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The aim of this paper is to construct a model of cost efficiency and service effectiveness for a university e-library to allocate e-resources cost and to attain quality of service enhancement and cater to the needs of readers with existing e-resources.

The paper establishes an assessment model for the cost efficiency and service effectiveness of a university e-library in Taiwan. It then proceeds with an empirical study and analysis of related data collected from e-libraries of 16 universities. A discussion of the results of the study and suggestions for the adjustment of the university e-libraries follows.

The paper combines two models of cost efficiency and service effectiveness for the first time to analyze and consider the output results created by the input cost of university e-libraries in Taiwan and their utilization by readers.

The paper builds a figure for the relationship of e-library cost efficiency and service effectiveness at 16 universities in Taiwan and then divides it into four types.

This paper aims to investigate the interconnections between corporate ownership, tax system and controlling shareholder tunneling through intercorporate loans in an emerging market setting.

China’s Enterprises Income Tax reform in 2008 abolished its previous multiple-tiers tax system under which foreign direct investment (FDI) firms enjoyed preferential tax rates than domestic firms by introducing a new unified-rate tax system. Using difference-in-differences tests, the author analyzes changes of controlling shareholders tunneling through intercorporate loans among Chinese listed companies around this reform.

The author documents significant reductions of intercorporate loans after the reform. More importantly, the author reveals that foreign-invested firms experienced larger reductions of intercorporate loans than domestic firms. The author also shows that state association matters for domestic firms’ response to the reform. In addition, the author documents positive stock market reaction to the tax reform announcement for firms that exhibited higher level of tunneling prior to the reform, indicating market expectation of reduced principal-principal conflict post-reform.

The findings suggest effective corporate governance system is warranted to constrain intercorporate fund transfers in emerging markets where tax incentives are used for attracting inward foreign direct investments. Institutional reforms in emerging markets aimed at removing market frictions can alleviate the problem of controlling shareholder expropriations of minority interests or tunneling.

This is a pioneering study that reveals the role of tax as a public governance mechanism in weak minority investor protection environment.

While there is a general belief that a defective institutional environment will lead to higher compliance risk, the current state of knowledge about how the institutional environment affects enterprises' compliance is equivocal. This study aims to explore how does the host country's institutional environment affect the compliance risk perception of international engineering contractors and how to mitigate this impact.

This study empirically tests the impact of the institutional environment from the two dimensions of the institutional environment: legal completeness reflects whether the formal regulations are clear, detailed and comprehensive and legal effectiveness reflects whether rules and policies can be implemented effectively when the proper legal codes are provided. Based on 213 questionnaire data, this study uses partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and Smart PLS software to test the hypothesis.

This study finds a negative relationship between the host country's legal completeness (LC) or legal effectiveness (LE) and a contractor's compliance risk perception. Further, the results show potential absorptive capacity (PAC) and realized absorptive capacity (RAC) of a contractor are critical for mitigating the impact of low LC in the host country, but not when LE is low.

The findings will be useful for international engineering contractors to respond to the compliance risk of the host country, both in choices of overseas investment locations and compliance capacity building.

This study reveals the impact of the host country's institutional environment on the compliance risk perception of international contractors, and provides theoretical guidance for how to alleviate the compliance barriers brought by the host country's institutional environment to international engineering contractors.

This study aims to simulate molded printed circuit board (PCB) warpage behavior under reflow temperature distribution. Simulation models are used to estimate dynamic warpage behavior for different form factor sizes.

This study analyzes warpage during the reflow process. The shadow moiré experiment methodology is used to collect data on the dynamic warpage performance of a model with a form factor of 10mm × 10mm × 1mm. The temperature profile with heating from 25°C to 300°C at intervals of 50°C is used, and the sample is made to undergo a cooling process until it reaches the room temperature. Subsequently, ANSYS static structural simulation is performed on similar form factor models to ascertain the accuracy of the simulation results.

Results show that the deformation and total force induced by coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch are examined based on the warpage performance of models with different sizes, that is, 45mm × 45mm × 1mm and 45mm × 15mm × 1mm. Compared with the experimental data, the simulated modeling accuracy yields a less than 5% deviation in the dynamic warpage prediction at a reflow temperature of 300°C. Results also reveal that the larger the model, the larger the warpage changes under the reflow temperature.

The simulated warpage is limited to the temperature and force induced by CTE mismatch between two materials. The form factor of the ball-grid array model is limited to only three different sizes. The model is assumed to be steady, isothermal and static. The simulation adopts homogenous materials, as it cannot accurately model nonhomogeneous multilayered composite materials.

This study can provide engineers and researchers with a profound understanding of molded PCB warpage, minimal resource utilization and the improved product development process.

The accurate prediction of molded PCB warpage can enable efficient product development and reduce resources and production time, thereby creating a sustainable environment.

The literature review points out that warpage in various types of PCBs was successfully examined, and that considerable efforts were exerted to investigate warpage reduction in PCB modules. However, PCB warpage studies are limited to bare PCBs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the examination of warpage in a molded PCB designed with a molded compound cover, as depicted in Figure 3, is yet to be conducted. A molded compound provides strong lattice support for PCBs to prevent deformation during the reflow process, which is a topic of considerable interest and should be explored.

Ball grid array (BGA) package is prone to failure issues in a thermal vibration-coupled environment, such as deformation and fracture of solder joints. To predict the minimum equivalent stress of solder joints more accurately and optimize the solder joint structure, this paper aims to compare the machine learning method with response surface methodology (RSM).

This paper introduced a machine learning algorithm using Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) Support Vector Regression (SVR) to optimize solder joint parameters. The solder joint height, spacing, solder pad diameter and thickness were the design variables, and minimizing the equivalent stress of solder joint was the optimization objective. The three dimensional finite element model of the printed circuit board assembly was verified by a modal experiment, and simulations were conducted for 25 groups of models with different parameter combinations. The simulation results were employed to train GWO-SVR to build a mathematical model and were analyzed using RSM to obtain a regression equation. Finally, GWO optimized these two methods.

The results show that the optimization results of GWO-SVR are closer to the simulation results than those of RSM. The minimum equivalent stress is decreased by 8.528% that of the original solution.

This study demonstrates that GWO-SVR is more precise and effective than RSM in optimizing the design of solder joints.