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Abstract It has been four whole years ever since Legislative Yuan passed the taxation of trusts for the third time on May 29, 2001. Last year (2004) the real estate investment trust (referred to as ¡§REIT,¡¨ hereinafter) business handled by trust dealers was extremely prosperous, forming a major trend in the market. Trusts have a lot of functions, such as security of assets, appreciation of assets, engagement in public charity, serving as conduit, etc. But the most important merit of trusts is the function of tax saving, which caused a high popularity of REIT last year. However, the taxation problems of trusts are too controversial. Apart from their being regulated by laws, there is still much room for evasion of tax payment. Due to the diversity of the behaviors of trusts, the government still could not find out a perfect taxation method. Based on the fairness and justice of taxation, conduit theories of trust, judgment of tax income for the treasury, neutral principles of taxation and the executive principles according to law, it is easy to attend to several things only but lose sight of some others as there are too many things to be paid attention to. Even up to May 31, 2005, taxpayers still did not know how to declare the synthetic tax for the fiscal year of 2004 over the trusts with unspecified, non-existed beneficiary, or specified beneficiary but the authorizer preserves the right of changing the beneficiary. As affected, it is still uncertain of the taxation rules for the REIT contracts amounting to tens of billions of NT dollars signed last year. The taxation techniques are seriously lagged behind the economic behaviors. In view of this, the study still refers to the books of trusts written by local authors, and takes the taxation of trusts, including income tax, legacy tax, land appreciation tax, land value tax, contract tax, house tax, business tax, etc. and the related in interpretations as the research areas, and then judges the situation with the references of the related articles in newspaper, magazines and journals, attempting to find out the best way of taxation of trusts. Under the objective, legal, rational, concrete and workable principles, some significant conclusions are made. It is hoped that among the varied arguments, the research results of this paper could get co-understanding from most of the people, become referential to the taxation policies of the government, make concrete contributions to the practical implementation, and make the future trust business achieve prosperous development.

Since small and medium ¡Vsize enterprises (SMEs) have played a fundamental role in the economic development of this country, as a intermediary, the financial assistance of Taiwan SMEG to SMEs, is the greatest contribution to the above, nevertheless, Taiwan SMEG has been immersing in a predicament of financial deficit due to the unbalanced budget for a long time. Except the Package Credit Guarantee has introduced the concept of total risk control, all the others like the Authorized Approach and the Normal Approach have not introduced yet. For its perennial operation, Taiwan SMEG must set up an appropriate system for the rate of guarantee fees to achieve self-contained and self-sufficient condition, also to obtain the best efficiency under its limited resources. This paper uses the market ¡Vbased risk neutral model developed by Kuo (2006) to estimate the probability of default of banking loan assets through the risk premium of each banking loan, further to stimulate the guarantee fees by using the actuarial valuation principles. The purpose of this model is to react the degree of credit risk on the stimulated guarantee fees , making the fees pricing mechanism reasonable and fair . The model also analyzed the cost of subrogation payment under default cases by different industry , making it a reference for banks and Taiwan SMEG. The empirical results show that: 1.The credit guarantee fees stimulated by this model are approximately fair comparative to the actual subrogation payments of default cases reimbursed by Taiwan SMEG. The result provide evidence that the model possess the power of fitness for estimating the default cost of subrogation payment. 2.The degree of credit risk can actually react on the guarantee fees through using this model. It is essential to set up different range for rate of guarantee fees according to the subrogation payment ratio of default cost caused by respective guaranteed industry. The result suggests that Taiwan SMEG should amplify the extreme energy of guarantee through reasonable and fair use of its limited resources. Using the data of Taiwan SMEG guaranteed cases, this paper also analysis the default cost between the cost of funds and earning profits for the banking loans. The banks in Taiwan earn less profits than before under the overbanking environment. The competitive bank¡¦s loan pricing strategy leads to extreme loss while the default cases occur. In the lights of risk management , banks have become a high risk and low return industry. It is essential for banks to emphasize the loan quality and pricing strategy when expanding their loan business. Banks must simultaneously evaluate the RAROC under a perfect risk management system, so that the monetary environment can be improved and banks can take advantage of it by earning reasonable profits.

Investment-linked insurance in Taiwan has been listed for almost a decade since 2001. In 2002, after the big sales of the investment-linked insurance, the domestic insurance companies also joined the market. For the investment-linked insurance, the policyholders retain the protection of the life insurance as well as share the earnings of the investment. Since the main investment instruments of the investment-linked insurance are mutual funds, it is important to study how to optimally allocate the portfolio. This research consider the returns of the mutual funds under tree models assumption. The objective is to find the optimal portfolio which has minimum variance and attained a given expected return level. The problem is also known as mean-variance portfolio problem. In the empirical work, we study eleven daily mutual fund price data from Sep. 2007 to Nov. 2008. Using the data of the first 12 months, we first establish initial tree price models, then update the parameters of the tree model by the EWMAmethod. The optimal trading strategies of the mean-variance portfolio are investigated under this model setting. We class the mutual funds into three categories: equity funds, balanced funds and bond funds. Different combination of these three kinds of funds are considered to find the optimal trading strategy respectively. The results showed that the realized returns using this optimal trading strategy in practice is close to the pre-specified expected return level.

A detailed analysis of neutral atom recycling and pedestal fueling in a DIII-D [J. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion, 42, 614, 2002] high-confinement mode discharge is presented. Experimental data and 2D edge plasma fluid code calculations are employed to provide ion wall recycling and recombination neutral sources and background edge plasma parameters for a 2D edge neutral code calculation of detailed neutral density, ionization and charge-exchange distributions throughout the edge pedestal, scrape-off layer and surrounding halo region, divertor, and private flux regions. The effectiveness of the different neutral sources for fueling the confined plasma is evaluated.

