Synthesis and Properties of Cationic Polyurethane Dispersions

Hua Xin,Feng-bo Ma,Xing Zhao 한국고분자학회 2016 폴리머 Vol.40 No.6

A series of water dispersible polyurethanes containing quaternary ammonium group as the hydrophilic group with different content of trimethylolpropane (TMP) as inner crosslinker were prepared. IR spectroscopy was adopted to demonstrate the polymerization reaction and structure of polymer. The effects of TMP content on PU properties were investigated. Particle size distribution (PSD) analysis and morphology of PU observed by TEM showed that particle size of PU dispersions initially decreased and then increased with increasing TMP content. The viscosity of the PU dispersions with TMP addition was bigger than the PU dispersions without TMP. TG analysis indicated thermal stability and microphase separation degree of PU was enhanced with increasing TMP content. Contact angle and gel content of PU also increased as increasing TMP content. Meanwhile, tensile strength increased and then decreased with the increment of TMP content.

A Noisy Videos Background Subtraction Algorithm Based on Dictionary Learning

( Huaxin Xiao ),( Yu Liu ),( Shuren Tan ),( Jiang Duan ),( Maojun Zhang ) 한국인터넷정보학회 2014 KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Syst Vol.8 No.6

Most background subtraction methods focus on dynamic and complex scenes without considering robustness against noise. This paper proposes a background subtraction algorithm based on dictionary learning and sparse coding for handling low light conditions. The proposed method formulates background modeling as the linear and sparse combination of atoms in the dictionary. The background subtraction is considered as the difference between sparse representations of the current frame and the background model. Assuming that the projection of the noise over the dictionary is irregular and random guarantees the adaptability of the approach in large noisy scenes. Experimental results divided in simulated large noise and realistic low light conditions show the promising robustness of the proposed approach compared with other competing methods.

Propofol Attenuates Hypoxia/Reoxygenation-Induced Apoptosis and Autophagy in HK-2 Cells by Inhibiting JNK Activation

Huaxin Wang,Xuan Peng,Yayi Huang,Yeda Xiao,Zhuo Wang,Liying Zhan 연세대학교의과대학 2019 Yonsei medical journal Vol.60 No.12

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate whether propofol could attenuate hypoxia/reoxygenation-induced apoptosisand autophagy in human renal proximal tubular cells (HK-2) by inhibiting JNK activation. Materials and Methods: HK-2 cells were treated with or without propofol or JNK inhibitor SP600125 for 1 hour and then subjectedto 15 hours of hypoxia and 2 hours of reoxygenation (H/R). Cell viability and LDH release were measured with commercial kits. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry. The expressions of p-JNK, cleaved-caspase-3, Bcl-2, and autophagy markers LC3and p62 were measured by Western blot or immunofluorescence. Results: HK-2 cells exposed to H/R insult showed higher cell injury (detected by increased LDH release and decreased cell viability),increased cell apoptosis index and expression of cleaved-caspase-3, a decrease in the expression of Bcl-2 accompanied byincreased expression of p-JNK and LC3II, and a decrease in expression of p62. All of these alterations were attenuated by propofoltreatment. Similar effects were provoked upon treatment with the JNK inhibitor SP600125. Moreover, the protective effects weremore obvious with the combination of propofol and SP600125. Conclusion: These results suggest that propofol could attenuate hypoxia/reoxygenation induced apoptosis and autophagy inHK-2 cells, probably through inhibiting JNK activation.

Treating the Dark Side of Crowdfunding : Risk Avoidance

Huaxin Wang,Taekyung Kim 한국경영정보학회 2016 한국경영정보학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2016 No.11

