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To make the finned exchanger light and compact, the design of optimized fins has become increasingly important nowadays. The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical investigation on forced convection in a horizontal parallel plate channel with inline transverse fins on channel walls.

Through the use of a stream function vorticity transformation, solution of the transformed governing equations for the system is obtained using the control‐volume method with non‐uniform grid. The extrapolated‐Jacobi scheme was used to solve the finite‐difference equations.

For fins with fixed fin volumes, the array fins of optimum aspect ratios which dissipate maximum heat transfer in a parallel‐plate channel are obtained. For these optimum fins, it shows that the first fin is the shortest and the height of the rest of fins increases along the downstream direction of the channel. In addition, the optimum aspect ratio of a fin increases with Reynolds number and fin spacing but decreases with thermal conductivity ratio and entrance length with other parameters fixed.

This is the first paper devoted to the exploration of the optimized fin array in a forced convective channel, considering heat conduction in the fins and heat convection in the fluid simultaneously.

In recent years, many development projects of the medical systems encounter difficulties and eventually fail. Failure is often due to very complicated and changeable medical procedures and the inconsistent understanding between system stakeholders, especially the healthcare providers, and information technology staff. Many research results also indicate that poor communication easily results in negative consequences during the implementation of the medical information system. To effectively overcome this obstacle, the purpose of this paper is to propose an enhanced Delphi method to assist in reaching consensus during the software development with some additional steps.

As an alternative to the traditional way to elicit pertinent feedback from respondents, the enhanced Delphi method stresses the systematic, flexible, and cyclic stages to construct a questionnaire with viewpoints from different types of panelists and a self-assessment procedure as a validating step to measure the improvements in the system implementation.

The better communication between the members of project team does increase the comprehensive assessment of a project.

Based on a practical case, the enhanced Delphi method really demonstrates good performance and effectiveness.

Understanding the computer-virus propagation is quite essential for the construction and development of anti-virus policy. While researches about the anti-virus policy have been extensively investigated, the viewpoint from sociological perspective is relatively ignored. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the dynamics of computer-virus propagation and evaluate the effectiveness of anti-virus policies through the sociological perspective.

This research constructs a virus-propagation model based on the susceptible-exposed-infective-recovered epidemic concept to simulate and explore the dynamic behavior of multipartite computer viruses through the tool of system dynamics. The effectiveness of various anti-virus policies is then evaluated via this model.

The frequency of media contact has a significant effect on the virus infection rate. The effectiveness of user self-prevention relies on the usefulness of the virus signatures. The reporting/alarm process can enhance the capability of anti-virus software company and the detected intensity of new threat. The quarantine policy can effectively reduce the spread of computer virus.

Individuals should strengthen the self-awareness of information security to reduce the negative impact. Managers should construct and implement the information security norm to regulate the behavior of staff. Anti-virus software companies should strengthen the capability of their automatic reporting/alarm mechanism to early detect the exceptional conditions and control new threats in time.

Information security management research is still in the growth phase, but it is critically important to establish the groundwork for understanding of computer viruses and the effectiveness of anti-virus policy from assorted perspectives. The major contribution of research is to explore the propagation of multipartite computer viruses and study how to prevent their destruction from the sociological and technical perspectives.

This study analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the electoral mechanism of local education superintendents in South Korea, draws conclusions and makes suggestions for future reforms.

The research method of this study included document analysis and interviews. Document analysis was used to collect and analyze the relevant official documents of education superintendents across countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four professors and two superintendents.

The results of the interviews indicate the following: 1) Korean stakeholders are getting more familiar with the direct election of superintendents, as the interviews indicate a more mature direct election system due to previous experience and public officials taking direct election into account; 2) The direct election of superintendents has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include increasing the participation of the general public in education, and the disadvantages include conflict between the central government and local superintendents belonging to different political parties. However, the current system is likely to be retained; 3) The superintendent systems in various countries differ due to their respective traditions and social contexts. However, the authors can always learn lessons and implications from foreign countries if the authors compare their education systems with their foreign counterparts.

As far research limitations, although this was a small study, it shows the importance of collecting multiple stakeholders' views on the direct election of education superintendents as a basis for future reform of education management.

The Korean system for electing superintendents provides a good model for other countries reflecting on the educational autonomy and accountabilities of their own systems.

The direct election of superintendents provides an example of professionalism, independence and political neutrality in education that other countries can learn from. The separation of general and educational administration in Korea through direct elections protects educational activities from political influence.

In terms of originality/value, this study adds a new perspective to the debate about whether the general public should directly elect education superintendents, as well as to the literature on local education management.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a novel mobile monitoring and control (MC) framework with active-push and plug-and-play capabilities. This proposed framework is particularly designed to addresses the shortcomings of the traditional factory MC systems in sharing information over the internet, protecting the system security, delivering warning messages, and deploying monitoring points.

By leveraging web service technology, mobile devices, and wireless communication, this paper describes the methodology and approach for designing a MC server, a wireless monitoring module (WMM), an intelligent v-Machine, two active-push mechanisms, a pocket PC application, and a smart phone application.

The designed WMM enables the monitoring points to be deployed in a mobile manner. The proposed mobile MC framework (MMCF) can timely detect abnormalities of appliances and equipment and turn off appliances in dangerous situations through WMM. It can also instantly deliver various warning contents to the mobile devices carried by the responsible persons. The v-Machine is built based on virtual metrology (VM) technology and can predict production precision of machined workpieces.

