Background and PurposeTranscranial direct current stimulation is an emerging non-invasive neuromodulation technique for focal epilepsy. Because epilepsy is a disease affecting the brain network, our study was aimed to evaluate and predict the treatment outcome of cathodal tDCS by analyzing the ctDCS-induced functional network alterations.MethodsEither the active 5-day, −1.0 mA, 20-min ctDCS or sham ctDCS targeting at the most active interictal epileptiform discharge regions was applied to 27 subjects suffering from focal epilepsy. The functional networks before and after ctDCS were (...) compared employing graph theoretical analysis based on the functional magnetic resonance imaging data. A support vector machine prediction model was built to predict the treatment outcome of ctDCS using the graph theoretical measures as markers.ResultsOur results revealed that the mean clustering coefficient and the global efficiency decreased significantly, as well as the characteristic path length and the mean shortest path length at the stimulation sites in the fMRI functional networks increased significantly after ctDCS only for the patients with response to the active ctDCS. Our prediction model achieved the mean prediction accuracy of 68.3% after the nested cross validation. The mean area under the receiver operating curve was 0.75, which showed good prediction performance.ConclusionThe study demonstrated that the response to ctDCS was related to the topological alterations in the functional networks of epilepsy patients detected by fMRI. The graph theoretical measures were promising for clinical prediction of ctDCS treatment outcome. (shrink)

Anxious major depressive disorder is a common subtype of major depressive disorder; however, its unique neural mechanism is not well-understood currently. Using multimodal MRI data, this study examined common and specific alterations of amygdala subregions between patients with and without anxiety. No alterations were observed in the gray matter volume or intra-region functional integration in either patient group. Compared with the controls, both patient groups showed decreased functional connectivity between the left superficial amygdala and the left putamen, and between the (...) right superficial amygdala and the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex and medial orbitofrontal cortex, while only patients with anxiety exhibited decreased activity in the bilateral laterobasal and superficial amygdala. Moreover, the decreased activity correlated negatively with the Hamilton depression scale scores in the patients with anxiety. These findings provided insights into the pathophysiologic processes of anxious major depressive disorder and may help to develop new and effective treatment programs. (shrink)

SummaryIn 1684, during the Edo period (1603–1868), the imperial court of Japan passed a reform act that resulted in a new almanac called the Jôkyô almanac. This was the first reform in more than eight hundred years, and marked a departure from the past practice of adopting almanacs from China. Yet, the reform was complicated, and it was achieved after decades through the efforts of Shibukawa Harumi (1639–1715). How was the reform accomplished, and why was it significant? In this study, (...) I will focus on Harumi's role in the reform. I propose to examine the reform as the culmination of a process deeply linked to Harumi's political connections and his intellectual growth especially in the field of calendrical sciences. I will show that this approach of looking at the reform by analyzing different aspects of Harumi's life has implications for understanding trends in society in seventeenth-century Japan. First, despite the ban on Christianity, intellectuals like Harumi assimilated European sciences in unique ways. Second, Harumi's activities exemplified how intellectual ties were increasingly embedded within political networks. Overall, I will argue that the reform of the almanac, viewed as a process surrounding the core figure of Harumi, was driven by scientific goals and personal ambitions. (shrink)

How to make use of the leaders’ psychological capital to improve the innovation behavior of employees is an important issue for the talent management of enterprises today, and it is also the goal that enterprises must pursue if they want to stand out in the fierce competition. Therefore, in this study, 154 enterprises in high-tech area were selected for questionnaire survey. The correlation between lead-member exchange (LMX) relationship (emotion, loyalty, contribution, professional respect), leaders' psychological capital (confidence, hope, optimism, tenacity), and (...) employees' innovation behaviors were analyzed by multivariate regression. Hierarchical regression method was used to examine the mediating effect of the LEX. It was found that confidence, toughness, and contribution were significantly positively correlated with employee innovation behavior (P<0.000). The positive correlation between hope, optimism, emotion, and loyalty with employees' innovation behavior was significant (P<0.05). Emotion, loyalty, and contribution had mediating effects on the leaders’ psychological capital and the innovation behavior of employees. In conclusion, the leaders’ psychological capital can have a significant positive effect on the innovation behavior of employees directly, and it can also have an indirect positive effect on the innovation behavior of employees by maintaining high quality LMX. (shrink)

We prove that every Turing degree a bounding some non-GL₂ degree is recursively enumerable in and above (r.e.a.) some 1-generic degree.

