Search results for: Taipei LGBT parade

Authors: Chien-Kuo Chiu

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In the displacement-based seismic design and evaluation, equivalent linearization method is one of the approximation methods to estimate the maximum inelastic displacement response of a system. In this study, the accuracy of two equivalent linearization methods are investigated. The investigation consists of three soil condition in Taiwan (Taipei Basin 1, 2, and 3) and five different heights of building (H_r= 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 m). The first method is the Taiwan equivalent linearization method (TELM) which was proposed based on Japanese equivalent linear method considering the modification factor, α_T= 0.85. On the basis of Lin and Miranda study, the second method is proposed with some modification considering Taiwan soil conditions. From this study, it is shown that Taiwanese equivalent linearization method gives better estimation compared to the modified Lin and Miranda method (MLM). The error index for the Taiwanese equivalent linearization method are 16%, 13%, and 12% for Taipei Basin 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Furthermore, a ductility demand spectrum of single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system is presented in this study as a guide for engineers to estimate the ductility demand of a structure.

Keywords: displacement-based design, ductility demand spectrum, equivalent linearization method, RC buildings, single-degree-of-freedom

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Authors: Peifang Hsieh

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New Taipei city faces increasing number of migrant families, in which the needs of children are sometimes neglected due to insufficient support from communities. Moreover, the traditional mindset of disengagement discourages citizens from preemptively identifying families in need in their communities, resulting in delay of prompt intervention from authorities concerned. To safeguard these vulnerable families, New Taipei city develops the 'Integrated Safety-Net Program for High-Risk Families' from 2011 by implementing the following measures: (A) New attitude and action: Instead of passively receiving reported case of high-risk families, the program takes proactive and preemptive approach to detect and respond at early stage, so the cases are prevented from worsening. In addition, cross-departmental integration mechanism is established to meet multiple needs of high-risk families. The children number added to the government care network is greatly increased to over 10,000, which is around 4.4 times the original number before the program. (B) New service points: 2000 city-wide convenience stores are added as service stations so that children in less privileged families can go to any of 24-hour convenience stores across the city to pick up free meals. This greatly increases the approachability to high-risk families. Moreover, the social welfare institutes will be notified with information left in convenience stores by children and follow up with further assistance, greatly enhancing chances of less privileged families being identified. (C) New Key Figures: Mobilize community officers and volunteers to detect and offer on-site assistance. Volunteer organizations within communities are connected to report and offer follow-up services in a more active manner. In total, from 2011 to 2015, 54,789 cases are identified through active care, benefiting 82,124 children. In addition, 87.49% family-cases in the program receiving comprehensive social assistance are no longer at high risk.

Keywords: cross department, high-risk families, public-private partnership, integrated safety net

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Authors: Sreerakuvandana Vandana

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Although the term third gender is relatively new, the language that is in use has already made its way to the concept of identity. With the vast recognition and the transparency in expressing their identity without a tint of embarrassment, it is highly essential to take into account the idea of “identity” and “language”. The community however picks up language as a tool to assert their presence in the “mainstream”, albeit contradictory practices. The paper is an attempt to see how Koti claims and tries to be a language just like any other language. With that, it also identifies how the community wants to be identified as a unique group, but yet want to remain grounded to the ‘mainstream’. The work is an attempt to bring out the secret language of the LGBT community and understand their desire to be recognized as "main stream." The paper is also an attempt to bring into light this language and see if it qualifies to be a language at all.

Keywords: identity, language, queer, transgender

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Authors: Szu-Hua Wang

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Urban areas contain abundant potential biochemical storages and renewable and non-renewable flows. Urban natural environments for breeding natural assets and urban economic development for maintaining urban functions can be analyzed form the concept of ecological economic system. Land use change and ecosystem services change are resulting from the interactions between human activities and environments factually. Land use change due to human activities is the major cause of climate change, leading to serious impacts on urban ecosystem services, including provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services and supporting services. However, it lacks discussion on the interactions among urban land use change, ecosystem services change, and extreme precipitation events. Energy synthesis can use the same measure standard unit, solar energy, for different energy resources (e.g. sunlight, water, fossil fuels, minerals, etc.) and analyze contributions of various natural environmental resources on human economic systems. Therefore, this research adopts the concept of ecological, economic systems and energy synthesis for analyzing dynamic spatial impacts of land use change on ecosystem services, using the Taipei area as a case study. The analysis results show that changes in land use in the Taipei area, especially the conversion of natural lands and agricultural lands to urban lands, affect the ecosystem services negatively. These negative effects become more significant during the extreme precipitation events.

Keywords: urban ecological economic system, extreme precipitation events, ecosystem services, energy

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Authors: Chen Chan Wei

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of swim 1500m, 10000m run, VO2 max, and body fat on Olympic distance triathlon competition performance. The subjects were thirteen college triathletes with endurance training, with an average age, height and weight of 20.61±1.04 years (mean ± SD), 171.76±8.54 cm and 65.32±8.14 kg respectively. All subjects were required to take the tests of swim 1500m, run 10000m, VO2 max, body fat, and participate in the Olympic distance triathlon competition. First, the swim 1500m test was taken in the standardized 50m pool, with a depth of 2m, and the 10000m run test on the standardized 400m track. After three days, VO2 max was tested with the MetaMax 3B and body fat was measured with the DEXA machine. After two weeks, all 13 subjects joined the Olympic distance triathlon competition at the 2016 New Taipei City Asian Cup. The relationships between swim 1500m, 10000m run, VO2 max, body fat test, and Olympic distance triathlon competition performance were evaluated using Pearson's product-moment correlation. The results show that 10000m run and body fat had a significant positive correlation with Olympic distance triathlon performance (r=.830, .768), but VO2 max has a significant negative correlation with Olympic distance triathlon performance (r=-.735). In conclusion, for improved non-draft Olympic distance triathlon performance, triathletes should focus on running than swimming training and can be measure VO2 max to prediction triathlon performance. Also, managing body fat can improve Olympic distance triathlon performance. In addition, swimming performance was not significantly correlated to Olympic distance triathlon performance, possibly because the 2016 New Taipei City Asian Cup age group was not a drafting competition. The swimming race is the shortest component of Olympic distance triathlons. Therefore, in a non-draft competition, swimming ability is not significantly correlated with overall performance.

