With the gradual deepening of environmental problems and the increase in consumer awareness of environmental protection, many enterprises have already begun to pay attention to green supply chain management. However, the price of green products is higher than that of nongreen products, which is an enormous challenge for many small- or medium-sized enterprises. To study the pricing and coordination of green supply chains under capital constraints, a model consisting of a manufacturer and a capital-constrained retailer is established; the manufacturer invests (...) in green products and provides a deferred payment contract. Setting the situation without capital constraints as a benchmark, this study explores the impact of the retailer’s capital constraints on the manufacturer’s product greenness design; an interesting result shows that deferred payment can help encourage the retailer to order more products and improve the profit of the manufacturer and the efficiency of the entire supply chain as well as the product’s greenness level simultaneously. However, the profit of the retailer will be hurt by the deferred payment contract. Therefore, to guarantee the profit of the entire channel and to make the two agents obtain a win-win outcome, a new two-way revenue-sharing contract is designed to coordinate the green supply chain. (shrink)

This paper investigates the aperiodic sampled-data control for a chaotic system. Firstly, Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy models for the chaotic systems are established. The lower and upper bounds of the sampling period are taken into consideration. Then, the criteria for mean square exponential stability analysis and aperiodic sampled-data controller synthesis are provided by means of linear matrix inequalities. And the real sampling patterns can be fully captured by constructing suitable Lyapunov functions. Finally, an illustrative example shows that the proposed method is effective (...) to guarantee that the system’s states are stable with aperiodic sampled data. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus pandemic is intensifying all over the world, but some countries, including China, have developed extensive and successful experience in controlling this pandemic. In this context, some questions arise naturally: What can countries caught up in the epidemic learn from China’s experience? In regions where the outbreak is under control, what would lead to a resurgence of the epidemic? To address these issues, we investigate China’s experience in anticontagion interventions and reopening process, focusing on the coevolution of epidemic (...) and awareness during COVID-19 outbreak. Through an empirical analysis based on large-scale data and simulation based on a metapopulation and multilayer network model, we ascertain the impact of human movements and awareness diffusion on the epidemic, elucidate the inherent patterns and effective interventions of different epidemic prevention methods, and highlight the crunch time of each measure. The results are also employed to analyze COVID-19 evolution in other countries so as to find unified rules in complex situations around the world and provide advice on anticontagion and reopening policies. Our findings explain some key mechanisms of epidemic prevention and may help the epidemic analysis and decision-making in various countries suffering from COVID-19. (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)

The valence–arousal conflict theory assumes that both valence and arousal will trigger approaching or withdrawing tendencies. It also predicts that the speed of processing emotional stimuli will depend on whether valence and arousal trigger conflicting or congruent motivational tendencies. However, most previous studies have provided evidence of the interaction between valence and arousal only, and have not provided direct proof of the interactive links between valence, arousal and motivational tendencies. The present study provides direct evidence for the relationship between approach–withdrawal (...) tendencies and the valence–arousal conflict. In an empirical test, participants were instructed to judge the valence of emotional words after visual–spatial cues that appeared to be either approaching or withdrawing from participants. A three-way interaction was observed such that the response time was shorter if participants responded to a negative high-arousal stimulus after a withdrawing cue, or to a positive low-arousal stimulus after an approaching cue. These findings suggest that the approach–withdrawal tendency indeed plays a crucial role in valence–arousal conflict, and that the effect depends on the congruency of valence, arousal and tendency at an early stage of processing. (shrink)

