The Chinese economy has developed rapidly since the reform and opening up, but economic growth in Northeast China has declined dramatically after the 21st century. In this context, exploring the characteristics of economic and industrial fluctuations in the northeast of China and their relationship is beneficial to alleviating economic fluctuations and promoting stable economic development from the perspective of industrial development. The relationship between economic and industrial fluctuations in the three provinces of Northeast China was reexamined from the angle of (...) fluctuation components with the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise algorithm. The results obtained are as follows: In the three northeastern provinces of China, economic fluctuations were almost free from the influence of the primary industry, most affected by the secondary industry, and gradually influenced by the tertiary industry after the 21st century. Regarding the short-term business cycle of each province, economic development was the most stable when the market and government participated in the development of the secondary industry simultaneously. The midterm business cycle of Jilin Province was affected by the investment of equipment in secondary and tertiary industries, while that of Liaoning Province was affected by the investment of equipment in the secondary industry. Investment in the equipment of the secondary industry and the construction of secondary and tertiary industries was the key to maintaining the stability of long-term business cycle in Heilongjiang Province, and that in the construction of secondary and tertiary industries was the key to maintaining the stability of long-term business cycles in Jilin and Liaoning Provinces. (shrink)

The production of emotional speech is determined by the movement of the speaker’s tongue, lips, and jaw. In order to combine articulatory data and acoustic data of speakers, articulatory-to-acoustic conversion of emotional speech has been studied. In this paper, parameters of LSSVM model have been optimized using the PSO method, and the optimized PSO-LSSVM model was applied to the articulatory-to-acoustic conversion. The root mean square error and mean Mel-cepstral distortion have been used to evaluate the results of conversion; the evaluated (...) result illustrates that MMCD of MFCC is 1.508 dB, and RMSE of the second formant is 25.10 Hz. The results of this research can be further applied to the feature fusion of emotion speech recognition to improve the accuracy of emotion recognition. (shrink)

Research ethics committees and institutional review boards spend considerable time developing, scrutinising, and revising specific consent processes and materials for survey-based studies conducted on crowdsourcing and online recruitment platforms such as MTurk and Prolific. However, there is evidence to suggest that many users of ICT services do not read the information provided as part of the consent process and they habitually provide or refuse their consent without adequate reflection. In principle, these practices call into question the validity of their consent. (...) In this paper we argue that although the ‘no read problem’ and the routinisation of consent may apply to research participants’ consent practices for studies on crowdsourcing platforms, this is not a serious problem. Furthermore, given that the informational requirements for informed consent in these contexts are minimal, we argue that these participants are, nevertheless, sufficiently informed to give valid consent. We conclude that research ethics committees and institutional review boards should only agonise over the precise details of the informed consent process and materials in those rare cases where appreciable risks to research participants need to be managed. (shrink)

Research based on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) argues that firms will actively adopt strategic actions to respond to performance that falls below aspirations, that is performance shortfalls. However, most previous studies have focused on market-related strategic actions, paying less attention to the impact of performance shortfalls on non-market-related strategic actions, especially corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). In this study, we propose that firms facing performance shortfalls are likely to reduce CSR levels and increase (...) CSI levels. In addition, we also propose that board characteristics (board size, board age and board tenure) have a significant moderating effect on the above relationship. Empirical analyses based on an unbalanced panel data of China's listed firms from 2010 to 2018 show that our arguments are largely supported. (shrink)

Background Ethical challenges constitute an inseparable part of daily decision-making processes in all areas of healthcare. Ethical challenges are associated with moral distress that can lead to burnout. Clinical ethics support has proven useful to address and manage such challenges. This paper explores how prehospital emergency personnel manage ethical challenges. The study is part of a larger action research project to develop and test an approach to clinical ethics support that is sensitive to the context of emergency medicine. Methods We (...) explored ethical challenges and management strategies in three focus groups, with 15 participants in total, each attended by emergency medical technicians, paramedics, and prehospital anaesthesiologists. Focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The approach to data analysis was systematic text condensation approach. Results We stratified the management of ethical challenges into actions before, during, and after incidents. Before incidents, participants stressed the importance of mutual understandings, shared worldviews, and a supportive approach to managing emotions. During an incident, the participants employed moral perception, moral judgments, and moral actions. After an incident, the participants described sharing ethical challenges only to a limited extent as sharing was emotionally challenging, and not actively supported by workplace culture, or organisational procedures. The participants primarily managed ethical challenges informally, often using humour to cope. Conclusion Our analysis supports and clarifies that confidence, trust, and safety in relation to colleagues, management, and the wider organisation are essential for prehospital emergency personnel to share ethical challenges and preventing moral distress turning into burnout. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Motivation has an effect on the rate and success of second language (L2) learning. However, little is known about its role in students’ levels of L2 pragmatic awareness. This study investigated whether and to what extent students’ L2 motivation influences their pragmatic awareness. A total of 498 Chinese university students completed a two-part web-based survey (an appropriateness judgement task and a motivation questionnaire), of whom 12 were subsequently interviewed. The quantitative results show that pragmatic awareness correlates positively with attitudes towards (...) the L2 community and the intended learning efforts. Moreover, a model combining the intended learning efforts, attitudes towards the L2 community and attitudes towards learning English can significantly predict pragmatic awareness. The analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals a mismatch between students’ immediate needs when learning English and outcomes of pragmatic acquisition, which may contribute to the absent correlation between overall levels of L2 motivation and pragmatic awareness. (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)

