Regional Literature and the Transmission of Culture: Chinese Drum Ballads, 1800–1937. By Margaret B. Wan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2020. Pp. xxii + 434. $75.

This study examines the relative contribution of vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth to three different listening comprehension measures. One hundred and thirteen English majors were given VB and VD tests, and three listening comprehension tests. Based on three pairs of hierarchical multiple regression analyses, we found that the relative contribution of VB and VD varied across the three listening comprehension tests. Specifically, for the listening test with an expository text dictation to assess integrative skills, both VB and VD made a (...) unique positive contribution to comprehension, but this was greater in the case of depth. For the listening test involving narrative conversations to assess literal comprehension, neither VB nor VD could independently predict comprehension, whereas for the listening test that comprises expository passages to assess inferential comprehension, VD could separately predict comprehension but VB could not. These findings suggest that the relative contribution of VD and VB to listening comprehension may depend on how a listening test is constructed. Therefore, the findings will contribute to listening comprehension and vocabulary knowledge research, and vocabulary teaching and learning. (shrink)

The influential stage of Internet of Things has reformed all fields of life in general but specifically with the emergence of artificial intelligence has drawn the attention of researchers into a new paradigm of life standard. This revolution has been accepted around the globe for making life easier with the use of intelligent devices such as smart sensors, actuators, and many other devices. AI-enabled devices are more intelligent and capable of doing a specific task which saves a lot of resources (...) and time. Different approaches are available in the existing literature to tackle diverse issues of real life based on AI and IoT systems. The role of decision-making has its own importance in the AI-enabled and IoT systems. In-depth knowledge of the existing literature is dire need of the research community to summarize the literature in effective way by which practitioners and researchers can benefit from the prevailing proofs and suggest new solutions for solving a particular problem of AI-enabled sensing and decision-making for the IoT system. To facilitate research community, the proposed study presents a systematic literature review of the existing literature, organizes the evidences in a systematic way, and then analyzes it for future research. The study reported the literature of the last 5 years based on the research questions, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and quality assessment of the selected study. Finally, derivations are drawn from the included paper for future research. (shrink)

The influential stage of Internet of Things has reformed all fields of life in general but specifically with the emergence of artificial intelligence has drawn the attention of researchers into a new paradigm of life standard. This revolution has been accepted around the globe for making life easier with the use of intelligent devices such as smart sensors, actuators, and many other devices. AI-enabled devices are more intelligent and capable of doing a specific task which saves a lot of resources (...) and time. Different approaches are available in the existing literature to tackle diverse issues of real life based on AI and IoT systems. The role of decision-making has its own importance in the AI-enabled and IoT systems. In-depth knowledge of the existing literature is dire need of the research community to summarize the literature in effective way by which practitioners and researchers can benefit from the prevailing proofs and suggest new solutions for solving a particular problem of AI-enabled sensing and decision-making for the IoT system. To facilitate research community, the proposed study presents a systematic literature review of the existing literature, organizes the evidences in a systematic way, and then analyzes it for future research. The study reported the literature of the last 5 years based on the research questions, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and quality assessment of the selected study. Finally, derivations are drawn from the included paper for future research. (shrink)

Empathy was investigated in 592 Mainland Chinese youth using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Participants’ empathy-related information covering demographic traits, emotional wellness, as well as academic and social problems were recorded. Results of Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis showed that emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and empathy-related personal distress was impacted by inherited traits (e.g., sex), acquired traits (e.g., study major), and a combination of both aspects, respectively. Moreover, empathy was found to be higher in youth in a vulnerable social position (...) (i.e., outlander, female, and ethnic minority) than those in a dominant one (i.e., local, male, and ethnic majority). It was also found that personal distress, rather than empathy, was significantly correlated with academic, social, and emotional problems in the cohort of youth. Hence, the current study provided an innovative observation of the relationships between empathy, personal distress, ethnicity, social vulnerability, wellness, study major, and other key characteristics in Mainland Chinese youth. (shrink)

