are seeking for and locate Co. Ltd.: release of First Award-successful ...

Ninety-percent of laborers with little ones below Age Six Require flexible Work Measures to balance Work and existence

TAIPEI, Nov. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- chinese Taipei gained the 2020 APEC suit women, healthy Economies (HWHE) research Prize on the grounds that its inauguration in 2019. nowadays, "govt officials", corporate executives, tutorial scholars, and social enterprise activists got here collectively to spotlight the importance of work-existence stability, which is the theme and successful class of this chinese Taipei examine. The timing of this press conference can't be extra fitting as this yr marks the time point when Taiwan formally enters population decline with deaths outnumbering births, based on are looking for and locate Co. Ltd.

The awarded analyze is to assist laborers fulfill career aspirations and household happiness.

Led by way of NTU Professor Lih-Rong Wang of the department of Social Work, the research team joined force with are looking for and discover social business in finishing this analyze titled "Work-family battle, Social assist and smartly-being: chinese language Taipei interesting Experiences." The study collected 727 helpful surveys from gurus and worker's in Taiwan, covering distinct industries and sectors, business sizes, positions, and each native organisations and multi-countrywide businesses. contributors were invited to anonymously share their heritage assistance, together with that of their spouses and kids.

"This examine recognized the 'unspoken conflicts' facing men in their work and family roles, clarifying that each men and women face an identical predicament in satisfying each work and household obligations; there is no statistically big difference according to gender," Professor Wang referred to. "Taiwanese society has no longer taken this issue significantly. We ought to attempt to remove average gender biases and social stereotypes, and to act extra pro-actively in planning and proposing household-pleasant policies and measures, so that each male and female laborers can obtain an improved balance between work and household tasks."

an additional essential discovering of this study indicated that over 90 % of people caring for children beneath the age of six expects greater employee-centered bendy office support and courses. These guidelines and courses encompass (1) Flextime: each employers and employees can negotiate a group of systematic flexible working hours that allow workers to stability work-family unit duties; (2) (non-commonplace) Work-from-home: personnel can choose to work at home when family unit care emergencies take place; (three) flexible work time table: employees can choose flexible work schedules to avoid rush hours and have greater time to handle family demands.

"Work-family unit conflicts have been a scientific problem for the total society for decades. It takes the decision from stakeholders across sectors and disciplines to obtain a superb step forward," mentioned Ms. Yulin Tsai, founding father of searching for and discover Co. In leading the are searching for and discover social business to recommend flexible work arrangements, Ms. Tsai believes that this Prize marks the beginning of a brand new phase for Taiwan in gender equality and work-family unit steadiness. next-stage experiences with the aid of selected industries, sizes of business and work patterns are required to extra develop useful and valuable work-family unit balance measures and programs.

"Former Premier" Mao Chi-Kuo of the "government Yuan" attended the press conference to congratulate the success of this social commercial enterprise-academic partnership that ends up in solutions to address the society's demographic and structural adjustments.

"APEC based this analysis Prize to convey people's consideration to the 5 following areas that improve women's fitness: workplace fitness and defense; health access and cognizance; work-lifestyles steadiness; sexual and reproductive health; and gender-based mostly violence," explained "Director-everyday" Wu Hsiu-chen of the "department of Gender Equality, government Yuan". sex-disaggregated statistics and gender-primarily based analysis and evaluation serve as an empirical foundation to aid choice-makers and company homeowners make guidelines that may increase women's health so that ladies can be part of and rise in the team of workers.

"The Ministry of Labor's Deputy Minister" Lin San-Quei described the gender equality in employment policies and measures that the "MOL" has spearheaded. The Act of Gender Equality in Employment encourages groups to enforce a wide range of workplace gender equality measures, together with providing nursing rooms, childcare amenities and measures, and help for staff to enhanced achieve work-lifestyles steadiness. Many businesses even give many family-pleasant measures that are extra innovative than what the Act requires. by using profitable this APEC fit girls, suit Economies analysis Prize, it suggests that chinese Taipei has made developments within the area of office work-life stability. greater labor coverage planning, gender equality merchandising, and overseas cooperation may still be performed during this area to obtain more mammoth outcomes.

