Perspectives on Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Taiwanese Health Insurance System

Approximately ninety-nine percent of Taiwanese citizens are enrolled under universal health insurance that provides comprehensive health coverage including some traditional Chinese medicine therapies. Through in-person interviews and surveys in Taiwan, our study reports on the perceived satisfaction with choice and reimbursement of traditional Chinese medicine covered by the universal health insurance system. Understanding Taiwan’s experiences with incorporating traditional Chinese medicine into the universal health insurance system may provide lessons and implications for other universal health insurance systems or private pay insurance companies that are considering coverage of traditional Chinese medicine and alternative medicines

Complex photonic crystals for broadband "all-angle" self-collimation

Self-collimation is a dispersion property of many photonic crystals (PCs), in which light beam can propagate free of divergence in the PCs. While self-collimation is a desired property for applications related to wave guiding and light collection, most of the current self-collimating PCs have restrictions on incident angles and/or operating wavelengths. These restrictions limit the operation flexibility of current self-collimating devices, and prevent the usefulness of self-collimation in many potential applications. In this dissertation, different PC structures are proposed to enable broadband, (in-plane) “all-angle” self-collimation or three-dimensional (3D) “omnidirectional” self-collimation. For in-plane self-collimation, a group of non-conventional two-dimensional (2D) PC structures inspired by the irradiance distributions resulting from the fractional Talbot effect (“Talbot crystals”) is studied for the first time. A complex rhombus lattice Talbot crystal is found to support broadband virtual “all-angle” self-collimation. Such concepts are further extended to 3D. Multiple PC structures and different design strategies are proposed and compared in terms of the resulting self-collimation performance. Several desired 3D properties are realized for the first time, including broadband virtual 3D limited-angled self-collimation, 3D omnidirectional beam confinement, and broadband 3D omnidirectional self-collimation. These results may enable future self-collimation applications, such as PC core fibers and solar light collection, and suggest a possible whole-band self-collimation phenomenon

Grape polyphenols attenuate inflammation and insulin resistance in human adipocytes and obese mice

Obesity is rapidly increasing worldwide among all age groups. Insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes is one of several debilitating health problems associated with obesity. An emerging feature of obesity and type 2 diabetes is their linkage with chronic, low-grade inflammation that begins in white adipose tissue (WAT) and eventually becomes systemic. One potential dietary strategy to reduce chronic inflammation is consumption of fruits and vegetables rich in polyphenols, including grape products, which possess anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Notably, several clinical and animal studies have shown that supplementation with grape products like grape juice, grape powder or extracts, and red wine reduced oxidative damage and inflammation. However, the suppressive effects of grape powder on adipocyte-derived inflammation and insulin resistance remains uncertain. Additionally, the bioavailability of grape polyphenols and their ability to lower inflammation and insulin resistance in vitro and in a diet-induced obese animal model are unclear. Therefore, the specific aims of this research were to determine the extent to which 1) grape powder extract (GPE) and several of its polyphenols decrease tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa)-mediated inflammation and insulin resistance and their mechanisms of action in primary cultures of human adipocytes (Aim 1), and 2) grape powder polyphenols are absorbed and reduce markers of inflammation and insulin resistance in high fat-fed obese mice (Aim 2). In Aim 1, GPE and quercetin, an abundant polyphenol in GPE, attenuated TNFa-induced a) expression of inflammatory genes, b) activation of inflammatory mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and transcription factors nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB) and activator protein-1 (AP-1), c) expression or abundance of two negative regulators of insulin sensitivity, and d) suppression of insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. Taken together, these data demonstrate that GPE and quercetin attenuate TNFa-mediated inflammation and insulin resistance in primary cultures of human adipocytes, possibly by suppressing the activation of inflammatory MAPKs and transcription factors that cause insulin resistance. In Aim 2, it was found that a) quercetin 3-O-glucoside was one of the most abundant polyphenols detected in the sera of mice gavaged with GPE, b) high fat-fed mice supplemented with quercetin-rich grape powder had improved glucose disposal rates acutely and reduced markers of inflammation in the sera and WAT chronically, and c) quercetin 3-O-glucoside reduced several markers of inflammation in primary cultures of human adipocytes. Collectively, these findings are expected to contribute critical insights for the development of dietary strategies using grape products for the control of obesity-related conditions including inflammation and insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. However, clinical trials are needed to determine the extent to which these findings can be reproduced in humans

Factors Influencing Students’ Perceptions of Online Teamwork

The evolution of online teaching in higher education demands a change in the types of pedagogies used in those courses. An example of one of these important pedagogies includes online teamwork. Teamwork in this context is one in which the majority of the individual’s grade is dependent on the positive or negative group experiences. This study utilized the theoretical framework of social motivation and cohesion to identify the factors shaping students’ perceptions of teamwork in online college courses. In these courses, the pedagogical approach known as the Five Pillars of effective collaborative work was applied. An Online Teamwork Learning Survey was developed based on these principles and completed by 62 undergraduate students enrolled in semester-long online courses required in their early childhood education program of study. Using a comparison between pre–post surveys and regression analysis, the results showed that although the students’ perceptions of teamwork did not significantly change, the factors influencing their responses during the post-test doubled in number. The results showed that through carefully designed virtual teamwork activities, students learned that essential team characteristics such as promotive interaction, individual accountability, and positive interdependence are an integral part of effective collaboration and strong predictors of teamwork perception