Keywords: triathletes, olympic, non-drafting, correlation

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Authors: Tiffany Wicks

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Queer patients can face issues with self-advocating due to the factors of implicit provider bias, lack of tools and resources to self-advocate, and lack of comfortability in self-advocating based on prior experiences. In this study, five participants who identify as queer discussed their interactions with their healthcare providers. This exploratory study revealed that there is a need for healthcare provider education to reduce implicit bias and judgments about queer patients. There is also an important need for peer advocates in order to further inform healthcare promotion and decision-making before and during provider visits in an effort for a better outcome. Through this exploration, queer patients voiced their experiences and concerns to inform a need for change in healthcare collaboration between providers and patients in the queer community.

Keywords: queer, LGBT, patient, self-advocacy, healthcare

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Authors: Liang Weichien

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Without adequate information and mitigation plan for natural disaster, the risk to urban populated areas will increase in the future as populations grow, especially in Taiwan. Taiwan is recognized as the world's high-risk areas, where an average of 5.7 times of floods occur per year should seek to strengthen coherence and consensus in how cities can plan for flood and climate change. Therefore, this study aims at understanding the vulnerability to flooding in Taipei city, Taiwan, by creating indicators and calculating the vulnerability of each study units. The indicators were grouped into sensitivity and adaptive capacity based on the definition of vulnerability of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The indicators were weighted by using Principal Component Analysis. However, current researches were based on the assumption that the composition and influence of the indicators were the same in different areas. This disregarded spatial correlation that might result in inaccurate explanation on local vulnerability. The study used Geographically Weighted Principal Component Analysis by adding geographic weighting matrix as weighting to get the different main flood impact characteristic in different areas. Cross Validation Method and Akaike Information Criterion were used to decide bandwidth and Gaussian Pattern as the bandwidth weight scheme. The ultimate outcome can be used for the reduction of damage potential by integrating the outputs into local mitigation plan and urban planning.

Keywords: flood vulnerability, geographically weighted principal components analysis, GWPCA, highly urbanized area, spatial correlation

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Authors: Siuzan Uorner

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The era of late modernity is characterized, on the one hand, by social disintegration, values of personal freedom, tolerance, and self-expression. Boundaries between the accessible and the elitist, normal and abnormal are blurring. On the other hand, traditional social institutions, such as religion (especially Russian Orthodox Church), exist, criticizing lifestyle and worldview other than conventionally structured canons. Despite the declared values and opportunities in late modern society, people's freedom is ambivalent. Personal identity and its aspects are becoming a subject of choice. Hence, combinations of identity aspects can be incompatible. Our theoretical framework is based on P. Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity and hermeneutics, E. Goffman’s theory of social stigma, self-presentation, discrepant roles and W. James lectures about varieties of religious experience. This paper aims to reconstruct ways of coping with incompatible identities of Orthodox gays (an extreme sampling of a combination of sexual orientation and religious identity in a heteronormative society). This study focuses on the discourse of Orthodox gay parishioners and ROC gay priests in Russia (sampling ‘hard to reach’ populations because of the secrecy of gay community in ROC and sensitivity of the topic itself). We conducted a qualitative research design, using in-depth personal semi-structured online-interviews. Recruiting of informants took place in 'Nuntiare et Recreare' (Russian movement of religious LGBT) page in VKontakte through the post with an invitation to participate in the research. In this work, we analyzed interview transcripts using axial coding. We chose the Grounded Theory methodology to construct a theory from empirical data and contribute to the growing body of knowledge in ways of harmonizing incompatible identities in late modern societies. The research has found that there are two types of conflicts Orthodox gays meet with: canonic contradictions (postulates of Scripture and its interpretations) and problems in social interaction, mainly with ROC priests and Orthodox parishioners. We have revealed semantic meanings of most commonly used words that appear in the narratives (words such as ‘love’, ‘sin’, ‘religion’ etc.). Finally, we have reconstructed biographical patterns of LGBT social movements’ involvement. This paper argues that all incompatibilities are harmonizing in the narrative itself. As Ricoeur has suggested, the narrative configuration allows the speaker to gather facts and events together and to compose causal relationships between them. Sexual orientation and religious identity are getting along and harmonizing in the narrative.

Keywords: gay priests, incompatible identities, narrative identity, Orthodox gays, religious identity, ROC, sexual orientation

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Authors: Eric Yi-Hsiu Huang, Meng-Chun Kao, Wen-Chuan Kuo

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For every laparoscopic surgery, a safe pneumoperitoneumcreation (gaining access to the peritoneal cavity) is the first and essential step. However, closed pneumoperitoneum is usually obtained by blind insertion of a Veress needle into the peritoneal cavity, which may carry potential risks suchas bowel and vascular injury.Until now, there remains no definite measure to visually confirm the position of the needle tip inside the peritoneal cavity. Therefore, this study established an image-guided Veress needle method by combining a fiber probe with optical coherence tomography (OCT). An algorithm was also proposed for determining the exact location of the needle tip through the acquisition of OCT images. Our method not only generates a series of “live” two-dimensional (2D) images during the needle puncture toward the peritoneal cavity but also can eliminate operator variation in image judgment, thus improving peritoneal access safety. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Taipei Veterans General Hospital (Taipei VGH IACUC 2020-144). A total of 2400 in vivo OCT images, independent of each other, were acquired from experiments of forty peritoneal punctures on two piglets. Characteristic OCT image patterns could be observed during the puncturing process. The ROC curve demonstrates the discrimination capability of these quantitative image features of the classifier, showing the accuracy of the classifier for determining the inside vs. outside of the peritoneal was 98% (AUC=0.98). In summary, the present study demonstrates the ability of the combination of our proposed automatic identification method and OCT imaging for automatically and objectively identifying the location of the needle tip. OCT images translate the blind closed technique of peritoneal access into a visualized procedure, thus improving peritoneal access safety.