The spatial organization of the genome is intimately linked to its biological function, yet our understanding of higher order genomic structure is coarse, fragmented and incomplete. In the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, interphase chromosomes occupy distinct.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 17-32, January 2022.

The Covid-19 pandemic creates an unprecedented threatening situation worldwide with an urgent need for critical reflection and new knowledge production, but also a need for imminent action despite prevailing knowledge gaps and multilevel uncertainty. With regard to the role of research ethics in these pandemic times some argue in favor of exceptionalism, others, including the authors of this paper, emphasize the urgent need to remain committed to core ethical principles and fundamental human rights obligations all reflected in research regulations and (...) guidelines carefully crafted over time. In this paper we disentangle some of the arguments put forward in the ongoing debate about Covid-19 human challenge studies and the concomitant role of health-related research ethics in pandemic times. We suggest it might be helpful to think through a lens differentiating between risk, strict uncertainty and ignorance. We provide some examples of lessons learned by harm done in the name of research in the past and discuss the relevance of this legacy in the current situation. (shrink)

How are we individually and as a society to handle new and emerging technologies? This challenging question underlies much of the bioethical debates of modern times. To address this question we need suitable conceptions of the new technology and ways of identifying its proper management and regulation. To establish conceptions and to find ways to handle emerging technologies we tend to use analogies extensively. The aim of this article is to investigate the role that analogies play or may play in (...) the processes of understanding and managing new technology. More precisely we aim to unveil the role of analogies as analytical devices in exploring the "being" of the new technology as well the normative function of analogies in conceptualizing the characteristics and applications of new technology. Umbilical cord blood biobanking will be used as a case to investigate these roles and functions. (shrink)

This Special Issue collects five articles that are located in the present global context, and draw on methods from across critical discourse studies (CDS) to examine the interaction between material realities of climate change and discursive communication between different Parties and non-Party stakeholders in multimodal ways and on multiple platforms. To this end, it draws on discourses such as the UN speeches, UN documents, EU green deal policy, official documents submitted by African countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on (...) Climate Change (UNFCCC), and news reports in China and Australia. In these studies, diverse social and linguistic concepts were utilized and revisited to better inform the use of linguistic and/or visual symbols in different types of public discourse. This Special Issue aims to take the field a step further by showing the importance of carrying out more international research to expand our knowledge of the global, regional, and local discourse and ideologies that shape what we come to know and understand as climate change and how it is to be addressed. We envisage it will bring significant theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights into the relations between language use, discursive practice, and social practice. (shrink)

In this paper, the properties of the super quantum measures are studied. Firstly, the products of Dirac measures are discussed; Secondly, based on the properties of Dirac measures, the structures of super quantum measures are characterized; At last, we prove that any super quantum measure can determine a unique diagonally positive strongly symmetric signed measure. This result verifies the conjecture which was proposed by Gudder.

How does perception provide reasons for our empirical judgements? This volume offers a set of new essays which in different ways address this fundamental question, and investigate the implications for our understanding of perceptual experience.

Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project survey, we find that self-employed women have lower levels of well-being compared with their male counterparts. When comparing individuals' well-being in self-employment and wage-employment, we discover that self-employed men have higher levels of health, the standard of living, satisfaction, and life satisfaction compared with wage-employed men, whereas self-employed women have lower levels of health and life satisfaction than their counterparts in wage-employment. Furthermore, if a given self-employed man or woman had been selected (...) for wage employment, their well-being would not improve. Hence, self-employed women face a double challenge: lower well-being than both self-employed men and wage-employed women. The article discusses recommendations for future research and policy implications. (shrink)

Temporal expectation is the ability to focus attention at a particular moment in time to optimize performance, which has been shown to be driven by regular rhythms. However, whether the rhythm-based temporal expectations rely upon automatic processing or require the involvement of controlled processing has not been clearly established. Furthermore, whether the mechanism is affected by tempo remains unknown. To investigate this research question, the present study used a dual-task procedure. In a single task, the participants were instructed to respond (...) to a visual target preceded by a regular or an irregular visual rhythm under a fast or slow tempo. The dual-task simultaneously combined a working memory task. The results showed temporal expectation effects in which the participants responded faster to the regular than to the irregular conditions in a single task. Moreover, this effect persisted under dual-task interference in the fast tempo condition but was impaired in the slow tempo condition. These results revealed that rhythmic temporal expectation induced by fast tempo was dependent on automatic processing. However, compared with the faster tempo, temporal expectation driven by a slower tempo might involve more controlled processing. (shrink)

