The optimization of high-dimensional functions is an important problem in both science and engineering. Wolf pack algorithm is a technique often used for computing the global optimum of a multivariable function. In this paper, we develop a new wolf pack algorithm that can accurately compute the optimal value of a high-dimensional function. First, chaotic opposite initialization is designed to improve the quality of initial solution. Second, the disturbance factor is added in the scouting process to enhance the searching ability of (...) wolves, and an adaptive step length is designed to enhance the global searching ability to prevent wolves from falling into the local optimum effectively. A set of standard test functions are selected to test the performance of the proposed algorithm, and the test results are compared with other algorithms. The high-dimensional and ultrahigh-dimensional functions are tested. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm features in good global convergence, high accuracy calculation, strong robustness, and excellent performance in high-dimensional functions. (shrink)

This paper reports the first study in the literature that adopts a bibliometric approach to systematically explore the scholarship in the young and fast‐growing research field of experimental philosophy. Based on a corpus of 1,248 publications in experimental philosophy from the past two decades retrieved from the PhilPapers website, the study examined the publication trend, the influential experimental philosophers, the impactful works, the popular publication venues, and the major research themes in this subarea of philosophy. It found, first, an overall (...) growing trend in publications in experimental philosophy, encompassing four developmental stages. Second, it found that significant changes in topics of interest have taken place, with some gaining increasing attention, others seemingly going out of fashion, and still others remaining popular constantly. Third, the study identified lists of leading philosophers, frequently cited publications, and popular journals helpful for researchers and newcomers to get a quick start in learning about the field. (shrink)

Humans are born with the ability and the need for affection, but communicating affection as a social behavior is historically bound. Based on the digitized books of Google Ngram Viewer from 1960 through 2008, the present research investigated the affectionate communication (AC) in China and in the US, and its changing landscape along with social changes from collectivist to individualistic environments. In particular, we analyzed the frequency in terms of verbal affection (e.g., love you, like you), non-verbal affection (e.g., hug, (...) kiss), and individualism (indicated by the use of first-person singular pronouns, such as I, me, and myself) in Chinese and in American books. The results revealed a convergent increasing trend of AC over the past decades, although the frequency of affection words was lower in Chinese than in American books. Further, the individualism was found to be positively related to the frequency of affection words in both Chinese and American books. These results demonstrate the effect of cultural changes on AC, in that affection exchange becomes popular in adaptation to individualistic urban environments, which provide the evidence about the cross-cultural difference in love expression and the cultural universality of social change in Eastern and Western societies. (shrink)

Except the two types of state, complete failure and perfect functioning, some intermediate states also existed between those two states. This characteristic enables multistate system whose components are often of more than two states. Moreover, because of dependence between components, common cause failure enhances the failure risk of components during the operating period of MSS. A protection mechanism needs to be adopted because of the importance of certain components. For a MSS with CCF and protection mechanism, its reliability can be (...) evaluated by a proposed approach. Certain components not only can cause failure at one state, but also can cause failure to other components because of the CCF. Under the impact of one type of CCF, those components can constitute a specific group that can overlap with certain components. Universal generating function is adopted to incorporate the CCF and protection mechanism of a component. Consequently, reliability indices of a MSS can be evaluated by the proposed approach based on UGF. Examples and comparisons illustrate and validate this method. This method can also help engineers prioritize elements that require protection mechanism under various resource limitations. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

The past eighteen years witnessed the rapid development of experimental philosophy of language. Adopting a bibliometric approach, this study examines the research trends and status quo of this burgeoning field based on a corpus of 237 publications retrieved from PhilPapers. It is observed that experimental philosophy of language has undergone three stages, the initiation stage, the development stage, and the extension stage, across which there is a clear upward trend in the annual number of publications. Michael Devitt, Edouard Machery, John (...) Turri, Nat Hansen, et al., are found to be the most productive philosophers, testifying their leading positions in this field. Journals, instead of books, are the major homes of works in this area. The analysis also yields a list of influential works, including the seminal work “Semantics, Cross-cultural Style” and other significant publications on the semantics of various types of expressions. Relatedly, the major research themes are found to include not only intuitions about the reference of proper names, but also a wide array of philosophically and linguistically interesting issues like the meaning of color adjectives, epistemic modals, and predicates of personal taste, the norms of assertions and the essence of lies, etc. These findings showcase that experimental philosophy of language has broadened the research territory and offered deep insights into central issues of philosophy of language that are beyond the reach of the conventional armchair methodology. (shrink)