The purpose of this paper is to explore job performance, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from an ethical perceptive. A great number of studies have extensively discussed the link between M&A and performance; however, most focused on the financial functions and strategy selections. Although ethical issues emerge in the M&A process, it is a less studied area. This study adopted the structural equation modeling approach to empirically test our hypotheses. Based on 264 samples from financial companies, data analyses indicated that ethical (...) conduct in M&A is significantly correlated with employee job performance. Ensuring employment security and caring practices can significantly explain organizational commitment. Organizational commitment also plays a significant mediating role between a company’s ethical conduct and employee job performance. Managerial implications are also provided. (shrink)

Interval time-varying delay is common in control process, e.g., automatic robot control system, and its stability analysis is of great significance to ensure the reliable control of industrial processes. In order to improve the conservation of the existing robust stability analysis method, this paper considers a class of linear systems with norm-bounded uncertainty and interval time-varying delay as the research object. Less conservative robust stability criterion is put forward based on augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional method and reciprocally convex combination. Firstly, the (...) delay interval is partitioned into multiple equidistant subintervals, and a new Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional comprising quadruple-integral term is introduced for each subinterval. Secondly, a novel delay-dependent stability criterion in terms of linear matrix inequalities is given by less conservative Wirtinger-based integral inequality approach. Three numerical comparative examples are given to verify the superiority of the proposed approach in reducing the conservation of conclusion. For the first example about closed-loop control systems with interval time-varying delays, the proposed robust stability criterion could get MADB about 0.3 more than the best results in the previous literature; and, for two other uncertain systems with interval time-varying delays, the MADB results obtained by the proposed method are better than those in the previous literature by about 0.045 and 0.054, respectively. All the example results obtained in this paper clearly show that our approach is better than other existing methods. (shrink)

Accountability is a core element for groups and societies to operate efficiently. However, there have been confusing findings in previous studies on felt accountability, and few efforts have been made to clarify its complicated role. Drawing on self-determination theory, we developed an integrative model to examine the double-edged sword effect of felt accountability on work outcomes and individual wellbeing. We utilized a three-wave sample of 294 employees to test our hypotheses. The findings supported our hypotheses. Specifically, felt accountability is positively (...) related to both task performance and emotional exhaustion, and obsessive passion mediates the positive relationship between felt accountability and task performance, while work overload mediates the positive relationship between felt accountability and emotional exhaustion. This study integrates the positive and dark sides of felt accountability, provides new insights into its mechanism and expands the application of self-determination theory. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of the board chair's role on the relationship between board human capital and firm performance. Board human capital has been regarded as a valuable asset that enhances firm performance. Especially, the board chair plays a crucial role in developing this high-echelon human capital. This study utilises a set of longitudinal data to examine 275 firms in Taiwan. The result indicates that board human capital is positively related to firm performance, and the individual (...) human capital of the board chair represents a moderating effect on the relationship between board human capital and performance. (shrink)

To guide the design direction of emotion regulation products that improve the positive emotions of users, investigation into the correlation between relevant visual factors and multi-dimensional complex emotions is needed. In the present study, an extended product emotion measurement method was adopted to describe the multi-dimensional emotional set of each influencing factor and calculate their weight according to the order. The positive and negative emotion indicators of all influencing factors were compared and the evaluation and ranking factors that affect users’ (...) emotional value of emotion regulation products were analyzed. The experimental results reveal that specific emotion mapping scenes on positive emotion are the most significant among the key factors affecting user emotion. Further, the influence of emotional stickers, interactive data visualization, and text on positive emotions decreased in turn. The influence of emotional text on positive emotion was the lowest. Through investigating the visual factors that affect the psychological emotions of users, the development of emotion regulating products could be guided in a more scientific and reasonable manner. (shrink)

