National Pingtung University of Science and Technology

The aim of microfluidic mixing is to achieve a thorough and rapid mixing of multiple samples in microscale devices. In such devices, sample mixing is essentially achieved by enhancing the diffusion effect between the different species flows. Broadly speaking, microfluidic mixing schemes can be categorized as either "active", where an external energy force is applied to perturb the sample species, or "passive", where the contact area and contact time of the species samples are increased through specially-designed microchannel configurations. Many mixers have been proposed to facilitate this task over the past 10 years. Accordingly, this paper commences by providing a high level overview of the field of microfluidic mixing devices before describing some of the more significant proposals for active and passive mixers.

Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer chains with three-dimensional (3D) network structures, which can absorb relatively large amounts of fluid. Because of the high water content, soft structure, and porosity of hydrogels, they closely resemble living tissues. Research in recent years shows that hydrogels have been applied in various fields, such as agriculture, biomaterials, the food industry, drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Along with the underlying technology improvements of hydrogel development, hydrogels can be expected to be applied in more fields. Although not all hydrogels have good biodegradability and biocompatibility, such as synthetic hydrogels (polyvinyl alcohol, polyacrylamide, polyethylene glycol hydrogels, etc.), their biodegradability and biocompatibility can be adjusted by modification of their functional group or incorporation of natural polymers. Hence, scientists are still interested in the biomedical applications of hydrogels due to their creative adjustability for different uses. In this review, we first introduce the basic information of hydrogels, such as structure, classification, and synthesis. Then, we further describe the recent applications of hydrogels in 3D cell cultures, drug delivery, wound dressing, and tissue engineering.

Cultivated rice, Oryza sativa L., represents the world's most important staple food crop, feeding more than half of the human population. Despite this essential role in world agriculture, the history of cultivated rice's domestication from its wild ancestor, Oryza rufipogon, remains unclear. In this study, DNA sequence variation in three gene regions is examined in a phylogeographic approach to investigate the domestication of cultivated rice. Results indicate that India and Indochina may represent the ancestral center of diversity for O. rufipogon. Additionally, the data suggest that cultivated rice was domesticated at least twice from different O. rufipogon populations and that the products of these two independent domestication events are the two major rice varieties, Oryza sativa indica and Oryza sativa japonica. Based on this geographical analysis, O. sativa indica was domesticated within a region south of the Himalaya mountain range, likely eastern India, Myanmar, and Thailand, whereas O. sativa japonica was domesticated from wild rice in southern China.

Green products are among the widely used products worldwide due to their environmental benefits. However, information on the consumers’ purchase intention towards green products in developing countries, such as Thailand, is lacking. This study aims to investigate Thai consumers who are aged over 18 years, and whose base education is high school, on purchase intention for green products by using an extended framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). We derived and examined the model through structural equation modeling in a sample of 483 respondents in Thailand. The findings of this model indicated that consumer attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control have significant positive influences on the purchase intention for green products. Furthermore, our results indicated that environmental concerns have a significant effect on attitude, perceived behavioral control and purchase intention for green products, but subjective norm. Moreover, environmental knowledge had no significant effect on the purchase intention for green products. Instead, it had a distinct indirect effect through attitude towards purchasing green products, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. The findings from this study contribute to improving the understanding of intention to purchase green products, which could play a major role towards sustainable consumption.

Highly weathered soils in humid Asia are characterized by low soil fertility and high soil erosion potential. This study evaluates the influences of biochar made from the waste wood of white lead trees (Leucaena leucocephala (Lam.) de Wit) on the physicochemical and biological properties of long-term cultivated, acidic Ultisol. This study used three application rates (0%, 2.5%, and 5% (wt/wt)) of the biochar with an incubation time of 105 d for all cases. Soils were collected at 21 d, 42 d, 63 d, 84 d and 105 d during the incubation period to evaluate changes in soil properties over time. A simulated rainfall event (80 mm h− 1) was performed to estimate soil loss for all treatments at the end of the incubation time. Experimental results indicate that applying biochar improved the physicochemical and biological properties of the highly weathered soils, including significant increases in soil pH from 3.9 to 5.1, cation exchange capacity from 7.41 to 10.8 cmol (+) kg− 1, base cation percentage from 6.40 to 26.0%, and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) from 835 to 1262 mg kg− 1. Compared with the control (i.e., no biochar), biochar application decreased bulk density from 1.4 to 1.1 Mg m− 3, increased Ksat by 1.8 times and increased the mean weight diameter (MWD) of soil aggregates from 2.6 cm to 4.0 cm. Incorporating biochar into the soil significantly reduced soil loss by 50% and 64% at 2.5% and 5% application rates, respectively, compared with the control. The formation of macroaggregates in the biochar-amended soils is the critical factor to improve soil erosion potential. Based on these results, a 5% application rate of biochar is considered as suitable for highly weathered soil because this application rate efficiently improves soil physiochemical properties and reduces soil loss.

