Increasing concerns have been raised regarding artificial intelligence (AI) bias, and in response, efforts have been made to pursue AI fairness. In this paper, we argue that the idea of structural injustice serves as a helpful framework for clarifying the ethical concerns surrounding AI bias—including the nature of its moral problem and the responsibility for addressing it—and reconceptualizing the approach to pursuing AI fairness. Using AI in healthcare as a case study, we argue that AI bias is a form of (...) structural injustice that exists when AI systems interact with other social factors to exacerbate existing social inequalities, making some groups of people more vulnerable to undeserved burdens while conferring unearned benefits to others. The goal of AI fairness, understood this way, is about pursuing a more just social structure with the development and usage of AI systems when appropriate. We further argue that all participating agents in the unjust social structure associated with AI bias bear a shared responsibility to join collective action with the goal of reforming the social structure, and we provide a list of practical recommendations for agents in various social positions to contribute to this collective action. (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)

Ruyu HungNational Chiayi UniversityThis collective writing is intended to portray the contour of philosophy of education in contemporary Taiwan, resounding many beautiful counterparts in EPAT (Bies...

Examples from Chinese, Thai, and Finnish illustrate why researchers cannot always be confident about the precise nature of the word unit. Understanding ambiguities regarding where a word begins and ends, and how to model word recognition when many derivations of a word are possible, is essential for universal theories of reading applied to both developing and expert readers.

Urban streetscapes are outdoor areas in which the general public can appreciate green landscapes and engage in outdoor activities along the street. This study tested the extent to which the degree of awareness of urban street trees impacts attention restoration and perceived restorativeness. We manipulated the degree of awareness of street trees. Participants were placed into four groups and shown different images: (a) streetscapes with absolutely no trees; (b) streetscapes with flashes of trees in which participants had minimal awareness of (...) the content; (c) streetscapes with trees; and (d) streetscapes with trees to which participants were told to pay attention. We compared the performance of 138 individuals on measures of attention and their evaluations of perceived restorativeness. Two main findings emerged. First, streetscapes with trees improved the performance of participants on attentional tests even without their awareness of the trees. Second, participants who had raised awareness of street trees performed best on the attentional test and rated the streetscapes as being more restorative. These findings enhance our knowledge about the role of an individual's awareness of restorative elements and have implications for designers and individuals who are at risk of attentional fatigue. (shrink)

Most studies have examined the outcomes of patients supported by extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as a life-sustaining treatment. It is unclear whether significant social events are associated with the use of life-sustaining treatment. This study aimed to compare the trend of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use in Taiwan with that in the world, and to examine the influence of significant social events on the trend of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use in Taiwan.

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)

This study proposed a children’s digital art ability training system with artificial intelligence-assisted learning, which was designed to achieve the goal of improving children’s drawing ability. AI technology was introduced for outline recognition, hue color matching, and color ratio calculation to machine train students’ cognition of chromatics, and smart glasses were used to view actual augmented reality paintings to enhance the effectiveness of improving elementary school students’ imagination and painting performance through the diversified stimulation of colors. This study adopted the (...) quasi-experimental research method and designs the pre-test and post-test for different groups. The research subjects are the Grade 4 students of an elementary school in Taitung City, Taiwan. The test tools included an imagination test and an evaluation of painting performance ability. The test results of a total of 30 students before and after the experiment included the experimental group that received the children’s digital art ability training system with AI-assisted learning and 30 students in the control group that had not received the teaching were analyzed by covariance. These results were supplemented by the description and interpretation of student feedback, teachers’ reflection notes, and other qualitative data to understand the performance of the students in the experimental group in terms of imagination and painting performance. (shrink)

