Taiwan's population aging rapidly, making many current long-term care institutions, in their business model is extremely different from the past .The purpose of this study is to investigate the market supply and demand for long-term care institutions and the current operating status of the long-term care institutions in Kaohsiung area, thereby identifying the key successful factor of the institutions operating surface. This study adopts case study research of descriptive studies, by the way of in-depth interview to collect information on cases, and adopts Prof. Cher-Min Fong¡¦s ¡]National Sun Yat-sen University¡^the seven dimensions of the business model used, to analysis the competitive advantage of enterprises, as the main analytical tools, including the "product line strategy," "work processes strategy," and " Channel strategy " and "market segmentation strategy," " Services strategy," "strategy focused on the value of activities" and "Technology Strategy"; In addition to Michael Porter¡¦s "five forces anaysis model" and the external environmental factors as a supplementary analysis tools. Through six cases of the in-depth interview, this thesis research found that: The current domestic long-term care market, supply far exceeds the actual demand of about twice.The operating of long-term care institutions of conservation type, failed to actively cooperate with the government planning of aging in place, community service goals, adjusted operating strategies, result in more limited operation. In addition to five forces analysis found that the current operating environment of the existing institutions is adverse, and inter-industry bargain with serious competition, lower quality of care even more serious situation, but also the moral crisis will inevitably trigger controversy. Institutional trading competition, the lack of mutual contacts and exchanges, and their competitiveness also depends on whether the operator has the determination to develop long-term investment. The interview results, the next most important business strategy followed by "expansion of target markets and positioning," "increase services, outreach services," and "innovative services, commodities" and "improving the organizational structure and management system." The future as more competitors access will be serious competition and in the circumstances of difficult to reduce costs, strengthening marketing capabilities, to pursue the differences and decentralization strategy for the industry.

Standard and Poor¡¦s (S & P), a global leading corporation in providing credit rating, published the sovereign rating outlook of Taiwan which was ¡§negative sign¡¨ at the end of 2007. The main reason was that the situation of public finance continued worsening. Based on traditional economic theory, the increased deficits or debts led to higher interest rates, and the increasing burden on enterprises for paying more loan cost, would have more adverse effects on the domestic investment activities. Therefore, this study is intended to explore the relationships among the long-term interest rates of public bonds, the outstanding debts, fiscal deficits, and government expenditure in Taiwan by analyzing 53 seasonal data from 1994:4 to 2007:4 as the samples. The findings indicate that no structure breaking points exist in every variable by using CUSUM test, and almost every variable is integrated of order one in unit root test. The results also reveal that there is no long-term relationship among the deficits, government expenditure, and interest rates using the cointegration analysis. There are probably two reasons for explanation: one is that people will increase saving automatically, and another is that the increased interest rates in the tax cut may be offset by the decreased interest rates in debts financing. Moreover, the outstanding debts and interest rates exist a significant negative relationship of long-term equivalence, and further variance decomposition shows that the effect of debts on interest rates is higher than the effect of interest rates on debts in the variable¡¦s explanatory ability. To explain the significant negative relationship, the possible main causes are liquidity factor, and the psychological anticipation of saving in public bond form directly or indirectly; the secondary cause is the fluctuation of interest rates affects the willingness of government financing.

There are numerous experiments for the exploration of the corium spreading behaviour, but comparable data have not been available up to now in the field of the long term behaviour of a corium expanded in a core catcher. The difficulty consists in the experimental simulation of the decay heat that can be neglected for the short-run course of events like relocation and spreading, which must, however, be considered during investigation of the long time behaviour. Therefore the German GRS, defined together with Battelle Ingenieurtechnik a benchmark problem in order to determine particular problems and differences of CFD codes simulating an expanded corium and from this, requirements for a reasonable measurement of experiments, that will be performed later. First the finite-volume-codes Comet 1.023, CFX 4.2 and CFX-TASCflow were used. To be able to make comparisons to a finite-element-code, now calculations are performed at the Institute of Safety Research at the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf with the code ANSYS/FLOTRAN.For the benchmark calculations of stage 1 a pure and liquid melt with internal heat sources was assumed uniformly distributed over the area of the planned core catcher of a EPR plant. Using the Standard-k-e-turbulence model and assuming an initial state of a motionless superheated melt several large convection rolls will establish within the melt pool. The temperatures at the surface do not sink to a solidification level due to the enhanced convection heat transfer. The temperature gradients at the surface are relatively flat while there are steep gradients at the ground where the no slip condition is applied. But even at the ground no solidification temperatures are observed. Although the problem in the ANSYS-calculations is handled two-dimensional and not three-dimensional like in the finite-volume-codes, there are no fundamental deviations to the results of the other codes.