Keywords: pneumoperitoneum, optical coherence tomography, automatic identification, veress needle

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Authors: Ying-Ming Su, Mei-Shu Huang

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To mitigate the urban heat island effect has become a global issue facing the challenge of climate change. Through literature reviews, plant photosynthesis can reduce the carbon dioxide and mitigate the urban heat island effect relatively. Because there are not enough open space and park, green roof has become an important policy in Taiwan. We selected elementary school buildings in northern New Taipei City as research subjects since elementary school is asked priority to build green roof and important educational place to promote green roof concept. Testo 175-H1 recording device was used to record the temperature and humidity difference between roof surface and interior space below roof with and without green roof for the long-term. We also use questionnaire to investigate the awareness of comfort level of green roof and sensation of teachers and students of the elementary school. The results indicated the temperature of roof without greening was higher than that with greening about 2°C. But sometimes during noontime, the temperature of green roof was higher than that of non-green roof related to the character of the accumulation and dissipation of heat of greening probably. The temperature of interior space below green roof was normally lower than that without green roof about 1°C showed that green roof could lower the temperature. The humidity of the green roof was higher than the one without greening also indicated that green roof retained water better. Teachers liked to combine green roof concept in the curriculum, students wished all classes can take turns to maintain the green roof. Teachers and students that school had integrated green roof concept in the curriculum were more willing to participate in the maintenance work of green roof. Teachers and students who may access and touch the green roof can be more aware of the green roof benefit. We suggest architect to increase the accessibility and visibility of green roof, such as a part of the activity space. This idea can be a reference of the green roof curriculum design.

Keywords: comfort level, elementary school, green roof, heat island effect

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Authors: Kalpeshkumar Patel, Nikita Manvi

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The paper is an attempt to understand the influence and depiction of power in an urban space by throwing light across a few examples across the architectural timeline. Power has been the medium through which ideologies function, as witnessed across the timeline. The center to understand this ideology is to apprehend how power is formed, captured, owned, traded, and distorted. Every urban space has power embedded in it, either for the people who are imposing it or for the public who are receiving it. The most fundamental question in the issue of power is who – who will judge, whose tastes will matter and whose interests are being served. Power is expressed and reinforced by regular means, a boundary and gates, a parade route, a dominant landmark, play of shape or scale in elevation, ceremonial axis, boulevards and avenues, the vista, bilateral symmetry, or regular order. Even if people accept the psychological efficacy of these forms, the way they perceive them may vary depending on the subject. They are cold devices of power used to make some people submit to others. Yet it is also true that these symbolic forms are attractive because they speak to the deep emotions of people. They do indeed give us a sense of security, stability and continuity, awe and pride. The Urban Space for mass assembly is an idea that continues to seduce dictators and democracies. It is a tradition as old as an agora and as manipulative as Baroque Rome.

Keywords: urban space, aggrandization, city planning, landscape, supremacy, democratic

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Authors: Peifang Hsieh

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The prevention of child abuse has aroused serious concerns in Taiwan because of the disparity between the increasing amount of reported child abuse cases that doubled over the past decade and the scarcity of social workers. New Taipei city, with the most population in Taiwan and over 70% of its 4 million citizens are migrant families in which the needs of children can be easily neglected due to insufficient support from relatives and communities, sees urgency for a social support system, by preemptively identifying and outreaching high-risk families of child abuse, so as to offer timely assistance and preventive measure to safeguard the welfare of the children. Big data analysis is the inspiration. As it was clear that high-risk families of child abuse have certain characteristics in common, New Taipei city decides to consolidate detailed background information data from departments of social affairs, education, labor, and health (for example considering status of parents’ employment, health, and if they are imprisoned, fugitives or under substance abuse), to cross-reference for accurate and prompt identification of the high-risk families in need. 'The Service Center for High-Risk Families' (SCHF) was established to integrate data cross-departmentally. By utilizing the machine learning 'random forest method' to build a risk prediction model which can early detect families that may very likely to have child abuse occurrence, the SCHF marks high-risk families red, yellow, or green to indicate the urgency for intervention, so as to those families concerned can be provided timely services. The accuracy and recall rates of the above model were 80% and 65%. This prediction model can not only improve the child abuse prevention process by helping social workers differentiate the risk level of newly reported cases, which may further reduce their major workload significantly but also can be referenced for future policy-making.

Keywords: child abuse, high-risk families, big data analysis, risk prediction model

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Authors: Gwo-Hwa Wan, Tai-Ho Hung, Fen-Fang Chung, Wan-Ying Lee, Hui-Ching Yang