Person-organization and person- supervisor fits: Employee commitments in a Chinese context

The present study simultaneously examined people's perceptions of person–organization (PO) and person–supervisor (PS) fit and related these perceptions to employees' commitments. Three-hundred-and-sixty employee–supervisor dyads from Taiwanese organizations reported about their PO fit and PS fit perceptions. In addition, supervisors reported about their perceptions of fit and guanxi with each of their employees. Results indicated that PO and PS fit perceptions both had an independent and additive relationship with organizational commitment. The link between employee PS fit perceptions and organizational commitment was mediated by commitment to the supervisor. Both employee and supervisor fit perceptions contributed to commitment to the supervisor through their influence on the quality of the leader-member exchange (LMX). Guanxi could not explain additional variance in LMX and supervisor commitment. Implications for theory and practices regarding person–environment fit, commitment, and LMX are discussed. The study findings offered suggestions for a new Theory of Multiple Fits

Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology in Asia

Asia houses the largest population (International Energy Agency, 2012) and enjoys the highest nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of all continents (International Monetary Fund [IMF], 2013). Asian countries represent some of the world's largest economies: for example, China (2), Japan (3), India (10), South Korea (15), and Indonesia (16) (IMF, 2013). In terms of business interactions, four Asian cities top the list of global office destinations: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai (CB Richard Ellis, 2011). Indicative of the progressive dependence of the world's business and economy on Asia, the Academy of Management, a leading management academic association, set ‘West Meets East: Enlightening, Balancing, Transcending’ as its 2011 program theme. The same motivation prompted the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ) to call for a special research forum in 2012 featuring ‘West Meets East: New Concepts and Theories’ in an effort to draw the field's attention to emerging issues in the East

Broadening international perspectives on the legal environment for selection

We are pleased that our article (Myors et al., 2008) prompted this most useful set of commentaries. The goal of our article was to highlight similarities and differences in the legal environment for personnel selection across a broad range of countries. Whereas some articles in this journal present a point of view that prompts considerable disagreement and challenge from commentators, our article is largely descriptive, and thus, the role of commentators is to expand upon the perspectives offered in our article rather than to take issue with them. We believe that the commentators have accomplished just that and they offer a most useful supplement to our article

Linking supervisor’s and subordinate’s negative work-family experience: The role of family supportive supervisor behavior

In the past decade, family supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB) has emerged as an important factor that can help employees manage work–family needs. Although the existing literature has documented the benefits of FSSB, we know little about the emerging process of FSSB. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we propose that supervisor engagement in FSSB is influenced by the extent to which the supervisor has sufficient resources for work. This study uses the joint effect of supervisors’ family–work conflict (FWC) and organizational work–family culture to predict the time supervisors spend on core tasks, FSSB, and subordinates’ work–family conflict (WFC), in sequence. Data were collected from paired supervisor–subordinate dyads among 83 supervisors and 276 subordinates. The results indicate that supervisors with high FWC spend more time on core tasks and display less FSSB, which ultimately result in higher subordinates’ WFC, especially in organizations with a lower level of organizational work–family culture. In contrast, supervisors’ FWC does not result in any negative influences on the supervisors themselves or their subordinates at work in organizations with a higher level of organizational work–family culture. Therefore, the theoretical model provides evidence that supervisors’ negative work–family experience cascades down to their subordinates

A multilevel perspective on the relationship between interpersonal justice and negative feedback-seeking behaviour

Drawing on social information processing theory, this study uses a multilevel design to integrate the literature on organizational justice with the literature on feedback-seeking behaviour. Results from a laboratory study with data involving 690 employees showed that individual-level interpersonal justice was related to employee negative feedback-seeking behaviour (NFSB) via the mediation of trust in the supervisor. Multilevel analysis of the follow-up field study with data involving 390 employees from 46 teams confirmed the findings of the laboratory study and indicated that team-level interpersonal justice was associated with NFSB through a supportive climate. Also, team-level supervisor support climate was positively related to individual-level trust in the supervisor. The paper discusses managerial implications of these findings and suggests directions for future research

Business founders' work design and new venture development

This study aims to explain the interplay between business founders' work design and new venture development. Our qualitative research reveals that founders' work design differs in terms of unsettled and settled work. In unsettled work, founders redesign their work to serve the needed changes in their new ventures. In settled work, founders, who develop a commitment to their self-created work, often maintain rather than change their work, regardless of the potentially needed changes in the new ventures. Our findings suggest that founders' work has a subtle structure that results in direct, day-to-day experience that is integral in shaping new ventures