As an excellent management tool, service guarantee can improve the competitive advantage of enterprises and allow consumers to obtain high-quality products and services. However, in the current Chinese context, this tool has not played its proper function. One important reason is the perception deviation of Chinese consumers. This research analyzes the main reasons for this deviation, puts forward related hypotheses and research models, and discusses the influence of disposition to trust of contract, perceived structural assurance, and subjective norm on service (...) guarantee perception. Also, this study discusses SGP of customers through perceived risk and quality. Through the verification of 574 sample data, the main conclusions are as follows: Disposition to trust of contract, subjective norms, and PSA significantly affect SGP positively; SGP positively affects customer value ; and SGP s are obviously different between people of different ages, education levels, and income levels. Hopefully, these conclusions can have the following enlightenment to enterprises serving Chinese consumers: in the designing stage of service guarantee, perception of customers of this guarantee should be a consideration; CUV can be a proper direction if an enterprise wish to lead the guarantee perception of the customer; Not all products need the same level of service guarantee; and The proper service guarantee level depends on various statistical characteristics of target customers of the service. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Ontologies, as the term is used in informatics, are structured vocabularies comprised of human- and computer-interpretable terms and relations that represent entities and relationships. Within informatics fields, ontologies play an important role in knowledge and data standardization, representation, integra- tion, sharing and analysis. They have also become a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In what follows, we outline the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), which covers multiple areas in the domain of coronavirus diseases, including etiology, transmission, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, (...) prevention, and treatment. We emphasize CIDO development relevant to COVID-19. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

Current COVID-19 pandemic and previous SARS/MERS outbreaks have caused a series of major crises to global public health. We must integrate the large and exponentially growing amount of heterogeneous coronavirus data to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechanisms, in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs. Ontologies have emerged to play an important role in standard knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. We have initiated the development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). (...) As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is an open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. In this article, the general architecture and the design patterns of the CIDO are introduced, CIDO representation of coronaviruses, phenotypes, anti-coronavirus drugs and medical devices (e.g. ventilators) are illustrated, and an application of CIDO implemented to identify repurposable drug candidates for effective and safe COVID-19 treatment is presented. (shrink)

The term "religious Daoism" first appeared in the Xiang'er commentary to the Laozi. Prior to this commentary, historiographical works only mentioned a "Way of Huang-Lao." For example, the "Biography of Huangpu Song" in the History of the Later Han states:Previously, Zhang Jue from Julu had called himself Perfect Master of Great Excellence. He served the Way of Huang-Lao.

The embodied human subject is dynamically connected to his or her historico-sociocultural context, the soil from which a person’s psyche is nourished as multiplex meanings are absorbed and enable personal development. In each culture certain towering artistic works embody this perspective. The Dream of the Red Chamber introduces Jia Bao-yu—a scion of the prestigious Jia family—and his relationships with a large cast of characters. Bao-yu is controversial but, at the time of the family’s tragic collapse, he can be seen as (...) embodying a spiritual struggle in which his instinct, nature, sensitivity, and creativity are grounded in his transcendent relationship with a fragment of the world stone, an eternal source of energy and creativity. We are invited to draw on a metaphysical level of thought to consider his struggles with man-made hierarchies and a situated historico-sociocultural order in such a way as to live out his spiritual being. As such, the novel is closely relevant to questions of spirituality in bioethics. Through personal experiences, passions, creativity, and relationships with others, the body is inscribed, forming the soul, which may be misconstrued (for instance, through a medical or Cartesian reformulation of events) but which can be seen as the site of ethical and spiritual thought. (shrink)

Riben Jiuzhou da xue tu shu guan cang you gu xie Huizhou ben "Zhuzi yu lei" yi bai si shi juan. Huizhou ben shang cheng "Chi lu", xia qi li bian, zai yu lu dao yu lei de xing cheng guo cheng zhong chu yu guan jian de di wei, dui xue jie yan jiu zhu xi si xiang de xing cheng guo cheng, Zhu Xi men ren de qing kuang, jin ben "Zhuzi yu lei" de xing cheng guo cheng (...) yi ji zhong gu shi qi gu Han yu bai hua, ti gong le xin de cai liao he xin de shi ye. (shrink)

本书所探讨是在东亚文化交流的历史脉络中, 儒家经典及其价值理念与日本及朝鲜之地域性特质的互动, 冲突或融合之问题, 尤其聚焦于儒家经典的阅读者之"自我"与"他者"之互动, 以及经典中的知识与东亚各国权力结构之互动.

