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Cultural translation: Horse racing, greyhound racing, and Jai Alai in modern Shanghai: Ning Jennifer Chang , Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2019. Chang focuses on three cases of horse racing, greyhound racing, and jai alai in modern Shanghai society to demonstrate the multi-tiered process of cultural translation. Chang's book expands our knowledge of spectator sports in modern China by focusing on its societal dimension in contrast to the conventional political perspective. [Extracted from the article]

Asian cities have promoted TOD to increase MRT use and decrease private vehicle use. A crucial factor in achieving this goal is improving the pedestrian environment, which can increase people's willingness to walk to MRT stations. This paper analyses how Asian cities have improved the pedestrian environment around MRT stations and the factors influencing walking willingness by reviewing literature and taking Taipei as the empirical area. The results demonstrated that reducing obstacles in pedestrian space, evening the pavement, using transparent window displays in stores along the pavement, and constructing rain shelters can increase people's willingness to walk. The simulations of improved environments can provide references for countries improving the pedestrian environment. The contribution and innovation are to point out the differences in the motivation and goals of TOD in Asian and Western cities and propose improvements to increase people's willingness to walk to achieve TOD's goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to developing the spatiality of institutional entrepreneurship as an analytical framework and using the framework to explore the case of Taipei's financial technology (FinTech) industry. It argues that FinTech start-ups leverage multiple spatialities to engage in strategic involvement with the four forms of institutional change. Meanwhile, Taipei's FinTech industry displays a dual-track institutional entrepreneurship strategy: conforming with the state–finance regime to gain legitimacy by being in the FinTech space and building the FinTech scene by developing local and translocal project networks. These dual strategic–institutional practices are central to changing existing financial service institutions, markets and regulations in a latecomer city context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical discussion of the relationship between place and creative production. Drawing on interviews with creative workers and ethnography conducted in two governmental places, Hong Kong's Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre and Taipei's Treasure Hill Village, the paper demonstrates how individual creative work are linked to three particularities of place: physical elements, live-work arrangements and government's approach to the place. Interdisciplinary analyses have identified working practice as a critical factor in developing creative industries, but little attention has been paid to individual creative work processes at local level. The paper argues that place with live-work provisions facilitates creative production by fostering social exchange useful to artists, while orientation and milieu of place shaped by government impacts on the manifestation of creativity. The empirical findings have implications for the development of creative industries by showing how place can be central to creative production in specific ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on urban air rights, property rights for the ownership, development and trading of the airspace above land parcels. A three-fold contribution is made to the study of urban financialization. First, urban air rights are explicated as a new empirical terrain for research into urban financialization. Second, air rights are conceptualized as 'market devices' that enable market-making processes and are deployed by an activist state to facilitate regulatory and socio-technical conditions for urban financialization. Third, case studies of urban Taipei show air rights take subtly different forms across financialized processes of infrastructure provision and urban renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an empirical account of the case of Taiwan in her innovative efforts in the herbal medicine sector through scientific and technological development. This study aims to propose a network analysis approach, which is typically found in innovation studies, to illustrate the sociological dimensions of actor network theory. The sector is of interest from a social studies of science perspective due to the collision between traditional knowledge philosophies, which are well accepted in East Asian communities, and scientific regulatory standards, that have raised issues regarding the legitimacy and safety of the products. This study considers the actor network linkages between universities, government and industry which act as indicators of knowledge diffusion and collaboration. Relevant records were captured using a heuristic search string and was used to visualize: (i) the number of researchers (agglomeration denoted by the size of bubbles), (ii) organizational linkages through co-authorship (connectedness indicated by the presence of lines between organizations), and (iii) position of the organization (centrality in relation to other organizations). The case presented in this study takes a snapshot of how an advanced economy such as Taiwan, has developed a productive innovation system for herbal medicine. The development of the actor network has evolved mainly from productive working relationships in a close-knit community of researchers that mainly interact through the research organizations in Taipei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a methodology for robust design optimization of braced excavations in soft clay with response surface methodology based on the pareto-optimal trade-off between system performance and cost. As prediction of maximum ground settlement induced by excavation is generally accompanied by an implicit numerical model, the response surface methodology is employed to build the performance function with respect to both design parameters and uncertain geotechnical parameters. Then a pareto-optimal performance-based robust design framework of braced excavations in soft clay is formulated to find the optimal design that meets the design requirements while optimizing the system performance and