Search

Taiwan government consolidated the kindergarten and daycare systems in 2012, and launched a new national curriculum framework, Early Childhood Education & Care Curriculum Framework (ECECCF), as a guidance for quality early childhood education programs. Research has shown that the effects of a new educational program highly depended on the fidelity of its implementation. It has thus been suggested that the degree of implantation of a program needs be evaluated before conducting further program evaluation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to construct an Early Childhood Education Curriculum Framework Implementation Scale (ECECCF Implementation Scale) for Taiwanese preschool programs. 216 preschool classes in Taiwan were involved. The study consisted of two stages: In Stage 1, the exploratory factor analysis showed that the implementation of ECECCF could mostly be explained by four factors, and all the factors extracted had acceptable reliability and validity. In Stage 2, rubrics were constructed for each item and factor analysis was re-conducted, resulting in a 19-item scale of four factors (Awareness and Adjustment, Learning Centers Arrangement, Teaching Guidance and Curriculum Development). The reliability and validity tests shows that: (1) the final version of the ECECCF Implementation Scale is a valid and reliable instrument, explaining 62.9% of the total variance; (2) the criterion validity indicated that the ECECCF scale can not only be used for assessing the implementation of ECECCF, but also can be used for understanding teachers' needs in instructional and operational curriculum for further professional development.

Salsa is a transnational and transcultural dance form that has traveled from the Americas to many other countries where it has taken on diverse meanings among its participants. In the past five years, it has become a craze among young professionals in Taiwan. In this paper, I argue that the notion of "flow" in salsa practice, the Confucian discipline of the female body, and the economic accessibility of salsa in Taiwan are contextual elements without which it is impossible to situate its social meaning. In the Taiwanese salsa scene, not only do female salsa practitioners gain agency and assert their power to challenge traditional values, but male salsa practitioners also find a space to perform femininity and to enjoy their embodiment of the female role. There are two imperatives for this study: 1) to subvert the dominant notion in academia about the immobile gender rules at play in salsa; 2) to illustrate the diversity of salsa practices around the world using Taiwan as a case study where it has not yet been discussed in the growing scholarship on Asian performance.

Background: The incidence of young-onset colorectal cancer (yoCRC) is increasing. It is unknown if there are survival differences between young and older patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).Methods: We studied the association of age with survival in 2326 mCRC patients enrolled in the Cancer and Leukemia Group B and SWOG 80405 trial, a multicenter, randomized trial of first-line chemotherapy plus biologics. The primary and secondary outcomes of this study were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), respectively, which were assessed by Kaplan-Meier method and compared among younger vs older patients with the log-rank test. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated based on Cox proportional hazards modeling, adjusting for known prognostic variables. All statistical tests were 2-sided.Results: Of 2326 eligible subjects, 514 (22.1%) were younger than age 50 years at study entry (yoCRC cohort). The median age of yoCRC patients was 44.3 vs 62.5 years in patients aged 50 years and older. There was no statistically significant difference in OS between yoCRC vs older-onset patients (median = 27.07 vs 26.12 months; adjusted HR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.88 to 1.10; P = .78). The median PFS was also similar in yoCRC vs older patients (10.87 vs 10.55 months) with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.02 (95% CI = 0.92 to 1.13; P = .67). Patients younger than age 35 years had the shortest OS with median OS of 21.95 vs 26.12 months in older-onset patients with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.08 (95% CI = 0.81 to 1.44; Ptrend = .93).Conclusion: In this large study of mCRC patients, there were no statistically significant differences in survival between patients with yoCRC and CRC patients aged 50 years and older. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micellar sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) affects selectively three competing processes in the change of configuration at the chiral carbon in the oxygen exchange reactions of 1-phenyl-1-ethanol and 1-phenyl-1-butanol in aqueous media. Here, micellar SDS decreases substitution with inversion, enhances substitution with retention, and does not alter inversion without substitution. The results agrees with the predicted k(sub EI). It was observed that micellar SDS increases k(sub E) for both alcohols, by affecting hydrophobic 1-phenyl-1-butanol.

HPLC and GC/MS studies reveal the rate constants of three competing reactions in acid-catalyzed water exchange reactions of 1-phenyl-1-alkanols. Analysis of the oxygen exchange reaction kinetics of (18)O-labeled phenylethanol in water yields rate constants for the three processes. These oxygen-exchange reactions are enantiomer-specific. The influence of alkyl substituents on the solvation sphere of the intermediate carbocation is also examined.

Background: The incidence of young-onset colorectal cancer (yoCRC) is increasing. It is unknown if there are survival differences between young and older patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC)., Methods: We studied the association of age with survival in 2326 mCRC patients enrolled in the Cancer and Leukemia Group B and SWOG 80405 trial, a multicenter, randomized trial of first-line chemotherapy plus biologics. The primary and secondary outcomes of this study were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), respectively, which were assessed by Kaplan-Meier method and compared among younger vs older patients with the log-rank test. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated based on Cox proportional hazards modeling, adjusting for known prognostic variables. All statistical tests were 2-sided., Results: Of 2326 eligible subjects, 514 (22.1%) were younger than age 50 years at study entry (yoCRC cohort). The median age of yoCRC patients was 44.3 vs 62.5 years in patients aged 50 years and older. There was no statistically significant difference in OS between yoCRC vs older-onset patients (median = 27.07 vs 26.12 months; adjusted HR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.88 to 1.10; P = .78). The median PFS was also similar in yoCRC vs older patients (10.87 vs 10.55 months) with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.02 (95% CI = 0.92 to 1.13; P = .67). Patients younger than age 35 years had the shortest OS with median OS of 21.95 vs 26.12 months in older-onset patients with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.08 (95% CI = 0.81 to 1.44; Ptrend = .93)., Conclusion: In this large study of mCRC patients, there were no statistically significant differences in survival between patients with yoCRC and CRC patients aged 50 years and older., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)