This article investigates the relation between the disclosure of intellectual capital and analysts' forecasts based on the Taiwanese high-tech industry. We hypothesize that corporate disclosures can ...be important means for management to communicate firm performance to outside investors and the firms that provide extensive coverage of intellectual capital can reduce the information risk in analysts' forecasting process. We find that firm-specific disclosures of intellectual capital relates negatively with analysts' forecast errors and dispersions. While many companies are concerned that the disclosure of intellectual capital can damage their competitive position in product markets, our results suggest that firms can reduce the information risk with voluntary disclosures on intellectual capital.
This paper considers the optimal constellation design for the generalized spatial modulation (GSM). The signal and spatial parts of the constellation are jointly designed where the signal part is not ...restricted to the conventional amplitude/phase modulation constellation points. The design problem is formulated as an optimization problem where a set of multi-dimensional constellation points that minimizes the average symbol error rate (SER) is selected. A gradient search algorithm is proposed to solve the optimization problem. Numerical results demonstrate the improved SER performance and increased energy efficiency of the proposed generalized signal- spatial constellation (GSSC) scheme as compared to previous spatial modulation (SM), GSM, and conventional MIMO schemes.
The study was conducted to investigate the ameliorating effects of luteolin on memory acquisition in rats. The effects of luteolin on scopolamine-induced impairment of passive avoidance response were ...evaluated primarily, as well as the role of the central nervous system through the use of central neurotoxins and central nervous antagonists. Luteolin was not reversed by scopolamine
N-methylbromide (M-SCOP) but blocked the impairment of learning acquisition induced by cholinergic neurotoxin (ethylcholine aziridinium, AF64A) and muscarinic (scopolamine hydrobromide, SCOP) and nicotinic (mecamylamine, MECA) receptor antagonists. However, it did not block dopaminergic neurotoxin (6-hydroxydopamine, 6-OHDA)-induced and serotonergic neurotoxin (5,7-dihydroxytryptamine, 5,7-DHT)-induced impairments. From these results, we suggest that the attenuating effect of luteolin (10 mg/kg, i.p.) on the deficits of passive avoidance performance induced by SCOP may be related to the increases in the activities of central muscarinic and nicotinic receptors.
Patients with chronic hepatitis C‐associated liver disease are of an older age in southern Taiwan. PEGylated interferon‐based therapy could reduce the risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma ...and improve survival. We assessed the efficacy and safety of combination therapy with PEGylated interferon plus ribavirin in elderly patients with chronic hepatitis C. A total of 88 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with combination therapy were analyzed retrospectively to identify factors associated with a sustained virological response (SVR). These patients were divided into two groups according to age: elderly patients ≧ 60 years (n = 43) and patients 50 to 59 years (n = 45). We compared baseline characteristics, adherence 80/80/80, dose modification, discontinuation, and adverse events profiles between these two groups. We further compared virological response rates stratified by genotype. The factors associated with an SVR were determined by total patients and different age groups. In the intent‐to‐treat analysis, the SVR rate was 61.8%. The SVR rate of elderly patients tended to be superior to that of total patients. Patients aged ≧ 60 years had a higher proportion of concomitant chronic disease, dose modification, clinical events with anorexia, depression, leucopenia, and anemia than those aged 50 to 59 years. Total patients with genotype 1 tended to have a lower SVR rate than nongenotype 1 (P = 0.067). Total patients with nongenotype 1 had a significantly higher rapid virological response (RVR) rate than genotype 1 (P = 0.009). In patients aged ≧ 60 years, the relapse rate of genotype 1 was higher than that of nongenotype 1 (P = 0.034). After stratification by HCV genotype 1, high viral load, and achievement of an RVR, the SVR rates remained similar between the two groups. The most strongly predictive factors of an SVR of total patients were the achievement of an RVR (OR: 49.744; 95% CI: 6.979‐354.574; P < 0.001), followed by breakthrough (OR: 0.018; 95% CI: 0.002‐0.195; P = 0.001). The factor mostly predictive of an SVR in age ≧ 60 years group was achievement of an RVR (OR: 12.779; 1.430‐114.180; P = 0.023). Elderly patients had a greater frequency of adverse events. Genotype 1 is independently associated with lower SVR and RVR rates and high relapse rates. Attainment of an RVR is the most powerful predictor of SVR in elderly patients.