With the successful design and testing of the novel MMCF, this framework can obviously be used for many more applications and developments.

The authors' implement a factory MC system based on the proposed framework and conduct various integration tests on two electric appliances and a practical CNC machine tool in a factory. Testing results shows that the factory MC system works smoothly according the design goals and can overcome the shortcomings of traditional factory MC systems. The MC system also presents good performances, instantly delivering warning contents with a size ranging from 1K bytes to 10M bytes to the users within few seconds.

The proposed MMCF exploits various automation technologies to detect equipment's abnormalities, reduce the rate of product defects caused by human errors, reinforce security, prevent accidents, and ensure the safety of operations.

The proposed MMCF can effectively promote existing factory MC systems to achieve the merits of mobile MC, which is a unique contribution of this work, compared to previous studies. The results of this study can be applied to a variety of industrial automation applications, including factory automation and assembly automation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of parental and peer norms on idol worship as well as the effect of idol worship on the intention to purchase and obtain the idol’s music products legally and illegally.

A stratified, two-stage, cluster sampling procedure was applied to a list of high schools obtained from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. A return rate of 80 per cent yielded 723 usable questionnaires, the data from which were analysed by the LISREL structural equation modelling software.

The results suggest that both social worship and personal worship have a significant and positive impact on the intention to purchase music. However, personal worship has a negative impact on the intention to pirate music while social worship appears to strengthen it.

The findings suggest that idol worship is more complex than previously understood. The constructs chosen in this research should be seen only as a snapshot but other variables such as vanity trait, autonomy, romanticism or involvement are not taken into account. Future studies would benefit from inclusion of these variables and a wider geographical scope.

The findings contain many implications to help marketing executives and planners better revise their existing marketing and communication strategies to increase their revenue.

Existing research has tended to examine the impact of idol worship as a whole on the reduction of music piracy, but overlook the two-dimensional aspects of idol worship, hence ignoring the fact that many music firms have not properly utilised idol worship to deal with the challenges associated with music piracy. The findings broaden existing understanding about the causes of two different dimensions of idol worship and their different impacts on the intention to music piracy.

Despite a growing interest in research, no existing study explores the nature of, and the relationship between, the real exchange rate and trade imbalance between Taiwan and China. These economies were admitted to the World Trade Organization in late 2001 (China) and in January 2002 (Taiwan). This study aims to redress this deficiency.

Using Johansen's cointegration approach and bilateral trade data, the study reveals overwhelming evidence of a stable long‐run relationship of the real exchange rate and bilateral trade balance between Taiwan and its trading partners: China, the USA, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The evidence indicates that the currency depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar improves Taiwan's bilateral trade balance, except with China.

The findings imply that Taiwan cannot resolve the cross‐Strait trade imbalance alone via the currency depreciation, and macroeconomic adjustments, including application of the WTO rules, currency exchange and imports of Chinese goods, need to be negotiated on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

This paper aims to determine the effect of black garlic (BG) on visceral fat, oxidative stress and insulin resistance (IR) compared with metformin and vitamin E in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) rats.

A randomized post-test only design with control group was used in this study. Rats were given high-fat fructose diet enriched with 1.25% cholesterol and 0.5% cholic acid for eight weeks to induce NALFD condition. The administration of BG dose of 450 mg/200 gBW, 900 mg/200 gBW and 1350 mg/200 gBW with a comparative control of 45 mg/200 gBW of metformin and vitamin E of 9 IU/200 gBW were given for four weeks via oral gavage to reduce visceral fat, oxidative stress and improve IR. Statistical analyses were performed to examine differences between groups with one-way analysis of variance and nonparametrics test.

Rats given with three different doses of BG for four weeks did not reduce body weight from 244 ± 4.4 to 284 ± 4.6 g, 242 ± 2.5 to 272 ± 3.1 g and 240 ± 2.4 to 270 ± 3.6 g, respectively, but significantly reduced visceral fat (p = 0.001) on BG groups with 3.7 ± 1.3, 2.7 ± 0.7 and 1.8 ± 0.6 g, respectively. BG improved oxidative stress (p = 0.001) with malondialdehyde level 5.1 ± 0.2, 3.0 ± 0.06 and 2.3 ± 0.06 ng/mL, respectively, but did not better than vitamin E group 1 ± 0.03 ng/mL. Significant (p = 0.001) improvement on insulin resistance with homeostatic model assessment IR in BG groups were 5.3 ± 0.1, 4.4 ± 0.1 and 4 ± 0.1, respectively, but not as good as metformin group 3.7 ± 0.1.

Based on the experiment, there are several limitations including small sample size, performed on animal models in a relatively short time, did not examine organosulfurs compound (OSC) content of BG specifically and OSC affects metabolism in NAFLD remains unclear and will require further investigation.

BG is a functional food made from heated fresh garlic owing to the Maillard reaction and the organosulfur compounds as antioxidants. The higher the dose of BG, the greater the improvement in visceral fat, oxidative stress and IR in model NAFLD rats.

NAFLD is a liver disorder caused by excessive fat and energy intake, the treatment strategies among others through diet modification.

In model NAFLD rats, BG administration improved NALFD markers but did not better rather than the metformin and vitamin E result.