Aging is a global phenomenon. Ways to sustain older adults' aging-in-place in the 'community at-large' (defined as traditional communities where most people live) have been overlooked. Consciously engaging in physical activity helps older adults to remain healthy and gives them the ability to access daily-life services, and thus extend their independent years at home. Nearby outdoor environments on residential sites and in the neighborhoods may influence older adults' independent living through physical activity. This study surveyed 206 older adults in 11 assisted-living facilities in Texas regarding their past physical activities when they lived in their own homes and perceptions of the residential site and neighborhood environments. Older adults are shown to have long-term recall ability and capable of reliably estimating their physical activities that occurred up to ten years ago. Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to verify the survey responses and further examine the objective measurements of environments on a subset of 117 participants' residences. Bivariate tests, factor analysis, and multivariate logistic regression modeling were conducted to identify environmental variables correlated to yard activities, neighborhood walking, and years of independent living at home. After controlling for personal and social factors in multivariate logistic modeling, three site features (transitional-areas, connecting-paths, and levels of pleasant indoor sunshine) have been found to influence yard activities; two site features (yard landscaping and corner lot location) and three neighborhood features (walking destinations, safety from crime, and sidewalks) have been found to influence neighborhood walking; one site features (transitional-areas) has been found to influence older adults' years of independent living in the community. Based on the results, guidelines were developed for designing friendly environments for older adults' active and independent living. Nearby outdoor environments on residential sites and in the neighborhoods appear to be important for older adults. The roles of residential site environments in shaping older adults' behavior and independence need more attention. To better understand environmental influences on older adults and promote aging-in-place, more empirical studies and longitudinal research are needed.

Behavior is a complex process resulting from the integration of genetic and environmental information. Thus, the genetically tractable Drosophila melanogaster was utilized to better understand the interplay between these factors since Drosophila males and females exhibit sex-specific courtship behaviors that are innate yet modifiable. These sex-specific behaviors, as well as sexually dimorphic development, are regulated, in part, by the somatic sex-determination hierarchy. Since reproductive behaviors rely on the rapid integration of multiple sensory cues, it is likely that the perception and integration of such cues and mating-induced physiological changes are mediated in part by changes in gene expression. Therefore, it was hypothesized that assaying gene expression changes in response to courtship or mating in Drosophila males would uncover new targets of the sex-determination hierarchy and other behaviorally important loci. We took a novel approach to find these behaviorally-responsive loci by utilizing microarray technology to assess courtship- or mating-induced gene expression changes in Drosophila male whole bodies or heads. Mutations in candidate loci were tested for effects on reproductive behaviors and present the first data showing that egghead (egh) and female-specific independent of transformer (fit) affect male reproductive behavior. egh is up regulated in male heads 20 min after courting and is required post-developmentally in a subset of neurons for robust male courtship behavior. fit, a fat body-expressed sex-determination hierarchy target gene, is up regulated in male whole bodies after 5 min of courtship. fit is also up regulated in male heads after 20 min of courtship or 2 hrs after mating. Mutations in fit result in male-male courtship; more specifically, fit mutants direct courtship towards males and also elicit courtship from wild-type males. By analyzing fit's role in courtship behavior, we also shed light on the role the fat body plays in modulating behavior. These studies provide the first pieces of evidence that gene expression changes occur in Drosophila males performing reproductive behaviors. This novel approach identified behaviorally important loci that are expressed in the nervous system and the fat body, indicating that both tissues modulate behavior. Also identified were sex-determination hierarchy target genes and it is likely that further analysis of the remaining candidates will reveal more members of this genetic cascade.

