Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

Appendix 1 was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

Emotional creativity refers to a set of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to the originality of emotional experience and expression. Previous studies have found that emotional creativity can positively predict posttraumatic growth and mental health. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed great challenges to people’s daily lives and their mental health status. Therefore, this study aims to address the following two questions: whether emotional creativity can improve posttraumatic growth and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and (...) how it works. To do this, a multiple mediation model has been proposed, which supposes that emotional creativity is associated with posttraumatic growth and mental health through perceived social support and regulatory emotional self-efficacy. The study involved 423 participants from multiple regions with different COVID-19 involvement levels. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire with six parts, which included Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI), Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RES), Stress-Related Growth Scale-Short Form (SRGS-SF), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support scale (MSPSS), Brief Symptom Inventory-18 scale (BSI-18), and COVID-19-related life events questionnaire. Path analysis used to examine the mediation model indicated that under the control of COVID-19-related life events and age, perceived social support mediated a positive association between emotional creativity and posttraumatic growth as well as a negative association between emotional creativity and all mental health problems, including somatization, depression, and anxiety. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy mediates the association between emotional creativity and posttraumatic growth, emotional creativity and anxiety, and emotional creativity and depression. The results suggest that emotional creativity plays an important role in coping with stressful events related to COVID-19. Furthermore, these results might provide a better understanding of the possible paths through which emotional creativity is related to psychological outcomes, such as mental health and posttraumatic growth. (shrink)

This research investigates firms’ bribery motivations in China. Based on resource dependence theory and anomie theory, we identify resource conditions as firms’ proactive motivation to bribe and firms’ perceived institutional environment as their passive motivation to bribe. We use the data from 2002 World Business Environment Survey, collected by the World Bank, to investigate firms’ bribery in the world’s largest emerging market, China. We employ a multi-level logistic model to test our hypotheses. The results show that unsatisfactory general and task (...) environmental conditions may trigger firms to bribe in order to compete for better resources and opportunities; institutional conditions such as the security expenditure and anomie climate may make firms perceive bribery as a common phenomenon and thus induce firms to bribe. This research provides some insights to understand business bribery behaviors in emerging market. It also discusses some managerial implications and guidelines for policy-making from the findings. (shrink)

Three hundred and seventy-six middle school students in Wenchuan County were assessed three and one-half years after the Wenchuan earthquake to examine the effects of rumination on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic growth (PTG). The results revealed that recent intrusive ruminations partly mediated the relationship between intrusive rumination soon after the earthquake with PTSD but not with PTG. Recent deliberate rumination partly mediated the relationship between intrusive rumination soon after the earthquake and PTG but not PTSD. Moreover, recent deliberate (...) rumination also partly mediated the relationship between recent intrusive rumination with PTG but not with PTSD. Overall, intrusive rumination soon after the earthquake had an effect on PTSD but not on PTG through recent intrusive rumination and affected PTG but not PTSD through deliberate recent rumination. Furthermore, intrusive rumination soon after the earthquake affected PTG but not PTSD by recent deliberate rumination following recent intrusive rumination. More importantly, the present study also found that PTSD exhibited no relation to PTG. These results suggest that PTSD and PTG are influenced by different mechanisms, which further indicates that PTSD and PTG represent two separate dimensions of experience after adversity. (shrink)

Blasting in water-conveyance tunnels that cross rivers is vital for the safety and stability of embankments. In this work, a tunnel project that crosses the Yellow River in the north district of the first-phase Eastern Line of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project was selected as the research object. A complex modeling and numerical simulation on embankment stability with regard to the blasting power of the tunnel was conducted using the professional finite difference software FLAC3D to disclose the relationships between the (...) blasting seismic waves with vibration velocity and embankment displacement under different excavation steps. Calculation results demonstrated that displacement generally attenuated from the tunnel wall to the internal structure of rocks under the effect of blasting seismic waves. The tunnel wall was in tension, and tensile stress gradually transformed into compressive stress with increased depth into the rocks. The curtain-grouting zone was mainly concentrated in the compressive zones. For different excavation steps, the vibration velocity at different feature points was high at the beginning of blasting and then gradually decreased. The resultant displacement was relatively small in the early excavation period and slowly increased as blasting progressed. The effects of different excavation steps on the safety of surrounding rocks and embankment under blasting seismic waves were simulated. We found that the blasting-induced vibration velocity was within the safe range of the code and that the calculated displacement was within the allowed range. Numerical simulation was feasible to assess the safety and stability of engineering projects. (shrink)