construction cost. With the aid of a multi-objective optimization approach, trade-off relationship between performance robustness and cost efficiency are developed to help identify the most robust design based on the targeted performance levels. A design example of braced excavation in Taipei soft clay is used to illustrate the significance of the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically studied how Airbnb supply and business cycles affected the price elasticity of room demand (PED) in the hotel industry. Economic theory points out that demand becomes more elastic as there exist more close substitutes in the market. Moreover, market elasticities can vary either procyclically or countercyclically across the business cycles. Using monthly operation data of Taipei's international tourist hotels (ITHs) from 2009 (debut of Airbnb in Taipei) to 2016 and exploiting a Markov regime-switching model, this study finds that total listings of Airbnb were positively associated with PED during the peaks (i.e. high price elasticity of demand). Thus, the Airbnb supply posed a substitution threat to the hotel industry in Taipei. For the effect of business cycles, this study found that elasticities of room demand exhibited a countercyclical nature in the Taipei ITH market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper probes the underlying motives behind the adoption of the 'creative city' policies in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. It argues that while the global appeal of the creative city is commonly attributed to urban entrepreneurialism, this reason alone is insufficient in explaining the so-called 'cultural turn' in these three cities, because none of them ascribe to the conventional format of the post-industrial 'entrepreneurial' city. In order to identify other major forces driving the adoption of creative city initiatives in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, this work delves into the ways in which the idea of the creative city is reworked within the context of global city making. The study found that in addition to urban entrepreneurialism, the inherited cultural policy agenda, which largely stems from national interests, also plays a significant role in directing (and changing) the 'global cultural city' making process. By looking into different roles attached to the 'imported' policy discourse of the creative city in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, this study not only contributes to the understanding of urban cultural policies within the Chinese-speaking world and East Asia more generally, but also lends some insights to the developing field of cultural policy mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistance from bureaucrats affected by the reforms is an often-cited challenge and it is important to know what influences their support for reform. Based on theories of organizational change, this paper examines how bureaucrats' perceptions of reform benefits and risks, process and context influence their support for a structural reform in Taipei city government. Interviews of key informants were conducted to identify potential risks and benefits involved in the reform. An online survey was used to collect data to test the relationship between reform benefits, risks, process, context and reform support. The analysis confirms a positive relationship between individual efficiency gains and reform support, and of a negative relationship between risk of decision-making quality and reform support. The context of reform, demonstrated by the level of red tape, also enhances bureaucrats' support for reform. This study provides important evidence of public sector reform beyond the U.S. context. Implications for future practices and research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on historical research and on-site fieldwork, this paper probes the historic preservation of Treasure Hill Village, which takes place along with the reproduction of the space of Taipei city and the process of society-making in Taiwan. We argue that culture has been implemented as a contested approach through squatter settlements, which can be successfully preserved as a heritage site. On the one hand, the heritage politics of squatter settlements coincide with Taiwan's turn to polarised politics, which adopts the preservation of a counterhegemonic community to validate the legitimacy of a transitional governance authority from below. On the other hand, Treasure Hill Village, as an artist village in the urban sphere, reveals that neoliberal capitalism has dominated the narrative of urban development for the sake of economic initiatives. Even if art and activism have together attempted to preserve the history of ignored people and reshape the 'lived' cultures under the threat of house dismantlement, we should be alert to the paradoxical rhetoric of culture, as it might damage the declining and marginalised residents' access to heritage. The cultural struggle for the right to Taipei city indicates that the question of 'whose heritage?' remains an unfinished project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse how the actors and context interacted in the case of a name rectification referendum for the Olympic team of the Republic of China (Taiwan/ROC) based on a strategic relations approach. Through an analysis of supplemental documents and in-depth interviews involving actors and their strategic actions at different levels, three stages/junctures in relation to this case are addressed. The first is a critical event - the referendum proposal submission process. The second is a critical process - the referendum proposal establishment process. The third is a critical outcome - the failure of the referendum. From these three interlinked discussions, this study shows the strategic historical contexts among the stakeholders, which are used to interpret the strategic calculation. The case itself portrays how the outcome of every stage becomes the subsequent strategic knowledge and contexts and can transform into another selective context in relevant cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into prison tourism and prison heritage has not taken enough time to understand how historical change has left impacts in urban contexts, which sometimes continues even after the prisons are decommissioned. This paper discusses the punitive state in the context of the historical penal landscape of Taipei through an exploration of how an historical