Search

There are five subdialects of Southern Min in Taipei City: Old Quanshan ..., New Quanshan, Old Tong'an ..., New Tong'an, and Zhanghai ... Southern Min. We discovered that at least 80% of the words in the "Qing/Geng colloquial ..." rhyme group were pronounced as [ĩ] in the Quan-based Southern Min areas. Secondly, the most representative features of Tong'an-based Southern Min are the "Guan/Guan colloquial ..." rhyme group, pronounced as [ũaĩ], and the "Xiong/Gan colloquial ..." rhyme group, pronounced as [aĩ]. Nonetheless, young people in two areas of Tong'an-based Southern Min no longer use the [ũaĩ] variation in the "Guan/Guan colloquial" rhyme group. As for [aĩ] in the "Xiong/Gan colloquial" rhyme group, this variation can still be sporadically found in all the other areas. These two rhyme groups might no longer be the criterion for determining whether an accent belongs to Tong'an-based Southern Min in Taipei. Moreover, the tendency of the Southern Min vowel system in Taipei City is towards a five-vowel system without /ᵒ/ and /ᵓ/ being differentiated. The "Gao/Gao literary ..." rhyme group is, as a result, mostly pronounced as [ᵓ]. However, this is caused by the restructuring of the vowel system. Finally, contact between the subdialects in Taipei leads to dialect levelling, in which distinctive and marked phonetic features gradually vanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dementia is a leading cause of disability and dependence in older adults worldwide. The aim of this pilot study was to explore the effect of using a kazoo instrument to improve pulmonary function and cognitive reserve in middle-aged and older adults in rural areas. This quasi-experimental study was conducted at two community care stations selected using cluster sampling from a rural district in southern Taiwan. We enrolled 85 middle-aged and older adults who were randomly assigned into self-learner and in-class groups. Both groups received a 6-month kazoo program. Cognitive and pulmonary function were compared before and after the intervention between the two groups. Significantly improved pulmonary function with regards to forced vital capacity (p <.05) was found in the self-learner group, and significantly improved maximum expiratory flow 75% (p <.001) was found in both groups. Mini-Mental State Examination scores significantly improved in the self-learner group (p <.01), but there was no significant change in the in-class group. Our results suggest that community care stations could consider implementing wind instrument programs such as a kazoo to enhance pulmonary function and cognitive reserve in middle-aged and older adults residing in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a compact configured 5G dual-band MIMO loop antenna system for laptop computers. The antenna system consists of two identical 95 × 2 mm2 four-antenna units that are arranged on the top edge of the display ground plane and are 10 mm away from the left and right sides. The four-antenna unit, each being a two-dimensional loop antenna of the same structure and size, are constructed on the on a 0.4 mm-thick FR4 substrate. The loop antenna with only 23 × 2 mm2 size is composed of a T-shaped feed-in section and a double short-circuit loop. In addition, the four loop antennas are arranged in the same direction and side by side with only 1 mm space to form a high-isolation four-antenna unit. The two sets of four-antenna units can cover 5G dual-band operation at 3300–3600 MHz and 4800–5000 MHz. The measured isolation between eight antennas is all better than 15 dB, the measured antenna efficiency is between 35% and 62%, and the measured envelop correlation coefficient ECC calculated from the electric-field radiation pattern is all less than 0.2. This compactly configured eight-antenna system is only 2 mm high in profile, making it ideal for use in 5G laptops with a high screen-to-body ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an LTE MIMO dual antenna system for laptops. The LTE antenna is composed of a fed strip and a shorted strip. The antenna structure is very simple and can cover LTE octa-band operation (LET700/GSM850/900/GSM1800/1900/UMTS /LTE2300/2500) with the antenna size only 50 × 5 mm2 printed on the FR4 substrate. The LTE antenna is a design concept that integrates the metal hinges and ground plane into one of the antenna's resonant paths, which can effectively reduce the size of the antenna and can be tightly configured with the surrounding metal, while at the same time the antenna has good radiation characteristics. To effectively utilize the existing space of laptops, two LTE antennas of the same structure and size are symmetrically arranged in the clearance area on the left and right sides of the hinge of the laptop to form a MIMO dual antenna system. The measured isolation in the operating frequency band is better than 24 dB, while the measured antenna efficiency is better than 40%, which exhibits good antenna characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]