Public sphere is an important idea of Habermas in the early research, which guided his latter research, especially in political philosophy field. According to Habermas’ research on public sphere, this paper researches public sphere’s significance in solving the legalization crisis of capitalism and remedying the democratic theory of bourgeoisie. Public sphere idea set up a new model of the democratic theory, deliberative democracy, which is better than democracy of both liberalism and republicanism, and become the most important theme of Habermas (...) in theory and practice. (shrink)

The Confucian idea of “ ming 命 (destiny)” holds that in the course and culmination of human life, there exists some objective certainty that is both transcendent and beyond human control. This is a concept of ultimate concern at the transcendental theoretical level in Confucianism. During its historical development, Confucianism has constantly offered humanist interpretations of the idea of “destiny”, thinking that the transcendence of “destiny” lies inherently within the qi endowment and virtues of human beings, that the certainty of (...) “destiny” is in essence contingency at the beginning of life and linear irreversibility towards its end, and that to live in light of ethics and physical rules — having a “commitment to human affairs” — means putting “destiny” into practice. As all these facts show, the Confucian ultimate concern regarding human life is full of rational awareness. (shrink)

Previous studies have found Forsyth’s Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) to vary between countries, but none has made a systematic evaluation of its psychometric properties across consumers from many countries. Using confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group LISREL analysis, this paper explores the factor structure of the EPQ and the measurement equivalence in five societies: Austria, Britain, Brunei, Hong Kong and USA. The results suggest that the modified scale, measuring idealism and relativism, was applicable in all five societies. Equivalence was found across (...) Britain, Brunei and USA, but the original scale cannot be used validly. (shrink)

Fatty acids (FAs) are well known to serve as substrates for reactions that provide cells with membranes and energy. In contrast to these metabolic reactions, the physiological importance of FAs themselves known as free FAs (FFAs) in cells remains obscure. Since accumulation of FFAs in cells is toxic, cells must develop mechanisms to detoxify FFAs. One such mechanism is to sequester free polyunsaturated FAs (PUFAs) into a droplet‐like structure assembled by Fas‐Associated Factor 1 (FAF1), a cytosolic protein. This sequestration limits (...) access of PUFAs to Fe2+, thereby preventing Fe2+‐catalyzed PUFA peroxidation. Consequently, assembly of the FAF1‐FFA complex is critical to protect cells from ferroptosis, a cell death pathway triggered by PUFA peroxidation. The observations that free PUFAs in cytosol are not randomly diffused but rather sequestered into a membraneless complex should open new directions to explore signaling pathways by which FFAs regulate cellular physiology. (shrink)

This paper sheds light on the incongruent findings concerning the relationship between family involvement and firms’ corporate social responsibility. While prior studies have mainly taken the perspective of families’ socioemotional wealth preservation, we approach this relationship from the perspective of behavioral agency theory, highlighting the important role played by CEOs’ family memberships. Specifically, we posit that family firms are more likely to invest in CSR when their CEOs are members of the controlling families. Furthermore, we examine how family firms can (...) employ long-term incentives to encourage non-family CEOs to act in the interests of the controlling families to preserve SEW and thus enhancing family firms’ CSR performance. We tested our hypotheses using hand-collected data of family firms included in the S&P 500 index, in the period of 2003–2010. The empirical findings support our hypotheses that family firms with family members as the CEOs have better CSR performance and family firms tend to provide a high level of long-term incentives to non-family than family CEOs. In addition, long-term incentives strongly motivate CEOs to improve firms’ CSR performance, regardless of their family memberships. (shrink)

In a society dominated by Confucian ethics, a spirit of Confucian public morality can be seen in the Confucian debate over publicness and privateness, but it is usually activated in circumstances of large ethical crisis. Confucian theory mainly uses ethical relationships to create self and social identities, causing problems of identification in the public life and hindering the expression of moral feelings and actions, thus revealing a weakness in public morality. This is a space that Confucianism has not yet been (...) able to cover, and also where it has room for growth. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the linking mechanisms and conditional processes underlying the relationship between proactive behavior and work-family conflict. Considering the conservation of resources theory, we argue that workplace anxiety mediates the relationship between proactive behavior and work-family conflict. Furthermore, we suggest that immediate supervisor perspective taking and employee emotional intelligence moderate this proposed indirect effect. Two-wave, multisource lagged data were collected from 450 employees of seven domestic Chinese firms to examine the hypothesized moderated mediation model. Our findings support (...) the hypothesis that proactive behavior is positively related to work-family conflict and that workplace anxiety partially mediates this relationship. Immediate supervisor perspective taking moderates the positive association of proactive behavior with workplace anxiety and the indirect relationship between proactive behavior and work-family conflict through workplace anxiety. Emotional intelligence moderates the positive association of proactive behavior with workplace anxiety and the indirect relationship between proactive behavior and work-family conflict through workplace anxiety. The results deepen our theoretical understanding of the consequences of proactivity by demonstrating the positive associations between proactive behavior and work-family conflict. The current study also contributes to the literature by identifying workplace anxiety as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between proactivity and work-family conflict. Furthermore, supervisor perspective taking and employee emotional intelligence moderate the above mediating effect. (shrink)