<p> </p><div><table style="height: 340px;" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="639" align="left"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0cm 7.1pt;" height="289" align="left" valign="top"><div style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 1pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none; padding: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">A low-loaded constructed wetland was investigated with respect to phosphorus retention. Since the main long-term phosphorus retention mechanism is sedimentation and sediment accretion, the study focused on these processes. The purpose of the study was 1) to investigate how the calculated value of phosphorus retention (P_in – P_out), corresponded with the measured amount of phosphorus in the sediment, 2) to find out where in the wetland the phosphorus had accumulated, and in what form it was retained, and 3) to investigate the role of vegetation. The calculated value was 12 kg ha^-1 and the measured value was 104 kg ha^-1, which indicated the importance of internal phosphorus circulation, where plants probably take phosphorus from the underlying clay. Hence, vegetation could possibly increase the total phosphorus content in the wetland. The composition of phosphorus in the sediment was analysed using sequential fractionation. The dominating form of phosphorus in the sediment was iron-bound phosphorus (29 %). In total, 48 % of the phosphorus was stable, i.e. tightly bound in the sediment, and 35 % was relatively stable. The bioavailable fraction, which could cause eutrophication in downstream waters, was 17 % of the total phosphorus content, or 41 kg ha^-1. The amount of total phosphorus was significantly higher near the inlet, compared to the outlet, which is explained by rapid sedimentation of particulate phosphorus entering the wetland. The phosphorus amount near the inlet represented 80 % of the total phosphorus load – which indicates the importance of internal circulation of phosphorus, both biological and geochemical. </span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124).

Thesis (M.S.W.) - Carleton University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p.99-104). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-89).

The loss of human capital that is the result of repatriate turnover has plagued multi-national companies' expatriate programs for decades. In striving to avoid this outcome, many are today sending their employees on so-called short-term expatriate assignments for which the long term effects are unknown. This study attempts to remedy this using quantitative methods and the latest developments in Identity Theory, but falls short due to difficulties in gaining access to respondents.

Prior research has shown that visual working memory (VWM) performance can be improved via retrospective cues (“retro-cues”) that spatially indicate which item currently being held in working memory will be probed at test. These studies have utilized electroencephalography (EEG) methods to monitor contralateral delay activity (CDA) event related potentials (ERPs) and assert that retro-cues benefit memory by reducing effective memory load. Here, we investigated the potential relationship between CDA amplitude and future long-term memory (LTM) performance. Emerging evidence from ERP and fMRI studies suggest that working memory maintenance can contribute to LTM formation, which suggests that memory systems are not as discrete as some models suggest. We investigated the hypotheses that A) the benefits afforded by the retro-cue in VWM will carry over into LTM, and B) CDA amplitude will be modulated by subsequent LTM performance. Results revealed that retro-cuing improved item accuracy at both VWM and LTM delays, suggesting that the two memory systems are interactive. Due to an insufficient amount of subsequent LTM misses, we were unfortunately too underpowered to detect a CDA depending on long-term memory performance. However, we found that posterior slow-wave potentials during the maintenance period did differ by subsequent LTM performance, which further suggests an interactive systems account of memory. We also sought to investigate what exactly the retro-cue cues. Prior research has focused on memory for items, but no study has questioned if the retro-cue also enhances memory for item location. To this end, the present study investigated the effect of retro-cueing on both item identity and item location. LTM Behavioral results revealed a retro-cue benefit for item accuracy but no benefit for item location, suggesting that the retro-cue selectively cues item identity.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the stability of hearing aid benefit, as measured by the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB; Cox & Alexander, 1995), between three months post hearing aid fitting and at next the annual audiological re-evaluation. The annual re-evaluation was at least, and as close to nine months as possible, after the previous audiological. The maximum time between the two evaluations was 18 months. Thirty-six hearing aid patients participated in this study. The participants were both male andfemale, and were fitted monaurally or binaurally with hearing aid(s). All participants had sensorineural hearing loss with no ongoing or permanent conductive or retrocochlear pathology. The APHAB scale was administered at the three month hearing aid check (HAC) and again at the annual audiometric re-evaluation. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with length of time between the three month hearing aid check (HAC) and the next audiological re-evaluation as a covariate, was used to examine the main effects of time of administration and subscale [e.g., ease of communication (EC), reverberant conditions (RV), background noise (BN), and aversiveness of sounds (AV) and their interactions. Results revealed a significant reduction in the mean benefit scores between the 3-month HAC and annual re-evaluation APHAB administration. It is hypothesized that the causal factor of the decrease in benefit in the EC, RV, & BN are multifactorial. These reductions in benefits may be do to the Hawthorne effect, unrealistic hearing aid benefit expectations by the participants, or a heightened expectation of hearing aid benefit due to the financial expense. It should also be noted, however, that using the 90% confidence interval for "true" clinical benefit, 21 of the participants maintained stable benefit over the course of the study. Finally, although not statistically significant, the fourth APHAB scale, aversiveness of sounds (AV), improved over time.