In March 19, 2004, That day was before the presidential election day, when The presidential campaign was in full swing, the President Chen and the Vice President was shot by a shooter. This criminal act shocked the whole world, and even the opposition parties argued this event had already changed the result of the presidential Election. After the presidential election, the KMT legislators and the PFP legislators are in the majority in The Legislative Yuan, and they passed ¡ythe Act of the Special Commission on the Investigation of the Truth in Respect of the 319 Shooting¡z(hereinafter the ¡§SCITA¡¨) without considering controversial issues. According to the law, the Special Commission on the Investigation of the Truth in Respect of the 319 Shooting (hereinafter the ¡§SCIT¡¨) was set up. December 15, 2004, J.Y. Interpretation NO.585 recognized the ¡¨SCIT¡¨ was the organization responsible for the exercise of investigation, and admitted the ¡¨SCIT¡¨ to be no violation of the Constitution. But the ¡§SCIAT¡¨ provided the power to ¡§SCIT¡¨ for ordering prosecutors and retrial, etc. There was in violation of the Constitution. The Legal Profession¡Bjurists and political scientists had different opinions with the character of ¡§SCIT¡¨¡Aand it also meant that the legislators of KMT and PFP challenged the independence of Taiwan¡¦s prosecutor system. Accordingly, they hoped the character of ¡§SCIT¡¨ can be similar with the¡¨ WARREN COMMISSION¡¨ in America. They even hoped to legislate for establishing the Independent Counsel System. Because they believe the prosecutor system in Taiwan cannot avoid intervention from politics or administrative organizations, so when a prosecutor investigates crimes, he might ignored some kinds of crime involving with high-position administrators. April 12,2004, a part of prosecutors from Shihlin District Prosecutors Office¡BTaoyuan District Prosecutors Office, and etc. They cosigned a public statement. It meant that ¡§Begin the independent prosecutor system, solve the crisis of the 319 truth and the innovation of prosecutor system to win-win situation¡¨. Their suggestion is establishing the independent prosecutor system to investigate some crimes involving with high-position administrators. Those prosecutors asserted that establishing the independent prosecutor System would be better than leading in the Independent Counsel System. And making the prosecutor a categoric judicatory position¡Battorney general substitutes the minister of Ministry of Justice to be the chief of the prosecutor system¡Ball prosecutor personnel matters decided by the prosecutor personnel committee, and etc. These methods will improve the independence of the prosecutor system, and avoid intervention from any illegitimate reasons. For the character of the Independent Counsel in America, it belongs to administration. United States Congress pass a law (Ethics in Government Act of 1978) to assure the Independent Counsel can exercise his power without interference. So the Independent Counsel in America is different from the prosecutor in Taiwan. Some constitutionalists claim that the Independent Counsel was in violation of constitution, and this contention was a key point of many reasons to make the law become void. According to these reasons, what is the difference between the Independent Counsel and the independent prosecutor system? Whether we must lead in the Independent Counsel System to solve the defect of the prosecutor system in Taiwan or not? Whether the power of control (one of the five powers of the government specified in the Constitution of the Republic of China) is analogous to the Independent Counsel System? Above-mentioned questions would be the topics of debate.

A four-session text independent, TV-recorded audio-video database for speaker recognition is collected in this thesis. The speaker data is used to verify the applicability of a design methodology based on Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients and Gaussian mixture model. Both single-session and multi-session problems are discussed in the thesis. Experimental results indicate that 90% correct rate can be achieved for a single-session 3000-speaker corpus while only 67% correct rate can be obtained for a two-session 800-speaker dataset. The performance of a multi-session speaker recognition system is greatly reduced due to the variability incurred in the recording environment, speakers¡¦ recording mood and other unknown factors. How to increase the system performance under multi-session conditions becomes a challenging task in the future. And the establishment of such a multi-session large-scale speaker database does indeed play an indispensable role in this task.

This study is to research the ¡§Corruption Prevention and Profits Promotion of Corporate Governance in our country¡¨. Recently, companies have encountered the corporate governance problems globally and indicate that corporate governance have not been fulfilled exactly. It not only failed to maximize the profit of shareholders and stakeholders, and even worse, unable to make the investment money get back. Furthermore, it will also cause bad effects that associate with the social instability and weaken the economic development. In view of the reasons that contribute to the occurrence of company scandals, most of people will think it¡¦s due to lack of monitoring and supervision of companies. But this should be merely the direct reasons. Apart form this, it has to be added with indirect causes of inability of company strategy leadership and cause financial problems to occur consequently. It¡¦s obvious that monitoring with corruption prevention and leadership work to profit promotion are two essential features of corporate governance. In the aspect of monitoring system enhancement, this paper has investigated the current supervision problems of corporate governance and provided improvement suggestions accordingly. To the issue of evaluating these two systems regarding independent directors and existing supervisors, several fundamental but important points have been reviewed and recommendations have been provided. In consideration of increasing leadership management performance and building a multi-purposes board, we recommend taking British mode of a balancing board as a good reference example. It¡¦s recommended that both characteristics of independent monitoring and excellent ability of promoting company¡¦s profit should be taken into account simultaneously when choosing directors. It¡¦s expected that the board can fulfill the duties of monitoring the company efficiently and playing the role as excellent navigator successfully to lead the company going forward continuously. It¡¦s all wish that owing to these dual functions have been stressed and developed; it can bring a new era to our corporate governance.