The consistent tanh expansion method is successfully applied to the coupled integrable dispersionless system. A nonauto-Bäcklund transformation theorem includes two fields f and v 1 is obtained by using the CTE method. One obtains the consistent condition in the nonauto-BT theorem by means of the relation between the fields f and v 1. The CID system possesses the CTE solvability property by some detailed analysis. Many interactions between one soliton and multiple resonant solitons, and between one soliton and cnoidal waves (...) are generated by using the nonauto-BT theorem. The types of bright and gray two front waves are shown by some figures. In the meanwhile, the nonlocal symmetry is obtained by the truncated Painlevé method and the Möbious invariant form. The initial value problem and an auto-BT are constructed by the localization procedure. (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)

This study examined the effect of physical exercise on the life satisfaction among college students. On the basis of the Basic Psychological Need Theory, the mediating roles of competence and relatedness needs satisfaction and their differences among college students in physical education majors and non-PE majors were explored. The sample included 1,012 college students who were selected to participate in an online survey. Major findings were as follows: The total effect of physical exercise commitment on college students’ life satisfaction was (...) marginally significant while that of physical exercise adherence was not significant; The effect of physical exercise commitment was observed exclusively through the mediating role of relatedness need satisfaction, while that of physical exercise adherence was through both competence and relatedness needs satisfaction; In terms of differences caused by major, only one mediation path, that was, physical exercise → competence need satisfaction → college students’s life satisfaction was significant among PE majors. This study thus enriched the empirical research on the benefits of physical exercise to individual mental health, highlighted the particularity of college students majoring in PE, and provided targeted and sensible suggestions for the design of physical exercise intervention programs. (shrink)

Integrating the behavioral theory of the firm and agency theory, this study is the first to examine the antecedents of firms' choice to disclose low-quality accounting information from the perspective of performance persistence below aspirations. Based on empirical data of 31,326 firm-annual observations involving 3584 listed companies for the 2007–2021 period, we find that firms actively reduce accounting information reliability and comparability in the presence of performance persistence below aspirations. Furthermore, we find that CEO-CFO surname ties enhance the negative effect (...) of performance persistence below aspirations on accounting information comparability. Finally, we find that agency costs play a mediating role in the relationship that performance persistence below aspirations has with accounting information reliability and comparability. This study is the first to examine performance persistence below aspirations and accounting information reliability and comparability. Meanwhile, this study provides important insights for policymakers to improve the quality of capital market information and for shareholders to improve the quality of corporate governance. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Bioethics Genethics Medical Ethics.

This book undertakes an extensive study of the constellation of two eminent thinkers of post-idealism for the first time. The contributions in this volume analyze the relationship between Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard systematically and historically from a number of thematic perspectives: metaphysics and ethics, freedom and original sin, existential philosophy and the theory of suffering, art and aesthetics, religion and science. The book also goes into Kierkegaard s explicit disagreement with Schopenhauer and last but not least discusses the conflicting poles of (...) idealism and modernity. The volume is rounded off by a first complete and annotated German translation of the notes on Schopenhauer, which Kierkegaard wrote in his late journals.". (shrink)

Creative association is inherent and essential to creativity and insight. Here we utilised a Chinese compound Remote Associates Task (cRAT) to identify the potential impact of word order (i.e., solution position hereinafter) and word frequency on creative association across two behavioural experiments. Experiment 1 identified the effects of (a) word order and word frequency on cRAT-induced association without considering the specific strategies used during solving such problems and (b) their interaction not only on performance in solving the cRAT, including solution (...) time and accuracy, but also on difficulty rating. Following a coarse-to-fine approach, Experiment 2 examined the effect of both factors on creative association determined according to each participant’s trial-by-trial reports regarding insight solution strategies. Main effects of word order and word frequency, and a two-way interaction, were found on the accuracy and self-rated difficulty. These findings shed light on creative association, multiply-constrained problem solving and constructing compounds. (shrink)