<p>Abstract</p><p>In English usages such as mankind and job titles ending in -man (fireman, chairman) when referring to people in general are considered sexist. Sexist language makes a distinction between women and men and it can exclude, trivialize or diminish women. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to study the sexist or non-sexist use of occupational terms in The San Diego Union Tribune and The Daily Aztec. The questions that were investigated were how the newspapers used affixed terms ending in –man and -woman, if they added female/woman/lady to refer to women, but also how they referred to traditional female professions (nurse, midwife). The study was conducted by hand by using a textual analysis, which was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The study showed that the newspapers primarily use non-sexist occupational terms and avoid using female markings, even when reference is being made to women who have traditional male professions. The sexist usage that was most common was the affixed terms ending in –man and –woman. One conclusion that could be drawn was that The San Diego Union Tribune follows The Associated Press Stylebook’s policy about the usage of coined words such as chairperson and spokesperson.</p>

Genes present in multiple copies and genes that contain regions of repetitive sequences can undergo concerted evolution, which results in homogenization of the nucleotide sequence of the genes or repetitive regions. In regions of tandem repeats, this occurs through misalignment of repeat units followed by unequal crossover, which generates two products with differing numbers of repeat units. Gene conversion is thought to lead to one of these products becoming fixed in a species. The homogenous sequence of previously studied genes that have been thought to undergo this process has made it difficult to determine the exact models involved. Here I examine concerted evolution in SM50, a sea urchin gene that encodes a protein involved in biomineralization. The repetitive region in the SM50 gene varies in length between species, and there is variability in each repeat unit as well. I examine the codon usage in SM50 in a variety of species, and discuss how purifying selection, substitutions, concerted evolution, and selection at the level of DNA sequence have played a role in the evolution of this gene. I also examine the structure and sequence of the repeat units, and purpose models that have led to the evolution of the repeat pattern seen in the different species examined. Finally, I have found variation in the number of repeat units within several species. This has allowed us to deduce the specific models of unequal crossover that led to this variation. The unique variation in the repetitive region of SM50 has enabled us to describe a model of how substitutions affect the model of misalignment and unequal crossover.

A study of how mediators interact with the catabolic pathways of microbes was undertaken with a view towards improving the performance of microbial fuel cells. The use of mediators is known to improve the power density in microbial fuel cells, but this work suggests that no single mediator is ideally suited to the task. Instead, a carefully selected mixture of two targeted mediators (Methylene Blue and Neutral Red) might be optimal. To test this hypothesis, a yeast-catalyzed microbial fuel cell was built and empirically evaluated under different mediation conditions while keeping all other parameters constant. The results clearly show that an appropriate mix of the two mediators mentioned could indeed achieve significantly superior performance, in terms of power-density, than when either mediator is used singly. All tests were carried out using the same overall mediator concentration.

A Neutral Beam Probe (NBP) was developed for studying the Texas Helimak plasma experiment. The probe consisted of a beam of neutral sodium atoms that were injected into the magnetized plasma of the Helimak. After some fraction of the atoms underwent electron impact ionization, the resulting ion beam followed a path to an energy analyzer where the change of energy was detected along with the total ion current. The measurement of the change of energy implies a change of potential energy at the point of ionization since all the neutral beam particles enter the plasma with a well determined energy. The total current detected at the energy analyzer also implies a rate of electron impact ionization, which in turn implies an electron density and temperature. The NBP was developed based on the Elmo Bumpy Torus (EBT) Heavy Ion Beam Probe (HIBP), which was operated at Oak Ridge National Labs. In fact, the majority of the equipment that was used in this experiment was taken from that HIBP, and some of it was rebuilt. We generated an estimate of the radial electric field in the Helimak along with an estimate of density changes as a result of biasing experiments. Interestingly, when a bias voltage was applied inside the Helimak, the radial electric field did not change significantly at the sample region, but the electron density did vary. The probe data taken by the Helimak team agree with the density changes. The electric field derived from Langmuir probes is not trivial (especially in plasmas with flows) and was not computed for this thesis. / text

The biological diversity on planet Earth is astounding. Understanding the origins of this diversity, and how it is maintained, are the twin goals of ecology and evolutionary biology. An early and oft-repeated insight in this investigation is that that similar organisms cannot coexist indefinitely. Theory predicts that individuals and species will compete for limited resources and whichever has even a slight advantage will drive all others extinct in a process known as ‘competitive exclusion’. By diversifying, species avoid competition, thereby ‘stabilizing’ their coexistence. Yet natural systems often display levels of diversity that are surprisingly high, given this theory and investigations of how the similarity of coexisting species is maintained have received much less attention. Using a combination of field studies and experiments I demonstrate that highly similar species of freshwater amphipods may compete for resources without resulting in competitive exclusion. These findings suggest that there exist a range of interactions among Hyalella amphipods, ranging from strong stabilizing effects due to ecological trade-offs, to weakly stabilizing effects, to a total lack of stabilizing effects among various pairs of species in this system. These findings demonstrate how the relative strength of stabilizing forces may vary among coexisting species. Although much effort has been dedicated to enumerating and classifying the ways in which ecological and evolutionary forces promote diversity among species, there has been far less attention paid to mechanisms such as convergent evolution, habitat filtering, competition for non-substitutable resources, and non-ecological speciation, among others. I surveyed current theory that may explain the high levels of similarity among species often found in natural systems. I describe how several ecological and evolutionary mechanisms may operate to promote the coexistence of similar species and present results from new theoretical combinations of mechanisms to demonstrate how they may further act in concert with one another. / text