The electron-transfer flavoprotein dehydrogenase gene (ETFDH) that encodes the ETF-ubiquinone oxidoreductase (ETF-QO) has been reported to be the major cause of multiple acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (MADD). ETF-QO is an electron carrier that mainly functions in mitochondrial fatty acid β-oxidation and the delivery of electrons to the ubiquinone pool in the mitochondrial respiratory chain. A high frequency of c.250G>A has been found in Taiwanese patients with late-onset MADD. We postulated that the ETFDH c.250G>A mutation may concomitantly impair fatty acid β-oxidation and mitochondrial function. Using MADD patient-derived lymphoblastoid cells and specifically overexpressed ETFDH c.92C>T, c.250G>A, or coexisted c.92C>T and c.250G>A (c.92C>T + c.250G>A) mutated lymphoblastoid cells, we addressed the genotype-phenotype relationship of ETFDH variation in the pathogenesis of MADD. The decreased adenosine triphosphate synthesis, dissipated mitochondrial membrane potentials, reduced mitochondrial bioenergetics, and increased neutral lipid droplets and lipid peroxides were found in the MADD patient-derived lymphoblastoid cells. Riboflavin and/or coenzyme Q10 supplementation rescued cells from lipid droplet accumulation. All three mutant types, c.92C>T, c.250G>A, or c.92C>T + c.250G>A, had increased lipid droplet accumulation after treatment with palmitic acid. These results help to clarify the molecular pathogenesis of MADD as a result of the high frequency of the ETFDH c.250G>A and c.92C>T mutations.

In 2017, the Taiwanese Constitutional Court handed down Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748, which was a ruling in favour of same-sex marriage. The Court also ordered the national legislature to amend the law within two years. Despite a significant backslide in the Taiwanese 2018 referendum, the legislature eventually followed the Court’s order and legalized gay marriage in 2019. This victory made Taiwan the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in Asia. Many legal scholars consider the same-sex marriage ruling a progressive decision in which the Court undertook a counter-majoritarian task of protecting a minority group. While we agree with the Court’s role in promoting marriage equality, we contend that most legal scholars overlook an important question in this dynamic: the legislature had had several chances to settle this issue over the past decades, so why did it refuse to draft gay-marriage legislation but later, in 2019, defer to the Court’s decision? In this paper, we explain the political foundations of an activist judiciary by using the case of the first gay-marriage legislation in Asia. We argue that the risk of position-taking on tough issues leads incentive-facing political elites to engage in position avoidance and to see the political value in deferring to a high court’s ruling. Using original data, we present evidence of how Taiwan’s diverse constituency relative to the same-sex marriage issue influenced legislators’ position-avoidance behaviour and led them to dodge political backfire by delegating policy-making authority to the Constitutional Court.

To enable high-performance fiber to the x (FTTx) and datacenter networks, it is important to achieve reliable and stable optical components over time. Laser diode is the essential building block of the optical components. Degradation analysis is critical for overall successful reliability design. In this paper, we study the modelling and experimental data of the InGaAs/InP laser degradation. We present a defect diffusion model that involves three propagation media (p-InGaAs contact, p-InP cladding and multi-quantum wells). We propose a simple constitutive equation based on the Gauss error function to describe the defect propagation. The physical model assumes that the p-InGaAs is the rate-limiting factor for the defect diffusion process.

High-speed transceivers are receiving great interest due to the demand for huge data traffic and information storage capacities in the Big Data era. Recently, 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) has become an IEEE standardized data communication protocol. The 100G quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP) transceiver is one of the key technological enablers in the high-speed optical networks. In this paper, we study the reliability current dependence for the four-lambda QSFP (4x25G) EML devices that are employed in the 100G QSFP transceivers. In order to meet the energy-efficient and environmental requirements, we develop a swift reliability test methodology that can provide fast, accurate reliability assessment to ensure robust long-term field performance. We discuss the acceleration factor and extrapolation for the energy-efficient reliability test.