The Relationship Between Leisure and Perceived Burden of Spouse Caregivers of Persons with Alzheimer's Disease

The problem of this study was to better understand spouse caregivers' leisure involvement, experience, and barriers and their relationships with perceived burden. Thirty-six wife and 19 husband caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders volunteered to participate in this study, either by mailed questionnaire or interview. Respondents were primarily female, white, with an average age of 72 years. The conclusions of the study were: (a) caregivers significantly reduce both their leisure involvement; (b) self-reported health, perceived social supports, income level, use of paid help, and leisure activity patterns are major factors associated with caregivers' leisure; and (c) leisure barriers are a significant contributor to caregivers' perceived burden. Recommendations were presented for caregivers, practitioners, and future study

The Elementary School Teachers’ Successful Guidance Strategies for Intervening Children’s Bullying Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to explore the guidance strategies adopted by elementary homeroom teachers for their interventions on children’s bullying behaviors. Adopted a multiple case study approach, 11 homeroom teachers participated voluntarily through school counselors’ recommendation where semi-structured interviews were conducted. Their average age was 40.14 years old (SD=7.60) and they averaged 15.45 years (SD=6.80) of teaching experience. All participants had previous experience in successfully helping children who had bullying behaviors toward classmates. The results indicated three categories of successful guidance strategies: individual guidance, class management, and systems’ collaboration. Regarding individual guidance, the teachers were able (1) to understand in depth about the factors involved in bullying; (2) to set clear interpersonal boundaries with the bullies; (3) to recognize and reinforce the children’s personal strengths; (4) to face the children’s provoking behaviors with calm manners; (5) to adopt win-win strategies in disciplining. Regarding class management, the teachers were able (1) to set clear safety rules and execute them consistently, (2) to encourage altruistic and empathetic behaviors and to facilitate positive behaviors in class. Regarding the systems’ collaboration, the teachers cooperated mainly with the parents and resources at schools. Teachers’ guidance strategies and models in helping bullies, as well as the impacts of Chinese culture on the teachers’ guidance strategies are discussed

Consultation and Cross-professional Collaboration to Resolve Students' Problem Behaviors: An Action Research

This action research explored the consultation process of a counseling psychologist who worked collaboratively with a teacher to resolve her difficulties with students’ behavioral problems. The researcher served as a consultant, while the consultee was a 26-year-old female novice teacher. The research followed the “question-action-evaluation” process, the action plan comprised of four days of training, ten classroom sessions and five teacher consultation session. The results showed that there were five major process factors and a “positive support and interpersonal feedback centered teacher consultation model” was conceptualized. The model suggested that providing positive support and interpersonal feedback to the teacher was the key factor in consultation. Other factors included to explore and assess, to understand the meaning of client and system’s behavior, to develop positive behavior support guidance strategies, and to obtain teacher’s awareness and insight. Additional important findings were that consultation involved cross-professionals’ collaboration during which consultant introduced “others” perspective but respected teacher’s subjectivity. Also, having considerations of individual, class dynamics and teacher-students’ relationships was necessary for developing appropriate guidance strategies. Actions of changes were initiated when the teacher’s self-awareness was enhanced. With a focus on teacher’s strengths and positive supports during the consultation, the teacher grew and transferred the positive experience to the students. Finally, the current research provided discussion and suggestions about teachers’ anxieties and challenges in resolving students’ problem behaviors under traditional Chinese teachers' culture

