Exchange of Terms of Address: Nicknaming Practices among University Students in Taiwan

Unlike personal names (first name and surname), nicknames may vary from time to time and even from group to group depending on familiarity and relations between interlocutors or amongst group members. This paper examines use of nicknames in different communities of practice where members are well-acquainted enough to nickname each other based on personal names (internal variations) or personal features (external variations). The research is conducted in two universities in Taiwan: Tamkang University and National Taiwan University. Students who have constructed a community of practice are observed in their regular activities. Nicknaming practices are analysed and compared against Liao’s (2000, 2006) study of Taiwan-Chinese nicknaming patterns.In this study, the framework of community of practice is adopted in recruiting the subjects and addressing issues regarding gender. With this social theory, we are able to look at how nicknaming practices reveal identity issues of membership in a community of practice. From a sociolinguistic point of view, nicknaming represents a process of constructing individual identities within a group (Thornborrow 2004) and it is also the outcome of social interaction and learning. Membership of a community of practice is indexed by being able to recognise each other’s nicknames as well as other linguistic conventions. The results show that each community of practice has its own in-group knowledge that is exclusively understood by the members

A WORLD OF PARADOX: IS THAT THE PUBLIC STATEMENT OR PRIVATE TALK IN VIRTUAL COMMUNITY?

Past studies mostly suggest that virtual community be the platform especially applicable for private exchange because people express themselves through hiding their real images and identities in online interaction. On the other hand, the anonymously private opinions at cyberspace are easily cited and forwarded as public ones because of the powerful search engines and hyperlink connections of internet. We consider that both public and private aspects coexist in the interaction of virtual community. This study is conducted as an interpretive research and uses the views of “front region” and “back region” in dramaturgical theory to unobtrusively observe a virtual community. We analyze the data upon hermeneutic circle to find out that the point of reference of the stage in virtual community is shaky. The virtual community can be both public and private channel at the same time just as the front region and back region overlapping. We also expect that the administrative team of every virtual community recognize the subject matter and elaborate an appropriate online environment for their members

A Study of Mazuism Religious Tourism in Taiwan: an Example of Dajia Jenn Lann Temple

Although the study of Mazuism has been popular among scholars, few have attempted to touch upon its religious tourist behaviour; however, as the purpose of their travel is to worship at the Mazu Temple, it is thus, a tourism destination. Therefore, from the perspective of religious sustainable operation, it is important to understand the tourist behavior patterns of religious tourists visiting Mazu Temple. The purpose of this study is to analyze the interrelationships between destination image, service quality, perceived value, satisfaction, and behavioural intention. This study is conducted with convenience sampling methods for tourists visiting Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, Taichung, Taiwan, and a total of 408 valid questionnaires are obtained. The valid questionnaires collected in this study are statistically analysed using descriptive statistics and PLS. The results show that destination image, service quality, perceived value, and satisfaction have positive impacts on tourists’ behavioural intention. According to the results of the above analysis, this study constructs a religious tourism behaviour model of Mazu believers and gives management advice to the Mazu Temple

How do Agency Problems Affect the Implied Cost of Capital?

We test the relationship between the implied cost of capital and two agency problems, free cash flows and overinvestment. We show that free cash flows have a significant negative impact on the implied cost of capital, but overinvestment has a significantly positive impact. In addition, the pay-for-performance sensitivity has a negative effect but the sensitivity of volatility has a significantly positive effect on the implied cost of capital. After taking the incentives into account, we find that the significance of the impact from both agency problems still exists. Finally, we conclude that well-designed executive compensation should focus on reducing overinvestment and the sensitivity of volatility

End-to-end thiocyanato-bridged helical chain polymer and dichlorido-bridged copper(II) complexes with a hydrazone ligand: synthesis, characterisation by electron paramagnetic resonance and variable- temperature magnetic studies, and inhibitory effects on human colorectal carcinoma cells

The reactions of the tridentate hydrazone ligand, N’-[1-(pyridin-2-yl)ethylidene]acetohydrazide (HL), obtained by condensation of 2-acetylpyridine with acetic hyadrazide, with copper nitrate trihydrate in the presence of thiocyanate, or with CuCl2 produce two distinct coordination compounds, namely a one-dimensional helical coordination chain of [CuL(NCS)]n (1) units, and a doubly chlorido-bridged dinuclear complex [Cu2L2Cl2] (2) (where L=CH3C(O)=N − N=CCH3C5H4N). Single-crystal X-ray structural determination studies reveal that in complex 1, a deprotonated hydrazone ligand L- coordinates a copper(II) ion that is bridged to two neighbouring metal centres by SCN- anions, generating a one-dimensional helical coordination chain. In complex 2, two symmetry-related, adjacent copper(II) coordination entities are doubly chlorido-bridged, producing a dicopper entity with a Cu···Cu distance of 3.402 (1). The two coordination compounds have been fully characterised by elemental analysis, spectroscopic techniques including IR, UV– vis and electron paramagnetic resonance, and variable-temperature magnetic studies. The biological effects of 1 and 2 on the viability of human colorectal carcinoma cells (COLO-205 and HT-29) were evaluated using an MTT assay, and the results indicate that these complexes induce a decrease in cell-population growth of human colorectal carcinoma cells with apoptosis