The lantern exhibition at the Lantern Festival is an important traditional festival in Taiwan. Visitors play an important role in the promotion and sustainable development of intangible cultural heritage. In recent years, the involvement of digital technology in traditional lantern design and shows has contributed to the protection, inheritance, and promotion of ICH, there remains less research on using augmented reality with ICH tourism. In this study, AR is used for ICH lantern exhibition to discuss the learning experience in lantern (...) tourism and the relationship between technology acceptance and satisfaction from the perspective of visitors, as well as evaluate what AR has on improving visitors’ awareness and learning experience. Then, primary variables of the technology acceptance model are combined with generic learning outcomes to integrate ICH, education, and technology to expand TAM, building a new model to study the ICH learning experience. A questionnaire and observation are used. Respondents are visitors participating in the AR lantern exhibition in Taiwan, which is designed by the author. There is a total of 200 questionnaires collected in the end. The result shows that knowledge and understanding, attitudes and values, activity, behavior, and progression, and enjoyment, inspiration, and creativity from GLOs have a positive effect on technology acceptance and actual use. Therefore, visitors are satisfied with innovative and interesting technology learning experiences, enhancing learning interest and results. Besides, the interaction of the AR system improves visitors’ learning motivation, which shows the combination of AR technology with ICH tourism helps improve cultural awareness. (shrink)

Motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces have been studied without controlling subjects’ gaze fixation position previously. The effect of gaze fixation and covert attention on the behavioral performance of BCI is still unknown. This study designed a gaze fixation controlled experiment. Subjects were required to conduct a secondary task of gaze fixation when performing the primary task of motor imagination. Subjects’ performance was analyzed according to the relationship between motor imagery target and the gaze fixation position, resulting in three BCI control conditions, (...) i.e., congruent, incongruent, and center cross trials. A group of fourteen subjects was recruited. The average group performances of three different conditions did not show statistically significant differences in terms of BCI control accuracy, feedback duration, and trajectory length. Further analysis of gaze shift response time revealed a significantly shorter response time for congruent trials compared to incongruent trials. Meanwhile, the parietal occipital cortex also showed active neural activities for congruent and incongruent trials, and this was revealed by a contrast analysis of R-square values and lateralization index. However, the lateralization index computed from the parietal and occipital areas was not correlated with the BCI behavioral performance. Subjects’ BCI behavioral performance was not affected by the position of gaze fixation and covert attention. This indicated that motor imagery-based BCI could be used freely in robotic arm control without sacrificing performance. (shrink)

For VR systems, one of its core parts is to present people with a real and immersive 3D simulation environment. This paper uses real-time computer graphics technology, three-dimensional modeling technology, and binocular stereo vision technology to study the multivisual animation character objects in virtual reality technology; designs a binocular stereo vision animation system; designs and produces a three-dimensional model; and develops a virtual multivisual animation scene application. The main research content and work performed in the text include the research of (...) the basic graphics rendering pipeline process and the analysis and research of each stage of the rendering pipeline. It mainly analyzes the 3D graphics algorithm used in the three-dimensional geometric transformation of computer graphics and studies the basic texture technology, basic lighting model, and other image output processes used in the fragment processing stage. Combined with the development needs of the subject, the principles of 3D animation rendering production software and 3D graphics modeling are studied, and the solid 3D model displayed in the virtual reality scene is designed and produced. This article also reflects the application of virtual reality in multivisual animation character design from the side, so it has realistic value and application prospects. (shrink)

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examined how and when sense of control influence safety behavior. Linear regression analysis was performed on data collected from 481 students in 58 classes at a university. The results indicated that psychological stress mediated the negative effect of sense of control on safety compliance, as well as the positive effect of sense of control on safety participation. They further showed that perceptions of stronger safety regulations heightened the positive relationship between student psychological (...) stress and safety compliance, and buffered the negative effects of psychological stress on safety participation. These results provide a benchmark against which the effectiveness and relevance of epidemic prevention and control in higher education institutions can be assessed. (shrink)

In a social network, a user is greatly influenced by their neighbors’ opinions, and the user’s opinion updating can be regarded as the prisoner’s dilemma game. In view of such considerations, this paper proposes an opinion evolution and control model based on the prisoner’s dilemma game and gives the corresponding opinion evolution and control algorithm. Under different initial positive opinion proportions, different opinion control levels, and the same control threshold value and under different initial positive opinion proportions, different opinion control (...) levels, and different opinion control threshold values in a scale-free network, the experiments illustrate the opinion evolution trends and control strategies according to the measures of changing the opinion control levels and opinion control threshold values for network regulators. The experiments show that the lower the initial positive opinion proportion is and the smaller the control opinion threshold value chosen by the network regulators is, the lower the opinion control level is; the larger the initial positive opinion proportion is and the larger the control opinion threshold value chosen by the network regulators is, the lower the opinion control level is. (shrink)

