BackgroundThis study aimed to elucidate the influence of dementia etiologies on the degree of caregiver burden and determine which factors predict a high caregiving burden.MethodsThis 18-month retrospective cohort study enrolled 630 patients and their caregivers from the Dementia Center of Changhua Christian Hospital. The care team performed face-to-face interviews every 6 months, for 18 months from when a diagnosis of dementia was made. The primary outcome was the change in Zarit Burden Interview scores. Generalized estimating equations were used for the (...) longitudinal data analysis.ResultsParticipants with Lewy body disease had a significantly higher caregiving burden compared with those with Alzheimer's disease after adjusting for patient and caregiver features. Caregivers of mixed-type dementia and frontotemporal dementia experienced a greater burden than caregivers of AD, at 6- and 18-month follow-up. Patients with more severe dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms, being cared for by more than two caregivers, or utilizing social resources were associated with higher ZBI scores; the depressive mood of caregiver also predicted higher ZBI scores.ConclusionThis longitudinal study demonstrated that caregiver burden was influenced by the underlying dementia etiology of patients. The dementia care team should provide personalized education and transfer patients and caregivers to appropriate resources, especially for high-risk populations. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to make a comparative study of Chang Yi-mou’s films and the novels of a Taiwanese regionalist novelist— Wang Chen-ho, for both of the two artists reveal great impulse of postcolonialist view in representing history and gender/class, though with different emphasis. Chang. is now one of the most successful movie directors in the Asia-Pacific region, just like Ang Lee, and enjoys high prestige and international fame—a great example of “globalization” and “multiculturalism,” whereas Wang has (...) always been recognized as one of the most successful Taiwanese nativist novelists because of his experimental representation of the hybridized Taiwanese languages by skillfully blending “Chinglish,” Japanese, and other Taiwanese dialects within his story-telling. In other words, in this paper, I intend to make a comparative study of the micropolitics of how Chang’s and Wang ’s works reveal a postcolonial discourse/condition in representing history/gender/class. Critical approaches that will be employed in this project are mainly the micropolitics in the postcolonialist poetics of Homi Bhabha, Said, and Deleuze and Guattari. (shrink)

This article aims to help readers to learn about health care related cultural and religious beliefs and spiritual needs in Chinese communities. The recall diary of a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-infected intern working in Hoping Hospital in Taiwan during the 2003 SARS epidemic is presented and used to assist in understanding one patient’s spiritual activities when personally confronted with this newly emerging infectious disease. The article also gives an overview of the 2003 SARS epidemic in Taiwan, and discusses people’s (...) general perceptions towards infectious diseases, their coping strategies concerning disease, and their spiritual beliefs, the psychological impact of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Chinese communities, Chinese myths about infectious disease, and the religious activities of a SARS-infected intern in Taiwan. Recommendations are given on how to achieve quality holistic nursing care. (shrink)

This survey aimed to illustrate factors that contribute to nurses' fear when faced with a possible human-to-human avian flu pandemic and their willingness to care for patients with avian flu in Taiwan. The participants were nursing students with a lesser nursing credential who were currently enrolled in a bachelor degree program in a private university in southern Taiwan. Nearly 42% of the nurses did not think that, if there were an outbreak of avian flu, their working hospitals would have sufficient (...) infection control measures and equipment to prevent nosocomial infection in their working environment. About 57% of the nurse participants indicated that they were willing to care for patients infected with avian influenza. Nurses' fear about an unknown infectious disease, such as the H5N1 influenza virus, could easily be heightened to levels above those occurring during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Taiwan. (shrink)

In order to care ethically nurses need to care holistically; holistic care includes religious/spiritual care. This research attempted to answer the question: Do nurses have the resources to offer religious care? This article discusses only one aspect - the provision of religious care within the Taiwanese health care system. It is assumed that, if hospitals do not provide enough religious services, nurses working in these hospitals cannot be fully ethical beings or cannot respect patients’ religious needs. The relevant literature was (...) reviewed, followed by a survey study on the provision of religious facilities and services. Aspects considered are: the religions influences in and on Taiwanese society; the religious needs of patients and their families; strategies that patients use to enable them to cope with their health care problems; professional motives for attuning to patients’ religious needs; and hospital provision for meeting the religious and spiritual needs of patients. A survey of nursing executives showed differences between religious service provision in hospitals with and without a hospice ward. The practical implications for hospital management and nursing practice are discussed. (shrink)

