Some specific types of cancer still pose a severe threat to the health of Taiwanese women. This study focuses on determining the geographical locations of hot spots and causal factors related to the major categories of cancers in Taiwanese women. Cancer mortality data from 1972 to 2001 of 346 townships in Taiwan were obtained from the Atlas of Cancer Mortality. Principal component analysis was conducted to determine the primary categories of female cancers. The spatial patterns of hot spots and cold spots for each major cancer category were identified using the local indicator of spatial association. Finally, the regional differences between the hot spots and cold spots were compared to confirm the possible factors causing cancer throughout Taiwan. A total of 21 cancer types in women were divided into seven major categories, which accounted for 68.0% of the total variance. The results from the spatial autocorrelation analysis showed significant spatial clusters of the cancer categories. Based on the overall consistency of results between this study and those of previous research, this study further identified the high-risk locations and some specific risk factors for major cancer types among Taiwanese women. Full article

In Taiwan many factors, whether geological parent materials, human activities, and climate change, can affect the groundwater quality and its stability. This work combines factor analysis and kriging with information entropy theory to interpret the stability of groundwater quality variation in Taiwan between 2005 and 2007. Groundwater quality demonstrated apparent differences between the northern and southern areas of Taiwan when divided by the Wu River. Approximately 52% of the monitoring wells in southern Taiwan suffered from progressing seawater intrusion, causing unstable groundwater quality. Industrial and livestock wastewaters also polluted 59.6% of the monitoring wells, resulting in elevated EC and TOC concentrations in the groundwater. In northern Taiwan, domestic wastewaters polluted city groundwater, resulting in higher NH₃-N concentration and groundwater quality instability was apparent among 10.3% of the monitoring wells. The method proposed in this study for analyzing groundwater quality inspects common stability factors, identifies potential areas influenced by common factors, and assists in elevating and reinforcing information in support of an overall groundwater management strategy. Full article

Central and Eastern Taiwan have alarmingly high oral cancer (OC) mortality rates, however, the effect of lifestyle factors such as betel chewing cannot fully explain the observed high-risk. Elevated concentrations of heavy metals in the soil reflect somewhat the levels of exposure to the human body, which may promote cancer development in local residents. This study assesses the space-time distribution of OC mortality in Taiwan, and its association with prime factors leading to soil heavy metal content. The current research obtained OC mortality data from the Atlas of Cancer Mortality in Taiwan, 1972–2001, and derived soil heavy metals content data from a nationwide survey carried out by ROCEPA in 1985. The exploratory data analyses showed that OC mortality rates in both genders had high spatial autocorrelation (Moran’s I = 0.6716 and 0.6318 for males and females). Factor analyses revealed three common factors (CFs) representing the major pattern of soil pollution in Taiwan. The results for Spatial Lag Models (SLM) showed that CF1 (Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn) was most spatially related to male OC mortality which implicates that some metals in CF1 might play as promoters in OC etiology. Full article