Developing a B2B E-Commerce Evolution Model -- The Case Studies of Seven Industries in Taiwan

The e-commerce environment is changing fast and getting mature, the internet technology enabled evolution created many new business organizations and new business models. It also caused new competitions and new management challenges. Although B2B e-marketplace have been promoted as tools for reducing transaction costs, streamlining process efficiency, and enabling virtual collaboration among partners, there are still not many successful B2B e-marketplaces in Asian. This research tried to develop an evolution model based on the IOS (Inter-Organizational Systems) model defined by Benjamin (1990)(1)and Applegate et al, (1996)(2). Through over 100 firms’ case studies in seven industries of Taiwan, the patents of business partnership structures and the path of e-marketplace evolution were found. In order to explore the factors effected e-marketplace evolution, this paper summarized the possible impact factors based on ‘Transaction cost theory’, ‘Resource dependent theory’, ‘Institution theory’, and the ‘Contextual Influences’ which were highlighted as three levels in previous study – socio-cultural, national/regional, and structural (Hsiao and Ming, 2002)(3). The questionnaires were developed and mailed to 980 firms on the list of class-A members of ‘Taiwan Taiwan Electric and Electronic Manufacturers\u27 Association.’ 178 valid questionnaires were received and investigated. The data analysis result suggested that factors of institutionalization effect may be one of the most significant impact dimensions of e-marketplace evolution

Structure of the substrate-engaged SecA-SecY protein translocation machine.

The Sec61/SecY channel allows the translocation of many proteins across the eukaryotic endoplasmic reticulum membrane or the prokaryotic plasma membrane. In bacteria, most secretory proteins are transported post-translationally through the SecY channel by the SecA ATPase. How a polypeptide is moved through the SecA-SecY complex is poorly understood, as structural information is lacking. Here, we report an electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) structure of a translocating SecA-SecY complex in a lipid environment. The translocating polypeptide chain can be traced through both SecA and SecY. In the captured transition state of ATP hydrolysis, SecAs two-helix finger is close to the polypeptide, while SecAs clamp interacts with the polypeptide in a sequence-independent manner by inducing a short β-strand. Taking into account previous biochemical and biophysical data, our structure is consistent with a model in which the two-helix finger and clamp cooperate during the ATPase cycle to move a polypeptide through the channel

Ideas and Measures for Promoting Modernization of Tax Administration in the New Era in the Context of Smart Tax Construction

The practice of China's tax modernization construction has accumulated rich experience for the modernization of tax collection and management, while the new era, accelerating the modernization construction with Chinese characteristics, has put forward new requirements of the times for the modernization of tax collection and management. The Opinions on Further Deepening the Reform of Tax Collection and Administration of the Central Office and the State Office pointed out that it is necessary to comprehensively push forward the digital upgrading and intelligent transformation of tax collection and administration, and to holistically and integrally improve the effectiveness of tax governance. The State Administration of Taxation has also repeatedly requested that the construction of smart tax supported by tax big data should be pushed forward to provide more powerful data support for the modernization of tax collection and management. This paper takes smart tax construction as the research background, analyzes the problems of modernization of tax collection and administration in the new period, and on this basis puts forward the suggestions of optimizing system design, strengthening tax governance by numbers, transforming the way of tax management and service, and perfecting the mechanism of talent cultivation, etc., in an attempt to explore the path of development of modernization of tax collection and administration

Vernier spectrometer using counter-propagating soliton microcombs

Acquisition of laser frequency with high resolution under continuous and abrupt tuning conditions is important for sensing, spectroscopy and communications. Here, a single microresonator provides rapid and broad-band measurement of frequencies across the optical C-band with a relative frequency precision comparable to conventional dual frequency comb systems. Dual-locked counter-propagating solitons having slightly different repetition rates are used to implement a Vernier spectrometer. Laser tuning rates as high as 10 THz/s, broadly step-tuned lasers, multi-line laser spectra and also molecular absorption lines are characterized using the device. Besides providing a considerable technical simplification through the dual-locked solitons and enhanced capability for measurement of arbitrarily tuned sources, this work reveals possibilities for chip-scale spectrometers that greatly exceed the performance of table-top grating and interferometer-based devices

GBG++: A Fast and Stable Granular Ball Generation Method for Classification

Granular ball computing (GBC), as an efficient, robust, and scalable learning method, has become a popular research topic of granular computing. GBC includes two stages: granular ball generation (GBG) and multi-granularity learning based on the granular ball (GB). However, the stability and efficiency of existing GBG methods need to be further improved due to their strong dependence on $k$-means or $k$-division. In addition, GB-based classifiers only unilaterally consider the GB's geometric characteristics to construct classification rules, but the GB's quality is ignored. Therefore, in this paper, based on the attention mechanism, a fast and stable GBG (GBG++) method is proposed first. Specifically, the proposed GBG++ method only needs to calculate the distances from the data-driven center to the undivided samples when splitting each GB instead of randomly selecting the center and calculating the distances between it and all samples. Moreover, an outlier detection method is introduced to identify local outliers. Consequently, the GBG++ method can significantly improve effectiveness, robustness, and efficiency while being absolutely stable. Second, considering the influence of the sample size within the GB on the GB's quality, based on the GBG++ method, an improved GB-based $k$-nearest neighbors algorithm (GB$k$NN++) is presented, which can reduce misclassification at the class boundary. Finally, the experimental results indicate that the proposed method outperforms several existing GB-based classifiers and classical machine learning classifiers on $24$ public benchmark datasets

Quantum diffusion of microcavity solitons

Coherently pumped (Kerr) solitons in an ideal optical microcavity are expected to undergo random quantum motion that determines fundamental performance limits in applications of the soliton microcombs. Here this random walk and its impact on Kerr soliton timing jitter are studied experimentally. The quantum limit is discerned by measuring the relative position of counter-propagating solitons. Their relative motion features weak interactions and also presents common-mode suppression of technical noise, which typically hides the quantum fluctuations. This is in contrast to co-propagating solitons, which are found to have relative timing jitter well below the quantum limit of a single soliton on account of strong correlation of their mutual motion. Good agreement is found between theory and experiment. The results establish the fundamental limits to timing jitter in soliton microcombs and provide new insights on multisoliton physics

Interleaved difference-frequency-generation for mid-infrared microcomb spectral densification

Generation of mid-infrared combs (3.3 micron band) with GigaHertz line spacing is demonstrated by interleaved difference-frequency-generation. The method, applied to a 22 GHz repetition-rate microcomb, is useful for spectral densification of sparse microcomb spectra

Interleaved difference-frequency generation for microcomb spectral densification in the mid-infrared

With their compact size and semiconductor-chip-based operation, frequency microcombs can be an invaluable light source for gas spectrcoscopy. However, the generation of mid-infrared (mid-IR) frequency combs with gigahertz line spacing as required to resolve many gas spectra represents a significant challenge for these devices. Here, a technique referred to as interleaved difference-frequency generation (iDFG) is introduced that densifies the spectral line spacing upon conversion of near-IR comb light into the mid-IR light. A soliton microcomb is used as both a comb light source and microwave oscillator in a demonstration, and the spectrum of methane is measured to illustrate how the resulting mid-IR comb avoids spectral undersampling. Beyond demonstration of the iDFG technique, this work represents an important feasibility step towards more compact and potentially chip-based mid-IR gas spectroscopy modules