Research indicates that religious values and ethical behavior are closely associated, yet, at a firm level, the processes by which this association occurs are poorly understood. Family firms are known to exhibit values-based behavior, which in turn can lead to specific firm-level outcomes. It is also known that one’s family is an important incubator, enabler, and perpetuator of religious values across successive generations. Our study examines the experiences of a single, multigenerational business family that successfully enacted their religious values in (...) their business. Drawing upon intergenerational solidarity and values-based leadership theory, and by way of an interpretive, qualitative analysis, we find that the family’s religious values enhanced their cohesion and were manifested in their leadership style, which, in turn, led to outcomes for the business. Our findings highlight the processes that underlie the relationship between religious values and organizational outcomes in family firms and offer insights into the role of solidarity in values-based leadership. (shrink)

We present the idea of searching for X-rays as a signature of the mechanism inducing the spontaneous collapse of the wave function. Such a signal is predicted by the continuous spontaneous localization theories, which are solving the “measurement problem” by modifying the Schrödinger equation. We will show some encouraging preliminary results and discuss future plans and strategy.

Comme L’Illiade fait référence à un culte de l’or chez les anciens grecs, la Biographie de l’Empereur Mu des Zhou ( x e siècle av. J.-C.) évoque un culte du jade dans l’ancienne Chine. L’existence d’un tel culte a été confirmée par les fouilles archéologiques permettant d’établir qu’il se pratiquait depuis 8000 avant notre ère. L’article entend montrer comment les échanges commerciaux liés à ce culte ont permis de conjurer les périls de la guerre et symbolisent la conviction pacifique de (...) la tradition chinoise. (shrink)

This study examines Nǐ yìsi shì X ‘Your Meaning is X’ as a practice of doing other-initiation in Mandarin conversations, focusing on how it addresses different sources of troubles systematically in informing sequences. It is found that while ‘Nǐ yìsi shì’ signals the speaker’s having trouble with the prior informing turn, ‘X’ is deployed to locate different aspects of the trouble source, being shaped by how an informing emerges in talk-in-interaction. Specifically, when following a volunteered informing, ‘X’ is usually built (...) to clarify specific words or phrases in preceding informing, thereby treating a certain element as underspecified or ambiguous. However, when following a question-solicited informing, ‘X’ is typically constructed to work out what the provided information exactly conveys, indicating the whole informing turn/action is in some way problematic, inappropriate, or inapposite. In both cases, ‘Nǐ yìsi shì X’ serves as an OI, working to target different kinds of the trouble source, and simultaneously proposes a potential solution to it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Language, Thought, and LogicGabriele PooleLanguage, Thought, and Logic, by John M. Ellis; x & 163 pp. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993, $29.95.It is John Ellis’s contention that notwithstanding the enormous amount of energy that has gone into language studies not very much progress has been achieved and our theory of language remains vastly fragmented and contradictory. Language, Thought, and Logic is presented as an effort to overcome this (...) impasse. Many ideas are discussed, but the fundamental themes are the following four: the priority of categorization over communication, the functional nature of most categories, the attack on the severance of grammar from meaning which characterizes generative grammarians, and the dismissal of the debate on the relationship between language and thought as a meaningless issue.In chapters two and three, Ellis—after having convincingly argued for the logical priority of (language induced) categorization over communication—proceeds to illustrate the difference between “real” and “functional” categories. He states that a few categories, such as chemical classes, have their base in “reality.” Most categories, however, (Ellis uses the example of poison) are not based on intrinsic characteristics of its members (poisons differ widely in chemical structure) but on the collective purposes of the speakers (identifying dangerous substances). The former are “real” categories, the latter functional ones, and on the basis of this opposition Ellis attacks “naive realists” who claim that most linguistic categories are grounded in the extra-linguistic world. Ellis’s dichotomy however is not fully convincing: reality, of course, includes human beings and their interactions with the world. Once we concede that the chemical structure of a given substance is a real fact, then we have to admit that the interaction of a given substance with the human body is equally “real,” and [End Page 142] that a category based on a given type of interaction is grounded in “reality” just as one based on a given type of chemical structure.Chapter five instead is devoted to the traditional question of the relationship between thought and language. Ellis’s contention is that this discussion is in itself logically absurd, since language is an essential part of thought. This “initial logical misstep” inevitably leads thinkers such as John Lyons, Max Black, Eric Lenneberg, and no doubt countless others, to “astonishing” and “bewildering” statements, pseudoproblems,” and “comic” errors (pp. 56–58). In this case, too, Ellis’s position is not particularly convincing, and one wishes that he had devoted some of his unforgiving examination of the logical integrity of other people’s positions to his own arguments. For readers are bound to ask themselves why on earth does the fact that language is part of thought make it “not possible” to speak of the relationship between the two. Is it logically “not possible” to speak of the relationship of the part to the whole? Is it “not possible,” for example, to speak of the relationship of the heart to the rest of the human body?In general, by denying the possibility of discussing the relationship of thought and language, Ellis ends up completely ignoring the tension between the more standardized and collective aspects of language (grammar, and denotation, in particular) and the various ways it becomes articulated within individuals, through its inevitable enmeshment in their different experiences. This is a pity, because in many ways Ellis is trying to carve a commendable path between the Scylla of “deep structures” and the Charybdis of “linguistic determinism,” between the severance of language from meaning, and their absolute identification. It is perhaps inevitable that in shying away from the latter peril he ends up contradicting himself. After having declared the logical impossibility of speaking of the influence of the structure of language on thought, he subsequently states that it is certainly not true that everything in our mental life is completely determined by the structure of our language” (p. 61).Ultimately one is left with the impression that what would have best been offered as a refinement and integration of other positions has been polemically presented as a radical alternative, with the risk of helping to perpetuate the fragmentation of linguistic studies it was meant to overcome. Thus, as far as... (shrink)

