Ambivalent methods, geographical difference, and the politics of feeling-knowing

We offer an engagement with the generous responses to our article, ‘Feeling Otherwise’. We think with the authors who responded to our paper to sketch out an affirmative way to understand the concept of ambivalence. We clarify key points, reflect on the responses, and make suggestions for ways to explore this topic further.

Regional Divide and National Identity in Taiwan: Evidences from the 2012 Presidential Election

It is widely believed that identity with Taiwanese or Chinese is the major cleavage in Taiwan. People who hold Taiwanese identity tend to vote for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and those who identify themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese are likely to vote for the Kuomintang. As the proportion of Taiwanese identifiers increases, the geographical difference seems to persist. Whether national identity is associated with regional line and why they are correlated is a pressing question. This paper uses the 2012 presidential election survey data to explore the extent to which regional divide accounts for national identity. Using generalized linear mixed effect model (GLMM), this research finds minor regional divide in terms of ethnicity concentration and economic structure. However, ethnic background is influential on national identity while retrospective evaluation and democratic value are significant predictors. This mixed result suggests that people in Taiwan have united national identity should geographical difference remain or even decrease, and that we should remain watchful about the influence of democratic value and economic concern.

A joint United Kingdom (UK) and Hong Kong (HK) study to determine prognostic factors for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing curative and palliative treatment.

181 Background: There have been few international studies that systematically evaluate the impact of geographical region on the prognosis of HCC. Methods: Prospective cohorts of patients (pt) were accrued in UK (n=567; 2006-2011) and HK (n=517; 2007-2012). Clinical data were documented at baseline; treatments were decided by multidisciplinary teams at both centers. Results: The median follow-up time of the UK and HK cohort was 27.9 and 29.8 months, respectively. The median overall survival (OS) of the whole UK and HK cohort was 22.9 months and 8.6 months. In the HK cohort, 425 underwent palliative treatment (TACE, systemic agents or supportive care) and 92 had curative treatment (surgery and locoablation); in the UK cohort, 338 had palliative treatment and 228 underwent curative treatment. In the curative group, the median OS was 54.8 months in the UK cohort but has not yet been achieved in the HK cohort. For the palliative group, the median OS was 12.7 and 5.5 months in the UK and HK cohort respectively. In the palliative group, geographical difference was an independent prognostic factor (HK vs. UK, HR=2.0; p<0.0001). Other prognostic factors were mainly tumorous features and Child’s liver function (Table). In the curative group, neither geographical difference nor Child’s score were prognostic factors. Conclusions: Separate prognostic factors exist for curative and palliative treatment. Geographical differences need to be considered during design of clinical trials on novel agents where palliative treatments are investigated but not for surgery or locoablation. [Table: see text]

Analysis of Training Services Market in Poland

Many documents and initiatives at a government level emphasize the necessity of a society and a country to develop further basing on education, digitization and innovations. The article concerns the first of mentioned factors, i.e. the education market, and even more the training services market in Poland. Its aim is to show the size of such a market and to present basic analysis of competitiveness. A definitional chaos connected with determining the range of training services market as well as with a definition of a training institution does not contribute to the construction of unified strategy directed towards such a market (this constitutes the first part of the article). In a further part a size of geographical difference of the training market, its disintegration, a local character in the activities of most of training institutions as well as product differences are presented.