Investors in the financial market are supposed to hold diversified portfolios to minimize their risk adjusted for expected return. However, several researchers have pointed out that most investors are over weighted in their home market. This means that most diversification happens in terms of choosing stocks in the home market which means that further possible diversification through international diversification is unused. One can therefore expect that foreign investors have preferences for securities with specific characteristics once they go abroad. An earlier study of the Swedish stock market over the years 1993-1997 has shown that foreign investors, in greater extent than domestic investors, have a preference for large firms, firms paying low dividend and firms with low leverage. With the steep up-turn of the Swedish stock market before the millennium and the down-turn in year 2000 in mind, this study examine whether the investment patterns between 1996 and 2005 are consistent with the results of earlier investigations. In general the results are consistent with earlier investigations. However, this study also shows that foreign investors seem to be more interested in choosing securities with relatively high fundamental value and lower level of leverage during market down-turns.

On the Florida peninsula, the soapberry bug (Jadera haematoloma) has been able to colonize the golden rain tree, Koelreuteria elegans, since the introduction of this invasive tree only a few decades ago. The populations feeding on the new host have been rapidly differentiating from the native populations. Possibly the most dramatic differentiation is that of the beak (mouthpart) length. Derived populations showed shorter beaks more appropriate for feeding on the flattened pods of the new host. Previous studies have shown that the divergence of the beak length has a genetic basis and involves non-additive genetic effects. However, to date, the soapberry bug divergence has not been studied at the molecular level. In the current study, I have generated a three-generation pedigree from crossing the long-beaked and short-beaked ecomorphs to construct a de novo linkage map and to locate putative QTL controlling beak length and body size in J. haematoloma. Using the AFLP technique and a two-way pseudo-testcross design I produced two parental maps. The maternal map covered six linkage groups and the paternal map covered five; the expected number of chromosomes was recovered and the putative X chromosome was identified. For beak length, QTL analyses revealed one significant QTL. Three QTL were found for body size. Interestingly, the most significant body size QTL co-localized with the beak length QTL, suggesting linkage disequilibrium or pleiotropic effects of related traits. Through single marker regression analysis, nine single markers that could not be placed on the map were also found to be associated with either trait. However, I found no evidence for epistasis. Overall, my findings support an oligogenic model of genetic control on beak length and body size, and the underlying genetic architectures were complex. This study is the first to look at the molecular basis underlying adaptive traits in the soapberry bug, and contributes to understanding of the genetic changes involved in early stages of ecological divergence.

"It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket."                     - Don Quixote (Part I, Book III, Chapter 9) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [1547-1616]     This research aimed to investigate whether it is possible for investors to diversify their investment and reduce the risk of investment by investing in the selected European countries.  Stock market cointegration and international diversification is a widely accepted topic among the scholars and academics in recent years.  This current study is motivated from the significant amount of interesting studies in this field. A combination of not perfectly positively correlated instruments gives the investor an opportunity to gain from portfolio diversification.  Similarly, Investors can attain diversification benefit if one country’s stock market is not cointegrated with other country’s stock market.  Six European countries and a time frame of ten years (January, 2001 to December, 2010) have been taken into consideration for the purpose of this research.  The countries are UK, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Poland, and Czech Republic.  The time period of the study is divided into two sub period to observe the recent crisis effect on these selected countries. A quantitative approach is adopted in the research.  We used an econometric model for this research which is Johansen and Juselius multivariate cointegration approach.  The evidence from the study suggest that although cointegration exists among the selected countries in some extent, investors can still get some diversification opportunity by investing in the emerging countries (Czech Republic and Poland).  This study is unique in the sense that in our research, we wanted to fill the research gap by combining new and old EU member countries with the latest time period of study and also considered the recent crisis effect.   This study has a number of implications on portfolio managers, policy makers, and academic scholars.

As a result of the change of financial environment, the competition of domestic banking industry has become more intense, and its management has also met the challenge. In order to grow the operating activities, the bank of Taiwan become less dependent on traditional deposit and loan activities and then turns to develop the non-traditional activities. Therefore the non-interest income increases year by year and the development of operating activities diversification has become the main business model to promote the profit. Based on the above reason, the study use the market and account data of listed banks from 1991 to 2009 to investigate the impact of operating activities diversification on the risk and performance of banks. The result of the empirical analysis by the accounting data shows that the higher degree of operating activities diversification can reduce the bank risk, but the performance is not actually good. When the bank develops the operating activities diversification by increasing the non-interest income, the risk will be getting higher but the performance will be getting better. Therefore, the banking industry can¡¦t put too much stress on the non-interest income. It should make the adequate decision between the risk and the performance. On the other hand, the result of the empirical analysis by the market data shows that the higher degree of operating activities diversification can increase the fluctuation of the stock price and when the non-interest income increases, Tobin's Q value gets higher. It demonstrated that the investors of the stock market anticipated the bank can improve the performance by increasing the non-interest income activities and gives recognition.

