Maintaining and Strengthening a Shaky Regime with Mnemonic Work: Inventing a Chinese National Day from 1949 Through 1987 in Taiwan

This paper investigates the invention of a Chinese National Day from 1949 through 1987 in Taiwan to illuminate the significance of mnemonic work in nation‐building. The 1949 Retreat after the Chinese Civil War resulted in a serious legitimacy crisis for the government of the Republic of China; thus, (re)inventing the National Day became an important mission to maintain and even strengthen this shaky regime. While the role of the standardized commemorative narrative in influencing people's collective memory is granted, this article emphasizes the aspect of embodied memory in nation‐remembering. I point out that the official Chinese nationalism constructed its National Day as “inevitably” bustling, memorialized, accepted, heroic, familial‐ized, blessed, and pivotal‐ized to shape the impression of a sacred and memorable day. This paper—while essentially consistent with Billig's argument of banal nationalism—suggests that national identity is accumulated by many symbolically encoded elements found in daily life; it goes further to argue that banal nationalism needs the “hot” nationalism found in special occasions to encode, refresh, and redefine the symbolic meaning of entities. That is, the oscillations between sacred and profane are needed to guarantee that patriotic emotions can be continually created and maintained.     

An Extension of Economic Design of x-Bar Control Charts for Non Normally Distributed Data Under Weibull Shock Models

Three parameters—sample size, sampling intervals, and the control limits—must be determined when the x bar chart to monitor a manufacturing process. The constant sampling intervals were widely employed because of its administrative simplicity. However, the variable sampling interval (VSI) has recently been shown to give substantially faster detection of most process shifts than fixed-sampling-interval (FSI) for x-bar charts. In addition, these measurements in the subgroup are assumed to be normally distributed. That assumption may not be tenable. This investigation compares the economic design of x-bar control charts for non normal data under Weibull shock models with various sampling avenues.     

General Multivariate Weibull Processes

Two multivariate stationary processes with general multivariate Weibull marginals are developed and studied. The joint distribution of the two adjacent events in the processes and the distributions of the finite sample minima as well as the geometric minima are derived. The characterization properties of these two processes are also proved.     

A robust process capability index

The existing process capability indices (PCI's) assume that the distribution of the process being investigated is normal. For non-normal distributions, PCI's become unreliable in that PCI's may indicate the process is capable when in fact it is not. In this paper, we propose a new index which can be applied to any distribution. The proposed indexC_f:, is directly related to the probability of non-conformance of the process. For a given random sample, the estimation of C_f boils down to estimating non-parametrically the tail probabilities of an unknown distribution. The approach discussed in this paper is based on the works by Pickands (1975) and Smith (1987). We also discuss the construction of bootstrap confidence intervals of C_f: based on the so-called accelerated bias correction method (BC _a:). Several simulations are carried out to demonstrate the flexibility and applicability of C_f:. Two real life data sets are analyzed using the proposed index.     

Well‐being among employed and non‐employed caregiving women in Taiwan

Chou Y‐C, Kröger T, Chiao C, Pu C‐Y. Well‐being among employed and non‐employed caregiving women in Taiwan This study addressed various groups of non‐employed/employed and non‐caring/caring women in Taiwan. Data from the 2006 National Taiwanese Women Survey (at age 16–64, n= 6,017) were analysed to determine whether there are differences in terms of well‐being, as measured by self‐rated health and family life satisfaction, between women who work and/or care and between different carer groups. Other factors associated with well‐being of carers of young children (n= 1,697) were also analysed. The results showed that non‐employed carers of disabled adults stood out as the most disadvantaged group. However, the importance of work has been replaced by support among carers of young children. This study suggests that unpaid carers, particularly carers of disabled adults who are non‐employed, ought to be supported by policies. To improve carers' well‐being, care–work reconciliation among working‐age women needs to be included in the future care scheme in Taiwan.     

民国时期对欧美近代幼教思想中"教"功能理念认知的引述

民国时期,欧美近代幼教思想中有关“教”功能理念的认知开始通过各种途径引述进入中国。这些理念既包括对幼教思想中“教”功能的内涵、对象与目的的理解,而这种理念是递进性的;也包括新兴的儿童学运动对于“教”功能理念的支撑。这些理念关注欧美近代心理科学的进步对欧美近代幼教“教”功能理念的提升作用。欧美近代幼教思想中“教”功能理念在民国的引述具有阶段性,呼应了当时中国幼教面临的三大客观诉求,丰富了民国幼教思想的内涵,促进了近代学前教育思想在中国的传播。     

Acculturation Gap,Intergenerational Conflict,Parenting Style,and Youth Distress in Immigrant Chinese American Families

This study examined mother–child acculturation gaps in relationship to youth distress and the possible mediating role of parent–child conflict and parenting style in a sample of 81 Chinese American families. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses provided partial support for a relationship between acculturation gaps and youth distress. No mediators of this relationship were found; however, post-hoc analyses indicated that intergenerational conflict and parenting style were associated with youth distress above and beyond acculturation gaps. These results suggest that interventions developed to reduce parent–child conflict and increase parental bonding (increase parental warmth and decrease parental overprotection) may be valuable for Chinese American adolescents, regardless of acculturation gap status.     

Determining the optimal double-component assignment for a stochastic computer network

This study determines the optimal double-component assignment based on the system reliability criterion for a computer system, in which the computer system is represented as a network with a set of links and a set of vertices. The double-component assignment is to assign a set of transmission lines (resp. facilities) to the links (resp. vertices) of the network, in which each transmission line (resp. facility) has multiple states due to maintenance or failure. Thus, the computer system according to any double-component assignment is called a stochastic computer network. The system reliability is the probability that the specific units of data are successfully transmitted through the stochastic computer network. An optimization algorithm which integrates the genetic algorithm, minimal paths, and Recursive Sum of Disjoint Products is utilized to find the optimal double-component assignment with maximal system reliability. Several computer networks are utilized to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm compared with other algorithms. By solving this problem, data can be more reliably transmitted and thus the organization operation is executed more smoothly.     

The modest effects of fact boxes on cancer screening

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - As health care becomes increasingly personalized to the needs and values of individual patients, informational interventions that aim to inform and debias consumer...