Analysis of Country of Origin Labeling for Food Products in Taiwan using Auction Experiment

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the economic benefits of country of origin labeling (COOL) regulation by estimating the consumer's willingness to pay (WTP) for Taiwan products vs. other imported products if clearly labeled with their countries of origin. We employ the Vickrey second-price sealed bid auction and conducted auctions in three major cities in Taiwan in 2009. Charcoal-smoked plums from Taiwan and China and oolong teas from Taiwan, China, and Vietnam are auctioned products. One important feature of our experimental design is to investigate the impacts of product tasting on bidding behavior. We estimated Tobit bid models and the OLS premium functions. The regression results show that product tasting affected the participants' WTP positively or negatively depending on products. Specifically, tasting raised bids for Taiwan and China teas, but lowered bids for Vietnam tea. The econometric results show very high premiums for Taiwan products, ranging from 83% to 109% for tea and 55% to 66% for charcoal-smoked plum. These findings clearly show strong preference of Taiwanese consumers over food and agricultural products produced domestically. It is very important to have rigorous COOL regulation in Taiwan. If all foods and agricultural products are clearly labeled with their countries of origin, Taiwanese consumers and food producers stand to benefit greatly with COOL. The COOL would be one of the best instruments to reduce the negative impacts of agricultural trade liberalization under WTO or ECFA.

The impact of foreign trading information on emerging futures markets: a study of Taiwan's unique data set

Using a unique dataset from the Taiwan Futures Exchange, this paper investigates whether trading imbalances by foreign investors affect emerging Taiwan futures market in terms of returns and volatility. First, this evidence demonstrates a positive relation between contemporaneous futures returns and net purchases by foreign investors when other market factor effects are controlled. Second, this failure to detect price reversals is inconsistent with the price pressure hypothesis. Third, foreign investors do not exhibit positive feedback trading patterns. Fourth, a bi-directional Granger-causality relationship exists between futures volatility and foreign trading flows. As found for other stock or foreign exchange markets, our empirical results demonstrate that foreign trading flows do have impacts on the return and volatility of developing futures market, suggesting that trading by foreign investors may enhance the information flow of the local futures market.Foreign trading

The Relationship between Secondary School Students’ Emotional Intelligence and Learning Motivation

In recent years, emotional intelligence has been highly regarded because of its ability to control emotions, develop talented potential, build high-quality relationships, and have leadership skills. Learning motivation is the motivation of achievement in learning, a psychological need for individuals to pursue success, and also one of the main factors affecting learning achievement. Both of them are very important to young adults. However, rare studies discuss the correlation between middle school students’ emotional intelligence and learning motivation. The purposes of this study were to explore the relationships between secondary school students’ emotional intelligence and learning motivation. Participants were 877 secondary school students selected from central Taiwan. A questionnaire was applied to collect data. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s product-moment correlation, and multiple regression analysis. The findings of this study were as follows: First, the students’ perception of the current situations of emotional intelligence and learning motivation were above a moderate level. Second, there was a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and learning motivation. Third, emotional intelligence could predict learning motivation and the level of self-motivation was the best predictor. Conclusion and discussion were also included in this study. Keywords: Secondary school student, Emotional intelligence, Learning motivation DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-5-02 Publication date: February 28th 202

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE FROM DIFFERENT RUNNING SLOPE ON THE ANGLES OF LIMB JOINTS

This study focuses on an analysis and comparison of the hip, knee, and ankle joint angle changes and differences during the stance and swing phase of the running gait cycle while running on the same uphill or downhill gradient as well as the lower joint angle changes while running on different uphill or downhill inclines or on level ground. This study should also provide insight into whether or not there is a significant difference between the lower joint angle patterns while running on slopes of different steepness, which in turn can serve as a reference for runners and coaches for uphill or downhill running training or workout exercises. For this study we employed a high-speed camera, which allows us to capture the running motion cycles of the sagittal plane of test subjects while running on different uphill or downhill gradients. Motion analysis software was employed for data compilation, while a comparative analysis was conducted by utilizing statistical software. After extensive discussions and analysis, we reached the following conclusions: 1. Slope gradient changes have a significant impact on hip joint angles during the stance phase. The steeper the incline is, the greater is the difference between the hip joint angles. 2. Slope gradient changes have a significant effect on joint angle changes during the swing phase. The steeper the uphill gradient, the smaller are the hip, knee, and ankle joint angles, while steeper downhill gradients lead to larger hip and knee joint angles. 3. A comparison of the changes of all joint angles during uphill, downhill, and level ground running reveals that angle changes during uphill running are greater than during downhill running. It can be inferred that this phenomenon is caused by the fact that the number of muscle groups involved in uphill running is larger than in downhill running

Uncovering a Connection between the Teachers’ Professional Development Program and Students’ Learning

Most research suggests professional development improves teachers’ knowledge and pedagogy and enhances teachers’ confidence to facilitate a positive attitude about student learning. This study attempted to investigate the connection between teacher professional development program and students’ Learning. This study took Readers’ Theater Teaching Program (RTTP) for professional development as an example to inquiry how participants applied their new knowledge and skills learned from RTTP to their teaching practice and how the impact influenced students’ reading fluency. This study was a two-year project. In the first year, this study focused on designing and implementing RTTP and evaluating participants’ satisfaction of RTTP, what they learned and how they applied it to design their English reading curriculum. In the second year, the study adopted quasi-experimental design approach and evaluated how participants RT instruction influenced their students’ reading fluency. The participants in this study composed two junior high school English teachers and their students. Data was collected from a number of different sources including teaching observation, semi-structured interviews, teaching diary, teachers’ professional development portfolio, pre/post RT content knowledge tests, teacher survey, and students’ reading fluency tests. The results indicated that teachers learned more RT script writing than other specific contents and hold a positive attitude toward RT instruction and considered it as a very wonderful strategy to meet a variety of needs. All of the experimental group students had a big progress in reading fluency after RT instruction.  The evidences from this study indicated that RT English instruction significantly influenced students’ reading fluency and classroom climate. Keywords: Teacher’s Professional Development, Program Evaluation, Readers’ Theater, English Reading Instruction, Reading fluenc