Many factors of a child’s birth and the condition of the newborn are linked to the future development of autism, but no single factor has been identified as the cause, a meta-analysis of forty previously published research studies concludes.
Autism refers to a cluster of neurological developmental disorders, ranging to mild and severe, that interfere the child’s ability to adjust normally, including defects in normal communication and social interaction.
The systematic review, published in Monday’s issue of Pediatrics, presented the results of a meta-analysis of over sixty perinatal and neonatal risk factors associated with autism reported in the forty published studies. It identified sixteen that were significantly associated with autism. These included low birth weight, complications associated with delivery, fetal distress during labor, “poor condition” of the newborn along with a low Apgar score, multiple births, birth injuries to the baby, and hemorrhaging of the mother during childbirth.
However, the review found that often these factors are linked; not occurring independently but in combination, making the effect of any one factor difficult to determine. Further, the conclusions of the studies often were in conflict with each other regarding the relationship of any single one of the factors to autism. The researcher concluded there was “insufficient evidence to implicate any one perinatal or neonatal factor in autism etiology.” However, they said some evidence suggested the presence of “multiple neonatal complications may increase autism risk.”
[M]ultiple neonatal complications may increase autism risk.
The review also ruled out some factors, finding some were not linked to autism such as the use during childbirth of anesthesia, forceps delivery or vacuum extractor delivery. High birth weight and large head circumference of the newborn were also discounted.
The researcher who headed the study, Hannah Gardener, who was at the Harvard School of Public Health at the time and is now at the University of Miami School of Medicine, emphasized in an interview that parents should not worry if any one of the factors was present at the time of their child’s birth.
There is no single strong cause of autism.
She said, “There is no single strong cause of autism.”
Twin studies have concluded that there is a genetic component to autism and Gardener emphasized the importance of the review’s conclusions that point to the need for continuing study of how factors surrounding birth may interact with genetic factors to result in future autism in a child.
An estimated 150,000 protesters in Melbourne fill Federation Square blocking roads in all directions.
People rallied in 300 locations across Australia today to protest the Federal Government’s proposed changes to industrial relations laws, WorkChoices. According to police, around 150,000 people congregated in Melbourne, from where speeches were broadcast throughout the country. In Sydney, thirty thousand gathered in Belmore Park and Martin Place to watch the broadcast before marching to Chifley Square.
Sharan Burrow, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), said that under the changes many working conditions would be under threat, including “penalty rates, public holidays, overtime pay, control over rostered hours, shift penalties, even 4 weeks annual leave.” The government has claimed, despite various expert assesment to the contrary, and opposition from major Australian religious and charity organisations and some concern from its own backbench, that the IR changes will improve the economy and ultimately benefit workers, and dismissed the protests as having “little effect”.
Braverman (left) and Sunak (right) on October 25, 2022. Image: UK Government.The Border Force vessel HMC Searcher on The Solent on February 8, 2010. Image: Brian Burnell.
The United Kingdom Home Office today is to begin issuing questionnaires in place of official interviews to determine refugee status for some 12,000 asylee hopefuls from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen who applied before last summer.
The forms are part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s effort to clear the nation’s 92,000 asylum claim-‘legacy backlog’ by year end.
While standard security, criminal, and health checks will continue, officials will scrap the face-to-face interview step to “streamline” processing for five nationalities whose claim acceptance rate is already above 95%.
The document, which media reports range from ten to 32 pages with 40 to 50 questions, “must be completed in English”, the government recommending “online translation tools” if needed.
It also must be returned within twenty working days. A leaked internal letter seen by Sky News says “failure to return the questionnaire without reasonable explanation may result in an individual’s asylum claim being withdrawn in line with the published policy”, but the government will provide a reminder after the deadline and consider extensions.
Officials tell BBC News every claim will be assessed meritocratically, with the i reporting no one will be refused “based solely on the response of the questionnaire”.
A similar fast-track system backed by the British Red Cross in September 2021 for 3,000 Afghan refugees was reportedly rejected by Prime Minister Boris Johnson over fears it would amount to amnesty, which the Home Office today rejects, and strain the UK’s welfare and housing systems.
Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said her party has supported the idea “for months”, and said it was “damning that the Home Office isn’t doing this already […] including for safe countries like Albania” after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees “recommended it two years ago.”
She continued: “Labour has a common-sense plan to fast-track cases, get return agreements in place so unsuccessful claims can be quickly and safely returned, and take much stronger action against the criminal gangs driving dangerous small boat crossings.”
Figures to be published today show a record 45,756 migrants crossing the Channel last year drove outstanding asylum claims over 150,000, also a record.
Sunak has made tackling migration one of his main priorities, with laws banning illegal migrants from claiming asylum in the UK expected next month. The Home Office letter reads “we may extend the use of the questionnaire as a means to gather additional information from other claimants awaiting an asylum decision in due course”, but no current plans to expand the scheme exist.
Braverman with France’s interior and overseas minister Gérald Darmanin in Paris on November 14, 2022. Image: Home Office.
On Wednesday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman told GB News: “It’s clear that we have an unsustainable situation in towns and cities around our country […] because of the overwhelming numbers of people arriving here illegally and our legal duties to accommodate them”.
But media have said the questionnaires attract criticism both for making it easier for some asylum seekers to obtain the right to live and work in the UK, and for presenting a burden on those who may not speak English or have access to help or legal counsel.
The Guardian cited examples of complicated questions with over fifty words, including: “Were you subject to human trafficking (the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit) or modern slavery (severe exploitation of other people for personal or commercial gain) during your journey to or after you arrived in the UK?”
It quoted critics like immigration barrister Colin Yeo, and Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants campaigner Caitlin Boswell, with Boswell stating: “People fleeing desperate circumstances clearly need this government to make quicker and fairer asylum decisions, but this latest move from government is clumsy, unthinking and could put people’s safety at risk.
“No one’s right to refuge should be jeopardised because they weren’t able to fill in an unwieldy form in a language they don’t speak.”
After the leak, CEO of the Refugee Council Enver Solomon told Sky News any process “must be well thought out”: “Moves to reduce the backlog are welcome but the answer is not yet more bureaucratic hurdles and threats of applications being withdrawn.
“After living in worry and uncertainty for months and even years without hearing anything about their claims, it cannot then be fair or reasonable to expect people to complete a lengthy form only in English in a matter of weeks especially for those who don’t have access to legal advice and don’t speak English.”
During Prime Minister’s Questions Wednesday, Sunak defended the government’s record whilst promising a “formal update” from Braverman is forthcoming: “The Home Secretary and I are working intensely and as quickly as possible to bring forward that legislation […] in the meantime our deals with Albania and France are already yielding benefits […] we want a system whereby if someone arrives in our country illegally they will not be able to stay.”
A review this week by Wikinews of US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints about mortgages in the United States shows Bank of America leads all lending institutions in complaints.
Since mortgages complaints were recorded in December 2011, 77,622 total have been added to CFPB’s database. 29.2% of these complaints involved Bank of America, with the second most received by Wells Fargo, accounting for 15.5% of all complaints. JPMorgan Chase ranked third by volume of complaints with 9.8%. Ocwen was fourth with 8.7% and Citibank was fifth with 4.8%. Nationstar Mortgage; Green Tree Servicing, LLC; HSBC; PNC Bank; U.S. Bancorp; OneWest Bank; SunTrust Bank; Flagstar Bank; and Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. each had between 1.0 and 3.8% of total complaints. The remaining 14.4% of all complaints about consumer mortgages were divided between about 530 other lending institutions.
The Motley Fool reported last month that for the past fiscal quarter, the biggest US based mortgage lenders were from first to fifth Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Quicken Loans and U.S. Bancorp.
According to the US Federal Reserve, debt for family residences stands at US$10.706 trillion for the second quarter of 2013. As of the end of June of this year, Bank of America is the United States’s second largest commercial bank with US$1.343 trillion in domestic assets. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest commercial bank with US$1.251 trillion in domestic assets. JPMorgan Chase is the largest US commercial bank with US$1.329 trillion in domestic assets and US$1.947 trillion in total assets.
