This study used the methods of decision tree analysis, association rule analysis, and Kano’s model to explore the behavior patterns of mainland China tourists staying at the international tourist hotels in Taiwan. To this end, the data of their demographics, travel variables, overall satisfaction with the lodging experience, different service quality perceptions, and loyalty intentions were included. The decision tree analysis showed that a tourist’s overall satisfaction with the lodging experience, satisfaction with the quality of core intangible services, and certain demographic characteristics are three important determinants of tourist loyalty towards the hotels. In terms of the effect of demographics, the customers’ monthly income and length of stay at the hotel are two main determinants in this study. In addition, if the customer perceptions of different parts of hotel service quality are taken into account, among the five hotel service quality domains, core intangible services from the receptionist, housekeeping personnel, and food & beverage personnel are found to be important influences on hotel customer loyalty intention. In other words, high quality intangible services are important for luxury hotels to demonstrate their unique ability to help customers experience the service quality that creates loyalty intentions. With regard to the association rule analysis, the results showed that core intangible service aspects from the receptionist, housekeeping personnel, and food & beverage personnel are strongly associated with customer loyalty intentions, as are the tangible aspects of the reception and hotel room facilities. The former indicated that reception in the hotel lobby could be considered one of the most important servicescapes because of its impact in forming many of the first impressions of hotel guests, while the latter is treated as core offerings in hotels that would be encountered by most hotel customers. If the tourists are mainly from package tours, the intangible services and tangible facilities of these areas are the important areas to create customer satisfaction. However, if the tourists are mainly independent tourists because they have more time and free choice to stay at the hotel longer than the package tour tourists, the intangible services and tangible facilities of the entertainment or business centers would be even more important to these tourists than to the package tour tourists. With regard to Kano’s model analysis, the results showed that, based on mainland China tourists’ perceptions, most of the service elements fit into the category of one-dimensional quality attributes. This means that these service elements are positively and linearly related to customer satisfaction, and the greater fulfillment of the attribute results in a greater degree of satisfaction. This also means that hotels should make more effort to innovate their intangible services and tangible facilities to create business advantages in the market.

For the development of SSR marker system in Vicia villosa Roth, an enriched library was constructed by using a modified biotin-streptavidin capture method and the selected clones were sequenced with GS-FLX(454). Of 37,794 sequenced reads, we found that 8,474 reads (22.4%) were redundant, leaving 29,320 unique ones (77.6%). Among the unique clones, 17,174 reads (58.6%) were having microsatellite repeating motifs. Sequence analysis of all SSR-containing reads revealed a predominance of the di-nucleotide SSRs (62.5%). The tri-nucleotide and the tetra-nucleotide SSRs were 5.7% and 22.5%, respectively. As the di-nucleotide type, the AG/GA class of repeat motif was most frequently identified (55.0% of the total di-nucleotide SSRs), followed by the CT/TC class (19.5%), and the TA/AT class (12.1%). Among the tri-nucleotide SSRs, the AGT/GTA/TAG class of repeat motifs was predominant (22.2%), followed by the ACT/CTA/TAC class (17.8%). Among the tetra-nucleotide SSRs, the CTTT/TTTC/TTCT/TCTT class of repeat motifs was predominant (31.2%), followed by the AAAG/AAGA/AGAA/ GAAA class (19.9%). Finally, we designed 779 primer pairs from the flanking sequences of SSR containing reads. We are undertaking the analysis of polymorphisms using the diverse collected accessions of Vicia villosa Roth now. This newly developed SSR marker set shall provide a very useful tool for implementing molecular diversity assessment and population structure studies of Vicia villosa Roth onward.

In this study, 29 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity and population structure of 125 rice accessions from 40 different origins in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and Oceania. A total of 333 alleles were detected, with an average of 11.5 per locus. The mean values of major allele frequency, expected heterozygosity, and polymorphism information content (PIC) for each SSR locus were 0.39, 0.73, and 0.70, respectively. The highest mean PIC was 0.71 for Asia, followed by 0.66 for Africa, 0.59 for South America, 0.53 for Europe, and 0.47 for Oceania. Model-based structure analysis revealed the presence of five subpopulations, which was basically consistent with clustering based on genetic distance. Some accessions were clearly assigned to a single population in which >70% of their inferred ancestry was derived from one of the model-based populations. In addition, 12 accessions (9.6%) were categorized as having admixed ancestry. The results could be used to understanding the genetic structure of rice cultivars from these regions and to support effective breeding programs to broaden the genetic basis of rice varieties.