涉入霸凌行為兒童家長親職經驗之敘事研究

[[abstract]]The current research intended to explore (1) the parenting experience of the bully’s parents, and (2) the ecological influences on the parenting behaviors through the narrative study approach.. Three mothers were recruited through the counseling office of the elementary schools to participate in the research, with ages of 38, 41, and 39 respectively. Their children who involved in bully behaviors at school were 5th, 6th, and 4th grades each. Each participant was interviewed from 3 to 6 times according to their wishes and about 2.5 hour each time. The interviews were recorded into written transcripts and analyzed by using category analysis suggested by Lieblich et.al.(1998). The results of the analysis included: (A) The parent-child experiences of the bully parents were characterized as “high expectations, high control, and low empathy” experiences. (B) In dealing with the children’s non-compliance behaviors, the parents generally used their authorities to suppress the children’s behaviors. In addition, the children were reported to use aversive and emotional behaviors to suppress their parent’s coercive disciplining. The dynamics of the two were similar to the coercive family processes that Patterson (1982), Patterson et al. (1992), & Reid et al. (2002). (C) The parenting styles of physical bully’s were different from of the verbal bully. In contrast to the verbal bully, the physical bullies had superior family status than their siblings in the eyes of parents. The parenting styles of the physical bullies were enmeshed and protective; the parent-child boundaries were blurred. In contrast, the parenting styles of the verbal bully were neglectful; the parent-child boundaries were distant. (D) The Microsystems-family of the origin of the participants has the strongest impacts to the participants. ‘Disciplining non-compliance with authoritarian parenting style’ was the intergenerational parenting styles that parents adopted from their family of origin. The parents of this generation might change some parenting styles, but they used “controlled” parenting styles just like their parents. (E) The Mesosystems of the parents’ ecology, the parent-teacher cooperation of this study was negative and frustrate. The parents expressed the negative experiences of being blamed, oppressed, or hurt in their cooperation process. (F) The Macrosystems-social and culture aspects of the participants included: the unique Taiwan culture that has multi-impacts from the traditions and the moderns, the feelings that parent-child as an unity in Chinese, the overemphasis of filial piety and obedience of Chinese culture, and the collective anxiety of credentialism and Diploma doctrines in Taiwan society. Finally, the recommendations and suggestions with regard to the parenting education, counseling interventions, and future research areas were discussed.

Application of High-Resolution Radar Rain Data to the Predictive Analysis of Landslide Susceptibility under Climate Change in the Laonong Watershed, Taiwan

Extreme rainfall has caused severe road damage and landslide disasters in mountainous areas. Rainfall forecasting derived from remote sensing data has been widely adopted for disaster prevention and early warning as a trend in recent years. By integrating high-resolution radar rain data, for example, the QPESUMS (quantitative precipitation estimation and segregation using multiple sensors) system provides a great opportunity to establish the extreme climate-based landslide susceptibility model, which would be helpful in the prevention of hillslope disasters under climate change. QPESUMS was adopted to obtain spatio-temporal rainfall patterns, and further, multi-temporal landslide inventories (2003–2018) would integrate with other explanatory factors and therefore, we can establish the logistic regression method for prediction of landslide susceptibility sites in the Laonong River watershed, which was devastated by Typhoon Morakot in 2009. Simulations of landslide susceptibility under the critical rainfall (300, 600, and 900 mm) were designed to verify the model’s sensitivity. Due to the orographic effect, rainfall was concentrated at the low mountainous and middle elevation areas in the southern Laonong River watershed. Landslide change analysis indicates that the landslide ratio increased from 1.5% to 7.0% after Typhoon Morakot in 2009. Subsequently, the landslide ratio fluctuated between 3.5% and 4.5% after 2012, which indicates that the recovery of landslide areas is still in progress. The validation results showed that the calibrated model of 2005 is preferred in the general period, with an accuracy of 78%. For extreme rainfall typhoons, the calibrated model of 2009 would perform better (72%). This study presented that the integration of multi-temporal landslide inventories in a logistic regression model is capable of predicting rainfall-triggered landslide risk under climate change

Garlic supplementation attenuates cycling exercise-induced oxidative inflammation but fails to improve time trial performance in healthy adults

BACKGROUND Garlic extract has been shown to enhance antioxidant and anti-inflammation activities in humans. The present study investigated the effects of garlic supplementation on 40-km cycling time trial performance, exercise-induced oxidative stress, and inflammatory responses in healthy adults. METHODS Eleven healthy males were recruited to perform this single-blind crossover study. Participants were randomly assigned to either garlic (garlic extracts 1000 mg/d for 4 weeks) or placebo trials. Following 4-wks of supplementation, participants performed a 40-km cycling challenge. Total cycling performance time and respiratory exchange ratio (RER) were recorded. Blood samples were collected every 10 km to determine exercise-induced oxidative stress, inflammation, and muscle damage. RESULTS The 40-km cycling time trial performance was not improved following 4 weeks of garlic supplementation. However, 4-wk garlic supplementation significantly increased whole-body antioxidant capacity (total antioxidant capacity, TAC), and subsequently attenuated MDA, TNF-α, and LDH during the 40-km cycling exercise period (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences among the blood biomarkers glucose, NEFA, IL-6, UA, and CK respectively. The respiratory exchange ratio was similar between garlic and placebo trials. CONCLUSION Four-week oral garlic supplementation attenuates exercise-induced oxidative inflammation and muscle damage during a 40-km bout of cycling. However, it appeared that 4-wk oral garlic had no ergogenic effect on cycling performance in healthy males

Cloning of Cashmere Goat Scp3 Gene and Determining the First Round Meiosis in the Testes