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Electricity Liberalization Independent Power Plant Project Finance Electricity Pool Biletral Contract

A Study of the Effect of Cognitive Styles Learning Approaches on Identifying English Clause Tasks Lieu, Pin-huei Abstract The main purpose of this study intended to discuss the effect of Field Independent subjects(FIs), Field Dependent subjects (FDs) of junior high school using Discovery, Rule Learning approaches on identifying English clauses task. The questions explored here were: 1.How did FIs and FDs differently perform on identifying English clauses tasks. 2.How did Discovery and Rule learning approaches differently perform on identifying English clauses tasks. 3.How did FIs / FDs and Discovery/Rule learning approaches create interactive effect on identifying English clauses tasks. The study used experimental research method. The subjects were 90 third grade students of junior high school. According to the scores of Embedded Figures Test students were divided into FI and FD. Then depending on the scores of the prior test on identifying English clauses task, FIs and FDs match with two group to accept Discovery and Rule learning approaches , and each one was composed of 10 students. The instruments was ¡§ Embedded Figures Test¡¨ , ¡§self-made that clauses test ,¡¨and the information acquired was dealt with statistical testing through 2*2 ANOVA .The results indicated as followings. 1.An interactive effect of cognitive style and learning approaches were found through ANOVA. FIs using Discovery learning performed better than using Rule learning ,and FDs using Rule learning performed better using Discovery learning .In sum ,FIs appropriately use Discovery learning approach and FDs appropriately use Rule learning approach on identifying English clauses task. 2.Cognitive style lives up significantly different level .FIs performed better than those of FDs. 3.No overall difference were found between Discovery and Rule learning approach. Finally the study discussed the above results in more detail ,and provided suggestions and references of research concerning teaching of English clauses .

Abstract Electricity is an indispensable power in our modern life and it has an important impact on our daily life and the development of a nation¡¦s economy. Traditionally, it has been controlled and protected by the government, thus it has caused the power producers pay no attention to cost and efficiency. Through the electric power industry liberalization, the market will have more competition and it can increase the efficiency in management. The foundation of the electric power industry liberalization is the industry structures and market systems. Different industry structures will have different market systems thus producing different impacts in electric power industry. The power producers must use different strategies regarding to different management and circumstances to insure their best interests. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the circumstances and structures of electric power industry in Taiwan, This paper also talks about the strategies under different electric power market systems and management from the viewpoints of independent power producers. The power producers in Taiwan are in a difficult situation. Under the development of electric power industry liberalization, the government must consider the conditions of power producers, therefore, the authorities must speed up making rules and regulations and establishing electric power market systems. The government needs to set up a fair competition and efficient environment. Take the consideration of their own benefits, the independent power producers might use the following strategies: Build up less pollution facilities to reduce the cost of electricity. Borrow money from banks to increase the price of electricity. Using the strategy of bidding to gain more profits. Keywords¡GElectric power industry liberalization,Electric power industry structure,Independent power producer,Strategy

The objective of this thesis is to build a phrase recognition system under noisy environment that can be used in real-life. In this system, the noisy speech is first filtered by the enhanced spectral subtraction method to reduce the noise level. Then the MFCC with cepstral mean subtraction is applied to extract the speech features. Finally, hidden Markov model (HMM) is used in the last stage to build the probabilistic model for each phrase. A Mandarin microphone database of 514 company names that are in Taiwan¡¦s stock market is collected. A speaker independent noisy phrase recognition system is then implemented. This system has been tested under various noise environments and different noise strengths.