The tourism value of national heritages in the urban development in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

The heritages in a city could be considered as one of the important carriers represents urban culture. They are the media which the culture distribute and interchange, and the testimonies which recorded the historical and spatial transformation of the city in the past hundred years. They are also the witnesses of the glory and the fall of the city, and are also the witness of development process of the city. In Taiwan, cultural heritages, which had been built since almost 400 years ago and represented the different periods of the governances including Dutch, Qing Dynasty of China, and the Japanese, are preserved. Some of important cultural heritages had been designated as national heritages with its importance. While the tourism had been considered as the new trend of city development, the heritages in a city were also one of important elements of tourism. The promotion of the heritages tourism would also contribute to the competitiveness of a city. In this study, the cases in Kaohsiung City, a city full with the designated national heritages in southern part of Taiwan, would be analyzed. It will be also discussed that the tourism potential for these national heritages, and the tourism value within the development process of the city.Peer Reviewe

Subjective versus objective sleep outcomes in older adults with and without uncoupled sleep following online cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia

Background: Uncoupled sleep is a phenomenon characterised by a disconnect between sleep pattern and sleep complaint. This study examined the impact of uncoupled sleep on dysfunctional sleep beliefs and objective and subjective sleep outcomes in community-dwelling older adults following digitally delivered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) to assess how these groups respond to CBT-I. Methods: Objective sleep was measured using wrist actigraphy, subjective sleep quality via sleep diaries and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Dysfunctional sleep beliefs were assessed by the Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep scale (DBAS-16). All measurements were taken prior to and following a 4-week online CBT-I program. Linear mixed model and generalised linear mixed model analyses were conducted to examine objective and subjective sleep onset latency, total sleep time, wake after sleep onset and number of awakenings as well as PSQI and DBAS-16 scores, respectively. Results: Out of 80 enrolled participants, 62 participants (55 females, 89 %; 16 complaining good sleepers, 26 complaining poor sleepers, 11 non-complaining good sleepers, and nine non-complaining poor sleepers) completed the study. CBT-I reduced dysfunctional sleep beliefs across all sleeper classifications. Objective and self-reported changes in sleep parameters were demonstrated in complaining poor sleepers without uncoupled sleep. Complaining good sleepers with uncoupled sleep only reported a decrease in the number of subjective sleep awakenings. There were no changes in sleep outcomes in non-complaining good and non-complaining poor sleepers. Conclusions: Online CBT-I was effective in improving the sleep outcomes of individuals who had both subjective and objective poor sleep. However, as the online CBT-I reduced dysfunctional sleep beliefs in all sleep groups, further examination of dysfunctional sleep beliefs and whether they mediate the outcomes of digital CBT-I in older adults will need to be conducted

Binding of Features and Responses in Inhibition of Return: The Effects of Task Demand

Binding of target’s location and response has been demonstrated in inhibition of return (IOR). This study further investigated the effects of task demand on the binding of the target’s form to the target’s location and response in the target-target paradigm of IOR. Experiments 1 (detection task) and 2 (localization task), in which the target’s form was task irrelevant, suggested the binding of location and response. Experiment  3 (discrimination task), in which the target’s form was task relevant, showed the binding of target’s form, location, and response. These findings support the concept that the features and responses associated with a target are integrated into episodic representations or event files for the target event. Furthermore, task demand modulates the binding or retrieval of the event files

Could Fiscal Policies Overcome a Deep Recession at the Zero Lower Bound?

This paper sets up a New Keynesian model in which the monetary authority implements a zero lower bound interest rate policy, and uses it to explore whether the supportive fiscal instruments (including expansionary government spending, a payroll tax cut, and a financial assets tax cut) are effective in overcoming a deep recession. The salient feature of this study is that it provides a new dynamic viewpoint of regime switching by evaluating each of several supportive fiscal policies in terms of their performance in alleviating a deep recession. Two main findings emerge from the analysis. First, when the monetary authority implements the zero lower bound interest rate policy to dampen the negative natural rate shock, the economy will sink into a deep recession with deflation. Second, to overcome the deep recession, of the three supportive fiscal tools (i.e., expansionary government spending, a payroll tax cut, and a financial assets tax cut), only expansionary government spending is effective in alleviating the deep recession. More specifically, the implementation of fiscal policy in the form of either the payroll tax cut or the financial assets tax cut will only further deepen the recession