Perception of time plays a fundamental role in human social activities, and it can be influenced in social situations by various factors, including facial attractiveness. However, in the eyes of observers of different genders, the attractiveness of a face varies. The current study aimed to explore whether gender modulates the effect of facial attractiveness on perception of time. To account for individual differences in aesthetic standards, the critical stimuli presented to each participant were selected from an image pool based on (...) the participant’s own attractiveness judgments. Using a temporal reproduction task, we measured the perception of time by men and women during viewing of faces of different attractiveness and gender. The results show that attractive opposite-sex faces elicited longer reproduced durations in men than unattractive opposite-sex faces, while facial attractiveness did not affect men’s reproduced durations in the case of same-sex faces. Conversely, women exhibited longer reproduced durations for attractive faces than for unattractive faces, regardless of facial gender. These results suggest that gender difference plays an important role in the effect of facial attractiveness on time perception. (shrink)

ABSTRACTCognitive control enables us to adjust behaviours according to task demands, and emotion influences the cognitive control. We examined how task-irrelevant emotional stimuli impact the ability to inhibit a prepared response and then programme another appropriate response. In the study, either a single target or two sequential targets appeared after emotional face images. Subjects were required to freely viewed the emotional faces and make a saccade quickly upon target onset, but inhibit their initial saccades and redirect gaze to the second (...) target if it appeared. We found that subjects were less successful at inhibiting their initial saccades as the inter-target delay increased. Emotional faces further reduced their inhibition ability with a longer delay, but not with a shorter delay. When subjects failed to inhibit the initial saccade, the longer delay produced longer intersaccadic interval. Especially, positive faces lengthened the intersaccadic interval with a l... (shrink)

This study aimed to examine the relationship between parents' intelligence mindset and children's math anxiety and the mediating role of parents' failure mindset and evaluations of their child's math performance. A total of 419 Chinese students and their parents were recruited to complete a series of questionnaires on topics such as math anxiety, parent's failure mindset, parent's intelligence mindset, and parents' evaluations of their child's mathematical performance. The results revealed that parents' intelligence mindset was not correlated with children's math anxiety. (...) However, parents' intelligence mindset indirectly predicted children's math anxiety through the chain-mediated role of parents' failure beliefs and parents' evaluations of their child's math performance. Further, sex differences were found through a multigroup analysis, which showed a chain-mediated effect between parents' intelligence mindset and girls' math anxiety. (shrink)

Smartphone addiction behaviors are becoming more and more common with the rapid popularity and widespread use of smartphones. Such behaviors are significantly influenced by the overuse of smartphones before bedtime. In this study, the overuse of smartphones after 9:00 pm before bedtime was investigated by an online questionnaire. The sample consists of 1,035 college students in China. The artificial neural networks were applied to predict the use time of smartphones before bedtime based on their different usages, and the relationship between (...) smartphone usage and additive behaviors was analyzed. The results show that the neural network model can more accurately predict the usage time of smartphones according to the usage of smartphones before going to bed. At the same time, it is also found that the prediction accuracy of the samples that use the smartphone for less than half an hour and more than 3 h before bed is higher than that of other samples. Moreover, watching short videos and playing games are more likely to lead to mobile phone addiction behavior. These findings would help guide college students to correctly use phones and reduce smartphone addition, which is of great significance for mental health education. (shrink)

Background and purposeThis study aimed to analyze the feasibility and safety of endovascular therapy in patients with acute posterior circulation stroke and vertebrobasilar dolichoectasia.Materials and methodsBASILAR was a national prospective registry of consecutive patients with symptomatic and imaging-confirmed acute stroke in the posterior circulation within 24 h of symptom onset. We evaluated EVT feasibility and safety in patients with VBD. Primary outcomes included improvement in modified Rankin Scale scores at 90 days and mortality within 90 days. The secondary outcome was (...) the rate of favorable functional outcome, defined as mRS ≤ 3 at 90 days. Safety outcomes included surgery-related complications and other serious adverse events.ResultsA total of 534 cases were included: 159 with VBD and 375 controls. No significant difference in mRS at 90 days was found between groups, but patients with VBD had a higher baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score [30 vs. 25 ] and were older [65 vs. 63 year]. After propensity score matching, there were no significant differences in baseline NIHSS score between the two groups, and the efficacy and safety of EVT were similar between patients with or without VBD. Furthermore, the prognostic effect of puncture-to-recanalization time on the probability of mortality within 90 days in EVT-treated patients with VBD was significant {adjusted odds ratio, 1.008 [95% confidence interval ]}.ConclusionEndovascular therapy is safe and feasible in patients with acute posterior circulation stroke and VBD. The puncture-to-recanalization time is important for predicting the prognosis of EVT-treated patients with VBD. (shrink)

