As the information communication and investment of crowdfunding campaigns are usually accomplished online, online crowdfunding theoretically breaks the limitation of space. However, investors' behaviors still show significant home bias; furthermore, from a dynamic view, the changes in home bias during the funding duration reflect the investment preference. This paper studies the dynamics of home bias in crowdfunding investment as well as the distance diffusion of home bias in the crowdfunding market through data mining and econometric models. The distance between investors and founders gradually increases from 3605 km to 4229 km as the funding progresses, and home bias shows different diffusion patterns between categories. For most of the campaigns, the distance between backers and founders of the successful campaigns is always greater than that of the failed ones; thus, the distance diffusion impacts the pledge results. However, the study also finds that for some categories, home bias does not play a positive role in investment or that it even shows negative impacts, among which food and technology are two extreme categories. The study provides a theoretical basis from the perspective of user behavior to analyze online investment and to improve the promotion of crowdfunding campaigns.

This study examined the impact of research and development (R&D) investment behaviour on the corporate performance of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry, which faced the economic downturn caused by the global financial crisis of 2008, for the period 2005-2016. A dynamic panel data model was used to empirically analyse the impact of R&D intensity on business performance. A generalised method of moments estimator was adopted to avoid endogeneity problems caused by adding dynamics to the model. Further, the model was used to explore the impact of the lag effect of R&D investments on business performance. It was found that significant R&D investments in a given period may reduce business performance in the same period and continue to influence it in the next few periods, thus indicating the presence of a positive and lagged effect of R&D investments in the high-tech industry. Firm size was also found to be positively correlated with business performance, that is, the larger the firm size, the greater is the use of resources for R&D, which, in turn, leads to more sophisticated technologies and profitable outcomes, forming a positive cycle. This indicates that R&D expenditures affect firms' sustainable management. ARTICLE HISTORY

Smart cities are primarily based on information and communications technology development and applications across various academic subjects and domains. Integrating new-generation information and communications technologies, including the Internet of Things data collection, cloud computation, big data applications, and mobile network, smart cities organize the people and things of a city according to application needs to perform real-time computation and processing. Information transmission must be rapid and reliable to protect personal privacy and to secure data. All types of information security problems can lead to disastrous consequences; in particular, they pose great challenges to traditional information security systems. To explore possible solutions to the challenges that Taiwan’s smart city information security faces, this study used the enterprise architecture method and discussed the emphasis and investment capacity of the government and enterprises on information security. Moreover, this study reviewed correct methods of using a smart information security collaborative system to protect not only privacy, however also networks with a large attack surface; the purpose was to establish a reliable data sharing practice and alleviate the cascading effect of failures of smart networks. Finally, this paper provides future research directions for building smart cities and encouraging further explorations in this domain. It is hoped that smart cities can conduct overall planning for information security during the process of construction. Future researchers will be able to propose more effective solutions for smart city information security while developing information and communication technologies.

Background Eucalyptus is the main plantation wood species, mostly grown in aluminized acid soils. To understand the response of Eucalyptus clones to aluminum (Al) toxicity, the Al-tolerant Eucalyptus grandis × E. urophylla clone GL-9 (designated “G9”) and the Al-sensitive E. urophylla clone GL-4 (designated “W4”) were employed to investigate the production and secretion of citrate and malate by roots. Results Eucalyptus seedlings in hydroponics were exposed to the presence or absence of 4.4 mM Al at pH 4.0 for 24 h. The protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide (CHM) and anion channel blocker phenylglyoxal (PG) were applied to explore possible pathways involved in organic acid secretion. The secretion of malate and citrate was earlier and greater in G9 than in W4, corresponding to less Al accumulation in G9. The concentration of Al in G9 roots peaked after 1 h and decreased afterwards, corresponding with a rapid induction of malate secretion. A time-lag of about 6 h in citrate efflux in G9 was followed by robust secretion to support continuous Al-detoxification. Malate secretion alone may alleviate Al toxicity because the peaks of Al accumulation and malate secretion were simultaneous in W4, which did not secrete appreciable citrate. Enhanced activities of citrate synthase (CS) and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC), and reduced activities of isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH), aconitase (ACO) and malic enzyme (ME) were closely associated with the greater secretion of citrate in G9. PG effectively inhibited citrate and malate secretion in both Eucalyptus clones. CHM also inhibited malate and citrate secretion in G9, and citrate secretion in W4, but notably did not affect malate secretion in W4. Conclusions G9 immediately secrete malate from roots, which had an initial effect on Al-detoxification, followed by time-delayed citrate secretion. Pre-existing anion channel protein first contributed to malate secretion, while synthesis of carrier protein appeared to be needed for citrate excretion. The changes of organic acid concentrations in response to Al can be achieved by enhanced CS and PEPC activities, but was supported by changes in the activities of other enzymes involved in organic acid metabolism. The above information may help to further explore genes related to Al-tolerance in Eucalyptus.

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