In the past few decades, a lot of optimization methods have been applied in estimating the parameter of photovoltaic models and obtained better results, but these methods still have some deficiencies, such as higher time complexity and poor stability. To tackle these problems, an enhanced success history adaptive DE with greedy mutation strategy is employed to optimize parameters of PV models to propose a parameter optimization method in this paper. In the EBLSHADE, the linear population size reduction strategy is used (...) to gradually reduce population to improve the search capabilities and balance the exploitation and exploration capabilities. The less and more greedy mutation strategy is used to enhance the exploitation capability and the exploration capability. Finally, a parameter optimization method based on EBLSHADE is proposed to optimize parameters of PV models. The different PV models are selected to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method. Comparison results demonstrate that the EBLSHADE is an effective and efficient method and the parameter optimization method is beneficial to design, control, and optimize the PV systems. (shrink)

Based on social cognitive theory, we theorize that collective efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between paternalistic leadership and organizational commitment and that this mediating role depends on team cohesion. The empirical results from a study of 238 employees from 52 teams at manufacturing companies show that benevolent leadership and moral leadership, both components of paternalistic leadership, are positively related to organizational commitment and further that collective efficacy mediates the moral leadership–organizational commitment relationship. We did not find a (...) relationship between authoritarian leadership and organizational commitment. Besides, it was found that team cohesion negatively moderates the relationship between moral leadership and collective efficacy and positively moderates the relationship between collective efficacy and organizational commitment. Explanations and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Although more and more researches have shown that edge-based information is more important than surface-based information in object recognition, it remains unclear whether edge-based features play a more crucial role than surface-based features in category learning. To address this issue, a modified prototype distortion task was adopted in the present study, in which each category was defined by a rule or similarity about either the edge-based features (i.e., contours or shapes) or the corresponding surface-based features (i.e., color and textures). The (...) results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that when the category was defined by a rule, the performance was significantly better in the edge-based condition than in the surface-based condition in the testing phase, and increasing defined dimensions enhanced rather than reduced performance in the edge-based condition but not in the surface-based condition. The results of Experiment 3 showed that when each category was defined by similarity, there was also a larger learning effect when the category was defined by edge-based dimensions than by surface-based dimensions in the testing phase. The current study is the first to provide convergent evidence that the edge-based information matters more than surface-based information in incidental category learning. (shrink)

The interpretability of AI is just as important as its performance. In the LegalAI field, there have been efforts to enhance the interpretability of models, but a trade-off between interpretability and prediction accuracy remains inevitable. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework called LK-IB for compulsory measure prediction (CMP), one of the critical tasks in LegalAI. LK-IB leverages Legal Knowledge and combines an Interpretable model and a Black-box model to balance interpretability and prediction performance. Specifically, LK-IB involves three steps: (...) (1) inputting cases into the first module, where first-order logic (FOL) rules are used to make predictions and output them directly if possible; (2) sending cases to the second module if FOL rules are not applicable, where a case distributor categorizes them as either “simple” or “complex“; and (3) sending simple cases to an interpretable model with strong interpretability and complex cases to a black-box model with outstanding performance. Experimental results demonstrate that the LK-IB framework provides more interpretable and accurate predictions than other state-of-the-art models. Given that the majority of cases in LegalAI are simple, the idea of model combination has significant potential for practical applications. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus that the mental lexicon contains both abstract and word-specific acoustic information. To investigate their relative importance for word recognition, we tested to what extent perceptual learning is word specific or generalizable to other words. In an exposure phase, participants were divided into two groups; each group was semantically biased to interpret an ambiguous Mandarin tone contour as either tone1 or tone2. In a subsequent test phase, the perception of ambiguous contours was dependent on the exposure (...) phase: Participants who heard ambiguous contours as tone1 during exposure were more likely to perceive ambiguous contours as tone1 than participants who heard ambiguous contours as tone2 during exposure. This learning effect was only slightly larger for previously encountered than for not previously encountered words. The results speak for an architecture with prelexical analysis of phonological categories to achieve both lexical access and episodic storage of exemplars. (shrink)