Understanding the neural basis of schizophrenia (SZ) is important for shedding light on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this mental disorder. Structural and functional alterations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) have been implicated in the neurobiology of SZ. However, the effective connectivity among them in SZ remains unclear. The current study investigated how neuronal pathways involving these regions were affected in first-episode SZ using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Forty-nine patients (...) with a first-episode of psychosis and diagnosis of SZ—according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision—were studied. Fifty healthy controls (HCs) were included for comparison. All subjects underwent resting state fMRI. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to estimate directed connections among the bilateral ACC, DLPFC, hippocampus, and MPFC. We characterized the differences using Bayesian parameter averaging (BPA) in addition to classical inference (t-test). In addition to common effective connectivity in these two groups, HCs displayed widespread significant connections predominantly involved in ACC not detected in SZ patients, but SZ showed few connections. Based on BPA results, SZ patients exhibited anterior cingulate cortico-prefrontal-hippocampal hyperconnectivity, as well as ACC-related and hippocampal-dorsolateral prefrontal-medial prefrontal hypoconnectivity. In summary, spectral DCM revealed the pattern of effective connectivity involving ACC in patients with first-episode SZ. This study provides a potential link between SZ and dysfunction of ACC, creating an ideal situation to associate mechanisms behind SZ with aberrant connectivity among these cognition and emotion-related regions. (shrink)

A beneficial effect of gesture on learning has been demonstrated in multiple domains, including mathematics, science, and foreign language vocabulary. However, because gesture is known to co-vary with other non-verbal behaviors, including eye gaze and prosody along with face, lip, and body movements, it is possible the beneficial effect of gesture is instead attributable to these other behaviors. We used a computer-generated animated pedagogical agent to control both verbal and non-verbal behavior. Children viewed lessons on mathematical equivalence in which an (...) avatar either gestured or did not gesture, while eye gaze, head position, and lip movements remained identical across gesture conditions. Children who observed the gesturing avatar learned more, and they solved problems more quickly. Moreover, those children who learned were more likely to transfer and generalize their knowledge. These findings provide converging evidence that gesture facilitates math learning, and they reveal the potential for using technology to study non-verbal behavior in controlled experiments. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to investigate the associations of internal and external support mechanisms with entrepreneurial success, in the context of China's entrepreneurial sector from network theory perspective. The role of digital technology, as a moderator, has also been analyzed. Data has been obtained from 500 entrepreneurs in Jiangsu, a province in China. All hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. It has been found that family support, business partner support, community support and external stakeholder relationships have positive (...) effects on entrepreneurial success. It has also been discovered that digital technology adoption strengthens the positive relationship between business partner support and entrepreneurial success. Theoretical and practical implications have been highlighted and future research suggestions have been provided. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the empirical association between corporate social responsibility and information asymmetry by investigating their simultaneous and endogenous effects. Employing an extensive U.S. sample, we find an inverse association between CSR engagement and the proxies of information asymmetry after controlling for various firm characteristics. The results hold using 2SLS considering the reverse side of information asymmetry influencing CSR activities. The results also hold after mitigating endogeneity based on the dynamic panel system generalized method of moment. Furthermore, the (...) CSR–information asymmetry relation is amplified in high-risk firms due to managers’ efforts to build a good reputation. Last, we find that CSR engagement is inversely associated with reputational risk measure and lower predicted value of reputational risk is positively associated with lower information asymmetry measures. We interpret these results as supporting the stakeholder theory-based, reputation-building explanation that considers CSR engagement as a vehicle to build and maintain firm reputation thereby enhancing the information environment. (shrink)