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Air pollutant exposure results in elevated concentrations of oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers in general populations. Increased concentrations of inflammatory biomarkers in pregnant women would be associated with preterm labor and low birth weight. To our best knowledge, the associations between air pollutants exposure and inflammation in pregnant women and fetuses are unknown, as well as their effects on fetal growth. This study aimed to evaluate the influences of outdoor air pollutants in northern Taiwan areas on the inflammatory biomarker (high sensitivity C-reactive protein, hs-CRP) concentration in the blood of healthy pregnant women and how the biomarker impacts fetal growth. In this study, 38 healthy pregnant women who are in their first trimester and live in northern Taiwan area were recruited from the Taipei Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Personal characteristics and prenatal examination data (e.g., blood pressure) were obtained from recruited subjects. The concentrations of inflammatory mediators, hs-CRP, in the blood of healthy pregnant women were analyzed. Additionally, hourly data of air pollutants (PM10, SO2, NO2, O3, CO) concentrations were obtained from air quality monitoring stations in Taipei area, established by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration. The definition of lag 0 and lag 01 are the exposure to air pollutants on the day of blood withdrawal, and the average exposure to air pollutants one day before and on the day of blood withdrawal, respectively. The statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS software version 22.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). This analytical result indicates that the healthy pregnant women aged between 28 and 42 years old. The body mass index before pregnancy averaged 21.51 (sd = 2.51) kg/m2. Around 90% of the pregnant women had never smoking habit, and 28.95% of them had allergic diseases. Approximately around 84% and 5.26% of the pregnant women worked at indoor and outdoor environments, respectively. The mean hematocrit level of the pregnant women was 37.10%, and the hemoglobin levels were ranged between 10.1 and 14.7 g/dL with 12.47 g/dL of mean value. The blood hs-CRP concentrations of healthy pregnant women in the first trimester ranged between 0.32 and 32.5 mg/L with 2.83 (sd = 5.69) mg/L of mean value. The blood hs-CRP concentrations were positively associated with ozone concentrations at lag 0-14 (r = 0.481, p = 0.017) in healthy pregnant women. Significant lag effects were identified in ozone at lag 0-14 with a positive excess concentration of blood hs-CRP.

Keywords: air pollutant, hs-CRP, pregnant woman, ozone, first trimester

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Authors: Szu-Hua Wang, Yi-Wen Chen

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Urban ecosystems are complex coupled human-environment systems. They contain abundant natural resources for producing natural assets and attract urban assets to consume natural resources for urban development. Urban ecosystems provide several ecosystem services, including provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services. Rapid global climate change makes urban ecosystems and their ecosystem services encountering various natural disasters. Lots of natural disasters have occurred around the world under the constant changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in the past two decades. In Taiwan, hydrological disasters have been paid more attention due to the potential high sensitivity of Taiwan’s cities to climate change, and it impacts. However, climate change not only causes extreme weather events directly but also affects the interactions among human, ecosystem services and their dynamic feedback processes indirectly. Therefore, this study adopts a systematic method, solar energy synthesis, based on the concept of the eco-energy analysis. The Taipei area, the most densely populated area in Taiwan, is selected as the study area. The changes of ecosystem services between 2015 and Typhoon Soudelor have been compared in order to investigate the impacts of extreme precipitation events on ecosystem services. The results show that the forest areas are the largest contributions of energy to ecosystem services in the Taipei area generally. Different soil textures of different subsystem have various upper limits of water contents or substances. The major contribution of ecosystem services of the study area is natural hazard regulation provided by the surface water resources areas. During the period of Typhoon Soudelor, the freshwater supply in the forest areas had become the main contribution. Erosion control services were the main ecosystem service affected by Typhoon Soudelor. The second and third main ecosystem services were hydrologic regulation and food supply. Due to the interactions among ecosystem services, fresh water supply, water purification, and waste treatment had been affected severely.

Keywords: ecosystem, extreme precipitation events, ecosystem services, solar energy synthesis

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Authors: Julius Brejohn Calvert

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This Study Aimed to Investigate the Ecological Nature of Extremism Online. The Construction of a Far-Right Ecosystem Was Successful Using a Sample of Posts, Each With Separate Narrative Domains. Most of the Content Expressed Anti-black Racism and Pro-white Sentiments. Many Posts Expressed an Overt Disdain for the Recent Progress Made Regarding the United States and the United Kingdom’s Expansion of Civil Liberties to People of Color (Poc). Of Special Note, Several Anti-lgbt Posts Targeted the Ongoing Political Grievances Expressed by the Transgender Community. Overall, the Current Study Is Able to Demonstrate That Direct Measures of User Engagement, Such as Shares and Reactions, Can Be Used to Predict the Effect of a Post’s Radicalization Capabilities, Although Single Posts Do Not Operate on the Cognitive Processes of Radicalization Alone. In This Analysis, the Data Supports a Theoretical Framework Where Individual Posts Have a Higher Radicalization Capability Based on the Amount of User Engagement (Both Indirect and Direct) It Receives.

Keywords: cognitive psychology, cognitive radicalization, extremism online, domestic extremism, political science, political psychology

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Authors: Yu-Mei Hsueh, Cheng-Shiuan Tsai, Chao-Yuan Huang

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Prostate Cancer (PC) is a malignant tumor originated in prostate and is a second common male’s cancer in the world. Incidence of PC in Asia countries, have still been rising over the past few decades. As an antioxidant, selenium can slow down prostate cancer tumor progression, but the association between plasma selenium levels and risk of aggressive prostate cancer may be modified by different genotype of selenoprotein. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between plasma selenium, polymorphism of selenoprotein, urinaty total arsenic, and prostate cancer. Two hundred ninety five pathologically-confirmed cases of PC and 295 cancer-free controls were individually matched to case subjects by age (± 5 years) were recruited from Department of Urology of National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei Municipal Wan Fang Hospital and Taipei Medical University Hospital. Personal interview and biospeciment of urine and blood collection from participants were conducted by well-trained interviewers after participants’ informed consent was obtained. Plasma selenium was measured by an inductively coupled plasma mass. Urinary arsenic concentration was detected using high-performance liquid chromatography-linked hydride generator and atomic absorption spectrometry. The polymorphism of SEPP1rs3797310 and SEP15 rs5859 were determined using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. The higher plasma selenium was the lower OR of PC with a dose-response relationship. Prostate cancer patients with high plasma selenium had low tumor stage and grade. Participants carried SEPP1rs3797310 CT+TT genotype compared to those with CC genotype had a lower OR of PC in crude model; then this relationship was disappeared after confounder was adjusted. Prostate cancer patients with high urinary total arsenic concentration had high tumor stage and grade. Urinary total arsenic concentration was significantly positively related with plasma selenium and prostate specific antigen concentration. Participants with lower plasma selenium concentration and higher urinary total arsenic concentration compared to those with higher plasma selenium concentration and lower urinary total arsenic concentration had a higher OR of PC with a dose-response relationship.