Problematic smartphone use is an expanded public health heed that requires more study to clarify the influence elements of different populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between smartphone use, and sleep quality, self-perceived health, and exercise participation in university students. A total of 1,575 Taiwanese undergraduate students from 7 universities participated in the study. Three questionnaires were completed by the study individuals. The results show the overall PSU rate was 11.8%. Average smartphone users were more (...) likely to feel in good health, better sleep quality and less unsatisfactory exercise participation than those who were problematic smartphone users. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that PSU, low weekly exercise frequency, and poor sleep quality were significant indicators of poor self-perceived health. We concluded that both low physical activity and PSU did have negative impacts on self-perceived health and sleep quality for undergraduate students. (shrink)

From a perspective of multiculturalism, this paper aims to analyze Ang Lee’s Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain by elaborating on the issues of sex/gender/identity in the hope of exploring the process and problematics of cultural formations in the era of globalization characterized by multiculturalism. Based on Judith Buthler’s deconstructive/postmodernist view of sex/gender/identity, the first part of this essay evaluates simultaneously both the positive and negative aspects of these two films; whereas Deleuze’s literary aesthetics of minor literature offers me a subtle (...) perspective on Ang Lee’s extraordinary achievement in creating a minoritarian artistic work that exposes the complexity of human psyche/desire, which constitutes the second part of this essay. In addition, both parts intend to reexamine, from a perspective of multiculturalism, how Ang Lee’s special micropolitics/aesthetics enables him to rewrite successfully Annie Proulx’s short story for the screen so as to create a globally popular American love story that not only distinguishes him from the mediocre Hollywood commercial romance film makers but also simultaneously brings him fame and profit. (shrink)

Viewed from some postcolonial/postmodern perspectives by employing mostly the micropolitics of Homi Bhabha’s and Gilles Deleuze (and other theorists who hold similar conceptions), whose major common interest lies in dismantling the myth of establishing an imagined community by retrieving a shared national history/culture and assuming ethnic purity, this paper seeks to explore the paradoxical aspects of Taiwan’s quest in her decolonizing progress for a “collective” national/cultural identity. Besides, this paper compares mostly Taiwan’s decolonization process with South Korea’s because of their (...) similarity in territorial division due to some civil wars and the intervention of external powers (e.g., the former Soviet Union and U.S.A.). By so doing, this paper aims to propose some solution to Taiwanese’s dilemma in constructing a “collective” national /cultural identity. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Early modern alchemy studied both matter and life, much like today's life sciences. What material life is and how it comes about intrigued alchemists. Many found the answer by assuming a vital principle that served as the source and cause of life. Recent literature has presented important cases in which vitalist formulations incorporated corpuscular or mechanical elements that were characteristic of the New Science and other cases in which vitalist thinking influenced important figures of the Scientific Revolution. Not merely (...) speculative, vitalist ideas also motivated chymical practice. The unity of life science and material science that is found in many formulations of Renaissance alchemy disintegrated in Georg Ernst Stahl's version of post-Cartesian vitalism. (shrink)

This paper examines Georg Ernst Stahl's first book, the Zymotechnia Fundamentalis, in the context of contemporary natural philosophy and the author's career. I argue that the Zymotechnia was a mechanical theory of fermentation written consciously against the influential "fermentational program" of Joan Baptista van Helmont and especially Thomas Willis. Stahl's theory of fermentation introduced his first conception of phlogiston, which was in part a corpuscular transformation of the Paracelsian sulphur principle. Meanwhile some assumptions underlying this theory, such as the composition (...) of matter, the absolute passivity of matter and the "passions" of sulphur, reveal the combined scholastic and mechanistic character of Stahl's natural philosophy. In the conclusion I show that Stahl's theory of fermentation undermined the old fermentational program and paved the way for his dualist vitalism. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to compare the learning effectiveness of peer tutored problem-based learning and conventional teaching of nursing ethics in Taiwan. The study adopted an experimental design. The peer tutored problem-based learning method was applied to an experimental group and the conventional teaching method to a control group. The study sample consisted of 142 senior nursing students who were randomly assigned to the two groups. All the students were tested for their nursing ethical discrimination ability both before (...) and after the educational intervention. A learning satisfaction survey was also administered to both groups at the end of each course. After the intervention, both groups showed a significant increase in ethical discrimination ability. There was a statistically significant difference between the ethical discrimination scores of the two groups (P < 0.05), with the experimental group on average scoring higher than the control group. There were significant differences in satisfaction with self-motivated learning and critical thinking between the groups. Peer tutored problem-based learning and lecture-type conventional teaching were both effective for nursing ethics education, but problem-based learning was shown to be more effective. Peer tutored problem-based learning has the potential to enhance the efficacy of teaching nursing ethics in situations in which there are personnel and resource constraints. (shrink)