¡@¡@By utilizing longitudinal data over 10 years, this research tries to examine the relationships between distinctive political linkages by family members and the diversification implications in family business group in Taiwan. The past researches have highlighted that the political linkages established by family members have significant influence on the family business group¡¦s diversification. However, there is little researches examine who¡¦s political linkage is critical in determining the diversification decision in family business group. From social capital viewpoint, this research tries to investigate the diversification implications of political linkages established by three family roles, i.e., the founder, the sons, and the marriage roles, in family business groups. The results reveal that the founder¡¦s informal political linkages have significantly positive influence on the diversification. Furthermore, the political linkages established by marriage roles do not reveal significant influence on the group¡¦s diversification. However, the son¡¦s political linkages have distinctive influences on the diversification decision. In that, the son¡¦s formal political linkages have significantly negative influence on diversification, but the son¡¦s informal political linkages have significantly positive influence on diversification. The results indicate that the differential roles in family business groups have distinctive influence on the strategy decisions. The results provide insightful theoretical and practical implications in diversification issue and political linkages issues in largely family business groups.

This paper investigates the influence of the shares of non-interest income and the diversification, which result from off-balance sheet activities, on the performance of banking in Taiwan. I also use ARCH-M model in this study. The sample period is from January 2000 to December 2011. I find that all sample banks and private banks do not benefit from off-balance sheet activities, but government banks benefit from off-balance sheet activities. In this paper, I also use CUSUM test to find the structural breakpoint and discuss the situation in accordance with it. The result shows that the structural breakpoint is at July 2002, which closes to the founded time of lots of financial holding companies. After the structural breakpoint, the positive impact of shares of non-interest income and diversification on the performance disappear.

The study aims to analyze the impact of political linkage on diversification strategy and firm performance. Previous studies indicate that firm¡¦s political linkages will generate performance impact in emerging economies. However, whether firm¡¦s political linkages will generate performance implications are underestimated. By utilizing longitudinal data in financial family business groups in Taiwan, this study tries to examine the relationships among political linkages, diversification strategy, and family business group¡¦s performance from the social capital viewpoint. The results indicate that in the current database, the higher level of formal political linkages, the higher degree of diversification in family business groups. Moreover, diversification strategy will generate mediated impact on the relationship between formal political linkages and performance in family business groups. In that, the consideration of diversification will lower the performance implications by formal political linkage in family business groups. The family business group¡¦s formal political linkageswill generate distinctive impact on diversification strategy and performance in emerging economies. The results provide referable value in addressing political linkages issues in family business groups in Asia.

As environmental protection issue become the most hot global issues recently, Air Conditioning Industry has to face not only its own management and marketing problems, but also the responsibilities to environmental pollution. Thus, how to deal with the external pressure, the international regimes, and internal pressure become more and more important toward Air Conditioning Industry. How could Air Conditioning Industry take balance between international regimes and its own growth and profit? In addition, it also briefly discusses how Air Conditioning Industry could use its own resource and the strategy of diversification to create different road, making a high pollution industry transform to a green industry. Thus, this study is divided into external and internal factors which make AC industry have to change by strategy of diversification, and cases studying of how Air Conditioner transform itself to fit in the external rapidly changing world. The transformation relies on the effort and cooperation of stakeholders of government, association, and enterprises. Consequently, how these stakeholders achieve the goals on development of Taiwan's heat pump market might be more and more important on Air Conditioning Industry's future.

For the biotechnology industry in Taiwan, government gives fresh impetus to biotechnology industry, which makes it becoming a chief one in next stage. The biotechnology industry is also a priority event in ¡§The challenge to year 2008 nation development significant plan¡¨. IT is a matual industry in Taiwan. Thought the biotechnology is the star industry in next stage, but there is a question existed for all IT companies, how to invest in biotechnology? Bioinformatics seems to be the answer to the question. But is it the right answer? Are there any success storis in Taiwan? What did the do to success? Is there any other chance to invest in Taiwan? This study focuses on IT requirements of biotechnology industry. First, this study defines biotechnology, bioinformatics, and Bio-IT three industries. Second, finds out the IT supplychain between biotechnology companies, bioinformatics companies, and Bio-IT companies. The purpose of this study is not only to establish an IT supplychain model of biotechnology industry, but also raise a strategy to help IT companies successfully transfer from IT to biotechnology industry. This study proposes a ¡§Three stages investment strategy¡¨ to IT companies: First Stage: Diversification stragegy: Using the original IT technology and organization to provide Bio-IT service to biotechnology companies. In this stagegy, IT companies should take the software development project from biotechnology companies. Second Stage: Integration Stragegy: After gets the experiences and build the technology in developping Bio-related software, IT companies can integrate the technologies to develop bioinformatics software, and becomre a bioinformatics company. Third Stage: Alliance stragegy: The best way of bioinformatics companies is to stargegy alliance with pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs. In this stage, companies should also get the business from international. Key words: biotechnology, bioinformatics, Bio-IT, diversification, integration, alliance, strategy

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