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This article outlines Taiwan’s experience in developing smart cities, including visions, implementation strategies and application cases. To take global trends and local needs into account, Taiwan has applied a dual development model that combines top‐down (theme‐based)/bottom‐up (needs‐based) approaches for a synergy effect in balancing innovations and local needs. Furthermore, a public–private partnership program has been adopted to prompt collaboration between central/local authorities with local businesses.Meanwhile, Taiwan uses a private finance initiative program and a global marketing strategy for strengthening the scalability and sustainability of smart city solutions. Three visions in the project help achieve the transformation to ensure smarter urban governance, more comprehensive industrial business models and better livelihoods of residents. Moreover, this article also presents five application cases in the top‐down approach and four application cases in the bottom‐up approach with proven track records which covered eight industry sectors: agriculture, healthcare, education, mobility, retail, energy, governance and environment.

Background Giardia lamblia differentiates into resistant cysts as an established model for dormancy. Myeloid leukemia factor (MLF) proteins are important regulators of cell differentiation. Giardia possesses a MLF homolog which was up-regulated during encystation and localized to unknown cytosolic vesicles named MLF vesicles (MLFVs). Methods We used double staining for visualization of potential factors with role in protein metabolism pathway and a strategy that employed a deletion mutant, CDK2m3, to test the protein degradation pathway. We also explored whether autophagy or proteasomal degradation are regulators of Giardia encystation by treatment with MG132, rapamycin, or chloroquine. Results Double staining of MLF and ISCU or CWP1 revealed no overlap between their vesicles. The aberrant CDK2m3 colocalized with MLFVs and formed complexes with MLF. MG132 increased the number of CDK2m3-localized vesicles and its protein level. We further found that MLF colocalized and interacted with a FYVE protein and an ATG8-like (ATG8L) protein, which were up-regulated during encystation and their expression induced Giardia encystation. The addition of MG132, rapamycin, or chloroquine, increased their levels and the number of their vesicles, and inhibited the cyst formation. MLF and FYVE were detected in exosomes released from culture. Conclusions The MLFVs are not mitosomes or encystation-specific vesicles, but are related with degradative pathway for CDK2m3. MLF, FYVE, and ATG8L play a positive role in encystation and function in protein clearance pathway, which is important for encystation and coordinated with Exosomes. General significance MLF, FYVE, and ATG8L may be involved an encystation-induced protein metabolism during Giardia differentiation.

The literature has identified factors that determine the favorable evaluation of a new brand extension, such as sharing a common product category or providing similar core benefits as the parent brand. However, there has been little research on which of these factors has a greater impact on consumer evaluation. This study explores how self-regulatory focus moderates the relative impacts of benefit overlap (i.e., the consistency of core benefits provided by extensions) versus product category similarity (i.e., the similarity among product categories that include the extensions) on brand extension evaluations. The results of an experiment support the prediction that benefit overlap extensions have greater significance for promotion-focused consumers, whereas category similarity extensions are favored by prevention-focused consumers.

Giardia lamblia differentiates into infectious cysts to survive outside of the host. It is of interest to identify factors involved in up-regulation of cyst wall proteins (CWPs) during this differentiation. Pax proteins are important regulators of development and cell differentiation in Drosophila and vertebrates. No member of this gene family has been reported to date in yeast, plants, or protozoan parasites. We have identified a pax-like gene (pax1) encoding a putative paired domain in the G. lamblia genome. Epitope-tagged Pax1 localized to nuclei during both vegetative growth and encystation. Recombinant Pax1 specifically bound to the AT-rich initiator elements of the encystation-induced cwp1 to -3 and myb2 genes. Interestingly, overexpression of Pax1 increased cwp1 to -3 and myb2 gene expression and cyst formation. Deletion of the C-terminal paired domain or mutation of the basic amino acids of the paired domain resulted in a decrease of the transactivation function of Pax1. Our results indicate that the Pax family has been conserved during evolution, and Pax1 could up-regulate the key encystation-induced genes to regulate differentiation of the protozoan eukaryote, G. lamblia.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating impacts of consumers’ self-regulatory focus on evaluations of a brand when an endorser’s image is incongruent with the characteristics of his or her recommendation messages, which is termed “source–content incongruity.”

