The length of ZnO nanotip can be controlled by the deposition time, and the crystal of ZnO nanotip can be enhanced by a thermal annealing at 300oC in this study.The thickness of TiO2 on ITO/glass also can be controlled by the deposition time in this investigate. There are three major parts in this study : 1. (1). The control of thickness of TiO2 film and length of ZnO nanotip and (2). the difference of their photocatalytic activities are two major parts. 2. The relationship between the surface area and the photocatalytic activities of TiO2 powder (P25) and film. 3. The improvement of photocatalytic activity was utilized by the hetrojunction of ZnO nanotip/TiO2 and TiO2/ZnO nanotip, and the P25 is used as a reference for all measurements.

To be an island, Taiwan owns an abundant ocean environment, therefore, it is good to develop varied marine activities. Keel-boat is one of the important activities just budding from the branch. Our study explored the development of keel-boat activity in Taiwan, following with an analysis framework of four-function development, i.e., leisure, sports, education, and industry. Methods of case study and qualitative skills, such as interviews, documentary analysis, and observation were used in this study, including applying on varied actors, i.e., governmental units, NGOs, business, and individuals. Data was analyzed under the four-function framework and some results had been produced as the following: 1. Leisure and sports are dominant functions of keel-boat activity in the post development. However, leisure should be the future developing direction. 2. The actors in private sector play an important role to promote keel-boat leisure. 3. Some regulations needed to be changed for the development of keel-boat activity.

Our previous studies showed that recombinant £]-bungarotoxin B chain exhibited membrane-damaging activity. Given that membrane-damaging activity is crucial for bactericidal effect of antibacterial peptide, the causal relationship between membrane-damaging activity and antibacterial action of B chain was performed in this study. £]-bungarotoxin B chain exhibited a growth inhibition on Escherichia coli (Gram-negative bacteria), but marginally displayed bactericidal effect on Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive bacteria). Destabilization of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) layer and inhibition of lipoteichoic acid (LTA) biosynthesis on cell wall increased bactericidal effect of B chain on E. coli and S. aureus. B chain induced leakage and fusion of bacterial membrane-mimicking liposomes. Compared with LPS, LTA notably suppressed membrane-damaging activity and fusogenicity of B chain. B chain showed similar binding affinity with LPS and LTA. Circular dichroism measurement revealed that LPS- and LTA-binding differently induced conformational change of B chain. Taken together, our data indicate that antibacterial action of B chain is related to its ability to induce membrane permeability and fusogenicity, and suggest that LTA- and LPS- induced conformational change of B chain affect membrane-damaging activity, fusogenicity and antibacterial activity of B chain.

Many studies have examined the relationship between youth physical activity and their built environment. However, most of them used subjective measurement tools to measure built environment because of their low cost and convenience. The application of geographic information system (GIS) in this study greatly supported the research in this field because it can provide more detailed objectively measured data of built environment. Three hundred and thirty-eight Hispanic low-income youth enrolled in a local San Antonio Youth Center program participated in the study. The first study examined the association between youth's household income, and the availability and accessibility of recreational and utilitarian facilities. Results indicated that youth from low income families had longer distances to and less available number of recreational and utilitarian facilities within their neighborhoods. The second study focused on nutrition environmental features, such as, availability and accessibility of fast food outlets and supermarkets. Findings suggested that the average distance to supermarkets was almost two times that of fast food restaurants. These results indicated that participants need to walk more to access a supermarket compared to the closest fast food restaurant. On the whole, supermarkets were less accessible compared to fast food restaurants for the participants in the study area. The third study provided some important supplements to the first two studies by examining both features related to physical activity and dietary behavior with youth's BMI. Results indicated that the available number (availability) of physical activity- and food-related facilities contributed significantly to youth BMI. Lower BMI was related to more available utilitarian (e.g., shopping malls), recreational facilities (e.g., parks) and some food stores (e.g., supermarkets). This study indicated that youth's individual features (e.g., age and SES) had some associations with their health conditions (e.g., BMI) and built environments (e.g., accessibility and availability of facilities and food outlets). These results may provide some evidence to improve the understanding of the relationship between individual, environmental, and social characteristics, which may be useful to promote children and adolescent health behaviors (e.g., physical activity and eating behavior) in public health.