This article examines two early modern models of dissertation authorship that both relied on extensive collaboration between the degree candidate and his supervisor. The dissertation conducted on the traditional model, practiced until the eighteenth century at German universities, was a joint product of the supervisor, who prepared the thesis in writing, and the degree candidate, who defended it in the oral disputation. The two collaborators shared the credit for a successfully defended thesis in different forms: right for public recognition and (...) rights to use and reproduce the thesis. Instead of sharing the credit as two equal partners, each of them took advantage of his credit in ways that benefited his status. In the model that Albrecht von Haller introduced at Göttingen, the supervisor provided the student with a laboratory and experimental training, while the degree candidate wrote a thesis by himself based on the experiments he carried out, and defended the thesis without the supervisor chairing the disputation. The Haller model reveals two new elements that heralded the development of modern scientific education: divisibility of laboratory labor between the student’s experimentation and the research program to which it belongs; and feasibility of the requirement of experimental work in return for the exclusive authorship of the doctoral thesis. (shrink)

In this article, we introduce the theory of archetype, which explains the connection between ancient myths and the human mind. Based on the assumption that archetypes are in the deepest level of human mind, we propose that archetypal symbolism is a kind of knowledge that supports the cognitive process for creating subjective world-view towards the physical world we live in. According to archetypal symbolism, we conducted an empirical study to identify archetypal symbols in modern movies. A new collection of movie (...) clips was developed to represent eight essential archetypes: anima, animus, mentor, mother, shadow, hero’s departure, hero’s initiation and hero’s return, which can be used in future studies on human emotion. In order to investigate the emotions towards these archetypal symbols, we provide suggestions from the psychological point of view. The present study demonstrates how to identify symbolic meanings in movies, and indicates a new direction for future studies in psychology. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare workers in the front line of diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 are at great risk of both infection and developing mental health symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the following: whether healthcare workers in general hospitals experience higher mental distress than those in psychiatric hospitals; the role played by religion and alexithymic trait in influencing the mental health condition and perceived level of happiness of healthcare workers amidst the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic; (...) and factors that influence the resilience of healthcare workers at 6 weeks' follow-up.Methods: Four-hundred and fifty-eight healthcare workers were recruited from general and psychiatric hospitals, and 419 were followed-up after 6 weeks. All participants filled out the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, five-item Brief-Symptom Rating Scale, and the Chinese Oxford Happiness Questionnaire.Results: Under the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.3% of frontline healthcare workers in general hospitals reported having mental distress and perceived lower social adaptation status compared with those working in psychiatric hospitals. Christians/Catholics perceived better psychological well-being, and Buddhists/Taoists were less likely to experience mental distress. The results at 6 weeks of follow-up showed that the perceived lower social adaptation status of general hospital healthcare workers was temporary and improved with time. Christian/Catholic religion and time had independent positive effects on psychological well-being; however, the interaction of Christian/Catholic religion and time had a negative effect.Conclusions: Collectivism and individualism in the cultural context are discussed with regard to alexithymic trait and Buddhist/Taoist and Christian/Catholic religious faiths. Early identification of mental distress and interventions should be implemented to ensure a healthy and robust clinical workforce for the treatment and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Facing an increasingly competitive market, enterprises need correct decisions to solve operational problems in a timely manner to maintain their competitive advantages. In this context, insufficient information may lead to an overfitting phenomenon in general mathematical modeling methods, making it difficult to ensure good analytical performance. Therefore, it is important for enterprises to be able to effectively analyze and make predictions using small data sets. Although various approaches have been developed to solve the problem of prediction, their application is often (...) limited by insufficient observations. To further enforce the effectiveness of data uncertainty processing, this study proposed an aggregating prediction model for management decision analysis using small data sets. Compared with six popular approaches, the results from the experiments show that the proposed method can effectively deal with the small data set prediction problem and is thus an appropriate decision analysis tool for managers. (shrink)