In order to better understand the individual-level motives for ticket-splitting, Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study has since 2001 included a question aimed at measuring respondents’ preferences for checks and balances. We argue that this set of questions, designed to measure a combination of Fiorina's policy-balancing hypothesis and Ladd's cognitive Madisonianism, is inconsistent with principles of survey methodology and thus produces data that are suboptimal. Following a method developed by Carsey and Layman, we propose an alternative concept, the policy-balancing index derived (...) from the perceived ideological distance between respondent and political parties, which both avoids methodological violations and provides us with a more precise concept to work with. We test the index and find it to be a significant determinant of ticket-splitting behavior. (shrink)

The study reported here, building on the research methods of Conversation Analysis, Politeness Theory, and Relevance Theory, attempts to examine the distribution of Mandarin qishi and shishishang across two different discourse modes in formal speech settings: formal lectures and TV panel news discussions. The results indicate that qishi is prevalent in TV panel news discussion data, which fall into the interactional mode, whereas shishishang is more prevalent in formal speech data, which fall into the transactional mode. The study shows that (...) in interaction, qishi is addressee-oriented and signals alignment or divergence, whereas shishishang is message-oriented and asserts a proposition with a tone of certainty. In addition, the study suggests that although the literal meanings of qishi and shishishang, which are concerned with factuality, are seemingly unrelated to emotive expressivity, they offer a rhetorical strategy for expressing the speaker’s attitudinal position, and can both serve to indicate the speaker’s epistemic inference. (shrink)

BackgroundThe therapeutic effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson's disease (PD) is related to the modulation of pathological neural activities, particularly the synchronization in the β band (13–35 Hz). However, whether the local β activity in the STN region can directly predict the stimulation outcome remains unclear.ObjectiveWe tested the hypothesis that low-β (13–20 Hz) and/or high-β (20–35 Hz) band activities recorded from the STN region can predict DBS efficacy.MethodsLocal field potentials (LFPs) were recorded in (...) 26 patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery in the subthalamic nucleus area. Recordings were made after the implantation of the DBS electrode prior to its connection to a stimulator. The maximum normalized powers in the theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (7–13 Hz), low-β (13–20 Hz), high-β (20–35 Hz), and low-γ (40–55 Hz) subbands in the postoperatively recorded LFP were correlated with the stimulation-induced improvement in contralateral tremor or bradykinesia–rigidity. The distance between the contact selected for stimulation and the contact with the maximum subband power was correlated with the stimulation efficacy. Following the identification of the potential predictors by the significant correlations, a multiple regression analysis was performed to evaluate their effect on the outcome.ResultsThe maximum high-β power was positively correlated with bradykinesia–rigidity improvement (rs = 0.549, p < 0.0001). The distance to the contact with maximum high-β power was negatively correlated with bradykinesia–rigidity improvement (rs = −0.452, p < 0.001). No significant correlation was observed with low-β power. The maximum high-β power and the distance to the contact with maximum high-β power were both significant predictors for bradykinesia–rigidity improvement in the multiple regression analysis, explaining 37.4% of the variance altogether. Tremor improvement was not significantly correlated with any frequency.ConclusionHigh-β oscillations, but not low-β oscillations, recorded from the STN region with the DBS lead can inform stimulation-induced improvement in contralateral bradykinesia–rigidity in patients with PD. High-β oscillations can help refine electrode targeting and inform contact selection for DBS therapy. (shrink)

Previous studies have focused on individuals learning from observing a model to be able to produce the modeled behavior. However, there is a lack of studies emphasizing the perspective of being observed to understand the role of perceived value and stress when teachers act as a teaching model. To address this gap, the present study explored the correlates between teachers’ teaching beliefs, perceived value, psychosocial stress, and continuous intention to be the observed teaching model in classroom observations. Data of 349 (...) respondents were usefully collected, and confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modeling was performed. Results showed that teachers’ constructivist belief in teaching was positively related to perceived value of being observed and getting feedback, but was negatively related to psychosocial stress. Perceived value was positively related to continuous intention to be observed in future classroom observations, but perceived psychosocial stress was not significantly related to continuous intention. The results of this study can be applied to encourage those who are resistant to presenting their teaching experience in classroom observations. (shrink)