Objectives: Athlete burnout is a crucial concern affecting the development and athletic performance of young weightlifters. To reduce or relieve the prevalence of athlete burnout, this study examined the relationship across social support, sports motivation, mental toughness, and athlete burnout in weightlifters.Methods: A total of 315 weightlifters aged 17–28 years old from Sichuan, Chongqing, and Shanxi in China participated in this survey. The Perceived Available Support in Sport Questionnaire, Sports Motivation Questionnaire, Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire, and Athlete Burnout Questionnaire were (...) used in this study. SPSS Statistics 19.0, AMOS 21.0, and PROCESS 3.0 macro were used to analyze the collected data.Results: The results indicated that weightlifters’ social support could negatively significantly affect athlete burnout [beta = −0.398; 95% confidence interval : −0.3699, −0.2184; P < 0.05) via mental toughness and sports motivation. The mediation analysis revealed that they had partial mediating effect, including three paths: First, social support had a direct effect on athlete burnout ; second, sport mental toughness had a mediating effect on athlete burnout ; and finally, sports motivation had a mediating effect on athlete burnout.Conclusion: The findings revealed that social support could inhibit or prevent athlete burnout via mental toughness and sports motivation; thus, to decrease or relieve the prevalence of burnout in weightlifters, it is an important solution to enhance their social support. (shrink)

When fcc single crystals with high-symmetry crystal orientations are deformed to moderate strains by rolling, tension or channel die compression, long dislocation boundaries inclined to the extension axis form. Similarly, long dislocation boundaries are often found in grains embedded in polycrystals deformed in the same manner. These extended planar boundaries are characteristically - 30-40° from the extension direction and contain the transverse specimen axis. The objective of the present article is to demonstrate that EPBs formed during plane strain deformation are (...) parallel to equivalent slip planes, a pair of hypothetical slip systems used for analyses of the strain and crystal rotation components in place of the larger number of physical slip systems. The coincidence of EPBs and equivalent slip plane inclinations is shown to account for persistent observations of EPBs in the angle range - 30-40° from the rolling direction, in rolled single crystals of various initial orientations. The tendency of EPBs towards tilt or twist boundary character can also be rationalized on the basis of the equivalent slip system concept and consideration of the dislocation types available to be incorporated into EPBs. (shrink)

Green housing is a new type of building that advocates energy saving and environmental protection. How to stimulate buyers to buy green housing under the background of high cost is the key problem to guide green consumption. First of all, based on the existing literature, the comment of homebuyers was divided into comment quantity, comment quality, comment titer and evaluator credibility. The psychological distance mediation variable was introduced, and three dimensions of time distance, social distance, and space distance were selected (...) to construct the influence model of homebuyer comment on green housing purchase intention. Meanwhile, the concept model was built, and questionnaires were adopted for empirical analysis. On this basis, considering the long-term purchase behavior of buyers, the influence model of homebuyers' second comment on green housing purchase intention with the Hotelling model was established. The results show that comment quality, comment titer, and the credit rating of the evaluator have a positive effect on green housing purchase intention while comment quantity has no significant effect. Psychological distance plays a mediation role between comment quality, comment titer, the credit rating of the evaluator, and green housing purchase intention while having a mediation effect between comment quantity and green housing purchase intention. In the long-term purchase behavior of green housing, psychological distance plays a greater role than price. At last, some suggestions were proposed. (shrink)

