Parenting and Beyond: Common Neurocircuits Underlying Parental and Altruistic Caregiving

Interpersonal relationships constitute the foundation on which human society is based. The infant-caregiver bond is the earliest and most influential of these relationships. Driven by evolutionary pressure for survival, parents feel compelled to provide care to their biological offspring. However, compassion for non-kin is also ubiquitous in human societies, motivating individuals to suppress their own self-interests to promote the well-being of non-kin members of the society. We argue that the process of early kinship-selective parental care provides the foundation for non-exclusive altruism via the activation of a general Caregiving System that regulates compassion in any of its forms. We propose a tripartite structure of this system that includes (1) the perception of need in another, (2) a caring motivational or feeling state, and (3) the delivery of a helping response to the individual in need. Findings from human and animal research point to specific neurobiological mechanisms including activation of the insula and the secretion of oxytocin that support the adaptive functioning of this Caregiving System.     

The all-in-one human resource policy of Taiwan’s Hand-in-Hand Program

The Taiwan Government launched the Hand-in-Hand After-School Care Program in 2006 with several goals: In addition to providing disadvantaged students with supplemental learning opportunities, this highly ambitious government program hopes to provide increased employment opportunities for substitute teachers and low-income college students, and also make good use of the abilities of retired teachers and private individuals. However, the results seem to be much lower than what was expected, which can mainly be attributed to the lofty but unrealistic ideals of its recruitment design. This research is thus aimed at analyzing the criteria that used for recruiting teachers, calculating the relative weight for each criterion, and determining the instructional strengths of each of the five teacher sources. Suggestions are given for improving the teacher recruitment process of the Hand-in-Hand Program.     

Perceived Discrimination Among African American Adolescents and Allostatic Load: A Longitudinal Analysis With Buffering Effects

This study was designed to examine the prospective relations of perceived racial discrimination with allostatic load (AL), along with a possible buffer of the association. A sample of 331 African Americans in the rural South provided assessments of perceived discrimination from ages 16 to 18 years. When youth were 18 years, caregivers reported parental emotional support and youth assessed peer emotional support. AL and potential confounder variables were assessed when youth were 20. Latent growth mixture modeling identified two perceived discrimination classes: high and stable, and low and increasing. Adolescents in the high and stable class evinced heightened AL even with confounder variables controlled. The racial discrimination to AL link was not significant for young adults who received high emotional support.     

Elaborating the Concepts of Part and Whole in Variation Theory: The Case of Learning Chinese Characters

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the concepts of part and whole in Ference Marton's variation theory for dealing with how learners come to understand something of a whole as made up of its parts. Understanding of the parts and the whole is more difficult than expected; as the whole may have an influence on the parts, the nature of the parts of the whole may differ from that of the parts on their own. As such it is not enough for learners just to know the parts in isolation. They also have to recognize the whole to which the parts refer and how the whole influences the parts. To achieve this, teachers have to provide learners with the experience of variation of the parts and the whole. To demonstrate these concepts, I have applied them to the case of children's learning of Chinese characters in this paper.     

Identification of the patterns of Chinese character recognition in students with learning disabilities requiring Tier-2 support: a Rasch analysis

This study investigates the Chinese reading patterns of students with learning disabilities (LD). The performances of students with LD in reading the three categories of Chinese characters were particularly analysed: regular, irregular, and pseudo-characters. Fifty-three students with LD in reading and 44 students without LD of Year 4 were selected from five Hong Kong primary schools. Their abilities for reading Chinese characters were measured using Rasch analysis. Both types of students found regular characters as the easiest to read. Students without LD showed better performance in reading irregular characters than pseudo-characters, whereas students with LD exhibited no significant performance difference in reading these two categories. The implication of these results is that the students without LD might rely on using the orthographic processing than that of phonological processing to read. On the other hand, students with LD might not have the preference of using the orthographic processing.     

The Emergence of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs): An Examination of the Business Strategy in the Global MVNO Market

Abstract

To assess the strategy adopted by the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and the factors that affect the development of this mobile market, this study analyzes the MNVO sector from 2 perspectives: the exogenous factors including the consumer, industry, regulation, and technology characteristics; and the generic strategies that have been adopted by successful MVNOs in various Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development markets. Although cost leadership was found to be most prevalent initially, as the mobile market begins to be infused by high-capacity networks and value-added services, MVNOs are more inclined to apply multiple generic strategies and non-price competition. The strategies of differentiation and focus are practiced in addition to, not in place of, the cost leadership strategy. This study also found that countries with higher third-generation (3G) license fees tend to have higher levels of MVNO development, suggesting that the economic pressure created by the high 3G license fee might contribute to the deployment of MVNOs in a country.     

How to use ISDN Video‐Conferencing to Develop Efficient Remote Education and Corporate Training

Abstract

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is available today in Macau and has been since 1997. It is emerging as a mainstream telecommunications network that will serve a wide variety of users’ needs. It has improved service capabilities, reduced costs and improved productivity for Macau organizations, both large and small. The following are short notes on possible uses.     

东亚五大城市幼儿园教师工资待遇比较分析

分析深圳、香港、首尔、东京和新加坡五大东亚城市幼儿园教师的工资待遇发现:(1)香港幼儿园教师的工资架构最简单,很难客观反映教师的实际工作表现;深圳和首尔的工资架构最具全面和综合性;东京和新加坡的工资架构相对全面、均衡.(2)东京幼儿园教师的工资水平最高,首尔、香港、深圳随后,新加坡的工资水平最低.(3)从食物购买力角度考察,东京幼儿园教师的实际购买力最强,香港第二,首尔和深圳随后,新加坡最弱.(4)从租房能力角度考察,东京幼儿园教师的实际购买力最强,首尔和深圳随后,香港倒数第二,新加坡倒数第一.针对香港和新加坡幼儿园教师工资待遇偏低问题,研究者建议当地政府进一步完善幼儿园教师工资架构,考虑发放住房、交通、子女教育等津贴,以切实解决幼儿园教师的生活困难,吸引更多优秀人才从事幼儿教育工作.