Effects of R&D intensity on firm performance in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry

This study examined the impact of research and development (R&D) investment behaviour on the corporate performance of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry, which faced the economic downturn caused by the global financial crisis of 2008, for the period 2005–2016. A dynamic panel data model was used to empirically analyse the impact of R&D intensity on business performance. A generalised method of moments estimator was adopted to avoid endogeneity problems caused by adding dynamics to the model. Further, the model was used to explore the impact of the lag effect of R&D investments on business performance. It was found that significant R&D investments in a given period may reduce business performance in the same period and continue to influence it in the next few periods, thus indicating the presence of a positive and lagged effect of R&D investments in the high-tech industry. Firm size was also found to be positively correlated with business performance, that is, the larger the firm size, the greater is the use of resources for R&D, which, in turn, leads to more sophisticated technologies and profitable outcomes, forming a positive cycle. This indicates that R&D expenditures affect firms’sustainable management

The Association Between the Sedative Loads and Clinical Severity Indicators in the First-Onset Major Depressive Disorder

Background: High sedative use in a major depressive episode may imply specific clinical features. This study aims to examine the correlation between sedative use and clinical severity indicators in the initial treatment phase of first-onset major depressive disorder.Methods: A study cohort in the first episode of major depressive disorder was used to conduct pharmacological dissection. All participants had at least a 2-year follow-up period with a complete treatment record. The defined daily dose of antidepressants and augmentation agents were calculated as the antidepressant load and augmentation load, respectively. Sedative use, which was calculated as the equivalent dosage of lorazepam, were defined as the sedative load. These psychotropic loads were measured monthly and the averaged psychotropic loads for each day were obtained.Results: A total of 106 individuals (75.5% female) were included. The mean duration of disease course in participants was 5.5 ± 3.5 years. In the multiple regression analysis, after controlling for other classes of psychotropics and comorbid anxiety disorders, the sedative load independently correlated with higher number of antidepressants used, higher number of antidepressant used with an adequate dose and duration, more psychiatric emergency and outpatient visits within 2 years of disease onset.Conclusion: High loading of sedatives correlated with several indicators of clinical severity in major depressive disorder. The sedative load may be used as a specifier to identify subgroups in patients with major depressive disorder

Anticancer drugs for the modulation of endoplasmic reticulum stress and oxidative stress

Prior research has demonstrated how the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) functions as a multifunctional organelle and as a well-orchestrated protein-folding unit. It consists of sensors which detect stress-induced unfolded/misfolded proteins and it is the place where protein folding is catalyzed with chaperones. During this folding process, an immaculate disulfide bond formation requires an oxidized environment provided by the ER. Protein folding and the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a protein oxidative byproduct in ER are crosslinked. An ER stress-induced response also mediates the expression of the apoptosis-associated gene C/EBP-homologous protein (CHOP) and death receptor 5 (DR5). ER stress induces the upregulation of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) receptor and opening new horizons for therapeutic research. These findings can be used to maximize TRAIL-induced apoptosis in xenografted mice. This review summarizes the current understanding of the interplay between ER stress and ROS. We also discuss how damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) function as modulators of immunogenic cell death and how natural products and drugs have shown potential in regulating ER stress and ROS in different cancer cell lines. Drugs as inducers and inhibitors of ROS modulation may respectively exert inducible and inhibitory effects on ER stress and unfolded protein response (UPR). Reconceptualization of the molecular crosstalk among ROS modulating effectors, ER stress, and DAMPs will lead to advances in anticancer therapy

Session F4E, Saratoga Springs, NY 38 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F4E-21 Research on the Influence of Computer Network Supported Cooperative Learning on Sentence Construction Skills of Elementary School Students

Abstract -This study concentrates on the improvement of students' sentence construction skills from using the sentence construction learning website, which is based on computer network, supported cooperative learning. Nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design was adopted in this research. Different sentence construction learning methods served as independent variables, while discussions focused on their effects on dependent variables, such as use of words and punctuation, wrong words, predicates, and rhetoric ability. After both the experiment group and the control group took the sentence construction pretest, the teacher divided the students into heterogeneous groups according to results of the assessment, and the groups started a sentence solitaire activity. The result indicated that after using the website, students in the experimental group showed significant improvement in use of words punctuation, adjectives, adverbs, similes and metaphors

