Imaging and Imagining Taiwan: Identity representation and cultural politics

Since the 1990s the issue of identity has been one of the most prominent and hotly-debated topics in Taiwan Studies. A rich corpus of literature has been produced in various fields in the attempt to address this problematic issue, examining questions of Taiwanese identity from political, social and cultural perspectives. Imaging and Imagining Taiwan takes a fresh approach to this important topic, examining Taiwanese identity from a visual perspective and exploring the ways in which the island is presented and imagined. In contrast to those studies that seek to address the issue of identity from an essentialist position, Imaging and Imagining Taiwan offers a new contextualization of identity, investigating the ways in which Taiwan has been represented in films, fine art, advertising, sport, and social spaces at different periods in history. Covering a diverse range of topics, the book aims to capture the fluidity, changeability, fragmentation and dynamism of Taiwanese identity as an imaginary and encompassing whole. Through seven case studies the book focuses on the ways in which Taiwan is represented, how this relates to identity politics, and how the island is imaged and imagined visually, socially, and symbolically. The essays comprising this collection are grouped into three sections, each of which focuses on a particular approach to the topic of Taiwanese identity. The first of these —Colonial Representation —deals with colonial subjectivity and traumatic experience. The second, entitled Imaging Difference, examines cultural practices in film, TV advertisements and fine art, and explores the boundaries between the inside and the outside, the difference marked by the process of othering, and the anxiety and alienation of the excluded. The third section—Identity and Place—focuses on the relationship between identity and the social construction of place, and examines the role of place-making in the new Taiwanese nation-building process. Interrogating the complex issue of Taiwanese identity from various standpoints, the seven contributors write from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (Literature, History, Film Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology and Cultural Studies) and geographical contexts (Taiwan, Europe and America). This combination of fresh perspectives and a range of disciplinary approaches offers a set of diverse yet complementary insights into how Taiwan has been envisioned and imagined, and how the Taiwanese have positioned and identified themselves at different times. By combining different themes and disciplinary approaches together in one publication, Imaging and Imagining Taiwan brings both nuance and depth to the discussion of the representation of Taiwanese identity. The book articulates and examines the complexity of identity, avoiding essentialist approaches to the topic, instead illustrating identity's multi-faceted nature and dynamic messiness. Thus, the book argues, the politics of identity is not only a politics of representation, but also a politics of positioning, whereby identity is formulated both by the construction of sameness and the inscription of difference. The interdisciplinary approach adopted by this book makes the discussion of Taiwanese identity of interest to those both studying and working in a range of subject disciplines, not limited to Taiwan Studies, but also in History, Film, Linguistics, Literary Studies, Nationalism Studies, and Urban Studies

One-year cardiovascular outcomes of drug-eluting stent versus bare-metal stent implanted in diabetic patients with acute coronary syndrome

AbstractBackgroundThe outcomes of drug-eluting stent (DES) versus bare-metal stent (BMS) use in patients with diabetic mellitus (DM) and acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are rarely reported in Taiwan. This study aimed to investigate the 1-year cardiovascular outcomes of DESs versus BMSs implanted in Taiwanese patients with DM and ACS.MethodsFor this study, we collected and analyzed patient information from the database of the Taiwan ACS Full Spectrum registry regarding characteristics and cardiovascular events in participants with DM and ACS who received implantation of either BMS (BMS group) or DES (DES group) from October 2008 to January 2010.ResultsWe found that several characteristics significantly varied between the groups. Compared with the BMS group (n = 575), the DES group (n = 199) had significantly lower rates of in-hospital cardiogenic shock (1.5% vs. 4.9%, p = 0.037) and acute renal failure (0.5% vs. 4.5%, p = 0.008), all-cause mortality (5.0% vs. 8.9%, p = 0.048), and major adverse cardiac events (MACEs) at 1 year (11.1% vs. 18.6%, p = 0.006) with an identical target vessel revascularization (TVR) rate (6.0% vs. 7.3%, p = 0.395). The BMS group had significantly higher risk-adjusted all-cause mortality [hazard ratio (HR) = 2.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0–5.7; p = 0.048] and MACE (HR = 2.2, 95% CI 1.2–3.9; p = 0.011) at 1 year with identical risks of TVR (HR = 1.3, 95% CI 0.6–2.9; p = 0.505) and nonfatal myocardial infarction (HR = 1.5, 95% CI 0.5–4.4; p = 0.478).ConclusionThe results of this study support the use of DES over BMS in Taiwanese patients with DM and ACS, providing the clinical benefits of lower rates of total mortality and MACE, and without increased TVR at 1 year in a real-world setting

Is FS Tau B Driving an Asymmetric Jet?

FS Tau B is one of the few T Tauri stars that possess a jet and a counterjet as well as an optically-visible cavity wall. We obtained images and spectra of its jet-cavity system in the near-infrared H and K bands using Subaru/IRCS and detected the jet and the counterjet in the [Fe II] 1.644 \mu m line for the first time. Within the inner 2" the blueshifted jet is brighter, whereas beyond ~ 5" the redshifted counterjet dominates the [Fe II] emission. The innermost blueshifted knot is spectrally resolved to have a large line width of ~ 110 km/s, while the innermost redshifted knot appears spectrally unresolved. The velocity ratio of the jet to the counterjet is ~ 1.34, which suggests that FS Tau B is driving an asymmetric jet, similar to those found in several T Tauri Stars. Combining with optical observations in the literature, we showed that the blueshifted jet has lower density and higher excitation than the redshifted counterjet. We suggest that the asymmetry in brightness and velocity is the manifestation of a bipolar outflow driving at different mass-loss rates, while maintaining balance of linear momentum. A full explanation to the asymmetry in the FS Tau B system awaits detail modeling and further investigation of the kinematic structure of the wind-associated cavity walls.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in ApJ. Aspect ratio changes for Fig.1