Oral Presenters

Department of Management, Virginia Tech (USA)

This paper not only reviews the key factors of entrepreneurship education and ecosystem but also provides a practical framework for the model of Virginia Tech. The study commences by defining the key terms, entrepreneurship curriculum, entrepreneurial activities and practices, organizational support and resources, and leadership vision. It then delves into an analysis of a conceptual framework, exploring the role of each factor in facilitating the outstanding model in entrepreneurship education and ecosystem for Virginia Tech. The study's findings reveal that the institution has successfully integrated key factors towards an excellent entrepreneurship education ecosystem. These factors include fostering a thriving entrepreneurial environment, extending its innovation commitment, and making a broader impact on its educational initiatives, all of which have practical implications for other institutions.

International Business Administration Program, Tunghai University International College (Taiwan)

The rapid growth of ChatGPT, a leading generative artificial intelligence language model has sparked great interest and inspired many researchers to explore this new frontier. Within a short span of time since late 2022, many research articles related to ChatGPT has been written and published. By using bibliometric analysis approach, this study aims to study the latest research trends in ChatGPT. 8404 publications related to ChatGPT, published between December 2022 and May 2024, were systematically extracted from SCOPUS database. This was followed by re-categorization and re-coding processes to obtain meaningful inference and trends. Keyword research themes, emerging trends, researchers’ collaborations and publication volumes were examined. The outcomes of the study will provide an understanding of the current research trends on ChatGPT and how it will shape the academic research in the future.

International Business Management Program, Tunghai University (Taiwan)

In response to COVID-19 contagion, governments enacted mobility restrictions, social distancing, and lockdown requirements. In numerous households, these containment measures disrupted established routines of care for people with chronic conditions (PCCs), forcing informal carers to adapt to a less accommodating caregiving environment. The adaptation process made caregiving more resource-intensive and increased the burden, loneliness, and social isolation experienced by some carers. Pearlin et al.’s (1990) theories of caregiving stress suggest that during the pandemic, carers experienced additional distress when the adaptation process consumed too many of their personal resources. This additional distress is referred to as “the cost of containment.” The author proposes to estimate the cost of containment by modeling the relationship between locally enforced COVID-19 policies and carer psychological health outcomes.

Carer emotional distress is a major risk factor in the breakdown of home care arrangements. Negative affect among carers resulted from pandemic-related barriers to performing their caregiving duties. Although numerous studies show that pandemic containment measures affected school children, patients, and the general public, relatively few concern carers.

The proposed study conceptualizes the adaptation process as an emotionally costly outcome of a pandemic containment “treatment” that increased the resources carers had to expend on their caregiving duties. The treatment model will be developed in three steps: (1) Identify the co-occurring pathways through which the containment measures affected carers; (2) From these, derive a set of mutually exclusive treatment categories and use them to partition the sample into treatment groups; and (3) Estimate an endogenous multinomial treatment model relating the categories to measures of change in carer emotional health (burden, loneliness, and social isolation).

Tunghai University International College (Taiwan)

This paper examines medical constructs of the human body in pre-modern China, from androgyny and sexed bodies to anomalies, as envisioned in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon黃帝內經 (Huangdi neijing, ca. 1st century), Li Shizhen’s 李時珍Materia Medica 本草綱目 (Ben cao gang mu, 16th century), women’s medicine 婦科 (fuke), and sexual manuals 房中術 (bedchamber arts). While a real, material body exists, the meanings attached to the body should not be treated as arising naturally. Conceptualizations of the human body in the traditional Chinese qi and yin-yang framework demonstrate that, like gender, bodily sex is contextualized and produced within discourses. Although different traditional Chinese medical texts envision the body and male-female attributions differently in relation to bodily materiality, sexuality, and reproduction, they nevertheless conform to and further Confucian gender and sexual orders. Moreover, implicit in qi and yin-yang medical thinking is a racial hierarchy that places Chinese people in a superior ranking to non-Chinese people, whose bodies are associated with animalism and deformity. Bodies matter, and qi and yin-yang medical theory fundamentally suggests a biopolitics that not only reinforces patriarchal hierarchies but also strengthens a Chinese cultural identity by conflating “foreignness” with physical abnormality.

M.A.A.K Pictures / Loyola Marymount University (USA)

We will watch HEAL, a powerful supernatural short film about children living through war and conflict and have a Q&A discussion about what it brings to light within the context of today. As most continue to show indifference to the enormous loss of human life in conflicts around the world, HEAL’s story and message resonates strongly and was part of a Special Showcase at the Comic-Con Museum on June 8th. The film hasalso won numerous accolades and awards over the years including receiving the Frank Capra Award, the Jesse Epstein Humanitarian Award and winning Best Science Fiction Film at Comic-Con - the largest comic and pop culture festival in the world.

International Business Management Program, Tunghai University (Taiwan)

At Taiwan’s international colleges, students with varying backgrounds take Calculus, with English as the medium of instruction. The Calculus classroom is more academically diverse than at traditional programs, with larger spreads in English skills and subject preparation. Calculus instructors must accommodate differences between individual students’ exam performance and learning rate. At the same time, they must hold all students to expected assessment standards.