Angiogenesis is not only essential for tumor growth but is also implicated in invasion of the cancer cells into the circulation, and growth of dormant micro-metastases into frank metastatic lesions. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays an important role in angiogenesis as well as in solid tumors. It also has a role for VEGF in hematopoietic neoplasms; although has not been fully elucidated. This study will examine the VEGF secretary activity of malignant cells in the patients with hematologic malignancies. Supernatants of cell culture after 72 hours & 7th day were analyzed for VEGF value by ELISA method. The purposes of this study are to assay the VEGF activity and its correlation with disease prognosis in various hematological disorders; and to detect the VEGF autocrine activity of tumor cells in sequential culture without any stimulation in vitro. Results: our research samples were 75 specimens. The VEGF value was low in 13 cases of benign diseases, no obvious auto-secretary activity of those cells. There was no significant correlation between VEGF value and disease status in acute lymphoblastic leukemia; however, the cases were too small to had exact predict value (only 7 cases). In 17 Cases of malignant lymphoma, low D0 VEGF value (<300 pg) had good prognosis; those cases relapsed after treatment had high auto-secretary activity (high VEGF value of 7th culture day) and had bad disease prognosis, but there was no statistic significance. In 14 Cases of acute myelogenous leukemia, high D0 VEGF value (>150 pg) and high VEGF value of 7th culture day both presented bad disease outcome. In 16 cases of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), low plasma VEGF level (D0<300pg) was all in chronic phase; all cases in accelerated phase (3 cases) and acute blastic crisis (5 cases) presented with high plasma VEGF level (>300pg). Patients with high plasma VEGF level had 70 % (7of 10) in worse disease status (P=0.010). Patients in chronic phase of CML had low VEGF auto-secretary activity and most of the blastic crisis patients were with high VEGF auto-secretary activity and also had bad prognosis. (P=0.248) Conclusion: although our study is a primary result, study cases are varied, but it still provide important information that VEGF has an important role in hematological malignancies. We will process further research of single and specific disease in the future to analyze the exact correlation of VEGF and hematological diseases.

Abstract The present study investigated the activity patterns of Formosan macaques at Mt. Longevity and an emphasis was given to feeding and foraging behavior. The diet composition of Formosan macaque showed significant changes among different age and sex classes of macaques as well as among different seasons. The field research was carried out from August 2003 to July 2004 for a total of 311 hrs covering 77 days. Feeding behavior dominated the activity patterns of the macaques at Mt. Longevity (28.11%), followed by other behaviors such as affiliate (24.71%), resting (17.10%) and moving (16.04%). In contrast, foraging (8.22%) and agonistic behaviors (5.50%) were the least among the activity patterns recorded during this study. Interestingly, adult males spent more time in resting (30.60%) while adult females spent more time in feeding (29.84%), which indicated that the activity patterns were influenced by sex and age groups. Plant food items accounted for 94.87% of their diet while the seminal fluid and breast milk accounted for 5.08%. The plant food items consumed by the monkeys came from 46 species in 31 families and the fruits alone amounted 42.18%. Other food items included leaf (26.20%), stem (11.84%), flower (10.33%), bud (9.14%) and root (0.03%). The relative frequency of fruit consumption by the macaques was higher than 40 % between May and September (40.53% - 63.79%) and December to January (54.66% - 55.28%). The Formosan macaque diet composition changed according to the sex and age class groups. The Simpson index, Shannon-Wiener index and Levine¡¦s niche breadth index changed according to sex, age and months respectively. The plant food diversity indexes were highest for the juvenile males and lowest for the adult females. The Levine¡¦s niche breadth index was broader for the juvenile females but narrowest for the adult females. Adult females consumed 35 species of plants which is higher than the number of species that the adult males and juveniles consumed. However, the plant food diversity index and the niche breadth index were low for adult females, which indicate that they choose certain types of food. On the other hand, all these three indexes were highest in May and changed from month to month. The diet overlap of the Formosan macaque (Renkonen percentage) was highest between adult males and adult females (85.2%) than between other sex/age groups. Among the five categories of age and sex groups, the diet overlap was 66.68% and 22 species of plants was consumed by all age and sex groups of Formosan macaques.

