Openness' and Organizational Factors' Effects on Learning Behavior

This study investigates the influence of openness, collaborative culture, and organizational climate on learning behavior (i.e. knowledge-sharing and explorative learning) in the Taiwanese technology industry. Data were collected from 200 participations working in 42 technological companies; 178 participants were used to perform hierarchical linear modeling. Openness and collaborative culture were related positively to learning behavior, learning behavior influenced organizational climate negatively, and collaborative culture and organizational climate did not moderate openness and learning behavior. This study uses two-level variables to examine influences on learning behavior. Using hierarchical linear modeling, two-level variables and moderating effects are examined simultaneously. The primary contribution of this study is demonstrating that organizational climate types influence learning behavior; the wrong climate weakens learning behavior, especially explorative learning

Comparison of optimum conditions when extracting PHAs from different waste sludge sources

Biological wastewater treatment plants produce great amounts of sludge daily. It is a very big loading (cost) for treating the waste sludge. Polyhydroxyalkanoates are a family of polyhydroxyesters. The technologies of extracting PHAs from wasted sewage sludges of municipal wastewater, fermentation industry and husbandry were developed in the study. In the NaOCl/SDS extraction technology, the concentration of NaOCl and liquid-solid ratio are two essential factors directly influencing extraction efficiency. The experimental results verified under the optimal conditions for extracting PHAs, the content of recovered PHAs was 44.2±0.89 mgPHA/gVSS and the purity of recovered PHAs was >99.5 wt% for the waste sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants. For fermentation industry sludge, under the adequate extraction conditions for PHAs recovery, the content and purity of recovered PHAs were 18.8±0.66 mgPHA/gVSS and 50.6±6.83 wt%, respectively. For husbandry sludge, the content and purity of recovered PHAs were 33.7±0.16 mgPHA/gVSS and 76.7±5.2 wt%, respectively

Mechanism of Evolution Shared by Gene and Language

We propose a general mechanism for evolution to explain the diversity of gene and language. To quantify their common features and reveal the hidden structures, several statistical properties and patterns are examined based on a new method called the rank-rank analysis. We find that the classical correspondence, "domain plays the role of word in gene language", is not rigorous, and propose to replace domain by protein. In addition, we devise a new evolution unit, syllgram, to include the characteristics of spoken and written language. Based on the correspondence between (protein, domain) and (word, syllgram), we discover that both gene and language shared a common scaling structure and scale-free network. Like the Rosetta stone, this work may help decipher the secret behind non-coding DNA and unknown languages.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, 3 tabl

The Effects of Green Energy Production on Farmland: A Case Study in Yunlin County, Taiwan

Taiwan enacted the Act of Renewable Energy in the year 2009 which promotes energy safety, green economy, and a sustainable environment, and with that the government envisages a contribution of photovoltaic energy of up to 20% by the year 2025. In this study we look into the motivation and background of this energy policy, plans for implementation and associated challenges, and its actual consequences for farmland use and farmers. In addition, we take a look into the implementation of mixed-use farmland in which agricultural activity and photovoltaic installations are planned to coexist in order to increase land value and productivity. We furthermore report on some of our findings related to a field survey conducted in Taiwan’s corn chamber of Yunlin County which has been facing a number of socioeconomic challenges

MicroRNA-520b Inhibits Growth of Hepatoma Cells by Targeting MEKK2 and Cyclin D1

Growing evidence indicates that the deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) contributes to the tumorigenesis. We previously revealed that microRNA-520b (miR-520b) was involved in the complement attack and migration of breast cancer cells. In this report, we show that miR-520b is an important miRNA in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Our data showed that the expression levels of miR-520b were significantly reduced in clinical HCC tissues and hepatoma cell lines. We observed that the introduction of miR-520b dramatically suppressed the growth of hepatoma cells by colony formation assays, 5-ethynyl-2-deoxyuridine (EdU) incorporation assays and 3-(4,5- dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays. Moreover, ectopic expression of miR-520b was able to inhibit the growth of hepatoma cells in nude mice. Further studies revealed that the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 2 (MEKK2) and cyclin D1 were two of direct target genes of miR-520b. Silencing of MEKK2 or cyclin D1 was able to inhibit the growth of hepatoma cells in vitro and in vivo, which is consistent with the effect of miR-520b overexpression on the growth of hepatoma cells. In addition, miR-520b significantly decreased the phosphorylation levels of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (p-JNK, a downstream effector of MEKK2) or retinoblastoma (p-Rb, a downstream effector of cyclin D1). In conclusion, miR-520b is able to inhibit the growth of hepatoma cells by targeting MEKK2 or cyclin D1 in vitro and in vivo. Our findings provide new insights into the role of miR-520b in the development of HCC, and implicate the potential application of miR-520b in cancer therapy

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Dramatic Co-Activation of WWOX/WOX1 with CREB and NF-κB in Delayed Loss of Small Dorsal Root Ganglion Neurons upon Sciatic Nerve Transection in Rats

BACKGROUND:Tumor suppressor WOX1 (also named WWOX or FOR) is known to participate in neuronal apoptosis in vivo. Here, we investigated the functional role of WOX1 and transcription factors in the delayed loss of axotomized neurons in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) in rats. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Sciatic nerve transection in rats rapidly induced JNK1 activation and upregulation of mRNA and protein expression of WOX1 in the injured DRG neurons in 30 min. Accumulation of p-WOX1, p-JNK1, p-CREB, p-c-Jun, NF-kappaB and ATF3 in the nuclei of injured neurons took place within hours or the first week of injury. At the second month, dramatic nuclear accumulation of WOX1 with CREB (>65% neurons) and NF-kappaB (40-65%) occurred essentially in small DRG neurons, followed by apoptosis at later months. WOX1 physically interacted with CREB most strongly in the nuclei as determined by FRET analysis. Immunoelectron microscopy revealed the complex formation of p-WOX1 with p-CREB and p-c-Jun in vivo. WOX1 blocked the prosurvival CREB-, CRE-, and AP-1-mediated promoter activation in vitro. In contrast, WOX1 enhanced promoter activation governed by c-Jun, Elk-1 and NF-kappaB. WOX1 directly activated NF-kappaB-regulated promoter via its WW domains. Smad4 and p53 were not involved in the delayed loss of small DRG neurons. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Rapid activation of JNK1 and WOX1 during the acute phase of injury is critical in determining neuronal survival or death, as both proteins functionally antagonize. In the chronic phase, concurrent activation of WOX1, CREB, and NF-kappaB occurs in small neurons just prior to apoptosis. Likely in vivo interactions are: 1) WOX1 inhibits the neuroprotective CREB, which leads to eventual neuronal death, and 2) WOX1 enhances NF-kappaB promoter activation (which turns to be proapoptotic). Evidently, WOX1 is the potential target for drug intervention in mitigating symptoms associated with neuronal injury