The issue of management’s relations to the environment has received a significant amount of attention in the literature on corporate social responsibility. Yet the influence of religion on managers’ environmental decisions has until now remained unexamined despite its known importance. In this article, we examine the empirical association between religion—primarily Christianity—and the environmental practices a firm’s management undertakes by investigating their OLS, principal component, simultaneous, and endogenous effects. Employing a large and extensive U.S. sample, we find a negative association between (...) the environmental practices initiated by a firm’s managers and the religiosity of the surrounding community, after controlling for various firm and demographic characteristics. In addition, after mitigating endogeneity with the dynamic system generalized method of moment, we still find an inverse association between religiosity and environmental-friendly decisions of management. We interpret these results as providing some support for the “dominion hypothesis” that claims Christian beliefs discourage environmental concern, but not for the “stewardship hypothesis” that implies that Christianity encourages people to “exercise a responsible stewardship over nature.” Nevertheless, additional analysis shows Christian groups differ significantly in how each influences managers’ environmental decisions. (shrink)

Standing in front of perhaps the most crucial decade of the future to come, when mankind has just experienced three years of global pandemic, a raging war, extreme climate events and mass extinction of animals and plants, we have arrived at a crossroads. Decisions must be made on whether we charge at full speed to explore alternative social-ecological systems that lead to human well-being and regeneration of nature; or continue down a pathway built on resource extraction, unsustainable and unethical urbanization (...) and destruction of nature and lives. Recently, as countries seek to recover from the pandemic, many are contemplating large-scale infrastructure schemes and projects, which have been tried and proven means to drive extraction-based economic growth. This highlights the importance of environmental justice and resistance – an area from which voices are not often heard loud enough, yet offers fertile ground where radical, sustainable alternatives may emerge among people and communities that refuse to comply with the unjust development imposed on them. Our work seeks to contribute to research studying the potential of such phenomena, by designing a framework to capture key organizational, political and ethical features that make resistance a transformative practice. The outcome of this effort is a Resistance-Based Transformative Alternative (ReBasTA) Framework, which can be employed to inform both desktop-based data collection and analysis on resistance practices, as well as in-depth field research on deep drivers and leverage points for transformation. Moreover, the framework makes longitude study of transformative practice possible, by using a consistent set of criteria. This paper introduces the conceptual and methodological approach underlying our framework and the collaborative process employed in designing it and its key criteria. In the final section, we also discuss possible applications, with particular reference to resistance movements triggered by large-scale infrastructures. (shrink)

Dans un dialogue constant avec la phénoménologie intentionnelle de Husserl, Michel Henry a tenté de mettre au point une nouvelle ontologie phénoménologique, pour cerner spécifiquement ce qu'il nommait «l’essence de la manifestation». Il ouvrait ainsi la voie d’une méthode philosophique originale, celle d’une phénoménologie «radicale», dont il ne cessa de l’appliquer à des objets divers, dans le cadre précis des pensées de l’immanence. Ce livre interroge ce moment de l’élaboration phénoménologique de la philosophie de Michel Henry et montre notamment comment (...) la notion de «sens» joue un rôle essentiel. (shrink)

Both linguistic and extralinguistic consultations are essential in translation practice and have been commonly investigated as an integral topic in previous studies. However, since extralinguistic information is usually longer in extent and not specifically designed for a linguistic purpose, extralinguistic consultations involve different search strategies compared with linguistic consultations. Drawing on eye-tracking and screen-recording data, this study compares linguistic and extralinguistic consultations in terms of cognitive resources allocation and information processing patterns in English–Chinese translation. It also explores the differences among (...) 17 language learners, 20 student translators, and 21 professional translators, and the effect of extralinguistic consultation on their translation quality. The findings are as follows: all participants allocate more attention and lower cognitive load to extralinguistic consultations than to linguistic consultations; participants’ translation experience levels and their attention allocated to extralinguistic consultation show an inverted U-shaped relationship; and participants who consult extralinguistic information before drafting or devote more attention to extralinguistic consultation produce target texts with significantly higher scores. (shrink)

