AN ECONOMY-WIDE ANALYSIS OF GM FOOD LABELING POLICIES IN TAIWAN

The development of agricultural biotechnology offers the opportunity to increase crop production, lowers farming costs, improves food quality and could reduce costs to consumers. For the food importing economies, the import quantities as well as prices will be affected through world market as the production technology of GM crops is adopted by the exporting countries. Many sectors will be affected by the use of these crops through vertical (or backward) and horizontal (or forward) linkages. The purpose of this paper is to develop an economy-wide quantitative assessment of the economic impacts of the introduction of GM products with and without labeling. The modeling framework used in this analysis is TAIGEM (Taiwan General Equilibrium Model), a multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Taiwan¡¦s economy which is derived from ORANI model (Dixon, Parmenter, Sutton and Vincent, 1982). TAIGEM is amended by splitting corn and soybeans into GM and non-GM varieties. It also endogenizes the decision of producers and consumers to use GM vs. non-GM corn and soybeans in their intermediate uses and consumption, respectively. We also consider the consumers¡¦ acceptance of GM food so that the mandatory labeling policy can be examined. Our simulation results indicate that the most extreme import ban on GM crops would be very costly in terms of total production values, ranging from NT$ 40 to 90 billions per year.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

AN ONTOLOGY-BASED DOCUMENT RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM: DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND EVALUATION

With the explosion of information, more and more people are embarrassed to manage information effectively. How to search and retrieve accurate information match to people\u27s requirements has been an important issue in information management research. Although search engine can solve this problem partly, the support of manage information is still limited. To use search engine, the users should input precise keywords by themselves first and this stage might cause much confusion to users. For that reason, we need a recommendation system that can catch users\u27 preferences to help users to obtain information more quickly and conveniently without copious process. In our research, a recommendation system is designed based on users\u27 profile. We use ontology technology to be the core of our recommendation system, because ontology can describe the concepts and relations of individual\u27s domain knowledge. Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) algorithm is one of the most popular methods to build ontology, and we apply it to construct our experimental system to recommend master theses to subjects. In order to evaluate our recommendation system, we developed a FCA-based system and another Scoring FCA-based system as treatments, and a Keyword-based system as a control group. We focus on both users\u27 satisfaction on information quality and system quality of our systems. The results show that users have higher information satisfaction on Scoring FCA-based system and FCA-based system than Keyword-based system. This study contributes to research and practice in information recommendation system

Two-stage maximum likelihood estimation procedure for parallel constant-stress accelerated degradation tests.

[[abstract]]Abstract—The parallel constant-stress accelerated degradation test (PCSADT) is a popular method used to assess the reliability of highly reliable products in a timely manner. Although the maximum likelihood (ML) method is commonly utilized to estimate the PCSADT parameters, the explicit forms of the ML estimators, and their corresponding Fisher information matrix are usually difficult to obtain. In this article, we propose a two-stage ML (TSML) estimation procedure for a time-transformed model. In the proposed procedure, all the TSML estimators not only have explicit expressions but also possess consistency and asymptotic normality. Hence, this method is tractable for reliability engineers. Furthermore, the TSML estimators can provide constructive information about the unknown accelerated relationship law. The proposed method is also applied to analyze light-emitting diode data and compare the performance of our estimation procedures with the ML method via simulations.[[notice]]補正完

Ultracold Fermionic Feshbach Molecules of 23^{23}Na40^{40}K

We report on the formation of ultracold fermionic Feshbach molecules of $^{23}$Na$^{40}$K, the first fermionic molecule that is chemically stable in its ground state. The lifetime of the nearly degenerate molecular gas exceeds 100 ms in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance. The measured dependence of the molecular binding energy on the magnetic field demonstrates the open-channel character of the molecules over a wide field range and implies significant singlet admixture. This will enable efficient transfer into the singlet vibrational ground state, resulting in a stable molecular Fermi gas with strong dipolar interactions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Quantum degenerate Bose-Fermi mixture of chemically different atomic species with widely tunable interactions

We have created a quantum degenerate Bose-Fermi mixture of 23Na and 40K with widely tunable interactions via broad interspecies Feshbach resonances. Twenty Feshbach resonances between 23Na and 40K were identified. The large and negative triplet background scattering length between 23Na and 40K causes a sharp enhancement of the fermion density in the presence of a Bose condensate. As explained via the asymptotic bound-state model (ABM), this strong background scattering leads to a series of wide Feshbach resonances observed at low magnetic fields. Our work opens up the prospect to create chemically stable, fermionic ground state molecules of 23Na-40K where strong, long-range dipolar interactions will set the dominant energy scale

5-Iodo­pyrimidin-2-amine

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C4H4IN3, has crystallographic mirror plane symmetry. In the crystal, the mol­ecules are connected through N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds into polymeric tapes extended along the a axis, which are typical of 2-amino­pyrimidines. Each mol­ecule acts as a double donor and a double acceptor in the hydrogen bonding

Emergence of Ceftriaxone-Resistant Salmonella Isolates and Rapid Spread of Plasmid-Encoded CMY-2–Like Cephalosporinase, Taiwan

Of 384 Salmonella isolates collected from 1997 to 2000 in a university hospital in Taiwan, six ceftriaxone-resistant isolates of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium were found in two patients in 2000. The resistance determinants were on conjugative plasmids that encoded a CMY-2–like cephalosporinase. During the study period, the proportion of CMY-2–like enzyme producers among Escherichia coli increased rapidly from 0.2% in early 1999 to >4.0% in late 2000. Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates producing a CMY-2–like β-lactamase did not emerge until 2000. The presence of blaCMY-containing plasmids with an identical restriction pattern from Salmonella, E. coli, and K. pneumoniae isolates was found, which suggests interspecies spread and horizontal transfer of the resistance determinant. Various nosocomial and community-acquired infections were associated with the CMY-2–like enzyme producers. Our study suggests that the spread of plasmid-mediated CMY-2–like β-lactamases is an emerging threat to hospitalized patients and the public in Taiwan

Isolated tracheal injury after whiplash

AbstractWhiplash, a sudden acceleration–deceleration movement that can cause diverse symptoms such as neck pain, cervicogenic headache, restricted neck movement, tingling of the arms (central cord syndrome), and dizziness. However, laryngotracheal injuries after whiplash are extremely rare. We report the case of a 25-year-old Taiwanese female who presented to the emergency department with severe posterior midline neck pain after a rear-end motorcycle collision. Her C-spine X-ray showed no definite fracture; furthermore, her neck noncontrast-enhanced CT scan revealed paratracheal free air. She was discharged uneventfully after a 12-h observation period. Laryngotracheal injuries after whiplash, a hyperextension–hyperflexion movement, are potentially life-threatening and could lead to airway obstruction. Such injuries should not be overlooked. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of isolated laryngotracheal injury after whiplash