Toward Sustainability:Using Big Data to Explore Decisive Supply Chain Risk Factors Under Uncertainty

Rapid market changes aimed at sustainability have led to supply chain risks and uncertainties in the Taiwanese light-emitting diode industry. These risks and uncertainties can be captured by social media, quantitative and qualitative data (referred to herein as big data), but the industry has been unable to manage this information boom to respond to customer needs. These various types of data have their own characteristics that affect decision making about developing firm capabilities. This study aggregates the various data to undertake an extensive investigation of supply chain risks and uncertainties. Specifically, this study proposes using the fuzzy and grey Delphi methods to identify a set of reliable attributes and, based on these attributes, transforming big data to a manageable scale to consider their impacts. Subsequently, both the fuzzy and grey Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratories applied to determine the causal relationships for supply chain risks and uncertainties. The results reveal that capacity and operations have greater influence than other supply chain attributes and that risks stemming from triggering events are difficult to diagnose and control. The implications, conclusions and findings are addressed

Unraveling the Role of the rssC Gene of Serratia marcescens by Atomic Force Microscopy

100學年度研究獎補助論文[[abstract]]The product and direct role of the rssC gene of Serratia marcescens is unknown. For unraveling the role of the rssC gene, atomic force microscopy has been used to identify the surfaces of intact S. marcescens wild-type CH-1 cells and rssC mutant CH-1ΔC cells. The detailed surface topographies were directly visualized, and quantitative measurements of the physical properties of the membrane structures were provided. CH-1 and CH-1ΔC cells were observed before and after treatment with lysozyme, and their topography-related parameters, e.g., a valley-to-peak distance, mean height, surface roughness, and surface root-mean-square values, were defined and compared. The data obtained suggest that the cellular surface topography of mutant CH-1ΔC becomes rougher and more precipitous than that of wild-type CH-1 cells. Moreover, it was found that, compared with native wild-type CH-1, the cellular surface topography of lysozyme-treated CH-1 was not changed profoundly. The product of the rssC gene is thus predicted to be mainly responsible for fatty-acid biosynthesis of the S. marcescens outer membrane. This study represents the first direct observation of the structural changes in membranes of bacterial mutant cells and offers a new prospect for predicting gene expression in bacterial cells.[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[countrycodes]]GB

The Study on Antecedents of Consumer Buying Impulsiveness in an Online Context

The global recession caused by the financial tsunami has seriously impacted numerous industries. Although the market scale of global e-commerce market has declined, global online shopping continues to grow. Many previous researches focused on the effect of website design characteristics on online impulsive buying behavior, and few have explored such behavior from consumer individual internal factor perspectives. This paper aims to explore and integrate individual internal factors influencing consumer online buying impulsiveness, and further to recognize the relationships among these factors. The results showed as follows: (1) hedonic consumption needs, impulsive buying tendency, positive affect and normative evaluations positively influence buying impulsiveness, respectively; (2) hedonic consumption needs positively influence positive affect; (3) impulsive buying tendency positively influences normative evaluations; (4) normative evaluations positively influence positive affect

Spermatogenesis-Specific Features of the Meiotic Program in Caenorhabditis elegans

In most sexually reproducing organisms, the fundamental process of meiosis is implemented concurrently with two differentiation programs that occur at different rates and generate distinct cell types, sperm and oocytes. However, little is known about how the meiotic program is influenced by such contrasting developmental programs. Here we present a detailed timeline of late meiotic prophase during spermatogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans using cytological and molecular landmarks to interrelate changes in chromosome dynamics with germ cell cellularization, spindle formation, and cell cycle transitions. This analysis expands our understanding C. elegans spermatogenesis, as it identifies multiple spermatogenesis-specific features of the meiotic program and provides a framework for comparative studies. Post-pachytene chromatin of spermatocytes is distinct from that of oocytes in both composition and morphology. Strikingly, C. elegans spermatogenesis includes a previously undescribed karyosome stage, a common but poorly understood feature of meiosis in many organisms. We find that karyosome formation, in which chromosomes form a constricted mass within an intact nuclear envelope, follows desynapsis, involves a global down-regulation of transcription, and may support the sequential activation of multiple kinases that prepare spermatocytes for meiotic divisions. In spermatocytes, the presence of centrioles alters both the relative timing of meiotic spindle assembly and its ultimate structure. These microtubule differences are accompanied by differences in kinetochores, which connect microtubules to chromosomes. The sperm-specific features of meiosis revealed here illuminate how the underlying molecular machinery required for meiosis is differentially regulated in each sex

MAPLE: Enhancing Review Generation with Multi-Aspect Prompt LEarning in Explainable Recommendation