Visual programming language is a crucial part of learning programming. On this basis, it is essential to use visual programming to lower the learning threshold for students to learn about artificial intelligence to meet current demands in higher education. Therefore, a 3-h AI course with an RGB-to-HSL learning task was implemented; the results of which were used to analyze university students from two different disciplines. Valid data were collected for 65 students in the Science -student group and 39 students in (...) the Humanities -student group. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to analyze the difference between cognitive styles and computational thinking. No significant differences in either cognitive style or computational thinking ability were found after the AI course, indicating that taking visual AI courses lowers the learning threshold for students and makes it possible for them to take more difficult AI courses, which in turn effectively helping them acquire AI knowledge, which is crucial for cultivating talent in the field of AI. (shrink)

Facial fat grafting techniques often offer impressive surgical results. However, fatal complications, such as irreversible cerebral ischemia, blindness, and hemiplegia are associated with them. We have presented a case report of a patient who presented with a massive cerebral infarction, a serious complication of facial autologous fat injection. The patient was a 28-year-old female who experienced motor dysfunction of the left extremities, which was accompanied with loss of consciousness immediately following fat grafting for facial augmentation. Imaging studies suggested that the (...) patient had a large cerebral infarction on the right frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes due to complete occlusion of her right external carotid artery. Emergency decompressive craniectomy was completed in addition to multiple follow-up medical treatments. The patient recovered after 4 months with reduced motor function in her left upper extremity. This report further summarizes published cases of massive cerebral ischemia after facial injection of autologous fat, as well as lists high-risk facial areas and critical warnings. (shrink)

Attending cram school has long been a trend in ethnic Chinese culture areas, including Taiwan. Despite the fact that school reform policies have been implemented in Taiwan, cram schools have continued to prosper. Therefore, in this educational culture, how to achieve a good educational effect is also a topic worthy of discussion. However, whether students really engage in those tutoring programs provided by cram schools has seldom been studied. To address this gap, this study explored how parents’ hovering attitude toward (...) life and coursework influences their children’s engagement in cram schools. This study targeted those students who attend English cram schools to test the correlates between two types of helicopter parenting, tutoring engagement and continued attendance at cram schools. A total of 320 questionnaires were sent out, and 300 were returned, giving an overall response rate of 93.75%. Excluding seven incomplete or invalid questionnaires, 293 valid questionnaires were received. The results of this study show that hovering behavior awareness is negatively related to cram school engagement, whereas cram school engagement is positively related to the intention to continue attending cram school. Moreover, the results imply that parents should alleviate their helicoptering behavior to enhance their children’s engagement in cram school tutoring programs. (shrink)

Access to legal information is fundamental to access to justice. Yet accessibility refers not only to making legal documents available to the public, but also rendering legal information comprehensible to them. A vexing problem in bringing legal information to the public is how to turn formal legal documents such as legislation and judgments, which are often highly technical, to easily navigable and comprehensible knowledge to those without legal education. In this study, we formulate a three-step approach for bringing legal knowledge (...) to laypersons, tackling the issues of navigability and comprehensibility. First, we translate selected sections of the law into snippets (called CLIC-pages), each being a small piece of article that focuses on explaining certain technical legal concept in layperson’s terms. Second, we construct a Legal Question Bank, which is a collection of legal questions whose answers can be found in the CLIC-pages. Third, we design an interactive CLIC Recommender. Given a user’s verbal description of a legal situation that requires a legal solution, CRec interprets the user’s input and shortlists questions from the question bank that are most likely relevant to the given legal situation and recommends their corresponding CLIC pages where relevant legal knowledge can be found. In this paper we focus on the technical aspects of creating an LQB. We show how large-scale pre-trained language models, such as GPT-3, can be used to generate legal questions. We compare machine-generated questions against human-composed questions and find that MGQs are more scalable, cost-effective, and more diversified, while HCQs are more precise. We also show a prototype of CRec and illustrate through an example how our 3-step approach effectively brings relevant legal knowledge to the public. (shrink)