A Model for the Instructional Factors of Curatorial Teaching in Design Education

The increased demand for design exhibitions directly reflects the demand for designer-curators to manage cultural policies and social needs. However, in the current design education system in Taiwan, no curation-related curriculum planning exists. Therefore, this study attempted to design a practical curation course focused on “designer curated exhibition” experiential learning. This study encouraged design students to consider the formation of exhibitions from a comprehensive point of view. The teaching and learning process gave rise to a model of the instructional factors of curatorial education. We found a positive correlation between “learning process and motive” and “learning effectiveness.” Moreover, positive correlations were observed between “curation theories,” “learning processes and motives,” and “curatorial experience.” This demonstrates that curatorial practice increases the curator’s ability to apply curatorial theory, and excites the curator’s motivation to learn. However, the performance of self-evaluation reflects a lack of self-confidence and recognition; this lack may be caused by the restrictions of time and space, and by the complexity of curating teamwork communication. This model will continuously be translated and validated through the curriculum in the future, and the course will encourage students’ self-learning to enhance practical teaching and planning

A systematic approach to detecting transcription factors in response to environmental stresses

Abstract Background Eukaryotic cells have developed mechanisms to respond to external environmental or physiological changes (stresses). In order to increase the activities of stress-protection functions in response to an environmental change, the internal cell mechanisms need to induce certain specific gene expression patterns and pathways by changing the expression levels of specific transcription factors (TFs). The conventional methods to find these specific TFs and their interactivities are slow and laborious. In this study, a novel efficient method is proposed to detect the TFs and their interactivities that regulate yeast genes that respond to any specific environment change. Results For each gene expressed in a specific environmental condition, a dynamic regulatory model is constructed in which the coefficients of the model represent the transcriptional activities and interactivities of the corresponding TFs. The proposed method requires only microarray data and information of all TFs that bind to the gene but it has superior resolution than the current methods. Our method not only can find stress-specific TFs but also can predict their regulatory strengths and interactivities. Moreover, TFs can be ranked, so that we can identify the major TFs to a stress. Similarly, it can rank the interactions between TFs and identify the major cooperative TF pairs. In addition, the cross-talks and interactivities among different stress-induced pathways are specified by the proposed scheme to gain much insight into protective mechanisms of yeast under different environmental stresses. Conclusion In this study, we find significant stress-specific and cell cycle-controlled TFs via constructing a transcriptional dynamic model to regulate the expression profiles of genes under different environmental conditions through microarray data. We have applied this TF activity and interactivity detection method to many stress conditions, including hyper- and hypo- osmotic shock, heat shock, hydrogen peroxide and cell cycle, because the available expression time profiles for these conditions are long enough. Especially, we find significant TFs and cooperative TFs responding to environmental changes. Our method may also be applicable to other stresses if the gene expression profiles have been examined for a sufficiently long time.</p

Modeling expression quantitative trait loci in data combining ethnic populations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Combining data from different ethnic populations in a study can increase efficacy of methods designed to identify expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) compared to analyzing each population independently. In such studies, however, the genetic diversity of minor allele frequencies among populations has rarely been taken into account. Due to the fact that allele frequency diversity and population-level expression differences are present in populations, a consensus regarding the optimal statistical approach for analysis of eQTL in data combining different populations remains inconclusive.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this report, we explored the applicability of a constrained two-way model to identify eQTL for combined ethnic data that might contain genetic diversity among ethnic populations. In addition, gene expression differences resulted from ethnic allele frequency diversity between populations were directly estimated and analyzed by the constrained two-way model. Through simulation, we investigated effects of genetic diversity on eQTL identification by examining gene expression data pooled from normal quantile transformation of each population. Using the constrained two-way model to reanalyze data from Caucasians and Asian individuals available from HapMap, a large number of eQTL were identified with similar genetic effects on the gene expression levels in these two populations. Furthermore, 19 single nucleotide polymorphisms with inter-population differences with respect to both genotype frequency and gene expression levels directed by genotypes were identified and reflected a clear distinction between Caucasians and Asian individuals.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study illustrates the influence of minor allele frequencies on common eQTL identification using either separate or combined population data. Our findings are important for future eQTL studies in which different datasets are combined to increase the power of eQTL identification.</p