The 1979 partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island was simultaneously hyper-visible and hidden from public view. It was the subject of non-stop media attention, but its causes and consequences required expert explanation. No fire or explosion marked the moment when insensible radionuclides escaped the facility. Yet, residents recalled a variety of troubling sights, sounds, odors, tastes, and sensations. Public distrust percolated in the interstices between government assertions that little radiation had escaped the facility and residents’ sense memories of (...) the incident. This article traces intertwined networks of activists from Japan and Pennsylvania as they mobilized legally, politically, and scientifically to develop evidence about the offsite effects of Three Mile Island. Exploring the distinct cosmology of evidence that activists marshaled, the article shows how they placed the messy, contingent, dynamic living world at the center of inquiries about the meltdown’s consequences. Activists developed new practices of biological witness that reconfigured the interplay between scientific, legal, and moral authority, while concurrently reformulating sufferers’ subjectivities and notions of scientific objectivity. In the process, they suggested that environmental justice entailed epistemic justice. Their cosmology of evidence served as an argument and a material proof that the beloved but suffering living world, and the sciences used to understand it, could and should frame the governance of industrial society’s invisible harms. (shrink)

When making inferences about similar others, people anchor and adjust away from themselves. However, research on relational self theory suggests the possibility of using knowledge about others as an anchor when they are more similar to a target. We investigated whether social inferences are made on the basis of significant other knowledge through an anchoring and adjustment process, and whether anchoring on a significant other is more effortful than anchoring on the self. Participants answered questions about their likes and habits, (...) as well as the likes and habits of a significant other, a target similar to their significant other, and a yoked control. We found that prediction differences between the significant other and similar target led to longer response times, and we found the opposite effect for self and target differences, suggesting anchoring and adjustment from the significant other rather than the self. These effects were moderated by the source-relative salience of the dimension being evaluated. The evidence was mixed with respect to the question of whether anchoring on a significant other is more effortful than anchoring on the self. (shrink)

In the social world, multiple sensory channels are used concurrently to facilitate communication. Among human and nonhuman pri- mates, faces and voices are the primary means of transmitting social signals (Adolphs, 2003; Ghazanfar and Santos, 2004). Primates recognize the correspondence between species-specific facial and vocal expressions (Massaro, 1998; Ghazanfar and Logothetis, 2003; Izumi and Kojima, 2004), and these visual and auditory channels can be integrated into unified percepts to enhance detection and discrimination. Where and how such communication signals are integrated (...) at the neural level are poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear what role “unimodal” sensory areas, such as the auditory cortex, may play. We recorded local field potential activity, the signal that best correlates with human imaging and event-related potential signals, in both the core and lateral belt regions of the auditory cortex in awake behaving rhesus monkeys while they viewed vocalizing conspecifics. We demonstrate unequivocally that the primate auditory cortex integrates facial and vocal signals through enhancement and suppression of field potentials in both the core and lateral belt regions. The majority of these multisensory responses were specific to face/voice integration, and the lateral belt region shows a greater frequency of multisensory integration than the core region. These multisensory processes in the auditory cortex likely occur via recip- rocal interactions with the superior temporal sulcus. (shrink)

Apoptosis proteins have a central role in the development and homeostasis of an organism. These proteins are very important for understanding the mechanism of programmed cell death, and their function is related to their types. According to the classification scheme by Zhou and Doctor (2003), the apoptosis proteins are categorized into the following four types: (1) cytoplasmic protein; (2) plasma membrane-bound protein; (3) mitochondrial inner and outer proteins; (4) other proteins. A powerful learning machine, the Support Vector Machine, is applied (...) for predicting the type of a given apoptosis protein by incorporating the sqrt-amino acid composition effect. High success rates were obtained by the re-substitute test (98/98 = 100 %) and the jackknife test (89/98 = 90.8%). (shrink)

Since the late 1990s, the dynamics of welfare reform in Taiwan have gradually shifted to tackling new social risks emerging from economic globalization and labor market changes. This article analyzes these structural changes and the relevant institutional features of the labor market. The rise of atypical work has generated wide concern regarding its low wage income and insufficient social protection, triggering debates about which policy measures can effectively tackle the problem of the working poor. Drawing on the quantitative data from (...) a social quality survey conducted by the Social Policy Research Center in National Taiwan University (NTUSPRC) in 2009, our analysis explores the social exclusion differences between regular and atypical workers for their objective and subjective experiences. The objective experiences include current financial situations, negative events, living conditions and political activities of the workers, whereas the subjective experiences refer to their feelings in family position, welfare assessment, discrimination, and autonomy. Our analysis helps explain the effects of work status on the degrees of social exclusion, both in the private and public spheres. The social exclusion experiences of working conditions shed light on social quality in Asia. (shrink)

Major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Olympic Games, and G20 Summit bring about supplier disruption risks and challenges to supply chain management. To help deal with these risks, a virtual dual-sourcing production-inventory system can be deployed. In this paper, we study such a system which consists of a raw material supplier, a manufacturer, and a virtual dual-sourcing contingency supplier. The manufacturer needs to determine the production, procurement, and inventory plan of raw materials. When its supplier is interrupted, the manufacturer (...) may need to adjust the production and inventory plan and work with the contingency supplier. We develop a system dynamics method to simulate the operations in this production-inventory system to identify the approximately optimal order-up-to-level inventory policies. We find that the virtual dual production-inventory strategy can be the optimal contingency policy to deal with supplier dynamic disruption risks. Furthermore, for disruption risk with low frequency and long duration, the manufacturer should increase the safety inventory level before the disruption. Otherwise, it should increase the safety inventory level in every cycle. (shrink)