Chronic back pain (CBP) is a leading cause of disability and results in considerable socio-economic burdens worldwide. Although CBP patients are commonly diagnosed and treated with a focus on the ‘end organ dysfunction’ (i.e., peripheral nerve injuries or diseases), the evaluation of CBP remains flawed and problematic with great challenges. Given that the peripheral nerve injuries or diseases are insufficient to define the etiology of CBP in some cases, the evaluation of alterations in the central nervous system becomes particularly necessary (...) and important. With the development of advanced neuroimaging techniques, extensive studies have been carried out to identify the cortical abnormalities in CBP patients. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview on a series of novel findings from these neuroimaging studies to improve our understanding of the cortical abnormalities originated in the disease. First, CBP patients normally exhibit central sensitization to external painful stimuli, which is indexed by increased pain sensitivity and brain activations in pain-related brain regions. Second, long-term suffering from chronic pain leads to emotional disorders, cognitive impairments, and the abnormalities of the relevant brain networks among CBP patients. Third, CBP is associated with massive cortical reorganization, including structural, functional, and metabolic brain changes. Overall, a deep insight into the neural mechanisms underlying the development and outcome of CBP through more sophisticated neuroimaging investigations could not only improve our current understanding of the etiology of CBP but also facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of CBP based on precision medicine. (shrink)

In this article, drawing from a relational perspective, we explore the relationship between moral leadership and employee creativity, treat employee identification with leader and leader–member exchange as two mediators, and develop a new theoretical model of employee creativity. Our data collected from 160 supervisor–subordinate dyads in the People’s Republic of China demonstrate that moral leadership is positively related to both employee identification with leader and LMX. Further, employee identification with leader partially mediates the relationship between moral leadership and LMX. In (...) particular, employee identification with leader greatly enhances LMX which leads to high creativity. Overall, the relationship between moral leadership and employee creativity is mediated by not only employee identification with leader but also LMX. Our findings offer a new theoretical framework for future theory development and testing on creativity as well as practical implications for researchers and managers in business ethics. (shrink)

Because they are key components of aircraft, improving the safety, reliability and economy of engines is crucial. To ensure flight safety and reduce the cost of maintenance during aircraft engine operation, a prognostics and health management system that focuses on fault diagnosis, health assessment, and life prediction is introduced to solve the problems. Predicting the remaining useful life is the most important information for making decisions about aircraft engine operation and maintenance, and it relies largely on the selection of performance (...) degradation features. The choice of such features is highly significant, but there are some weaknesses in the current algorithm for RUL prediction, notably, the inability to obtain tendencies from the data. Especially with aircraft engines, extracting useful degradation features from multisensor data with complex correlations is a key technical problem that has hindered the implementation of degradation assessment. To solve these problems, deep learning has been proposed in recent years to exploit multiple layers of nonlinear information processing for unsupervised self-learning of features. This paper presents a deep learning approach to predict the RUL of an aircraft engine based on a stacked sparse autoencoder and logistic regression. The stacked sparse autoencoder is used to automatically extract performance degradation features from multiple sensors on the aircraft engine and to fuse multiple features through multilayer self-learning. Logistic regression is used to predict the remaining useful life. However, the hyperparameters of the deep learning, which significantly impact the feature extraction and prediction performance, are determined based on expert experience in most cases. The grid search method is introduced in this paper to optimize the hyperparameters of the proposed aircraft engine RUL prediction model. An application of this method of predicting the RUL of an aircraft engine with a benchmark dataset is employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (shrink)

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between posttraumatic growth, resilience, positive coping style, and self-efficacy among the primary caregivers of children with developmental disorders in Chongqing, China. A total of 198 primary caregivers aged from 22 to 66 years old, including 155 females and 43 males, were enrolled. The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, and General Self-Efficacy Scale were used for data collection. The results found that PTG could be positively predicted by resilience. (...) Positive coping style and self-efficacy mediated the relationship between resilience and PTG. The different levels of PTG were determined by the resident location, monthly income and education of the primary caregivers. The results suggest that it is critical to improve the mental health of the primary caregivers of children with developmental disabilities. Our results also provide a scientific basis for future research. (shrink)

