The world famous marketing master Elliott Ettenberg indicated in his new book ¡§ The Next Economy¡¨(2003), customer has become corporate main focus in new economy era. Increasing product added value and improving customer relations have been corporate prime objective. This has been obvious in Taiwan industry. With dramatic environment changes and aggressive market competition, performance improvement and sales team enhancement have been one of the most important topics in business administration. For electronic companies aiming to enter global market, an operation flow of quickly responding to market demand and customer satisfaction, especially in order taking, design and development, manufacturing, quality assurance, testing, packing, transportation, price and service, has been a major subject to be tackled under global competition and rapidly changing business environment. For a long time, many companies face the problem of numerous functional departments not being able to integrate, thus, customers are obliged to receive various and fragmental message. Functional departments often got shortcomings such as limited knowledge, incomprehensive thoughts and even departmental egoism. They normally don¡¦t emphasize on teamwork with other departments and are not able to provide valuable opinions. Their decision perspectives would be restricted, instead of being comprehensive. In addition, organization hierarchy often results in slow problem-solving responses. They also lack of customer-oriented concepts. Their staff is more loyal to the department than to projects or customers. One of the effective and often seen solutions is to set up a cross-product or cross-functional account team. For efficient operation of such project organization, some companies would set up a project office to assist or monitor the progress of projects. Project management is one of the rapidly growing territories in business administration. Through in-depth interviews and literature retrospective study, this research attempts to understand the operation model of project office in view of customer and service orientation; via empirical observations, interviews and analysis of subject project office real operation, the research tempts to tackle major issues on project office operation. From a broad view, the management of a project office is part of project management, but its characteristics and management model is different from project deployment. This research expects to establish an operation and management model of project office and provide appropriate recommendations as reference to its practical operation.

The objective of this study is to investigate consumers in the Taiwan region, the situation that when their due rights were being infringed, they had rather accept the unfair treatment from the manufacturers or suppliers, and will not strive for their own rights. In the consumer market, events of consumer right infringement are happening each day, seriously hindering the market order of fair competition. In this moment of the 2007, what are the thoughts within the minds of the consumers in Taiwan ? What are the factors that influence consumers striving for their due rights? In this study, the following issues were reviewed: relationships between manufacturers and consumers; consumer¡¦s cognizance of consumer rights; consumer protection; the roles of the law; government and consumer protection institutions in consumer protection; consumer education; and, consumer self-protection of consumer rights. A survey questionnaire was developed based on five themes of consumers themselves, consumer knowledge, law, government and consumer protection institutions. The survey attempts to understand the internal views of consumers. Consumers in the northern, central and southern Taiwan were randomly sampled according to population distribution. After collecting 170 questionnaires, the responses were coded and analyzed with SAS (statistical software) using Factor Analysis, one-way MANOVA and one-way ANOVA. Several latent factors were extracted, and the difference between consumer gender, age, education background and living region were studied. The results of statistical analysis indicate in 2007, the four main factors affecting consumers¡¦ strive for their rights are: (1) lack of external protection, (2) lack of self-confidence in claiming their rights, (3) dysfunction of consumer protection institutions, and, (4) lack of consumer knowledge. The results further show that the factors differ among living regions, however there is no evidence that there are differences in consumers gender, age and education background. This study has also investigates the level of consumer rights awareness, and the differences in gender, age, education background and living region in such cognizance. The results of statistical analysis show a very low awareness of consumer rights, and there is no evidence to conclude difference between gender, age, education background and living region.

This thesis analyzes unity power factor rectifiers since this type of rectifiers use energy as efficient as possible. Throughout the thesis, some unity power factor rectifier topologies are investigated and some of them selected to investigate in detail. Afterwards, a new single transistor unity power factor rectifier topology is proposed, simulated, implemented and compared with one of the selected unity power factor rectifier topology on the basis of efficiency, total harmonic distortion, input current ripple and output voltage ripple.

Structural analysis of highway bridges using complicated 3-D FEMs to determine live load effects in bridge components is possible due to the readily available computational tools in design offices. However, building such complicated 3-D FEMs is tedious and time consuming. Accordingly, most design engineers prefer using simplified 2-D structural models of the bridge and live load distribution equations (LLDEs) available in current bridge design codes to determine live load effects in bridge components. Basically, the live load effect obtained from a 2-D model is multiplied by a factor obtained from the LLDE to calculate the actual live load effect in a 3-D structure. The LLDE available in current bridge design codes for jointed bridges were also used for the design of straight and skewed integral bridges by bridge engineers. As a result, these bridges are either designed conservatively leading to additional construction cost or unconservatively leading to unsafe bridge designs. Recently, LLDEs for integral bridges (IBs) with no skew are developed. To use these equations for skewed integral bridges (SIBs) a correction factor is needed to multiply these equations to include the effect of skew. Consequently, in this research study, skew correction factors for SIBs are developed. For this purpose, finite element models of 231 different three dimensional and corresponding two dimensional structural models of SIBs are built and analyzed under live load. The analyses results reveal that the effect of skew on the distribution of live load moment and shear is significant. It is also observed that skew generally tends to decrease live load effects in girders and substructure components of SIBs. Using the analyses results, analytical equations are developed via nonlinear regression techniques to include skew effects in the LLDEs developed for straight IBs. The developed skew correction factors are compared with FEAs results. This comparison revealed that the developed skew correction factors yield a reasonably good estimate of the reduction in live load effects due to the effect of skew.

