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Mapping of Research and Policy Concerning Climate Change and Cities in Asia

In recent years, the fundamental term in the climate change debate has shifted from mitigation to adaptation. Reducing the sources or enhancing the sinks of greenhouse gases should not be the only anthropogenic intervention for human beings. Scholars have proposed rich literatures and policy initiatives for seeking the adjustment to a coexistence environment between human and nature. Recent characteristic actions of climate change research and policy is the shifting from mitigation to adaptation (incl. implementation to the model municipalities). However, carbon emission mapping as a mitigation study seems popular in scientific sense. The objectives of this study are to highlight how the fundamental term in the climate change debate has shifted from mitigation to adaptation, and lastly to show the mapping of research and policy concerning climate change and cities in the context of Asian cities based on the achievement presented by a massive literature. Through the mapping of research and policy concerning climate change and cities in Asia, the achievements of this study provide an academic reference for urban planners and policy makers.

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Design Demands of Healing Products for Postpartum Depression Tendency

Study shows 80% of postpartum mothers suffered from Postpartum Depression Tendency. Emotional disorders caused by these tendencies will affect the mothers' ability to take care of their own and babies and may even induce the risk of self-injury or killing their babies. Therefore, the related researches for Postpartum Mood Disorders or Postpartum Depression are gradually emphasized in recent years. Related literature shows healing product can help improving postpartum depression symptoms. In this study, a two-stage procedure is proposed to investigate the possible design directions for healing product. In the first stage, healing products are collected by internet keyword search. Then the postpartum depression healing demands are investigated through expert interviews. A process is executed to screen the healing products that meet the healing demands. In the second stage, the cross analysis based KJ method is utilized for clustering the healing products. According to the result of this study, the design directions are suggested for future related postpartum depression healing product design topics. In this study, we categorized the healing product into future trend, functional trend, general function trend, fun trend and low future trend. The healing products provides several user experiences which can release the emotional pressure, enhance the interaction between mother and baby, improve the helpless feeling of taking care of new born baby, enlighten the emotion, comfort the mother's feeling. It has the characteristics of making people feel relaxed, interesting, affordable price, unique, comfortable coloring, fitting personal need, removing tense and resolving helpless situation. The result shows that the characteristics of removing tense, fitting personal need and making people feel relaxed are suitable for healing aid product design.

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Collaborative Design on New Product Development: Four Perspectives of E-Supply Chain Integration

Collaborative design provides a strategic and operational means for the achievement of organizational competitiveness. Electronic supply chain integration (e-supply chain integration) is concerned with streamlining and optimizing the whole supply chain by means of B2B (business to business) e-commerce application, to ensure the integration among partners in a collaborative relationship. The main objective of this research is to study the impact of collaborative design on new product development by four perspectives in e-supply chain integration. A cross-case analysis of the themes relating to the research purpose was conducted. The insight of these questions is generated through multiple case studies. The cross-case analysis was adopted coding for patterns and relationships among the data using a qualitative analysis software tool -Nvivo. The results present the key factors in term of collaboration issues by e-supply chain integration perspective. Drawing on the research findings underscore the importance of recognizing collaborative design on new product development.

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The Evaluation of Environmental Change Using Landscape Metrics

Urbanization is a global phenomenon and expanding gradually into rural areas, creating transportation problems, consumption of resources, and destruction of open spaces. Changes to our land are another irreversible impact caused by urbanization, affecting our environment and landscape, and causing an impact to the ecological system that cannot be overlooked. A simulation model is built in this study according to the characteristics of spatial changes of the study area as well as the CA-Markov theory. The impact factors for spatial changes in the study area are investigated and identified in the model. Then, a potential case of spatial changes in the study area is presented through quantitative results to investigate how the setup for the model structure affects the results. Finally, the landscape metrics is used for calculation and analysis to review the development of the study area through landscape ecology theory. Overall, the CA-Markov model is effective in simulating and predicting spatial changes. The results complemented by landscape metrics analysis are proven to be able to provide more information to interpret the results of spatial change and evaluate the ecological quality.

