This paper investigates the relationships among board gender diversity, firm performance, and firm size. Our paper provides new insights into the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance by examining whether firm size alters the impact of board gender diversity on firm performance. We use a panel data from A‐share‐listed non‐financial firms in China to examine the relationship during the period of 2007–2012. Our finding demonstrates that the gender diversity on the board has a positive impact on firm performance (...) if and only if the value of firm size is less than some critical value. In addition, we also find that firm size may undermine the positive impact of board gender diversity on firm performance. This paper contributes to the literature by offering a contingency approach to examine the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance as well as shedding light on the relationship in the context of a developing economy. (shrink)

This study discusses the impact of different economic indicators on economic stability, including honest leadership, improved infrastructure, revenue generation, and CPEC taking into account the double mediating role of environmental sustainability and sustainable development, while considering the latest COVID-19 situation. This study adopted primary data collection methods and obtained data from the employees of CPEC by using questionnaires and smart-PLS for analysis purposes. The results revealed that honest leadership, improved infrastructure, revenue generation, and CPEC have a positive nexus with economic (...) stability. Despite the severe impact of COVID-19 on the country’s economy, the economic corridor plays a vital role in stabilizing the state’s economy and supports all those related to this phenomenal project either directly or indirectly. (shrink)

Drawing from the stimulus-organism-response model, this study examines how and under what circumstances perceived environmental corporate social responsibility affects innovative behavior of employees in the context of environmental protection. Using a sample of 398 employees from different firms in the high energy-consuming industry of China, the results indicate that, at first, perceived ECSR provides a positive effect on organizational identification. Secondly, organizational identification has a positive influence on the innovative behavior of employees. Thirdly, organizational identification plays an important mediating effect (...) between perceived ECSR and the innovative behavior of employees. Fourthly, both the effect of perceived ECSR on organizational identification and the indirect effect of perceived ECSR on the innovative behavior of the employees via organizational identification will be stronger when the levels of organizational trust are high. These findings add new insights into the perceived ECSR-employees’ innovative behavior relationship and provide important managerial implications for enhancing ECSR perception to improve the innovative behavior of employees. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to examine the indirect effects of moral leadership on unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Drawing on Social Identity Theory, identification with supervisors (social identity) and taking responsibility (personal identity) were hypothesized as mediators linking moral leadership and UPB. In addition, we aim to investigate the moderating role of moral courage in the relationship between moral leadership and UPB. We conducted two studies with two distinct samples: one on a sample of 161 MBA students, and the other (...) on a sample of 205 enterprise employees in China. Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire based on a two-wave research design and analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling. Results showed that moral leadership increased UPB through promoting identification with supervisors while reducing UPB via increasing taking responsibility. Additionally, the results also showed that moral courage moderated the mediating effects of identification with supervisors and taking responsibility upon the relationship between moral leadership and UPB. We contribute to the literature by demonstrating that moral leadership exerts its paradoxical effects on UPB indirectly through its impact on identification with supervisors and taking responsibility and therefore offers a better understanding of how and when moral leadership influences UPB. A number of managerial implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Although Rousseau did not care much about the Americans, the Americans did and still do care a lot about Rousseau. Surprisingly, for someone so eager to offer advice about how to form or reform a c...

BackgroundThe Basal ganglia (BG) played a crucial role in the brain-level mechanisms of chronic pain disorders. However, the functional changes of BG in chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) are still poorly understood. This study investigated the BG subregions’ resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) in CP/CPPS patients compared with healthy controls.MethodsTwenty eight patients with CP/CPPS and 28 age- and education-matched healthy males underwent clinical measurements and 3T brain MR imaging, including T1-weighted structural images and resting-state functional imaging. The data were analyzed (...) by the seeded-based rs-FC analysis. Then, a machine learning method was applied to assess the feasibility of detecting CP/CPPS patients through the changed rs-FC.ResultsCompared with healthy males, patients presented decreased rs-FC between the BG subregions and right middle cingulate cortex, and correlated with pain (r = 0.51, p-uncorrected = 0.005) and urinary symptoms (r = –0.4, p-uncorrected = 0.034). The left superior temporal gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus showed decreased rs-FC with the BG subregions as well. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.943 (accuracy = 80%, F1-score = 80.6%) was achieved for the classification of CP/CPPS patients and healthy males with support vector machine (SVM) based on the changed rs-FC.ConclusionThese findings provide evidence of altered BG subregions’ rs-FC in CP/CPPS, which may contribute to our understanding of the BG’s role in CP/CPPS. (shrink)