This study investigates the sampled-data admissibility problem for a singular system. The objective of this paper is to design a sampled-data controller to ensure the admissibility of a singular system and to construct an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional to get less conservative results for the sampled-data singular system. To accomplish these objectives, the system is converted into a time-delay system by the input delay approach firstly, and both lower and upper bounds of the delay are considered. Secondly, by introducing a suitable (...) LKF, the admissibility criteria are obtained. Then, when estimating the derivative of the LKF, a relaxation variable is introduced by the method of reciprocally convex inequality, and it is proved that the conservatism is reduced. Finally, two numerical examples are given to prove that the designed sampled-data controller can ensure the states of the systems under the influence of external interference. (shrink)

As physical exercise benefits both physical and psychological health of college students, it is important to promote the habit of physical exercise among them. This study adopted the Health Action Process Approach model to understand the exercise intention–action link and determine the moderating role of self-efficacy. We recruited 242 students from a university in China and asked them to complete a six-wave survey. The survey results indicated that exercise intention was positively related to both coping planning and action planning, which (...) pave the way to performing the action of exercise. However, such mediation effects varied under conditions of self-efficacy. Participants with high self-efficacy exhibited stronger relationships between intention and planning, and between planning and action. The study results suggest that planning has a time-lagged mediation effect in the relationship between intention and action. Additionally, the findings shed light on the moderating role of self-efficacy, which can be useful in developing health-promotion strategies for college students. (shrink)

Objective: To systematically analyze the effects of art therapy on the levels of depression, anxiety, blood glucose, and glycated hemoglobin in diabetic patients.Methods: We searched Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases from inception to January 24, 2021. The language of publication was limited to English. Randomized controlled trials that used art therapy to improve mental disorders in diabetic patients were involved. After selection of eligible studies, data were extracted, including the first author's full-name, year of publication, the first author's (...) country of residence, number of intervention and control groups, the mean age of participants, method of intervention, duration of follow-up, and outcome measures. Assessment of quality of the included studies and data extraction were independently carried out by two researchers. RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform statistical analysis.Results: A total of 396 samples from five studies were included, and the eligible studies were RCTs with a parallel design. Methods of art therapy included music therapy and painting therapy. The results showed that compared with the control group, art therapy could positively affect the levels of depression [standardized mean difference, −1.36; 95% confidence interval, ; P < 0.00001] and blood glucose in diabetic patients [mean difference, −0.90; 95% CI, ; P < 0.0001], while it had no influence on the levels of anxiety [SMD, −0.31; 95% CI, ; P = 0.32] and glycated hemoglobin [MD, 0.22; 95% CI, ; P = 0.07].Conclusion: Art therapy may have significant effects on the levels of depression and blood glucose for diabetic patients. (shrink)

According to conceptual metaphor theory, individuals are thought to understand or express abstract concepts by using referents in the physical world—right and left for moral and immoral, for example. In this research, we used a modified Stroop paradigm to explore how abstract moral concepts are metaphorically translated onto physical referents in Chinese culture using the Chinese language. We presented Chinese characters related to moral and immoral abstract concepts in either non-distorted or distorted positions or rotated to the right or to (...) the left. When we asked participants to identify the Chinese characters, they more quickly and accurately identified morally positive characters if they were oriented upright or turned to the right and more quickly and accurately identified immoral characters when the characters were distorted or rotated left. These results support the idea that physical cues are used in metaphorically encoding social abstractions and moral norms and provided cross-cultural validation for conceptual metaphor theory, which would predict our results. (shrink)