Cell membranes experience frequent stretching and poking: from cytoskeletal elements, from osmotic imbalances, from fusion and budding of vesicles, and from forces from the outside. Are the ensuing changes in membrane tension localized near the site of perturbation, or do these changes propagate rapidly through the membrane to distant parts of the cell, perhaps as a mechanical mechanism of long‐range signaling? Literature statements on the timescale for membrane tension to equilibrate across a cell vary by a factor of ≈106. This (...) study reviews and discusses how apparently contradictory findings on tension propagation in cells can be evaluated in the context of 2D hydrodynamics and poroelasticity. Localization of tension in the cell membrane is likely critical in governing how membrane forces gate ion channels, set the subcellular distribution of vesicle fusion, and regulate the dynamics of cytoskeletal growth. Furthermore, in this study, it is proposed that cells can actively regulate the degree to which membrane tension propagates by modulating the density and arrangement of immobile transmembrane proteins. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/T6K7AIAqqBs. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that the color red can affect basic motor functioning. However, these studies utilized simple gross motor tasks rather than those assessing complex fine motor skills. Moreover, these empirical studies were theoretically based on the threat–behavior link in human and non-human animals, and neglected the relationship between arousal and motor performance. According to the Yerkes–Dodson law and the inverted-U hypothesis in sport psychology, for simple motor tasks, high arousal is more advantageous than low arousal ; for complex (...) motor tasks, low arousal is more advantageous than high arousal. The current research examined the effect of color on different kinds of motor skills based on the inverted U-hypothesis. In Experiment 1, we examined the effect of red and blue on dart-throwing performance, whereas in Experiment 2, we examined the effect of red and blue on grip strength performance. The results showed that performance of fine motor skill in the blue condition was better than in the red condition, and performance of gross motor skill in the red context was better than in the blue context. These results indicate that the type of motor skill assessed moderates the influence of red and blue on motor performance. (shrink)

We investigate how a broker firm’s initial public offering affects its analysts’ fiduciary duty of providing independent and objective recommendations. We find that the analysts of newly listed broker firms issue more positively biased recommendations in the first 2 to 3 years after their employers’ IPO than before the IPO. The increase in the recommendation bias is greater among analysts of affiliated brokers and brokers that raise additional capital after their IPO than among other analysts. Newly listed broker firms experience (...) significant increases in revenue and trading commission, and the increases are positively related to recommendation bias, after controlling for many other factors. More importantly, recommendation bias decreases as newly listed broker firms season and as the importance of trading commission declines. This suggests that public exposure through a broker firm’s IPO does not enhance the integrity and professional conduct of its financial analysts. Rather, economic incentives make financial analysts more accepting of unethical behavior. The overall results imply that the public trading of financial gatekeepers compromises the ethical relationship between financial service professionals and society in general. (shrink)

Extensive research has been carried out on the “Belt and Road” initiative, most of it focusing on geographical economy and international trade. However, there is a lack of research on the carbon emissions efficiency of the countries along the “Belt and Road,” especially regarding the impact of freight trade. To address this research gap, this paper first employs a metafrontier nonradial directional distance function to measure the carbon emission efficiency of 32 countries along the “Belt and Road” from 1990 to (...) 2014. It then examines the role of freight trade. Our main research findings are as follows. Firstly, the carbon emission efficiency of the countries along the “Belt and Road” is generally low. Among them, Russia and Central Asia are mainly due to the large between-group gap in carbon emission efficiency, while Southeast Asia, Western Asia and North Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe are mainly due to the large within-group gap. Secondly, freight trade promotes carbon emission efficiency, but it will aggravate the gap between the contemporaneous technology and the group technology. Freight trade mainly promotes the contemporaneous carbon emission efficiency and group-frontier carbon emission efficiency of low fossil energy dependent countries, and the metafrontier carbon emission efficiency of high fossil energy dependent countries. Thirdly, foreign direct investment has a significant negative effect on a host country’s ITCEI and GTCEI, and it will decrease the gap between the group technology and the metafrontier technology. However, freight trade can effectively prevent the entry of FDI, thereby indirectly improving carbon emission efficiency and reducing carbon emission gap. (shrink)

This essay provides an overview of the Local Gazetteers Research Tools (LoGaRT) developed by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and examines the ways that LoGaRT could aid in redrawing the map of modern science in China.

Facsimile of miscellaneous Persian and Arabic texts in Mullā Ṣadrā's handwriting.