Electric-mechanical equipment manufacturing industries focus on the implementation of intelligent manufacturing systems in order to enhance customer services for highly customized machines with high-profit margins such as electric power transformers. Intelligent manufacturing consists in using supply chain data that are integrated for smart decision making during the production life cycle. This research, in cooperation with a large electric power transformer manufacturer, provides an overview of critical intelligent manufacturing technologies. An ontology schema forms the terminology relationships needed to build two intelligent (...) supply chain management modules for the IM system demonstration. The two core modules proposed in this research are the intelligent supplier selection and component ordering module and the product quality prediction module. The intelligent supplier selection and component ordering module dispatches orders that match the best options of suppliers based on combined analytic hierarchy process analysis and multiobjective integer optimization. In the case study, the intelligent supplier selection and component ordering module demonstrates several acceptable Pareto solutions based on strict constraints, which is a very challenging task for decision makers without assistance. The second module is the product quality prediction module which uses multivariate regression and ARIMA to predict the quality of the finished products. Results show that the R square values are very close to 1. The module shortens the time for the company to accurately judge whether the two semifinished iron cores for the product meet the quality requirements. The component supplier selection module and the finished product quality prediction module developed in this research can be extended to other IM systems for general high-end equipment manufacturers using mass customization. (shrink)

This article sets out to undertake a thorough, point-by-point examination of the theory postulated by Campbell (2007), in which an attempt is made to specify the conditions under which corporations may or may not act in socially responsible ways. In order to ensure the overall reliability of our study, and to attempt to provide a new understanding of, and greater insights into, whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is affected by financial and institutional variables, we empirically investigate a total of 520 (...) financial firms in 34 countries, between the years 2003 and 2005. Our empirical findings are: (i) finns with larger size are more CSR minded, and the financial performance and CSR are not related; (ii) finns would actually act in more socially responsible ways to enhance their competitive advantages when the market competitiveness is more intense; (iii) financial firms in countries with stronger levels of legal enforcement tend to engage in more CSR activities; however, interestingly and rather strikingly, those finns in countries with stronger shareholder rights tend to engage in less CSR activities; and (iv) self-regulation within the financial industry has a significantly positive effect on CSR, with firms being found to act in more socially responsible ways in those countries which have more cooperative employer-employee relations, higher quality management schools, and a better macroeconomic environment. (shrink)

Delineation of the subthalamic nuclei on MRI is critical for deep brain stimulation surgery in patients with Parkinson’s disease. We propose this retrospective cohort study for quantitative analysis of MR signal-to-noise ratio, contrast, and signal difference-to-noise ratio of the STN on pre-operative three-dimensional stereotactic MRI in patients with medication-refractory PD. Forty-five consecutive patients with medication-refractory PD who underwent STN-DBS surgery in our hospital from January 2018 to June 2021 were included in this study. All patients had whole-brain 3D MRI, including (...) T2-weighted imaging, T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, and susceptibility-weighted imaging, at 3.0 T scanner for stereotactic navigation. The signal intensities of the STN, corona radiata, and background noise were obtained after placing regions of interest on corresponding structures. Quantitative comparisons of SNR, contrast, and SDNR of the STN between MR pulse sequences, including the T2WI, FLAIR, and SWI. Subgroup analysis regarding patients’ sex, age, and duration of treatment. We used one-way repeated measures analysis of variance for quantitative comparisons of SNR, contrast, and SDNR of the STN between different MR pulse sequences, and we also used the dependent t-test for the post hoc tests. In addition, we used Mann–Whitney U test for subgroup analyses. Both the contrast and SDNR were highest on FLAIR. The SNR was highest on SWI, and both the SNR and SDNR were lowest on T2WI. Subgroup analyses demonstrated significantly lower SDNR on SWI for patients receiving medication treatment for ≥13 years. In conclusion, on 3D stereotactic MRI of medication-refractory PD patients, the contrast and SDNR for the STN are highest on FLAIR, suggesting the optimal delineation of STN on FLAIR. (shrink)

On the fundamentals of Buddhist doctrines; including explation of the karmic law of cause and effect with stories.