prison was designed, built, partially demolished, preserved and redeveloped under three political regimes. It draws attention to the neglected relationships between punishment, colonial modernity and heritage. Drawing on the literature of dissonant heritage and dark tourism it argues that the way in which the government erased the heritage and evicted squatters without regard for colonial histories and large-scale, post-war migration is yet another way of writing imprisonment into the landscape and ‘othering’ the punished. Furthermore, in tracing the place memories, both within and outside of the high prison walls, it demonstrates the possibilities offered by ethics of heritage, with which we may counter the culture of punishment in the remaking of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By offering his interpretation of local movies set in Taipei, Fredric Jameson sought to enrich his postmodern culture theory by further examples. Specifically, Jameson thought there is a major discrepancy between the narrative reflected in the movie Terrorizers filmed in 1986 and the original indigenous narrative about Taiwan, which led to the failure of interpreting the movie based on the indigenous narrative and introduced the postmodern context about the narratives of Taipei. However, his conclusions are not quite convincing, and his choice of interpretive parameters, i.e. mainland movies and western literature, are quite distant from the Taipei experience. To truly understand Taipei's modernity, three discussions are put forward in this paper. First, the author follows Jameson's logic of arguments and discovers that his conclusions were based on the texts of the west and mainland China. Second, the author remaps Taipei in the dual contexts of the globalization trend and the historical experiences of Taiwan itself. Third, after re-examining Jameson's unique but incomplete and biased views of remapping Taipei, the author indicates that the movie Terrorizers is not merely a postmodern narrative about Taipei, but a special narrative based on a mixed context of Chineseness, indigenization, modernity, and postmodernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries around the world since the subprime-mortgage crisis in 2008, soaring housing prices under central governments' quantitative easing (QE) monetary policies have deteriorated home affordability. For example, in Taipei's environment of long-term low property taxes, the price-to-income (PTI) ratio reached 16 in 2014, which is higher than the corresponding ratios in most cities around the world. The fiscal pressure that mortgage payments impose on households seems to crowd out their consumption capability and thus to counter economic growth. However, current literature has revealed diverse effects of housing prices on consumption in far-flung countries. To discover the influence of housing prices on consumption and economic growth, we collected data in Taiwan for empirical analysis. Results show that the stock price index has had a significant positive effect on consumption, whereas interest rates have played a minimal role in consumption. Results also show that rising house prices have had a negative effect on consumption, indicating that high housing prices trigger the crowding-out effect on consumption and in turn contribute to sluggish economic growth. The findings of this study provide the government in Taiwan with policy implications for directing housing prices in ways that facilitate both long-term housing affordability and economic sustainability. Further, this paper explains that, across countries, differences among homeowners' home-equity 'cash-out' behaviors may help explain the differences among the behaviors' diverse effects on consumption. Results of this study not only empirically strengthen academia's knowledge of housing prices' effects on consumption but also suggest that the policy-driven development or promotion of home-equity financing may enhance consumption and revive flagging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bikeshare program in Taipei City and New Taipei City, called U-bike, was launched in August 2012 and has more than 7500 bicycles operating out of 769 stations. Research has suggested that bicycle helmet use is a means of reducing morbidity and mortality among bike users. Helmets, however, are not available for rent when a U-bike is rented. The current research conducted an observational study to examine the prevalence of helmet non-use by users of the bikeshare program, electric bicycles, racing bicycles, and personal bicycles in Taipei City and New Taipei City. Trained observers using compact video cameras collected helmet non-use data during various times of the day and on different days of the week. Observers collected data on cyclist attributes, bicycle types, and helmet use at several selected locations within Taipei City and New Taipei City. U-bike users were found to be the least likely to wear helmets. Other noteworthy findings include that violations such as phone use, red-light violations, and travelling at ≥25 km/h were associated with riding without a helmet. Male users of racing bikes tended not to wear helmets, while female users of other bicycle types were less likely to use a helmet. Carrying passengers by users of electric bikes and personal bikes was a determinant of helmet non-use. This paper concludes with a discussion and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on outdoor thermal comfort in urban areas focuses on meteorological factors such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and radiation on sunny or cloudy days. However, climate conditions before, during, and after rainfall events can cause changes in meteorological factors in subtropical regions. Rainfall is an atmospheric condition with a large influence on thermal comfort, particularly in subtropical areas with abundant rain. Big data on temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, precipitation, and total cloud cover from the Taipei Weather Station under the Central Weather Administration from June to August each year from 2011 to 2020 were analyzed, dividing the data into categories based on precipitation. Using a k-means clustering algorithm, we quantified the relationships between meteorological factors and apparent temperature as well as physiological equivalent temperature in different rainfall scenarios. The results indicate that rainfall in the summers of subtropical oceanic climates indeed influence outdoor thermal comfort in urban areas: 37.7% of the rainfall weather patterns improved thermal comfort and 62.3% of the rainfall weather patterns reduced thermal comfort. RWP 46 represent the weather conditions that most significantly improve thermal comfort, at 1:00 PM, with a rainfall of 15 mm, there is a decrease in ΔAT by 14.4 ℃ and ΔPET by 22.1 ℃. With the hot, humid, and rainy climate conditions in Taiwan, apparent temperature is the most accurate index of thermal comfort. KEY POLICY HIGHLIGHTS Rainfall events may affect outdoor thermal comfort in subtropical cities. Different rainfall weather patterns have different impacts on urban outdoor thermal environments. 