas. Eksperimentiniai ir modeliavimo rezultatai rodo, kad nepaisant žemes drebejimo laipsnio, siūlomas gesintuvas labai pagerina konstrukcijos poslinkiu kontrole efektyviai mažindamas judejimo pagreiti. First Published Online: 10 Feb 2011 Reikšminiai žodžiai: HGPS, Maksvelo modelis, diskretusis sprendinys, pasyvusis energijos skaidos prietaisas, vibracinio stalo bandymas, modeliuojamas konstrukcijos reakcijos mažinima

Developing a neutral equilibrium device as dynamic virtual piers for an emergency relief bridge

Every year, many natural disasters strike Taiwan, destroying bridges and disrupting traffic. To allow shipping of relief provisions and salvage, fabricated steel bridges are often used to construct emergency relief bridges. This kind of bridge must meet strength and functionality requirements. Strength depends on the materials used, while functionality depends on displacement control. These two requirements affect the section design of the bridge deck. In order to quickly build a light-weight bridge for emergency relief with displacement control, a neutral equilibrium mechanism is proposed and developed to control the deflection of an emergency relief bridge. A neutral equilibrium mechanism is a system with an internal control mechanism that can actively change the internal structure. Structural transformation causes the size variation of the action force to respond to continuous changes in bridge deflection. This mechanism can expand the effective span of the bridge, maintain its strength and functionality, and increase the convenience of building and mobility. Experimental results reveal that a virtual pier at the center of a bridge with this proposed mechanism installed can control vertical deflection caused by vehicles carrying heavy loads. Test and analysis records also reveal that the vertical displacement at the center of a bridge with the neutral equilibrium mechanism installed is close to zero. The practicality of this neutral equilibrium mechanism has been verified by experiment