Calculus exams typically exhibit an “M-shaped” distribution, with extreme disparity in grade performance. While flexible testing strategies (e.g., retesting) may benefit most students, those with weaker backgrounds may still struggle to pass the course. The teacher must therefore establish a minimum testing standard that defines the border between passing and failing.

The author presents the two components of her approach to testing in Calculus. The first is a quiz framework, based on the division of course content into units that the learners study individually, at their own pace. A student completes a unit by passing the associated quiz, and can retake failed quizzes as needed, without any point penalty. This allows students to achieve a desired quiz grade through two channels: quickness (thorough preparation before the first quiz attempt) or persistence (repeated attempts).

The second component of the Calculus testing approach is threshold passing standard. This is represented by the “walk-through” quiz option, in which the student does the problems with the help of example solutions. This option fits well into the Calculus course, which uses a “template” for creating new quiz versions for retesting.

Political Science Department, Syracuse University (USA)

What are the costs of restricting academic freedom? In this paper, I leverage data on academic freedom and incident reports to measure the effects of academic censorship on scholarly contribution around the world. Combining this data with statistics on scholarly citations, as well as spending for research and development, I calculate the marginal cost of censorship as a function of return on investment. Findings suggest the costs of censorship are greatest in countries where censorship coincides and conflicts with high rates of intellectual investment in research and development. This pattern is emblematic in emerging economies, such as those in Asia and the Middle East.

This study delves into the intricate relationship between human capital dynamics and sustainable growth in Japanese professional service firms (PSFs), specifically within the knowledge-intensive patent sector. Analyzing longitudinal data from 62 large Japanese patent firms between 2001 and 2009, the research explores the impact of professional experience, hiring practices, and experience diversity on firm growth trajectories. The findings challenge the conventional wisdom that simply increasing headcount guarantees PSF growth. Instead, the study underscores the critical role of strategic human resource management in navigating the complex interplay between experience heterogeneity and sustainable expansion. By fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration to effectively manage experience diversity, PSFs can unlock their full growth potential and navigate the challenges of scaling up in a competitive market. The study provides valuable insights for PSFs seeking to optimize their human capital strategies for sustainable growth, highlighting the need for a nuanced approach that prioritizes the strategic management of experience diversity over simply increasing staff numbers.

International Master’s Degree Program in Agribusiness Management, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (Taiwan)

Energy is central to the climate challenge and crucial to its resolution. The burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas being the primary driver of global warming. This underscores the urgency of transitioning to clean, renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower. Embracing these green innovations is crucial for combating climate change effectively. Green innovation is pivotal for organizations and communities aiming for sustainability, and patents play a crucial role by providing inventors with intellectual property rights. Encouraging green innovation through patents not only brings financial benefits but also contributes to reducing regional CO2 emissions. Despite global commitments to net-zero emissions by cities like New York and Tokyo, the effectiveness of renewable energy policies at the city level is unclear. This study fills this gap by examining the impact of such policies on green technology patents in 17 Taiwanese cities from 2012 to 2021, utilizing a two-way fixed effects econometrics model for comprehensive analysis. The empirical results reveal key insights into the positive impact of renewable energy policies on the innovation of green technology in Taiwan. It emphasizes that regions experiencing a growth in the duration of one-year Policy History witness an approximately 2-unit increase in green technology innovation. Furthermore, control factors like Population Density demonstrate a positive and significant influence, whereas Energy Consumption frequently shows a negative correlation. It also suggests that the study differentiates between research institutions and the corporate sector, finding the local government’s policy has a significant impact on corporation innovation performance compared to research institutions. These findings emphasize the importance of renewable energy policies, population characteristics, and financial investments in driving green technology innovation in Taiwan It provides valuable insights for policymakers and researchers aiming to understand the dynamics of green technology innovation in the context of renewable energy policies.

Department of Chemistry, Tunghai University (Taiwan)

This presentation addresses the crucial issue of catalyst sustainability, with a particular focus on amorphous iridium oxide (IrOx), a leading catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Our goal is to highlight the importance of balancing catalytic performance with durability to make practical applications. Firstly we will introduce a new approach employing dual-potential pulsed amperometric technique in intermittent electro-flocculation for both water oxidation and oxygen reduction reactions. This method results in a distinctive physical morphology and chemical composition of IrOx×nH2O, leading to modified kinetic mechanisms and enhanced stability. At second, we explore the integration of the biological molecule chloroprotoporphyrin IX iron (III) (Hemin) as an auxiliary catalyst. Hemin is used to consume the oxygen produced during electro-flocculation, acting as a base layer to prevent the accumulation of harmful oxygen. Electropolymerized hemin enhances the stability and durability of the IrOx catalyst by mitigating detrimental oxygen buildup, which can degrade catalyst performance over time. Third, an innovative real-time catalyst regeneration method is also presented. This technique involves adjusting the pH to switch between hexahydroxyiridate (IV) ([Ir(OH)6]2−) and IrOx, effectively extending the lifetime of IrOx electrodes. This regeneration process can occur concurrently with the OER, providing a continuous means of maintaining catalyst activity and efficiency. This novel approach not only prolongs the catalyst's operational lifespan but also ensures consistent performance during prolonged use. These advancements are particularly significant for sustainable energy systems, where efficient and long-term operation of catalysts is crucial for processes such as water splitting and fuel production.