BackgroundInformation processing speed is a marker for cognitive function. It is associated with neural maturation and increases during development. Traditionally, IPS is measured using paper and pencil tasks requiring fine motor skills. Such skills are often impaired in patients with neurological conditions. Therefore, an alternative that does not need motor dexterity is desirable. One option is the computerized symbol digit modalities test, which requires the patient to verbally associate numbers with symbols.MethodsEighty-six participants were examined, 38 healthy and 48 hospitalized for (...) a non-neurological disease. All participants performed the written SDMT, c-SDMT, and the Test of Non-verbal Intelligence Fourth Edition. Statistical analyses included a multivariate analysis of covariance for the effects of intelligence and hospitalization on the performance of the SDMT and c-SDMT. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare performance across c-SDMT trials between inpatients and outpatients.ResultsThe MANCOVA showed that hospitalization had a significant effect on IPS when measured with the SDMT but not with the c-SDMT, while IQ had no effect on IPS. Age was the best predictor of performance of both tests. The repeated measures ANOVA revealed no significant difference in within-test performance between outpatient and inpatient participants in the c-SDMT.ConclusionPerformance of the c-SDMT is not confounded by hospitalization and gives within-test information. As a valid and reliable measure of IPS for children and adolescents, it is suitable for use in both inpatient and outpatient populations. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to validate the computerized Symbol Digit Modalities Test in a Swiss pediatric cohort, in comparing the Swiss sample to the Canadian norms. Secondly, we evaluated sex effects, age-effects, and test–retest reliability of the c-SDMT in comparison to values obtained for the paper and pencil version of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test.MethodsThis longitudinal observational study was conducted in a single-center setting at the University Children’s Hospital of Bern. Our cohort consisted of 86 children aged from (...) 8 to 16 years. The cohort included both healthy participants and patients hospitalized for a non-neurological disease. Forty eight participants were assessed during two testing sessions with the SDMT and the c-SDMT.ResultsTest–retest reliability was high in both tests. A reliable change index was calculated for the SDMT and the c-SDMT corrected for practice effects. While a significant age effect on information processing speed was observed, no such effect was found for sex. When data on the c-SDMT performance of the Swiss cohort was compared with that from a Canadian cohort, no significant difference was found for the mean time per trial in any age group. Norm values for age groups between 8 and 16 years in the Swiss cohort were established.ConclusionNorms for the c-SDMT between the Swiss and the Canadian cohort were comparable. The c-SDMT is a valid alternative to the SDMT. It is a feasible and easy to administer bedside tool due to high reliability and the lack of motor demands. (shrink)

The last two decades have witnessed the rising prevalence of both co-publishing and retraction. Focusing on research collaboration, this paper utilizes a unique dataset to investigate factors contributing to retraction probability and elapsed time between publication and retraction. Data analysis reveals that the majority of retracted papers are multi-authored and that repeat offenders are collaboration prone. Yet, all things being equal, collaboration, in and of itself, does not increase the likelihood of producing flawed or fraudulent research, at least in the (...) form of retraction. That holds for all retractions and also retractions due to falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism. The research also finds that publications with authors from elite universities are less likely to be retracted, which is particularly true for retractions due to FFP. China stands out with the fastest retracting speed compared to other countries. Possible explanations, limitations, and policy implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Integrity and research ethics are cherished institutions in academic world. Although most societies have rules and codes that govern ethical conducts in research, few studies have provided quantitative evidence on the impacts of these regulations and codes on the behaviors of researchers. In the context of a nationwide anti-corruption campaign in China, this paper evaluates the changes of principal investigators’ reimbursement behavior in a leading university when new reimbursement policies were introduced. Utilizing a novel grant dataset and a regression discontinuity (...) design, we find that the new policies lowered PIs’ monthly average amount of reimbursement from research grants by 35%, which can be interpreted as a reduction in grant misuse. Following speculations we argue that institutionalizing orchestrated efforts on grant management, payroll systems, and research integrity education is in the right direction toward building China into a true scientific power. (shrink)

