Change Pressure on Organizational Commitment and Identification: Knowledge and Decision-making Competencies in Government Units

Abstract. Staffs in government units may encounter problems of pressure when facing dramatic organizational changes. In an interesting context of administrative merge of Kaohsiung city and county, we examined the influences of change pressure on post-merger organizational identification and commitment. We further developed and investigated the detailed relationships from competence perspective, which emphasizes the importance of knowledge processing and decision making capabilities. Results followed. First, the hypothesized negative impact of change pressure on organizational identification was not supported. Second, change pressure has a significant negative influence on commitment. Third, identification influences on commitment positively. Fourth, the positive moderation role of knowledge capability in the relationship between pressure and identification was not supported. Fifth, the positive moderation role of knowledge capability in the relationship between change pressure and commitment was supported. Sixth, the positive moderation role of decision-making capability in the relationship between pressure and identification was not supported. Seventh, the positive moderation role of decision-making capability in the relationship between pressure and commitment was supported.Keywords. Change pressure, Commitment, Identification, Knowledge competence, Decision-making competence, Government units.JEL. M10

Improving the Quality of Case-Based Research in the Philosophy of Contemporary Sciences

This paper aims to address some methodological issues related to case-based research in the philosophy of contemporary sciences. We focus on the selection processes by which philosophers pick or generate a particular set of papers to conduct their case- based research. We illustrate how to use various quantitative and qualitative methods to improve the epistemic features of the selection processes, and help generate some potential case-based hypotheses for further philosophical investigation

Flowtable-Free Routing for Data Center Networks: A Software-Defined Approach

The paradigm shift toward SDN has exhibited the following trends: (1) relying on a centralized and more powerful controller to make intelligent decisions, and (2) allowing a set of relatively dumb switches to route packets. Therefore, efficiently looking up the flowtables in forwarding switches to guarantee low latency becomes a critical issue. In this paper, following the similar paradigm, we propose a new routing scheme called KeySet which is flowtable-free and enables constant-time switching at the forwarding switches. Instead of looking up long flowtables, KeySet relies on a residual system to quickly calculate routing paths. A switch only needs to do simple modular arithmetics to obtain a packet's forwarding output port. Moreover, KeySet has a nice fault- tolerant capability because in many cases the controller does not need to update flowtables at switches when a failure occurs. We validate KeySet through extensive simulations by using general as well as Facebook fat-tree topologies. The results show that the KeySet outperforms the KeyFlow scheme [1] by at least 25% in terms of the length of the forwarding label. Moreover, we show that KeySet is very efficient when applied to fat-trees

Degradable starch nanoparticle assisted ethanol precipitation of DNA

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2014.04.007 © 2014. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Precipitation of DNA from a large volume of aqueous solution is an important step in many molecular biology and analytical chemistry experiments. Currently, this is mainly achieved by ethanol precipitation, where a long-term incubation (usually overnight) at low temperature of −20 to −80 °C with high salt concentration is required. This method also requires a large quantity of DNA to form a visible pellet and was tested mainly for double-stranded DNA. To improve DNA precipitation, co-precipitating polymers such as linear polyacrylamide has been used. In this work, we report that starch nanoparticles (SNPs) can achieve convenient DNA precipitation at room temperature with a low salt concentration and short incubation time. This method requires as low as 0.01–0.1% SNPs and can precipitate both single- and double-stranded DNA of various lengths. The effect of salt concentration, pH and the crosslinking density of SNPs has been systematically studied. Compared to other types of precipitating agents, SNPs are highly biocompatible and can be degraded by a common enzyme (amylase). This work suggests a novel application of a bio-based material that is prepared in mass production.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council || EcoSynthetix Inc. |

Degradable starch nanoparticle assisted ethanol precipitation of DNA

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2014.04.007 © 2014. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Precipitation of DNA from a large volume of aqueous solution is an important step in many molecular biology and analytical chemistry experiments. Currently, this is mainly achieved by ethanol precipitation, where a long-term incubation (usually overnight) at low temperature of −20 to −80 °C with high salt concentration is required. This method also requires a large quantity of DNA to form a visible pellet and was tested mainly for double-stranded DNA. To improve DNA precipitation, co-precipitating polymers such as linear polyacrylamide has been used. In this work, we report that starch nanoparticles (SNPs) can achieve convenient DNA precipitation at room temperature with a low salt concentration and short incubation time. This method requires as low as 0.01–0.1% SNPs and can precipitate both single- and double-stranded DNA of various lengths. The effect of salt concentration, pH and the crosslinking density of SNPs has been systematically studied. Compared to other types of precipitating agents, SNPs are highly biocompatible and can be degraded by a common enzyme (amylase). This work suggests a novel application of a bio-based material that is prepared in mass production.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council || EcoSynthetix Inc. |

Decreased Risk of Osteoporosis Incident in Subjects Receiving Chinese Herbal Medicine for Sjögren Syndrome Treatment: A Retrospective Cohort Study with a Nested Case-Control Analysis