Background: The purpose of the current study was to assess the prevalence of sleep disturbances among Chinese people during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large national survey, analyze the relationship between sleep disturbances and mental health status, and explore the influencing factors of the relationship between sleep disturbances and mental health status.Methods: An online survey was accessed by 19,740 people throughout China from February 14 to 21, 2020. The survey included the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 to measure psychological distress and (...) two questions about sleep disturbances. Logistic regression analyses and moderation analysis were performed.Results: Among the 14,505 respondents included in analyses, 3,783 reported sleep disturbances at least 3 days during the past week. Sleep disturbances increased the risk of depression, anxiety, and stress. Gender, age, education, occupation, frequency of attending to epidemic information, nervousness about supplies, receiving provisions of living necessities from the service department during the outbreak, number of correct responses to questions about the epidemic, and isolation/quarantine affected the risk of mental health problems among participants experiencing sleep disturbances. A moderation analysis found that sleep problems were more likely to affect depression, anxiety, and stress scores in men than women during the COVID-19 outbreak.Conclusion: During the COVID-19 outbreak, 26.08% people surveyed experienced sleep disturbances, and the presence of sleep disturbances was positively related to depression, anxiety, and stress, especially among front-line anti-epidemic workers, younger people, people living in isolation/quarantine, people with a college or greater education, and males. (shrink)

BackgroundUp-to-date information about the trends of age-related hearing loss and how this varies between countries is essential to plan for an adequate health-system response. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the research hotpots and trends in ARHL and to provide the basis and direction for future research.Materials and methodsThe Web of Science Core Collection database was searched and screened according to the inclusion criteria during 2002–2021. Bibliometric analyses were conducted by CiteSpace software and VOSviewer software.ResultsThe query identified 1,496 publications, which (...) showed a growth trend of this filed. These publications were from 62 countries, the United States of America showed its tremendous impact on this field in publication outputs, total citations, and international collaborations, China following in second. The Journal of Hearing Research was the most productive journal. Weijia Kong published the most papers, and the most productive institution was Washington University. The keyword “presbycusis” ranked first in research frontiers and appeared earlier, and the keywords “age-related hearing loss,” “risk,” “dementia,” “auditory cortex,” “association,” and “decline” began to appear in recent years.ConclusionThe annual number of publications has grown rapidly in the past two decades and will continue to grow. Epidemiological investigation and laboratory research are lasting hot spots, besides future research will focus on the association between ARHL and cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. (shrink)

Statistical network models have been used to study the competition among different products and how product attributes influence customer decisions. However, in existing research using network-based approaches, product competition has been viewed as binary, while in reality, the competition strength may vary among products. In this paper, we model the strength of the product competition by employing a statistical network model, with an emphasis on how product attributes affect which products are considered together and which products are ultimately purchased by (...) customers. We first demonstrate how customers’ considerations and choices can be aggregated as weighted networks. Then, we propose a weighted network modeling approach by extending the valued exponential random graph model to investigate the effects of product features and network structures on product competition relations. The approach that consists of model construction, interpretation, and validation is presented in a step-by-step procedure. Our findings suggest that the weighted network model outperforms commonly used binary network baselines in predicting product competition as well as market share. Also, traditionally when using binary network models to study product competitions and depending on the cutoff values chosen to binarize a network, the resulting estimated customer preferences can be inconsistent. Such inconsistency in interpreting customer preferences is a downside of binary network models but can be well addressed by the proposed weighted network model. Lastly, this paper is the first attempt to study customers’ purchase preferences and car competition together using weighted directed networks. (shrink)

Emoji appear to be an important cue to judge whether a statement is sarcastic in computer-mediated communication. In this study, we investigated whether the smiling emoji, an indicator of sarcastic intention in the Chinese culture, exerts an influence on sarcasm interpretation across the lifespan. Statements accompanied with or without a smiling emoji were compared in unambiguous (Experiment 1) and ambiguous (Experiment 2) contexts. The results of Experiment 1 illustrated that for teenagers and the 20-year-olds the smiling emoji enhanced the perceived (...) sarcasm of sarcastic statements significantly. However, there was no difference in interpreting sarcastic statements with or without a smiling emoji in other age groups. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1. We found both teenagers and the 20-year-olds were more likely to arrive at a sarcastic interpretation of the ambiguous statement followed by a smiling emoji, which were less frequent in participants aged in their 30s, 40s, 50s and individuals over 60 years old. This might be because people of varying ages differ in decoding the emotions of the emoji. Age-related differences in the use of sarcasm and participants’ experiences with using emoji might be possible factors that were closely related to the interpretation of emoji-based sarcasm. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We examine whether religion influences company decisions related to corporate community involvement. Employing a large US sample, we show that the CCI initiatives of a company are positively associated with the level of Christian religiosity present in the region within which that company’s headquarters is located. This association persists even after we control for a wide range of firm characteristics and after we subject our results to several econometric tests. These results support our religious morality hypothesis which holds that companies (...) headquartered in regions with higher levels of Christian religiosity will engage in more CCI initiatives. We also find that while Catholic and mainline Protestant religiosity have a positive influence on firms’ CCI initiatives, evangelical Protestant religiosity does not. This supports our differentiated responses hypothesis which holds that institutional differences among religious groups will produce different effects on companies’ CCI. This hypothesis is based on institutional theory. (shrink)