Crowdfunding is an Internet-based service that has gained increasingly attention by both researchers and in business people. In terms of research, much work has done about positive factors contributing successful fundraising. To the contrary, little work has finished with regard to understanding negative sides which also exert significant influence on crowdfunding systems. This study attempts to fill the gap by investigating the impacts of perceived risk and suggesting risk reduction strategies. Perceived risk is commonly associated with individual’s feeling of uncertainty and undesirable consequence of engaging in an activity. It is noted that a risk-reduction strategy is generally related to risk sources and risk types. In terms of risk sources, this study focuses on project presentation which provides salient information for investors to a crowdfunding project. Unlike to conditioned financial reports and public disclosure, project presentation is based on limited information sources, which occurs the feeling of uncertainty. Based on perceived risk studies from e-commerce literature, we identify risk types to classify project presentation. In this study, research interest is bounded by reward-based crowdfunding that shares similar features for collecting attention from potential buyers or investors. Compared to crowdfunding investors, e-commerce consumers tend to make decisions with multiple information sources, which helps them reduce risks. However, e-commerce requires less physical or empirical evidences to make a decision just as crowdfunding does. Considering the unique settings of crowdfunding, we apply three types of risk perceptions from e-commerce literature relating to project presentation, namely, performance risk, financial risk and psychological risk. Performance risk emerges when an investor feels a probability of receiving a defect product is high or when s/he feels the factual product does not match with one described in a project webpage. Financial risk refers to the likelihood of suffering monetary loss by undesirable transaction. It has been found that financial risk commonly relates to failure in fulfilling expectation with regard to delivery, quality and after-service. Investors encounter psychological risk derived from investors’ low confidence on fundraising or the quality of reward to investment. In order to reduce perceived risk, project presentation is expected to have the ability of providing available information to increase investor’s understanding about the project. In this study, we employ the construct of informativeness to describe such an ability of project presentation. Any information cues, such as the project status, the introduction of entrepreneurs and the product or service description, which investors perceive useful might increase the level of informativeness in the context of crowdfunding. Overall, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of perceived risk and risk reduction strategy in the context of crowdfunding. Considering project presentation as a crucial risk source, this study identifies three types of risk perceptions. Simultaneously, informativeness of project presentation is revealed as an available risk reliever. Experimental projects are used to test the hypothesized relations among perceived risk, informativeness and investment intention. Results demonstrate that informativeness has significantly negative impacts on performance risk, financial risk and psychological risk. Meanwhile, informativeness exerts significantly positive influence on investor’s decision-making. In addition, results also report that performance risk and psychological risk have significantly negative impacts on investment intention, while financial risk exerts non-significant influence in the context of crowdfunding. This study makes a number of contributions. First, this is one of the first studies that highlight the negative impacts of perceived risk in the context of crowdfunding. Researchers in crowdfunding seem concerning more with factors that have positive effects on the success of fundraising rather than negative factors. However, not only positive factors are useful, the reducing of the influences of negative factors should also be helpful. This study provides evidence for such a view. Second, although some studies indicated that reward-based crowdfunding share similar features with e-commerce, in terms of perceived risk, this study provides inconsistent results. For example, time risk is a significantly negative factor in e-commerce. However, in the crowdfunding settings, investors usually have better patience than e-commerce consumers, because they know many projects are in-progress. Thus, a long waiting time (several weeks or even several months) before receiving products is acceptable for investors. In this case, time risk seems negligible. In addition, this study contributes to the literature of crowdfunding by empirically investigating informativeness being of an available risk reliever and a significantly positive predictor of investment intention as well. Also, this study equips founders and platform administrators with practical suggestions by suggesting them to provide project information as available as possible to improve the informativeness of project presentation; and thus, to alleviate risk perceptions of the project and to improve their investment intention as well.

Must-have for Crowd-funding Projects : Credibility

Huaxin Wang,Taekyung Kim 한국경영정보학회 2016 Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems Vol.26 No.1

Effects of Cognitive Fitness in Crowdfunding: Information Quality and Investment Cause

Huaxin Wang,Taekyung Kim 한국경영정보학회 2015 한국경영정보학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2015 No.8

The emergence of micro-financing technology significantly impacts the way of supporting an innovative product or service. Lead users, also known as early adopters, have contributed to boosting up immature but potential ideas by purchasing minority items. The rise of micro-financing has been a game changer in terms of lending seed money, marketing products or services with weak brand power, and voluntarily participating in a coproduction process. Crowdfunding refers to a practical business model that achieves benefits of micro-financing approaches mostly initiated by information and communication technologies. This new and powerful online service model is producing significant values by linking investors and innovators efficiently and effectively. The act of buying to support innovation becomes incrementally substituted by the act of being rewarded by evaluating and financing ideas. The fact that a crowdfunding project targets to produce not- yet-matured or not-yet-seen items may increase uncertainty significantly. Compared to the support-to-buy approach, crowdfunding participants have lack of 3rd party views on product performance or service quality. Before a real outcome is shared by lead users, it is probably impossible for following-up supporters to reduce risks due to limit of information. In this study, we targets to uncover the impact of increasing fitness to identity information and a cause of innovation support on the intention of investment in the context of reward-based crowdfunding. Primarily based on Cognitive Fit Theory, the proposed research model aims to examine the influence of fit between information quality and a perceived investment cause on investment intention. In this study we especially focus on two main causes: being involved in the coproduction of innovative product, donating petty money to help an inventor or an entrepreneur. We manipulated real-world projects to generate different levels of founder's explanation relating to project descriptions and founder's identity and expertise. The results of laboratory experiments showed that founder’s explanation for the reason why the project should be supported by the description with video clips, pictures and/or textual narrations would increase understandability and reliability to the project. Meanwhile, a precise and persuasive identification about a project founder enhanced a project’s cause. The findings in this study contributes to the stream of theory development in that we extended Cognitive Fit Theory to the context of crowdfunding. Secondly, we considered different causes for participating in a crowdfunding project, which has not been highlighted. The positive findings from this novel approach reveal that a crowdfunding platform should provide more customization features to help users discover projects that are fitted into different causes conveniently.

