Experiences of international students from the new southbound policy countries in Taiwan : their motivations and negotiations of cultural differences

This study investigated international students from countries involved in the New Southbound Policy. We explored the motivations for why they chose to come to Taiwan and their strategies in adapting to a new culture. We recruited 23 students using purposive and snowball sampling. Data were collected using the qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews. Academic and economic considerations were the largest pull factors. Specifically, academic considerations constituted a large pull factor among students from developing countries in South and Southeast Asia. However, for students from developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, the academic environment in Taiwanese institutions of higher education was not the most attractive factor. Compared with students from other regions, social factors and the influence of alumni networks had a larger influence on students from Southeast Asian countries (especially Malaysian students, but not Singaporean students). The influence of cultural factors varied widely depending on whether the student was a degree-seeking student or was of Chinese ethnicity. For degree-seeking students, too many cultural and language differences may have a negative influence on their decision to study in Taiwan. For non-degree-seeking students, such differences engender a perception of Taiwan as exotic and represent a learning opportunity, thus constituting a pull factor. Moreover, because overseas Chinese students are, on average, more conversant in Chinese, cultural similarity is a pull factor. For non-Chinese students, their Chinese language proficiency is a major consideration. With regard to adapting to life in Taiwan, most students reported adapting well. However, differences in culture, dietary habits, and language were challenges for some students. This study also discovered that students establish individualized adaptation strategies for dealing with challenges during study in Taiwan. These strategies facilitate cultural exchange by blurring cultural boundaries, thereby enhancing their learning competence and acceptance of cultural differences

Work, Life, and Identity Negotiation in a Foreign Land: A Study of Taiwanese Working Holiday Makers in Belgium

This study examined the living and working experiences of 14 Taiwanese working holiday makers (WHMs) in Belgium as they negotiate their identity and social lives while they live overseas, using both participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The study demonstrates that the low salary level and high work pressure in Taiwan are two of the major factors pushing these young Taiwanese to leave their homeland and work overseas. However, the majority of these Taiwanese WHMs face difficulties in speaking Belgium’s local languages, and their opportunities for work are further limited by the temporary visa regulations. Workplaces run by mainland Chinese, especially in the hospitality industry, have become vital places for Taiwanese WHMs to negotiate their ethnonational identity. Although they only have limited social lives and networks in the host society, they claim that they have developed intercultural competences and a greater open-mindedness by living in the multicultural and international environments of Brussels or other Belgian cities

Decoration of graphene nanoribbons by 5d5d transition-metal elements

Graphene is a famous truly two-dimensional (2D) material, possessing a cone-like energy structure near the Fermi level and treated as a gapless semiconductor. Its unique properties trigger researchers to find applications of it. The gapless feature shrinks the development of graphene nanoelectronics. Making one-dimensional (1D) strips of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) could be one of the promising routes to modulating the electronic and optical properties of graphene. The electronic and optical properties of GNRs are highly sensitive to the edge and width. The tunability in electronic and optical properties further implies the possibilities of GNR application. However, the dangling bonds at ribbon edges remain an open question in GNR systems. Various passivation at the ribbon edge might change the essential physical properties. In this work, $5d$ transition-metal elements are considered as the guest atoms at the edges. The geometric structure, energy bands, density of states, charge distribution, and optical transitions are discussed

Topological and organizational properties of the products of house-keeping and tissue-specific genes in protein-protein interaction networks

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human cells of various tissue types differ greatly in morphology despite having the same set of genetic information. Some genes are expressed in all cell types to perform house-keeping functions, while some are selectively expressed to perform tissue-specific functions. In this study, we wished to elucidate how proteins encoded by human house-keeping genes and tissue-specific genes are organized in human protein-protein interaction networks. We constructed protein-protein interaction networks for different tissue types using two gene expression datasets and one protein-protein interaction database. We then calculated three network indices of topological importance, the degree, closeness, and betweenness centralities, to measure the network position of proteins encoded by house-keeping and tissue-specific genes, and quantified their local connectivity structure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared to a random selection of proteins, house-keeping gene-encoded proteins tended to have a greater number of directly interacting neighbors and occupy network positions in several shortest paths of interaction between protein pairs, whereas tissue-specific gene-encoded proteins did not. In addition, house-keeping gene-encoded proteins tended to connect with other house-keeping gene-encoded proteins in all tissue types, whereas tissue-specific gene-encoded proteins also tended to connect with other tissue-specific gene-encoded proteins, but only in approximately half of the tissue types examined.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our analysis showed that house-keeping gene-encoded proteins tend to occupy important network positions, while those encoded by tissue-specific genes do not. The biological implications of our findings were discussed and we proposed a hypothesis regarding how cells organize their protein tools in protein-protein interaction networks. Our results led us to speculate that house-keeping gene-encoded proteins might form a core in human protein-protein interaction networks, while clusters of tissue-specific gene-encoded proteins are attached to the core at more peripheral positions of the networks.</p

A New Seamless Bitstream Switching Scheme for H.264 Video Adaptation with Enhanced Coding Performance

[[abstract]]In this paper, we propose a new seamless bitstream switching scheme to improve the coding performance of H.264 SP-frames for rate adaptation. Our method removes one of the two re-quantization blocks in the SP-frame encoders so as to significantly improve coding performance. The seamless switching property of SP-frames is retained by properly restructuring the primary and secondary switching frame codecs. Experimental results show that our proposed scheme achieves close coding performance to that of regular H.264 P-frames and significantly better performance than that of SP-frames. The proposed method also provides the advantage of using a single secondary switching bitstream for both switching-up and switching-down processes[[fileno]]2030144030014[[department]]電機工程學