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) simulates uncertain gains and losses in real life situations and thus is a good measure of uncertain decision making. The role of working memory (WM) in IGT performance still remains unclear. The present study aimed to examine the effect of WM on IGT performance. Three groups of participants matched on gender ratio were randomly assigned to no WM load, low WM load, and high WM load conditions. Initially the three groups did not show significant difference (...) in WM capacity. They finished a modified version of IGT and then their implicit learning effect and explicit cognition on IGT were assessed. Results indicated a linear increasing trend of IGT performance among high WM load, low WM load and no WM load groups; participants in the no WM load and low WM load groups revealed implicit learning effect, while participants in the high WM load group did not; all participants showed explicit cognition on IGT to the same level. These results suggested that participants in the high WM load group showed good explicit cognition to IGT but showed poor performance. This pattern is similar to frontal patients. Further studies should be conducted to explore this issue. (shrink)

The role of psycho-emotional and social factors in determining teachers’ pedagogical success has been largely endorsed in the literature. This highlights the necessity of improving EFL teachers’ awareness and knowledge of various factors related to classroom interaction and interpersonal communication. Despite the existence of some L2 studies on interpersonal communication skills after the popularity of positive psychology, the interplay of variables that directly reflect classroom interactions and their linkage to one’s intelligence has been overlooked, to date. To fill this gap, (...) the present mini review presented the theoretical and empirical foundations of three significant teacher-related variables, namely open-mindedness, immediacy, and social intelligence. In so doing, their relevant definitions, conceptualizations, models, and correlates were provided. Finally, the study offered some practical implications and suggestions for EFL stakeholders and researchers who can improve their knowledge and use of social-based variables in second/foreign language education. (shrink)

Resumo: A China promove ativamente a prosperidade comum e resolve a contradição do desequilíbrio do desenvolvimento. A capitalização tornou-se o pano de fundo da prosperidade comum. Como entender as mudanças na conotação da prosperidade comum e seus fatores de influência, no contexto da capitalização, tornou-se o tema deste artigo. Acredita-se que o desequilíbrio entre ativos e renda do trabalho e a nova forma de geração de valor são as razões pelas quais a prosperidade comum é difícil de alcançar. A fim (...) de provar a racionalidade dessa conclusão, este artigo examina a questão da capitalização a partir da perspectiva crítica da economia política marxista e toma o caso de capitalização da China como um exemplo para explorar os desafios práticos e os desafios ideológicos enfrentados pela prosperidade comum. Este texto analisa uma nova forma de fetichismo - a essência do fetichismo financeiro introduz o conceito de valor narrativo e revela a distorção e a erosão do valor do fetichismo financeiro sobre os valores das pessoas e o mistério do valor narrativo. (shrink)

Parallel processing as a method to improve computer performance has become a development trend. Based on rough set theory and divide-and-conquer idea of knowledge reduction, this paper proposes a classification method that supports parallel attribute reduction processing, the method makes the relative positive domain which needs to be calculated repeatedly independent, and the independent relative positive domain calculation could be processed in parallel; thus, attribute reduction could be handled in parallel based on this classification method. Finally, the proposed algorithm and (...) the traditional algorithm are analyzed and compared by experiments, and the results show that the proposed method in this paper has more advantages in time efficiency, which proves that the method could improve the processing efficiency of attribute reduction and makes it more suitable for massive data sets. (shrink)

The purpose of the startup approach is to find an appropriate course of action that adds value to the economy’s development. This study is aimed to determine the effect of the lean startup approach with mediating effect of business coaching to foster innovative work behavior in women entrepreneurs. Additionally, the study also examines the moderating effect of age on the lean startup approach and innovative work behavior. A quantitative approach was employed. The findings show that the relationship between the lean (...) startup approach and innovative work behavior is significant. Moreover, the findings also revealed a significant mediating effect of business coaching and moderating effect of age. This research encourages practitioners and scholars to deal with women entrepreneurship incubation initiatives in the lean startup methodology. Furthermore, this study also leads to a deeper understanding of women’s ideas for business exploration, growth, and implementation. The study contends that guidelines and directives are critical for creative entrepreneurial behavior. (shrink)

