A case study on academic service-learning : enhance academic learning by servicing with a non-profit organization

Recently, we expect students in universities have the abilities of caring the community, understanding the community demands and solving the community problems. Researchers proposed papers in literature about that, to students, service-learning can promote their personal development, public relationship learning, understanding knowledge and applications. Therefore many courses in universities are designed to combine academic learning and community service such that students become to be resource providers and learning by initiative service. This paper presents the outcome of a course, the practical of ERP module, in which we integrated the service as a significant course requirement. Students learned academic knowledge in classroom and were required to run a project to implement the ERP system for a small-scaled non-profit organization, the Taichung City Deaf No Obstacle Association in Taiwan. This course was designed to follow three indexes: (1) relevant and meaning service with the community; (2) enhanced academic learning; (3) purposeful civic learning. The partnership between students and the non-profit organization is very suitable in this cooperation project because (1) to implement a regular ERP system including the consultant fee is too expensive to the organization; (2) students usually run a ERP implementation project by simulation such that they are short of the practical experiences. Based on the methodological strategies of qualitative inquiry, data were collected using a variety of techniques, including formal and informal interviews, surveys, participant observation, and document analysis. We interviewed the students and the CEO of the Taichung City Deaf No Obstacle Association in Taiwan. In this case study, we show that some practical and high professional courses are very suitable to run the academic service-learning project to the small-scaled non-profit organizations. Students can get practical experiences by service-learning and the organization without sufficient budget can be serviced by this project. Moreover, reflection, responsibility, and awareness of their social roles as citizens to students during the service-learning are the most important outcomes in this project

Managers\u27 Perceived Benefits of Using Electronic Procurement in Taiwan

Facing the competitive pressure from new hospitals and new regulations from the Bureau of National Health Insurance, hospital managers in Taiwan are concentrating on reducing the hospital operation costs and improving the healthcare quality. Practitioners and academic researchers agree that reducing the pharmacy cost is one of the best solutions to sustain competitive advantage. As electronic commerce becomes popular in many industry sectors, e- procurement is growing rapidly in the healthcare industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managers\u27 perceptions of benefits of using electronic procurement system. After surveying 152 hospitals in Taiwan, we find that hospital size and adoption status have significant influence on many perceived benefits. Managers in large hospitals show stronger confidence in the perceived benefits of using e-procurement than their counterparts of small hospitals

An Economy-wide Analysis of Impacts of WTO Tiered Formula for Tariff Reduction on Taiwan

In this study we use Taiwan as a case study to provide an economy-wide analysis of impacts on Taiwan of WTO tariff reduction schemes with different combinations of thresholds and reduction rates. The model we utilized in this study is Taiwan General Equilibrium Model with a WTO module (TAIGEM-WTO, hereafter) that is a multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Taiwan's economy derived from Australian ORANI model (Dixon, Parmenter, Sutton and Vincent, 1982). Simulation results show that results are more sensitive to the scheme of tariff-reduction (i.e., Category 1, 2, and 3) than the tiered levels (i.e., A, B, C, and D) and as a strategy we should pay more attention to the arguments related to the amounts of tariff-reduction. Moreover, changes in nominal average tariff rates are more sensitive and shocks to the economy are more severe when we change the tariff reduction categories rather than the tiered levels. This conclusion also applies to the tiered reduction case when only sensitive products are considered. Finally, simulations with sector's bound rate calculated using arithmetic means have bigger effects than those using import values as weights. Therefore, sector's bound rate using import values as weights would be preferred.International Relations/Trade,

Senile cataracts and oxidative stress

AbstractIn numerous epidemiological and animal models, it can be inferred that oxidative stress is a key factor in cataract formation. Production of reactive oxygen species and reduction of endogenous antioxidants both contribute to cataract formation. In the cataractogenous process, lens proteins lose sulfhydryl groups and become thiolated or cross-linked by disulfide bonds. The resultant high molecular weight aggregates become insoluble and affect lens transparency. All these are consequences of changes in the redox state. A mixed protein-thiol and protein-protein disulfide bond precedes the morphological changes of cataract. Normally, sustained high levels of reduced glutathione provide a protective effect, while depletion of glutathione causes damage to epithelial cells and fiber cells. UV rays in the ambient environment evoke reactive oxygen species formation and also contribute to cataracts. The reduction in free UV filters and increase in their binding to lens proteins make the lens more predisposed to UV damage and oxidation. In the aqueous humor of cataract lenses, there is a decrease in antioxidant enzymes and increase in nitric oxide, which demonstrates the relationship between oxidative stress and cataracts. Though surgical intervention is the standard treatment for cataracts, experimental medical therapies for cataracts are under extensive investigation. Carnosine, a pro-drug of carnosine-N-acetylcarnosine, bendazac, ascorbic acid, and aldose reductase inhibitors are under therapeutic evaluation, and prevention of cataract formation may be possible in the future

Exploring the Role of Dynamic Capabilities of Information System Development Project Teams

The increasingly dynamic external environment serves as one risk factor which undermines information system development (ISD) project performance. This highlights the importance of ISD teams having certain capabilities to respond to the external variations. In this study, we proposed that ISD teams can better react to external changes and achieve goals if they have sufficient dynamic capabilities: a combination of market/environment orientation, absorptive capacity, coordination capability and collective mind. We also proposed that a team has stronger dynamic capabilities when team members possess complementary expertise and know the expertise and tasks of others. In addition, after examining the moderating effect of knowing the expertise and tasks of others on the relationship between complementary expertise and team dynamic capabilities, we found that complementary expertise can substitute for knowing the location of expertise and complements knowing the tasks of others. Based on the results, implications for academia and practitioners are also provided

Spermatic Cord Metastasis of Primary Hepatocellular Carcinoma Presenting as an Inguinal Mass: A Case Report

Most spermatic cord masses are benign, and malignant spermatic cord tumors are uncommon. Spermatic cord metastases originating from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been previously reported in the English language literature as determined by a PubMed search. We report a male patient who presented with a painful palpable mass in the right inguinal area. The patient was diagnosed with HCC in 2004 and undertook a nonsurgical approach to control the cancer. A radical orchiectomy was performed, and the pathological report showed metastatic HCC in the spermatic cord. The patient received palliative radiation therapy because of a positive surgical margin. No recurrence was noted after 6 months of followup

Identification and characterization of novel human tissue-specific RFX transcription factors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Five regulatory factor X (RFX) transcription factors (TFs)–RFX1-5–have been previously characterized in the human genome, which have been demonstrated to be critical for development and are associated with an expanding list of serious human disease conditions including major histocompatibility (MHC) class II deficiency and ciliaophathies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we have identified two additional RFX genes–RFX6 and RFX7–in the current human genome sequences. Both RFX6 and RFX7 are demonstrated to be winged-helix TFs and have well conserved RFX DNA binding domains (DBDs), which are also found in winged-helix TFs RFX1-5. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the RFX family in the human genome has undergone at least three gene duplications in evolution and the seven human RFX genes can be clearly categorized into three subgroups: (1) RFX1-3, (2) RFX4 and RFX6, and (3) RFX5 and RFX7. Our functional genomics analysis suggests that RFX6 and RFX7 have distinct expression profiles. RFX6 is expressed almost exclusively in the pancreatic islets, while RFX7 has high ubiquitous expression in nearly all tissues examined, particularly in various brain tissues.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The identification and further characterization of these two novel RFX genes hold promise for gaining critical insight into development and many disease conditions in mammals, potentially leading to identification of disease genes and biomarkers.</p