One stable marker of face perception appears to be left-side bias, the tendency to rely more on information conveyed by the left side of the face than the right. Previous studies have shown that left-side bias is influenced by familiarity and prior experience with face stimuli. Since other-race facial recognition is characterized by reduced familiarity, in contrast to own-race facial recognition, the phenomenon of left-side bias is expected to be weaker for other-race faces. Among Chinese participants, face inversion has been (...) found to eliminate the left-side bias associated with own-race faces. Therefore, it is of interest to know whether face inversion influences left-side bias for non-Chinese research participants and can be generalized across own- and other-race faces. This study assessed 65 Caucasian participants using upright and inverted chimeric Caucasian and Asian faces in an identity similarity-judgment task. Although a significant left-side bias was observed for upright own-race faces, this bias was eliminated by facial inversion, indicating that such a bias depends on the applicability of configural processing strategies. For other-race faces, there was no left-side bias in the upright condition. Interestingly, the inverted presentation yielded a right-side bias. These results show that while left-side bias is affected by familiarity differences between own- and other-race faces, it is a universal phenomenon for upright faces. Inverted presentation strongly reduces left-side bias and may even cause it to revert to right-side bias, suggesting that left-side bias depends on configural face processing. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that both patterns in orthography and cultural-specific associations of space-time affect how people map space onto time. In the current study, we focused on Chinese Buddhists, an understudied population, investigating how religious experiences influence their mental representations of time. Results showed that Chinese Buddhists could represent time spatially corresponding to left-to-right, right-to-left and top-to-bottom orientations in their religious scripts. Specifically, they associated earlier events with the starting point of the reading and later times with the endpoint. We (...) also found that Chinese Buddhists were more likely to represent time in a clockwise way than Chinese atheists. This is because Buddhism regards time as cyclic and consisting of repeating ages (i.e. Wheel of Time). Taken together, we provide first psychological evidence that Chinese Buddhists’ spatial representations of time are different from atheists’, due to their religious experiences, namely, both the reading direction in Buddhist texts and Buddhist concepts of time. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

A fuzzy predictive fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for a wide class of discrete-time nonlinear systems with uncertainties, interval time-varying delays, and partial actuator failures as well as unknown disturbances, in which the main opinions focus on the relevant theory of FPFTC based on Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model description of these systems. The T-S fuzzy model represents the discrete-time nonlinear system in the form of the discrete uncertain time-varying delay state space, which is firstly constructed by a set of local linear (...) models and the nonlinear membership functions. The novel improved state space model can be further obtained by extending the output tracking error to the constructed model. Then the fuzzy predictive fault-tolerant control law based on this extended model is designed, which can increase more control degrees of freedom. Utilizing Lyapunov-Krasovskill theory, less conservative delay-range-dependent stable conditions in terms of linear matrix inequality constraints are given to ensure the asymptotically robust stability of closed-loop system. Meanwhile, the optimized cost function and H-infinity performance index are introduced to the stable conditions to guarantee the robust performance and antidisturbance capability. The simulation results on the temperature control of a strong nonlinear continuous stirred tank reactor show that the proposed control scheme is feasible and effective. (shrink)

According to the Body‐Specificity Hypothesis (BSH), people implicitly associate positive ideas with the side of space on which they are able to act more fluently with their dominant hand. Though this hypothesis has been rigorously tested across a variety of populations and tasks, the studies thus far have only been conducted in linguistic and cultural communities which favor the right over the left. Here, we tested the effect of handedness on implicit space‐valence mappings in Tibetan practitioners of Bön who show (...) a strong religious preference for the left, in comparison to an English group. Results showed that Bön right‐handers tended to implicitly associate positive valence more strongly with their dominant side of space despite strong explicit associations between the left and goodness in their religion. This pattern of results found in Bön participants was indistinguishable from that found in English speakers. The findings of the present study support the BSH, demonstrating that space‐valence mappings in people's minds are shaped by their bodily experience, which appears to be independent of space‐valence mappings enshrined in cultural conventions. (shrink)

Adults increase the certainty of their inductive inferences by observing more diverse instances. However, most young children fail to do so. The present study tested the hypothesis that children's sensitivity to instance diversity is determined by three variables: ability to discriminate among instances ( Discrimination ); an intuition that large numbers of instances increase the strength of conclusion ( Monotonicity ); ability to detect subcategories and evaluate numerical differences between the subcategories, or Extraction . A total of 219 Chinese children (...) aged 6 to 11 were tested for sensitivity to diversity by means of Discrimination, Monotonicity, and Extraction. The results indicated that children at all ages were able to discriminate instances and attend to set size. However, only 9- and 11-year-olds demonstrated Extraction and sensitivity to diversity. Furthermore, among all children diversity scores increased linearly with the level of Extraction. These results suggest that the law of large numbers plays a role in children's diversity-based reasoning. (shrink)

People implicitly associate the “past” and “future” with “front” and “back” in their minds according to their cultural attitudes toward time. As the temporal focus hypothesis proposes, future-oriented people tend to think about time according to the future-in-front mapping, whereas past-oriented people tend to think about time according to the past-in-front mapping. Whereas previous studies have demonstrated that culture exerts an important influence on people's implicit spatializations of time, we focus specifically on religion, a prominent layer of culture, as potential (...) additional influence on space-time mappings. In Experiment 1 and 2, we observed a difference between the two religious groups, with Buddhists being more past-focused and more frequently conceptualizing the past as ahead of them and the future as behind them, and Taoists more future-focused and exhibiting the opposite space-time mapping. In Experiment 3, we administered a religion prime, in which Buddhists were randomly assigned to visualize the picture of the Buddhas of the Past or the Future. Results showed that the pictorial icon of Dipamkara increased participants' tendency to conceptualize the past as in front of them. In contrast, the pictorial icon of Maitreya caused a dramatic increase in the rate of future-in-front responses. In Experiment 4, the causal effect of religion on implicit space-time mappings was replicated in atheists. Taken together, these findings provide converging evidence for the hypothesized causal role of religion for temporal focus in determining space-time mappings. (shrink)