Ms. BoonHuey Ee, familiar supervisor of Merck Healthcare Taiwan, Hong Kong & Macau, gave her remarks on the press conference. Merck KGaA is the private accomplice of the APEC in shape women, match Economies (HWHE) Initiative. It strives to construct variety and Inclusion (D&I) in its company cultures and advocates for the importance of girls's fitness on sustainable financial building. It holds deep commitment for work-existence steadiness by taking strong result-oriented movements, together with inclusion way of life cultivation, a mechanism of bendy working preparations and worker healthcare program implementation. "We agree with that the participation of a bigger feminine staff contributes to enhanced vigour and improvement to organizations and industries," observed Ms. Ee.

As a representative from an exemplary multi-country wide corporation, Ms. Tina Lin, time-honored manager of Google Taiwan, shared the company's most efficient practices. Google spares no efforts to build a working environment of diversity, Equality and Inclusion. below the pre-requisite of assure worker's health and well-being, Google applies digital technologies to elevate barriers of geography, time and area. this is to nourish and activate a gender pleasant place of work to create open and ingenious company way of life and to prolong care and admire for all of the personnel.

Mrs. Tang Fu-Mei, founder of Season Arts Kindergarten, spoke on behalf of the SMEs in Taiwan. As a mother of a toddler with particular wants and an entrepreneur, she shared how she realized her dream. She requires more social support for households, particularly parents with special want little ones. Season Arts integrates arts and aesthetics education into their curriculum, and incorporates Makers education to train students about hands-on difficulty-solving. The vision of Season Arts is to cultivate children into motion takers that may exchange the world. The core groundwork for Season artwork's education is its ability construction. Her corporation is committed to helping female employees obtain work-family steadiness and self-cognizance.

the click conference additionally invited Mrs. Georgia Huang and Mr. Vincent Chen, appropriate executives from multi-nationals based mostly in Taiwan and throughout the straits, to share their own experiences in balancing knowledgeable careers and family unit duties, together with their experiences in conjugal relationship and parenting. facing all types of pressing wants, including the must focus on their families, toddlers, knowledgeable careers and self-expectations, the audio system shared their secrets and techniques to residing a fulfilling, balanced existence, together with priority setting, time management, and legacy constructing.

About Professor Lih-Rong Wang

Professor Lih-Rong Wang serves on the department of Social Work, countrywide Taiwan tuition. She has devoted her tutorial career to the reports of women and work, ladies and care, and violence against ladies. moreover analysis and educating, she is additionally a protracted-term advocate for girls' right and gender equality. She serves as a consultant for different govt our bodies and corporations.  

Professor Wang served as a consultant of Taiwan in lots of foreign conferences for women and gender, and UN-affiliated NGO meetings. She turned into additionally a travelling student on the university of Oxford, Kyoto school, and university of California, l. a..

Professor Wang's ultimate wish is to empower Taiwanese women of their personal lives, marriages, households and expert careers. Professor Wang calls for all and sundry to be part of the HeforShe stream and collectively recognise the Sustainable building dreams (SDGs) in Taiwan. 

About are looking for and find Co. Ltd.            

centered in November 2016, are searching for and locate Co. is a social enterprise dedicated to advocating for household-pleasant places of work in order that everyone can fulfill their aspirations. are looking for and discover is the primary skilled organization in Taiwan that champions the agenda of flexible working association and ability matching with different values to carry valuable options. The capabilities that we give consist of skill matching, intervening time executives, and ladies career construction.    

the inducement at the back of our work is to help extra ladies stay longer or return back to the place of work. many of our programs, developed on love and aspiration, have obtained extensive attention. besides this 2020 APEC fit women, match Economies analysis Prize, we also gained the Social business Award with the aid of international Views monthly in may additionally 2019 and the prominent business Award via Taipei metropolis govt in November 2020, for our contribution to pleasant places of work.