Exegetical notes on the explanation of philosophical positions (siddhānta) of the Vaibhāsika, Sautrāntika, Yogācārya, and Mādhyamika schools of Buddhism with Hinduism based on the Dkon-mchog ʾJigs-med-dbaṅ-po's text.

Objective: Based on the theory of perceived organizational support (POS), conservation of resource (COR) and job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this study establishes a moderated mediation model to test the role of job satisfaction in mediating the relationship between perceived organizational support and job burnout, as well as the role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy in moderating the above mediating process. Method: A total of 784 police officers were surveyed with the Perceived Organizational Support Scale, the Job Burnout Questionnaire, the Regulatory Emotional (...) Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. Results: (1) After controlling for gender, seniority, age, police classification, education, and marital status, regression analysis showed a significant negative correlation between perceived organizational support and burnout (r = -0.42, p < 0.01), and the former had a significant negative predictive effect on job burnout (β = -0.42, p < 0.001). (2) The mediating effect test shows that job satisfaction plays a partial role in mediating the relationship between perceived organizational support and job burnout. (3) Through the analysis of the moderated mediation model test, regulatory emotional self-efficacy moderates the first half of the path of “perceived organizational support → job satisfaction → job burnout". Conclusion: Perceived organizational support not only directly affects police job burnout but also indirectly affects police job burnout through job satisfaction. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy enhances the influence of organizational support on job satisfaction. This study indicates the combined effect of perceived organizational support, job satisfaction and regulatory emotional self-efficacy on job burnout and has certain guiding significance for alleviating police job burnout. Keywords: Perceived organizational support, Job burnout, Job satisfaction, Regulatory emotional self-efficacy, Moderated mediation. (shrink)

Literal explanation of the ʼJam-dbyaṅs-bźad-pa Ṅag-dbaṅ-brtson-ʼgrus's text Grub mthaʼi rnam par bźag pa ʼkhrul spoṅ gdoṅ lṅaʼi sgra dbyaṅs kun mkhyen lam bzaṅ gsal baʼi rin chen sgron me, deals on comparative study of the philosophical systems (siddhānta) of Buddhism and Hinduism.

Commentary on Yon tan rin po cheʼi mdzod text of ʼJigs-med-gliṅ-pa Raṅ-byuṅ-rdo-rje, 1729 or 30-1798, dealing on Rdzogs-chen doctrine of Rñiṅ-ma-pa sect.

Complete works of 3rd Rdo Grub-chen ʼJigs-med-bstan-paʼi-ñi-ma, 1865?-1926 on Rñiṅ-ma-pa doctrines, Buddhist philosophy and rituals text.

Sellected collection of tantric canonical texts of the Nyingma order on Rdzogs-chen philosophy.

History and development of Buddhism in general and Tibet in particular; includes comparative philosophy of Buddhism with Hinduism.

Study on the commentary of seven pramāṇaśastra (Buddhist logic) by Acharya Dharmakīrti, 7th century.

Collected works of Dmu-dge Bsam-gtan, predominantly on Buddhist doctrines, grammar, and history, including autobiographical writings (v.1), poetic works, refutations, etc.

Commentary on Grub paʼi mthaʼi rnam par bzhag pa rin po cheʼi ʼphreng ba text authored by ʼJam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa II Dkon-mchog ʼJigs-med-dbang-po,1728-1791.

Collected works of Sman-ri-ba Mnyam-med Shes-rabs-rgyal-mtshan, Bonpo scholar on Bon doctrines, reverential prayers, sadhanas and tantric texts.