Abstract:The impact of climate change on the coastal zones of Taiwan not only affects the marine environment, ecology, and human communities whose economies rely heavily on marine activities, but also the sustainable development of national economics. The southwest coast is known as the area most vulnerable to climate change; therefore, this study aims to develop indicators to assess social vulnerability in this area of Taiwan using the three dimensions of susceptibility, resistance, and resilience. The modified Delphi method was used to develop nine criteria and 26 indexes in the evaluation, and the analytic hierarchy process method was employed to evaluate the weight of each indicator based on the perspectives of experts collected through questionnaire surveys. The results provide important information pertaining to the vulnerability of the most susceptive regions, the lowest-resistance areas, and the least resilient townships on the southwest coast. The most socially vulnerable areas are plotted based on the present analysis. Experts can consider the vulnerability map provided here when developing adaptation policies. It should be kept in mind that improving the capacities of resistance and resilience is more important than reducing susceptibility in Taiwan.

Cijin is a popular destination of Taiwan tourists looking for a little beachside relaxation close at hand. With its abundant recreational resources and easy accessibility, the small island of Cijin has attracted several million tourists. Although the highly developed tourism has brought economic benefit, it has also brought heavy pollution and unbalanced development which severely degrade the coastal environment. It is very important to achieve a balance between economic development and environmental protection while developing coastal tourism. This study has tried to develop an interactive decision support system (Decision Support System) for effectively integrating management by the system dynamics (SD). The SD model, based on the DPSIR (Driving force, Pressure, State, Impact and Response) indicator set, was formulated for integrating the cross-linkage factors of the problem. The DSS, which has user-friendly interface, allows decision makers to easily perform the scenario analysis of sustainable coastal tourism management under the DPSIR framework. Several policies will be presented in this paper using the DSS to assess their performances in terms of sustainable development of the coastal tourism in Cijin, Taiwan.

Abstract:The present study aims to investigate the effect of a trans-disciplinary design of curricula, deemed a powerful tool for teaching and research on complex environmental problems, with a goal to help solve the real problems that climate change has brought to the coastal environment in Taiwan. Three major real-life problems in southern Taiwan-declining mullet fisheries, flooding, and coral bleaching-were integrated into four courses. Adopting a qualitative case study method, the researchers investigated the student perceptions of the trans-disciplinary learning experiences, their attitudes toward marine and coastal environmental protection, and their capability of solving the problems related to marine and coastal environments. The researchers employed various methods to analyze the student reflection reports, student self-evaluation forms, and the tape-recorded class meetings. The findings suggest the following: the trans-disciplinary curriculum stands to be an innovative yet indispensable design for coastal management education; such a curriculum benefits students by equipping them with essential knowledge and skills to succeed in future marine conservation; action learning for marine and coastal sustainability serves as the final goal of trans-disciplinary learning project; a trans-disciplinary case study on the design of curricula provides effective knowledge integration of marine and coastal sustainability.

In this paper we present new approaches in the development of flip chip technology. We assess the challenges presented by micro bump interconnection. In order to study that we have evaluated different bump designs of stagger 50 um pitch