The ARR4 gene from Saccharomyces cerevisiae was highly homological with E. coli arsA. The defective nucleotide-binding domain of ARR4[G30R] exhibited negative dominance from the growth curve experiment, showing that ARR4 protein might act as a dimer in vivo. On the nonreducing gel, the purified 40 kDa ARR4 presented as monomer, dimer and oligomer conformational states. Besides, the chemical cross-linking experiments confirmed the positional size of dimeric ARR4. The metal ions of Co2+, Sb3+, As3+ and As5+ have not effect on the ATPase activity and ARR4 oligomerization. ARR4 exhibit a low level of Mg2+-ATPase activity in the range of 50-70 and 100-120 nmol/min/mg respectively as estimated by phosphate released and NADH-coupled assay. The maximal activity was obtained at a ratio of ATP:Mg2+ of 2:1 and the ATPase activity of ARR4[G30R] was about 50% of that of the ARR4 from both ATPase assays. In the presence of ATP or Mg2+, ARR4 has similar ratios of dimer and monomer. When incubated with Mg2+-ATP, ARR4 tended to form more dimer than with ATP and Mg2+ individually. ARR4[G30R] exhibited less dimer formation. Mixing ARR4 and ARR4[G30R] at a constant total protein concentration with different molar ratios (1:1, 1:2 and 1:4), a near linear relationship of activity versus amount of the ARR4 protein was observed. This observation suggests that ATP hydrolysis takes places in one ATP binding site independent of the other site of NBD. The proportional ATPase activities were consistent with the ratios of ARR4-ARR4[G30R] dimerization on the nonreducing gels. In conclusion, the conformational changes induced by Mg2+-ATP is related to the dimerization of ARR4 and both its NBDs would hydrolyze ATP independently.