62.3% of rainfall weather patterns resulted in worsened thermal comfort, for low and concentrated rainfall resulting in a stuffier thermal environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on disabled teenagers living in a community where the underprivileged and impoverished population gathered, this paper explores, through re-examining their conditions of living and their survival strategies, the liberating possibility of notions such as “disease” and “craziness.” By emphasizing how the underprivileged resists becoming the imagination of the intellectual class, the article attempt to complicate and differentiate the acts of “caring” and further imagine the possibilities of other discourses and resistances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the Cold War years, both the Chinese regimes in Beijing (PRC) and Taipei (ROC) claimed to be the sole representative of the Chinese nation, thus giving rise to a battle over which regime should be recognized by the international sporting community. The issue of recognition, however, was not the only source of contention among supporters of the two regimes during the Cold War years. This paper documents how pro-PRC forces and members of the British expat community in Hong Kong, despite their different political allegiances, formed an alliance to stop Hong Kong football players from representing the ROC in the 1966 Asian Games. This attempt was not successful, partly because of the role played by then-FIFA President Stanley Rous, and the saga eventually offered the pro-ROC forces in Hong Kong the opportunity to strengthen the identification of the Chinese population in Hong Kong with the regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This book, titled "The United States and the East Asia Society in the Cold War Era," is a collection of articles that were presented in a 2017 workshop. The articles aim to shed light on the significant impact of the Cold War on both the United States and East Asian societies. The topics covered include the American garrison in mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and the Soviet troops in East Asia. The articles also explore the fate of medical institutions, women, diplomats, and scholars during this period. The studies in this book are based on primary sources such as police archives, official reports, newspapers, magazines, and diaries, and they aim to challenge the prevailing notion of the Cold War as solely a military and diplomatic contest by examining social issues and the impact on the societies involved. The book also highlights gendered perspectives, the history of drugs and violence, and features international, transnational, and comparative perspectives. While the book has received praise, there are some areas for improvement, such as further exploration of gender and racial dimensions, and providing more historical background in some articles. Overall, this book provides a comprehensive examination of the Cold War in East Asia and is recommended for both professional historians and the general public interested in history. [Extracted from the article]

Installing bikeways is an effective means to improve riding safety and the continuous usage intention of cyclists. This research proposes a bikeway network design model considering utilitarian and recreational cycling in urban built-up areas. In consideration of the concerns of bikers, other road users, and planners, the proposed model aims to maximize accessibility and comfort, and to minimize risk and impact. Model constraints are budget limits, connectivity among nodes and links, bikeway capacity limits, flow conservations of nodes, and value ranges of decision variables. Decisions of the model include determining which road links should be equipped with bikeways, what type of bikeway should be used, and how many lanes should be installed for a bikeway link. A case study in Taipei City, Taiwan is conducted to verify the model's applicability and effectiveness. Therefore, the proposed model is a novel bikeway network design model that considers utilitarian and recreational cycling in urban built-up areas to simultaneously determine the optimum locations, types, and lane numbers of bikeways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Taiwan's social housing has concentrated on the physical provision of housing and pays little attention to questions of social inclusion in neighbourhoods. However, placemaking practices in other countries have triggered a flurry of experimentation in social housing in Taipei. We evaluate the performance of placemaking efforts aimed at enhancing tenant participation in social housing management. The rapid and selective transfer of social housing policy approaches from the West has led to problems in implementation and management. However, we found that community placemaking involving planners as facilitators fostering partnerships significantly enhances tenant participation in the provision and management of social housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taipei City Government launched project of automated guideway transit system in the 1980s caused a conflict with the central government's metro project. This conflict drew the intervention of the US government, who invited American transportation consultants to integrate the two transit systems into one. The Brown Line became the only automated metro line of the Taipei Metro. Although the US government had hoped an American company would be the system provider for the Brown Line, Matra's VAL256 won the contract. However, the VAL256 experienced fire and tire explosion accidents, leading to conflicts between Matra and the Taipei City Government. Matra withdrew all its technical supports to pressure Taipei to pay the down payment. Nonetheless, Taiwanese technical