With the continuous lockdown and staying home strategies of COVID-19, both instructors and learners have met with the presence challenges in language learning. To address the complex and dynamic relationships of different presences in blended learning during COVID-19, based on the Community of Inquiry framework, 215 Chinese English learners were obtained as samples for an empirical test. SPSS 23 and PROCESS for SPSS were utilized to examine the hypotheses. Results indicate that teaching presence has a significant direct positive impact on (...) social presence, sense of community, and cognitive presence. SP has a significant positive impact on CP and partially mediates the relationship between TP and CP. SoC is also found to impact CP and partially mediates the relationship between TP and CP. The findings also validate the chain mediating role of SP and SoC between TP and CP. Pedagogical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The digital transformation of the innovation ecosystem is not only an inevitable direction of innovation activities in the era of digital economy but also a highly complex and uncertain process. The way to facilitate transformation with policies has become a topic of common concern of academia and policymakers. This paper builds a multiagent model and studies the impacts of supply-side policies, demand-side policies, and environmental policies on enterprises’ transformation willingness, digital level, and income level as well as the proportion of (...) enterprises that carry out transformation in the whole innovation ecosystem and innovation network structure by numerical experiments. According to research findings, supply-side policies play the biggest role in the facilitation of transformation, demand-side policies are second important to them, and environmental policies have comparatively weak impacts. (shrink)

In the process of rapid urbanization, urban heat island effect has been showing more and more significant impacts on human well-being. Therefore, a more detailed understanding of the impact of three-dimensional building morphology on UHI effect across a continuum of spatial scales will be necessary to guide and improve the human settlement.This study selected 31 provincial capital cities of mainland China to analyze the impacts of the 3D building morphology, including the number, area, height, volume, and the surface area of (...) the buildings, on the land surface temperature. By exploring how the influence of 3D building morphology on LST changes with the increase of spatial scale, this study finally recognized which 3D building morphology index is the most significant index affecting LST in different cities, and which spatial scale these 3D building morphology indexes have the most significant impact on LST. The results showed that the building area is the most important 3D building morphology parameter affecting the LST, while the building height has the slightest influence on the LST. These effects are more significant in the spatial scale of 150 m–540 m, and the spatial scale increases with the increase of building areas in developed cities. These results highlight the necessity of considering fine-grained management in the governance and alleviating of the urban thermal environment through urban planning and urban renewal strategies. (shrink)

Background: Losing one’s only child may lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, of which re-experiencing is the core symptom. However, neuroimaging studies of sex differences in re-experiencing in the context of the trauma of losing one’s only child and PTSD are scarce; comparisons of the functional networks from the hippocampal subfields to the thalamus might clarify the neural basis.Methods: Thirty couples without any psychiatric disorder who lost their only child, 55 patients with PTSD, and 50 normal controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic (...) resonance imaging. The functional connectivity from the hippocampal subregions to the thalamus and the correlations of FC with re-experiencing symptoms were analyzed within and between the sexes.Results: Compared with husbands without PTSD, wives without PTSD had higher re-experiencing symptoms and weaker FC between the right hippocampal cornu ammonis 3 and the right thalamus. Moreover, only the correlation between the RCA3-RT FC and re-experiencing in wives without PTSD was significant. Among the three groups, only the RCA3-RT FC in female subjects was markedly different. Additionally, the RCA3-RT FC in wives without PTSD was remarkably lower relative to female patients with PTSD.Conclusion: Wives without PTSD who lost their only child had worse re-experiencing symptoms relative to their husbands, which was associated with the FC alteration between the hippocampal subregions and the thalamus. Importantly, the low level of the RCA3-RT FC may play a potentially protective role against the development of PTSD in wives who have lost their only child. (shrink)