Anti-intellectualists claim that knowledge-how requires at least a corresponding ability or performance success that includes non-intellectual components. They argue that an insistence on the close relationship between knowledge-how and performance success is needed to account for our intuitions on the practical aspects of knowledge-how. In this paper, we examine three main anti-intellectualist proposals for what constitutes performance success, those of Hawley, Noë, and Kumar, and argue that all of them are non-informative in a practical manner. We further point out that (...) the problem of non-informativeness is dominant in anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

We are of the opinion that there is also identity between erroneous thinking and existence. Our opinion is based on the following facts.

Negative workplace gossip generates social undermining and great side effects to employees. But, the damage of negative gossip is mainly aimed at the employee who perceived being targeted. The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model in which perceived negative workplace gossip influences employees’ in-role behavior and organizational citizenship behavior differentially by changing employees’ self-concept (organizational based self-esteem and perceived insider status). 336 employees from 7 Chinese companies were investigated for empirical analysis on proposed hypotheses, and results (...) show that: (1) Perceived negative workplace gossip adversely influences employees’ IRB and OCB. (2) Self-concept (OBSE and PIS) plays a mediating role in the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and employees’ behaviors (IRB and OCB); (3) Employees’ hostile attribution bias moderates the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and self-concept (OBSE and PIS); and also moderates the mediating effect of self-concept (OBSE and PIS) on the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and employees’ behaviors (IRB and OCB). Thus, our findings provide deeper insights into the potential harmful effects of gossip. In addition, we help to explain the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of these effects. (shrink)

Enquiry teaching approaches are widely considered as more useful than didactic approaches for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour. This paper is a report of an empirical study on the validity of this belief with reference to higher-ability and lower- to medium-ability groups drawn from geography classes at the Advanced Level in Hong Kong. The hypotheses were that, taken together, enquiry approaches are more effective than didactic approaches for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour in both the short and long (...) terms for students as a whole, and for students within the same range of academic ability. A quasi-experimental control group design was used for selecting students and classes from schools in the territory. A questionnaire survey and a series of interviews were conducted to collect data about students' behaviour before and after they were taught a people-environment topic with a didactic approach or an enquiry approach. The results suggest that the students on the whole were not behaving as positively for the environment as their peers in other countries. For both the higher- and the lower- to medium-ability classes, those who were taught with an enquiry approach were behaving positively in more areas than those who were taught with a didactic approach in both the short and long terms. This trend could be attributed to their greater attention to critical thinking, positive behavioural changes, and the development of internal locus of control, while society as a whole was still largely apathetic to personal efforts for improving environmental quality. To further enhance the effectiveness of enquiry for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour, it is suggested that teachers should give more attention to the elements of concern and empathy in the classroom. Improvements in teacher education and training and in the guidelines for teachers, restructuring and revision of environmental education in schools, providing adequate funding and resources, and revision of the style and content of questions in public examinations are also recommended. (shrink)

The purposes of research were to describe the neonatal clinicians' personal views and attitudes on neonatal ethical decision-making, to identify factors that might affect these attitudes and to compare the attitudes between neonatal physicians and neonatal nurses in Taiwan. Research was a cross-sectional design and a questionnaire was used to reach different research purposes. A convenient sample was used to recruit 24 physicians and 80 neonatal nurses from four neonatal intensive care units in Taiwan. Most participants agreed with suggesting a (...) do not resuscitate (DNR) order to parents for dying neonates (86.5%). However, the majority agreed with talking to patients about DNR orders is difficult (76.9%). Most participants agree that review by the clinical ethics committee is needed before the recommendation of ‘DNR’ to parents (94.23%) and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to agree to this (p=0.043). During the end-of-life care, most clinicians accepted to continue current treatment without adding others (70%) and withholding of emergency treatments (75%); however, active euthanasia, the administration of drug to end-of-life, was not considered acceptable by both physicians and nurses in this research (96%). Based on our research results, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage for neonatal clinicians are needed. In Taiwan, neonatal physicians and nurses hold similar values and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for neonates. In order to improve the clinicians' communication skills with parents about DNR options and to change clinicians' attitudes for providing enough pain-relief medicine to dying neonates, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage are needed. (shrink)