Due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 pandemic and consequent confinement measures, young people are vulnerable to mental health problems. The current study compared a group of 440 young adolescents and a group of 330 emerging adults to investigate the extent to which perceived social support and psychological capital were differentially associated with mental health problems. Participants were asked to report their current psychosocial adaptation status during the COVID-19 pandemic, and data were collected via online questionnaires during a relatively (...) severe period of COVID-19 in China. Results of the multi-group path analysis indicated that the effect of perceived social support on mental health problems was mediated by PsyCap for young adolescents, but not for emerging adults. These results were discussed with respect to the mechanism of how social support and PsyCap serve as protective mental health factors for youth in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Stroke and other neurological disorders have an effect on mobility which has a significant impact on independence and quality of life. The core rehabilitation requirements for patients with lower limb motor dysfunction are gait training, restand, and mobility. In this work, we introduce a newly developed multifunctional wheelchair that we call “ReChair” and evaluated its performance preliminarily. ReChair seamlessly integrates the mobility, gait training, and multiposture transformation. ReChair driving and multiposture transformation are done using the voice, button, and mobile terminal (...) control. This work describes the functional requirements, mechanical structure, and control system and the overall evaluation of ReChair including the kinematic simulation of the multiposture transformation and passive lower limb rehabilitation training to quantitatively verify the motion capability of ReChair, the voice control system evaluation that shows how the voice recognition system is suitable for home environment, the sensorless speed detection test results that indicate how the wheel speeds measured by sensorless method are appropriate for travelling control, and the passive and balance training test results that show how the lower limb rehabilitation training in daily life by ReChair is convenient. Finally, the experimental results show that ReChair meets the patients’ requirements and has practical significance. It is cost-effective, easy to use, and supports multiple control modes to adapt to different rehabilitation phases. (shrink)

ObjectiveWe wished to explore Parkinson's disease subtypes by clustering analysis based on the multimodal magnetic resonance imaging indices amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and gray matter volume. Then, we analyzed the differences between PD subtypes.MethodsEighty-six PD patients and 44 healthy controls were recruited. We extracted ALFF and GMV according to the Anatomical Automatic Labeling partition using Data Processing and Analysis for Brain Imaging software. The Ward linkage method was used for hierarchical clustering analysis. DPABI was employed to compare differences in ALFF (...) and GMV between groups.ResultsTwo subtypes of PD were identified. The “diffuse malignant subtype” was characterized by reduced ALFF in the visual-related cortex and extensive reduction of GMV with severe impairment in motor function and cognitive function. The “mild subtype” was characterized by increased ALFF in the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and sensorimotor cortex, and a slight decrease in GMV with mild impairment of motor function and cognitive function.ConclusionHierarchical clustering analysis based on multimodal MRI indices could be employed to identify two PD subtypes. These two PD subtypes showed different neurodegenerative patterns upon imaging. (shrink)

Workplace aggression has been established as a prevalent and detrimental issue in organizations. While numerous studies have documented the important role of leaders in inhibiting or accelerating workplace aggression, a systematic overview of the associations between different leadership styles and workplace aggression as well as its boundary conditions is still lacking. This study reports a meta-analysis investigating the associations between leadership and workplace aggression. Drawing on data from 165 samples, our results revealed that change-oriented, relational-oriented, and values-based and moral leadership (...) were associated with reduced workplace aggression. In contrast, passive and destructive leadership were associated with increased workplace aggression. Importantly, relative weights analyses revealed that ethical leadership was most strongly negatively associated with workplace aggression. Additionally, moderation analyses revealed that the associations between leadership and workplace aggression were, in some cases, moderated by power distance and rating sources, but independent of measurement time lag. Overall, the findings of this meta-analysis highlight the important associations between leadership and workplace aggression. Implications for future research and policy recommendations aiming to reduce workplace aggression are discussed. (shrink)

