Cultural Differences in the Study of Public Administration

Mei-hua Cheng,Chyung-en Wu 서울대학교행정대학원 2010 Journal of Policy Studies Vol.25 No.1

There are two kinds of truth: extensional (objective) and intentional (subjective). Western culture has traditionally foregrounded extensional truth, while Chinese culture has focused on intentional truth. This paper focuses on intentional truth, which has not been given sufficient attention in the study of public administration. Action knowledge is more valuable than a science of administration, and we need to develop it. All learning takes place inside individuals, so all organizational learning is individual learning. Meanwhile, tacit knowledge must be made explicitly before it can be gainfully deployed. An organization’s competitiveness depends on its tacit knowledge, not its explicit knowledge, and the same is true of public administration. This paper uses hermeneutical methods to analyze the meaning of administrative action in organizations from different cultural viewpoints. To deal with the global economic crisis, it is important to develop action knowledge to support theories of how financial crises develop and how they could be avoided, so as to reform the institutionalized paradigm of public administration and governance and to cooperate in dealing with the economic crisis.

The “Fake Marriage” Test in Taiwan: Gender, Sexuality, and Border Control

Mei-hua Cheng 고려대학교 민족문화연구원 2015 Cross-Currents Vol.- No.15

According to many reports, migrant sex workers often use marriages of convenience to cross national borders in order to avoid laws criminalizing commercial sex in many destination countries. Taiwan is one of the countries developing strategies to prevent this illicit migration, particularly through the application of a fake marriage test. Based on in-depth interviews with eighteen Chinese migrant sex workers and thirteen officers of Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency (NIA), this article argues, first, that the discourse of “national security” has been widely drawn on to justify Taiwan’s rigid border control at the expense of stigmatized Chinese prostitutes who have been scapegoated. Border control is therefore not only racialized or classed but also sexualized, to the extent that all Chinese migrant women are considered potential prostitutes. Second, this article reveals how the exclusion of and hostility toward Chinese sex workers are simultaneously linked with a gender regime that seeks to exclude Chinese spouses who deviate from Taiwanese gender and social norms. The border is therefore a contested site where gender, sexuality, and nationality are interwoven.

Impact of a Glyphosate-Tolerant Soybean Line on the Rhizobacteria, Revealed by Illumina MiSeq

( Gui-hua Lu ),( Yin-ling Zhu ),( Ling-ru Kong ),( Jing Cheng ),( Cheng-yi Tang ),( Xiao-mei Hua ),( Fan-fan Meng ),( Yan-jun Pang ),( Rong-wu Yang ),( Jin-liang Qi ),( Yong-hua Yang ) 한국미생물 · 생명공학회 2017 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.27 No.3

The global commercial cultivation of transgenic crops, including glyphosate-tolerant soybean, has increased widely in recent decades with potential impact on the environment. The bulk of previous studies showed different results on the effects of the release of transgenic plants on the soil microbial community, especially rhizosphere bacteria. In this study, comparative analyses of the bacterial communities in the rhizosphere soils and surrounding soils were performed between the glyphosate-tolerant soybean line NZL06-698 (or simply N698), containing a glyphosate-insensitive EPSPS gene, and its control cultivar Mengdou12 (or simply MD12), by a 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S rDNA) amplicon sequencing-based Illumina MiSeq platform. No statistically significant difference was found in the overall alpha diversity of the rhizosphere bacterial communities, although the species richness and evenness of the bacteria increased in the rhizosphere of N698 compared with that of MD12. Some influence on phylogenetic diversity of the rhizosphere bacterial communities was found between N698 and MD12 by beta diversity analysis based on weighted UniFrac distance. Furthermore, the relative abundances of part rhizosphere bacterial phyla and genera, which included some nitrogen-fixing bacteria, were significantly different between N698 and MD12. Our present results indicate some impact of the glyphosate-tolerant soybean line N698 on the phylogenetic diversity of rhizosphere bacterial communities together with a significant difference in the relative abundances of part rhizosphere bacteria at different classification levels as compared with its control cultivar MD12, when a comparative analysis of surrounding soils between N698 and MD12 was used as a systematic contrast study.