Perspective-taking is an important ability to imagine the world from another’s point of view. Prior studies have shown that younger adults are more likely to consider the opinions of age-based in-group members relative to out-group members. However, the cause of this priority is still unknown. We conducted three independent studies to explore the effect of intergenerational contact on younger adults’ PT toward older adults and the possible roles of stereotyping and intergroup anxiety. A total of 192 college students completed the (...) Perspective taking Scale in Study 1 after being primed with age-based intergroup relationships. The results indicated that younger adults found it more difficult to take the perspective of older adults than that of their peers. 200 college students completed the Prior Contact Scale, Intergroup Anxiety Scale, Negative Stereotype Scale, and PT Scale in Study 2. The results demonstrated that intergenerational contact improved PT toward older adults by disrupting negative stereotypes, and intergroup anxiety moderated this mediating relationship. A total of 215 college students completed the PT Scale in the context of imagining intergenerational contact in Study 3. Interestingly, imagined contact effectively increased younger adults’ ability to take older adults’ perspectives. The present research verifies that contact is important for influencing younger adults’ emotional and attitudinal factors that are critical to improving younger adults’ ability to take older people’s perspectives. This is of great significance for developing harmonious intergenerational relationships. (shrink)

Implicit theories refer to assumptions people hold about different domains, also known as mindsets. There are two implicit theories on the malleability of one’s ability: entity theory and incremental theory. They constrain and regulate people’s understanding and responses to an individual’s behavior, leading to different social cognitive patterns and behavioral responses. Resilience is a positive adaptation in highly stressful situations that represents mechanisms for coping with and transcending difficult experiences, i.e., a person’s ability to successfully adapt to change, resist the (...) adverse effects of stressors, avoid significant dysfunction, and be chronically affected by considered a protective factor for mental health. Although previous studies showed that individuals’ implicit theories are associated with resilience, this relationship has received little attention in the nursing population. It is unclear which variables may contribute to explaining the relationship between implicit theories and resilience. Therefore, the current study aims to deeply explore the relationship between implicit theories and the resilience of Chinese nurses. In addition, we also seek to demonstrate the chain mediating effects of grit and meaning in life on this relationship. We surveyed 709 Chinese nurses through online questionnaires using the self-made demographic questionnaire, the Implicit Theories Scale, the Short Grit Scale, the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, and the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. After controlling for demographic variables such as age, gender, educational background, marital status, professional title, and working years, the results reveal positive associations between Chinese nurses’ implicit theories and their resilience, and grit and meaning in life play a partial mediating role in this relationship, respectively. Furthermore, grit and meaning in life play a chain mediating role between implicit theories and resilience. These findings contribute to understanding the psychological impact mechanism of implicit theories on nurses’ resilience and provide a theoretical basis for nursing managers to formulate strategies to improve nurses’ psychological resilience. (shrink)

A growing body of business ethics research has shown that firms are beginning to embrace the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community with internal organizational policies and temporary activism activities. Despite these positive developments, little research has examined firms’ LGBT inclusion strategy at the product level and whether adding LGBT representation to products helps, hurts, or has no impact on corporate products’ market performance. Prior studies have examined LGBT-themed and LGBT-vague representations and identified limitations of both. The current research (...) presents an alternative LGBT-inclusive representation in which heterosexual and LGBT imagery are both presented, with the former receiving more exposure than the latter. A secondary analysis of 4216 movies and a controlled experiment reveal converging evidence: movies with LGBT-inclusive representation outperform those with no LGBT representation or with LGBT-themed representation. The superiority of LGBT-inclusive representation comes from its ability to appeal to consumer segments holding favorable and unfavorable LGBT attitudes. While cultural and entertainment products often play profound roles in changing society’s ethical standards and moral attitudes, they are rarely studied in the business ethics literature. Our findings fill this gap while answering a multimillion-dollar question for the entertainment industry. (shrink)