Abstract The proliferation of the Internet and other technological innovations has transformed the structure of the tourism industry as well as affected how tourism destinations are perceived and consumed. The 3D virtual world provides opportunities for destination marketing organizations to communicate with targeted markets by offering a rich environment for potential visitors to explore tourism destinations. However, as of yet, there is little understanding about how to effectively market tourism destinations to virtual world participants who are technology users as well as potential consumers. The purpose of the present study is to develop a research framework that integrates the technology acceptance model (TAM) and self‐determination theory to understand how tourists use a 3D virtual world. Primary data were obtained for this study through self‐administered Web questionnaires. The data were conducted in a laboratory setting with 186 participants. This study contributes to the empirical TAM literature by applying the model to a 3D virtual tourism site. Additionally, this study provides a research framework to capture the entertainment nature of a 3D virtual world by extending the TAM to incorporate psychological elements of self‐determination theory to understand consumer experience. From the perspective of tourism professionals, this study contributes to an understanding of how best to construct informative and interactive tourist destinations in 3D virtual worlds to attract potential online and real‐world tourists. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Ten phenolic compounds were isolated from a butanol fraction of sage extracts. Their structures were determined by spectral methods (NMR, MS, IR). Among them, a novel compound, 4-hydroxyacetophenone-4-O-β-d-apiofuranosyl-(1→6)-O-β-d-glucopyranoside, was identified. Two test systems, DPPH free radical scavenging activity and radical cation ABTS•+ scavenging activity, were used to evaluate their antioxidant activity. The most active compounds were found to be rosmarinic acid and luteolin-7-O-β-glucopyranoside. Keywords: Sage; Salvia officinalis; phenolic compounds; antioxidant activity

This study proposed that transformational leaders use various behaviors to provoke followers’ organizationally beneficial behaviors (e.g., better task performance and helping behaviors) through ignition of followers’ work engagement. That is, employees who inspired by transformational leadership are more likely to immerse themselves in the work, and, in turn, this is likely to result in better task performance and helping behaviors. In this study, we adopted a multitemporal and multisource research design to reduce the consideration of common method variance. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 507 nurses working in 44 teams. The hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that, after controlling for several relevant variables (e.g., leader–member exchange [LMX], role-based self-efficacy, and transactional leadership) and several participants’ demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, and education), work engagement still mediates the positive relationship among transformational leadership, job performance, and helping behavior. Strengths, limitations, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

<blockquote>The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of integrating <em>Facebook</em> and peer assessment with college English writing class instruction through a blended teaching approach. This blended approach consisted of one-third of a semester of classroom instruction and two-thirds of a semester combining <em>Facebook</em>, peer assessment, and classroom instruction. The subjects were 23 first-year students majoring in English at a technological university in Taiwan participating in an 18 week English writing class. The students were divided into three groups with three <em>Facebook</em>platforms. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed in the study. Research instruments included pre-test and post-test of English writing skills, a self-developed survey questionnaire, and in-depth student interviews. The findings suggest that incorporating peer assessment using <em>Facebook</em> in learning English writing can be interesting and effective for college-level English writing classes. Students can improve their English writing skills and knowledge not only from the in-class instruction but also from cooperative learning. In addition, this <em>Facebook</em> integrated instruction can significantly enhance students' interest and motivation. Finally, the findings may provide useful instructional strategies for teachers of ESL English writing courses.</blockquote><p> </p>

