National identity and Taiwan's Mainland China policy

Taiwan is a mildly divided society—divided essentially along the lines of national identity. Indeed, there is no doubt that national identity is the dominant factor affecting Taiwan's mainland China policy. Other factors such as business interests and security concerns may enter the picture from time to time, but they often get bogged down in the national identity controversies. As a matter of fact, there is high correlation between people's attitudes toward business and security concerns and their positions on the national identity issue. The key to understanding Taiwan's mainland China policy is thus the distribution of voters on the national identity issue and how it is translated into the political fortunes of various political parties in the electoral game.     

The Impact of Prenatal Exposure to Power Plant Emissions on Birth Weight: Evidence from a Pennsylvania Power Plant Located Upwind of New Jersey

To examine the infant health impact of prenatal exposure to power plant emissions, we draw scientific evidence on the impacted region downwind of a large polluter, a coal‐fired power plant located on the border of two states and proven to be the sole contributor to the violation of air quality standards of the impacted region. Our results show that among all live singleton births that occurred during 1990 through 2006, those born to mothers living as far as 20 to 30 miles away downwind from the power plant (which is also an affluent region) during pregnancy are at greater risks of low birth weight (LBW) and very low birth weight (VLBW): the likelihoods of LBW and VLBW could increase approximately by 6.50 and 17.12 percent, respectively. In light of the continual efforts of The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in reducing cross‐state air pollution caused by transboundary power plant emissions, our study is aimed at broadening the scope of cross‐border pollution impact analysis by taking into account adverse infant health effects of upwind polluters, which can impose disproportionate burdens of health risks on downwind states due to air pollutants transported by wind.     

How Far Can Taiwan Go?

This article explores the possibility of Taiwan's moving away from the status quo by either seeking reunification with the mainland or pursuing de jure independence, and particularly focuses on the latter scenario. Clearly, immediate reunification is not a viable option, but a declaration of independence may be. However, given the public attitude on the national identity issue, which underpins Taiwan's party structure, it is very difficult for the independence forces to control a majority of seats in the parliament. Thus, as long as the ROC constitutional structure remains essentially parliamentary, the chances that Taiwan will declare independence are not that great. Moreover, China's threat to use force against Taiwan if Taiwan declares independence and the tremendous economic interests involved in doing business with China, coupled with the US insistence on peace and stability in the region, all keep Taiwan from taking drastic measures in pursuit of independence.     

Genetic variation at nine STR loci in populations from the Philippines and Thailand living in Taiwan

In order to apply a set of nine STR loci and the amelogenin locus in forensic testing, we have performed a population study on individuals from the Philippines and Thailand living in Taiwan (273 Philippine and 146 Thai individuals were typed by commercially available kits and an automated sequencer). A total of 73 alleles for all systems for both populations could be observed in these two populations. No new intermediate fragments were found. Allele frequencies showed no deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The mean exclusion power (MEP) ranged from 0.327 (TPOX) to 0.706 (FGA), the discriminating power (DP) ranged from 0.790 (TPOX) to 0.963 (FGA) for Philippinos, MEP ranged from 0.247 (TPOX) to 0.723 (FGA), DP ranged from 0.761 (TPOX) to 0.968 (FGA) for Thais, the combined MEP is > 0.9988 and the combined DP is > 0.9999999993 for both Philippinos and Thais.     

Dangerous work and name disclosure

Name disclosure improves service quality as well as the supervision and management of employees. When such disclosure has the possibility to endanger employees, however, a conflict arises between the need for public disclosure and the maintenance of work safety. To improve the discipline and responsibility of police officers, the Taiwanese government is planning a new policy of sewing names on officers’ uniforms. To determine the impact, this study assumed implementation of the policy and investigated police officers’ perceptions of and reactions to it. Respondents included 337 front-line officers whose main duties were related to law enforcement or other services that involve direct contact with the public. The results showed that police officers interpreted the policy as a disclosure of personal information, that their perception of future revenge risk potential, work stress, and attention to amicable attitudes toward the public were significantly higher, and that their intrinsic work motivation was significantly lower. There was no significant difference, however, in terms of police officers’ pay satisfaction.     

Cytochrome b gene for species identification of the conservation animals

A partial DNA sequence of cytochrome b gene was used to identify the remains of endangered animals and species endemic to Taiwan. The conservation of animals species included in this study were: the formosan gem-faced civets, leopard cats, tigers, clouded leopards, lion, formosan muntjacs, formosan sika deers, formosan sambars, formosan serows, water buffalo, formosan pangolins and formosan macaques. The control species used included domestic cats, domestic dogs, domestic sheeps, domestic cattles, domestic pigs and humans. Heteroplasmy was detected in the formosan macaque, domestic pig and domestic cats. The frequencies of heteroplasmy in these animals were about 0.25% (1 in 402bp). Sequences were aligned by Pileup program of GCG computer package, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed by the neighbor-joining method. The results of sequence comparison showed that the percentage range of sequence diversity in the same species was from 0.25 to 2.74%, and that between the different species was from 5.97 to 34.83%. The results of phylogenetic analysis showed that the genetic distance between the different species was from 6.33 to 40.59. Animals of the same species, both the endangered animal species and domestic animals, were clustered together in the neighbor-joining tree. Three unknown samples of animal remains were identified by this system. The partial sequence of cytochrome b gene adopted in this study proved to be usable for animal identification.     

Changes and continuity in southwestern Yunnan: The Xishuangbanna Tai autonomous prefecture

Abstract

About thirty years ago, in the 1940s, the chief of a local Tai (Thai) community brought in a bicycle from Thailand. He did not use it for riding because the roads there were too rough and narrow. But he made good use of this strange piece by collecting five baht from curious viewers.     

Trajectories of Physical Dating Violence from Middle to High School: Association with Relationship Quality and Acceptability of Aggression

Although research on dating violence is growing, little is known about the distinct developmental trajectories of dating violence during adolescence. The current study identifies trajectories of physical dating violence victimization and perpetration that boys and girls follow from sixth to twelfth grade, examines the overlap of these trajectories, and characterizes them by perceptions of a caring dating relationship and acceptability of dating aggression. The sample consisted of randomly selected sixth graders from nine schools in Northeast Georgia (n = 588; 52 % boys; 49 % White, 36 % African American, 12 % Latino) who completed yearly surveys from Grades 6–12. We used latent class mixture modeling to identify the trajectories and generalized estimating equations models to examine the acceptability of dating aggression by dating violence trajectories. Participants followed two trajectories of dating violence victimization (boys: low and high; girls: low and increasing) and two of perpetration (boys and girls: low and increasing). When examining the joint trajectories of victimization and perpetration, a similar proportion of boys (62 %) and girls (65 %) were in the low victimization and low perpetration group and reported the lowest acceptance of dating aggression. The same proportion of boys and girls (27 %) were in the high/increasing victimization and perpetration group, and reported the highest acceptance of dating aggression. However, acceptance of dating aggression decreased from Grade 6–12 for all groups, even for those whose trajectory of dating violence increased. Victimization and perpetration were associated with reporting a less caring dating relationship. Results highlight the importance of focusing prevention efforts early for adolescents who follow this increasing probability of physical dating violence.