Circular LSTM for Low-Dose Sinograms Inpainting

Computed tomography (CT) is usually accompanied by a long scanning time and substantial patient radiation exposure. Sinograms are the basis for constructing CT scans; however, continuous sinograms may highly overlap, resulting in extra radiation exposure. This paper proposes a deep learning model to inpaint a sparse-view sinogram sequence. Because a sinogram sequence around the human body is circular in nature, we propose a circular LSTM (CirLSTM) architecture that feeds position-relevant information to our model. To evaluate the performance of our proposed method, we compared the results of our inpainted sinograms with ground truth sinograms using evaluation metrics, including the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index measure (SSIM). The SSIM values for both our proposed method and the state-of-the-art method range from 0.998 to 0.999, indicating that the prediction of structures is not challenging for either method. Our proposed CirLSTM achieves PSNR values ranging from 49 to 52, outperforming all the other compared methods. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using only interleaved sinograms to construct a complete sinogram sequence and to generate high-quality CT images. Furthermore, we validated the proposed model across different body portions and CT machine models. The results show that CirLSTM outperforms all other methods in both the across-body segment validation and across-machine validation scenarios

Safety and Seroconversion of Immunotherapies against SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials

Clinical trials evaluating the safety and antibody response of strategies to manipulate prophylactic and therapeutic immunity have been launched. We aim to evaluate strategies for augmentation of host immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. We searched clinical trials registered at the National Institutes of Health by 25 May 2021 and conducted analyses on inoculated populations, involved immunological processes, source of injected components, and trial phases. We then searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for their corresponding reports published by 25 May 2021. A bivariate, random-effects meta-analysis was used to derive the pooled estimate of seroconversion and adverse events (AEs). A total of 929,359 participants were enrolled in 389 identified trials. The working mechanisms included heterologous immunity, active immunity, passive immunity, and immunotherapy, with 62.4% of the trials on vaccines. A total of 9072 healthy adults from 27 publications for 22 clinical trials on active immunity implementing vaccination were included for meta-analyses. The pooled odds ratios (ORs) of seroconversion were 13.94, 84.86, 106.03, and 451.04 (all p < 0.01) for vaccines based on protein, RNA, viral vector, and inactivated virus, compared with that of respective placebo/control treatment or pre-vaccination sera. The pooled ORs for safety, as defined by the inverse of systemic adverse events (AEs) were 0.53 (95% CI = 0.27–1.05; p = 0.07), 0.35 (95% CI = 0.16–0.75; p = 0.007), 0.32 (95% CI = 0.19–0.55; p < 0.0001), and 1.00 (95% CI = 0.73–1.36; p = 0.98) for vaccines based on protein, RNA, viral vector, and inactivated virus, compared with that of placebo/control treatment. A paradigm shift from all four immune-augmentative interventions to active immunity implementing vaccination was observed through clinical trials. The efficacy of immune responses to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 for these vaccines was promising, although systemic AEs were still evident for RNA-based and viral vector-based vaccines

Utility of EFEMP1 in the Prediction of Oncologic Outcomes of Urothelial Carcinoma

Urothelial carcinoma (UC) of the upper tract (UTUC) and urinary bladder (UBUC) is a heterogeneous malignancy. Through transcriptomic profiling of the Gene Expression Omnibus UBUC dataset (GSE31684), we discovered that epidermal growth factor-containing fibulin-like extracellularmatrix protein 1 (EFEMP1) was the most upregulated gene during metastatic development. EFEMP1 is an important component of basement membranes and acts as an enzyme regulator in extracellular matrix biology. Initially, evaluation of EFEMP1 mRNA expression in 50 UBUCs showed significantly upregulated levels in high stage UC. We further validated the clinical significance of EFEMP1 in 340 UTUC and 295 UBUC using immunohistochemistry, evaluated by H-score. High EFEMP1 immunoexpression significantly correlated with high pathologic stage, high histological grade, lymph node metastasis, vascular invasion, perineural invasion and high mitosis (all p < 0.05). After adjusting for established clinicopathological factors, EFEMP1 expression status retained its prognostic impact on disease-specific survival and metastasis-free survival in UTUC and UBUC (all p < 0.01). Furthermore, Ingenuity Pathway Analysis showed that actin cytoskeleton signaling, tumor microenvironment pathway and mitochondrial dysfunction were significantly enriched by EFEMP1 dysregulation. In conclusion, high EFEMP1 expression was associated with adverse pathological features in UC and independently predicted worse outcomes, suggesting its roles in clinical decision-making and risk stratification