Role of P14 and MGMT Gene Methylation in Hepatocellular Carcinomas: a Meta-analysis

Li, Cheng-Cheng,Yu, Zhuang,Cui, Lian-Hua,Piao, Jin-Mei,Liu, Meng Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.16

Background: This meta-analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between methylation of the P14 and O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) genes and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Materials and Methods: We searched PubMed, EMBASE, the Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases to identify relevant studies that analysed HCC tissues for P14 and MGMT gene methylation status; we then performed a meta-analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were calculated to evaluate the association between gene methylation and the risk of HCC. Results: Ten studies that assessed P14 gene methylation in 630 HCC tumour tissues and nine studies analysing MGMT methylation in 497 HCC tumour tissues met our inclusion criteria. Our meta-analysis revealed that the rate of P14 methylation was significantly higher in HCCs than in adjacent tissues (OR 3.69, 95%CI 1.63-8.35, p=0.002), but there was no significant difference in MGMT methylation between HCC and adjacent tissues (OR 1.76, 95%CI 0.55-5.64, p=0.34). A subgroup analysis according to ethnicity revealed that P14 methylation was closely related to the risk of HCC in Chinese and Western individuals (Chinese, OR 7.74, 95%CI 1.36-44.04, p=0.021; Western, OR 3.60, 95%CI 1.49-8.69, p=0.004). Furthermore, MGMT methylation was not correlated with the risk of HCC in Chinese individuals (OR 2.42, 95%CI 0.76-7.73, p=0.134). The combined rate of P14 methylation was 35% (95%CI 24-48%) in HCC tumour tissues and 11% (95%CI 4-27%) in adjacent tissues, whereas the combined rate of MGMT methylation was 15% (95%CI 6-32%) in HCC and 10% (95%CI 4-22%) in adjacent tissues. Conclusions: These results suggest that the risk of HCC is related to P14 methylation, but not MGMT methylation. Therefore, P14 gene methylation may be a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of HCC.

Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Lysozyme Adsorption onto Two Kinds of Weak Cation Exchangers

Yong-Mei Cheng,Xiong-Hua Jin,Dong Gao,Hai-Feng Xia,Jing-Hua Chen 한국생물공학회 2013 Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering Vol.18 No.5

The present work investigated the adsorption behaviors of lysozyme onto weak cation exchangers at different temperatures. The adsorption isotherm, adsorption thermodynamics and adsorption kinetics were studied. The results indicate that the adsorption of lysozyme onto acrylic acid copolymer based beads (Hydrolite D115) is spontaneous and exothermic, while that onto agarose based beads (CM Sepharose 6 Fast Flow) is also spontaneous, but endothermic. The pseudo second-order kinetic model fits well to the dynamic adsorption experimental data, and the kinetic results are also in concert with the adsorption thermodynamics.

Transformation of nitrogen-containing compounds in atmospheric residue by hydrotreating

Mei Liu,Lin-Zhou Zhang,Cheng Zhang,Sheng-Hua Yuan,De-Zhi Zhao,Lin-Hai Duan 한국화학공학회 2018 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.35 No.2

Atmospheric residue from Saudi Arabia light crude oil was subjected to the hydrotreating process in a continuous fixed-bed reactor with hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) catalysts. The detailed molecular composition of the polar heteroatom species in the feedstock and products was determined by electrospray ionization (ESI) Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) combined with other analytical methods. The ESI FT-ICR MS analysis indicates that the N1 class species have the highest relative abundance. In the hydrotreating process, small neutral N1 class species with high aromaticity and short side chains showed the highest relative abundance and were defined as easily removable compounds. High aromaticity and small molecule basic N1 compounds exhibited higher catalytic activity towards hydrogenation. The N1S1 class species were converted to the N1 class species, or even hydrocarbons, by the preferential removal of the sulfur atoms. Most of the N1O1 class species were difficult to remove, because of their stable chemical structure.

Design of Open Language Laboratory Information System in Network Environment

Hua Lv,Mei Ling Jiang,Cheng Shuang Han 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Smart Home Vol.9 No.7

College language lab is “the second classroom” of foreign language teaching. It is a place of effectively cultivating students' ability of self-learning and practicing. This paper analyzes the significance and role of the language laboratory for cultivating students' self-learning and innovation ability, designs out the model of function structue for the openning of the language laboratory, proposes the form of database design, and discusses the system architecture.