Synthesis of a protective cyst wall is required for survival outside of the host and for infection of Giardia lamblia. Little is known of gene regulation of the cyst wall proteins (CWPs) during differentiation into dormant cysts. WRKY homologues constitute a large family of DNA-binding proteins in plants that are involved in several key cellular functions, including disease resistance, stress response, dormancy, and development. A putative wrky gene has been identified in the G. lamblia genome. We found that wrky expression levels increased significantly during encystation. The epitope-tagged WRKY was translocated into the nuclei during encystation. Recombinant WRKY specifically bound to its own promoter and the encystation-induced cwp1 and cwp2 promoters. WRKY contains several key residues for DNA binding, and mutation analysis revealed that its binding sequences are similar to those of the known plant WRKY proteins and that two of them are positive cis-acting elements of the wrky and cwp2 promoters. Overexpression of WRKY increased the cwp1-2 and myb2 mRNA levels, and these gene promoters were bound by WRKY in vivo. Interestingly, the wrky and cwp1-2 genes were up-regulated by ERK1 (extracellular signal-related kinase 1) overexpression, suggesting that WRKY may be a downstream component of the ERK1 pathway. In addition, a WRKY mutant that cannot enter nuclei and an ERK1 mutant lacking the predicted kinase domain showed decreased cwp1-2 gene expression. Our results suggest that the WRKY family has been conserved during evolution and that WRKY is an important transactivator of the cwp1-2 genes during G. lamblia differentiation into dormant cysts.

The protozoan Giardia lamblia differentiates into infectious cysts within the human intestinal tract for disease transmission. Expression of the cyst wall protein (cwp) genes increases with similar kinetics during encystation. However, little is known how their gene regulation shares common mechanisms. DNA topoisomerases maintain normal topology of genomic DNA. They are necessary for cell proliferation and tissue development as they are involved in transcription, DNA replication, and chromosome condensation. A putative topoisomerase II (topo II) gene has been identified in the G. lamblia genome. We asked whether Topo II could regulate Giardia encystation. We found that Topo II was present in cell nuclei and its gene was up-regulated during encystation. Topo II has typical ATPase and DNA cleavage activity of type II topoisomerases. Mutation analysis revealed that the catalytic important Tyr residue and cleavage domain are important for Topo II function. We used etoposide-mediated topoisomerase immunoprecipitation assays to confirm the binding of Topo II to the cwp promoters in vivo. Interestingly, Topo II overexpression increased the levels of cwp gene expression and cyst formation. Microarray analysis identified up-regulation of cwp and specific vsp genes by Topo II. We also found that the type II topoisomerase inhibitor etoposide has growth inhibition effect on Giardia. Addition of etoposide significantly decreased the levels of cwp gene expression and cyst formation. Our results suggest that Topo II has been functionally conserved during evolution and that Topo II plays important roles in induction of the cwp genes, which is key to Giardia differentiation into cysts., Author Summary Giardia lamblia becomes infective by differentiation into water-resistant cysts. During encystation, cyst wall proteins (CWPs) are highly synthesized and are targeted to the cyst wall. However, little is known about the regulation mechanisms of these genes. DNA topoisomerases can resolve the topological problems and are needed for a variety of key cellular functions, including cell proliferation, cell differentiation and organ development in higher eukaryotes. We found that giardial Topo II was highly expressed during encystation. Topo II is present in Giardia nuclei and is associated with the encystation-induced cwp gene promoters. Topo II has typical DNA cleavage activity of type II topoisomerases. Interestingly, overexpression of Topo II can induce cwp gene expression and cyst formation. Addition of a type II topoisomerase inhibitor, etoposide, significantly decreased the levels of cwp gene expression and cyst formation. Etoposide also has growth inhibition effect on Giardia. Our results suggest that Topo II plays an important role in induction of encystation by up-regulation of the cwp gene expression. Our results provide insights into the function of Topo II in parasite differentiation into cysts and help develop ways to interrupt the parasite life cycle.

This study examines the linkage between industrial specialization and economic contribution in the smartphone component industry. The value created from the manufacturing process may shift the leading positions of countries involved in the supply chain. In turn, the regional hierarchy will further influence the slicing up of the smartphone component value chain based on each country’s comparative advantages. The economic contribution from the Apple and HTC supply chains are analyzed in terms of value added, jobs created and employee composition in Taiwan and other countries. Analysis found that for every smartphone produced, Apple's component supply chain created 37.3 USD of value in Taiwan, as opposed to 58.7 USD for HTC. This study recommends that industrial efforts should further focus on the production of application processors, LCD panels and passive components.