Rechargeable hearing aid Batteries Draw from NASA analysis ...

NASA technology

We regularly think about that inventions are born complete: Thomas Edison creates the incandescent easy bulb and lights up Christie highway in Menlo Park on New year's Eve, staggering the world and single-handedly ending the tyranny of night.

here is hardly the fact, besides the fact that children. in this case, arc-lamp highway lights already existed in 1879, as did incandescent lights, albeit impractical ones. Edison and his team just hit on the appropriate filament: carbonized bamboo. The invention developed on greater than 50 years of experimentation through others.

Likewise, few contemporary applied sciences are the made from an extended, more durable slog than the silver-zinc battery, which is ultimately making an early foray into the client market within the variety of a line of rechargeable hearing aid batteries, more than two centuries after its first invention.

appreciable effort and substances were committed to making a realistic edition of the silver-zinc battery, principally since it can offer more power per ounce than some other battery couple. Its construction, youngsters, has been marked with the aid of gradual, incremental development, useless ends, and the occasional leap forward—an enormous considered one of which took place at NASA's Glenn research center, then known as Lewis research core.

The main issue with the silver-zinc couple was that its electrodes—the telephone's terrible and advantageous electrical conductors—have been soluble and deteriorated right away, mainly the terrible zinc electrode. in the late 1920s, French Professor Henri André at last made the primary functional silver-zinc battery by using a membrane to separate the two electrodes, preventing energetic materials from migrating between them and causing deterioration. It turned into a development that presaged the work that would take location at Lewis some forty years later.

all through World struggle II, the U.S. militia, specifically the Navy and Air drive, advanced advantageous silver-zinc basic—or non-rechargeable—batteries, which it nevertheless makes use of to vigour submarines, torpedoes, missile propulsion systems, and other contraptions.

In its early days, NASA also used such batteries, as an example in launch programs. The agency turned into especially interested in a rechargeable—or secondary—version for the lengthy-term, light-weight vigour it might deliver for house systems, however electrode deterioration remained a problem, vastly impeding performance after several deep discharge and recharge cycles. Zinc oxide launched by the zinc electrode would dissolve, degrading the electrode, altering its form, and cutting back its floor area. it would additionally plate again onto the electrode and kind structures that may pierce throughout the cellphone separator, ruining the battery.

The issue become compounded if the battery changed into warmth-sterilized, a requirement for all Mars rovers to ensure they don't populate the red Planet with Earth microbes.

all through the Nineteen Sixties, NASA conducted many experiments, essentially at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard space Flight core, and Lewis, to unravel these challenges. Researchers tried different substances in the cellphone separator, components to the electrodes and electrolyte, distinct cellphone geometries and methods of construction. These frequently resulted in minor improvements, but a finished 1968 NASA file, "Batteries for house power techniques," stated the persistence of many of the same obstacles.

The report did make point out, despite the fact, of an experimental mobile the use of a novel, inorganic ceramic separator developed via the Astropower Laboratory of Douglas aircraft company, a usual collaborator with Lewis on silver-zinc batteries, which showed promise however lacked adequate records.

Astropower had been working to increase an inorganic ion trade membrane for a gas telephone for Lewis, and researchers on the field center counseled that an analogous separator might work in a chargeable battery. In 1965 Astropower and Lewis began working on a separator that would begin to mitigate many of the challenges to rechargeable silver-zinc batteries.

by using 1972 Lewis had demonstrated and confirmed silver-zinc cells in keeping with a particular inorganic separator and a mainly prepared zinc electrode, which have been in a position to feature as a rechargeable battery after heat sterilization. The cells had been nonetheless simplest respectable up to four hundred to 500 shallow discharge cycles, as adverse to the ten,000-cycle life of the nickel-cadmium batteries regular in house applications of the time, but they might influence in batteries one-third the measurement of nickel-cadmium instruments, a substantial saving in weight.