Despite that it is commonly accepted that migraine is a disorder of the nervous system with a prominent genetic basis, it is comorbid with a plethora of medical conditions. Several studies have found bidirectional comorbidity between migraine and different disorders including neurological, psychiatric, cardio- and cerebrovascular, gastrointestinal, metaboloendocrine, and immunological conditions. Each of these has its own genetic load and shares some common characteristics with migraine. The bidirectional mechanisms that are likely to underlie this extensive comorbidity between migraine and other (...) diseases are manifold. Comorbid pathologies can induce and promote thalamocortical network dysexcitability, multi-organ transient or persistent pro-inflammatory state, and disproportionate energetic needs in a variable combination, which in turn may be causative mechanisms of the activation of an ample defensive system with includes the trigeminovascular system in conjunction with the neuroendocrine hypothalamic system. This strategy is designed to maintain brain homeostasis by regulating homeostatic needs, such as normal subcortico-cortical excitability, energy balance, osmoregulation, and emotional response. In this light, the treatment of migraine should always involves a multidisciplinary approach, aimed at identifying and, if necessary, eliminating possible risk and comorbidity factors. (shrink)

Pinch force sense plays an important role in the performance of daily finger movements, including tip, key, palmar pinch. The present study investigated the roles of pinch type in the sensation of pinch force among healthy participants in the ipsilateral force reproduction trial. This study instructed forty healthy adult subjects in producing reference forces at different levels [10, 30, 50% maximal voluntary isometric contraction ] by adopting 3 pinch types and in reproducing the above force levels with the identical hand. (...) Our study revealed that subjects are significantly more sensitive detecting alterations of pinching forces with tip pinch but not key or palmar pinch under high forces but not at lower force levels. (shrink)

In traditional Chinese philosophy, silence occupies a pivotal position by not being merely treated as the absence of speech, but also as the transcendence of it. Silence in early Confuciani...

Appeared as a ‘low-tech’ yet significant teaching aid in the modern classroom, the blackboard has greatly shaped the medium, space and pedagogy of school education. Over the past two centuries, ‘blackboard’ itself has also been constantly remoulded in terms of its colour, material and function, from the traditional black wooden surface to the interactive digital screen, which requires comprehensive investigations from historical, technological and educational perspectives. This essay synthesizes approaches applied in three dimensions. First is the material and technological aspect, (...) tracing the transformation of such ‘boards’ from stone/wood to plastic/steel to digital/online forms and their functions extended; then it focuses on the etymological and lexicographical dimension, comparatively analysing the definitions of blackboard, chalkboard and whiteboard in the representative dictionaries; moreover, an educational perspective is employed throughout the whole investigation, especially on how the invention and involution of ‘blackboard’ shaped the class space, teacher-student relationship and subject pedagogy. Beyond the concern of technology, this essay reserves due attention to the epistemological issue in dealing with the presentation, transmission and acquisition of knowledge under different cognitive contexts. (shrink)

Research in second language pragmatics has paid increasing attention to learners’ individual differences, but few studies have examined the relationship between learners’ willingness to communicate in L2 and their pragmatic competence. To this end, this study investigates the association between WTC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension of Chinese as a second language learners. A total of 80 CSL learners studying abroad in three universities in China participated in this study. Data were collected through a WTC questionnaire, a self-perceived communication competence (...) questionnaire, a pragmatic awareness judgment task, and a multiple-choice test for pragmatic comprehension. Statistical analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between the learners’ pragmatic awareness and pragmatic comprehension on the one hand and their WTC and SPCC in L2 on the other. The findings indicated that SPCC correlated positively with the learners’ L2 pragmatic comprehension, but not with their L2 pragmatic awareness. No correlation was found between WTC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension. The results suggest that SPCC may contribute to learners’ L2 pragmatic comprehension; some implications for teaching and future research directions are also discussed. (shrink)