本书包括科学人文主义产生的背景,科学与人文分裂对立的根源,科学人文主义的逆向途径,科学与人文融合的现实途径等内容。.

Why Be Moral? Learning from the Neo-Confucian Cheng Brothers by Yong Huang is a work of comparative philosophy with an original approach. It is a careful and learned study of two important philosophers in Chinese philosophy, but at the same time it is an interesting and stimulating alternative introduction to fundamental philosophical problems.Huang explains: "My interest is not in exploring the similarities and differences between Confucianism and virtue ethics in the West …, but in seeking the possible contributions (...) Confucianism can make to contemporary virtue ethics". I think Huang is able to deliver very well the goods he has set out to deliver. The topics discussed are all living issues in contemporary... (shrink)

Explores the resources for contemporary ethics found in the work of the Cheng brothers, canonical neo-Confucian philosophers. Yong Huang presents a new way of doing comparative philosophy as he demonstrates the resources for contemporary ethics offered by the Cheng brothers, Cheng Hao (1032–1085) and Cheng Yi (1033–1107), canonical neo-Confucian philosophers. Huang departs from the standard method of Chinese/Western comparison, which tends to interest those already interested in Chinese philosophy. While Western-oriented scholars may be excited to learn about Chinese (...) philosophers who have said things similar to what they or their favored philosophers have to say, they hardly find anything philosophically new from such comparative work. Instead of comparing and contrasting philosophers, each chapter of this book discusses a significant topic in Western moral philosophy, examines the representative views on this topic in the Western tradition, identifies their respective difficulties, and discusses how the Cheng brothers have better things to say on the subject. Topics discussed include why one should be moral, how weakness of will is not possible, whether virtue ethics is self-centered, in what sense the political is also personal, how a moral theory can be of an antitheoretical nature, and whether moral metaphysics is still possible in this postmodern and postmetaphysical age. “This book presents the philosophical ideas of the Cheng brothers intelligently, convincingly, and powerfully. It is among the best books ever written on the Cheng brothers, including works in the Chinese language.” — Kam-por Yu, coeditor of Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously: Contemporary Theories and Applications. (shrink)

本书收录2006年学术年会上以《中华文明与和谐社会》为主题的发言和论文若干篇,内容包括《解读“28个字”》、《可持续发展和中国传统文化的价值》、《儒家和谐思想的现代价值》、《和谐:现代性价值理念的纠正 》等。.

BackgroundThe Public Health Service Increased Risk designation identified organ donors at increased risk of transmitting hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and human immunodeficiency virus. Despite clear data demonstrating a low absolute risk of disease transmission from these donors, patients are hesitant to consent to receiving organs from these donors. We hypothesize that patients who consent to receiving offers from these donors have decreased time to transplant and decreased waitlist mortality.MethodsWe performed a single-center retrospective review of all-comers waitlisted for liver transplant from (...) 2013 to 2019. The three competing risk events (transplant, death, and removal from transplant list) were analyzed. 1603 patients were included, of which 1244 (77.6%) consented to offers from increased risk donors.ResultsCompared to those who did not consent, those who did had 2.3 times the rate of transplant (SHR 2.29, 95% CI 1.88–2.79, p < 0.0001), with a median time to transplant of 11 months versus 14 months (p < 0.0001), as well as a 44% decrease in the rate of death on the waitlist (SHR 0.56, 95% CI 0.42–0.74, p < 0.0001). All findings remained significant after controlling for the recipient age, race, gender, blood type, and MELD. Of those who did not consent, 63/359 (17.5%) received a transplant, all of which were from standard criteria donors, and of those who did consent, 615/1244 (49.4%) received a transplant, of which 183/615 (29.8%) were from increased risk donors.ConclusionsThe findings of decreased rates of transplantation and increased risk of death on the waiting list by patients who were unwilling to accept risks of viral transmission of 1/300–1/1000 in the worst case scenarios suggests that this consent process may be harmful especially when involving “trigger” words such as HIV. The rigor of the consent process for the use of these organs was recently changed but a broader discussion about informed consent in similar situations is important. (shrink)

As part of college teacher team and a worker at the first line of college ideological and political education, college students counselor should update the education philosophy in the new era, confirm the role position, meet the needs of social development, change the method of work according to work conditions, explore new innovative work mechanism, and promote the fast and comprehensive development of college students counselor’s work.

