IPO Underwriting and Subsequent Lending

Hsuan-Chi Chen,Li-Ping Chen,Keng-Yu Ho,Pei-Shih Weng 한국재무학회 2012 한국재무학회 학술대회 Vol.2012 No.09

This study investigates the relation between IPO underwriting and subsequent lending. We find that when a bank underwrites a firm’s IPO, the bank is more likely to provide the issuer with future loans at a lower cost, compared to banks without an IPO underwriting relationship. The evidence also suggests that the underwriting banks share information surplus with the IPO firms in the post-IPO loans, supporting the cost-saving hypothesis. Finally, when borrowing firms are more satisfied with the IPO outcomes, they are more likely to retain their underwriting banks as subsequent lenders. We find no evidence that underwriting banks would exploit such satisfaction by charging higher interest rates in the post-IPO loans.

Detecting Fish in Images with Complex Background and Estimating Body Length using Convolutional Neural Network

( Chi-hsuan Tseng ),( Ching-lu Hsieh ),( Yan-fu Kuo ) 한국농업기계학회 2018 한국농업기계학회 학술발표논문집 Vol.23 No.1

Fish body length is considered as an important index for resource management. Many organizations put restrictions on the size of caught fish that can be retained. In conservation ecology, fish body length is also used as an indicator for determining the sexual maturity. Conventionally, fish body length was measured manually using rulers or tape measures. Manual methods are, however, time consuming, labor intensive, imprecise and subjective. This study proposed a method to automatically measure fish body length from images with complex background. In the approach, a convolutional neural network classifier was first developed to detect fish head, fish caudal, and color plate in an image. Pixel to distance ratio was then calculated using the known length (25cm) of the color plate. Next, fish body length was estimated as the distance between the fish head and caudal. The approach reached an accuracy of 95.53% for fish body length estimation.

Effect of Low Temperature Ge Seed Layer and Post Thermal Annealing on Quality of Ge1-xSix (0.05 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) Graded Buffer Layers by UHV-CVD

Chi-Lang Nguyen,Nguyen Hong Quan,Binh Tinh Tran,Yung-Hsuan Su,Shih-Hsuan Tang,Guang-Li Luo,Edward Yi Chang 대한금속·재료학회 2014 ELECTRONIC MATERIALS LETTERS Vol.10 No.4

High crystal quality, smooth surface and fully relaxed Ge1-xSix (0.05 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) buffers are grown on 6°-off (100) Si substrate by UHV-CVD. A low-temperature (LT) Ge seed layer is used to improve the quality of the Ge1-xSix buffers. In this study, the LT-Ge seed layer is deposited directly onto the Si substrate at a low temperature of 315°C. After that, stress-free Si0.1Ge0.9 and Si0.05Ge0.95 layers are grown, respectively. An in-situ annealing process is also performed for the Si0.1Ge0.9/LT-Ge layers to increase the degree of relaxation. The total thickness of the epitaxial layer is 270 nm, with the average surface roughness at 0.6 nm.

Copper recovery via polyelectrolyte enhanced ultrafiltration followed by dithionite based chemical reduction: Effects of solution pH and polyelectrolyte type

Chou, Yi-Hsuan,Choo, Kwang-Ho,Chen, Shiao-Shing,Yu, Jui-Hsuan,Peng, Ching-Yu,Li, Chi-Wang Elsevier 2018 Separation and purification technology Vol.198 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>A chemical reduction process was proposed to recover copper from the retentate of polyelectrolyte enhanced ultrafiltration (PEUF). Three polyelectrolytes (PSS, PAA, and PEI) containing various functional groups and molecular weights were studied to explore their effects on the copper removal in PEUF and on the copper recovery by chemical reduction under various pH conditions. With PSS which contains sulfonic group, copper was removed reasonably well (ca. 75%) by PEUF even under acidic pH value of 3. With PAA which contains carboxylic group, copper removal was a bit low (∼60%) under pH 3.0 but increased substantially at pH 4.0. A branched PEI having amine group achieved the highest Cu removal of 94% at pH 3. The copper removal efficiency decreased slightly with increasing pH due to the high permeation of PEI through membrane.</P> <P>Chemical reduction achieved the complete copper recovery for solution containing PSS. The copper recovery efficiencies were more than 95% for PAA solution with pH values ranging from 3 to 9 at reaction time of one hour. For PEI, the recovery efficiencies ranged from 20 to 96% and were pH dependent. Aggregated and settled readily copper particles were produced by chemical reduction in PSS solution. XRD analysis identified cuprous oxide in all of the samples. Dependent of pH and polyelectrolytes, additional peaks matching those of elemental copper were identified. TGA analysis showed that solids produced from PSS and PAA systems contained no polyelectrolytes while solid collected from PEI system contained 32% of polyelectrolyte.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> Polyelectrolytes with different functional groups and MW were applied in PEUF. </LI> <LI> Effects of polyelectrolytes and pH on the reduction of copper were studied. </LI> <LI> Both Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O and Cu<SUP>0</SUP> were identified by XRD analysis of solids obtained. </LI> </UL> </P>