The mortgage complaints in the CFPB report include several subproducts. Conventional fixed mortgages account for 27.1% of all complaints. Conventional adjustable mortgages account for 10.0%. FHA mortgages account for 7.7% of all complaints. Home equity loans or lines of credit account for 3.8% of all complaints. VA mortgages are 1.4% of all complaints. Second mortgages and reverse mortgages each account for 0.6% of complaints. The remaining 48.7% of complaints are about other mortgages or other mortgage issues. A few years ago, FHA loans accounted for about 10% of all US mortgages while VA loans accounted for about 3%. Prime loans accounted for over 75% of the market and the rest were subprime mortgages.
Total complaints against mortgage companies by state Image: Laura Hale.
California leads all states by volume of complaints with 14768. It is followed by Florida, New York, Georgia and Texas. When complaints are divided by a state’s total population, New Hampshire leads. The state is followed by Washington D.C., Maryland, Georgia and Florida. Complaints do not correlate with national rankings for August’s foreclosure rate by state where Nevada topped the list, followed by Florida, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware.
Two zip codes account for over 1,000 total complaints between them. 565 complaints originated in the 48382 zip code, which is in Commerce Township, Michigan, located in suburban Detroit. 553 complaints originated in the 33071 zip code, in Coral Springs, Florida. According to real estate website Zillow, there are currently 1,033 properties in foreclosure in Coral Springs while Commerce Township only has 131 properties currently in foreclosure. Four other zip codes have 100 plus complaints originating from them. 91730, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had 158 complaints. 33409, in West Palm Beach, Florida, had 132. 92626, in Costa Mesa, California, had 125 complaints. 92660, in Newport Beach, California, had 122 complaints. Respectively, the towns had 534, 1,068, 153, and 134 properties currently in foreclosure. These numbers are higher than for the cities of a few sampled zip codes where there was only one complaint, such as Gold Hill, Oregon which has 4 properties in foreclosure, and Decatur, Illinois which has 6 properties in foreclosure.
For the top 5 lenders by volume of complaints, the percentage of complaint types against them. Image: Laura Hale.
The CFPB categorizes complaints into six categories: “Loan modification, collection,foreclosure” or problems when a person is unable to pay; “Loan servicing, payments, escrow account” or problems with making a payment; “Application, originator, mortgage broker”; “Credit decision / Underwriting”; “Settlement process and costs”, and “Other”. The CFPB says the complaint types indicate consumers “appear to be driven by a desire to seek agreement with their companies on foreclosure alternatives. The complaints indicate that consumer confusion persists around the process and requirements for obtaining loan modifications and refinancing, especially regarding document submission timeframes, payment trial periods, allocation of payments, treatment of income in eligibility calculations, and credit bureau reporting during the evaluation period.” Currently, 59.6% of all complaints against lenders deal with being unable to pay. 25.1% deal with problems in making a payment. 7.0% have to do with the application process.
Of the complaint-heavy zip codes, for 48382 in Commerce Township, Michigan, 98.9% of all complaints have to deal with being unable to pay. Accounting for 23.4% of all mortgage complaints in Commerce Township, 132 of the complaints for being unable to pay were made regarding Bank of America, accounting for 97.8% or all but 3 complaints against them from the zip. 121 of the Bank of America responses in Commerce Township were closed with explanation and 12 were closed with non-monetary relief. 33071 in Coral Springs is different, with 537 of the 553 complaints being categorized under other. Only 11 complaints relate to foreclosure and issues with being able to pay. 92626 in Costa Mesa, where 32% of the mortgage complaints were about Bank of America and 26.4% were about Wells Fargo, had 93.6% of its complaints dealing with being unable to pay. 5 total complaints dealt with payment issues and 3 dealt with applications.