The cells additionally exhibited not one of the zinc electrode form-altering and degradation viewed in normal silver-zinc batteries. A 1972 paper out of Lewis titled "a versatile Silver Oxide-Zinc Battery for Synchronous Orbit and Planetary Missions" called this sturdiness "fabulous" and "most extraordinary," considering that the electrode hadn't been treated to inhibit form-change.

Astropower went on to create an excellent more beneficial inorganic-organic separator that further extended silver-zinc battery existence and eradicated complications of low conductivity exhibited with the aid of other inorganic separators. Lewis all started a separator construction program in 1973, obtaining a license for Astropower's inorganic-biological separator and experimenting with it closely to discover why it labored as well as it did. ultimately armed with this realizing, the crew went on to create three alternate recipes with sophisticated performance, as well as a method for efficaciously manufacturing such separators, all of which it announced in 1979.

Whereas Astropower's cells in keeping with its inorganic-biological separators lasted about 150 cycles at 50 % discharge, Lewis' survived greater than 200. The Astropower separators were additionally brittle and complex to work with, but Lewis managed to make its models flexible, as well as extra uniform, which produced a more uniform present density and sure become responsible for extending battery lifestyles. in keeping with the substances used and the manufacturing technique the engineers came up with, their separators additionally simplest charge about 35 cents per square foot, compared to $1.25 for their Astropower predecessor.

know-how transfer

despite all of this research, NASA has not made heavy use of the secondary silver-zinc battery, possible as a result of final limitations to the variety of times they will also be recharged and essential advances to nickel-cadmium batteries within the mid-Seventies. Nickel-cadmium had already been the agency's preferred option for many functions. Lithium-ion batteries, which came alongside within the 1990s, now present almost as excessive an energy-to-mass ratio as silver-zinc cells, and that they can be recharged many more times.

meanwhile, the charges linked to silver electrodes, along with the highly brief cycle life, have largely saved the expertise out of industrial markets—except lately.

Zinc Matrix energy, now known as ZPower, became centered in Camarillo, California, in 1996 for the goal of commercializing the rechargeable silver-zinc battery. at the time, the technology could nevertheless simplest endure 10 to 30 deep discharge cycles earlier than dropping massive capability, so the company picked up where NASA and others had left off.

The effects of most of the agency's research and construction turned into publicly attainable, and the company's engineers used them as part of their starting aspect. Ross Dueber, the enterprise's president and CEO, additionally had very own potential of a few of that work. Early in his Air force profession, he turned into assigned to the Battery branch at Wright Aeronautical Laboratories, which often collaborated with NASA on rechargeable battery methods, including some in line with silver-zinc expertise.

"What we've carried out at ZPower is take that chemistry that NASA did a lot of development on, together with the defense force, and moved it into the commercial sector," Dueber says.

but it took an additional long battle to get it there.

The enterprise concentrated on improving all 4 active add-ons of the battery—both electrodes, the electrolyte, and the separator. In its remaining product, among other advancements, the company uses a proprietary coating on its silver electrode to enrich conductivity, a paste material to cut back zinc ion diffusion from the zinc electrode, and a specialized electrolyte that extends the life of both electrodes. The engineers also patented designs for stacking the separators.

an additional company's work on silver-zinc batteries under Small company Innovation analysis contracts with Glenn and NASA's Johnson space center within the early 2000s introduced ZPower's consideration to a third business, advanced Membrane programs, which had provided battery separators for testing. ZPower bought the patent and all rights to the know-how.

That's in addition to the one hundred or so of its own patents the company has taken out over the years.

"There was an important volume of construction that went into it," Dueber says.

The batteries can now continue to exist 500 to 1,000 discharge cycles with out losing tremendous potential.