officials and engineers modified the system with flexible strategies making the Brown Line work smoothly without Matra's technical support. Later, The Taiwanese technical officials invited Bombardier to provide its CITYFLO system and integrated it with the modified VAL256 into one system, avoiding paying a high price to Matra for the extension of the Brown Line. How the Brown Line became a hybrid metro system shows how technological hybridity can change the power relationship between technologically advanced countries such as France and "catching-up countries" such as Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are concerns about the cultural validity of applying developmental screeners developed and normed in Western countries to other sociocultural contexts. Given the scarcity of culturally validated developmental checklists for use among Chinese children, the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children (HKSPC) has developed the HKSPC Developmental Checklist (HKSPC-DC) for preschool teachers to identify children at risk of developmental delays through daily observation of children's functioning at school. This study explored the psychometric properties of the HKSPC-DC among 1183 preschool children aged 2–6 recruited from 14 nursery schools in Hong Kong. The HKSPC-DC showed excellent internal consistency, good interrater and test–retest reliabilities, and acceptable concurrent validity when correlated with the Taipei City Developmental Checklist for Preschoolers (Taipei II), which is the only screening instrument developed in a Chinese society and validated across 4- to 72-month-olds. The HKSPC-DC also showed good discriminatory power in identifying preschoolers potentially at risk of developmental delays. This screening tool may help facilitate early identification of children with developmental vulnerabilities in Chinese preschool populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For example, the emergence of the binomial term "complete map" - the I quantu i of the two large characters in black on the cover, Brook dates to 1600 as directly linked to the Jesuit encounter, specifically that of Matteo Ricci. Grounding his inquiries in a single map, the first chapter examines European encounters and map-making practices in China to historicize local map publishing, distribution and consumption. Completing the Map of the World: Cartographic Interaction between China and Europe (Quantu: Zhongguo yu Ouzhou zhijian de ditu xue hudong): By Timothy Brook (Bu Zhengmin). [Extracted from the article]

The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) System is instrumental to both the reconstruction of a collective identity and the development of a renewed political subjectivity, with which the Taiwanese establish themselves as autonomous, law-abiding citizens vis-á-vis a historically repressive state on the one hand, and enlightened, worthy members in the league of the world's urban civilizations on the other. The rescaling of the world economy from the scale of nations to one with an increasingly glocalized configuration has enabled the possibility of scale jumping that allows Taipei the city to stand in for Taiwan the nation, thus helping Taiwan break through its isolation and increase its international visibility. Under this circumstance, the civility displayed on the Taipei MRT takes on the significance of an act of performativity. It has come to signify the Taiwanese people's belonging, in the dual sense of both 'be-ing' in a social complex with fellow citizens and 'longing' for an identification of oneself in a particular historical present. However, the continuing controversies regarding MRT guidelines also indicate that the rights and responsibilities are not always understood to be equal among individual citizens. The process of civic subject formation is contentious and ongoing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Property-led renewal has become the mainstream approach of entrepreneurial governance but may change the sociospatial pattern of the classical rent gap and cause problems such as neighborhood commodification, overlooked public interest, and uneven development. Considering the extensive application of marketized measures such as the floor-area-bonus and right transformation in Taipei's urban renewal system, we explore the role of the state in rent gap production and the obstacles to realizing sustainable regeneration. The legislative framework indicates that urban renewal in Taipei has prompted growth network among property market, property-led incentive, and stakeholders to exploit the state-induced rent gap. From the micro-level, we select two cases in the old and new districts in Taipei for comparison and find that the sociospatial unevenness has not been balanced but intensified by the property-led renewal since the 2000s. Profit-making has engendered a governing barrier detrimental to implementing sustainable regeneration while distorting the publicity to property appreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on serious leisure theory, the purpose of this study is to validate a novelty-driven serious leisure model at aboriginal-themed museums. A total of 400 responses were collected from three aboriginal-themed museums in Taipei, Taiwan. Empirical findings revealed that novelty seeking significantly improves serious leisure, and serious leisure significantly enhances museum satisfaction. Additionally, serious leisure serves as a mediator between novelty seeking and museum satisfaction, demonstrating the importance of employing novelty-driven serious leisure to sustain tourist visitations to aboriginal-themed museums. The empirical findings also support that the frequency of visits to an aboriginal-themed museum strengthens the positive relationship between novelty seeking and serious leisure, thus making it a necessary approach for aboriginal-themed museums in satisfying their novelty seeking, frequent visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-municipal water governance, with fragmentation and asymmetry among boundaries and institutions caused by water sharing, can give rise to quarrels among governments. Many related cases worldwide suggest integration and bottom-up participation as solutions for fostering multi-municipal collaboration, although existing power imbalances and competing interests continue to motivate conflicts. The research attempts to provide insights on how territorial conflicts can create barriers to