Using data from the Taiwan Education Panel Survey, this study explored the role of co-resident grandparents in Taiwan's single-parent families. Single fathers were more likely to settle in multi generational living arrangements than single mothers. Grandparent co-residence was positively associated with adolescents' cognitive scores, but the benefit was even larger for youths from single-father families. Grandparent co-residence was correlated with greater parental investment, although in different ways for different types of single families. Single fathers interacted more with the child and had higher educational expectations if living with a grandparent. Single mothers in three-generation families spent more tutorial expense than other single mothers. These results suggest that the grandparent role may be supplementary to weak family functioning.

Resource dilution theory suggests that many parental resources are dilutable and thus are responsible for the negative effect of sibship size on educational outcomes. However, the special case of only children has rarely been investigated. Analyzing Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS), this study finds that only children do not quite fit this pattern. Birth order also complicates the picture. Controlling for family socioeconomic status (SES), the majority of firstborns outperform only children in academic performance; other peers from small-sized families fare just as well as only children in spite of their disadvantage in obtaining parental resources. Several related factors have been controlled (including parents’ old age, poor health, marital discords, marital dissolution, and the child’s developmental problems). As these alternative accounts have been ruled out, lacking sibling interaction is very likely to be the major cause why only children do not fit the pattern of negative sibship size effect, an association predicted by resource dilution theory.

Regarding educational differentials in divorce, similar trends have been reported across countries. Some report increasing educational differentials, while others identify an educational crossover pattern. The commonality is that education seems to play a role of stabilizing marriage more than ever before. Using data from the Women’s Marriage, Fertility, and Employment Survey, this study investigates the case of Taiwan by portraying the changing pattern of women’s educational differentials in divorce. There are three major findings. First, among previous marriage cohorts, women with relatively higher levels of formal education are significantly more likely to divorce. Second, the marital-dissolution rates for less educated women are rising faster than the corresponding rates for women with more education. Third, this trend does not stop at the catch-up point and eventually leads to a reversal in the association between education and divorce from positive to negative. In short, such educational differentials in divorce vary dramatically across marriage cohorts. A pattern of educational crossover in divorce has been displayed during the rapid social change in Taiwan. Other than William Goode’s argument raised a half-century ago, the marriage model transformation from specialization toward symmetry in the context of gender egalitarianization has to be taken into consideration in order to obtain a full understanding of the phenomenon.

Educational philosophers contend that education enhances autonomy and thus happiness, but empirical studies rarely explore the positive influence of education on happiness. Based on the previous finding that being better connected to the outside world makes people happy, this study examines the possibility that how well an individual connects to the world accounts for the positive association between education and happiness. Analyzing survey data from four East Asian countries, we find a common pattern among Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Although both monetary and non-monetary factors play a role in explaining the relationship between education and higher reports of happiness, monetary factor is relatively unimportant whereas non-monetary factors, such as interpersonal network and degree of cosmopolitanism, account for a significant part of the association between education and happiness. China is exceptional due to its relative importance of personal income in accounting for happiness. In short, individuals who receive more education have more extensive social networks as well as greater involvement with the wider world; these life conditions are positively related with happiness. By enhancing one’s ability and propensity to connect with the wider social world, education may improve an individual’s subjective well-being.

Deep integration of Asia into the global society necessarily affects wellbeing of local populations. This study proposes a notion of “extend capacities” to explain the relationships between individual globalization and subjective wellbeing among Asian populations in a context of increasing global integration. Using Amartya Sen’s theory of human capacities as a point of departure, we advance a distinctive list of expanded capacities, which includes English ability, global exposure and foreign contacts via jobs. Empirical findings from our multilevel analysis of a large sample from 14 Asian countries show the consistent impact of mastering a global lingua franca on job satisfaction, perceived life accomplishment, and happiness. Global exposure also generates some favorable influences.

Using national data of the male population (a total of 715,000 observations) in Taiwan, this study finds a significant association between LBW and the probability of committing crime appears exclusively among those born to mothers under 18 or over 40 at the time of childbearing. Moreover, this association occurs particularly in violent crime. The interaction between biological and demographic factors suggests that being born to very old or young mothers and LBW together may create a double hazard of biological disadvantage, leading to higher risk of committing violent crime later. The other side of the coin is that, regarding to violent crime, being born low birth weight may not be a disadvantage unless it is triggered by certain adversity.

A new positive working, aqueous base developable photosensitive polybenzoxazole (PBO) precursor composition based on a partially tetrahydropyranyl (THP) protected PBO precursor and a Bisphenol A based 1,2-naphthoquinone diazide-4-sulfonate (DNQ-4) photosensitive compound has been developed. The polymer was prepared from a low temperature polymerization of 2 , 2'-bis-(3-amino-4-hydroxyphenyl) hexafluoropropane (BisAPAF) and isophthaloyl chloride (IC), followed by reacting with 3,4-Dihydro-2H-pyran in the presence of p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate as a catalyst. The photosensitive PBO precursor containing 20wt % DNQ-4 photosensitive compound showed a sensitivity of 221 mJ/cm2 and a contrast of 1.44 in a 3 μm film with a 0.6wt % tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) developer. A pattern with a resolution of 10 μm was obtained from this composition. The novel PBO precursor photosensitive composition showed a significant improvement in dark film loss after development, which can and could be used to make a thick film resist.

Two novel cyclic tetrapeptides: cyclo[Lys-Tyr-Lys-Ahx-] 7a and cyclo[Lys-Trp-Lys-Ahx-] 7b were synthesized by coupling protected amino acid in solution and the subsequent cyclization effected by the pentafluorophenyl ester method as described in previous papers. These cyclic peptides were designed and synthesized to study their interaction with DNA, based on previous reports that linear peptides Lys-Tyr-Lys and Lys-Trp-Lys could bind to various forms of DNA and cleaved supercoiled DNA at apurinic sites. Ethidium bromide displacement assay showed that the apparent DNA binding constant of linear Lys-Tyr-Lys and cyclic peptide 7a are far below 1 x 10(3) M(-1), whereas those of cyclic peptide 7b and linear Lys-Trp-Lys are 1.9 x 10(4) M(-1) and 9.5 x 10(3) M(-1), respectively. Kinetic studies using agarose gel electrophoresis showed that cyclic peptide 7b and Lys-Trp-Lys possessed DNA nicking activity on natural supercoiled phi X174 DNA with nicking rate of 50.7 and 75.6 pM min(-1) at 65 degrees C, respectively, whereas cyclic peptide 7a and linear Lys-Tyr-Lys were devoid of the corresponding activity. The DNA nicking rate increased significantly with increase in reaction temperature. At reaction temperatures lower than 65 degrees C, the DNA nicking rate of cyclic peptide 7b exceeded that of linear Lys-Trp-Lys. The addition of 1 microM ferrous ion did not give significant enhancement effect on the DNA nicking rate by the peptides. UV irradiation gave a marked rate enhancement on the DNA nicking rate of linear Lys-Trp-Lys and a moderate enhancement on the DNA nicking rate of cyclic peptide 7b.