Abstract It has long been Taiwan¡¦s primary goal to be the Asia-Pacific financial center, especially after joining WTO, the internationalization of stock exchange, finance, and economy has undoubtedly become an inevitable trend. After Taiwan ensured the policy goals of financial liberalization, internationalization, as well as building Taiwan into an Asia-Pacific operation center in the mid-1980s, government has gradually eased financial restrictions and scrapped limits on foreign investment in the domestic stock market to expand and stabilize stock market through opening to foreign investment, and to direct investors toward rational trading through professional analysis of foreign investment capital. Although foreign capital inflow can strengthen stock market which helps accelerate economic development and internationalization; nevertheless, Mexico¡¦s and Asia¡¦s financial crisis in 1990s due to the abolishment of restrictions on capital movement, turned the policy of easing restrictions on foreign participation in the stock exchange into a double-edged sword. That is to say, while it is easier for enterprises to finance business and expand total demands to accelerate economic growth, the excessive foreign capital movement may impact domestic economy and finance, causing rapid expansion of capital and credit, inflation, as well as appreciation of real exchange rate. This study attempts to explore the dynamic effect of fundamental and stock trading factors on the stock¡¦s return rate after government eased restrictions on foreign participation in the stock exchange at the third stage of entirely opening to foreign investment. The results include that first, after the third stage of opening to foreign investment, foreign capital inflow actually causes the validity of exchange rate and monetary supply to influence stock¡¦s return rate, which changes the interpretation on the cause-and-effect of stock¡¦s return rate. Second, shortened reaction time on the impact of fundamental and trading factors on stock¡¦s return rate can rapidly reflect on stock¡¦s return rate, which helps stabilize stock market. And finally, the decomposition of forecast error variance verifies that financial internationalization indeed structurally changes how Taiwan¡¦s macroeconomic environment interprets stock¡¦s return rate. Moreover, as for trading behavior, the influence of the more speculative trading credit on stock¡¦s return rate decreases, and the foreign capital deregulation helps stabilize stock market. Key word: foreign investment, stock return, fundamental factor, trading factor, unit root, VAR

Abstract For many years now, the base to Taiwan¡¦s economic development has been from the medium and little-sized business enterprises, but with the restrictions of domestic economic development, the rising costs of labor, and the intense competition of the international environment, many proprietors believe that for these enterprises to weather through another winter is in itself a difficult task, how would they have the time for discussions of the improvement and development of human resources? Previous academic research and models were all designed for large business enterprises, but are these models fit for those medium and small-sized enterprises? At present, local studies are short of this type case study information and research, therefore, this paper targets medium and small-business enterprises that have been through job evaluation for research in hopes to find a successful human resource management and development model for medium and small-sized business enterprises from successful relevant case studies. Ethan M. Rasiel(1999) said, ¡§No matter what you do, you will always have the chance that there will always be some other person in some other place that has done similar things as you have: learn from other people¡¦s success and lessons, cherish your precious time, don¡¦t try to reinvent tires. The main purpose of this research is to discuss the effect that compensation system design has on cognitive compensation equity and the effect cognitive compensation equity has on employee attitude. The survey method is used for research, with retrieval of 223 effective surveys. Results after analysis of the data are stated below: 1. The effect compensation system design has on cognitive compensation equity is more notable with two factors: ¡¥compensation adjustment plan¡¦ and ¡¥the degree of compensation understanding¡¦. The ¡¥performance standard factor¡¦ has almost no effect on distributional equity; this is an issue that is worth looking into. 2. The effect cognitive compensation equity has on employee attitude, among which ¡¥distribution equity¡¦ has notable effects with compensation satisfaction. Moreover, procedural equity has notable effect on moral commitment, emotional commitment and work commitment; what more to be noticed is that only external equity and compensation openness has notable effect on prolonged commitment. This explains why medium and small-sized business enterprises cannot retain employees. So is this the fate of medium and small-sized business enterprises or is it the ignorance towards compensation design? 3. This research sampled middle and small-sized companies with an employee count of 200 or less. Although there is not a great number of case studies companies, but the results are still impressive, especially the distinct improvement of employee attitude. From this research, it is shown that the cadre members of middle and small-sized business enterprises are younger, have higher academic background, have abundant source of information, like open communication and interaction, have their own opinions on how to set the human resource management system, and expect themselves to become professional managers.