Given the close relatedness of local issues, water scarcity, and sustainability, this research sought to investigate the factors affecting residents’ willingness to reuse direct and indirect potable water in the arid region. Utilizing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), an analysis was undertaken with a sample of 1,831 water consumers in the City of Albuquerque, the most populous city in New Mexico, United States. The primary analysis revealed positive associations between local concerns about drought or water scarcity and population growth with (...) residents' willingness to reuse direct and indirect potable water. Conversely, concerns about water quality and water bills were found to be negatively associated with the willingness to utilize directly and indirectly recycled water for drinking. In light of these findings, the study explores the potential of fostering an eco-surplus culture by cultivating a sense of environmental responsibility and acknowledging the relationship between local issues and environmental conditions. Simultaneously, the study proposes collaboration between the government and residents to promote water reuse programs to conserve water resources effectively. (shrink)

This study explores the dark side of leadership, treats creative self-efficacy as a mediator, and frames supervisor bullying and employee creativity in the context of social cognition and social comparison. We theorize that with a high social comparison orientation, the combination of high supervisory abuse toward themselves (own abusive supervision) and low supervisory abuse toward other team members (peer abusive supervision) leads to a double whammy effect: When employees are “singled out” for abuse, these victims suffer from not only low (...) creative self-efficacy due to supervisory abuse but also low supervisory creativity ratings. Results based on our two-wave data collected from multiple sources—253 employees and their 77 immediate supervisors—support our theory. The significant three-way interaction effect reveals that when social comparison orientation is high and peer abusive supervision is low (Time 1), own abusive supervision (Time 1) creates the strongest negative impact on creative self-efficacy (Time 2), which is significantly related to supervisory low creativity rating (Time 2). Our discoveries of egregious bullying offer provocative theoretical, empirical, and practical implications to the fields of leadership, abusive supervision, creativity, and business ethics. (shrink)

Based on cloud computing and statistics theory, this paper proposes a reasonable analysis method for big data of film and television. The method selects Hadoop open source cloud platform as the basis, combines the MapReduce distributed programming model and HDFS distributed file storage system and other key cloud computing technologies. In order to cope with different data processing needs of film and television industry, association analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis, and K-mean + association analysis algorithm training model were applied to (...) model, process, and analyze the full data of film and TV series. According to the film type, producer, production region, investment, box office, audience rating, network score, audience group, and other factors, the film and television data in recent years are analyzed and studied. Based on the study of the impact of each attribute of film and television drama on film box office and TV audience rating, it is committed to the prediction of film and television industry and constantly verifies and improves the algorithm model. (shrink)

This study examines the characteristics of request sequences in Chinese public service calls. The data analysis indicates that a prominent characteristic of Chinese public service calls is the frequent appearance of insert expansions and non-minimal post-expansions, with the latter occurring after both preferred response and dispreferred response. This is closely related to participants’ institutional identities and epistemic asymmetry; operators handling such service calls should pay due attention to this asymmetry to ensure mutual understanding in conversation.

In this study, we sorted out the research hotspots in sports science by bibliometric method and also used social network analysis to explore the relationship between knowledge networks and their scientific performance. We found 38 high-frequency keywords with obvious curricular nature or classical direction of sports science research and 4 high-frequency research groups. The topics of hotspots covered the secondary disciplines of sports science: physical education and training, national traditional sports, sports human science, and sports humanities and sociology. However, sports (...) human science research is less; therefore, accelerating the research of sports human science is the focus of future research. Meanwhile, we use social network structure analysis to study the relationship between knowledge elements in knowledge networks and their scientific performance. In addition to betweenness centrality, the closeness centrality, clustering coefficient, and structural holes of knowledge elements are significantly and positively related to their influence. In the relationship between knowledge elements and productivity, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality show significant positive correlations, and clustering coefficient and structural hole show significant negative correlations. Therefore, knowledge networks can be used to predict the scientific performance of knowledge elements. (shrink)