Bicluster and Pathway Enrichment Analysis of HCV-induced Cirrhosis and Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Cheng, Peng,Cheng, You,Su, Mei X.,Li, Dong,Zhao, Guo Z.,Gao, Hui,Li, Yan,Zhu, Jie Y.,Li, Hua,Zhang, Tao Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2012 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.13 No.8

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and the most common form of liver cancer. However, while it is associated frequently with hepatitis C virus (HCV) there is only an elementary understanding of its molecular pathogenesis. Methods: To gain insight into the molecular mechanisms of HCV-induced hepatocarcinogenesis, we performed microarray analysis on 75 surgical liver samples from 48 HCV-infected patients. Results: There were 395 differentially expressed geness between cirrhotic samples and HCC samples. Of these, 125 genes were up-regulated and 270 genes were down-regulated. We performed pathway enrichment analysis and screened as described previously. Conclusions: The differentially expressed genes might be involved in hepatocarcinogenesis through upregulating the pathways of ECM-receptor interaction, focal adhesion, cell adhesion molecules and other cancer-related pathways, and downregulating the pathways of "complement and coagulation cascades". We hope our results could aid in seeking of therapeutic targets for HCV-induced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Understanding Taiwanese Women's Decisional Experiences Regarding Prenatal Screening Procedures And Diagnostics: A Phenomenological Study

Mei-Man Chen,Bi-Hua Cheng 한국간호과학회 2020 Asian Nursing Research Vol.14 No.4

Purpose: This study sought to understand Taiwanese women’s decisional experiences regarding prenatalscreening procedures and diagnostics. Methods: A hermeneutic phenomenological design guided semistructured interviews with 33 womenwho were 36 weeks pregnant. Data were collected between February and October 2016. Verbatimtranscripts were analyzed following hermeneutic circle to cocreate an understanding of Taiwanesewomen’s decision-making in prenatal screening and diagnostics. Results: Women’s existential experiences were derived from their decision-making process on prenatalscreening procedures and diagnostics for chromosomal aneuploidy. These decisional experiences werecaptured by four theme clusters and eight themes, which were inductively derived from 16 meaningunits: (1) accessing health information; (2) considering what was best for my baby; (3) consideringfamily finance; and (4) feeling anxiety posttest. Conclusion: Participants made informed choices on several prenatal screening procedures, ostensibly,based on their personal values and considerations. During the decision-making process, often-citedbenefits of genetic screenings were emphasized, but test limitations were often unheeded. A fundamentalneed for supportive information in decision making was further identified with recommendedstrategies. Hence, a revision of traditional genetic counseling approaches is recommended. As genomicstechnologies are increasingly available during antenatal services, women should be sufficiently educatedabout them to support decision making.

Interaction and micellar behavior of ternary mixture of amphoteric amino sulfonate surfactant with traditional anionic and nonionic surfactants: Effect of hydrophilicity

Qing Hua Zhang,Rui Sheng,Zhao Hua Ren,Jing Huang,Yun Xiao Wang,Ben Ru Wang,Xi Lei Huang,Qin Cheng,Xue Mei Wu,Tong Bo Wang 한국공업화학회 2023 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.120 No.-

The micellization and the molecular interaction behaviors for two ternary mixtures constituted by anamphoteric sodium 3-(n-dodecyl ethylenediamino)-2-hydroxypropyl sulfonate (C12AS), an anionicsodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) and a nonionic octylphenol polyoxyethylated ether with thenumber (n) of oxyethylene glycol ethers OP-n (n = 10 or 7) in aqueous solution were investigated usingthe tensiometry and the effect of hydrophilicity on them was also discussed. In the framework of pseudophaseseparation model and based on the regular solution theory, the related micellization parametersincluding the mixed critical micelle concentration (cmc) values in the ideal and real cases, the activitycoefficients and the compositions in mixed micelle, etc. and thermodynamic parameters were estimatedby the Clint’s model and the Rubingh’ model. The mixed cmc value is dependent on the composition inaqueous solution and influenced by the hydrophilicity of nonionic surfactant. With increasing the nonionicin ternary mixture, the mixed cmc value is initially decreased and then slightly rise. An increasingin the hydrophilicity of nonionic will make the minimum value of mixed cmc be increased from1.299 mM to 1.705 mM. The resulting phenomena can be explained reasonably by the electrostatic effect,the steric hindrance, the hydrogen bonding, etc. Thermodynamic data indicate that the contribution ofentropy or enthalpy plays a vital role on the spontaneous process of micellization and the share ofentropy or enthalpy in free energy change is dependent largely on the amount of nonionic surfactantand the hydrophilicity. In ternary mixtures of C12AS/SDBS/OP-10, an increase in an amount of OP-10 willinduce the change from the enthalpy-driven micellization process to the entropically favorable process. Once an abundant amount of OP-7 is added, while, the enthalpy will make a main contribution on themicellization process, which can be described by the drop in the share of entropy at the composition(0.6970/0.0000/0.3030) of ternary mixture from 0.6478 to 0.4901. These findings will help with understandingthe molecular interaction behavior for the ternary surfactant mixture and the effect of the additionof nonionic surfactant and its hydrophilicity.