Customer bullying is a common phenomenon, causing short-term emotional distress or having long-term psychological impact on frontline employees of service enterprises, yielding either direct or indirect losses to service enterprises. While existing research has focused on the emotional and psychological impact of customer bullying on employees, little attention has been directed at the impact of customer bullying on negative employee behavior and internal mechanisms. In view of this, this paper draws on conservation of resources theory and discusses how and when (...) customer bullying can lead to unethical behaviors. Furthermore, the mediating role of job insecurity and the moderating effect of organizational identification are analyzed. In study 1, 181 valid questionnaire data were collected at two time points, and regression data analysis was used to explore the effect of customer bullying on unethical behaviors through job insecurity. In study 2, 212 employees were recruited to investigate the moderating effect of organizational identification between customer bullying and unethical behaviors through a scenario experimental study. The results reveal that customer bullying is positively related to employees’ job insecurity and unethical behaviors. Job insecurity partially mediates the positive relationship between customer bullying and unethical behaviors. Further, the regression analysis results indicate that the direct effect of customer bullying on unethical behaviors is moderated by organizational identification. This study provides theoretical guidance for entrepreneurs to reduce both employee job insecurity and unethical behavior. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a evolução das formas de embalagens de mercadorias sob a perspectiva da evolução da mídia e da filosofia da arte. Primeiramente, analisamos a evolução histórica das embalagens de mercadorias, no processo de evolução dos meios, do design artesanal ao digital, revelando as mudanças dos meios de embalagem em diferentes períodos. Posteriormente, na perspectiva da filosofia da arte, tratamos da conotação da embalagem commodity, como forma de arte, e discutimos o uso de elementos artísticos (...) no design de embalagens e seu papel na transmissão de emoções e conceitos. Neste contexto, adotamos a evolução da filosofia da mídia e da arte como ponto de entrada para analisar a evolução das formas de embalagem de mercadorias. (shrink)

Twenty classes in ten schools with 627 sixth?grade students in five cities in Taiwan participated in this study. The research provides information on the performance differences among written computation, pictorial representation, symbolic representation and number sense. The results of One?way ANOVA analysis indicate that significant difference was found among WCT, PRT, SRT and NST tests, with F=536.327, p=0.000. The a posteriori comparisons show for each pair (WCT vs PRT, WCT vs SRT, WCT vs NST, PRT vs SRT and SRT vs (...) NST) significant difference at the 0.001 level (p=0.000), except for the pair comparison between PRT and NST. This implies that these Taiwanese students were highly skilled in written computation but their written skills were not equally transferred to use of non?computational paths that depended on symbolic representation, pictorial representation and number sense to solve similar problems. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is regarded in the context of the tasks that are delegated to it during the development of technical projects and the features of the implementation of tasks that must be performed in real time without the possibility of interruption. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that artificial intelligence sees as its main task the formalisation of decision-making with little or no human involvement. The basis of the methodological search are biological and prognostic methods. The (...) current stage of development of socio-humanitarian technologies, and in particular, systems with artificial intelligence, prompts people to conduct such socio-technical projects, for the implementation of which the properties of the human biological brain are no longer enough. The result of research on artificial intelligence is the desire to understand the work of the human brain, to reveal the secrets of human consciousness and the problem of creating machines with a certain level of human intelligence. The novelty of the study is determined by the fact that the understanding of artificial intelligence is primarily aimed at creating an environment that can distinguish artificial intelligence from the entire array of technological devices not only as a platform of knowledge and program code. The practical significance of the study is determined by the necessity for standardisation and the formation of attitudes and the acceptability of the use of artificial intelligence in tasks that will subsequently affect social development. (shrink)

Ben shu zhu yao yan yong bing zun xun "li shi yu luo ji xiang tong yi" de yuan ze he fang fa, xiang xi shu li, jian tao zuo wei ming dai zhong qi si xiang jia de Huang Wan, qi yi sheng dao xue si xiang jin zhan guo cheng zhong cong Song ru zhi xue (li xue) dao Wang Yangming liang zhi xue (xin xue), zai dao hui gui jing dian (jing xue) de yan bian li (...) cheng, yi qi lun zheng qi xue shu yan bian fan shi zhi yu Ming Qing xue shu zhuan xing de "xian dao xing" dian fan yi yi. (shrink)