Sjögren syndrome (SS) is a long-lasting inflammatory autoimmune disease that may cause diverse manifestations, particularly osteoporosis. Though usage of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) can safely manage autoimmune disease and treatment-related symptoms, the relation between CHM use and osteoporosis risk in SS persons is not yet recognized. With that in mind, this population-level nested case-control study aimed to compare the risk of osteoporosis with and without CHM use. Potential subjects aged 20–70 years, diagnosed with SS between 2001 and 2010, were retrieved from a national health claims database. Those diagnosed with osteoporosis after SS were identified and randomly matched to those without osteoporosis. We capitalize on the conditional logistic regression to estimate osteoporosis risk following CHM use. A total of 1240 osteoporosis cases were detected and randomly matched to 1240 controls at a ratio of 1:1. Those receiving conventional care plus CHM had a substantially lower chance of osteoporosis than those without CHM. Prolonged use of CHM, especially for one year or more, markedly dwindled sequent osteoporosis risk by 71%. Integrating CHM into standard care may favor the improvement of bone function, but further well-designed randomized controlled trials to investigate the possible mechanism are needed

Borders of Cis-Regulatory DNA Sequences Preferentially Harbor the Divergent Transcription Factor Binding Motifs in the Human Genome

Changes in cis-regulatory DNA sequences and transcription factor (TF) repertoires provide major sources of phenotypic diversity that shape the evolution of gene regulation in eukaryotes. The DNA-binding specificities of TFs may be diversified or produce new variants in different eukaryotic species. However, it is currently unclear how various levels of divergence in TF DNA-binding specificities or motifs became introduced into the cis-regulatory DNA regions of the genome over evolutionary time. Here, we first estimated the evolutionary divergence levels of TF binding motifs and quantified their occurrence at DNase I-hypersensitive sites. Results from our in silico motif scan and experimentally derived chromatin immunoprecipitation (TF-ChIP) show that the divergent motifs tend to be introduced in the edges of cis-regulatory regions, which is probably accompanied by the expansion of the accessible core of promoter-associated regulatory elements during evolution. We also find that the genes neighboring the expanded cis-regulatory regions with the most divergent motifs are associated with functions like development and morphogenesis. Accordingly, we propose that the accumulation of divergent motifs in the edges of cis-regulatory regions provides a functional mechanism for the evolution of divergent regulatory circuits

Three-dimensional endoscopic optical coherence tomography imaging of cervical inlet patch

A 30-year-old white man with established Barrett’s esophagus (BE) and continued symptoms of chronic severe heartburn, persistent cough, throat irritation, and asthma was referred for surveillance EGD at the VA Boston Healthcare System. During retraction of the endoscope, a pink circular lesion (A) was observed under white light endoscopy in the upper esophagus (spanning 20–22 cm from the incisors). Three-dimensional endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT) images were obtained of the region under direct visualization with white light by passing the probe through the standard accessory channel. An en face projection image (B) at 400-μm depth underneath the tissue surface showed columnar epithelium consistent with a cervical inlet patch (CIP) and surrounding normal squamous epithelium (SE). Cross-sectional OCT images along the probe pull-back direction (C) and the probe rotation direction (D and F) clearly demonstrated columnar and squamous epithelium in the CIP region and the surrounding esophagus, respectively. Biopsy specimens taken from the imaged lesion confirmed the finding of CIP. The OCT features matched representative hematoxylin and eosin histology (E and G). Both esophageal and extraesophageal symptoms responded to increased antacid therapy.United States. Veterans AdministrationNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01-CA75289-14)United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract FA9550-10-1-0063)United States. Dept. of Defense. Medical Free Electron Laser Program (Contract FA9550-10-1-0551)MIT/Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (Medical Engineering Fellowship)National Science Council of Taiwan (Taiwan Merit Scholarship

The nucleolar protein NIFK promotes cancer progression via CK1α/β-catenin in metastasis and Ki-67-dependent cell proliferation.

Nucleolar protein interacting with the FHA domain of pKi-67 (NIFK) is a Ki-67-interacting protein. However, its precise function in cancer remains largely uninvestigated. Here we show the clinical significance and metastatic mechanism of NIFK in lung cancer. NIFK expression is clinically associated with poor prognosis and metastasis. Furthermore, NIFK enhances Ki-67-dependent proliferation, and promotes migration, invasion in vitro and metastasis in vivo via downregulation of casein kinase 1α (CK1α), a suppressor of pro-metastatic TCF4/β-catenin signaling. Inversely, CK1α is upregulated upon NIFK knockdown. The silencing of CK1α expression in NIFK-silenced cells restores TCF4/β-catenin transcriptional activity, cell migration, and metastasis. Furthermore, RUNX1 is identified as a transcription factor of CSNK1A1 (CK1α) that is negatively regulated by NIFK. Our results demonstrate the prognostic value of NIFK, and suggest that NIFK is required for lung cancer progression via the RUNX1-dependent CK1α repression, which activates TCF4/β-catenin signaling in metastasis and the Ki-67-dependent regulation in cell proliferation