multi-municipal integration. The case study considers the headwater of Taipei Metropolis, located in a rural-urban nexus in Taiwan, which is characterised by disconnected territory and authority. Along with democratisation and urbanisation, conflicts in interests between the headwater municipality, New Taipei City, and the capital downstream, Taipei City, have become more significant. By content and discourse analysis using secondary data and semi-structured interviews, the study identifies critical changes leading to the curious status quo and possible reasons for unresolved conflicts. The configuration of a multi-municipal water-sharing region has mediated inner tensions of territorialisation, which have been stimulated by developmental pressures of a growing entity under changing scalar status in the municipal hierarchy. The research indicates that territorial discourses provide legitimacy for municipal interests, while marking a shift from upstream inequity to downstream water sharing. The case study identifies the role of territorial conflicts and stresses the impacts of municipal competition triggered by scale politics, thereby offering an alternative understanding of conflicts in multi-municipal water governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the contested dynamics of postcolonial remembering in Taiwan. Focusing on the long-suppressed 228 massacre in particular and the White Terror period in general, we bring Taiwan's postcolonial remembering into international and intercultural communication studies by analyzing two contemporary sites: Taipei's 228 Memorial Museum and the Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park. As our case studies demonstrate, Taiwan's postcolonial remembering offers unique indications of how public memory work can help move a culture toward a sense of reconciliation, thus promoting what one of our collaborators called "the end of fear." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a two-stage network performance evaluation model that determines the efficiency and effectiveness of bus transit systems. The model accounts for non-storable service features, undesirable outputs, and transport policy factors. The Taipei bus transit system is presented as an empirical case to measure the performance of bus transits with and without consideration of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the transfer of riders. The results show that CO2 emissions and the transfer of riders are important factors for a performance evaluation model. Failure to include these results in an incomplete evaluation. Rather than focusing solely on marketable outputs, government agencies and managers must consider undesirable outputs or transport policy factors that relate to bus transits when measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of bus transits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tatun Volcanic Group (TVG) in northern Taiwan is the sole volcanic region on the island, with its last eruptive episode around 5,500 years ago. It has been suggested that the TVG retains the capacity for volcanic explosivity which has the potential to devastate the nearby Taipei metropolitan area of 7 million inhabitants. Though the probability of future eruption is low by probabilistic estimation, the vulnerability to volcanic hazards is high for Taipei given that it is the centre of population, industry, and government for the island. An assessment of any activity precursors is thus vital but also particularly challenging. Here, we perform an eruption-potential assessment based on the analysis of a sixteen-year Land Surface Temperature (LST) time series of data derived from satellite-retrieved thermal imagery. A Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) is applied to decompose oscillatory components of various timescales within the LST time series. The annual-period components are compared with those from two active volcanoes in the Philippines to assess the potential of eruption cycles in the TVG. Results from the Philippine volcanoes show that annual-period components of LST tend to lose their regularity following an eruption. By contrast, the regular annual period component of LST of the TVG Taiwan suggests a quiet and resting status with no sign of an imminent eruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to develop a structural model to examine the relationships among servicescape, service experience, and loyalty for attendees of the Taipei International Travel Fair. The analytical results indicated that the servicescape (e.g., ambient conditions, spatial layout and signs, and functionality of equipment) positively affected attendees' service experience and that the service experience positively affected attendees' loyalty. This study provides insightful implications for academic research and the practical application of exhibitions; thus, it significantly expands our understanding of an attendee behavioral model of exhibitions, which has typically been ignored in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preschool children have a higher respiratory rate per unit body weight than adults, and their respiratory systems are not mature. Hence, children may have more health risks associated with particulate matter (PM) exposure. In this study, we assessed the exposure of preschool children and their caregivers to PM and the resulting health risks. The PM concentrations at heights of 60–80 cm (preschool children) and 150 cm (adults) were measured at ten indoor and eight outdoor sites in the Taipei metropolitan area from March 2015 to February 2017. Four PM2.5 and seven PM10 indoor measurements exceeded the indoor air quality standard of Taiwan, whereas only two PM2.5 outdoor measurements exceeded the ambient air quality standard. The outdoor PM concentrations were related to traffic emissions, whereas the indoor PM concentrations were associated with ventilation rate and occupant density. The chronic daily PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 intakes of preschool children were notably higher than those of adults. In addition, the hazard quotient resulting from PM2.5 exposure indicated a significant health risk for preschool children (93.74% greater than 1). Consequently, reducing the exposure of preschool children to PM2.5 is an emerging issue in the Taipei metropolitan area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the reasons why an exhibitor participates in a travel exhibition and assesses this marketing strategy. A total of 15 representative exhibitors who participated in the Taipei International Travel Fair were interviewed between January and July 2016. The results of the analysis indicated that exhibitors’ selection of a travel exhibition was based on the exhibition’s performance and condition. The primary purposes for participating in a travel exhibition were to enhance the firm’s reputation and sales. The exhibitors’ marketing strategies primarily involved on-site promotional activity and relevant five-sense experiences. An assessment of exhibitors’ participation factors and marketing strategies can both help firms implement their goals and enable organizers to create sustainable exhibitions. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing both theoretical and managerial implications for the travel fair, service, and tourism industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrians' head-turning behaviors are crucial to navigating streets safely. This research investigates the effects of phone use on pedestrians' street-crossing behaviors at an uncontrolled intersection where head-turning performances are important to identify a gap among the oncoming traffic. A field study using video cameras was conducted for evaluating pedestrians' head-turning behaviors (e.g., head-turning frequency, not looking at traffic before crossing, looking at the wrong traffic side), crossing time, and sudden movement while they were engaging in various smartphone activities (e.g., calling, texting, gaming, and listening to music). Data such as phone features, distraction types, and personal attributes of the pedestrians were obtained in the interviews conducted after pedestrians had completed crossing the street. The results indicate that the unsafe crossing behaviors (e.g., sudden movement, fewer head-turning frequencies, not looking at traffic before crossing, not looking at left side of traffic first) were more prevalent among those gaming with “Pokemon Go.” Web surfing appears to be the 2nd risky distraction event following gaming with “Pokemon Go.” Logistic regression models reveal several important correlates of unsafe crossing behaviors: being a student, large phone screen (5 in. or larger), and having un-restricted 4G Internet data allowance. The current research recommends that “Pokemon Go” gaming be prohibited while crossing the street. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that the memorial landscape is a dynamically composed assemblage of heterogeneous elements, and that the guided walking tour is a practical tactic through which discourses and materials might be re-assembled and thus re-signified. Guided walking tours therefore epitomise the relational rethinking of memorial landscapes, or quasi-heritage, in everyday urban life. Based on three case studies in Taipei, Taiwan, we discuss how memorial landscapes featuring the urban underclass and civil resistance might be strategically re-assembled. We explore to what extent the bodily practices, narratives, and reconfiguration of space have produced new memorialised landscapes. We conclude that guided walking tours are a form of social intervention that can reframe our understanding of memorialization or quasi-heritagization, especially in the urban arena where heterogeneous values increasingly compete. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

'China's growing assertiveness, America's declining deterrent capability, and Taiwan's growing jumpiness, not least as it watches Hong Kong, have all made a stumble into catastrophic conflict across the Taiwan Strait more likely than for decades. Brendan Taylor credibly argues this is only avoidable - however unattractive "muddling through" might be to purists on all sides - by urgently building more robust crisis-management mechanisms. A sober and compelling analysis which policymakers will ignore at their peril.' Gareth Evans, Former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group 'The cross-Strait balance of power is shifting, raising the risk of inadvertent and catastrophic great-power conflict. Brendan Taylor's identification of this window of vulnerability and proposals for crisis-management advance our understanding of one of the most vexing national security problems of the next decade.' Dr Mira Rapp-Hooper, Council on Foreign Relations 'This is certainly a timely book addressing Taiwan's forthcoming security challenges. Brendan Taylor provides an insightful and thought-provoking analysis regarding the threats Taiwan is facing and at the same time offers valuable suggestions in terms of how to manage this imminent crisis. This is worth reading by all interests.' Andrew N.D. Yang, Former Minister of National Defense, Republic of China, Taiwan Taiwan's position looks increasingly precarious, and tensions threaten to grow into a major strategic crisis. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made reunification with Taiwan a central pillar of his vision for China, and has ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan. Its inhabitants are increasingly estranged from the mainland, and Tsai Ing-wen's administration refuses to conduct relations with China on Beijing's terms. Taiwan could take on renewed strategic significance amid the backdrop of the deepening rivalry between China and the United States, and find itself at the centre of a Cold War-style superpower confrontation. While Washington's support and military power has historically guaranteed Taiwan's security, this is no longer a certainty. This Adelphi book argues that China's military modernisation has changed the cross-strait military balance, and the ability of the US to prevail in a conflict over Taiwan may have evaporated by 2030. As China feels increasingly empowered to retake Taiwan, there is significant potential for escalation, particularly given the ambiguity of Beijing's 'red lines' on Taiwan. Neither Beijing, Taipei nor Washington want such a conflict, but each is challenging the uneasy status quo. Taylor calls for the introduction of a narrower set of formal crisis-management mechanisms designed to navigate a major Taiwan crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the mid-2000s and the early 2010s, the neighborhoods around National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), an area widely known as Shida, unexpectedly became a tourist hotspot due to the rapidly expanding night market there. Dissatisfied residents mobilized, and for several years they engaged in