In an increasingly complex external environment, innovation is an important way for companies to build sustainable competitiveness. This research discusses employee creativity from the perspective of Family Supportive Supervisor Behavior based on conservation of resource theory, social exchange theory, psychological capital theory and emotional spillover theory. Through a series of surveys of employees in different companies and jobs, we can understand the impact of family-supporting supervisors’ behavior on their creativity. Combined with the survey data, a structural equation model is constructed (...) to analyze the mediating effects of psychological capital and positive emotions based on the causal mediation model. The research found that the positive influence of family-supporting supervisors’ behavior on employees’ creativity has three forms. First, supervisors improve employees’ motivation and sense of efficacy by providing various support resources. Second, supervisors can generate positive spillover effects among employees by influencing employees’ psychological state. Third, supervisors stimulate the creativity of subordinates by promoting work participation and mobility. According to the research conclusions, in order to improve the employee creativity, we should provide incentives to encourage supervisors to carry out family support behaviors, identify employee characteristics to help supervisors provide personalized support, cultivate family supportive leaders, and attach importance to emotional support and play the role of psychological capital and positive emotions. (shrink)

This article aims to explore contemplative practitioners’ direct lived experiences of enlightenment and develop a multi-item scale measuring these experiences. A mixed-method approach was adopted. The first study is a phenomenological study that interviewed 24 participants with enlightenment experiences and the second study is a scale-development study that recruited 1130 participants for scale validation. Two major clusters of the enlightenment experiences including sensory feelings and nondual realizations emerged from the phenomenological study and the four main themes of the realizations were (...) formed: intrapersonal insights, inspiration internalization, interpersonal compassion, and interconnectedness. After exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, a three-factor structure of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale, including nonduality, sensory clarity, and sensory disappearance were revealed. The findings of the research depicted a fuller picture of spiritual enlightenment experiences which may contribute to the current knowledge of religiosity and spirituality, as well as transpersonal psychology. The results suggest that the core components of spiritual enlightenment experiences include sensory clarity and disappearance experiences and realizations of nonduality. (shrink)

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, the public keeps getting epidemic-related information on the media. News reports on the increasing number of fatalities have exposed individuals to death, which causes negative emotional experiences such as tension, anxiety, and fear. This study aimed to investigate whether creativity could serve as an anxiety-buffer when mortality is salient. Based on previous findings, the present study utilized type of creative task and personal search for meaning as moderators. In Study 1, a 2 × (...) 2 between-subject design was utilized, and 168 subjects were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. In Study 2, 221 subjects were recruited. The experimental procedure was similar to Study 1, except that the priming paradigm of mortality was changed and search for meaning was included as an additional moderating variable. State anxiety was measured as the dependent variable in both studies. Results of Study 1 showed that, while the benevolent creative task could buffer anxiety in the mortality salience condition, the malevolent creative task did not have the same effect. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between mortality salience, type of creative task, and search for meaning in life on anxiety. In Study 2, the buffering function of benevolent creativity was more intense for participants with a higher level of search for meaning. Together, these findings reveal the influence of different types of creative tasks on individual anxiety levels under death priming conditions and the moderating effect of search for meaning in this relationship. Further, they suggest the need to focus on the role of creativity in terror management. (shrink)

Sinologism 汉学主义is a recent cultural theory that focuses on Sinology, China–West studies, and cross-cultural knowledge production. Since its proposition at the turn of the 21st century, it has aroused substantial interest and given rise to discussions and debates both in and outside China. The special issue has selected seven articles in full or excerpted form to offer an initial introduction to the topic.