Multifaceted Music Therapy for Depression in Dementia: A Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

This study aimed to assess the efficacy of various music therapy interventions in ameliorating depressive symptoms in dementia patients, utilizing a network meta-analysis approach. We rigorously selected randomized controlled trials focused on music therapy for dementia with depressive symptoms from major electronic databases. The primary outcome measured was the impact on depressive symptoms, with the secondary outcome evaluating dropout rates across different intervention groups and standard care control groups. The research protocol has been duly registered with PROSPERO (Registration ID: CRD42023393059). Our network meta-analysis incorporated 14 randomized controlled trials involving a total of 1080 participants and examined a range of interventions, including active music therapy, listening to music, rhythmic music therapy, singing, and tailored music interventions. The analysis revealed that active music therapy combined with singing emerged as the most effective intervention, demonstrating a significant improvement in depressive symptoms in dementia patients (Standardized Mean Difference [SMD] = −0.89, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: −1.48 to −0.30). In contrast, listening to music alone showed a smaller effect (SMD = −0.26, 95% CI: −0.71 to 0.20). This study was particularly noteworthy for not showing higher dropout rates compared to standard care, indicating its feasibility and acceptability in clinical settings. The findings of our study indicate that active music therapy combined with singing is an effective approach to reducing depressive symptoms in dementia patients, potentially due to enhanced social interaction. These results offer new perspectives for dementia care, suggesting a promising direction for further research and clinical application

Effects of Electrical Current and External Stress on the Electromigration of Intermetallic Compounds Between the Flip-Chip Solder and Copper Substrate

This study investigated the effects of electric current and external stress on electromigration of intermetallic compounds (IMC) between solder and copper substrate. Different samples were tested under three different sets of conditions: (1) thermal aging only, (2) thermal aging with electric current ,where resistivity changes were measured using four-point probe measurements, (3) thermal aging with electric current and external stress provided using a four-point bending apparatus. The micro-structural changes in the samples were observed. The results were closely examined; particularly the coupling effect of electric current and external stress to elucidate the electromigration mechanism, as well as the formation of IMC in the samples. For thermal-aging-only samples, the IMC growth mechanism was controlled by grain boundary diffusion. Meanwhile, for thermal aging and applied electric current samples, the IMC growth mechanism was dominated by volume diffusion and interface reaction. Lastly, the IMC growth mechanism in the electric current and external stress group was dominated by grain boundary diffusion with grain growth. The results reveal that the external stress/strain and electric current play a significant role in the electromigration of copper-tin IMC. The samples exposed to tensile stress have reduced electromigration, while those subjected under compressive stress have enhanced electromigration

The Reliability Improvement of Cu Interconnection by the Control of Crystallized α-Ta/TaNx Diffusion Barrier

Ta/TaN bilayers have been deposited by a commercial self-ionized plasma (SIP) system. The microstructures of Ta/TaN bilayers have been systematically characterized by X-ray diffraction patterns and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. TaN films deposited by SIP system are amorphous. The crystalline behavior of Ta film can be controlled by the N concentration of underlying TaN film. On amorphous TaN film with low N concentration, overdeposited Ta film is the mixture of α- and β-phases with amorphous-like structure. Increasing the N concentration of amorphous TaN underlayer successfully leads upper Ta film to form pure α-phase. For the practical application, the electrical property and reliability of Cu interconnection structure have been investigated by utilizing various types of Ta/TaN diffusion barrier. The diffusion barrier fabricated by the combination of crystallized α-Ta and TaN with high N concentration efficiently reduces the KRc and improves the EM resistance of Cu interconnection structure