Beyond regional variance in complaint types lodged, the top five mortgage lenders by volume of complaints all had being unable to pay as their top complaint category, ranging between 55.8% for Citibank and 69.4% for Bank of America. Problems with payment accounted for the second largest area of complaints, with Ocwen having the largest percentage of complaints at 31.9% and Bank of America having the smallest at 18.8%. Foreclosure was the top area of complaints for a number of other lending institutions including 1st Alliance Lending, OneWest Bank, Ally Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of the West, BMO Harris, BOK Financial Corp, Caliber Home Loans, Inc, Capital One, Deutsche Bank and EverBank.
By state complaints against mortgage lenders by monthImage: Laura Hale.
Nationally, complaints reached a high of 5,840 for January 2013, 1,107 more than the next highest month of April 2013. The total emerging for September is the second lowest since records were first kept in December 2011. On a state by state level, this pattern largely repeats with a major exception for Florida which saw a peak of 849 complaints in June 2012. Then, as now, Florida was one of the top five states in the nation in its foreclosure rate. The national January spike came as the Qualified Mortgage standard required by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 came into play. It required mortgage lenders to take steps to insure borrowers could repay their mortgages.
Bank of America’s complaint volume follows the national trend, with a spike in January 2013 with 1,925 total complaints. Unlike nationally, the next month by volume of complaints was February of this year with 1,598 complaints. Prior to that, the highest month was May 2012 with 1,418 complaints. The lowest volume of complaints is September this year with 334.
Wells Fargo matched national trends for volume of complaints by month, with the exception of the current month being the lowest on record for number of complaints with 197 compared to the next lowest month, December 2011, when they had 221. JPMorgan’s complaint volume by month spiked in January and March of this year with 504 complaints. April of this year was the next highest month with 493 complaints, edging out May of last year with 488 complaints. September this year is on track to be the lowest month by complaint volume.
The federal government shutdown is unlikely to impact the current mortgage situation in the United States directly for most consumers, though mortgage processing by the Federal Housing Administration could be slower, resulting in fewer mortgages processed.
ItaliangoalkeeperCarlo Cudicini has been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in London. The player, who plays for Tottenham Hotspurs, was involved in a collision with a car at 10:30 GMT. The football club reported that he has fractured his wrists and injured his pelvis.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police released a statement saying “A 36-year-old male suffered injuries described by the London Ambulance Service as possibly life-changing and was taken to Whipps Cross Hospital for further assessment and treatment”. No arrests have been made.
Cudicini crashed his motorcycle into a Ford Fiesta with a female driver and a child passenger. Neither the driver or passenger were injured in the accident.
Cudicini is the son of former AC Milan goalkeeper Fabio Cudicini. During his career he has played for Lazio, AC Milan and Chelsea. He played for Chelsea for 10 years until he was transferred to Tottenham in January. He made one appearance for the Italian national team.
The G20 Summit held in London, England concluded Thursday with an injection into the economy of US$5 trillion by the end of 2010.
Global trade would be supported by $250 billion (169.5 billion pounds). “We are going to act decisively to kickstart international trade. We will ensure availability of at least $250 billion over the next two years,” said Gordon BrownPrime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Developing countries received $100bn which will be dispensed via Multilateral development banks. Towards this end, the IMF will sell off gold reserves.
China will support the IMF fund by $40bn, the European Union by $100bn, and Japan by $100bn.
There will be increased regulation on banking and credit ratings agencies. There was a commitment to clamp down on hedge funds, tax havens and toxic assets. To restore consumer confidence in the financial sector, a new Financial Stability Board will be initiated internationally. There would be new policies implemented to control pay and bonuses paid to the heads of banks and corporations.
The G20 leaders were adverse to protectionism and rallied to support international trade and investment.
The Leaders’ statement said, “We reaffirm the commitment made in Washington: to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organization (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports.”
Eoin O’Malley, senior adviser on international trade at BusinessEurope, said “The measure also needs to be part of wider package to avoid protectionism and conclude the Doha round which will stimulate trade growth. The key point now is to move forward with Doha. The key now is implementation. G20 governments must act quickly to provide this finance to companies that need it urgently.”
Onsite commentators are blasting the United States federal government, saying the response to Hurricane Katrina has been too slow and otherwise inadequate.