Ecopsychology holds that a full-fledged self should be in harmony with nature, but when the human’s social self, consumptive false self, and paranoid cultural narcissism prevail, the ecological self goes from dominant existence to recessive existence. Because of this predicament with regard to the ecological self, one should make full use of wildness spirit to reshape the ecological self. Due to the abstract nature of the wilderness spirit and in an attempt to present the wilderness spirit in a more concrete (...) and vivid way, the wilderness spirit needs to be set apart from wilderness literature so as to analyze the role that the wilderness spirit plays in rebuilding the ecological self. (shrink)

Whale optimization algorithm, known as a novel nature-inspired swarm optimization algorithm, demonstrates superiority in handling global continuous optimization problems. However, its performance deteriorates when applied to large-scale complex problems due to rapidly increasing execution time required for huge computational tasks. Based on interactions within the population, WOA is naturally amenable to parallelism, prompting an effective approach to mitigate the drawbacks of sequential WOA. In this paper, field programmable gate array is used as an accelerator, of which the high-level synthesis utilizes (...) open computing language as a general programming paradigm for heterogeneous System-on-Chip. With above platform, a novel parallel framework of WOA named PWOA is presented. The proposed framework comprises two feasible parallel models called partial parallel and all-FPGA parallel, respectively. Experiments are conducted by performing WOA on CPU and PWOA on OpenCL-based FPGA heterogeneous platform, to solve ten well-known benchmark functions. Meanwhile, other two classic algorithms including particle swarm optimization and competitive swarm optimizer are adopted for comparison. Numerical results show that the proposed approach achieves a promising computational performance coupled with efficient optimization on relatively large-scale complex problems. (shrink)

BackgroundMental health is a public health problem of great concern. Previous studies show that textual features and individual psychological characteristics can influence the effect of receiving information.PurposeThis study explores whether textual features influence the persuasiveness of teenager students’ mental health education while considering the influence of risk preference.MethodsFrom November to December 2021, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,869 teenager students in grade 7–12 in Chongqing, China. Wilcoxon signed-rank test, multiple logistic regression, and subgroup analysis were used to analyze the (...) data.ResultsAmong the four textual features mentioned in this study, a significant difference was reported in the persuasive effects of information with and without numerical features. Combined with those from the risk preference analysis, results showed that the regulatory effect of risk preference was only reflected in emotional conflicts. Students who prefer having no emotional conflict in the text showed the characteristics of risk avoidance, or lower grades, or rural or school accommodation. Most teenager students are also risk averse, especially females and juniors.ConclusionThe numbers, symbols, and positive emotions in the text generate an active effect on teenager students receiving mental health education. Students avoiding risk are inclined to read texts without emotional conflicts. The probability of male choosing texts with positive emotional polarity is 33.5% lower than that of female. Female students and those from lower grades also demonstrate a higher inclination to risk avoidance compared with their male and higher grade counterparts. Therefore, educational materials with different text characteristics should be developed for teenager students with varying characteristics. (shrink)

Based on the social identity theory, the relationship and influencing mechanism between high-performance human resource practices and employees’ voice behavior were explored by constructing a moderated mediation model, and the relationship between the field of human resources and the field of organizational behavior was also established. Through 1,178 paired samples of supervisor-employee survey and multilevel linear model analysis technology, it was found that HPHRPs had a positive impact on employees’ voice behavior; perceived insider status played a mediating role between HPHRPs (...) and voice behavior; voice efficacy played a moderating role between perceived insider status and voice behavior; and voice efficacy played a mediating role in the relationship between “HPHRPs-perceived insider status-voice behavior.”. (shrink)

In this paper, an in-depth study of interactive visual communication of network topology through non-line-of-sight congestion control algorithms is conducted to address the real-time routing problem of adapting to dynamic topologies, and a delay-constrained stochastic routing algorithm is proposed to enable packets to reach GB within the delay threshold in the absence of end-to-end delay information while improving network throughput and reducing network resource consumption. The algorithm requires each sending node to select an available relay set based on the location (...) of its neighbor nodes and channel state and computes transfer probabilities for each node in the relay set combining the remaining delay of the packet with the distance from the relay node to GB. Based on the obtained transfer probability and local channel state, the sending node passes the packet to the relay node. The convergence of the algorithm is proved and its performance is verified by simulation. The first part of the algorithm is based on the greedy algorithm to deploy and locate the network flying platform nodes with the goal of efficient coverage of the network flying platform nodes, considering the ground base station services. As the delay on each link varies due to the change of channel state, the source and relay nodes asynchronously update the data generation rate and the pairwise parameters based on the received local information and use the obtained optimal values to pass the packets to GB. (shrink)