intense legal and discursive clashes with area businesses, the Taipei City government, and other groups in the community. Drawing on long-term observation, ethnographic research, and in-depth interviews, this article explains Shida’s spatial change from the perspectives of urban movements and cultural struggles. Specifically, it describes how three groups in Shida became organized around divergent purposes, values, and imaginations of the community. Deploying different cultural resources – ranging from civic culture, subcultural ethics to community building – the groups further enter into complex negotiation with the spheres of politics and economics. Ultimately, there was no consensus reached in the Shida case, and though many lament the passing of the area’s unique culture and many of its businesses, the dynamics between the small-scale mobilizations in Shida generated invaluable critical local wisdoms that acknowledge the desire for multiple communities in a physical locality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Given the semi-obnoxious characteristic of hospitals, either being right next to hospitals or being too farther away without easy medical access indicates inconvenience to residents. Quantile regression is applied to examine the potentially non-linear effects of hospital spline distance on quantiles of property prices in Taipei Metropolis, Taiwan. The conventional continuous distance (from property to hospital) showed consistent negative impact on property prices, implying hospitals as amenities as generally believed. Nevertheless, the splines of hospital distance demonstrated a non-linear effect on property prices: the positive effect of splinek1 (0–500 m) on property prices indicates farther away from the hospital, higher the prices, possibly due to stronger negative externalities; the negative impact of splinek2 (500–1000 m) on property prices implies the negative impact of hospitals wears off as the positive impact reveals itself gradually; thus, the property prices fall as the distance increases; splinesk5 (2000–2500 m) andk6 (2500–3000 m) also demonstrated significant negative effects. In short, hospitals would only be highly evaluated in a ‘close-but-not-too-close’ geographic location. From urban planning perspective, hospitals, which are crucial in ageing societies, may reduce its externalities by creatingspatial barrierssuch as scenic roads to keep distance from adjacent properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Tsai Ming-liang's cinematic portrayals of cities, I argue for consideration and appreciation of artistic devices in our thinking and writing on cities. Specifically, I look into four types of absence the Taiwanese director engages with: absence of movement, absence of speech, absence of home and absence of infrastructure. Tsai depicts absence by extrapolating what seem to be inherent elements of an urban situation or an urban setting thus disrupting their taken-for-grantedness. Tsai's multi-layered preoccupation with the notion of absence and the visual language he develops to talk about it may be inspiring for urban researchers, especially those among us working with visual methods. After introducing his work and elaborating on its urban contexts, I will investigate Tsai Ming-liang's use of absence as a method of inquiring into various aspects of urban life, particularly those involving interactions with infrastructure. In the spirit of interdisciplinary and inclusive thinking promoted byCity, I will conclude by reiterating the validity of cinema—among other arts—as a tool for critical reflection on cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to identify and explain the key factors supporting the bid of Taiwan [Taipei] to host the 2017 Summer Universiade. In tackling this subject, this study employs content analysis to elucidate how and to what extent the issues associated with this successful bid are portrayed by investigating a collection of material, including nine interviews and a review of published and unpublished documentary materials derived from government reports, parliamentary debates, academic journals, and media commentaries, among other sources. The study concludes that the experience of having hosted international sporting events, having existing facilities and venues, and having tacit consent and support from China were all important contributing factors to Taiwan's success. Among these factors, the ‘acquiescence’ from the Chinese government and relevant actors to Taiwan's ‘demands’ appeared to play a particularly important role. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To the government, the squatter settlement on the ex-military site in Treasure Hill was an eyesore that should be removed to make way for a park. To the social activists, including academics and students, the spatial organization and the consequent social cohesion found in the settlement were valuable knowledge on use values of the evolving lived space. Mastering this knowledge and capitalizing on the wider socio-political opportunity of the new mayor's emphasis on cultural development, the social activists have succeeded in developing a co-living discourse, arguing for the merits of having artists-in-residence, welfare housing tenants and youth hostel sojourners to co-develop a sustainable, creative learning environment in the historic architecture of the squatter huts. In order to materialize this ideal, they even became the contractual party in implementing the project. The case nevertheless highlights the fragility of organic lived space. While the co-living concept allowed residents the option to stay in the area, the whole saga had led to the departure of many residents, dismantling the coherent community and ending its dynamic self-regenerating process. The experiment of mixing disadvantaged squatter residents and spontaneous artists in a fossilized physical setting has not been conducive to regenerating self-sustaining lived space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Neuro-ophthalmology Symposium which was part of the 31st Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology Congress (APAO 2016) held at Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) and Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) in Taipei, Taiwan from March 24-27, 2016. Topics discussed include the management of optic neuropathy, the treatment on Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), and the diagnosis on eye movement disorders.