President Bush visits victims in Biloxi Sept. 2
Mayor Ray Nagin has repeatedly pleaded for more help.
The Washington Post reports that on the Friday after the storm, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco got a proposal from the federal government for her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans. The state rejected that option hours later. Blanco had declared a state of emergency on August 26. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has pointed out “our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor.”
The city’s police chief warned that storm victims were being raped and beaten on the streets. Even in the Superdome stadium and the city convention center, where tens of thousands had awaited evacuation, fights had broken out, rubbish burned, and dead bodies have been left uncollected. The Superdome evacuation was completed Saturday night. The Superdome had been opened as a refuge of last resort for people who did not participate in the voluntary evacuation of the city before the storm.
FEMA map of affected areas.
The head of New Orleans‘ emergency operations, Terry Ebbert, complained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not doing its job. “This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace,” he said. “FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out New Orleans.” Ebbert also said he hasn’t seen “a single FEMA guy” at the Superdome Wednesday (the main staging area was 6 miles away along the adjoining I-10 at the Causeway intersection); the photo at right had been taken three days earlier by a FEMA worker before the storm. FEMA estimated the damage in all states affected where 637,994 people usually live.
New Orleans evacuation Wednesday, August 31. (FEMA)
Web pundits suggest that Mike Brown, the head of FEMA, will “be chosen to take the fall” for the poor response. [1] A critic at the International Arabian Horse Association, which previously fired Mike Brown, said “He was an unmitigated, total…disaster. I was shocked as hell when captain clueless (a reference to President G.W. Bush) put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.” [2] It has also been suggested that the impact of the philosophy of privatization has damaged federal emergency response, but the validity of such claims has not been assessed. [3]
Not all federal agencies are being blasted for their role in exacerbating the disaster. In particular, the Coast Guard has been lauded for its rescue efforts, which began immediately. There was been widespread criticism of the failure to mobilize National Guard units from other states. Such units have now been deployed, but the debate over their slow deployment will rage for some time. Sunday the Washington Post reported that Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday.
USS Tortuga at dock in New Orleans. (Search and rescue mission began September 4)Unused buses were caught in flood.
A significant component of the criticism directed at federal and state governments has been the lack of access given to local volunteers and the Red Cross.[4]Local officials, especially Mayor Nagin, have been harshly criticized for failing to follow existing evacuation plans. In particular, aerial photographs show numerous unused city school buses, which were to have been used in the evacuation.
Over twenty-five nations, some with assets in the area, have offered aid to the city of New Orleans, but the president has refused all material aid from foreign nations. Such refusal of aid is not uncommon among nations with coldy hostile relationships, such as between the U.S. and Cuba or Venezuela, but it has created a stir among the European media.
As of September 4th, the US has extended a “wish list” largely duplicating the offer from Germany. German supplies, including an airborne hospital are expected to arrive September 5th. The US has also asked the EU and NATO for assistance. [5]
A recently developed residential neighborhood in Chula Vista, California. Image: Catalan.
The San Diego, California suburb of Chula Vista has responded to the recent housing crisis with an aggressive blight control ordinance that compels lenders to maintain the appearance of vacant homes. As foreclosures increase both locally and throughout the United States, the one year old ordinance has become a model for other cities overwhelmed by the problem of abandoned homes that decay into neighborhood eyesores.
Chula Vista city code enforcement manager Doug Leeper told the San Diego Union Tribune that over 300 jurisdictions have contacted his office during the past year with inquiries about the city’s tough local ordinance. Coral Springs, Florida, and California towns Stockton, Santee, Riverside County, and Murietta have all modeled recently enacted anti-blight measures after Chula Vista’s. On Wednesday, 8 October, the Escondido City Council also voted to tighten local measures making lenders more accountable for maintenance of empty homes.
Lenders will respond when it costs them less to maintain the property than to ignore local agency requirements.