In vitro ruminal fermentation of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) produced less methane than that of alfalfa (Medicago sativa)

Niu Huaxin,Xu Zhongjun,Yang Hee Eun,McAllister Tim A,Acharya Surya,Wang Yuxi 아세아·태평양축산학회 2021 Animal Bioscience Vol.34 No.4

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare fenugreek (FG) with alfalfa (Alf) in ruminal fermentation and methane (CH4) production in vitro. Methods: Whole-plant FG harvested at 11- and 15-wk and Alf harvested at early and mid-bloom maturities, alone or as 50:50 mixture of FG and Alf at the respective maturity, were assessed in a series of 48-h in vitro batch culture incubations. Total fermentation gas and methane gas production, dry matter (DM) disappearance, volatile fatty acids, microbial protein and 16S RNA gene copy numbers of total bacteria and methanogens were determined. Results: Compared to early bloom Alf, FG harvested at 11-wk exhibited higher (p<0.05) in vitro DM and neutral detergent fibre disappearance, but this difference was not observed between the mid-bloom Alf and 15-wk FG. Regardless plant maturity, in vitro ruminal fermentation of FG produced less (p<0.001) CH4 either on DM incubated or on DM disappeared basis than that of Alf during 48-h incubation. In vitro ruminal fermentation of FG yielded similar amount of total volatile fatty acids with higher (p<0.05) propionate percentage as compared to fermentation of Alf irrespective of plant maturity. Microbial protein synthesis was greater (p<0.001) with 11-wk FG than early bloom Alf as substrate and 16S RNA gene copies of total bacteria was higher (p<0.01) with 15-wk FG than mid-bloom Alf as substrate. Compared to mid-bloom Alf, 15-wk FG had lower (p<0.05 to 0.001) amount of 16S RNA methanogen gene copies in the whole culture during 48-h incubation. Conclusion: In comparison to Alf, FG emerges as a high quality forage that can not only improve rumen fermentation in vitro, but can also remarkably mitigate CH4 emissions likely due to being rich in saponins. Objective: The objective of this study was to compare fenugreek (FG) with alfalfa (Alf) in ruminal fermentation and methane (CH₄) production <i>in vitro</i>.Methods: Whole-plant FG harvested at 11- and 15-wk and Alf harvested at early and mid-bloom maturities, alone or as 50:50 mixture of FG and Alf at the respective maturity, were assessed in a series of 48-h <i>in vitro</i> batch culture incubations. Total fermentation gas and methane gas production, dry matter (DM) disappearance, volatile fatty acids, microbial protein and 16S RNA gene copy numbers of total bacteria and methanogens were determined.Results: Compared to early bloom Alf, FG harvested at 11-wk exhibited higher (p<0.05) <i>in vitro</i> DM and neutral detergent fibre disappearance, but this difference was not observed between the mid-bloom Alf and 15-wk FG. Regardless plant maturity, <i>in vitro</i> ruminal fermentation of FG produced less (p<0.001) CH₄ either on DM incubated or on DM disappeared basis than that of Alf during 48-h incubation. <i>In vitro</i> ruminal fermentation of FG yielded similar amount of total volatile fatty acids with higher (p<0.05) propionate percentage as compared to fermentation of Alf irrespective of plant maturity. Microbial protein synthesis was greater (p<0.001) with 11-wk FG than early bloom Alf as substrate and 16S RNA gene copies of total bacteria was higher (p<0.01) with 15-wk FG than mid-bloom Alf as substrate. Compared to mid-bloom Alf, 15-wk FG had lower (p<0.05 to 0.001) amount of 16S RNA methanogen gene copies in the whole culture during 48-h incubation.Conclusion: In comparison to Alf, FG emerges as a high quality forage that can not only improve rumen fermentation <i>in vitro</i>, but can also remarkably mitigate CH₄ emissions likely due to being rich in saponins.

Must-have for Crowd-funding Projects: Credibility

Wang, Huaxin,Kim, Taekyung The Korea Society of Management Information System 2016 Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems Vol.26 No.1

The success of a crowd-funding project can be attributed to various reasons, among which, backer's (also known as 'investor', or 'funder') perception of project credibility may be a salient one. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which perceived project credibility can affect a backer's investment decision. We examine the factors that could influence the building of perceived project credibility by testing the proposed research model using survey data. Analysis results indicate that perceived project credibility has a significantly positive effect on backer's investment intention. Furthermore, information quality and source credibility are two key determinants of perceived project credibility. This study contributes to crowd-funding literature by enriching the list of successful factors for fund-raising with project credibility. The study also has practical implications because it explains why and how a backer's perception of project credibility can be improved.