The synaptonemal complex protein 3 (Scp3) plays a crucial role in synaptonemal complex formation and male germ cells meiosis. Until now, no studies on goat Scp3 have been reported. In present study, we cloned the Cashmere goat Scp3 cDNA using RT-PCR and molecular cloning techniques. The Scp3 sequence of Cashmere goat showed 98% identity with that of bovine. Primers were designed according to the sequence we got and RT-PCR was performed to analyze the expression of Scp3 in prepubertal Cashmere goat testes. The results showed that the testes development in prepubertal goat varies in different animals, and the first round of meiosis in analyzed Cashmere goat testes occurs mostly after 73 days after birth

國小二至六年級朗讀流暢度篩檢準確度及切截點分析 Assessment Accuracy and Cut-Off Points of Oral Reading Fluency for Grade 2-6 Students

本研究主要目的是以閱讀的自動化理論為基礎，為國小二至六年級朗讀流暢度做篩檢準確度及最佳切截點分析。研究中，以閱讀理解答對率作為效標變項，朗讀流暢度z分數作為預測變項，然後採用「接受者操作特徵」（Receiver-Operating-Characteristic, ROC）分析，根據「ROC 曲線下面積」之大小，來檢測採用朗讀流暢度篩檢因認字效能不足導致閱讀理解困難之學童的準確度。此外，也根據χ2 值、命中率、敏銳度、錯誤拒絕率及錯誤接受率等數據， 對朗讀流暢度做最佳切截點的分析。研究結果顯示，以朗讀流暢度來篩檢因認字效能不足導致閱讀理解困難的學童，具有中等的準確度。而且以二至六年級上下學期的資料而言，朗讀流暢度z分數最佳切截點都是-0.5。本研究也提供國小二至六年級上下學期的朗讀流暢度平均值資料，以供教育研究者及教師瞭解二至六年級學童認字效能平均成長情形之參考。 This study evaluated the assessment accuracy of oral reading fluency. Additionally, this study focused on determining the cut-off point for identifying poor reading comprehension caused by low decoding efficiency in students of grades 2-6. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was adopted to evaluate the assessment accuracy of oral reading fluency. The area under the curve (AUC) of the ROC indicated that oral reading fluency exhibited medium accuracy in screening. Based on analyses of χ 2 , the hit rate, sensitivity, false negative rate, and false positive rate, a z score of oral reading fluency below -0.5 was identified as the optimal cut-off point for screening students with poor reading comprehension caused by low decoding efficiency. In addition, the mean scores of oral reading fluency for students in grades 2-6 are provided to inform teachers and researchers of the level of oral reading fluency in elementary-school students

Impaired Prefronto-Thalamic Functional Connectivity as a Key Feature of Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Combined MEG, PET and rTMS Study

<div><p>Prefrontal left-right functional imbalance and disrupted prefronto-thalamic circuitry are plausible mechanisms for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Add-on repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), effective in treating antidepressant-refractory TRD, was administered to verify the core mechanisms underlying the refractoriness to antidepressants. Thirty TRD patients received a 2-week course of 10-Hz rTMS to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Depression scores were evaluated at baseline (W0), and the ends of weeks 1, 2, and 14 (W14). Responders were defined as those who showed an objective improvement in depression scores ≥50% after rTMS. Left-right frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) was measured by magnetoencephalography at each time point as a proxy for left-right functional imbalance. Prefronto-thalamic connections at W0 and W14 were assessed by studying couplings between prefrontal alpha waves and thalamic glucose metabolism (PWTMC, reflecting intact thalamo-prefrontal connectivity). A group of healthy control subjects received magnetoencephalography at W0 (N = 50) to study whether FAA could have a diagnostic value for TRD, or received both magnetoencephalography and positron-emission-tomography at W0 (N = 10) to confirm the existence of PWTMC in the depression-free state. We found that FAA changes cannot differentiate between TRD and healthy subjects or between responders and non-responders. No PWTMC were found in the TRD group at W0, whereas restitution of the PWTMC was demonstrated only in the sustained responders at W14 and euthymic healthy controls. In conclusion, we affirmed impaired prefronto-thalamic functional connections, but not frontal functional imbalance, as a core deficit in TRD.</p></div

Demographic data and clinical variables between rTMS responders and non-responders.

<p>Note: MDE, major depressive episode; HDRS-17, 17-item Hamilton depression rating scales; BDI, Beck depression index; <b>^#</b> Significant decreases (pair-<i>t</i> test, p<0.05) as compared to baseline values; *p<0.05, **p<0.005.</p