Keywords: prostate cancer, plasma selenium concentration, urinary arsenic concentration, prostate specific antigen

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Authors: Saeid Eshghi, Neeraj Saxena, Abdulmajeed Alsultan

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Carbon dioxide (CO₂) alongside other gas emissions in the atmosphere cause a greenhouse effect, resulting in an increase of the average temperature of the planet. Transportation vehicles are among the main contributors of CO₂ emission. Stationary vehicles with initiated motors produce more emissions than mobile ones. Intersections with traffic lights that force the vehicles to become stationary for a period of time produce more CO₂ pollution than other parts of the road. This paper focuses on analyzing the CO₂ produced by the traffic flow at Anzac Parade Road - Barker Street intersection in Sydney, Australia, before and after the implementation of Light rail transport (LRT). The data are gathered during the construction phase of the LRT by collecting the number of vehicles on each path of the intersection for 15 minutes during the evening rush hour of 1 week (6-7 pm, July 04-31, 2018) and then multiplied by 4 to calculate the flow of vehicles in 1 hour. For analyzing the data, the microscopic simulation software “VISSIM” has been used. Through the analysis, the traffic flow was processed in three stages: before and after implementation of light rail train, and one during the construction phase. Finally, the traffic results were input into another software called “EnViVer”, to calculate the amount of CO₂ during 1 h. The results showed that after the implementation of the light rail, CO₂ will drop by a minimum of 13%. This finding provides an evidence that light rail is a sustainable mode of transport.

Keywords: carbon dioxide, emission modeling, light rail, microscopic model, traffic flow

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Authors: Therese Scali

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Over the years, the European Union has continued to extend its action on lesbian, gay men, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights to a range of areas including access to justice, asylum, freedom of expression and assembly, parenting, and mutual recognition of civil status within the EU. The European Parliament has been a driving force behind such action adopting a range of resolutions calling for continued progress in this field. In particular, Belgium has been one of the first countries to legalize same-sex parenting and to create a general framework for action against negative attitudes towards gay and lesbian parents. The present paper aims at highlighting public healthcare workers’ attitudes towards different types of same-sex headed families in Belgium, and the content of their interventions in schools. Results revealed that attitudes can go from supportive to unsupportive, and participants do not show the same degree of support towards the different types of same-sex parenting. This contribution highlights work’s implication for public policy by understanding the resources and challenges that health-care professionals face in their work.

Keywords: attitudes, gay and lesbian parents, health-care workers, homophobia, prevention

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Authors: Chiou-Shiue Ko

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As is explicitly stipulated in Article 7 of the Enforcement Rules of the Special Education Act as amended in 1998, "in principle, children with disabilities should be integrated with normal children for preschool education". Since then, all cities and counties have been committed to promoting preschool inclusive education. The Education Department, New Taipei City Government, has been actively recruiting advisory groups of professors to assist in the implementation of inclusive education in preschools since 2001. Since 2011, the author of this study has been guiding Preschool Rainbow to implement inclusive education. Through field observations, meetings, and teaching demonstration seminars, this study explored the process of how inclusive education has been successfully implemented in collaboration with teachers of special education classes and regular classes in Preschool Rainbow. The implementation phases for inclusive education in a single academic year include the following: 1) Preparatory stage. Prior to implementation, teachers in special education and regular classes discuss ways of conducting inclusive education and organize reading clubs to read books related to curriculum modifications that integrate the eight education strategies, early treatment and education, and early childhood education programs to enhance their capacity to implement and compose teaching plans for inclusive education. In addition to the general objectives of inclusive education, the objective of inclusive education for special children is also embedded into the Individualized Education Program (IEP). 2) Implementation stage. Initially, a promotional program for special education is implemented for the children to allow all the children in the preschool to understand their own special qualities and those of special children. After the implementation of three weeks of reverse inclusion, the children in the special education classes are put into groups and enter the regular classes twice a week to implement adjustments to their inclusion in the learning area and the curriculum. In 2013, further cooperation was carried out with adjacent hospitals to perform development screening activities for the early detection of children with developmental delays. 3) Review and reflection stage. After the implementation of inclusive education, all teachers in the preschool are divided into two groups to record their teaching plans and the lessons learned during implementation. The effectiveness of implementing the objective of inclusive education is also reviewed. With the collaboration of all teachers, in 2015, Preschool Rainbow won New Taipei City’s “Preschool Light” award as an exceptional model for inclusive education. Its model of implementing inclusive education can be used as a reference for other preschools.

Keywords: collaboration, inclusive education, preschool, teachers, special education classes, regular classes

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Authors: Arnaud Deshais

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The supply chain industry has integrated the need for supplier Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), mostly from an ethical and moral argument. In addition, in some countries, it is also a legal requirement for companies reaching a certain size. As a matter of fact, a lot of successful companies have developed a Corporate Social Responsibility Program that encourages diversity and inclusion in the supply chain, such as building strong relationships with minority owned businesses (women, LGBT, veterans, etc.). Outside ethical and legal perspectives, it is also worth researching the economic and financial benefits of pursuing such efforts. Through surveys of purchasing and supply chain managers in their current roles as well as review of some case studies on supplier based D&I programs, it becomes apparent that a financial return on investment is to be expected as well for companies who make a concerted effort to grow their D&I programs. The study explores the levers to increase shareholder value and business efficiencies. Finally, the research highlights the competitive advantage related to a broad minority based supplier network. The benefits manifest themselves in the areas of competitiveness, innovation, and collaboration. The economic reward ends up being at the forefront of those programs while being an opportunity for organizations to become 'a good citizen'.

