¡@¡@Taiwan lacks of natural resources and highly industrialized at the same time. International trade activities are the most crucial way to obtain raw materials for production and channels to sell Taiwan¡¦s output to the rest of the world. Therefore, the fluctuation of real exchange rate influences exports and imports just as double blades sword, and subtly causes welfare issue. In this paper, we combine traditional productivity argument proposed by Balassa-Samuelson and recent literatures focusing on sticky price both to cause real exchange rate in the long-run using Taiwan as a case. Using structural VAR model to decompose unobservable shocks, change in productivity between domestic economy and the trading blocs is still the most influencing factor to explain the fluctuation of real exchange rate of Taiwan.

Abstract Based on the underlying intentions of life insurance, if managers of insurance companies truly understands the importance of insurance to the society, their management philosophy would be grounded on care for the needs of the public and implement such philosophy as their management objective. Yet, according to the year 2004 statistics published by the Life Insurance Association of the Republic of China, the average insured value of new life insurance contracts is merely NTD 780,000 in 2004. The average insured value of effective contracts is NTD 780,000, while the ratio of insurance coverage is 166.3% (effective contract divided by total population). This indicates that the average payout for every death is only NTD 1,290,000, indicating significant inadequacy of life cover. There is a popular saying in the insurance business, ¡§birds would be found where there are trees, and business achievements would be found where there are people¡¨. The majority of sales departments in life insurance companies focus on achievement of new contracts; new staff will bring sales to the company. Increased rates of ineffective policies arising from low retention rate of new salespeople, lack of professionalism among salespeople, or inadequate service were not considered. Therefore, insurance salespeople are not only the key elements in the business achievements of insurance companies, but also the key personnel underlying long term performance indices. The objectives of this study are: 1)What are the characteristics of salesperson that exhibit excellent performance? 2)Which recruiting channel recruits the best insurance salesperson? 3)What are the methodologies for recruiting and selecting insurance salesperson? 4)What are the impacts of such recruiting methods on the performance of the insurance company? 5)Are the insurance salesperson recruited through such channels appropriate to the needs of the company? A case study is adopted as the research method. The subject company ¡V Prudential of Taiwan (POT), clearly understands that business performance is grounded on having professional insurance salespeople. Hence the long term business objective of POT is to recruit and nurture professional life insurance planners, which is different to the management approach adopted by majority of the insurance companies in Taiwan. The recruiting and selecting methodology of the case company was studied. The business philosophy, sources of recruitment, recruiting and selecting methods and processes were reviewed. Furthermore, in-depth staff interviews to gain their viewpoints on recruitment were conducted. Results of the study into the recruitment methodology and interviews were compared to reflect the results of long term key performance index of insurance company. The findings of this study are: the long term performance index of POT, namely staff retention rate, individual average insured value per new policy, insurance company retention rate, persistency rate of the policy, rate of passing staff qualification tests and, MDRT membership qualification rate, the incremental rate of the premium income, were all rated above competitors. ¡iKeywords¡j Prudential of Taiwan¡ALife Insurance¡ARecruiting¡ASelecting¡ALifePlanner

The goal of the present study is to explore the functional involvement of the N-terminal region in the biological activity of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) enzyme. Native PLA2 from the venoms of Naja naja atra and Bungarus multicinctus and N-terminally mutated N. naja atra PLA2, i.e. an additional Met before Asn-1(M-PLA2), substitution of Asn-1 with Met-1(PLA2(N1M)) and removal of N-terminal seven residues (PLA2(¡µN7)), were employed in this study. Mutations on the N-terminal region insignificantly perturbed the binding ability of PLA2 for Ca2+ and ANS, but the enzymatic activity of mutants drastically decreased. Moreover, an alteration in the secondary structure was observed as revealed by CD spectra. Compared to other mutants, the fine structure of Ca2+-binding site within PLA2(¡µN7)) changed. Additionally, removal of the N-terminal region caused significant alternation in the structures of active site and substrate-binding site as evidenced by the results of fluorescence measurement, chemical modification and denaturation with detergents. In all N-terminal mutants, substituting Ans-1 with Met-1 affected the NNA-PLA2 structure to a least extent. The membrane-damage activity of PLA2(N1M) and M-PLA2 was 89% and 34% that of NNA-PLA2, respectively. PLA2(¡µN7) did not exhibit the membrane-damage activity. Studies on the biological activities of chemically modified N. naja atra PLA2 reflected a dissociation of the enzymatic activity from membrane-damage activity, and suggested the involvement of Trp-18, Trp-61, Lys-65, Tyr-3 and Tyr-63 in membrane-damage activity. Collectively, our data indicate that the intact N-terminus was crucial for maintaining of the functional conformation of PLA2 in the manifestation of the enzymatic activity and membrane-damage activity, and the enzymatic activity of PLA2 is in aid of but not exclusively essential for the membrane-damage effect.