The BP neural network model is a hot issue in recent academic research, and it has been successfully applied to many other fields, but few researchers apply the BP neural network model to the field of automobile insurance. The main method that has been used in the prediction of the total claim amount in automobile insurance is the generalized linear model, where the BP neural network model could provide a different approach to estimate the total claim loss. This paper uses (...) a genetic algorithm to optimize the structure of the BP neural network at first, and the calculation speed is significantly improved. At the same time, by considering the overfitting problem, an early stop method is introduced to avoid the overfitting problem. In the model, a three-layer BP neural network model, which includes the input layer, hidden layer, and output layer, is trained. With consideration of various factors, a total claim amount prediction model is established, and the trained BP neural network model is used to predict the total claim amount of automobile insurance based on the data of the training set. The results show that the accuracy of the prediction by using the BP neural network model to both the data of Shandong Province and to the data of six cities is over 95%. Then, the predicted total claim amount is used to calculate premiums for five cities in Shandong Province according to credibility theory. The results show that the average premium of the five cities is slightly higher than the actual claim amount of the city. The combination of BP neural network and credibility theory can perform accurate claim amount estimation and pricing for automobile insurance, which can effectively improve the current situation of the automobile insurance business and promote the development of insurance industry. (shrink)

This study employs an experiment investigating cognitive mapping of fifth-grade children living in a remote village environment, wherein characteristics of the landscape included paths, landmarks, nodes, edges, and districts. Two aspects of analysis were salient in this study. First, important landscape characteristics and their frequency of appearance in the cognitive maps were tabulated and illustrated as a layout map. Second, inaccurate cognitive maps were structurally analyzed to account for any incompleteness, distortions, and augmentation of actual environments found in some map (...) samples. Focus on gender differences in children’s environmental cognition in terms of symbolic representation skills utilized in cognitive mapping is of special interest in this case study. Results confirm Piaget’s theory that older children, aged ten or more, begin to use projective and Euclidean concepts. Furthermore, boys used a greater variety of symbols to represent a particular landscape characteristic, a cultural temple, than did the girls. Finally, we hypothesize that the ‘hunter–gatherer’ social divisions of labor between men and women in the village’s early historical social structure are consequentially related to gender discrepancies in cognitive mapping symbolic representation skills, in non-English-speaking children. (shrink)

Ben shu wei wo she chong dian tu shu hua xia wen ku ru xue shu xi zhong di yi ben. Gai shu yi jian ming de wen zi gou le le Gu Yanwu, Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi san wei Ming mo da ru sheng huo de shi dai bei jing, hong ru de sheng ping jing li, ta men de xue shu zao yi (zhu yao zhi ta men zai ru xue fang mian de cheng jiu), cheng yu (...) jiao you yi ji san wei zai li shi shang de di wei he gong xian, ta men ren sheng de kan ke du lai ling ren bu sheng xi. (shrink)

AimPatients with high myopia reportedly exhibit changes in functional brain activity, but the mechanism underlying such changes is unclear. This study was conducted to observe differences in dynamic spontaneous brain activity between patients with HM and healthy controls via dynamic regional homogeneity analysis.MethodsResting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were performed on 82 patients with HM and 59 HCs who were closely matched for age, sex, and weight. The dReHo approach was used to assess local dynamic activity in the human brain. (...) The association between mean dReHo signal values and clinical symptoms in distinct brain areas in patients with HM was determined via correlation analysis.ResultsIn the left fusiform gyrus, right inferior temporal gyrus, right Rolandic operculum, right postcentral gyrus, and right precentral gyrus, dReHo values were significantly greater in patients with HM than in HCs.ConclusionPatients with HM have distinct functional changes in various brain regions that mainly include the L-FG, R-ITG, R-ROL, R-PoCG, and R-PreCG. These findings constitute important evidence for the roles of brain networks in the pathophysiological mechanisms of HM and may aid in the diagnosis of HM. (shrink)

Perception of time plays a fundamental role in human social activities, and it can be influenced in social situations by various factors, including facial attractiveness. However, in the eyes of observers of different genders, the attractiveness of a face varies. The current study aimed to explore whether gender modulates the effect of facial attractiveness on perception of time. To account for individual differences in aesthetic standards, the critical stimuli presented to each participant were selected from an image pool based on (...) the participant’s own attractiveness judgments. Using a temporal reproduction task, we measured the perception of time by men and women during viewing of faces of different attractiveness and gender. The results show that attractive opposite-sex faces elicited longer reproduced durations in men than unattractive opposite-sex faces, while facial attractiveness did not affect men’s reproduced durations in the case of same-sex faces. Conversely, women exhibited longer reproduced durations for attractive faces than for unattractive faces, regardless of facial gender. These results suggest that gender difference plays an important role in the effect of facial attractiveness on time perception. (shrink)