Under the Chula Vista ordinance lenders become legally responsible for upkeep as soon as a notice of mortgage default gets filed on a vacant dwelling, before actual ownership of the dwelling returns to the lender. Leeper regards that as “the cutting-edge part of our ordinance”. Chula Vista also requires prompt registration of vacant homes and applies stiff fines as high as US$1000 per day for failure to maintain a property. Since foreclosed properties are subject to frequent resale between mortgage brokers, city officials enforce the fines by sending notices to every name on title documents and placing a lien on the property, which prevents further resale until outstanding fines have been paid. In the year since the ordinance went into effect the city has applied $850,000 in fines and penalties, of which it has collected $200,000 to date. The city has collected an additional $77,000 in registration fees on vacant homes.
Jolie Houston, an attorney in San Jose, believes “Lenders will respond when it costs them less to maintain the property than to ignore local agency requirements.” Traditionally, local governments have resorted to addressing blight problems on abandoned properties with public funds, mowing overgrown lawns and performing other vital functions, then seeking repayment afterward. Chula Vista has moved that responsibility to an upfront obligation upon lenders.
That kind of measure will add additional costs to banks that have been hit really hard already and ultimately the cost will be transferred down to consumers and investors.
As one of the fastest growing cities in the United States during recent years, Chula Vista saw 22.6% growth between 2000 and 2006, which brought the city’s population from 173,556 in the 2000 census to an estimated 212,756, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Chula Vista placed among the nation’s 20 fastest growing cities in 2004. A large proportion of local homes were purchased during the recent housing boom using creative financing options that purchasers did not understand were beyond their means. Average home prices in San Diego County declined by 25% in the last year, which is the steepest drop on record. Many homeowners in the region currently owe more than their homes are worth and confront rising balloon payment mortgages that they had expected to afford by refinancing new equity that either vanished or never materialized. In August 2008, Chula Vista’s eastern 91913 zip code had the highest home mortgage default rate in the county with 154 filings and 94 foreclosures, an increase of 154% over one year previously. Regionally, the county saw 1,979 foreclosures in August.
Professionals from the real estate and mortgage industries object to Chula Vista’s response to the crisis for the additional burdens it places on their struggling finances. Said San Diego real estate agent Marc Carpenter, “that kind of measure will add additional costs to banks that have been hit really hard already and ultimately the cost will be transferred down to consumers and investors.” Yet city councils in many communities have been under pressure to do something about increasing numbers of vacant properties. Concentrations of abandoned and neglected homes can attract vandals who hasten the decline of struggling neighborhoods. Jolie Houston explained that city officials “can’t fix the lending problem, but they can try to prevent neighborhoods from becoming blighted.”
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CEO Robert Klein of Safeguard, a property management firm, told the Union Tribune that his industry is having difficulty adapting to the rapidly changing local ordinances. “Every day we discover a new ordinance coming out of somewhere”, he complained. Dustin Hobbs, a spokesman from the California Association of Mortgage Bankers agreed that uneven local ordinances are likely to increase the costs of lending. Hobbs advised that local legislation is unnecessary due to California State Senate Bill 1137, which was recently approved to address blight. Yet according to Houston, the statewide measure falls short because it fails to address upkeep needs during the months between the time when foreclosure begins and when the lender takes title.
Intelligent Hazard Removing Robot, invented by Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, attracted several buyers’ eyes especially from security industry.Image: Rico Shen.
The 2008 Taipei CNC Machine Tools & Manufacturing Technology Show (MT duo) and Taiwan International Robot Exhibition (Robot Taiwan 2008) both began yesterday. These events are both taking place in the build up to Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS 2009) at TWTC Nangang, which is due to take place next year.
The 2008 MT duo and Robot Taiwan mainly focused on software designed for industry, rather than consumers. This is in contrast to the choice of software displayed in many Japanese Trade Shows, which often displays products designed for consumers.
Robotics is a major industry in Taiwan. As a result the organizer of the event decided to refine “Manufacturing Taipei” and split it into the “Robot & Industrial Automation” of Manufacturing Taipei and “Robot Taiwan”.
There was also a “Taiwan International Robotics Forum” and “Seminars on MT duo” at the event. Both were designed to attract executives from IT, manufacturing, and machinery industries to promote the worldwide use of robotics in industry.