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A Carbon Footprint Analysis of Tea-Making Community in the Taipei Water Protected Area

An energy performance management concept for developing a low-carbon community has been modelled to examine the household energy demands in a tea-making and tourism community of Taipei Water Protected Area. The results of energy demands indicate that households in family-run tea-making and tourism-related economic activities create double the volume of carbon emissions compared with family households. Finally, a scenario was used to show that the projected transformation of low-carbon lifestyle patterns might decrease energy demands and increase existing profits for the residents.

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Green Networks: Guidelines for Developing Taipei as an Eco-City Based on Case Studies of Three Greenways in Sheffield

The major aim of this research is to develop a series of guidelines to shape Taipei into an Eco-city, derived from the concept of Sheffield's Green Network. It is one of our great responsibilities in life to maintain and leave beautiful surroundings and natural resource as much as we can for those who come after us. A way to achieve this is to approach landscape management as merely a tool to assist in planning a city's Green Network or an Eco-city by bringing together all the urban development issues and the whole range of viewpoints relevant to the area they covered. Three greenways case studies in Sheffield are good examples of Green Network planning which have great characteristic functions of both ecological protection and historic heritage. This is because they have prevented development from sprawling by their linear boundaries and historic heritage of waterpower for the local steel industry that always runs along the rivers. On the other hand, evaluation of these three case studies can be a starting point for further global sustainability and also facilitate developing guidelines of greenways management for a unique city like Taipei. This contains half modern surroundings and half farmland and mountain forest hillsides, which total 12,590.97 hectares altogether. The study methods are used to explore the relevant factors within greenways management by evaluation and discussion of three greenways of a Green Network in Sheffield.

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Choice Behavior in the Era of Experience Economy: Hedonic Consumption in the Hospitality Industry

This study intends to investigate the predictive power of sociodemographic characteristics, recreational characteristics, aesthetic lifestyles, and preference for hedonic attributes of bed and breakfast (B&B) on the choice behavior of B&B with different market positioning under the transformation of experience economy. This study used a structured questionnaire to investigate B&B guests at the Sun-Moon-Lake National Scenic Area, and 789 valid samples were obtained. The evidence confirmed that: (1) B&Bs can be divided into 5 major market-positioning products; (2) age, income, and gender in sociodemographic characteristics, type of companion in recreational characteristics, the dimension of ＂austerity＂ in aesthetic lifestyles, as well as the dimensions of ＂space ambience and scenery,＂ ＂dining atmosphere,＂ ＂experiential activities,＂ and ＂cuisine＂ in preference for hedonic attributes of B&B, can help predict the choice behavior of B&B market-positioning products. To gain the competitive advantage, managers of various kinds of B&B market-positioning products should operate their B&Bs differently. This is the first bed and breakfast research that utilized the aesthetic lifestyle and preference for hedonic attributes of B&B to predict the choice behavior of B&B.

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Differences between Local Residents' and Visitors' Environmental Perception of Landscape Change of Rural Communities in Taiwan

Rural community development on landscape environment has become a hot issue in making rural travel attractions and this development phenomenon is getting popular in Taiwan. Visitors' environmental perception on rural landscape environment would affect their behavior, impressions, and willingness-to-return about that rural area. Therefore, residents and visitors who travelled in the top ten rural villages of Taiwan elected in 2007 were subjects in this research in order to analyze differences between local residents' and visitors' environmental perception of landscape change of rural communities. Three factors, perception on rural environmental change, perception on rural environmental characteristic, and perception on life emotion about rural environment, were extracted after exploratory factor analysis was done on acceptability of perception on community landscape environment of all subjects. The result of this research could act as references for management of landscape environment in developing rural communities. It is expected that numerous difference could be avoided between development goals of rural communities and visitors' perception on landscape environment.