According to Michael Porter¡¦s Competitive Advantage, only through Value Chain Analysis, a company can realize it¡¦s cost behavior and the resources needed for differentiation. Thus the company can optimize its resources usage and increase it¡¦s business activities¡¦ performance. A value chain related research indicates that when a company improves its business value activities efficiency, the cost structure of the company is also affected and changed. Therefore, besides understanding a company¡¦s each value activities before it makes the decision of its business activities¡¦ optimized combination, it should realize and control its value-activity cost variation. Due to the fast development of information technology and the speedy changing business environment, many retailers endeavor in information technology investment and application, so as to face the variety competitive threats and increase its own competitive advantages. In this situation, many retailers¡¦ business value activities are varied, which are gradually computerized or digitalized, and those retailers¡¦ value-activity costs are also changed; some kinds of costs are probably raised; some maybe reduced. The target for this research is the retail industry in Taiwan. Because the retailers¡¦ business value activities are focused on customer, market and are marketing oriented, in this research, we name it marketing value activities. From the Activity-Based Costing perspective and by literature survey, the research collected and arranged those variables for two main research constructs - ¡§Marketing Value Activities¡¨ and ¡§Marketing Activity Cost¡¨, which are the base for the research questionnaire design. This research first investigates the computerization situation of Taiwanese retailer marketing value activities and the variation situation of the marketing costs by questionnaire survey. Next, it classifies the marketing value activities and marketing cost by the computerization and variation situation respectively, using Factor Analysis. By Canonical Correlation Analysis, the research proves that the computerization of marketing value activities indeed makes marketing cost change. Furthermore, this research probes into the detail impact relationships among all classified marketing value activities and marketing cost. Through Multiple Stepwise Regression¡¦s Path Analysis and assisted with the information system hierarchy, the research constructs the path diagram of the marketing activities and marketing costs, by which we explains the influence sequence of marketing value activities and marketing costs. So that we can understand which marketing costs would be increased or decreased when one marketing value activity¡¦s computerization level is increased. And finally, we anticipate that this research would provide the retailers a referral for controlling marketing cost variation while computerizing their marketing value activities.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the preliminary results from the investigation of shallow (<20m) hydrothermal vents with a total venting area of about 0.5 km2 off the eastern tip of Kueishantao Island. The chemical compositions of hot fluids, sediments and rocks as well as a continuous record of fluid temperature of a fumarole were measured in order to understand the venting process of hydrothermal fluids. The continuous temperature records show that the attainment of the maximum temperature of the hot fluids is related to the tidal cycle. The temperature variation seems to be associated with changes in the boiling point of seawater, which is affected by changes in water pressure. Such a correlation has not been reported in the literature. The hydrothermal fluids reach their highest temperature about 3.5 hours after each high tide, which is indicative of a shallow infiltration of seawater since the time it takes the boiling seawater to exit is so short. The hottest temperature recorded in our study area is 116¢J, while the lowest pH is 1.75, both a record in the world amid shallow hydrothermal systems. And, 1.75 is the lowest pH been reported on hydrothermal systems in the literature. At one point, the temperature recorder was covered with sand as a result of an encroaching typhoon. This suggests that the topography of the study area is susceptible to external forces. Based on salinity, the source of the hot fluids is taken to be ambient seawater, with no meteoric water from the islet involved. Concentrations of major ions in the hydrothermal fluids are almost the same as those in the ambient seawater. Mg is slightly enriched, however, which is unlike other hydrothermal fluids where, as reported elsewhere, Mg is generally lower because it replaces Ca in the bedrock. Low concentrations of Si in the studied fluids make for another distinct feature. Compared with other hydrothermal fluids in the world, the concentrations of Si in our study area are much lower, possibly on account of there being insufficient time for the rock to dissolve in the infiltrated seawater. Black and white smokers have widely been reported in the literature, but here are found heretofore unheard of yellow smokers as high as 6 meters. Other than one vent which emits liquid sulfur and forms a sulfur chimney, some vent sulfur from sulfur mounds. Still others are low- temperature vents which do not emit sulfur whatsoever. The most active venting activities are off the eastern tip of the islet. There are no other large reliefs associated with the hydrothermal activity, except for the chimney and a depression down to 35m deep. the chimney and a depression down to 35m deep. The composition of gravel on the seafloor is andesite, which is the same as the rock on the islet. The major composition of the sediments collected from the seafloor is sulfur, which is different from the sediments of the hydrothermal systems in the Okinawa Trough. The sulfur particles observed in this study originate from the fumaroles. Besides, sulfur balls the size of softballs and with distinct growth rings are found near some vents. The formation mechanism of these rings at this time, however, remains unclear. The bubbles from the vents are mostly made up of CO2, which is different from the composition of the shallow hot springs on the beach of Green islet. The 3He/4He of the emitted gas is high, this indicates that the gas may have originated from the mantle.

According to Michael Porter¡¦s Competitive Advantage, only through Value Chain Analysis, a company can realize it¡¦s cost behavior and the resources needed for differentiation. Thus the company can optimize its resources usage and increase it¡¦s business activities¡¦ performance. With the Internet environment, economic value for a company is nothing more than the gap between price and cost, and it is reliably measured only by sustained profitability. In e-retailing, e-retailers that want to reach competitive advantage and high economic value must consider how to create real margins, how to measure and manage the cost of e-retailing activities, and execute it in a efficient way to enhance e-retailer¡¦s competitive advantage. This research applies Activity-Based Costing approach to confer e-retailing activities. Value chain analysis is first employed to explore the primary activities of e-retailing. Then the improvement of cost and process are sought from activity analysis, resource cost driver and process cost driver. Finally, the critical e-retailing activities result from the internal value chain analysis. The research results indicated that the price of product and the characteristic of product have different influence on e-retailing activities. In addition, e-retailer want sustained profitability, the finite resource must provide for the customer and product that contribute to e-retailer¡¦s sustained profitability. Finally, the research also indicated that the link of marketing/sales activities and customer service activities are the most critical e-retailing activities. Keyword¡Gvalue chain, e-retailing activities, Activity Based Costing