Assimilation and Rising Taiwanese Identity: Taiwan-born Immigrants in the United States, 1990-2000

Journal ArticleThis study examines why a growing percentage of Taiwan-born immigrants in the U.S. have identified themselves as Taiwanese rather than ethnic Chinese in the U.S. decennial censuses between 1990 and 2000. The trend appears inconsistent with the assimilation theory, which postulates that ethnic groups will become more detached from ethnic politics and identity the longer they stay in the United States. The application of a double cohort method enables us to separate the period effect from the duration effect, which is critical to analyzing the changes. Results show sharp temporal differentiation and large geographical variation. The older generation of Taiwanese immigrants and recent arrivals to the United States, as well as those who live in Los Angeles, are the most likely to regard themselves as Taiwanese rather than ethnic Chinese. In contrast, Taiwanborn immigrants who have greater English proficiency, who have less education, and who have [mainland] Chinese as their neighbors are less likely to do so. Moreover, age-at-arrival is a key determinant in identity formation and change. Those who came to the U.S. when they were young are least likely to regard themselves as Taiwanese. Over time, Taiwan-born immigrants have indeed become more acculturated. Young Taiwan-born immigrants who came to the U.S. before the 1970s are least likely to make a switch to Taiwanese during the period. However, acculturation alone does not prevent one from claiming Taiwanese identity on the census form. For Taiwan-born immigrants, writing in Taiwanese on the census form appears to be a "rebellious" or "awakening" act and a symbolic expression of solidarity with their compatriots in Taiwan, empowered by a growing sense of Taiwanese consciousness. Globalizationmay now have allowed immigrants to maintain a closer tie with their country of origin than before, especially in times of crisis

The mediating effect of internal service quality on employee turnover – empirical evidence from Taiwanese nurses

Informed by social exchange theory (SET) this study examines the role of trust in strategic alliances. Interviews were conducted with 17 participants who were strategic alliance managers in their organization. The study finds that trust is important to strategic alliance managers, and without it alliance managers would find it difficult to keep their alliance going. Trust is built over time, and based on the past experiences that the alliance manager has with their partner. The study found that prior networks, timely and appropriate communication and information exchange, fairness preservation and inter-firm adaptation were important in developing trust in the strategic alliance

Multiple Objective Planning for Production and Distribution Model of Supply Chain: Case of Bicycle Manufacturer

Under increasing globalization, enterprises view supply chains (SC) as an integration of process control and management. The bicycle industry is one of the competitive industries in Taiwan, for which there is a complete supply chain system. To internationalize and improve the competitive advantage of this industry, it is necessary for it to improve the capacity of global production and distribution. In this paper, we consider both the maximum profit of enterprises and the maximum quality of customer service, using five programming methods to construct multi-objective production and distribution models. These five methods are: compromise programming, fuzzy multi-objective programming, weighted multi-objective programming, weighted fuzzy multi-objective programming and two-phase fuzzy multi-objective programming. The results reveal that the weighted multi-objective model was better for considering the maximum profit of enterprises and the maximum quality of customer service. Finally, we use the weighted multi-objective model for sensitivity analysis. These results show that after raising the per-unit production cost in production processes, the total profit would decrease. In addition, if the unit inventory cost increases due to improving the customer service level, then the total profit might increase, but not significantly. Furthermore, the shortage cost seems have interactive behavior on the enterprises, in which an increase of inventory cost will lower shortage cost

Building Identification to Co-Create Supply Chain Innovation

Supply chain identification is a process of self-categorization which can encourage firms to make more efforts to achieve supply chain goals. It is important for firms to co-create value with customers/suppliers while pursuing supply chain innovation. However, few studies have investigated identification issues from the business-to-business aspects. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the identification generation among supply chain members, especially focus on the exchange mechanisms of identification. Based on these mechanisms, we develop a research model to explain the influences of the exchange mechanisms on information sharing and supply chain innovation. This empirical study investigates the top 1000 Taiwanese manufacturers issued by Commonwealth magazine of Taiwan in 2012. The results show: (1) The exchange mechanisms, including trust, commitment, communication, and reciprocal relationship have significant effects on information sharing. (2) Information sharing in the value co-creating process has a significant effect on supply chain innovation. Implications are provided based on the results