Mobile Internet Image and Social Expression in the View of Democracy

Peng Huaxin 한국방송학회 2016 한국방송학회 학술대회 논문집 Vol.2016 No.4

Do You Know Why People Support You in a Crowdfunding Platform? Perceived Diagnosticity and Information Richness

Taekyung Kim,Huaxin Wang 한국경영정보학회 2016 한국경영정보학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2016 No.11

Compared to traditional e-commerce or other Internet-based service, a unique feature of crowdfunding is that crowdfunding projects usually target to produce in-progress (i.e., not-yet-matured or not-yet-seen) items. This feature results in crowdfunding investors are lacking of project related views from prior participants or third-parties. In reality, a project web page is usually the main approach for crowdfunding founders to demonstrate their entrepreneurial ideas. From another perspective, a project online presentation is almost the solely information source for investors to judge the project. The reasons why prospective investors could make decisions based upon such a limited information source may include two aspects: (1) the project presentation per se could be perceived having the capacity to deliver project relevant information that may be helpful for investors to judge the quality of the project; and (2) investors might be confident in their abilities of successfully completing an online investment behavior even though the information they faced is imperfect. Firstly, concerning the capacity of conveying project relevant information, project presentation with various combinations of media types may be different. Information richness of project presentation is employed in this study to describe the extent to which a project presentation with a mixture of various media types (i.e., Text, Text-Image, Text-Video and Text-Image-Video) has the capacity to convey project related information (i.e., project attributes). In line with the Media Richness Theory (MRT), each type of communication medium has a certain level of ability to deliver information cues. Thus, we could reasonably infer that the more types of media applied in a project presentation, the more information cues (i.e., project attributes) might be demonstrated. In other word, a combination of more media types (e.g., Text-Image-Video) used in project presentation is expected to facilitate higher level of information richness, which is expected to be capable of delivering more project attribute information. Further, in order to examine the information relevance and utilization of project presentation for judging the quality of project, perceived diagnosticity is employed in this study. In particular, perceived diagnosticity refers to the extent to which individuals perceive a project presentation having the ability of delivering project relevant information that could assist them in understanding and evaluating the quality of the project. More diagnostic project presentation is expected to have the ability of carrying more project attributes in improving investor’s probability of utilizing the information to assess the project. Except project presentation per se, investor has responsibilities to judge, evaluate and select right actions to accomplish the task of funding online. Investor’s confidence in the ability of accomplishing an online investment is described as computer self-efficacy. Basically, higher level of computer efficacy is expected to have higher confidence of correctly judging a project by analyzing information presented in the project presentation. Additionally, individuals may form overall evaluations of a project after their browsing the project online presentation, which could be recognized as attitudes toward the project. Investors’ favorable attitudes toward a project may enable them to perceive the benefit of investing to the project, which may result in a higher investment intention, and vice versa. Overall, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of information richness and computer efficacy on perceived diagnosticity of project presentation; and further, to examine the extent to which perceived diagnosticity could influence investor’s attitude towards a project and subsequent decision-making. Also, the moderating effects of information richness and computer efficacy on the relation between attitude and investment intention are investigated in this study. Laboratory experiments were used to collect data. 224 subjects were recruited to participate in the experiments. Four levels of information richness of project presentation (i.e., (1) Text (Base condition), (2) Text and Image, (3) Text and Video, and (4) Title, Image and Video) were constructed to test our hypotheses. The experimental results show that (1) compared to a low level of combination of media types, a combination of more media types used in project presentation lead to higher perceived diagnosticity of project presentation; (2) computer self-efficacy exerts positively influence on perceived diagnosticity; (3) perceived diagnosticity of project presentation is a strong predictor of attitude towards a project and investment intention. Moreover, the relation between attitude and investment intention could be partially moderated by information richness. In particular, only when the project presentation use a combination of text-image-video media type, can the association of attitude-investment intention be strengthened. Other combinations of media types used in project presentation exert non-significant effects on the relation between attitude and investment intention. In addition, the moderating effects of investor’s computer efficacy have also been checked. Results indicate that computer efficacy is not a significant moderator. The findings in this study contribute to the stream of theory development in that we applied information richness theory to the context of crowdfunding. Information richness is combined with the mixture of media types used in the project presentation, which has not been highlighted. Secondly, this study contributes to the literature of perceived diagnosticity. It facilitates understanding why individuals could overcome cognitive barriers to make decisions upon limited information in the context of crowdfunding. In addition, this study contributes to the application of expectancy-value model by indicating the associations among perceived diagnosticity, attitude towards a project and investment intention in crowdfunding settings. The positive findings of this study also contribute to crowdfunding practitioners by suggesting them to improve the information richness of project presentations by combing various media types; ultimately, to enhance the utilization of relevant information delivered by the project presentation.