During the learning process, whether students remain attentive throughout instruction generally influences their learning efficacy. If teachers can instantly identify whether students are attentive they can be suitably reminded to remain focused, thereby improving their learning effects. Traditional teaching methods generally require that teachers observe students' expressions to determine whether they are attentively learning. However, this method is often inaccurate and increases the burden on teachers. With the development of electroencephalography (EEG) detection tools, mobile brainwave sensors have become mature and affordable equipment. Therefore, in this study, whether students are attentive or inattentive during instruction is determined by observing their EEG signals. Because distinguishing between attentiveness and inattentiveness is challenging, two scenarios were developed for this study to measure the subjects' EEG signals when attentive and inattentive. After collecting EEG data using mobile sensors, various common features were extracted from the raw data. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier was used to calculate and analyze these features to identify the combination of features that best indicates whether students are attentive. Based on the experiment results, the method proposed in this study provides a classification accuracy of up to 76.82%. The study results can be used as a reference for learning system designs in the future.

Fine particles emitted from vehicles have adverse health effects because of their sizes and chemical compositions. Therefore, this study attempted to characterize the metals in nano (0.010 < Dp < 0.056 microm), ultrafine (Dp < 0.1 microm), fine (Dp < 2.5 microm), and coarse (2.5 < Dp < 10 microm) particles collected near a busy road using a microorifice uniform deposition impactor (MOUDI) and a Nano-MOUDI. The nano particles were found to contain more of traffic-related metals (Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn, Ba, and Ni) than particles of other sizes, although crustal metals accounted for over 90% of all the particulate metals. Most crustal metals, Ba, Ni, Pb, and Zn in ultrafine particles displayed Aitken modes due to their local origins. The Ag, Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, Sb, V, and Zn were 37, 50, 28, 30, 24, 64, 38, and 22% by mass, respectively, in < 0.1-microm particles, with submicron mass median diameters (MMDs) in PM(0.01-18) (except Zn) (particularly the < 0.1-microm MMDs for Cd and Sb). These levels raise potential health issues. Particle-bound Zn was more abundant in the accumulation mode than in the nucleation/condensation mode, but the opposite was true for Ag, Cd, and Sb. The Ag, Ba, Cd, Pb, Sb, V, and Zn contents in nano particles were strongly associated with diesel fuel, while the Cu, Mn, and Sr in particles < 0.1 microm were more strongly associated with gasoline. The high content of Si in nano particles, more associated with diesel soot than with gasoline exhaust, is another health concern.

BACKGROUND: Reactive oxygen species are important mediators exerting toxic effects on various organs during ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury. We hypothesized that adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) protect the kidney against oxidative stress and inflammatory stimuli in rat during renal IR injury. METHODS: Adult male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (n = 24) were equally randomized into group 1 (sham control), group 2 (IR plus culture medium only), and group 3 (IR plus immediate intra-renal administration of 1.0 × 106 autologous ADMSCs, followed by intravenous ADMSCs at 6 h and 24 h after IR). The duration of ischemia was 1 h, followed by 72 hours of reperfusion before the animals were sacrificed. RESULTS: Serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen levels and the degree of histological abnormalities were markedly lower in group 3 than in group 2 (all p < 0.03). The mRNA expressions of inflammatory, oxidative stress, and apoptotic biomarkers were lower, whereas the anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, and anti-apoptotic biomarkers were higher in group 3 than in group 2 (all p < 0.03). Immunofluorescent staining showed a higher number of CD31+, von Willebrand Factor+, and heme oxygenase (HO)-1+ cells in group 3 than in group 2 (all p < 0.05). Western blot showed notably higher NAD(P)H quinone oxidoreductase 1 and HO-1 activities, two indicators of anti-oxidative capacity, in group 3 than those in group 2 (all p < 0.04). Immunohistochemical staining showed higher glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase activities in group 3 than in group 2 (all p < 0.02) CONCLUSION: ADMSC therapy minimized kidney damage after IR injury through suppressing oxidative stress and inflammatory response.