Bankruptcy of listed companies or shareholders delisting usually causes the crisis spreading in stock markets. Based on the systematic analysis of the epidemic diseases and rumors spreading on the complex networks, the SIR model is introduced to research the crisis spreading in shareholding networks of listed companies and their main holders on the basis of the data about ownership structure in Chinese Stock Markets. The characteristics of shareholding networks are studied, and the parameters for the SIR model are obtained by (...) empirical approach. Then, the numerical computation method is successfully used to analyze the crisis spreading in the networks when the networks meet random failures or intentional attacks. We find the networks have good robustness against the random failures. However, the crisis will spread at a high speed and cause catastrophic damage if there are some failures or attacks on hub vertices in the networks. Under this condition, the networks show obvious vulnerability. Last but not least, the controllability of the networks under the condition of intentional attacks and random failures is studied. The results show that if the network is controlled globally, it is more reliable to allow a politically good new or an appropriate exciting economical policy to play the role in orienting markets under the control of public opinions as the crisis occurs. However, under normal circumstances, controlling a small part of driver vertices representing listed companies, applying appropriate control strategies, and using its characteristics of high efficiency of sending information can effectively control the stock market. Our research provides a new reference to further exploration about the transmission mechanism of the crisis based SIR model and further research on the controllability of crisis spreading in financial markets. (shrink)

Although the negative effects of a sense of overqualification on organizations and individuals have been examined, it is debatable whether overqualified employees hide knowledge. Relying on the social comparison theory and psychological contract theory, this paper tried to investigate the non-linear relationship between perceived overqualification and knowledge hiding via psychological contract breach by surveying employees with bachelor’s degrees or above and eventually recruited 475 participants. The results indicated that psychological contract breach acts a partial mediating role in the inverted U-shaped (...) relationship between perceived overqualification and knowledge hiding, while leader-member exchange acts as a moderator. The finding manifests that overqualification encourages employees to hide knowledge, but their possibly vigorous aspects will be displayed when a certain limit is exceeded. This study benefits organizations by advising them to dialectically treat and properly place overqualified employees and contributes to the research on overqualified employees’ knowledge management by offering a new explanation and complete understanding of perceived overqualification and knowledge hiding, with specific focus given to the psychological states of employees. (shrink)

Sen's classic social choice result supposedly demonstrates a conflict between Pareto and even minimal forms of liberalism. By providing the first direct mathematical proof of this seminal result, we underscore a significantly different interpretation: rather than conflicts among rights, Sen's result occurs because the liberalism assumption negates the assumption that voters have transitive preferences. This explanation enriches interpretations of Sen's conclusion by including radically new kinds of societal conflicts, it suggests ways to sidestep these difficulties, and it explains earlier approaches (...) to avoid the difficulties. (shrink)

Noninvasive brain stimulation provides a promising approach for the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions. Despite the increasing research on the facilitatory effects of this kind of stimulation on the cognitive processes, the majority of the studies have used the standard stimulation approaches such as the transcranial direct current stimulation and the conventional repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation which seem to be limited in robustness and the duration of the transient effects. However, a recent specialized type of rTMS, theta-burst stimulation, patterned to mimic (...) the natural cross-frequency coupling of the human brain, may induce robust and longer-lasting effects on cortical activity. Here, we aimed to investigate the effects of the intermittent TBS, a facilitatory form of TBS, over the right DLPFC, a brain area implicated in higher-order cognitive processes, on visuospatial working memory performance. Therefore, iTBS was applied over either the rDLPFC or the vertex of 24 healthy participants, in two separate sessions. We assessed VSWM performance using 2-back and 4-back visuospatial tasks before iTBS, and after the iTBS. Our results indicate that the iTBS over the rDLPFC significantly enhanced VSWM performance in the 2-back task, as measured by the discriminability index and the reaction time. However, the 4-back task performance was not significantly modulated by iTBS. These findings demonstrate that the rDLPFC plays a critical role in VSWM and that iTBS is a safe and effective approach for investigating the causal role of the specific brain areas. (shrink)