Cellular Automaton for Simulation of Oxide Layer Growth Influenced by Chromium Concentration of Structure Material

Chromium, an important alloying element, has been added in ferrous and nickel based alloy such as stainless steels and Inconel alloy to improve the corrosion resistance. High corrosion resistance of structural materials in extremely high working temperature is one crucial R&D objective of Gen IV nuclear power plants which propose to raise the thermal efficiency via high working temperature. A cellular automaton (CA) model based on the stochastic approach was proposed to simulate the process of oxidation and corrosion of structural material in flowing fluid. The relation of chromium concentration against oxide layer thickness during a specific period was found. The material containing a specific amount of chromium content shows the thinnest oxide layer on its surface, which shows the strongest ability of corrosion resistance The result of simulation is close to that of experiments, which demonstrates that the CA model will have potential to achieve the goal of this kind of study. Moreover, it not only brings the benefit to save considerably experimental time and resources but also helps researchers to find out the optimized chromium content for the best corrosion resistance

Existence theorems for a crystal surface model involving the p-Laplace operator

The manufacturing of crystal films lies at the heart of modern nanotechnology. How to accurately predict the motion of a crystal surface is of fundamental importance. Many continuum models have been developed for this purpose, including a number of PDE models, which are often obtained as the continuum limit of a family of kinetic Monte Carlo models of crystal surface relaxation that includes both the solid-on-solid and discrete Gaussian models. In this paper we offer an analytical perspective into some of these models. To be specific, we study the existence of a weak solution to the boundary value problem for the equation - \Delta e^{-\mbox{div}\left(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u\right)}+au=f, where $p>1, a>0$ are given numbers and $f$ is a given function. This problem is derived from a crystal surface model proposed by J.L.~Marzuola and J.~Weare (2013 Physical Review, E 88, 032403). The mathematical challenge is due to the fact that the principal term in our equation is an exponential function of a p-Laplacian. Existence of a suitably-defined weak solution is established under the assumptions that $p\in(1,2], \ N\leq 4$, and $f\in W^{1,p}$. Our investigations reveal that the key to our existence assertion is how to control the set where -\mbox{div}\left(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u\right) is $\pm\infty$

Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome of Kaposi’s sarcoma in an HIV-infected patient

We present a case of Kaposi’s sarcoma-related immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome in an HIV-infected patient who developed fever, worsening pulmonary infiltrates with respiratory distress, and progression of skin tumors at the popliteal region and thigh that resulted in limitation on movement of the right knee joint at 3.5 months following a significant increase of CD4 count after combination antiretroviral therapy

Serum Bone Resorption Markers after Parathyroidectomy for Renal Hyperparathyroidism: Correlation Analyses for the Cross-Linked N-telopeptide of Collagen I and Tartrate-Resistant Acid Phosphatase

Patients on long-term dialysis may develop secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) with increased serum concentrations of bone resorption markers such as the cross-linked N-telopeptide of type I collagen (NTX) and type-5b tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP). When SHPT proves refractory to treatment, parathyroidectomy (PTX) may be needed. Renal patients on maintenance HD who received PTX for refractory SHPT (n=23) or who did not develop refractory SHPT (control subjects; n=25) were followed prospectively for 4 weeks. Serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), NTX, TRAP, and bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP) concentrations were measured serially and correlation analyses were performed. iPTH values decreased rapidly and dramatically. BAP values increased progressively with peak increases observed at 2 weeks after surgery. NTX and TRAP values decreased concurrently and progressively through 4 weeks following PTX. A significant correlation between TRAP and NTX values was observed before PTX but not at 4 weeks after PTX. Additionally, the fractional changes in serum TRAP were larger than those in serum NTX at all times examined after PTX. Serum iPTH, TRAP, and NTX values declined rapidly following PTX for SHPT. Serum TRAP values declined to greater degrees than serum NTX values throughout the 4-week period following PTX