More and more packaged products in China have been labeled as low-calorie products since the official implementation of nutrition claims in 2007. But little was known about the impact of such claims on the Chinese consumption of low-calorie food on the background of increasing rates of obesity among the Chinese population. This study sought to fill the gap by applying a consumer behavior model to a nationally representative online survey by means of structural equation modeling. The findings revealed that nutrition (...) claims significantly affect the consumption of low-calorie products. Specifically, marketing stimulus on low-calorie products first affected consumer psychology, then consumer decision-making, and finally consumer responses. Despite the significant role of consumer psychology and decision-making in consumption, consumers were susceptible to the influence of targeted marketing strategies for foods with a low-calorie claim. It is recommended that appropriate use of low-calorie nutrition claims by manufacturers and choices of low-calorie food by consumers according to their own needs should be encouraged. (shrink)

In this study, for COVID-19, we divide people into four categories: susceptible S t, closely contacted C t, infective I t, and removed R t according to the current epidemic situation and then investigate two models: the SCIR models with immigration and without immigration. For the former, Model 1, we obtain the condition for global stability of its disease-free equilibrium. For the latter, Model 2, we establish the local asymptotic stability of its endemic equilibrium by constructing Lyapunov function. Afterwards, by (...) the bifurcation theory, we qualitatively analyze the properties of its Hopf bifurcations of the latter. Finally, numerical simulations are given to illustrate the obtained results of two models. The results imply the importance of finding closely contacted and overseas imports on epidemic control. It indicates that not only the incubation delay τ is crucial for the containment of the COVID-19 but also the scientific and rigorous containment measures are the key factors of the success of the containment. (shrink)

We investigate electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler–Townes splitting in a superconducting quantum circuit with a four-level V-type energy spectrum constructed by two coupled superconducting charge qubits. We show that it is possible for this four-level superconducting system to exhibit multiple dips in the absorption spectrum of a probe field, with at most three dips resulting from a combination of two ATS subsystems, which indicates the breakdown of the traditional correspondence between a \\) -level system and \ dips. It is also (...) shown that the switching from EIT to ATS can be realized in a three-level ladder-type subsystem. (shrink)

In this paper, the optimization of the enterprise HR information system is studied based on IoT first-off technology, the system demand phase is analysed, and the edge control system is designed and built. The hardware and software system and edge node management platform are implemented first, and then the communication scenarios between the edge layer of the system and the sensing layer, the edge layer, and the cloud layer are analysed, and the business type-driven link selection algorithm and the northbound (...) multilink switching algorithm are designed and implemented, respectively, to guarantee the communication reliability between different layers of the system. Based on the implementation of the above functions, the edge control system can meet the intelligence, expandability, and security requirements of IoT applications. An in-depth investigation and research are launched mainly on the enterprise demand to determine the functional requirements and performance requirements of the enterprise and to achieve the basic logical structure; in the system design phase, the system architecture and other aspects of the design are realized. According to the conditions of the system function structure, a number of system module functions are designed in detail. The system is composed of the following modules, namely, personnel change management, organization management, and salary and benefits management. The system consists of the following modules, namely, personnel change management, organization management, compensation and benefits management, and personnel information management. The system modules run through the process of human resource management; in the system implementation stage, the system coding and page operation are realized based on the development tools and software development techniques. The system finally achieves the system design objectives and is put on a trial operation to meet its actual business requirements. (shrink)