Firm managers may choose accruals management (AM) or financial hedging with derivatives (FD) as risk management tools. This study simultaneously considers both tools and tests whether corporate ...information quality regulates the value effect derived from AM or FD. Our evidence finds that AM practices add values to those firms with quality corporate information. This could be explained by i) the greater added value from smoothed earnings when firms with superior information quality are more efficient in communicating with investors and thus enhance the value effect, and/or by ii) the increased value from mitigating agency issues when firms with better information quality are subject to less agency cost, impose lower information risks for investors, and discourage managerial self-serving motives in their AM practices. Conversely, FD usages, measured using hand-collected data, do not create values for most firms and quality corporate information only deteriorates such negative effect. This arises when hedging practices are ineffective and costly and when quality information only helps revealing to investors such messages. Our findings are robust to alternative measures of information quality, to the omission of financial crisis period, and to the sample exclusion of firms with extreme characteristics.
The lifetime of wireless sensor networks are constrained by its limited battery capacity. Therefore, the lifetime is widely regard as a bottleneck of technique of wireless sensor network. Recently, ...the emerging breakthrough in wireless power transfer technique is expected to eliminate the power constraint bottleneck. In this paper, we propose an intelligent wireless charging vehicle (IWCV) strategy to resolve above problem in a dynamic and scalable approach. The IWCV strategy includes an intelligent routing strategy to traverse the sensor network topology and charging their battery to prolong their lifetime. What makes IWCV different to previous studies is that IWCV can still work even if the topology changes by re-computing the traversing route and stop time for each node in a relative short amount of time, compared with the time needed to find the shortest Hamiltoaian cycle. With the scalable and dynamic feature of IWCV, one can change their sensor network topology without down time to reconfigure the wireless charging vehicle while still maintain low energy consumption during traveling and charging in dynamic network topologies.
Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. gladioli and F. oxysporum f.sp. lilii cause corm rot and yellowing of gladiolus and lilies respectively. Resistance among isolates of these two pathogens to two benzimidazole ...(methyl benzimidazole carbamate: MBC) fungicides, benomyl and thiabendazole, has been identified. However, sensitivity to other benzimidazole fungicides among isolates of F. oxysporum f.sp. gladioli and F. oxysporum f.sp. lilii remains unclear. Sensitivity among isolates of these two pathogens to benomyl, thiophanate-methyl, carbendazim and thiabendazole were evaluated in this study. Results showed that among six F. oxysporum f.sp. gladioli isolates, one was highly resistant, four were moderately resistant and one was highly sensitive to benomyl, five were highly resistant to thiophanate-methyl, four were sensitive and one was highly sensitive to carbendazim and all six isolates were sensitive to thiabendazole. Among the 13 F. oxysporum f.sp. lilii isolates tested, three were moderately resistant and 10 were highly sensitive to benomyl, and five were highly resistant, three were moderately resistant and five were sensitive to thiophanate-methyl. While all isolates were highly sensitive or sensitive to carbendazim and thiabendazole. These results strongly suggest that the mode of fungicide resistance in these two pathogens varies among members of the benzimidazole fungicide group and that cross resistance does not always occur. Sequence analysis of the partially amplified β-tubulin gene indicated that mutation in codons 198 and 200 had not occurred in the benzimidazole resistant isolates. It was concluded that resistance found in Taiwan isolates of F. oxysporum f.sp. gladioli and F. oxysporum f.sp. lilii to these fungicides may be due to some other mechanism.
The preparation and structural characterization of tantalum complexes supported by 2,2′-phenylphosphino-bis(4,6-di-tert-butylphenolate) (OPO2−) are described. The reaction of Li2OPO with TaCl5, ...regardless of the molar ratio employed, in diethyl ether at −35 °C led to high-yield isolation of yellow crystalline OPO2TaCl. Alkylation of OPO2TaCl with MeMgBr or EtMgCl in diethyl ether at −35 °C generated the corresponding alkyl complexes OPO2TaR (R = Me, Et). Thermolysis of OPO2TaEt in benzene led to quantitative formation of OPO2TaH, which could also be prepared by treatment of OPO2TaCl with LiHBEt3 in diethyl ether at −35 °C. Hydrolysis of OPO2TaCl or OPO2TaR (R = H, Me, Et) generated OPO2TaOH. The reaction of OPO2TaOH with Me3SiCl in diethyl ether at room temperature afforded quantitatively OPO2TaCl. The solution structures of these complexes were all characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy. The solid-state structures of OPO2TaCl, OPO2TaH, and OPO2TaOH were determined by X-ray crystallography. The spectroscopic and crystallographic data are all indicative of the coordination of both phosphorus donors to tantalum in these 7-coordinate complexes. Interestingly, the structure of OPO2TaH is markedly different from those of OPO2TaX (X = Cl, OH, Me, Et) on the basis of NMR and X-ray studies. Density functional theory computations reveal that the hydride structure found by X-ray crystallography is lower in energy by about 7 kcal/mol than that analogous to the established X-ray structures of OPO2TaCl and OPO2TaOH.
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