The present study explores the perceptions of elementary and intermediate learners toward English as a code-switching medium in Chinese as a Foreign Language classrooms. The data were collected by means of a survey of international elementary and intermediate-level students studying Chinese at the College of Chinese Language and Culture of Jinan University in Guangzhou, China. The data collection method included a five-point Likert scale questionnaire survey. The analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected from the questionnaire showed that CFL learners (...) at both proficiency levels tended to favor code-switching in classrooms. However, the results of the Mann–Whitney U test showed that intermediate learners favored code-switching to a lesser extent than elementary learners. Moreover, their perceptions were found to differ significantly in terms of the varying functions of code-switching. These findings suggest that code-switching functions as an effective teaching strategy in the CFL classrooms, although teachers should regulate its deployment when teaching learners with different proficiency levels. (shrink)

This paper explores the often-overlooked role of teaching assistants (TAs) in engineering ethics courses, and a particular challenge that TAs face in these roles. TAs not only undertake tasks like instructors, which include teaching, guiding, and evaluating courses, but they also assume the roles of “intermediaries between instructors and students” and “learners becoming teachers.” These distinct roles present TAs with unique challenges, one of which we call the neutrality problem. This problem pertains to whether TAs can and should maintain a (...) neutral stance in the classroom, particularly when students articulate ideas that deviate from the values promoted in the course or held by the TAs. Using a real-life teaching experience as illustrative, we claim that it is challenging and, at times, undesirable for TAs to achieve pedagogical neutrality, primarily due to their pre-existing understanding of ethics and the actual situation of the students. Nevertheless, we posit that TAs should strive to foster an environment where students are encouraged to improve their ethical awareness. Through the underrepresented lens of TAs, we aim to initiate a multi-faceted dialogue on the teaching philosophy and goal of engineering ethics. (shrink)

Metaheuristic algorithms are often applied to global function optimization problems. To overcome the poor real-time performance and low precision of the basic salp swarm algorithm, this paper introduces a novel hybrid algorithm inspired by the perturbation weight mechanism. The proposed perturbation weight salp swarm algorithm has the advantages of a broad search scope and a strong balance between exploration and exploitation and retains a relatively low computational complexity when dealing with numerous large-scale problems. A new coefficient factor is introduced to (...) the basic salp swarm algorithm, and new update strategies for the leader position and the followers are introduced in the search phase. The new leader position updating strategy has a specific bounded scope and strong search performance, thus accelerating the iteration process. The new follower updating strategy maintains the diversity of feasible solutions while reducing the computational load. This paper describes the application of the proposed algorithm to low-dimension and variable-dimension functions. This paper also presents iteration curves, box-plot charts, and search-path graphics to verify the accuracy of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate that the perturbation weight salp swarm algorithm offers a better search speed and search balance than the basic salp swarm algorithm in different environments. (shrink)

Group interaction is an essential way of social interaction and plays an important role in our social development. It has been found that when individuals participate in group interactions, the group identity of the interaction partner affects the mental processing and behavioral decision-making of subjects. However, little is known about how deaf college students, who are labeled distinctly different from normal hearing college students, will react when facing proposers from different groups in the ultimatum game and its time course. In (...) this study, we recruited 29 deaf college students who played the UG in which they received extremely unfair, moderately unfair, or fair offers from either outgroup members or ingroup members, while their brain potentials were recorded. The behavioral results showed that group membership did not impact the acceptance rate of deaf college students. But, event-related potential analysis demonstrated an enhanced feedback-related negativity elicited by ingroup members compared to outgroup members. Importantly, we found that under fairness conditions, deaf college students induced more positive P2 and P3 facing ingroup members compared to outgroup members. Our results demonstrated that group membership may modulate the performance of deaf college students in the UG and the existence of ingroup bias among deaf college students. This provides some evidence for the fairness characteristics of special populations, so that to improve the educational integration of colleges and universities. (shrink)

As the autonomous vehicles technology gradually enters the public eye, understanding consumers' psychological motivations for accepting autonomous vehicles is critical for the development of autonomous vehicles and society. Previously, researchers have explored the determinants of fully autonomous vehicles but the relevant research is far from enough. Moreover, the relationship between anthropomorphism and users' behavior has been ignored to a large extent. Therefore, this study aim to fill the gap by using anthropomorphism and the unified theory of acceptance and use of (...) technology to explore how system attributes and UTAUT attributes influence consumers' acceptance behavior. The data were collected via questionnaire survey conducted in Beijing, China, which can be a promising early adopter of AVs. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results reveal that perceived anthropomorphism and perceived intelligence have a direct positive influence on the adoption of AVs; performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and facilitating conditions have an indirect positive influence on intention to adopt AVs. Also, this research contributes to the literature by enriching studies on psychological determinants of autonomous vehicles' adoption by taking an initial step to highlight anthropomorphism perceptions. This can provide managerial implications for policy-makers and businesses on how to effectively allocate resources to enhance autonomous vehicle adoption. (shrink)