DETECTION OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION MANIPULATION BY AN ENSEMBLE-BASED MECHANISM

Abstract: Complicated financial information manipulation, involving heightened offender knowledge of transactional procedures, can be damaging to the reputations of corporations and the auditors, as well as cause serious turbulence in financial markets. Unfortunately, most incidents of financial information manipulation involve higher level managers who are truly knowledgeable and comprehend the limitations of standard auditing procedures. Thus, there is an urgent need for additional detection mechanisms to prevent financial information manipulation. To address this problem, the author proposes an ensemble-based mechanism (EM) consisting of feature selection and extraction ensemble and extreme learning machine (ELM). The model not only counters the redundancy-removing problem, but also gives direction to auditors who need to allocate limited audit resources to abnormal client relationships during the auditing procedure and protect the CPA firms' reputation. The experimental results demonstrate that the model is a promising alternative for detecting financial information manipulation, and one that can ensure both the confidence of investors and the stability of financial markets

Transplantation of Human Umbilical Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Wharton's Jelly after Complete Transection of the Rat Spinal Cord

BACKGROUND: Human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSCs) isolated from Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord can be easily obtained and processed compared with embryonic or bone marrow stem cells. These cells may be a valuable source in the repair of spinal cord injury. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We examine the effects of HUMSC transplantation after complete spinal cord transection in rats. Approximately 5x10(5) HUMSCs were transplanted into the lesion site. Three groups of rats were implanted with either untreated HUMSCs (referred to as the stem cell group), or HUMSCs treated with neuronal conditioned medium (NCM) for either three days or six days (referred to as NCM-3 and NCM-6 days, respectively). The control group received no HUMSCs in the transected spinal cord. Three weeks after transplantation, significant improvements in locomotion were observed in all the three groups receiving HUMSCs (stem cell, NCM-3 and NCM-6 days groups). This recovery was accompanied by increased numbers of regenerated axons in the corticospinal tract and neurofilament-positive fibers around the lesion site. There were fewer microglia and reactive astrocytes in both the rostral and caudal stumps of the spinal cord in the stem cell group than in the control group. Transplanted HUMSCs survived for 16 weeks and produced large amounts of human neutrophil-activating protein-2, neurotrophin-3, basic fibroblast growth factor, glucocorticoid induced tumor necrosis factor receptor, and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3 in the host spinal cord, which may help spinal cord repair. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Transplantation of HUMSCs is beneficial to wound healing after spinal cord injury in rats

Association between chronic viral hepatitis infection and breast cancer risk: a nationwide population-based case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Taiwan, there is a high incidence of breast cancer and a high prevalence of viral hepatitis. In this case-control study, we used a population-based insurance dataset to evaluate whether breast cancer in women is associated with chronic viral hepatitis infection.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From the claims data, we identified 1,958 patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer during the period 2000-2008. A randomly selected, age-matched cohort of 7,832 subjects without cancer was selected for comparison. Multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to calculate odds ratios of breast cancer associated with viral hepatitis after adjustment for age, residential area, occupation, urbanization, and income. The age-specific (<50 years and ≥50 years) risk of breast cancer was also evaluated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no significant differences in the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, hepatitis B virus (HBV), or the prevalence of combined HBC/HBV infection between breast cancer patients and control subjects (<it>p </it>= 0.48). Multivariable logistic regression analysis, however, revealed that age <50 years was associated with a 2-fold greater risk of developing breast cancer (OR = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.23-3.34).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>HCV infection, but not HBV infection, appears to be associated with early onset risk of breast cancer in areas endemic for HCV and HBV. This finding needs to be replicated in further studies.</p

Effects of Single and Blended Coating Pigments on the Inkjet Image Quality of Dye Sublimation Transfer Printed Paper: SiO 2

In this study, we investigated the effects on the image quality of CaCO3, SiO2, talc, and sericite on coated inkjet paper. The papers serve as dye sublimation transfer paper for printing on fabrics. The brightness, smoothness, and contact angle of the coated papers were evaluated. The papers were then printed with a textile color image evaluation test form, and the imprinted images were evaluated with respect to six criteria of the solid ink density, tone value increase, print contrast, ink trapping, grayness, and hue error. The overall printed image quality was correlated with the smoothness and brightness of the coated paper but showed no correlation with the contact angle. For single-pigment-coated papers, CaCO3 produced paper with the best color difference performance and could be substituted for silica. On the other hand, SiO2 was found to be suitable for blending with talc, calcium carbonate, and sericite, and its combination with these materials generally produced better image qualities than silica alone. Talc and sericite, when blended with silica as composite coating pigments, produced better printed image qualities than those as single-pigment-coated papers. The overall image quality ranking suggests that the best performance was achieved with CaCO3-, SiO2/talc-, CaCO3/SiO2-, SiO2/sericite-, and SiO2-coated papers