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In order to elucidate T. gondii infection in a regional hospital in southern Taiwan, serum samples were taken from 173 selected individuals. Among them, 91 serum samples were taken from uremic patients under regular hemodialysis, 34 from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patients and 48 from healthy adults. Of these 173 samples analyzed by commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits including anti-T. gondii IgG and IgM, 21 were seropositive (12.1%) of T. gondii infection. Among 91 uremic patients, 11 (12.1%) were seropositive for IgG. Among 34 HIV-infected patients, 9 (26.5%) were seropositive for IgG and 3 (8.8%) were seropositive for IgM. ELISA data were tested by ANOVA and statistical significances were detected among these groups. The most common band revealed by Western blot assay was the 30 kDa antigen which appeared in 8 of 11 (72.7%) uremic IgG-positive patients and 4 of 9 (44.4%) HIV-infected patients. Serodiagnosis of T. gondii infection reveals a higher positive rate among HIV-infected patients, uremic patients under hemodialysis are also at risk for reactivation of latent toxoplasmal infection. Serological screening for anti-T. gondii antibodies among HIV-infected patients and hemodialytic patients as well as sustained follow-up to detect recent infection are extremely important.

The digital content industry has the indicator meaning of developing knowledge economy and digital economy, and is the important driving force to sustain the next wave of upgrading and transforming industry in Taiwan. The digital content industry is the high added value industry for knowledge type, which owns huge business opportunity and development¡¦s potentiality. So, Taiwan government puts relevant resources into it actively in order to assist the development of the digital content industry, and expect it could drive the development of it by means of balancing the development of Taiwan islands. This research builds up the frame work of digital content industry in reference to ecological model proposed by scholars on basis of ecological theory. It transforms the traditional analysis of industry into the one with view point of ecological development to observe the development of digital content industry. Among the ecology of the digital content industry, includes the environment of industry¡¦s development¡Bcurrent operation situation of companies and industry¡¦s ecology constituted by the relation among companies. Take digital content industry in southern Taiwan for example to investigate the current development of it. This research had interview with experts first before proceeding questionnaire. Through the relevant materials collected by interviewing experts and in accordance with the investigation of quantification from said questionnaire, find out as to the ecology of digital content industry, what company most satisfy is the company¡¦s operation. The following is the relation among companies. But the most unsatisfactory part to them is the environment of industry¡¦s development. This research constructs the ecological model of digital content industry and analyzes the ecology of it. Hopefully it could be the reference of following study of digital content industry and in the meantime provides industry the suggestion of orientation and strategy.

Benthic community structure was studied by sample quadrates on transects at depths of 5 to 10 m in four sites, including Wanlitong, Leidashih, Siangjiao Bay, and Longkun, in coral reefs of southern Taiwan from 2003 to 2005. Totally 154 species in 45 genera of hard coral and 45 species in 10 genera of soft coral, representing 67% of known coral species were recorded. Covers of benthic organisms and hard coral growth forms were similar among years, but were significantly different among sites. Mean cover of all corals was high in Siangjiao Bay (56.88%) and Leidashih (65.69%), but hard coral (65.43%) was dominanted in Siangjiao Bay while soft coral (39.00%) was dominanted in Leidashih. Mean cover of all coral and benthic algae was similar in Wanlitong and Longkun. For hard coral growth forms, massive and encrusting corals were dominanted in three of four sites. This may be resulted from the strong wave. Cover of bare substrate was high (21.39%) in Longkun which was the most exposed to wind and wave stress. Foliaceous coral was abundant with the dominated species, Montipora aequituberculata (20.59%) in Siangjiao Bay which was a more protected site. However, foliaceous coral was more susceptibe to typhoon. Coral diversity was higher in Leidashih. This was related to both hard and soft corals were common and no dominant species. Comparing to previous studies, the long term change of coral abundance shows stable and/or increasing trends. It may be related to the dominance of massive and encrusting coral communities in southern Taiwan.

