Imagined Communities: The Individual and the Nation in Aw\u27s Map of the Invisible World and Rushdie\u27s Midnight\u27s Children

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the individual and the nation in Tash Aw’s Map of the Invisible Worldand Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Incorporated Benedict Anderson’s theory of “imagined communities” into the reading of both of the novels, this thesis discusses the limitation of nationalism and the imagination of individuals, aiming to show that it is the diversity of a nation that turns the stagnant imagined communities into fluid imagining communities

A ultra-wideband monopole antenna for wireless applications

[[abstract]]This paper proposes a 3.1-5 GHz UWB antenna, defined by a -10 dB return loss. The simplified planar antenna structures, compact size and low profile make it profitable to the application of the embedded antenna in wireless USB dongle devices. For reducing manufacture cost and practical fabrication, we also propose a simplified rectangular antenna structure. It is found wideband characteristics of the simplified rectangular structure antenna are similar to that of semi-circular base structure. Finally the antenna prototypes are fabricated and the antenna characteristics are measured. The radiation patterns are omni-directional in azimuth cut. Moreover, the S parameter of antenna characteristics has been measured. The consistency between the simulated results and the measurement results confirm the practicability of these techniques.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20100621~20100626[[conferencelocation]]Kharkiv, Ukrainia

Computer Assisted Language Learning Based on Corpora and Natural Language Processing : The Experience of Project CANDLE

This paper describes Project CANDLE, an ongoing 3-year project which uses various corpora and NLP technologies to construct an online English learning environment for learners in Taiwan. This report focuses on the interim results obtained in the first eighteen months. First, an English-Chinese parallel corpus, Sinorama, was used as the main course material for reading, writing, and culture-based learning courses. Second, an online bilingual concordancer, TotalRecall, and a collocation reference tool, TANGO, were developed based on Sinorama and other corpora. Third, many online lessons, including extensive reading, verb-noun collocations, and vocabulary, were designed to be used alone or together with TotalRecall and TANGO. Fourth, an online collocation check program, MUST, was developed for detecting V-N miscollocation and suggesting adequate collocates in student’s writings based on the hypothesis of L1 interference and the database of BNC and the bilingual Sinorama Corpus. Other computational scaffoldings are under development. It is hoped that this project will help intermediate learners in Taiwan enhance their English proficiency with effective pedagogical approaches and versatile language reference tools

Estimating the Impacts of Climate Change on Mortality in OECD Countries

The major contribution of this study is to combines both climatic and macroeconomic factors simultaneously in the estimation of mortality using the capital city of 22 OECD countries from the period 1990 to 2008. The empirical results provide strong evidences that higher income and a lower unemployment rate could reduce mortality rates, while the increases in precipitation and temperature variation have significantly positive impacts on the mortality rates. The effects of changing average temperature on mortality rates in summer and winter are asymmetrical and also depend on the location. Combining the future climate change scenarios with the estimation outcomes show that mortality rates in OECD countries in 2100 will be increased by 3.77% to 5.89%.Climate change; mortality; panel data model

An Intelligent Auxiliary Vacuum Brake System

The purpose of this paper focuses on designing an intelligent, compact, reliable, and robust auxiliary vacuum brake system (VBS) with Kalman filter and self-diagnosis scheme. All of the circuit elements in the designed system are integrated into one programmable system-on-chip (PSoC) with entire computational algorithms implemented by software. In this system, three main goals are achieved: (a) Kalman filter and hysteresis controller algorithms are employed within PSoC chip by software to surpass the noises and disturbances from hostile surrounding in a vehicle. (b) Self-diagnosis scheme is employed to identify any breakdown element of the auxiliary vacuum brake system. (c) Power MOSFET is utilized to implement PWM pump control and compared with relay control. More accurate vacuum pressure control has been accomplished as well as power energy saving. In the end, a prototype has been built and tested to confirm all of the performances claimed above