The impact of foreign trading information on emerging futures markets: a study of Taiwan's unique data set

Using a unique dataset from the Taiwan Futures Exchange, this paper investigates whether trading imbalances by foreign investors affect emerging Taiwan futures market in terms of returns and volatility. First, this evidence demonstrates a positive relation between contemporaneous futures returns and net purchases by foreign investors when other market factor effects are controlled. Second, this failure to detect price reversals is inconsistent with the price pressure hypothesis. Third, foreign investors do not exhibit positive feedback trading patterns. Fourth, a bi-directional Granger-causality relationship exists between futures volatility and foreign trading flows. As found for other stock or foreign exchange markets, our empirical results demonstrate that foreign trading flows do have impacts on the return and volatility of developing futures market, suggesting that trading by foreign investors may enhance the information flow of the local futures market.Foreign trading

On the Scaling of Small, Heat Simulated Jet Noise Measurements to Moderate Size Exhaust Jets

Modern military aircraft jet engines are designed with variable geometry nozzles to provide optimum thrust in different operating conditions, depending on the flight envelope. However, the acoustic measurements for such nozzles are scarce, due to the cost involved in making full scale measurements and the lack of details about the exact geometry of these nozzles. Thus the present effort at The Pennsylvania State University and the NASA Glenn Research Center- in partnership with GE Aviation is aiming to study and characterize the acoustic field produced by supersonic jets issuing from converging-diverging military style nozzles. An equally important objective is to validate methodology for using data obtained from small and moderate scale experiments to reliably predict the most important components of full scale engine noise. The experimental results presented show reasonable agreement between small scale and moderate scale jet acoustic data, as well as between heated jets and heat-simulated ones. Unresolved issues however are identified that are currently receiving our attention, in particular the effect of the small bypass ratio airflow. Future activities will identify and test promising noise reduction techniques in an effort to predict how well such concepts will work with full scale engines in flight conditions

Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Trace Metals (Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) in Coastal Waters off the West Coast of Taiwan

Surface water samples were collected along the west coast of Taiwan during two expedition cruises which represent periods of different regional climatic patterns. Information on hydrochemical parameters such as salinity, nutrients, suspended particulate matter (SPM), and Chlorophyll a concentrations were obtained, and dissolved and particulate trace metal (Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) concentrations were determined. Spatial variations were observed and the differences were attributed to (1) influence of varying extents of terrestrial inputs from the mountainous rivers of Taiwan to the coast, and (2) urbanization and industrialization in different parts of the island. Geochemical processes such as desorption (Cd) and adsorption to sinking particles (Pb) also contributed to the variability of trace metal distributions in coastal waters. Results showed temporal variations in chemical characteristics in coastal waters as a consequence of prevailing monsoons. During the wet season when river discharges were higher, the transport of particulate metals was elevated due to increased sediment loads. During the dry season, lower river discharges resulted in a lesser extent of estuarine dilution effect for chemicals of anthropogenic sources, indicated by higher dissolved concentrations present in coastal waters associated with slightly higher salinity

Sequence features involved in the mechanism of 3' splice junction wobbling

Background Alternative splicing is an important mechanism mediating the diversified functions of genes in multicellular organisms, and such event occurs in around 40-60% of human genes. Recently, a new splice-junction wobbling mechanism was proposed that subtle modifications exist in mRNA maturation by alternatively choosing at 5'- GTNGT and 3'- NAGNAG, which created single amino acid insertion and deletion isoforms. Results By browsing the Alternative Splicing Database information, we observed that most 3' alternative splice site choices occur within six nucleotides of the dominant splice site and the incidence significantly decreases further away from the dominant acceptor site. Although a lower frequency of alternative splicing occurs within the intronic region (alternative splicing at the proximal AG) than in the exonic region (alternative splicing at the distal AG), alternative AG sites located within the intronic region show stronger potential as the acceptor. These observations revealed that the choice of 3' splice sites during 3' splicing junction wobbling could depend on the distance between the duplicated AG and the branch point site (BPS). Further mutagenesis experiments demonstrated that the distance of AG-to-AG and BPS-to-AG can greatly influence 3' splice site selection. Knocking down a known alternative splicing regulator, hSlu7, failed to affect wobble splicing choices. Conclusion Our results implied that nucleotide distance between proximal and distal AG sites has an important regulatory function. In this study, we showed that occurrence of 3' wobble splicing occurs in a distance-dependent manner and that most of this wobble splicing is probably caused by steric hindrance from a factor bound at the neighboring tandem motif sequence

An Experiment Study on the Relationship between Wave Transmission and the Culvert Pipes Block with Constrict Section

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv

Ixora parviflora Protects against UVB-Induced Photoaging by Inhibiting the Expression of MMPs, MAP Kinases, and COX-2 and by Promoting Type I Procollagen Synthesis