In this paper, through research and analysis of the communication network of the physical activity monitoring system, we combine wearable technology and identification technology and design a physical health monitoring bracelet that integrates multifaceted physical data collection and effective identity matching function. We match the identity through the chip and collect the physical fitness data generated in the process of exercise and centralized test by the sensor in real-time. Finally, the data transmission is realized through the WIFI communication function to (...) achieve the purpose of monitoring physical exercise and improving physical quality. To ensure the continuity and stability of information transmission, the joint transmission method of direct transmission and indirect transmission is essential. Besides, considering the energy causality limitation of sensor nodes and relay nodes, a collaborative transmission model of wireless body area network based on wireless cognitive network is constructed. And, a power allocation algorithm based on maximum ratio merging and wireless cognitive network is proposed, which puts forward a new idea for the future research of wireless body area network resource allocation. (shrink)

A line of research is emerging investigating the private sector impacts and dependencies on critical biodiversity and ecosystem services, and related business risks and opportunities. While the ecosystem services narrative is being forwarded globally as a key paradigm for promoting business sustainability, there is scarce knowledge of how these issues are considered at managerial level. This study thus investigates managerial views of corporate sustainability after the ecosystem services concept. We analyse interviews conducted with 20 managers from domestic and international forestry (...) companies operating with a plantation-based business model in China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data, with a focus on four key areas: interviewee familiarity with the ecosystem services concept; their views of corporate dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services; related business risks and opportunities; and viability of existing instruments and practices that can be employed in detecting and addressing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services. Through an inductive approach to the empirical findings, we refined a framework that holds operational value for developing company response strategies to ecosystem services impact/dependence assessment, ensuring that all issues are addressed comprehensively, and that related risks and opportunities are properly acknowledged. (shrink)

From the tape-recording of naturally occurring Chinese psychotherapy sessions, this article explores how repeated occurrences of resistance are managed in the course of interactional sequences and the participants’ actions within these sequences. By employing the methods of conversation analysis, we discuss the main discursive strategies employed by the clients to express their resistance and investigate how the therapist manages this. We find that clients show their resistance to the therapist’s questions in four ways: keeping silence, providing minimal response, making non-answer (...) responses, and being over-talkative. Persistent asking is the main technique we identify in the data for the therapist to manage the resistance; in the meantime, asking questions in a stepwise way, making requests after facing resistance to questions, active retreating and reformulating of the client’s words are employed as subsidiary techniques. The successful management of resistance leads to a smooth sequential development of the psychotherapy, while inappropriate strategies might result in a halt or even breakdown of the therapeutic work. In psychotherapy, resistance is a result of the shared interaction between client and therapist. It is such a complex issue that, in order to understand and manage it, we also take into consideration the broader social and cultural context in which it occurs. (shrink)

In this paper, the Internet of Things with intelligent face perception and processing function is used to supervise online English teaching. In the intelligent learning environment, learners mainly learn by watching the information presentation screen of the learning content, i.e., the learning screen, which is the main environment for learners to learn and is the main channel for information interaction between learners and the learning content. The color matching, layout, graphic decoration, and background texture of the learning screen have a (...) significant impact on learners’ emotions, interests, motivation, and effect in the learning process. On the contrary, the accurate identification of learners’ emotions is the basis for building a harmonious emotional interaction in the wisdom learning environment and is an important means to judge learners’ learning status, which is of great significance to promote learners’ wisdom learning. In addition to providing learners with personalized learning contents and learning paths, the learning images presented by the intelligent learning environment should also be compatible with learners’ emotional states and visual emotional preferences and can play a role in regulating and stimulating learners’ learning emotions. The system works well in the testing process, which verifies the feasibility, rationality, and effectiveness of our application of face perception to online teaching effectiveness monitoring, and can be combined with the old result-oriented effectiveness monitoring method for online teaching, with certain theoretical research significance and practical application value. (shrink)