The classification of collusion behaviors of government-invested project tenderers is one of the important methods to describe the characteristics and laws of collusion behaviors and strengthen the governance of collusion. Firstly, the variables that affect the type of collusion behavior are selected and cluster analysis is carried out on the cases of collusion in government investment project bidding. Then use the social network to mine the types and characteristics of the collusion behavior of the tenderee. Finally, a BP neural network (...) automatic identification model is established to quickly discriminate the types of collusion, which can effectively overcome the subjectivity of traditional methods. As a result, three typical types of collusion of tenderees can be obtained: intervention type, opportunity type, and cooperation type. The study found that the three types of collusion behavior have their own characteristics and laws, and the relationship between the variables that affect the type of collusion behavior is complex and affects each other. (shrink)

Live streaming shopping, the streaming of real-time videos promoting products that consumers can purchase online, has recently been a booming area of e-commerce, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The success of live streaming e-commerce largely relies on the extent to which the broadcaster can get consumers engaged by the live stream. Thus, it is important to discover the antecedents of consumer engagement in such a context. Drawing on consumer engagement and neuroscience literature, this study used electroencephalography inter-subject correlation to explore (...) how broadcasters' entrepreneurial passion during live streaming videos influenced consumers' neural engagement as they watched the live streaming videos. We used the framework of displayed passion and preparedness from the entrepreneurial passion literature to predict consumer engagement. We found significant ISC for strong displayed passion, while preparedness had partially significant effects on the first, second, and summed components of ISC. The interaction effects of these two factors on the first and summed components of ISC were partially significant. Strong displayed passion and preparedness activated the left and right prefrontal regions of the consumers' brains. These findings indicate that broadcasters' displayed passion and preparedness can influence consumer engagement in live streaming e-commerce settings. Our findings suggest that a scientific approach could be used to improve a broadcaster's performance by testing ISC during rehearsals before live streaming. (shrink)

Short circuit is a key factor which drastically affects the efficiency of metal electrorefining. Infrared image of the intercell busbar region is used to perform short circuit detection. To cope with the high thermal background, a two-level short circuit detection method is designed. Firstly, with background subtraction, high intensity short circuit electrodes, as well as the background, are removed, and normal working electrodes are preserved. In the second stage, suspicious short circuit areas are sifted out by normal electrode detecting and (...) texture period estimation. Gaussian difference filter which is based on the human visual system is improved to match the target gray distribution. A comparative experiment indicates that the proposed orthogonal DoG outperforms the original DoG and top-hat in the accuracy of normal electrode detection. The two-level detection method in this paper is applied in a copper electrolysis plant and exhibits superiority in locating short circuits and avoiding miss detection. (shrink)

Under the hit of the epidemic, an increasing number of young people exchange and purchase goods by watching and resorting to mobile short video advertisements. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the influence mechanism of mobile short video advertising on the consumption behavior of young people. This study develops a theoretical framework including fashion, socialization, entertainment, personalization, brand, psychological needs, satisfaction, and consumption behavior using a stimulus–organism–response (SOR) theory. The data from 332 young people using mobile short video (...) advertising revealed that psychological needs exerted significant impacts on satisfaction, mediating the advertisements, and consumer satisfaction. The attributes of advertising, including fashion, socialization, entertainment, personalization, and branding, significantly promote young people’s psychological needs and satisfaction. In addition, satisfaction affects consumer behavior, and in the same manner, fashion and brand attribute directly impact consumer satisfaction. (shrink)

Student–teacher relationships have been examined by many studies. However, an omission still exists, the existing scales are not appropriate for studying STRs in private colleges because of the special character of these schools. This paper presents the development and validation of Private-College Student–Teacher Relationship Scale, the first instrument to evaluate student–teacher relationships in private colleges. The PCSTRS has six dimensions: trust, interaction, intimacy, care, approval, and comfort. In our main study, the validity and reliability of the six-factor PCSTRS model were (...) demonstrated. The result of internal consistency coefficient indicated the high reliability of the scale, and the result of concurrent validity indicated the significant correlational relationships between the PCSTRS with other STR measures. In supplementary study, the PCSTRS was administered to 360 participants to confirm the applicability of PCSTRS and investigate the relation of STRs and students’ traits, performance, and wellbeing, as well as the differences between the private school and the public school in this relation; the analyses revealed that there were significant differences in trust, intimacy, and care between private and public colleges; positive correlations were found between STRs and self-esteem, self-efficacy, academic performance, extracurricular activity involvement, and subjective wellbeing. Present research firstly develops the PCSTRS, examined the reliability and validity, and provides the proposed nomological network among related constructs. (shrink)