Ixora parviflora with high polyphenol content exhibited antioxidant activity and reducing UVB-induced intracellular reactive oxygen species production. In this study, results of the photoaging screening experiments revealed that IPE at 1000 μg/mL reduced the activity of bacterial collagenase by 92.7 ± 4.2% and reduced the activity of elastase by 32.6 ± 1.4%. Therefore, we investigated the mechanisms by which IPE exerts its anti-photoaging activity. IPE at 1 μg/mL led to an increase in type I procollagen expression and increased total collagen synthesis in fibroblasts at 5 μg/mL. We found that IPE inhibited MMP-1, MMP-3, and MMP-9 expression at doses of 1, 5, and 10 μg/mL, respectively, in fibroblasts exposed to UV irradiation (40 mJ/cm2). Gelatin zymography assay showed that IPE at 50 μg/mL inhibited MMP-9 secretion/activity in cultured fibroblasts after UVB exposure. In addition, IPE inhibited the phosphorylation of p38, ERK, and JNK induced by UVB. Furthermore, IPE inhibited the UVB-induced expression of Smad7. In addition, IPE at 1 μg/mL inhibited NO production and COX-2 expression in UV-exposed fibroblasts. These findings show that IPE exhibits anti-inflammatory and anti-photoaging activities, indicating that IPE could be a potential anti-aging agent

Effects of natto extract on endothelial injury in a rat model

Vascular endothelial damage has been found to be associated with thrombus formation, which is considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A diet of natto leads to a low prevalence of cardiovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of natto extract on vascular endothelia damage with exposure to laser irradiation. Endothelial damage both in vitro and in vivo was induced by irradiation of rose bengal using a DPSS green laser. Cell viability was determined by MTS assay, and the intimal thickening was verified by a histological approach. The antioxidant content of natto extract was determined for the free radical scavenging activity. Endothelial cells were injured in the presence of rose bengal irradiated in a dose-dependent manner. Natto extract exhibits high levels of antioxidant activity compared with purified natto kinase. Apoptosis of laser-injured endothelial cells was significantly reduced in the presence of natto extract. Both the natto extract and natto kinase suppressed intimal thickening in rats with endothelial injury. The present findings suggest that natto extract suppresses vessel thickening as a synergic effect attributed to its antioxidant and anti-apoptosis properties

RESEARCH ON THE MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS EFFECT AND SPORT EVENT SATISFACTION OF THE TAIPEI 2017 UNIVERSIADE

The purpose of this study is to investigate the spectators’ marketing and public relations and sport event satisfaction with their participation in the Taipei 2017 Universiade. Meanwhile, based on the comparison of different personal background variables, this study compares the attractiveness and satisfaction of the spectators’ marketing and public relations recognition, marketing and public relations attitude, event planning and sport event services. A random sampling method is adopted in this study. Among spectators, university students of the Taipei 2017 Universiade are selected. A total of 700 questionnaires are distributed and 680 valid questionnaires are collected. The effective recovery rate is 97.14%. The research tool of this study is “Satisfaction scale of marketing and public relations effect and sport event satisfaction of the Taipei 2017 Universiade”. This study uses statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, independent sample t-tests, and so forth. The results of this study are: (1) In the Taipei 2017 Universiade, spectators have the highest attractiveness with “Internet” in “media tools” of marketing and public relations recognition, followed by the factor of “TV”; (2) In “marketing and public relations attitude” of the Taipei 2017 Universiade, “marketing and public relations present efforts and earnest of Taiwan” ranks the highest, followed by “marketing and public relations are impressed”; (3) In “sport event services” of the Taipei 2017 Universiade, “auditorium” ranks the highest, followed by “broadcast notification”; (4) There is no significant difference in the attractiveness and satisfaction among spectators with different personal background for “marketing and public relations recognition”, “marketing and public relations attitude”, and “sport event services” in the Taipei 2017 Universiade.  Article visualizations

On the Influencing Factors of Dictionary App Interface Design for the Elders

AbstractEnglish learning is becoming one of the popular movements towards the Globalization. In recent years especially, more people use smartphones to learn English. However, it was found in the current market that most dictionary apps were designed for the younger generation and neglected the needs of the elderly. The issue of memory over-load turned out to be the critical problem of the usability for the elderly, due to the complex menu structures. Thus this study is meant to explore a suitable menu structure for the senior user, and provide suggestions for the relative researches.The study results are:1.Gender: There is no significant between male and female in the operating performance.2.Menu structure: the performance of the hybrid structure is superior to the linear structure.3.Display mode: There is no significant between the horizontal and vertical display modes in operating performance.4.Task Complexity: A positive ratio between task complexity and menu topological structure was revealed, the harder the task complexity, the better performance of mixed structure can be expected