A survey of 316 participants from Chinese enterprises indicated that the level of their work values was more likely in line with increasing age and education, and associated with employment position and gender. The older the employees, the higher the work values they perceive. The higher the education one receives, the higher the work values he or she counts. Managers rate higher work values than the employees do, and male employees show higher work value perceptions than do those of females. (...) The results of the study suggest that the employees’ age, education, position and gender are important antecedents of work values, and these demographic effects can be a good revelation to enterprise management in both theory and practice. (shrink)

As a new form of online reviews, Q&A reviews have been recently used by many e-commerce platforms to compensate for the weaknesses and problems related to trust and helpfulness found in traditional online reviews. This research documents what motivates people to share products or purchasing knowledge with others through Q&A reviews and why e-commerce platforms should place an emphasis on Q&A reviews. Importantly, our results provide evidence that, when receiving feedback, people are more likely willing to share knowledge with others (...) and will have a higher level of loyalty. We believe that this study contributes to knowledge sharing and the e-commerce literature, and also has practical implications. (shrink)

By incorporating the conservation of resource theory, this study examines how high-performance work practices (HPWPs) affect the employee's in-role performance (EIRP) and employee's task performance (ETP) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Furthermore, this study investigates how organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and positive psychological capital (PPC) affect the relationship between HPWPs and outcomes of employees such as EIRP and ETP. A quantitative technique based on the survey method was used to gather the primary data of the investigation. Two hundred and (...) eleven bank employees working in different banks of Punjab and Pakistan participated in the survey process. The PROCESS-macro was used to test the relationship among the study constructs. Our results supported all the study hypotheses, however positive psychological capital did not moderate the indirect effect of high performance work practices on employee's task performance via organization based self-esteem. This study is the earliest of its kind that focuses on HPWPs and outcomes of employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country like Pakistan. The findings of this study provide practical implications in the post and continuing pandemic situation for organizations to human resource management to redesign workforce strategies to increase their contribution and responses to realize organizational priorities. Although researchers have explored the topic in different sectors, scant studies have investigated the potential impact, barriers, and enabling mechanisms that function as a catalyst in HPWPs during the pandemic situation. (shrink)

The innovation activities of new generation of employees have the characteristics of double network embeddedness, and the degree of psychological contract fulfilment is an important factor that affects their innovation performance. Based on the attributes of internal network embeddedness and external network embeddedness, this paper builds a hypothesis model of the relationship between network embeddedness, psychological contract and innovation performance. It explores the impact and mechanism of network embeddedness on the innovation performance of new generation of employees and the mediating (...) role of the psychological contract. Empirical research shows that network embeddedness has a positive effect on the innovation performance of new generation of employees. The psychological contract has a mediating role in network embeddedness on innovation performance of new generation of employees. These conclusions continue and deepen the research on network embeddedness and innovation performance and further enrich and expand the application of social networks in the research of individual innovation performance of new generation of employees. (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)

Given that there is no recent research on decomposition for global inequality, the aim of this study is to fill the gap in the literature by investigating global inequality with decomposition technique. The data of this study were compiled from the World Bank and decomposition by subgroups was conducted to evaluate the driving forces behind the evolution of inequality. Almost all the countries in the world were included in this study, and the study period spans from 2000 to 2017. The (...) analysis was carried out in several stages to evaluate the issue of North–South divide, as well as the impacts of regional and income subgroups. There are several salient findings derived from this study. First, the results show that there was a gradual decline of international inequality within the study period. Second, there was still a large disparity between the developed and developing countries, and the inequality within the developing countries has aggravated further. Third, geographical location has exerted great impacts on global inequality and East Asia contributed about 40% to the overall decline in international inequality. Fourth, decline in inequality amongst the upper-middle-income countries also contributed substantially to the fall in international inequality. The results derived from this paper can provide pertinent information for the formulation of a comprehensive and coherent strategy in coordinating international efforts and managing inequality while promoting human development under the framework of the newly established Sustainable Development Goals. (shrink)