AimResting state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to analyze changes in functional connectivity within various brain networks and functional network connectivity among various brain regions in patients with high myopia.Methodsrs-fMRI was used to scan 82 patients with HM and 59 healthy control volunteers matched for age, sex, and education level. Fourteen resting state networks were extracted, of which 11 were positive. Then, the FCs and FNCs of RSNs in HM patients were examined by independent component analysis.ResultsCompared with the HC (...) group, FC in visual network 1, dorsal attention network, auditory network 2, visual network 3, and sensorimotor network significantly increased in the HM group. FC in default mode network 1 significantly decreased. Furthermore, some brain regions in default mode network 2, default mode network 3, auditory network 1, executive control network, and significance network increased while others decreased. FNC analysis also showed that the network connection between the default mode network and cerebellar network was enhanced in the HM group.ConclusionCompared with HCs, HM patients showed neural activity dysfunction within and between specific brain networks, particularly in the DMN and CER. Thus, HM patients may have deficits in visual, cognitive, and motor balance functions. (shrink)

This study is intended to create an innovative contextual English learning environment making use of the widely used communication software, LINE ChatBot, based on the Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, in order to improve speaking and listening ability among learners. A total of 73 students were invited to participate in learning activities involving a 4-week English conversation exercise including both speaking and listening. Additionally, in order to explore the influence of competition on language acquisition, we added competition characteristics to the learning (...) activities in the experimental group to enhance learning motivation and learning outcomes. The results showed that with the help of the LINE ChatBot contextual learning environment, the performance of both groups of students was slightly enhanced, but no significant differences were found. Meanwhile, extrinsic motivation in both the experimental and control group was improved if they spoke anonymously. That is, the contextual learning environment based on the LINE ChatBot significantly improved the learners’ English speaking and listening ability. In addition, the results showed that the addition of a competition element effectively enhanced the learners’ intrinsic motivation to learn English on the LINE ChatBot. (shrink)

Recent studies have found abnormal levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in a variety of central nervous system diseases. This suggests that BDNF may be involved in the pathogenesis of these diseases. Moreover, regulating BDNF signaling may represent a potential treatment for such diseases. With reference to recent research papers in related fields, this article reviews the production and regulation of BDNF in CNS and the role of BDNF signaling disorders in these diseases. A brief introduction of the clinical application status (...) of BDNF is also provided. (shrink)

Cognitive semantic studies have shown that our conceptualization of morality is at least partially metaphorical and that our moral cognition is grounded in some fundamental contrastive categories of our embodied experience in the physical environment. It is argued that our moral cognition is built on a moral metaphor system. Within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, this study aims to examine the spatial subsystem of moral metaphors in English. We set out with five pairs of moral metaphors that involve the (...) following spatial source concepts: HIGH and LOW, UPRIGHT and TILTED, LEVEL and UNLEVEL, STRAIGHT and CROOKED, and BIG and SMALL. These metaphors were found to constitute the spatial subsystem of moral metaphors in Chinese. Our primary goal is to find out if the five pairs of moral–spatial metaphors are manifested in English as well. To that end we collected linguistic data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and searched Google Images for multimodal evidence. Our finding is that the five pairs of moral–spatial metaphors are applicable in English as they are in Chinese. We also discuss issues related to conceptual metaphor theory. (shrink)

Does the level of marketing activity in a country contribute to societal well-being or quality of life? Does economic efficiency also play a positive role in societal well-being? Does economic efficiency also moderate or mediate the marketing activity effect on societal well-being? Marketing activity refers to the pervasiveness of promotion expenditures and number of retail outlets per capita in a country. Economic efficiency refers to the extent to which the economy is unhampered by corruption, burdensome government regulation, and a large (...) informal economy. We used secondary data from the World Bank and other statistical sources to answer these questions. Our study findings suggest that both marketing activity and economic efficiency contribute positively to societal well-being, and that economic efficiency plays more of a mediator than moderator role between marketing activity and societal well-being. The public policy implication of this study is that increases in marketing activity and economic efficiency in countries characterized as low on both dimensions should significantly increase the quality of life in those countries. (shrink)

Exploring the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention is crucial to entrepreneurial practice and education. For a comprehensive understanding of the influence of narcissistic personality on entrepreneurial intention, this study analyzed the relationship between narcissistic personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention in college students sampled from three higher vocational colleges in Beijing, China. A total of 252 valid questionnaires were collected. The results show that the narcissistic personality of the college students has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. (...) Entrepreneurial self-efficacy of the college students has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial intention and plays a partial mediation role in the relationship between narcissistic personality and entrepreneurial intention. Thus, the study results provide some reference for further improving entrepreneurial practice and education. (shrink)