Although prior studies have extensively investigated the effect of working conditions upon professional satisfaction, the cross-national variance in the effect remains largely understudied due to technical or financial restrictions. The Teaching and Learning International Survey provides an opportunity to investigate the cross-country differences in the impact of working conditions upon principals’ professional satisfaction. The current study attempts to investigate the overall and specific effects of principals’ workplace environment satisfaction, rewards satisfaction, and workload stress on their professional satisfaction in 47 countries (...) included in the TALIS 2018. The results indicate that workplace environment, rather than the typically regarded effort-reward issues, is the most powerful contributor to individual principals’ professional satisfaction across 47 countries, while, in countries with low overall professional satisfaction, rewards satisfaction and workload stress are more powerful predictors for principals’ professional satisfaction on the country level. This study may inform policymakers in school principal stimulation and retention that effective practice to stimulate and/or retain school principals may vary across countries and research findings derived from data on the individual level may not be applicable to practice on the country level. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the relation between corporate environmental responsibility and risk in U.S. public firms. We develop and test the risk-reduction, resource-constraint, and cross-industry variation hypotheses. Using an extensive U.S. sample during the 1991–2012 period, we find that for U.S. industries as a whole, CER engagement inversely affects firm risk after controlling for various firm characteristics. The result remains robust when we use firm fixed effect or an alternative measure of CER using principal component analysis or downside risk (...) measures. To address the concern of endogeneity bias, we use a system equations approach and dynamic system generalized methods of moment regressions, and continue to find that environmentally responsible firms experience lower risk. These findings support the risk-reduction hypothesis, but not the resource-constraint hypothesis, along with the notion that the top management in U.S. firms is generally risk averse and that their CER engagement facilitates their risk management efforts. Our cross-industry analysis further reveals that the inverse CER-risk association mainly comes from the manufacturing sector, whereas in the service sector, CER tends to increase firm risk. (shrink)

While teachers' knowledge is widely viewed as a key aspect of professional development in the new era, little research attention has been paid to one of its key components: teacher data literacy. Accordingly, this study aimed to combine teacher data literacy with TPACK, a widely-used framework for understanding and assessing teachers' knowledge. We first used qualitative methods to develop this integrated framework, then distributed a quantitative self-report survey based on the framework to teachers, and analyzed the resulting data. The qualitative (...) phase highlighted five types of teachers' knowledge required in an integrated core knowledge system incorporating data literacy and provided insights for reflecting on teaching and learning in smart learning environments. The quantitative analysis of data from the TDL-TPACK questionnaire indicated that most teachers were competent practitioners but had some areas for improvement. Experienced teachers in their 30s and 40s performed at higher levels, while some of those aged over 50 displayed incremental decreases in performance. Other factors such as the age, experience, academic qualifications, and role of teachers may affect different aspects of their knowledge, including their data literacy. The research findings provide useful insights for additional teacher training and development programs in the context of smart education. (shrink)

As an advanced network calculation mode, cloud computing is becoming more and more popular. However, with the proliferation of large data centers hosting cloud applications, the growth of energy consumption has been explosive. Surveys show that a remarkable part of the large energy consumed in data center results from over-provisioning of the network resource to meet requests during peak demand times. In this paper, we propose a solution to this problem by constructing a dynamic energy-efficient resource management scheme. As a (...) way of saving energy as well as maintaining cloud user’s quality of experience, the scheme presents a multitier cloud architecture by configuring physical machines into two pools: a hot pool and a warm pool. Each PM is configured with a resource search engine that finds an available virtual machine for the request, and a synchronous sleep mechanism is introduced to the warm pool. To analyze the end-to-end performance of the cloud system’s service with the proposed scheme, we establish a hybrid queueing system composed of three stochastic submodels by using a matrix-geometric solution. Accordingly, the average latency of requests and the energy-saving rate of the system are derived. Through numerical results, we show the influence of the synchronous sleep mechanism on the system performance. Moreover, from the perspective of economics, we build a system cost function to study the trade-off between different performance measures. An improved Salp Swarm Algorithm is presented to minimize the system cost and optimize the sleep parameter. (shrink)