Due to the non-invasiveness and high precision of electroencephalography, the combination of EEG and artificial intelligence is often used for emotion recognition. However, the internal differences in EEG data have become an obstacle to classification accuracy. To solve this problem, considering labeled data from similar nature but different domains, domain adaptation usually provides an attractive option. Most of the existing researches aggregate the EEG data from different subjects and sessions as a source domain, which ignores the assumption that the source (...) has a certain marginal distribution. Moreover, existing methods often only align the representation distributions extracted from a single structure, and may only contain partial information. Therefore, we propose the multi-source and multi-representation adaptation for cross-domain EEG emotion recognition, which divides the EEG data from different subjects and sessions into multiple domains and aligns the distribution of multiple representations extracted from a hybrid structure. Two datasets, i.e., SEED and SEED IV, are used to validate the proposed method in cross-session and cross-subject transfer scenarios, experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our model to state-of-the-art models in most settings. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the morphometric alterations in the cortical and subcortical structures in multiple system atrophy patients with mild cognitive impairment, and to explore the association with cognitive deficits.MethodsA total of 45 MSA patients and 29 healthy controls were recruited. FreeSurfer software was used to analyze cortical thickness, and voxel-based morphometry was used to analyze the gray matter volumes. Cortical thickness and gray matter volume changes were correlated with cognitive scores.ResultsCompared to healthy controls, both MSA subgroups exhibited widespread (...) morphology alterations of brain structures in the fronto-temporal regions. Direct comparison of MSA-MCI and MSA-only patients showed volume reduction in the left superior and middle temporal gyrus, while cortical thinning was found in the left middle and inferior temporal gyrus in MSA-MCI patients. Cortical thinning in the left middle temporal gyrus correlated with cognitive assessment and disease duration.ConclusionStructural changes in the brain occur in MSA-MCI patients. The alteration of brain structure in the left temporal regions might be a biomarker of cognitive decline in MSA-MCI patients. (shrink)

Factory workers make up a large proportion of China’s internal migrants and may be highly susceptible to job and adaptation stress, negative affective states, and Internet gaming disorder. This cross-sectional study investigated the relationships between job stress, psychological adaptation, negative affective states and IGD among 1,805 factory workers recruited by stratified multi-stage sampling between October and December 2019. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the proposed mediation model. Among the participants, 67.3% were male and 71.7% were aged 35 years (...) old or below. The prevalence of probable depression, probable anxiety, and IGD was 39.3, 28.7, and 7.5%. Being male, younger age, and shorter duration of living in Shenzhen were associated with higher IGD scores. Job stress was significantly associated with IGD but not with negative affective states. Psychological adaptation was significantly associated with negative affective states. Negative affective states were positively associated with IGD. The indirect effect of psychological adaptation but not job stress on IGD through negative affective states was statistically significant. The observed psychological correlates and mechanisms are modifiable, and can inform the design of evidence-based prevention programs for depression, anxiety, and IGD in this population. (shrink)

Schizophrenia is considered as a self-disorder with disordered local synchronous activation. Previous studies have reported widespread dyssynchrony of local activation in patients with SZ, which may be one of the crucial physiological mechanisms of SZ. To further verify this assumption, this work used a surface-based two-dimensional regional homogeneity approach to compare the local neural synchronous spontaneous oscillation between patients with SZ and healthy controls, instead of the volume-based regional homogeneity approach described in previous study. Ninety-seven SZ patients and 126 HC (...) were recruited to this study, and we found the SZ showed abnormal 2dReHo across the cortical surface. Specifically, at the global level, the SZ patients showed significantly reduced global 2dReHo; at the vertex level, the foci with increased 2dReHo in SZ were located in the default mode network, frontoparietal network, and limbic network ; however, foci with decreased 2dReHo were located in the somatomotor network, auditory network, and visual network. Additionally, this work found positive correlations between the 2dReHo of bilateral rectus and illness duration, as well as a significant positive correlation between the 2dReHo of right orbital inferior frontal gyrus with the negative scores of the positive and negative syndrome scale in the SZ patients. Therefore, the 2dReHo could provide some effective features contributed to explore the pathophysiology mechanism of SZ. (shrink)

Across many languages and cultures, people tend to explicitly and implicitly associate brightness with God and darkness with the Devil. In the current research, we used an explicit Brightness-Godas...

ABSTRACTThe Moving Time metaphor and the Moving Ego metaphor are common in English speakers’ conceptualization of time. Previous research has suggested a broad range of factors influencing people’s...

The effect of COVID-induced public anxiety on stock markets, particularly in European stock market returns, is examined in this research. The search volumes for the notion of COVID-19 gathered by Google Trends and Wikipedia were used as proxies for COVID-induced public anxiety. COVID-induced public anxiety was shown to be linked with negative returns in European stock markets when a panel data method was used to a sample of data from 14 European stock markets from January 2, 2020 to September 17, (...) 2020. Using an automated trading system, we used this finding to suggest investment methods based on COVID-induced anxiety. The findings of back-testing indicate that these techniques have the potential to generate exceptional profits. These results have significant consequences for government officials, the media, and investors. (shrink)