Keywords: diversity, inclusion, purchasing, supplier

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Authors: Meng-Ying Chiu, Yu-Fang Huang, Pei-Wei Wang, Yi-Ru Wang, Yi-Shuan Shao, Mei-Lien Chen

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Background: Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) are the most heavily used pesticides in agriculture in Taiwan. Therefore, they are commonly detected in general public including pregnant women and children. These compounds are proven endocrine disrupters that may affect the neural development in humans. The aim of this study is to assess the OPs exposure of children in 2 years of age and to examine the association between the exposure concentrations and neurodevelopmental effects in children. Methods: In a prospective cohort of 280 mother-child pairs, urine samples of prenatal and postnatal were collected from each participant and analyzed for metabolites of OPs by using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Six analytes were measured including dimethylphosphate (DMP), dimethylthiophosphate (DMTP), dimethyldithiophosphate (DMDTP), diethylphosphate (DEP), diethylthiophosphate (DETP), and diethyldithiophosphate (DEDTP). This study created a combined concentration measure for dimethyl compounds (DMs) consisting of the three dimethyl metabolites (DMP, DMTP, and DMDTP), for diethyl compounds (DEs) consisting of the three diethyl metabolites (DEP, DETP, and DEDTP) and six dialkyl phosphate (DAPs). The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley-III) was used to assess children's cognitive behavior at 2 years old. The association between OPs exposure and Bayley-III scale score was determined by using the Mann-Whitney U test. Results: The measurements of urine samples are still on-going. This preliminary data are the report of 56 children aged 2 from the cohort. The detection rates for DMP, DMTP, DMDTP, DEP, DETP, and DEDTP are 80.4%, 69.6%, 64.3%, 64.3%, 62.5%, and 75%, respectively. After adjusting the creatinine concentrations of urine, the median (nmol/g creatinine) of urinary DMP, DMTP, DMDTP, DEP, DETP, DEDTP, DMs, DEs, and DAPs are 153.14, 53.32, 52.13, 19.24, 141.65, 192.17, 308.8, 311.6, and 702.11, respectively. The concentrations of urine are considerably higher than that in other countries. Children’s cognitive behavior was used three scales for Bayley-III, including cognitive, language and motor. In Mann-Whitney U test, the higher levels of DEs had significantly lower motor score (p=0.037), but no significant association was found between the OPs exposure levels and the score of either cognitive or language. Conclusion: The limited sample size suggests that Taipei children are commonly exposed to OPs and OPs exposure might affect the cognitive behavior of young children. This report will present more data to verify the results. The predictors of OPs concentrations, such as dietary pattern will also be included.

Keywords: biomonitoring, children, neurodevelopment, organophosphate pesticides exposure

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Authors: Harsi Nastiti, Haidar Fikri

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Indonesia has been known for its diversity of cultures, ethnics, religions, and races. This diversity signs as the uniqueness of the country, so tolerance becomes vital point here. As a unitary state, tolerance value is established strongly as the foundation of democracy implementation but recently this tolerance condition facing up some problems after regional election. In this case, religion issue takes a main role for the Indonesian political system which is managed into tolerance breaker especially for local democracy. The election of Jakarta’s Governor 2017 can be said as the momentum for the people to rethink the democracy and tolerance meaning. It begins from one of the governor candidates who makes statement about the majority religion and unfortunately the candidate comes from the minority. The statement emerges into a new social movement based on religiosity. Basically, the social movement which is coordinated by Islamic Defender Front (Front Pembela Islam or FPI) and National Movement to Safeguard the Fatwa-Indonesian Ulama Council (GNPF-MUI) want to demand the justice in the name of blasphemy. The action continuously happens in different names (Action 411, 212, etc.). So, this article analyzes the new phenomenon and how does the impact for the tolerance and democracy life in Indonesia. The method is using qualitative method by review of literature and media content analysis. Results show this phenomenon potentially spreading new conflicts far beyond the goal of the action itself; justice. It makes the conflicts more complex after there are actions such as; Parade Kebhinekaan and Aksi Lilin which contrary reacts to the actions before. These actions and reactions rise up the sensitive issues for Indonesia like religions, Pancasila, unity in diversity, ethnics, and races. At the same time raising skepticism; will it be over after the candidate is getting sentenced or becomes the dangerous latent conflict that will threaten tolerance and democracy in Indonesia.

Keywords: conflict, democracy, religion, tolerance

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Authors: An-Shik Yang, Chih-Yung Wen, Chiang-Ho Cheng, Yu-Hsuan Juan

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The objective of this study is to conduct computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations for evaluating the cooling efficacy from vegetation implanted in a public park in the Taipei, Taiwan. To probe the impacts of park renewal by means of adding three pavilions and supplementary green areas on urban microclimates, the simulated results have revealed that the park having a higher percentage of green coverage ratio (GCR) tended to experience a better cooling effect. These findings can be used to explore the effects of different greening modifications on urban environments for achieving an effective thermal comfort in urban public spaces.