After greater than a decade of research and development, the enterprise introduced in 2007 that it would launch a line of desktop batteries the following yr. despite the fact, Dueber says, the financial crash of 2008, coupled with a pointy upward push within the rate of silver, made affordability a major obstacle. The company went back to the drafting board.

The smaller the battery, the less the rate of silver is an issue, Dueber explains. So ZPower hit on one other application: listening to aids. In late 2013—17 years after its founding—the enterprise released its first most important product line.

With a possible, definitely rechargeable silver-zinc battery finally in hand, notwithstanding, the enterprise expects that listening to aids symbolize just one of a couple of markets ripe for conquest.

merits

average listening to aids run on disposable batteries, always of the zinc-air variety. These have a excessive energy-to-mass ratio however can't be recharged. Rechargeable battery varieties reminiscent of nickel-steel hydride haven't been capable of elevate ample power to last a full day within the small sizes required for listening to aids.

as a result, listening to help users should exchange their batteries per week or so, inflicting a two-fold inconvenience: changing out the tiny batteries requires considerable dexterity and visual acuity, which can also be an argument for the seniors who are their primary users, and the batteries die unpredictably, encouraging clients to shut them off on every occasion possible and inevitably leaving them devoid of listening to at inconvenient moments.

"can you believe of every other excessive-end digital equipment where you've obtained to do that?" Dueber asks. "It's simply unfathomable nowadays."

There are also environmental implications to the disposable-battery model. round 1.5 billion zinc-air hearing aid batteries end up in landfills each year, in line with the enterprise.

Lithium-ion batteries are the best ones that compete with the silver-zinc couple in terms of excessive energy storage. These, besides the fact that children, are susceptible to a phenomenon referred to as thermal runaway, which, in rare but disastrous instances, reasons them to combust. "You need to be certain what's for your ear isn't going to seize fireplace or explode," Dueber features out. this is now not a possibility with silver-zinc batteries, which use a water-primarily based chemistry.

Lithium-ion batteries additionally require extra packaging and different add-ons that take up a bigger percentage of their house the smaller they get, so it's a much less effective know-how for tiny batteries.

To handle the issue of putting off and inserting the batteries, ZPower batteries recharge internal the hearing aid. They fit right into a specialized door that may change the battery door on most current hearing aids, and the door consists of the charge from the charger to the battery. "Now you simply take the listening to aids out and put them in the charger," Dueber says, adding that the battery can reach full can charge overnight.

A cost lasts from one to two days, and the company recommends changing the batteries once a year. At $25 to $30 for each battery, that's a substantial reductions in comparison to what a yr's price of disposable batteries would can charge.

ZPower additionally developed a recycling system for its batteries, every of which is ninety five p.c recyclable metallic. clients trade within the batteries at their audiologist's workplace, and the business collects them and sends them to a refiner for recycling. "on account of the proven fact that we use a valuable metallic, it's really least expensive for us to deliver it again and recycle it," Dueber says.

The company launched its product line through the Beltone community of listening to support suppliers and plans to extend beyond. It's also in talks with a couple of manufacturers attracted to constructing the batteries into their hearing aids, and Dueber is working towards a contract with the department of Veterans Affairs, which techniques eight,000 to 10,000 orders per week for hearing assist batteries at its logistics core. "The benefit we would bring to the software is, all of that goes away," he says.

The rechargeable battery gadget won a 2016 buyer Electronics demonstrate Innovation Award and a 2016 Edison Award.

Manufacturing all of its items in Southern California, ZPower extended from about 35 to a hundred employees after its product launch. Now the Thomas Edison of rechargeable silver-zinc batteries, the enterprise sees further growth on the horizon.

"It's a neighborhood that hasn't acquired a number of attention over the years, however with a brand new center of attention on wearables, individuals are looking further and further at small, high-power batteries," he says. for example, the company is working with a sunglasses brand on a pair of non-losable shades. A cell phone app would locate a beacon within the glasses powered by way of a ZPower battery.

"We basically view this as an enabler for brand new product designs going forward," he says. "listening to aids are only our first market of many."