Brand names are endowed with personalities that appeal to consumers, and such personalities are often adjusted in translation. This research aims to explore the transference of brand personality dimensions in the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands, which embody consumers’ values and self-perceptions as well as social cultural meanings, in the hope of revealing male consumers’ psychological characteristics and providing a reference for translators. This investigation studies the brand personality frameworks for English and Chinese consumers, analyzes a corpus of 477 (...) Chinese-English men’s clothing brands, summarizes the major personality dimensions for men’s clothing brands, and explores how they are transferred in translation. As brand personalities reflect target consumers’ psychology to a certain extent, exploring the transference of brand personality dimensions in the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands can reveal the differences between Chinese and English male consumers’ values and mentality, which can serve as a reference for translators and international businesses. (shrink)

This book researches the thought of Jin Yuelin’s epistemology with some notions and methods of contemporary epistemology as the frame of reference. There are two kinds of academical significance in this book, one is that author has accurately comprehended the specific content, inadequacies and contradictions in Jin’ s epistemology, recognized the methods by which Jin Yuelin built his theory of knowledge. The other is that author has known about the differences in research objects and methods between Jin’s theory and contemporary (...) epistemology, and showed the position of Jin’s epistemology in the whole theory of knowledge through the comparative study. On the one hand, the book focuses on the core problem of Jin Yuelin’ epistemology that is how objective knowledge is produced. On the other hand, it is made up of seven chapters in accordance with the structure of Jin’s Theory of Knowledge. The first chapter introduces and comparatively analyzes the comprehensions about the concepts of “knowledge” and “epistemology” between Jin Yuelin and contemporary epistemologists. This chapter supplies the means and methods for following chapters. The second chapter describes Jin’s standpoint and criticism to idealism starting mode, analyzes the objective starting mode that belongs to Jin’s theory and reveals his negative attitude to skepticism. This chapter shows the essential characteristics of the Jin Yuelin’s epistemology. The given is the content of sensation, which is the most basic part of cognitive activity. Moreover Jin Yuelin regards sensation as foundation of knowledge, so the research on theory of the given is separated from the whole study of cognitive activity and treated as the third chapter, which presents Jin’s theory of the given and analyzes the problems of Jin’s theory, then introduces some kinds of theory of the given and theory of perception in the contemporary epistemology, finally comparatively investigates theories of the given between Jin Yuelin and contemporary epistemologists. From the perspective of cognitive activity, the fourth chapter describes the perceptual activity, the activity of knowing, the activity of thinking, means and outlines of reception in Jin’s epistemology, then exposes its contradictions and inadequacies; Induction is the important research object of the Western epistemologists, similarly Jin Yuelin paid more attention to induction and regards the principle of induction as outline of reception. In fact, his standpoint about the principle of induction is vital and creative, so the study of induction separately belongs to the fifth chapter. This chapter presents the Jin’s comprehension about the principle of induction and some answers to the problem of induction in contemporary epistemology, then comparatively analyzes two kinds of the thought about induction. The sixth chapter successively introduces being, nature and fact which all are objects of cognitive activity, then analyzes the problems within them. From the perspective of cognitive results, the last chapter presents the Jin’s standpoint about verification and demonstration of proposition, definition and criteria of truth, then simply describes the point views of contemporary epistemologists about verification and truth of proposition, finally comparatively investigates two kinds of thought. From the vertical, the thesis analyzes the fundamental sections of objective knowledge one by one, such as the given, experience, idea, proposition and truth. From the horizontal, the book focuses on the three main parts of knowledge event, for example, cognitive activity, objects of knowledge and the true proposition treated as knowledge. In a word, the whole book is coherent and organic unity. Through the comparative study, it can be concluded that it is reasonable for Jin Yuelin to enjoy a high academic status, because he is the first philosopher who specializes in the study of epistemology. At the same times, he improves transmission of logic, metaphysics and epistemology from the Western to China. So, his hard work enriches and expands the realm of Chinese philosophy. With the development of the study of epistemology, descriptive content of it, such as, perceptual activity and rational activity, will be regarded as the objects of psychology and cognitive science. Meanwhile, normative content will be retained. For example, analysis of conditions of knowledge, justification for belief claims, comprehension about the proofs of justification, as well as reactions to challenges of skepticism. The latter will continue to be objects of epistemology, of course, they must establish close relationships with psychology and cognitive science. According to this prospect, we should split Jin Yuelin’s theory of knowledge, of which the descriptive content would be allocated to psychology and cognitive science. On the contrary, the normative content would be kept as important resource for deeply studying epistemology. -/- Key words: Knowledge; Contemporary epistemology; Compare; The given; Idea; The principle of induction; Fact. (shrink)