Explainable Recommendation task is designed to receive a pair of user and item and output explanations to justify why an item is recommended to a user. Many models treat review-generation as a proxy of explainable recommendation. Although they are able to generate fluent and grammatical sentences, they suffer from generality and hallucination issues. We propose a personalized, aspect-controlled model called Multi-Aspect Prompt LEarner (MAPLE), in which it integrates aspect category as another input dimension to facilitate the memorization of fine-grained aspect terms. Experiments on two real-world review datasets in restaurant domain show that MAPLE outperforms the baseline review-generation models in terms of text and feature diversity while maintaining excellent coherence and factual relevance. We further treat MAPLE as a retriever component in the retriever-reader framework and employ a Large-Language Model (LLM) as the reader, showing that MAPLE's explanation along with the LLM's comprehension ability leads to enriched and personalized explanation as a result. We will release the code and data in this http upon acceptance.Comment: 8 main pages, 10 pages for appendix. Under revie

Sequencing bilateral robot-assisted arm therapy and constraint-induced therapy improves reach to press and trunk kinematics in patients with stroke

BACKGROUND: The combination of robot-assisted therapy (RT) and a modified form of constraint-induced therapy (mCIT) shows promise for improving motor function of patients with stroke. However, whether the changes of motor control strategies are concomitant with the improvements in motor function after combination of RT and mCIT (RT + mCIT) is unclear. This study investigated the effects of the sequential combination of RT + mCIT compared with RT alone on the strategies of motor control measured by kinematic analysis and on motor function and daily performance measured by clinical scales. METHODS: The study enrolled 34 patients with chronic stroke. The data were derived from part of a single-blinded randomized controlled trial. Participants in the RT + mCIT and RT groups received 20 therapy sessions (90 to 105 min/day, 5 days for 4 weeks). Patients in the RT + mCIT group received 10 RT sessions for first 2 weeks and 10 mCIT sessions for the next 2 weeks. The Bi-Manu-Track was used in RT sessions to provide bilateral practice of wrist and forearm movements. The primary outcome was kinematic variables in a task of reaching to press a desk bell. Secondary outcomes included scores on the Wolf Motor Function Test, Functional Independence Measure, and Nottingham Extended Activities of Daily Living. All outcome measures were administered before and after intervention. RESULTS: RT + mCIT and RT demonstrated different benefits on motor control strategies. RT + mCIT uniquely improved motor control strategies by reducing shoulder abduction, increasing elbow extension, and decreasing trunk compensatory movement during the reaching task. Motor function and quality of the affected limb was improved, and patients achieved greater independence in instrumental activities of daily living. Force generation at movement initiation was improved in the patients who received RT. CONCLUSION: A combination of RT and mCIT could be an effective approach to improve stroke rehabilitation outcomes, achieving better motor control strategies, motor function, and functional independence of instrumental activities of daily living. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT0172764

Natural Product Chemistry of Gorgonian Corals of Genus Junceella—Part II

The structures, names, bioactivities, and references of 81 new secondary metabolites obtained from gorgonian corals belonging to the genus Junceella are described in this review. All compounds mentioned in this review were obtained from sea whip gorgonian corals Junceella fragilis and Junceella juncea, collected from the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific Ocean

Discovery of New Eunicellins from an Indonesian Octocoral Cladiella sp.

Two new 11-hydroxyeunicellin diterpenoids, cladieunicellin F (1) and (–)-solenopodin C (2), were isolated from an Indonesian octocoral Cladiella sp. The structures of eunicellins 1 and 2 were established by spectroscopic methods, and eunicellin 2 was found to be an enantiomer of the known eunicellin solenopodin C (3). Eunicellin 2 displayed inhibitory effects on the generation of superoxide anion and the release of elastase by human neutrophils. The previously reported structures of two eunicellin-based compounds, cladielloides A and B, are corrected in this study

Assistive Navigation Using Deep Reinforcement Learning Guiding Robot With UWB/Voice Beacons and Semantic Feedbacks for Blind and Visually Impaired People

Facilitating navigation in pedestrian environments is critical for enabling people who are blind and visually impaired (BVI) to achieve independent mobility. A deep reinforcement learning (DRL)–based assistive guiding robot with ultrawide-bandwidth (UWB) beacons that can navigate through routes with designated waypoints was designed in this study. Typically, a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework is used to estimate the robot pose and navigational goal; however, SLAM frameworks are vulnerable in certain dynamic environments. The proposed navigation method is a learning approach based on state-of-the-art DRL and can effectively avoid obstacles. When used with UWB beacons, the proposed strategy is suitable for environments with dynamic pedestrians. We also designed a handle device with an audio interface that enables BVI users to interact with the guiding robot through intuitive feedback. The UWB beacons were installed with an audio interface to obtain environmental information. The on-handle and on-beacon verbal feedback provides points of interests and turn-by-turn information to BVI users. BVI users were recruited in this study to conduct navigation tasks in different scenarios. A route was designed in a simulated ward to represent daily activities. In real-world situations, SLAM-based state estimation might be affected by dynamic obstacles, and the visual-based trail may suffer from occlusions from pedestrians or other obstacles. The proposed system successfully navigated through environments with dynamic pedestrians, in which systems based on existing SLAM algorithms have failed