Keywords: CFD simulations, Green Coverage Ratio, Urban heat island, Urban Public Park

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Authors: Bade-Afuye Toyin Beatrice

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Nigeria, as a multi-cultural nation, boasts of many festivals, many of which are found in the six geo-political zones of the country. One of the major festivals that bring together the Nigerian citizens as one entity is the National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST), organized by the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC). The festival is celebrated yearly in ways that are unique to Nigerians and culture enthusiasts locally and abroad. The festival has equally boosted the Nigerian economy through tourism promotion and culture preservation. This study shall adopt the cultural identity theory. The theory will be used to examine the festival as a platform that showcases culture, which represents the totality of the ways and lives of the Nigerian people. To achieve this, the researcher shall gather data as a participant-observer during the festival, which featured elements such as costume, make-up, dance, drama, children's theatre, fashion parade, local cuisines, local games, music, props, acrobatic displays, trade fair among others. These elements are the cultural aesthetics of the festival, thereby creating spectacles and colours in unique styles by each of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT Abuja. The study particularly examines the 2021 edition of NAFEST hosted by the Ekiti State Government. The study reveals that the festival is a unique multi-ethnic event that brings together Nigerians and their kinsmen in the diaspora. NAFEST has equally provided a good opportunity to showcase the rich cultural heritage of the Ekiti people and the economic values of their products and materials. The paper, therefore, concludes that the National Festival of Arts and Culture has over the years promoted national unity and social integration among Nigerians.

Keywords: colours, culture, spectacle, NAFEST

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Authors: Mei-Hsia Dai

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Venerable Master Di-Chiao has been devoted all her life practicing the Earth Store Bodhisattva’s spirit and is one of the greatest masters in modern Buddhism. All Buddha and Bodhisattvas pay great respect to the Earth Store Bodhisattva because He vowed that He would not become Buddha until the hell is empty, and He would only achieve Bodhi until all sentient beings have been saved. The aim of this study is to investigate Venerable Master Di-Chiao, who actualizes the Buddha’s teaching and practices the Earth Store Bodhisattva’s compassion and apply them to help people. In fact, she has integrated her learning to teach people how to eliminate their karmic suffering with her close attention and full effort, even though she would be hurt all over or she had to sacrifice her own life. This qualitative research gathers data in terms of a field study, including an interview with Venerable Master Di-Chiao, a book about the Master and three books about true stories of people saved by the Master, and about 300 online feedbacks from her disciples and followers explaining how they were helped by the Master through their difficulties, together with a year-long observation at the Dharma services held in Taipei Di-Zang Temple. This article is divided into four parts: The first part depicts Master Di-Chiao’s original intent of being a nun and her three-step-one-bow pilgrimage experience around Taiwan. Part two illustrates the invitation of the Master’s being the Abbess of Tsiang-Te Temple, which was designated by Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara in a manager’s dream of the temple, and many unexpected difficulties ahead of the cultivation in the Master’s Buddha Path. In addition to maintenance of Tsiang-Te Temple, the third part will discuss the purpose of founding Taipei Di-Zang Temple, in which the Master always tries her best with various methods to cultivate good seeds for her disciples and followers and watches out for their karma and does her utmost effort to help them overcome it. The final part will briefly explain the Three Buddhalization: Buddhist wedding, Buddhist prenatal education and Buddhist family, which the Master has been advocating and considers them the essence of constructing a harmonious society and having a meaningful and enlightening life. Extraordinary results of practicing the Three Buddhalization will be given. Findings show that Master’s Di-Chiao’s actualization of Buddha’s teaching and Bodhisattva’s compassion is incredibly amazing and powerful, and she has helped countless people to conquer their difficulties and purify their evil habits. With the Master’s assistance and their hardworking and faith to the Master’s teaching, some of her disciples and followers have gone to the Maitreya Inside Realm, where the future Buddha has resided, and continue their cultivation. True stories will be presented to illuminate the incredibility of the Master’s compassion, her brevity and perseverance in the course of the Buddhahood. Venerable Master Di-Chiao is the embodiment of the Earth Store Bodhisattva for her disciples and followers.

Keywords: compassion, the Earth Store Bodhisattva, three Buddhalization, venerable Master Di-Chiao

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Authors: Candy Chieh Lee

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Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between visual perception and social function in patients with schizophrenia. The specific aims are: 1) To explore performances in visual perception and social function in patients with schizophrenia 2) to examine the correlation between visual perceptual skills and social function in patients with schizophrenia The long-term goal is to be able to provide the most adequate intervention program for promoting patients’ visual perceptual skills and social function, as well as compensatory techniques. Background: Perceptual deficits in schizophrenia have been well documented in the visual system. Clinically, a considerable portion (up to 60%) of schizophrenia patients report distorted visual experiences such as visual perception of motion, color, size, and facial expression. Visual perception is required for the successful performance of most activities of daily living, such as dressing, making a cup of tea, driving a car and reading. On the other hand, patients with schizophrenia usually exhibit psychotic symptoms such as auditory hallucination and delusions which tend to alter their perception of reality and affect their quality of interpersonal relationship and limit their participation in various social situations. Social function plays an important role in the prognosis of patients with schizophrenia; lower social functioning skills can lead to poorer prognosis. Investigations on the relationship between social functioning and perceptual ability in patients with schizophrenia are relatively new but important as the results could provide information for effective intervention on visual perception and social functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: We recruited 50 participants with schizophrenia in the mental health hospital (Taipei City Hospital, Songde branch, Taipei, Taiwan) acute ward. Participants who have signed consent forms, diagnosis of schizophrenia and having no organic vision deficits were included. Participants were administered the test of visual-perceptual skills (non-motor), third edition (TVPS-3) and the personal and social performance scale (PSP) for assessing visual perceptual skill and social function. The assessments will take about 70-90 minutes to complete. Data Analysis: The IBM SPSS 21.0 will be used to perform the statistical analysis. First, descriptive statistics will be performed to describe the characteristics and performance of the participants. Lastly, Pearson correlation will be computed to examine the correlation between PSP and TVPS-3 scores. Results: Significant differences were found between the means of participants’ TVPS-3 raw scores of each subtest with the age equivalent raw score provided by the TVPS-3 manual. Significant correlations were found between all 7 subtests of TVPS-3 and PSP total score. Conclusions: The results showed that patients with schizophrenia do exhibit visual perceptual deficits and is correlated social functions. Understanding these facts of patients with schizophrenia can assist health care professionals in designing and implementing adequate rehabilitative treatment according to patients’ needs.