This research explores the intervention effect of the mindfulness acceptance insight commitment (MAIC) training program on the mindfulness level, flow state, and mental health of college swimmers. A sample of 47 college swimmers from a regular university was recruited and randomly divided into two groups before the intervention. Independent variables between groups are psychological training mode (MAIC training/no training), and the independent variable within group was time (pre-test, post-test, and continuity test). The dependent variables are mindfulness level, flow state, and (...) mental health (anxiety, depression, training, and competition satisfaction). Results show that after the intervention of MAIC training, the mindfulness level of athletes’ flow state has been significantly improved, whereas anxiety and depression significantly decreased. In addition, the satisfaction with training and competition significantly improved. In the continuous stage after the intervention, the mindfulness level, flow state, and mental health of athletes are still significantly higher than those in the pre-test. The comparison of the post-test and continuity test show no significant differences in the mindfulness level, flow state, depression, and training and competition satisfaction of athletes. Still, the anxiety level shows an upward trend with a significant difference. This study demonstrates that the MAIC mindfulness training program can significantly improve the mindfulness level, flow state, anxiety, depression, and training and competition satisfaction of college swimmers with a good continuity effect. Thus, the athletes’ sports experience can be improved, and good psychological benefits can be attained. (shrink)

In the current performance evaluation works of commercial banks, most of the researches only focus on the relationship between a single characteristic and performance and lack a comprehensive analysis of characteristics. On the other hand, they mainly focus on causal inference and lack systematic quantitative conclusions from the perspective of prediction. This paper is the first to comprehensively investigate the predictability of multidimensional features on commercial bank performance using boosting regression tree. The dimensionality in the financial-related fields is relatively high. (...) There are not only observable price data, financial fundamentals data, etc., but also many unobservable undisclosed data and undisclosed events; more sources of income cannot be explained by existing models. Aiming at the characteristics of commercial bank data, this paper proposes an adaptively reduced step size gradient boosting regression tree algorithm for bank performance evaluation. In this method, a random subsample sampling is performed before training each regression tree. The adaptive reduction step size is used to replace the reduction step size setting of the original algorithm, which overcomes the shortcomings of low accuracy and poor generalization ability of the existing regression decision tree model. Compared to the BIRCH algorithm for classification of existing data, our proposed gradient boosting regression tree algorithm with adaptively reduced step size obtains better classification results. This paper empirically uses data from rural banks in 30 provinces in China to classify the different characteristics of rural banks’ performance in order to better evaluate their performance. (shrink)

Mathematics is an important foundation for the development of science education. In the past, when instructors taught mathematical concepts of geometry shapes, they usually used traditional textbooks and aids to conduct teaching activities, which resulted in students not being able to understand the principles completely. Nowadays, it has become a trend to integrate emerging technologies into mathematics courses and to use digital instructional aids. Emerging technologies can effectively enhance students’ sensory experience while strengthening their impressions and understandings of subject concepts. (...) In this paper, we apply virtual reality immersive technologies to develop a “virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system,” which is used to teach mathematical geometry concepts. Teachers use the system to develop three basic mathematical geometry learning materials: “Triangular pyramid volume = 1/3 prism volume,” “Cone volume calculation,” and “Triangle center of gravity derivation.” In the experimental activity, the teacher uses virtual reality teaching aids to guide students to learn mathematical geometry concepts in a fun way so that they can achieve the effectiveness of immersive learning. This study explores the impact of using the virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system on students’ technology acceptance, learning motivations, and learning performance. The experimental result showed that using the virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system can improve the learning motivation and learning performance of students. The findings indicated that the experimental group had better learning outcomes after completing the learning tasks of three geometric units. The experimental group used the virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system which can lead to better learning outcomes. According to the ARCS questionnaire, students in the experimental group were confident to understand new subjects. At the same time, the mode of completing the game can effectively give students a sense of accomplishment. The use of emerging technologies in the classroom can be an attractive learning mode for students. (shrink)

