Design, fabrication and characterization of monolithic embedded parylene microchannels in silicon substrate

This paper presents a novel channel fabrication technology of bulk-micromachined monolithic embedded polymer channels in silicon substrate. The fabrication process favorably obviates the need for sacrifical materials in surface-micromachined channels and wafer-bonding in conventional bulk-micromachined channels. Single-layer-deposited parylene C (poly-para-xylylene C) is selected as a structural material in the microfabricated channels/columns to conduct life science research. High pressure capacity can be obtained in these channels by the assistance of silicon substrate support to meet the needs of high-pressure loading conditions in microfluidic applications. The fabrication technology is completely compatible with further lithographic CMOS/MEMS processes, which enables the fabricated embedded structures to be totally integrated with on-chip micro/nano-sensors/actuators/structures for miniaturized lab-on-a-chip systems. An exemplary process was described to show the feasibility of combining bulk micromachining and surface micromachining techniques in process integration. Embedded channels in versatile cross-section profile designs have been fabricated and characterized to demonstrate their capabilities for various applications. A quasi-hemi-circular-shaped embedded parylene channel has been fabricated and verified to withstand inner pressure loadings higher than 1000 psi without failure for micro-high performance liquid chromatography (µHPLC) analysis. Fabrication of a high-aspect-ratio (internal channel height/internal channel width, greater than 20) quasi-rectangular-shaped embedded parylene channel has also been presented and characterized. Its implementation in a single-mask spiral parylene column longer than 1.1 m in a 3.3 mm × 3.3 mm square size on a chip has been demonstrated for prospective micro-gas chromatography (µGC) and high-density, high-efficiency separations. This proposed monolithic embedded channel technology can be extensively implemented to fabricate microchannels/columns in high-pressure microfludics and high-performance/high-throughput chip-based micro total analysis systems (µTAS)

Design and Implementation of Service-Oriented Expert System

In recent years, the Internet technologies are well developed and the Internet is filled with all kinds of information. Since the data storage is increasingly distributed and data formats are more diverged, data collection and integration for providing value- added services have gradually become important topics. In this study, we propose the Service-Oriented Expert System (SOES) based on Service Component Architecture (SCA) which can make the services on different platforms turn into a common service component on the Internet, concatenate all the service components by combining with the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), and use both expert rules and data mining techniques to perform the data classification. The SOES is applied to analyze the annual financial information derived from electronic industry in the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) during 2006 to 2008 for discovering the financial crisis enterprises. The experiment results show that using expert rules and decision tree to find the financial crisis enterprise is higher performance

Parylene-strengthened thermal isolation technology for microfluidic system-on-chip applications

Here we reported a novel technology using parylene-cross-linking structure to achieve on-chip air-gap thermal isolation for microfluidic system-on-chip (SOC) applications. Two applications based on this technology, on-chip continuous-flow polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and on-chip temperature gradient liquid chromatography (LC) were successfully demonstrated. Device thermal performance in each example was characterized. Results showed that our technology not only provides excellent on-chip thermal isolation but also its simplicity of integration with other on-chip components makes versatile microfluidic SOC applications feasible

A Study Showing Research Has Been Valued over Teaching in Higher Education

Research has been valued and given priority over teaching for a long time in academia.  In recent decades, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education has pursued objective and quantitative research criteria and has encouraged higher education institutions to ask teachers to publish papers in SSCI or SCI journals as part of the criteria for promotion and evaluation.  This policy strengthens the concept that research has priority over teaching because teachers must devote more time to research than to teaching in order to be promoted and evaluated. The purpose of this study is to explore the influences that cause teachers to value research over teaching.  To achieve this purpose, document analysis, the analysis of Taiwan Higher Education database and interviews were adapted as methods. First of all, our researchers collected and analyzed the documents for promotion and evaluation of twelve different universities whose areas of specialty included general studies, education, medicine, vocational studies, and the arts. Then, the study used and analyzed the empirical data of teachers’ working hours every week for different tasks from the Taiwan Higher Education Database which investigated the working conditions of teachers in higher education in 2004. Additionally, twenty professors who have different areas of study and work in different types of universities were interviewed to collect teachers’ opinions of the task priority of research, teaching, and service duties.  The results showed that academia in Taiwan exhibits the phenomenon that research is valued over teaching. The reasons are due to the requirements of the reward system. The reward system emphasizes research over teaching and service. Teachers’ research achievements are judged based on publishing articles in different types of journals and the amount of research funding they can obtain. The results also showed that every week teachers spend the most time on teaching, then on research, and finally on service. However, teachers emphasize research as the most important task, then teaching, and finally service. Although the majority of teachers think research is the most important duty, there is still twenty percent of teachers who think it is the least important. Although teaching has been thought of as the second most important duty after research, it is the task that the most teachers give as the first priority as far as time spent and none of the interviewees thought it is the least important. Universities and teachers all try to use their professionalism as capital to gain financial support from the government. This situation forces teachers to try to put more time and energy into research, but they still need to maintain teaching and service work quality. Some teachers focus more time and energy on research and ignore the needs of students. Working time endlessly increases even for teachers who out value on both teaching and research. Some suggestions based on the findings have been proposed for Taiwanese higher institutions