Effects of Vanadium Content on the Microstructure and Dry Sand Abrasive Wear of a Eutectic Cr-Fe-C Hardfacing Alloy

Hsuan-Han Lai,Chih-Chun Hsieh,Chi-Ming Lin,Weite Wu 대한금속·재료학회 2016 METALS AND MATERIALS International Vol.22 No.1

In this study, the effects of vanadium on the morphology and wear behavior of a eutectic Cr-Fe-C hardfacing alloy were discussed. The alloys tested contained different amounts of vanadium, ranging from 0 to 2.39 wt%. A fibrous V4C3 was found when the alloy contained 0.93 wt% vanadium. The addition of vanadium was found to decrease the fraction of eutectic M23C6 and increase the width of the interspaces between the eutectic cells. The DTA results revealed that V4C3 formed just before the eutectic α+M23C6 during solidification. The surface hardness was shown to increase with increasing vanadium content, which also caused the hardness deviation and wear loss to decrease; however, the addition of vanadium was not shown to affect the hardness of eutectic α+M23C6. The V4C3 could be scratched off during the wear test due to the increase in the width of the interspaces between the eutectic cells; therefore, the alloys that contained 0.93 and 2.39 wt% vanadium exhibited similar wear loss results.

Lattice Relations and Solidification of the Complex Regular Eutectic (Cr,Fe)-(Cr,Fe)23C6

Hsuan-Han Lai,Chih-Chun Hsieh,Chi-Ming Lin,Weite Wu 대한금속·재료학회 2017 METALS AND MATERIALS International Vol.23 No.3

The eutectic (Cr,Fe)-(Cr,Fe)23C6 showed a triaxial fishbone structure and could be categorized as a “complexregular structure”. In this study, the lattice relations of the fishbone (Cr,Fe)23C6 were examined and the solidificationprocess was observed using a transmission electron microscope and a confocal laser scanning microscope. Forone of the three fish bones in a eutectic cell, parallel (Cr,Fe)23C6 lamellas at one side of the spine had the samelattice direction, as did those in the (Cr,Fe) phase. The lattices of neighboring (Cr,Fe)23C6 and (Cr,Fe) phases werenot coherent. Lamellar (Cr,Fe)23C6 on opposite sides of a spine had different lattice directions, and their latticeboundary was in the spine. By using the confocal laser scanning microscope, the solidification of lamellar eutecticstructure could be observed. At the low cooling rate of 5oC·min-1, parallel lamellas would grow thick blocksinstead of thin plates. To obtain a thin lamellar eutectic structure, the cooling rate should be higher, likethe rate in welding.

Changes in Nitrogen and Phosphorus Chemical Structure and Nutrients Release from Raw Biomass to its Converted Biochar

Yu-Hsuan Huang,Chi-Peng Chen,Da-Fang Lin,Chih-Hsin Cheng,Yaw-Wen Yang,Ling-Yun Jang,Oleg Menyailo 한국토양비료학회 2014 한국토양비료학회 학술발표회 초록집 Vol.2014 No.6

Incongruent Expression of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor and Cortisol in Schizophrenia: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial of Laughter Intervention

Shu-Li Cheng,Fu-Chi Yang,Hsuan-Te Chu,Chia-Kuang Tsai,Shih-Chieh Ku,Yu-Ting Tseng,Ta-Chuan Yeh,Chih-Sung Liang 대한신경정신의학회 2020 PSYCHIATRY INVESTIGATION Vol.17 No.12