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project consists of long-distance water delivery channels and a complicated geological environment along the way. To deal with the operation safety of the water conveyance channels in the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, this study analyzes six failure modes: structural cracks, poor water delivery during ice periods, instability of canal slopes, material aging, abnormal leakage, and foundation defects. Based on FMEA, a multigranularity language evaluation method that can be converted into interval intuitionistic fuzzy (...) numbers is used to evaluate the severity, occurrence, and detection difficulty of the six failure modes. Interval intuitionistic fuzzy entropy is used to calculate the weights of the risk factors. Finally, a ranking model of each failure mode is built based on the TODIM method. The final ranking results show that the risk of abnormal leakage is the largest, and the risk of poor water delivery during ice periods is the smallest. The feasibility and validity of the calculation results are verified by comparing them with the ranking results of the traditional RPN and TOPSIS methods. The TODIM-FMEA risk assessment model offers a new solution to the problem of risk assessment for water transfer projects. (shrink)

In complex systems, agents often interact with others in two distinct types of interactions, pairwise interaction and group interaction. The Deffuant–Weisbuch model adopting pairwise interaction and the Hegselmann–Krause model adopting group interaction are the two most widely studied opinion dynamics. In this study, we propose a novel opinion dynamics by combining pairwise and group interactions for agents and study the effects of the combination on consensus in the population. In the model, we introduce a parameter α to control the weights (...) of the two interactions in the dynamics. Through numerical simulations, we find that there exists an optimal α, which can lead to a highest probability of complete consensus and minimum critical bounded confidence for the formation of consensus. Furthermore, we show the effects of α on opinion formation by presenting the observations for opinion clusters. Moreover, we check the robustness of the results on different network structures and find the promotion of opinion consensus by α not limited to a complete graph. (shrink)

Collection of articles on Mongolian Buddhist history, literature and philosophy.

Uncertainty natural language processing has always been a research focus in the artificial intelligence field. In this paper, we continue to study the linguistic truth-valued concept lattice and apply it to the disease intelligent diagnosis by building an intelligent model to directly handle natural language. The theoretical bases of this model are the classical concept lattice and the lattice implication algebra with natural language. The model includes the case library formed by patients, attributes matching, and the matching degree calculation about (...) the new patient. According to the characteristics of the patients, the disease attributes are firstly divided into intrinsic invariant attributes and extrinsic variable attributes. The calculation algorithm of the linguistic truth-valued formal concepts and the constructing algorithm of the linguistic truth-valued concept lattice based on the extrinsic attributes are proposed. And the disease bases of the different treatments for different patients with the same disease are established. Secondly, the matching algorithms of intrinsic attributes and extrinsic attributes are given, and all the linguistic truth-valued formal concepts that match the new patient’s extrinsic attributes are found. Lastly, by comparing the similarity between the new patients and the matching formal concepts, we calculate the best treatment options to realize the intelligent diagnosis of the disease. (shrink)