In Situ Monitoring of Temperature inside Lithium-Ion Batteries by Flexible Micro Temperature Sensors

Lithium-ion secondary batteries are commonly used in electric vehicles, smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), notebooks and electric cars. These lithium-ion secondary batteries must charge and discharge rapidly, causing the interior temperature to rise quickly, raising a safety issue. Over-charging results in an unstable voltage and current, causing potential safety problems, such as thermal runaways and explosions. Thus, a micro flexible temperature sensor for the in in-situ monitoring of temperature inside a lithium-ion secondary battery must be developed. In this work, flexible micro temperature sensors were integrated into a lithium-ion secondary battery using the micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) process for monitoring temperature in situ

A QoS-Based Services Selected Method in Service-Oriented Architectures Using Ant Colony System - A Case Study of Airflights

Semantic web is becoming more and more popular these days, and it’s an opportune moment to look at the field’s current state and future opportunities. However, most researchers focus on only one single service recommend from semantic web inference. In some situations, the Multi-Services which are combined many complex services from various service providers are better than single service. The designed Multi-Services Semantic Search System (MS4), which provides the cooperation web-based platform for all related mobile users and service providers, could strengthen the ability of Multi-Services suggestion. In this research, MS4 chooses the adaptable airflight as a case study. MS4 is a five-components system composed of the Mobile Users (MUs), UDDI Registries (UDDIRs), Service Providers (SPs), Semantic Web Services Server (SWSS), and Database Server (DS). Using SOA, OWL-S to build semantic web environment to inference user’s requirements and search various web services which are published in UDDI through the communication networks include internet and 3G/GPRS/GSM mobile networks. In this airline case, we propose the Adaptive Airflights Inference Module (AAIM) combined QoS-Based Services Selected Method (QBSSM) using Ant Colony System (ACS) to reference the adaptable airflights to MUs

THE EFFECT OF APPLIED DIRECTION OF KINESIO TAPING IN ANKLE MUSCLE STRENGTH AND FLEXIBILITY

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of applied direction of Kinesio taping (KT) in ankle range of motion and calf muscle strength. Twenty healthy subjects voluntarily participated in this study. The ankle plantar flexor muscle strength and ankle dorsiflexion ROM were assessed in knee flexion and knee extension before and after taping applied. Two applied directions, heel to posterior of knee cap (insertion to origin of calf muscles) and posterior of knee cap to heel (origin to insertion of calf muscles) were applied over both side of calf muscles, respectively. The results had not showed significantly difference in any of the results. The beneficial effects of applied direction of KT has not provided scientific evidence in this study. Future study may be able to seek other methods to identify the effect on strength or flexibility while KT applied

Beyond the design of automated writing evaluation: Pedagogical practices and perceived learning effectiveness in EFL writing classes

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) software is designed to provide instant computer-generated scores for a submitted essay along with diagnostic feedback. Most studies on AWE have been conducted on psychometric evaluations of its validity; however, studies on how effectively AWE is used in writing classes as a pedagogical tool are limited. This study employs a naturalistic classroom-based approach to explore the interaction between how an AWE program, MY Access!, was implemented in three different ways in three EFL college writing classes in Taiwanand how students perceived its effectiveness in improving writing. The findings show that, although the implementation of AWE was not in general perceived very positively by the three classes, it was perceived comparatively more favorably when the program was used to facilitate students’ early drafting and revising process, followed by human feedback from both the teacher and peers during the later process. This study also reveals that the autonomous use of AWE as a surrogate writing coach with minimal human facilitation caused frustration to students and limited their learning of writing. In addition, teachers’ attitudes toward AWE use and their technology-use skills, as well as students’ learner characteristics and goals for learning to write, may also play vital roles in determining the effectiveness of AWE. With limitations inherent in the design of AWE technology, language teachers need to be more critically aware that the implementation of AWE requires well thought-out pedagogical designs and thorough considerations for its relevance to the objectives of the learning of writing