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Taiwain News Quick Take

■ ENVIRONMENT

Volunteers clean beaches

More than 3,000 volunteers collected 60 tonnes of garbage from an 18.5km stretch of Taipei County beaches yesterday to mark Earth Day, which falls on Tuesday. Some 3,091 volunteers scoured northern beaches for two hours looking for trash and recovered 14 tonnes of recyclable resources. The activity was organized by the Environmental Protection Administration, the Taipei County government and eight townships along the northern coast, including Jinshan (金山), Bali (八里) and Tamsui (淡水). The local activity drew foreign guests, such as Panamanian Ambassador Julio Mock Cardenas, Saint Kitts and Nevis Charge d’Affairs Jasmine Elise Huggins, American Institute in Taipei Deputy Director Robert Wang and German Trade Office Deputy Director Andy Gursch. More than 600 employees from Hotai Motor Co also participated.



■ TRANSPORT

Taxi quota needed: official

The Taipei City Government should impose a quota on the number of taxis operating in the city to resolve the problem of low occupancy rates, a city councilor said on Friday. Taipei City Councilor Chen Yung-te (陳永德) said during a question-and-answer session at the council that seven out of 10 cabs are regularly unoccupied. Citing statistics for 2004 to 2006, Chen said that local taxi drivers picked up an average of 14.53 passengers a day and that drivers worked about 24 days per month. Chen also said that 1,984 cases involving unregistered taxi drivers were reported last year. Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢), head of the city’s Department of Transportation, attributed the city’s oversupply of cabs to an inflow of taxis from Taipei County, Keelung City and Ilan County. There are more than 60,000 taxis in the four cities and counties, Luo said. The city government has suspended issuing business licenses to cab drivers, Luo said.



■ SCIENCE

Virtual animal lab planned

A government-run lab is developing an imagery database of guinea pigs that will allow “virtual animal testing,” reducing the cost of drug development and the demand for live laboratory animals, sources at the National Applied Research Laboratories said yesterday. The 3D virtual guinea pig system was developed by the National Laboratory Animal Center, which used true-color image algorithms to reconstruct guinea pigs in a digitized environment. Researchers said they have finished establishing the image data and that the system is almost ready for practical applications. Researchers said that after parameters are entered, the system projects the interaction between a drug and the animal based on the guinea pigs’ sectional images, physical information and biological characteristics. Researchers said such a process would allow labs to replace some live animal experiments, saving the lives of laboratory animals and the cost of buying guinea pigs.



■ CULTURE

Taipei theme contest open

The Taiwan Design Center launched a promotional theme design contest yesterday for the 2011 International Design Alliance Congress to be held in Taipei. The promotional theme design should reflect the city’s uniqueness and culture and be representative of the times, the center said. The first, second and third-place winners will receive NT$30,000, NT$20,000 and NT$10,000, the center said. The theme of the congress will be “fusion,” blending East and West as well as technology and tradition, the organizers said.
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