The seed external morphology and seed coat pattern of 11 genera and 22 species of Melastomataceae in Taiwan were studied by dissecting microscopey and scanning electron microscopey. According to the seed size, the result showed that the length and width of seed is different inter-generically. The biggest size is the seed of Memecylon while contrast to those of the other genera. The seed shapes could be divided into 8 types. They are liner-lanceolate, cuneate, fusiform, reniform, cochleate, triangular, obovoid and parallelogram respectively. Except that of the Sarcopyramis, the seed shape is rather stable intra-generically. The seed coat could be classified into 6 patterns. They are verrucate, rugose, smooth, tuberculate, granulate, and colliculate respectively. The seed colors are egg-yellow, brown, nut-brown and reddish brown. The difference of seed morphology is obvious inter-generically, and the difference of seed coat patterns is extinctive intra-generically.

Po-210 and Pb-210 are particle-reactive natural radionuclides which can be removed from seawater by their incorporation with various particulate materials, resulting in radioactive disequilibria with respect to their parent nuclides. Previous studies showed that Po-210/Pb-210 activity ratio in surface seawater ranges from about 0.2 to 1 due to atmospheric input of Pb-210 and effects of biological productivity and upwelling. In order to evaluate the effects of plankton on Po-210 and Pb-210 distributions, plankton samples were collected by surface-trawling of plankton net in Taiwanese water. These plankton samples were analyzed for Po-210 and Pb-210 in order to obtain their concentrations and activity ratio, which may indicate the enrichment or discrimination of these nuclides in the marine planktonic phase around Taiwan. The results show that the Po-210/Pb-210 activity ratio of planktonic samples ranges from 23.06 to 51.40 in northeastern Taiwan, whereas the activity ratio in southwest Taiwan varies within and outside of the sampleing locations: stations 1, 2, 3 and 4 yield range of 10.72-43.90, 16.40-47.87, 13.86-23.37 and 9.35-13.82, respectively. Two marine algae (Sargassum polycystum C.Agardh and Hypnea charoides Lamouroux) yield values of 2.24-8.57, and 3.72-5.96, respectively. These Po-210/Pb-210 activity ratios are much greater than unity, and their activities comparison to those of inorganic particulates support the contention that the plankton preferentially incorporates Po-210 but discriminates against Pb-210. However, the mechanism or process of Po-210 to be incorporated in the plankton remains unclear. In comparison of the activities between Po-210 and Pb-210 in organic particulates, one finds that Po-210 is effectively enriched while Pb-210 is clearly discriminatied by the organic particulates. These results are consistent with those reported in literatures.

Abstract As for the macro-analysis level, the traditional statist theory, on the research for economic development of East Asia industrialized countries, has revealed that the State can play an important role in the process of economic transformation and development. Particularly, the State can appropriately use industrial policies to accelerate the accumulation of the nation¡¦s wealth and to accomplish a striking economic achievement. However, the State-centred theory assumes the separation between the state and society; (State-centred theory or Society-centred theory) and regard the state as an independent unity. In this way, the theory is inevitably become limited and over-simplified. Thus, the state-centred theory fails to make a reasonable explanation on why (economic) society is thoroughly willing to follow each state-oriented step. Moreover, the theory disregards the true motivation behind the economical performance of East Asia countries. With the process of political democratization and economical liberalization, the state-centred theory is challenged and questioned. Scholars now have to seriously regard the relationship between state and society as embedded one rather than insulated one. They find that the reason for successful economical transformation in East Asia lies not only in states industrial policy (institutional arrangement) but in the social force. Since the state and society are interrelated¡Xits connecting mechanism, policy networks¡Xthe state-centred theory has recently emphasized the study of policy networks. In the process of Taiwan textile industrial development, the state always takes up the role of a creator and participant. Though nowadays the leading role and competitive edge of textile industry on Taiwan¡¦s economy are no longer there, can we directly claim that the textile industry has become a kind of ¡§sunset industry¡¨? The main purpose of this research is to make a defense for the false impression on Taiwan¡¦s textile industry as a ¡§sunset industry¡¨. The study hopes to take off the vile of so-called ¡§sunset industry¡¨ on Taiwan¡¦s textile industry, and to argue it as a ¡§sunrise industry¡¨. Doubtlessly, the developmental experience of Taiwan¡¦s textile industry is a successful model which shows the embedded relationship between the state and society. The thesis plans to take the static dimension of institutional process (such as organization, funds, quota institution, and function) and the dynamic dimension of behavioral process as subject of a case study; and goes further to analyze the interaction among state, Taiwan Textile Federation and textile industries.