The study was conducted to compare the effects of different agro-wastes on the growth, yield, and nutritional composition of oyster mushrooms Pleurotus ostreatus (PO) and Pleurotus cystidiosus (PC). Seven substrate formulas including sawdust (SD), corncob (CC), sugarcane bagasse (SB) alone and in combination of 80 : 20, 50 : 50 ratio between SD and CC, SD and SB were investigated. The results indicated that different substrate formulas gave a significant difference in total colonization period, characteristics of fruiting bodies, yield, biological efficiency (BE), nutritional composition and mineral contents of two oyster mushrooms PO and PC. The results showed that increasing CC and SB reduced C/N ratio, and enhanced some mineral contents (Ca, P, and Mg) of substrate formulas. The increased amount of CC and SB of substrate formulas enhanced protein, ash, mineral contents (Ca, K, Mg, Mn, and Zn) of fruiting bodies of both mushrooms. Substrates with 100% CC and 100% SB were the most suitable substrate formulas for cultivation of oyster mushrooms PO and PC in which they gave the highest values of cap diameter, stipe thickness, mushroom weight, yield, BE, protein, fiber, ash, mineral content (Ca, K, and Mg) and short stipe length. However, substrate formula 100% CC gave the slowest time for the first harvest of both mushrooms PO and PC (46.02 days and 64.24 days, respectively). It is also found that the C/N ratio of substrate formulas has close correlation with total colonization period, mushroom weight, yield, BE and protein content of mushroom PO and PC.

Bisphenol-A (BPA), identified as an environmental hormone (i.e., endocrine disruptor), is an industrially important chemical that is being used as a primary raw material for the production of engineering plastics (e.g., polycarbonate/epoxy resins), food cans (i.e., lacquer coatings), and dental composites/sealants. From the ecotoxicology, human health and regulatory points of view, it is urgent to restrict the emissions and releases of the estrogenic chemical from the industrial processes and commercial products. This article reviews BPA in the current literature in terms of physiochemical properties, industrial/commercial uses, environmental distributions in the atmospheric/aquatic/terrestrial phases, possible human toxicity, and its exposure standards and limits. Emphasis is put on the most significant distribution in the aquatic environment, and occupational and non-occupational human exposures. Overall, it is strongly convinced that BPA is not a carcinogenic risk to humans, and is also rapidly glucuronidated and excreted through the route of urine.

The use of improved high yielding crop varieties is an important avenue for reducing hunger and food insecurity in developing countries. Using cross-sectional data obtained from a survey conducted during 2013 crop season, we performed a probit model (plot-level analysis) to determine the probability of adopting new improved rice varieties (NIRVs) by smallholder farmers particularly from two main agro-ecological regions (hills and tropical plain terai regions) of Central Nepal. The results revealed that education, extension services and seed access play significant roles in adoption decisions. Additionally, farm and field characteristic variables such as farm size, endowment of favorable land type (e.g. lowlands), and animal power (e.g. oxen) are the key factors influencing the probability of adopting NIRVs. The results showed that technology specific variables (e.g. yield potential and acceptability) are significant for explaining adoption behavior, implying that it is important to take farmers’ preferences to varietal characteristics into consideration in the design of a research and development program. Given the significant role played by extension and access related variables, increased emphasis on information dissemination, field demonstration, and farmers’ participatory research and training programs to popularize new rice varieties and enhance their adoption rate are required. This also suggests that policy intervention should be made on improving the educational status of farming households, and developing programs on varietal package of rice seed which offer farmers a variety of choices among the appropriate pools of germplasm. Such programs ultimately help farmers develop more profit-oriented behavior which are necessary to enhance adoption rate, production and food security in the long run.