With the rapid development of the Internet, political culture plays an increasingly prominent role in ethical guidance and value orientation, and the intergenerational inheritance of political culture in various countries needs to be carried out in a sophisticated way. From the perspective of empathic narrative, this study applies the network text analysis method to detect the cultural communication regularities to the contemporary young adults in online political communication and explores contemporary young adults’ perception of online political culture through empirical analysis. (...) Moreover, it proposes the empathic narrative logic of online political communication by comparing the existing communication elements and the urgently needed communication elements. Our findings suggest that we need to deepen the cognitive empathy, stabilize the emotional empathy, and adjust the emotional bias in online political communication. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Literary Revolution and its Meaning The Naturalistic Conception of the Universe and the Experimentalist Method History of Chinese Philosophy and Systematizing the National Heritage Political Philosophy and Liberalism Hu Shi as an Enlightenment Philosopher.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound psychological and behavioral impact on people around the world. Consumer purchase behaviors have thus changed greatly, and consumer services companies need to adjust their business models to adapt to this change. From the perspective of consumer psychology, this paper explores the impact of consumer purchase behavior changes over the course of the pandemic on the business model design of consumer services companies using a representative survey of 1,742 individuals. Our results show that changes (...) in consumer purchase behavior have a significant impact on the design of consumer services firms’ business models. Specifically, changes in consumers’ purchase object, motive, and timeframe are more likely to spark a novelty-centered business model design, whereas changes in purchase method tend to inspire an efficiency-centered one. Our findings provide a theoretical reference for consumer services companies in designing business models when faced with unexpected crises. (shrink)

The debate over the existence of a “public sphere” in China’s Late Qing/Early Republican era began nearly three decades ago, but it has yet to generate a special socio-cultural review on the “Confucian social imaginary” of the Chinese people. The article builds on existing “economic-political approach” and “idea-communication approach” to argue decisive factors hindering the development of a Habermasian “public sphere.” These includes (1) people’s traditional-collectivist lifestyle, (2) lack of understanding of “universal equality,” (3) conservative self-positioning during social transition, (4) (...) regionalist attitude toward outsiders, (5) lack of access to Enlightenment ideas, (6) disregard for parliamentary systems, and (7) ignorance of the rule of law. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Matter and Form Possibility Universal Sympathy Possible Worlds Reality and Process Man and Nature.

On December 3 last year, Comrade Zhao Fusan of the Research Institute of Religion of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote a letter to Comrade Hu Qiaomu outlining his personal reflections on the Party Center's Document 19 [1982].

Science, the proud son of the era and the crystallization of man's wisdom, is inlaid in the crown of our times like a lustrous and brilliant pearl. Social science discloses to mankind the general law governing the development of society and leads it in marching forward to the higher stages of social system - socialist society and communist society. Natural science creates for mankind tremendous productive forces like miracles, enabling the human race to live a life in fairyland. Who is (...) there who does not praise the power of science and refuses to admit that science is the great force pushing history forward? Who is there that dares openly to set up forbidden zones in science, thus serving as an executioner to strangle science? In our times, people who dare openly to do this, perhaps, are increasingly few. However, this does not mean that science can completely extricate itself from disaster. Science has to pay dearly for every step of exploration and has to undergo a stern struggle for it. Science is an undertaking that is most creative and filled with the spirit of innovation. It openly declares that it will wage an irreconcilable struggle against all the old stuff which is reactionary, dark, ignorant and superstitious. Because of this, it is bound to suffer bans and buffets from the reactionary forces. Science has no forbidden zone! This is a call of reason; but there are forbidden zones in science, and that is what we see in the picture of history and reality. What are the forbidden zones? And how should we destroy the forbidden zones and set science free? For many years Lin Biao and the "gang of four" brought terrible disasters to science. In consequence, the aforementioned question is sharply raised before us, requiring us to deal with it strictly and try to resolve it correctly. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms bring out an under-appreciated puzzle of discrimination, namely figuring out when a decision made on the basis of a factor correlated with race is a decision made on the basis of race. I argue that prevailing approaches, which are based on identifying and then distinguishing among causal effects of race, in their metaphysical timidity, fail to get off the ground. I suggest, instead, that adopting a constructivist theory of race answers this puzzle in a principled manner. On (...) what I call a “thick constructivist” account of race, to be raced is to be socially positioned in the way indicated by a certain set of statistical regularities on the basis of particular phenotypical traits. A thick constructivist sees that acting on the basis of correlations that constitute race qua social position just is acting on the basis of race, because races just are social positions that subject their member individuals to a particular matrix of social relations that define the raced position. This conclusion has considerable ramifications for our understanding of discrimination, algorithms and beyond. (shrink)

En este mundo no existen dos culturas iguales, la traducción es una actividad de comunicación intercultural. En la década de los noventa, Suan Bussnett propuso “la gira de la cultura”, y enfatizó que la traducción no se debe aislar de la cultura. Como un importante elemento cultural 妾 (Qiè) es llevada a la novela en Sueño en el Pabellón Rojo. Desde la perspectiva de “traducción cultural”, se pone enfoque en cómo se puede traducir el significado y también transmitir las informaciones (...) culturales de 妾 (Qiè)). (shrink)

On rationalism and Hindu philosophy; articles translated from four Indic languages.