The Connections of Elderly Characters and Taiwanese Society in Edward Yang’s Movie “Yi Yi” (A One and a Two)

As an aging society, Taiwanese is facing the low birthrate and low death rate, and many policies and social systems are facing difficulties. According to the social atmosphere, young and senior groups have many conflicts in between. Finding an alternative approach to reveal the social value of aged people becomes an important mission. The Taiwanese’ movie “Yi-Yi”(A one and a two, 2000) is the final masterpiece of Director Edward Yang, and he won the best director in Festival de Cannes. The story is taken place in a traditional Taiwanese wedding party, and there is a grandma who was invited to this party before her pass out. The grandma did not weak up until the end of this story. The director Yang filmed this sick character in the story and he showed the family members were gathering around their grandma. This study adopts the narrative analysis on elders in “Yi Yi”. There are three findings. First, the elder character is speechless but her sickness drives family members coming home. Second, the long term care is a heavy duty for family, but it reflects the preparations of individual physically and emotionally. Third, the meaning of image of elders is not image itself but family solidarity and social connection. The narrative theory and gerontology build a perspective to understand the social values and narrative functions of elderly people in “Yi-Yi”. It shows the conflict between different age groups and enlarges the spectrum of understanding elders in both Taiwanese’ movie and Taiwanese society.

Student Enrollment and Teacher Statistics Forecasting Based on Time-Series Analysis

Education competitiveness is a key feature of national competitiveness. It is crucial for nations to develop and enhance student and teacher potential to increase national competitiveness. The decreasing population of children has caused a series of social problems in many developed countries, directly affecting education and com.petitiveness in an international environment. In Taiwan, a low birthrate has had a large impact on schools at every level because of a substantial decrease in enrollment and a surplus of teachers. Therefore, close attention must be paid to these trends. In this study, combining a whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and support vector regression (WOASVR) was proposed to determine trends of student and teacher numbers in Taiwan for higher accuracy in time-series forecasting analysis. To select the most suitable support vector kernel parameters, WOA was applied. Data collected from the Ministry of Education datasets of student and teacher numbers between 1991 and 2018 were used to examine the proposed method. Analysis revealed that the numbers of students and teachers decreased annually except in private primary schools. A comparison of the forecasting results obtained from WOASVR and other common models indicated that WOASVR provided the lowest mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and root mean square error (RMSE) for all analyzed datasets. Forecasting performed using the WOASVR method can provide accurate data for use in developing education policies and responses.

Utilization of the Three-Dimensional Model to a Construction Production System

The quitting a job of the expert worker and the lack of the technical transmission to the young worker with low birthrate, and the deterioration of the infrastructure institution which will increase rapidly in future will be the problem that must put up measures immediately in the construction business. CIM and i-Construction proposed by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism enforce the improvement of the productivity of the construction site and the maintenance and check for the life cycle of the structure using three-dimensional model in order to solve such a problem, and they may be said that it is the big change of the construction production system. In this report, I survey three examples of the tool which I can utilize three-dimensional model for plan, measuring, construction, and maintenance based on a policy of CIM and i-Construction, explain an effective making method of the three-dimensional model suitable for a construction scale and contents and examine the effective utilization method and introduction effect in the construction production system.

Spatial Analysis of the Rural-Urban Structure of the Spanish Municipalities

The rural–urban dichotomy is one of the most debated topics by the scientific community in territorial issues. In addition, many public entities and scientific studies have established the distinctive elements of rural and urban spaces by relating the decline of the rural ones with factors such as aging, low birthrate, the primary sector, unemployment, or poverty, among others. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to spatially study the current model of territorial organization of Spanish urban and rural municipalities as well as their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. To this end, GIS (Geographic Information System) tools were used to carry out a spatial autocorrelation (SA) analysis and to identify homogeneous groups of the variables considered. In conclusion, there are different demographic and socioeconomic realities in Spain, an urban one located on the coast with a positive situation and, on the other hand, a regressive reality composed of rural municipalities, among which there are villages whose situation is worrying, mainly located in the north of Spain.

Can fiscal policy spur fertility?

Research background: The decreasing fertility rate is a serious problem for policymakers as it affects the pension system as well as private consumption and savings. It seems reasonable to analyze whether fiscal policy may mitigate the low birthrate problem. Purpose of the article: In this paper we strive to answer the question whether fiscal incentives spur fertility if parents are rational. Methods: A theoretical economic model of utility maximization is applied to analyze the impact of fiscal policy on fertility. The conclusions are based on the analysis of comparative statics simulation calibrated for actual data from Poland. Findings & Value added: The results indicate that a substantial fertility effect can be obtained by raising subsidies for children or general benefits for families.