While cochlear implantation has benefitted many patients with single-sided deafness (SSD), there is great variability in cochlear implant (CI) outcomes and binaural performance remains poorer than that of normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Differences in sound quality across ears – temporal fine structure (TFS) information with acoustic hearing versus coarse spectro-temporal envelope information with electric hearing – may limit integration of acoustic and electric patterns. Binaural performance may also be limited by inter-aural mismatch between the acoustic input frequency and the place of (...) stimulation in the cochlea. SSD CI patients must learn to accommodate these differences between acoustic and electric stimulation to maximize binaural performance. It is possible that training may increase and/or accelerate accommodation and further improve binaural performance. In this study, we evaluated lateralization training in NH subjects listening to broad simulations of SSD CI signal processing. A 16-channel vocoder was used to simulate the coarse spectro-temporal cues available with electric hearing; the degree of inter-aural mismatch was varied by adjusting the simulated insertion depth (SID) to be 25 mm (SID25), 22 mm (SID22), and 19 mm (SID19) from the base of the cochlea. Lateralization was measured using headphones and head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Baseline lateralization was measured for unprocessed speech (UN) delivered to the left ear to simulate SSD and for binaural performance with the acoustic ear combined with the 16-channel vocoders (UN+SID25, UN+SID22, and UN+SID19). After completing baseline measurements, subjects completed 6 lateralization training exercises with the UN+SID22 condition, after which performance was re-measured for all baseline conditions. Post-training performance was significantly better than baseline for all conditions (p<0.05 in all cases), with no significant difference in training benefits among conditions. Given that there was no significant difference between the SSD and the SSD CI conditions before or after training, the results suggest that NH listeners were unable to integrate TFS and coarse spectro-temporal cues across ears for lateralization, and that inter-aural mismatch played a secondary role at best. While lateralization training may benefit SSD CI patients, the training may largely improve spectral analysis with the acoustic ear alone, rather than improve integration of acoustic and electric hearing. (shrink)

Based on conversations between 10 Chinese children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and five therapists in the context of Naturalistic Intervention, this study investigated the therapists’ agreement expressions in this typical setting. The study found that the therapists mainly used four agreement strategies: acknowledgment, positive evaluation, repetition and blending. These four strategies could be used individually or in combination. The first three strategies and their combinations were used frequently during the therapeutic conversation. With the major occurrences in the post-expansion position, the (...) agreement expressions in the therapeutic conversation mainly performed three functions, namely, creating a supportive therapeutic relationship, serving as positive reinforcers and implementing interventions pertinent to communication skills. This study proposed that the therapists’ preferred use of agreement expressions in the intervention process could be explained by the features of Naturalistic Intervention. (shrink)

Dual innovation, which includes exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation, is crucial for firms to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage. The knowledge base of firms greatly influences or even determines the scope, direction, and path of their dual-innovation activities, which drive their innovation process and produce different innovation performances. This study uses data source patents obtained by 285 focal firms in the Chinese new-energy vehicle industry in the period 2015–2020. Five knowledge-base features are selected by analyzing the correlation and multicollinearity, and (...) four different firm clusters are found by using the k-means clustering algorithm. Based on the classification and regression tree algorithm, we mine the potential decision rules governing the dual-innovation performance of firms. The results show that the exploratory innovation performance of firms in different clusters is mainly affected by two different knowledge-base features. Knowledge-base scale is a key factor affecting the exploitative innovation performance of firms. Firms in different clusters can improve their dual-innovation performance by rationally tuning the combination of knowledge-base features. (shrink)

Lower plasma levels of high-density lipoproteins in adolescents with type 2 diabetes have been associated with a higher pulse wave velocity, a marker of arterial stiffness. Evidence suggests that HDL proteins or particle subspecies are altered in T2D and these may drive these relationships. In this work, we set out to reveal any specific proteins and subspecies that are related to arterial stiffness in youth with T2D from proteomics data. Plasma and PWV measurements were previously acquired from lean and T2D (...) adolescents. Each plasma sample was separated into 18 fractions and evaluated by mass spectrometry. Then, we applied a validated network-based computational approach to reveal HDL subspecies associated with PWV. Among 68 detected phospholipid-associated proteins, we found that seven were negatively correlated with PWV, indicating that they may be atheroprotective. Conversely, nine proteins show positive correlation with PWV, suggesting that they may be related to arterial stiffness. Intriguingly, our results demonstrate that apoA-I and histidine-rich glycoprotein may reverse their protective roles and become antagonistic in the setting of T2D. Furthermore, we revealed two arterial stiffness-associated HDL subspecies, each of which contains multiple PWV-related proteins. Correlation and disease association analyses suggest that these HDL subspecies might link T2D to its cardiovascular-related complications. (shrink)