Elucidating distinct morphological atrophy patterns of Alzheimer’s disease and its prodromal stage, namely, mild cognitive impairment helps to improve early diagnosis and medical intervention of AD. On that account, we aimed to obtain distinct patterns of voxel-wise morphological atrophy and its further perturbation on structural covariance network in AD and MCI compared with healthy controls. T1-weighted anatomical images of matched AD, MCI, and HCs were included in this study. Gray matter volume was obtained using voxel-based morphometry and compared among three (...) groups. In addition, structural covariance network of identified brain regions exhibiting morphological difference was constructed and compared between pairs of three groups. Thus, patients with AD have a reduced hippocampal volume and an increased rate of atrophy compared with MCI and HCs. MCI exhibited a decreased trend in bilateral hippocampal volume compared with HCs and the accelerated right hippocampal atrophy rate than HCs. In AD, the hippocampus further exhibited increased structural covariance connected to reward related brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex, the putamen, the caudate, and the insula compared with HCs. In addition, the patients with AD exhibited increased structural covariance of left hippocampus with the bilateral insula, the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus, and the cerebellum than MCI. These results reveal distinct patterns of morphological atrophy in AD and MCI, providing new insights into pathology of AD. (shrink)

While cochlear implantation has benefitted many patients with single-sided deafness (SSD), there is great variability in cochlear implant (CI) outcomes and binaural performance remains poorer than that of normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Differences in sound quality across ears – temporal fine structure (TFS) information with acoustic hearing versus coarse spectro-temporal envelope information with electric hearing – may limit integration of acoustic and electric patterns. Binaural performance may also be limited by inter-aural mismatch between the acoustic input frequency and the place of (...) stimulation in the cochlea. SSD CI patients must learn to accommodate these differences between acoustic and electric stimulation to maximize binaural performance. It is possible that training may increase and/or accelerate accommodation and further improve binaural performance. In this study, we evaluated lateralization training in NH subjects listening to broad simulations of SSD CI signal processing. A 16-channel vocoder was used to simulate the coarse spectro-temporal cues available with electric hearing; the degree of inter-aural mismatch was varied by adjusting the simulated insertion depth (SID) to be 25 mm (SID25), 22 mm (SID22), and 19 mm (SID19) from the base of the cochlea. Lateralization was measured using headphones and head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Baseline lateralization was measured for unprocessed speech (UN) delivered to the left ear to simulate SSD and for binaural performance with the acoustic ear combined with the 16-channel vocoders (UN+SID25, UN+SID22, and UN+SID19). After completing baseline measurements, subjects completed 6 lateralization training exercises with the UN+SID22 condition, after which performance was re-measured for all baseline conditions. Post-training performance was significantly better than baseline for all conditions (p<0.05 in all cases), with no significant difference in training benefits among conditions. Given that there was no significant difference between the SSD and the SSD CI conditions before or after training, the results suggest that NH listeners were unable to integrate TFS and coarse spectro-temporal cues across ears for lateralization, and that inter-aural mismatch played a secondary role at best. While lateralization training may benefit SSD CI patients, the training may largely improve spectral analysis with the acoustic ear alone, rather than improve integration of acoustic and electric hearing. (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 paper, the Boolean representation of R0-algebras are investigated. In particular, we show that directly indecomposable R0-algebras are equivalent to local R0-algebras and any nontrivial R0-algebra is representable as a weak Boolean product of local R0-algebras.

From the perspective of critical cultural sociology, this book delves into the intertwining relations of cultural transformation and social evolution, illuminating contemporary Chinese culture's landscape and underlying logic since the 1980s. With a special focus on the tensions among politics, economy, and culture itself, the book examines the transitions of Chinese culture from tradition to the modern age. It expounds the cultural differentiation and its effect in contemporary China. Within this framework, the author addresses some key issues and phenomena that (...) figure in the cultural scene of modern China, ranging from the crisis of Chinese cultural identity in the context of globalization, the media culture and its impacts on everyday life, to the visual culture and social transformation. Offering a panoramic view of Chinese contemporary culture, literature, arts, and society, this title will serve as an essential read for scholars of China Studies, Cultural Studies, and Visual Culture as well as anyone interested in what's going on in Chinese contemporary culture. (shrink)