The population of the villages and towns in Chi Mei District in Kaohsiung county has been agriculture-based from the early days and has been their primary source of income ever since. However, the town has been suffering from the impact of the modernization created by the joining of WTO and the introduction of newer technologies in farming, and environmental deterioration caused by industrialization and urbanization. The intended changes did not provide the necessary platform in the areas of product improvement, new marketing methodology and sadly it did not improve the present overall lifestyle of the town as we see the trend of moving towards modern industrial economy. Recently with the introduction of organic products, the benefits and increasing demands has initiated more openings of organic farms which double up as a retreat for interested individuals looking for a short stay away from their usual fast paced urban areas. Realizing the attraction of the trend, traditional agriculture-based the villages and towns in Chi Mei District can make full use of its favorable locations and with suitable business coupled with marketing strategies. These proposals can provide and open up discussions on the viable options to adopt including the potential of grooming the town as tourist attractions on their modernize farms as a retreat hot spot in the future.

This research combines relational database framework and quantitative equity portfolio models based on the Barra Risk Model Handbook standard steps to design a database and computer platform for multi-factor risk management tasks. The multi-factor model facilitates fast search and efficient selection of descriptors with explanatory power for future stock returns. The design of database is divided into three steps. First, descriptors are calculated and daily-update modules constructed. This study finds 48 key descriptors which play important roles in explaining stock returns of Taiwan. Second, entity relational model is applied to sort out linkages between pieces of important information in the factor model. Lastly, database auto-run procedures are setup to update the latest raw data on a monthly basis. Model parameter update and portfolio rebalancing is hence made seamless to meet practical operation demand for such a platform. The development of the Multi-factor risk model is divided into five main steps. (1) Finding significant descriptors. (2) Forming common factors from descriptors. (3) Developing a multi-factor return model. (4) Developing a multi-factor risk model. (5) Running performance analysis and back-testing. The empirical results show that the average adjusted R-squared of the MFM model is 0.5 during the period of 1998/04~2005/11. For combining descriptors into common factors, we run factor analysis. The multi-collinearity problem existing in the descriptors is well taken care of by such procedures. We use the exponentially weighted averaging method to compute the factor returns and forecast stock ranking. A half-life of 24 months appears to deliver the best performance in Taiwan stock market.

An auxiliary winding with an associated capacitor is added on the single-stage power factor corrector (PFC) based on fly-back conversion to reduce the ripple on the dc output voltage. The associated capacitor takes out partial energy at every switching cycle from the fly-back conversion and releases the stored energy to the load at the valley of the rectified line voltage. The negative effect of such an approach is that the converter does not draw a current from the AC line at the lower voltage near zero crossing, leading to deterioration in the power factor. This thesis analyzes how an auxiliary winding affects the voltage of the associated capacitor, which in turn changes the cut-in angle of the input current and thus the power factor of the AC source. To facilitate the implementation, the fly-back converter is operated at the boundary conduction mode (BCM). A design example is given for the 24 V, 48 W load, based on the derived equations. The laboratory circuit is built and tested to verify the computer simulations and analytical predictions. The experimental results confirm the circuit analyses on the converter performances.

Liver fibrosis, a major medical problem with significant morbidity and mortality, is considered as a wound-healing response to a variety of chronic stimuli. It is characterized by an excessive deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, which disrupts the normal architecture of liver and ultimately leads to pathophysiological damage to liver. Hepatoma-derived growth factor (HDGF), a growth factor originally purified from hepatoma cells, is highly expressed in fetal hepatocytes and hepatoma. It is known to play multifunctional roles in mitogenesis, organogenesis, embryogenesis, and tumorigenesis. Its expression correlates with the proliferating state of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and serves as a prognostic factor. Since liver fibrosis frequently occurs prior to HCC development, the specific aim of this study is to investigate the role of HDGF in the progression of liver fibrosis by using animal models of mice receiving either bile duct ligation surgery or carbon tetrachloride administration. Quantitative real-time PCR and Western blotting analysis showed a significant elevation of HDGF expression in both models. HDGF levels correlated with progression of liver fibrosis in a time-dependent manner as well as paralleled with the expression of other two fibrotic markers, transforming growth factor-b1 (TGF-b1) and pro-collagen type I, in fibrotic livers. Intriguingly, the over-expressed HDGF protein was localized mainly in perivenous hepatocytes of fibrotic livers. Besides, adenovirus-mediated HDGF gene delivery potentiated the production of TGF-b1 and pro-collagen type I, thereby enhancing the intrahepatic collagen matrix deposits as evidenced by Sirius red stain and morphometrical analysis. In cultured hepatocytes, TGF-b1 and HDGF mutually up-regulated their de novo synthesis only when grown on collagen-coated matrix, strongly suggesting that the TGF-b1- and/or HDGF-driven pro-fibrogenic signaling is collagen-dependent and a vicious circle may exist at the initial stage of hepatic fibrogenesis. Moreover, administration with recombinant HDGF stimulated BrdU uptake and synthesis of both a-smooth muscle actin and pro-collagen type I in cultured hepatic stellate cells, implicating that a mode of paracrinal action lies between these two cell types. In conclusion, HDGF plays a pro-fibrogenic role during liver fibrosis and blockade of HDGF pathway may potentially constitute the preventive or therapeutic strategies for chronic liver diseases.