No abstract

The utility of a private area in a residential building (collective housing) is higher than that of a common or shared area; thus, the price of private areas should be higher than that of common areas. However, in sales transactions, both areas are included in the price borne by the purchaser. The scope of this study was 22 residential buildings near Zhongke Shopping Plaza, Xitun District, Taichung City, and data for 2,500 transactions were analyzed. The study employed hierarchical linear models, with residential unit price as the dependent variable and private and common areas as independent variables, to explore the extent to which these types of area affect the transaction price, and the effect of each area type on the housing price was clarified. In different models, the results indicate that common and private areas have varying degrees of influence on the housing price; however, the influence of common areas is greater than that of private areas. This finding subverts traditional concepts and previous results.

Although the theoretical literature on the effect of advertising is well developed, few empirical studies quantify the importance of advertising on the market share instability of hotels. This article investigates the influence of advertising on market share instability using Taiwanese international tourist hotel operation data. Telser argues that advertising reduces a leading firm’s market share instability by creating market power and entry barriers. This study provides empirical evidence for the theoretical inverse relationship between advertising intensity and market share instability among leading firms in the hotel industry. It identifies advertising as an important factor influencing the market share instability of hotels. Moreover, advertising tends to increase the market share instability of leading firms for different quantiles of the market share instability. The results lend moderate support to the validity of the hypothesis in the Telser model.

Erwinia amylovora is a relatively homogeneous species with low genetic diversity at the nucleotide level. However, phenotypic differences and genomic structural variations among E. amylovora strains have been documented. In this study, we identified 10 large chromosomal inversion (LCI) types in the Spiraeoideae-infecting (SI) E. amylovora strains by combining whole genome sequencing and PCR-based molecular markers. It was found that LCIs were mainly caused by homologous recombination events among seven rRNA operons (rrns) in SI E. amylovora strains. Although ribotyping results identified inter- and intra- variations in the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1 and ITS2) regions among rrns, LCIs tend to occur between rrns transcribed in the opposite directions and with the same tRNA content (tRNA-Glu or tRNA-Ile/Ala) in ITS1. Based on the LCI types, physical/estimated replichore imbalance (PRI/ERI) was examined and calculated. Among the 117 SI strains evaluated, the LCI types of Ea1189, CFBP1430, and Ea273 were the most common with ERI values at 1.31°, 7.87°, and 4.47°, respectively. These three LCI types had world-wide distribution, whereas the remaining seven LCI types were restricted to North America (or certain regions of the US). Our results indicated on-going chromosomal recombination events in the SI E. amylovora population and showed that LCI events are mostly symmetrical, keeping the ERI less than 15°. These findings provide first evidence about the prevalence of certain LCI types in E. amylovora strains, how LCI occurs, and its potential evolutionary advantage and history, which might help track the movement of the pathogen.

The ratio of public area in Taiwan's multi-family residential is gradually increasing, and the items of public facilities are becoming more and more diversified. Most researches only classify them, however, it is rarely discussed how the connotation and diversity of public facilities affect residential transaction prices? This study intends to classify the public facilities in 22 multi-families residential near the Zhongke Shopping Plaza in Xitun District, Taichung City and give them diversity scores. The study uses hierarchical linear model for analysis, residential price as the dependent variable, diversity of public facilities scores as the independent variable of group-level, and public area, private area, age and floor as independent variables of individual-level. The empirical results found that floor, public area, and private area have positive and significant influence on residential transaction prices; when controlling the influence of individual-level explanatory variables on residential transaction prices, the diversity of public facilities at the group-level has a positive effect on the average residential transaction price of residential buildings.