Inspired by Shalev’s model of loss aversion, we investigate the effect of loss aversion on a bimatrix game where the payoffs in the bimatrix game are characterized by triangular fuzzy variables. First, we define three solution concepts of credibilistic loss aversion Nash equilibria, and their existence theorems are presented. Then, three sufficient and necessary conditions are given to find the credibilistic loss aversion Nash equilibria. Moreover, the relationship among the three credibilistic loss aversion Nash equilibria is discussed in detail. Finally, (...) for2×2bimatix game with triangular fuzzy payoffs, we investigate the effect of loss aversion coefficients and confidence levels on the three credibilistic loss aversion Nash equilibria. It is found that an increase of loss aversion levels of a player leads to a decrease of his/her own payoff. We also find that the equilibrium utilities of players are decreasing as their own confidence levels when players employ the optimistic value criterion. (shrink)

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that (...) has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility. (shrink)

The World Bank recently noted: “Social license to operate has traditionally referred to the conduct of firms with regard to the impact on local communities and the environment, but the definition has expanded in recent years to include issues related to worker and human rights”. In this paper, we examine a factor that can influence the kind of work conditions that can facilitate or obstruct a firm’s attempts to achieve the social license to operate. Specifically, we examine the empirical association (...) between a company’s employee practices and the religiosity of its local community by investigating their fixed and endogenous effects. Using a large and extensive U.S. sample, we find a positive association between the “employee friendly” practices of a firm and the religiosity of the local community after controlling for several firm characteristics. In addition, after mitigating endogeneity with the dynamic panel system generalized method of moment and after employing several other econometric tests, we still find a robust positive association between the religiosity of the local community and employee-friendly practices. Since recent research has shown that the firm’s treatment of its stakeholders is a key to achieving an SLO, and since employees constitute a highly significant stakeholder group, we interpret our results as supporting the view that religion is an important influence on the kinds of employee practices that can increase the likelihood that a firm will acquire the SLO. (shrink)

Background: The prevalence of sedentary behavior in adolescents has aroused social attention. The association between sedentary behavior and cognitive flexibility remains unclear, and it may vary depending on the type of sedentary behavior. This study aimed to investigate the associations between specific-type sedentary behaviors and cognitive flexibility in adolescents.Method: A total of 700 Chinese adolescents aged 10–15 years were recruited. The self-report questionnaire was used to assess total sedentary time, recreational screen-based sedentary time, and educational sedentary time. The More-odd shifting (...) task was used to assess cognitive flexibility.Results: The correlation analysis showed that recreational screen-based sedentary time was negatively correlated with cognitive flexibility, whereas educational sedentary time was positively correlated with cognitive flexibility. The regression analysis also further revealed that a significantly negative association between recreational screen-based sedentary time and cognitive flexibility, while a significantly positive association existed between educational sedentary time and cognitive flexibility.Conclusion: The findings shown that the association between recreational screen-based sedentary behavior and cognitive flexibility differs from educational sedentary behavior in adolescents, providing new ideas for a more comprehensive understanding of the association between sedentary behavior and cognitive flexibility in adolescents. (shrink)

A beneficial effect of gesture on learning has been demonstrated in multiple domains, including mathematics, science, and foreign language vocabulary. However, because gesture is known to co‐vary with other non‐verbal behaviors, including eye gaze and prosody along with face, lip, and body movements, it is possible the beneficial effect of gesture is instead attributable to these other behaviors. We used a computer‐generated animated pedagogical agent to control both verbal and non‐verbal behavior. Children viewed lessons on mathematical equivalence in which an (...) avatar either gestured or did not gesture, while eye gaze, head position, and lip movements remained identical across gesture conditions. Children who observed the gesturing avatar learned more, and they solved problems more quickly. Moreover, those children who learned were more likely to transfer and generalize their knowledge. These findings provide converging evidence that gesture facilitates math learning, and they reveal the potential for using technology to study non‐verbal behavior in controlled experiments. (shrink)

An interesting phenomenon called “hidden opportunity cost of time effect” was detected in intertemporal choices. The majority of our participants preferred the smaller but sooner (SS) option to the larger but later (LL) option if opportunity cost was explicit. However, a higher proportion of participants preferred the LL to SS option if opportunity cost was hidden. This shift violates the invariance principle and opens a new way to encourage future-oriented behavior. By simply mentioning the ‘obvious’ opportunity cost of alternatives, decision (...) makers can be more informed in prioritizing their long-term goals rather than short-term goals. (shrink)