This paper first extracted 11 indicators from four aspects of infrastructure, educational equity, teaching quality, and scientific research level and established a multidimensional higher education evaluation system. After that, according to TOPSIS and the entropy method, a comprehensive score of the development of higher education was obtained, and a comprehensive index of higher education was proposed. According to the level of the score, we divide the development status into 5 categories, and use discrete Hopfield neural network for verification. In addition, (...) we applied the model to many countries and chose Vietnam to conduct an in-depth analysis of the model, including reforming policies and evaluating policy effects based on cobweb model. Finally, we found that the application of the model is very universal, but in reality the reform is very difficult. (shrink)

Creativity is an essential factor in ensuring the sustainable development of a society. Improving students’ creativity has gained much attention in education, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics education. In a quasi-experimental design, this study examines the effectiveness of a project-based STEAM program on the development of creativity in Chinese elementary school science education. We selected two fourth-graders classes. One received a project-based STEAM program, and the other received a conventional science teaching over 6 weeks. Students’ creativity was (...) assessed before and after the intervention using a multi-method approach, including a test of divergent thinking, a story completion through the Consensus Assessment Technique, a creative self-efficacy measure, and a group-based creative project. Moreover, all students received a test of their science knowledge after the intervention. The results showed that compared with the control group, the creativity of the experimental group students improved significantly for 6 weeks at both individual and group level, even though their knowledge in science were comparable. This result confirmed the effectiveness of a project-based STEAM educational program improving elementary school students’ creativity. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

As it is essential to explore the influence of social communications on transportation routes in tourism, this article aims to examine the impacts of social communications on transportation routes in the field of tourism and to further explore the relationship between tourism destinations and their psychological perceptions. In terms of links between different tourism destinations in space and time dimensions, our empirical analysis draws the following conclusions: the behavior of tourist flow is a mediating variable on the links between tourist (...) psychological perceptions and tour routes; three modes of point-line interaction are presented in the space and time of tourism destinations; and the scenic city’s location, name, and features are important to tourists’ psychological perceptions. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 562-576, April 2022.

The COVID-19 is creating panic among people around the world and is causing a huge public mental health crisis. Large numbers of observational studies focused on the prevalence of psychological problems during the COVID-19 pandemic were published. It is essential to conduct a meta-analysis of the prevalence of different psychological statuses to insight the psychological reactions of general population during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Sixty six observational studies about the psychological statuses of people during the COVID-19 were included, searching (...) up to 1 December 2020. Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies. OpenMeta[Analyst] was used for the data analysis. High prevalence of acute stress and fear symptoms were observed in the early period of the epidemic. Additionally, anxiety and depression symptoms continued at a high prevalence rate during the epidemic. It should alert the lasting mental health problems and the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders.Systematic Review Registration:PROSPERO CRD 42020171485. (shrink)

The fault prediction and abductive fault diagnosis of three-phase induction motors are of great importance for improving their working safety, reliability, and economy; however, it is difficult to succeed in solving these issues. This paper proposes a fault analysis method of motors based on modified fuzzy reasoning spiking neural P systems with real numbers for fault prediction and abductive fault diagnosis. To achieve this goal, fault fuzzy production rules of three-phase induction motors are first proposed. Then, the rMFRSNPS is presented (...) to model the rules, which provides an intuitive way for modelling the motors. Moreover, to realize the parallel data computing and information reasoning in the fault prediction and diagnosis process, three reasoning algorithms for the rMFRSNPS are proposed: the pulse value reasoning algorithm, the forward fault prediction reasoning algorithm, and the backward abductive fault diagnosis reasoning algorithm. Finally, some case studies are given, in order to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

In minority societies, clothes and architecture are often designed to ward off disasters, such as severe weather, strong winds, torrential rains and floods, and attacks from hostile forces. In this sense, color is used to protect people against real threats to their existence. The function of color language associated with clothing and architectural design is, in other words, to ward off evil, chase away demons, and pray for the bestowal of good fortune; that is, to rid society of malevolent forces, (...) to pray for blessings from various gods and spirits, and to attempt to manipulate the powerful forces of nature to serve the interests of humanity. In this sense, the social function of color language is to guard the people's peace and welfare. (shrink)

The various social functions of color language are only realized through the conveyance of information and coded messages. In other words, only after information is conveyed that deals with the basic issues of social identity and social meaning—namely "Where do I come from?" and "Who am I?"—are the social functions of color language actually realized, to wit expressing individual social attributes, manifesting aesthetic sensibilities, and displaying individual character and personality.