ObjectiveNumerous studies have demonstrated that religious belief is associated with prosocial behavior. However, how do they maintain cooperation in societies with a predominating atheist population, such as China? Different primings and a quasi-experiment are used to examine the link between communist authority and prosocial behaviors among college students in China.Materials and methodsIn Study 1, the subjects’ communist authority in the university lab was primed by a communist-authority video. In Study 2, we compared the priming effects of communist authority and religion (...) on prosocial intention. Study 3 investigated the priming effect of communist authority on prosocial behaviors by employing a scrambled sentence task in the university lab. A quasi-experiment was conducted in Study 4.ResultsResults showed that communist-authority, a reminder of secular authorities, increased prosociality among college students. And empathy moderated the relationship between secular authorities and prosociality in Study 3 and Study 4.DiscussionCommunist authority, a secular authority prime, has a positive effect on promoting prosocial behaviors. These results provided a feasible yet novel way to reveal the mechanism of the relationship between secular authorities and prosociality in China. (shrink)

This study employs quantitative and qualitative methodologies mainly to examine how UNFCCC Executive Secretaries use concessive but-constructions and linguistic polyphony to implicitly argue points of view and convey stance in speeches on climate change. Our findings indicate that, in order to achieve its goals for global climate governance while adhering to humanitarian and diplomatic principles, UNFCCC speeches delivered to the Parties to the Convention and the Stakeholders emphasize the urgent need for concerted action on climate change while implicitly expressing discontent (...) and mild criticism of various Parties and Stakeholders for failing to do their fair share in support of such action. This style of discourse aims to promote group unity, solidarity, and transparency while minimizing the possibility of offending any Parties or Stakeholders. Nevertheless, given the urgency of addressing climate change challenges, we advise that UNFCCC speakers utilize more explicit linguistic methods that exert more direct pressure on specific Parties or Stakeholders who fail to assume their share of responsibility. In addition, we suggest that the UNFCCC focus on enabling the implementation of practical actions to limit the effects of global warming, while continuing to urge affluent countries to provide developing countries with much-needed financial and technological help. (shrink)

As global warming becomes increasingly prominent, countries worldwide advocate for a low-carbon economy to cope with the pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Chinese government has proposed a “dual carbon” goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2060. The disclosure of carbon information by Chinese enterprises has attracted widespread attention from society. This study selects the constituents of the Social Responsibility Index of China Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2020 as samples to empirically (...) analyze the relationship between the level of carbon information disclosure and corporate value, and the moderating effect of greenwashing behavior. Results indicated that the quality of carbon disclosure is positively correlated with the enterprise value. Greenwashing behavior promotes the positive impact of carbon disclosure quality on enterprise value in the short run, but this promoting effect fades in the long run. We further found that the carbon information disclosure of non-heavy-pollution enterprises has a more obvious positive impact on enterprise value than that of heavily polluting enterprises. Additionally, the positive impact of carbon information disclosure on enterprise value is more visible among enterprises in a good legal environment than those in a poor legal environment. This study enriches the relevant literature on carbon information disclosure and enterprise “greenwashing” behavior and has practical significance for promoting China’s low-carbon development in the context of ecological civilization and improving the enthusiasm for the quality of enterprise carbon information disclosure. (shrink)

The volume advances research in the philosophy of technology by introducing contributors who have an acute sense of how to get beyond or reframe the epistemic, ontological and normative limitations that currently limit the fields of philosophy of technology and science and technology studies.

Flap EndoNuclease‐1 (FEN‐1) is a multifunctional and structure‐specific nuclease involved in nucleic acid processing pathways. It plays a critical role in maintaining human genome stability through RNA primer removal, long‐patch base excision repair and resolution of dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeat secondary structures. In addition to its flap endonuclease (FEN) and nick exonuclease (EXO) activities, a new gap endonuclease (GEN) activity has been characterized. This activity may be important in apoptotic DNA fragmentation and in resolving stalled DNA replication forks. The multiple (...) functions of FEN‐1 are regulated via several means, including formation of complexes with different protein partners, nuclear localization in response to cell cycle or DNA damage and post‐translational modifications. Its functional deficiency is predicted to cause genetic diseases, including Huntington's disease, myotonic dystrophy and cancers. This review summarizes the knowledge gained through efforts in the past decade to define its structural elements for specific activities and possible pathological consequences of altered functions of this multirole player. BioEssays 27:717–729, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Guardate gli uccelli del cielo --Escrizi di cristianesimo -- L'arte di raccontare storie ai bambini -- Aver bisogno di Dio è la suprema perfezione dell'essere umano.

This corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of news reports on air pollution published from 2008 through 2015 by China Daily, China’s largest official English-language newspaper, reveals a significant attitudinal shift around the end of 2011 as regards public awareness of increasing air pollution levels in China and related public criticism. It also constructs a clear image of the increasing determination and resolve of the Chinese central government over the course of this 8-year period to take action to effectively reduce air pollution. (...) This study highlights the submissive role played by the official Chinese press in their reporting on air pollution under the strict censorship system of the Communist Party of China, as well as the socio-political role that international sporting events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games played in raising both public and governmental awareness of environmental issues. (shrink)