Objective Schizophrenia has been associated with dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Furthermore, alterations in neurotrophic factors might contribute to the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. We aimed to evaluate the effects of a simulated laughter intervention on the levels of cortisol and BDNF and to determine whether the effects associated with simulated laughter could be sustained after discontinuation of the intervention. Methods In this randomized controlled study, patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV clinical criteria were randomly assigned to receive either 8-week-long simulated laughter intervention (n=32) or treatment-as-usual group (control group, n=27). The serum levels of BDNF and cortisol were measured at baseline, week 8, and four weeks after discontinuation (week 12) of the intervention program. Results After an 8-week simulated laughter intervention, the laughter group had significantly higher levels of BDNF; however, four weeks after discontinuation of the intervention, the levels of BDNF significantly dropped. Interestingly, the levels of cortisol did not change significantly at week 8, but they were significantly elevated at week 12. The levels of BDNF and cortisol in the control group did not change significantly between week 0 and week 8. Conclusion These findings suggest that the simulated laughter intervention has an early effect on neurogenesis with a significant delayed effect on stress regulation in subjects with schizophrenia.

Distinct Inflammation Biomarkers in Healthy Individuals and Patients with Schizophrenia: A Reliability Testing of Multiplex Cytokine Immunoassay by Bland-Altman Analysis

Ta-Chuan Yeh,Hsuan-Te Chu,Chia-Kuang Tsai,Hsin-An Chang,Fu-Chi Yang,San-Yuan Huang,Chih-Sung Liang 대한신경정신의학회 2019 PSYCHIATRY INVESTIGATION Vol.16 No.8

Objective Since the inflammatory process has been implicated in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorder, an important issue emerging is to assess the test-retest reliability of cytokine measurement in healthy individuals and patients with schizophrenia. The objective of the present study was to investigate the test-retest reliability of bead-based multiplex immunoassay technology (BMIT) for cytokine measurement by using a Bland-Altman plot (BAP). Methods Twenty healthy individuals and twenty patients with schizophrenia were enrolled, and a 17-plex cytokine assay was used to measure inflammatory biomarkers at baseline and two weeks later. The test-retest reliability was examined by BAP, 95% limits of agreement (LOA), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and coefficient of repeatability (CoR). Results In the healthy controls, only interleukin (IL)-2, IL-13, IL-10, IL-17, and macrophage inflammatory protein-1β showed excellent ICC. The BAP with 95% LOA determined that 13 cytokines showed acceptable 95% LOA for a 2-week test-retest reliability, and only IL-1β, IL-12 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α had significant test-retest bias. The CoR of cytokines varied significantly, ranging from 1.72 to 218.1. Compared with healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia showed significantly higher levels of IL-5, IL-13, and TNF-α and significantly lower levels of IL-4, IL-12, and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). Of these six cytokines, IL-12 and TNF-α were considered suboptimal reliability. Conclusion The findings from ICC and CoR implied that the test-retest reliability of BMIT for cytokine measurement were suboptimal. However, the BAP with 95% LOA confirmed that BMIT can reliably distinguish schizophrenia from healthy individuals in cytokine measurement, while significant within-subject variation and between-group overlapping were evident in cytokine expression.

The Interaction of Oxytocin and Social Support, Loneliness, and Cortisol Level in Major Depression

Tsung-Yu Tsai,Huai-Hsuan Tseng,Mei Hung Chi,Hui Hua Chang,Cheng-Kuan Wu,Yen Kuang Yang,Po See Chen 대한정신약물학회 2019 CLINICAL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE Vol.17 No.4

Objective: Loneliness is a specific risk factor for depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior. The present study examined whether the serum oxytocin level would interact with social support and buffers loneliness and hypothalamic-pituitary- adrenal (HPA)-axis activity in drug-naïve patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods: Twenty-six patients with MDD (male:female = 3:23; mean age, 45.54 ± 12.97 years) were recruited. The 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, UCLA Loneliness Scale and self-reported Measurement of Support Function Questionnaire were administered. Serum oxytocin and cortisol levels were assessed using a commercial immunoassay kits. Results: In MDD patients, a negative association was found between degrees of social support and loneliness ( = −0.39, p = 0.04). The interaction between social support and serum oxytocin level was negatively associated with loneliness ( = −0.50, p = 0.017) and serum cortisol level ( = −0.55, p = 0.020) after adjusting for age. Follow-up analyses showed that the association between higher social support and lower loneliness was observed only in the higher-oxytocin group (r = −0.75, p = 0.003) but not in the lower group (r = −0.19, p = 0.53). The significance remained after further adjusting for sex and depression severity. Conclusion: Low oxytocin level is a vulnerability factor for the buffering effect of social support for loneliness and aberrant HPA-axis activity in MDD patients.