Keywords: occupational therapy, social function, schizophrenia, visual perception

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Authors: Alan Berman, Mark Brady

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The phenomenon of homophobia and transphobia in the United States detrimentally impacts the health, wellbeing, and dignity of school students who identify with the LGBTQ+ community. These negative impacts also compromise the participation of LGBTQ+ individuals in the wider life of educational domains and endanger the potential economic, social and cultural contribution this community can make to American society. The recent 6:3 majority decision of the US Supreme Court in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization expressly overruled the 1973 decision in Roe v Wade and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision. This study will canvass the bases upon which the court in Dobbs overruled longstanding precedent established in Roe and Casey. It will examine the potential implications for the LGBTQ community of the result in Dobbs. The potential far-reaching consequences of this case are foreshadowed in a concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, suggesting the Court should revisit all substantive due process cases. This includes notably the Lawrence v Texas case (invalidating sodomy laws criminalizing same-sex relations) and the Obergefellcase (upholding same-sex marriage). Finally, the study will examine the likely impact of the uncertainty brought about by the decision in Doddsfor LGBTQ students in US educational institutions. The actions of several states post-Dobbs, reflects and exacerbates the problems facing LGBTQ+ students and uncovers and highlights societal homophobia and transphobia.

Keywords: human rights, LGBT rights, right to personal dignity and autonomy, substantive due process rights

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Authors: David Nchinda Keming

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The present study is focused on both the national and international collective fight against Boko Haram terrorism on Cameroon and the rule played by the Lake Chad Basin Countries (LCBCs) and the global community to suffocate the sect’s activities in the region. Although countries of the Lake Chad Basin include: Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger others like Benin also joined the course. The justification for the internationalisation of the fight against Boko Haram could be explained by the ecological and international climatic importance of the Lake Chad and the danger posed by the sect not only to the Lake Chad member countries but to global armed, civil servants and the international political economy. The study, therefore, kick start with Cameroon’s reaction to Boko Haram’s terrorist attacks on its territory. It further expounds on Cameroon’s request on bilateral diplomacy from members of the UN Security Council for an international collective support to staple the winds of the challenging sect. The study relies on the hypothesis that Boko Haram advanced terrorism on Cameroon was more challenging to the domestic military intelligence thus forcing the government to seek for bilateral and multilateral international collective support to secure its territory from the powerful sect. This premise is tested internationally via (multilateral cooperation, bilateral response, regional cooperation) and domestically through (solidarity parade, religious discourse, political manifestations, war efforts, the vigilantes and the way forward). To accomplish our study, we made used of the mixed research methodologies to interpret the primary, secondary and tertiary sources consulted. Our results reveal that the collective response was effectively positive justified by the drastic drop in the sect’s operations in Cameroon and the whole LCBCs. Although the sect was incapacitated, terrorism remains an international malaise and Cameroon hosts a fertile ground for terrorists’ activism. Boko Haram was just weakened and not completely defeated and could reappear someday even under a different appellation. Therefore, to absolutely eradicate terrorism in general and Boko Haram in particular, LCBCs must improve their military intelligence on terrorism and continue to collaborate with advanced experienced countries in fighting terrorism.

Keywords: Boko Haram, terrorism, domestic, international, response

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Authors: Azusa Katsumata

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Several universities in Japan have introduced activities aimed at the mutual enlightenment of a diversity of people in career education. However, several programs emphasize on delivering results, and on practicing the prepared materials as planned. Few programs focus on unexpected failures and setbacks. This way of learning is important in career education so that classmates can help each other, overcome difficulties, draw out each other’s strengths, and learn from them. Seijo University in Tokyo offered excursion focusing Various Problems of Society, as second year career education course, Students will learn about contraception, infertility, homeless people, LGBT, and they will discuss based on the excursion. This paper aims to study the ‘learning platform’ created by a series of processes such as the excursion, the discussion, and the presentation. In this course, students looked back on their lives and imagined the future in concrete terms, performing tasks in groups. The students came across a range of values through lectures and conversations, thereby developing feelings of self-efficacy. We conducted a questionnaire to measure the development of career in class. From the results of the questionnaire, we can see, in the example of this class, that students respected diversity and understood the importance of uncertainty and discontinuity. Whereas the students developed career awareness, they actually did not come across that scene and would do so only in the future when it became necessary. In this class, students consciously considered social problems, but did not develop the practical skills necessary to deal with these. This is appropriate for one of project, but we need to consider how this can be incorporated into future courses. University constitutes only a single period in life-long career formation. Thus, further research may be indicated to determine whether the positive effects of career education at university continue to contribute to individual careers going forward.

Keywords: career education of university, excursion, learning platform, problems of society

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Authors: Yu Cheng-Yu

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‘Heterotopia’, ‘Visual Cultural Art Education’ and ‘New Media’ of these three subjects seemingly are irrelevant. In fact, there are synchronicity and intertextuality inside. In addition to visual culture, art education inspires students the ability to reflect on popular culture image through visual culture teaching strategies in school. We should get involved in the community to construct the learning environment that conveys visual culture art. This thesis attempts to probe the heterogeneity of space and value from Michel Foucault and to research sustainable development strategy in ‘New Media Art Village’ heterogeneity from Jean Baudrillard, Marshall McLuhan's media culture theory and social construction ideology. It is possible to find a new media group that can convey ‘Visual Culture Art Education’ around the National Taipei University of Technology in this commercial district that combines intelligent technology, fashion, media, entertainment, art education, and marketing network. Let the imagination and innovation of ‘New Media Art Village’ become ‘implementable’ and new media Heterotopia of inter-subjectivity with the engagement of big data and digital media. Visual culture art education will also bring aesthetics into the community by New Media Art Village.

Keywords: social construction, heterogeneity, new media, big data, visual culture art education

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