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) can be used to generate a photo-realistic image from a low-dimension random noise. Such a synthesized (fake) image with inappropriate content can be used on social media networks, which can cause severe problems. With the aim to successfully detect fake images, an effective and efficient image forgery detector is necessary. However, conventional image forgery detectors fail to recognize fake images generated by the GAN-based generator since these images are generated and manipulated from the source image. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a deep learning-based approach for detecting the fake images by using the contrastive loss. First, several state-of-the-art GANs are employed to generate the fake–real image pairs. Next, the reduced DenseNet is developed to a two-streamed network structure to allow pairwise information as the input. Then, the proposed common fake feature network is trained using the pairwise learning to distinguish the features between the fake and real images. Finally, a classification layer is concatenated to the proposed common fake feature network to detect whether the input image is fake or real. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method significantly outperformed other state-of-the-art fake image detectors.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between tourists’ motivation, experience, perceived value and revisit intentions to creative tourism destinations. The ever-growing concept of creativity has been introduced into the tourism field. Creative tourism has been viewed as a strategy to regenerate destinations physically, culturally and socially. To develop tourism products and provide services that integrate the concept of creativity to satisfy tourists’ needs by developing a more active and long-lasting form of experience, this study aims to examine tourist consumption psychology in the context of creative tourism destinations. Past studies have identified motivation, perceived value and experience as three major antecedents affecting tourists’ revisit intentions. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical study was carried out in three popular creative tourism spots, Meinong, Shuili and Yingge, located, respectively, in the north, middle and south Taiwan. These creative tourism sites provide pottery, crafts, arts, workshops and other creative activities that integrate authentic local culture to engage tourists with fulfilling and meaningful experiences. The on-site survey was conducted on both weekdays and weekends during March 2012. Self-administrated questionnaires were distributed to participants who were systematically selected at the main gate of the study areas. In total, 417 questionnaires were collected. Findings – The results indicated that on-site tourism experience was the most influential antecedent of revisit intention to creative tourism sites in terms of the magnitude of the standardized coefficient. The unique variances of motivation factors and perceived value were too small to be statistically significant to explain revisit intentions. The present study contributes to the ever-increasing tendency for creative industries in Taiwan to develop creative tourism products and services that encompass authentic local culture and art in enhancing tourist experience. Originality/value – For business operators, this study suggests that if owners of creative destinations would like to attract repeat tourists, the tourists’ experiences are surely critical in developing service blueprints to meet the needs and wants of customers; they should pay more attention to understanding what tourists experience when they visit creative tourism attractions.

The output power produced by high-concentration solar thermal and photovoltaic systems is directly related to the amount of solar energy acquired by the system, and it is therefore necessary to track the sun's position with a high degree of accuracy. Many systems have been proposed to facilitate this task over the past 20 years. Accordingly, this paper commences by providing a high level overview of the sun tracking system field and then describes some of the more significant proposals for closed-loop and open-loop types of sun tracking systems.

Many methods based on spectrophotometric, fluorometric, piezoresistive, amperometric or conductive measurements have been proposed for detecting the concentration of formaldehyde in air. However, conventional formaldehyde measurement systems are bulky and expensive and require the services of highly-trained operators. Accordingly, the emergence of sophisticated technologies in recent years has prompted the development of many microscale gaseous formaldehyde detection systems. Besides their compact size, such devices have many other advantages over their macroscale counterparts, including a real-time response, a more straightforward operation, lower power consumption, and the potential for low-cost batch production. This paper commences by providing a high level overview of the formaldehyde gas sensing field and then describes some of the more significant real-time sensors presented in the literature over the past 10 years or so.

Between March and July 1997, a devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), serotype O, occurred in pigs in Taiwan. A total of 6,147 pig farms with more than 4 million pigs were infected, and 37.7 per cent of the pigs in Taiwan either died (0.18 million pigs) or were killed (3.85 million pigs). The epidemic reached its peak during the fifth week after it was first recognised. During the eighth and ninth weeks, a two-dose blanket vaccination programme was instituted which led to a large reduction in new outbreaks. Except for two cities, the whole of Taiwan was declared an FMD-infected zone. During the four months in which new farm outbreaks occurred, 21.7 per cent of the pigs on infected farms showed clinical signs, and there was an overall mortality of 3.95 per cent. During the early stages of the epidemic, the incubation period was as short as 24 hours and the case fatality rates for suckling piglets reached 100 per cent. The financial cost of the epidemic was estimated at US$ 378.6 million, including indemnities, vaccines, carcase disposal plus environmental protection, miscellaneous expenses, and loss of market value. Owing to the ban on exports of pork to Japan, it is estimated that the total economic cost to Taiwan's pig industry will be about US$ 1.6 billion.