There is increasing interest in clarifying how different face emotion expressions are perceived by people from different cultures, of different ages and sex. However, scant availability of well-controlled emotional face stimuli from non-Western populations limit the evaluation of cultural differences in face emotion perception and how this might be modulated by age and sex differences. We present a database of East Asian face expression stimuli, enacted by young and older, male and female, Taiwanese using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). (...) Combined with a prior database, this present database consists of 90 identities with happy, sad, angry, fearful, disgusted, surprised and neutral expressions amounting to 628 photographs. 20 young and 24 older East Asian raters scored the photographs for intensities of multiple-dimensions of emotions and induced affect. Multivariate analyses characterized the dimensionality of perceived emotions and quantified effects of age and sex. We also applied commercial software to extract computer-based metrics of emotions in photographs. Taiwanese raters perceived happy faces as one category, sad, angry, and disgusted expressions as one category, and fearful and surprised expressions as one category. Younger females were more sensitive to face emotions than younger males. Whereas older males showed reduced face emotion sensitivity, older female sensitivity was similar or accentuated relative to young females. Commercial software dissociated six emotions according to the FACS demonstrating that defining visual features were present. Our findings show that East Asians perceive a different dimensionality of emotions than Western-based definitions in face recognition software, regardless of age and sex. Critically, stimuli with detailed cultural norms are indispensable in interpreting neural and behavioral responses involving human facial expression processing. To this end, we add to the tools, which are available upon request, for conducting such research. (shrink)

Some previous studies have explored the impact of family function on school belonging. However, little is known about the parallel mediating relationship underlying them. This study aims to investigate the formation mechanism of school beginning in a sample of Chinese adolescents and examined the parallel mediating role of interpersonal self-support and individual self-support in the link between family function and school belonging. A cross-sectional study was conducted in four schools of the district of Hunan province in China, and 741 students (...) were surveyed using cluster sampling. Family cohesion and adaptability scale, Adolescent students self-supporting personality scale, School belonging scale were applied. The results indicated that interpersonal self-support and individual self-support, together, and uniquely, parallel mediated the relationship between family function and school belonging. It can be concluded that family function not only has direct effects on school belonging but also has indirect effects through interpersonal self-support and individual self-support. (shrink)

This paper investigates how social trust affects stock price synchronicity using a large sample of listed firms in China. We propose and provide evidence that social trust has a significantly positive impact on the amount of firm-specific information capitalized into stock prices. Further analyses indicate that firms located in regions of high social trust tend to have a smaller stock price crash risk and are less likely to engage in opportunistic behaviors than those in low-trust regions. Moreover, the positive role (...) of trust in increasing firm-specific return variations and discouraging corporate misbehaviors is more pronounced for SOEs than Non-SOEs. Evidence from 2SLS regressions supports a causal impact of social trust on stock price synchronicity. (shrink)

This study applies the concept of reported speech advanced by the renowned Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin to compare the argumentative styles of Mainland China and Taiwan. These societies in question are considered by many scholars as sharing the same argumentative style. The study reports that the Mainland debaters more frequently than the Taiwanese debaters maintained the authenticity of the quotations cited from ancient Confucian sources, whereas Taiwanese debaters paraphrased more frequently. On the other hand, this difference cannot be found (...) when debaters quoted from sources other than Ancient Confucians. The findings, according to Bakhtin, imply a contrast of monologic and dialogic tendencies toward authority, which results in a style difference between Mainland and Taiwan argumentation. (shrink)

In recent years, somatosensory interaction technology, represented by Microsoft’s Kinect hardware platform, has been widely used in various fields, such as entertainment, education, and medicine. Kinect technology can easily capture and record behavioral data, which provides new opportunities for behavioral and psychological correlation analysis research. In this paper, an automatic decision-style recognition method is proposed. Experiments involving 240 subjects were conducted to obtain face data and individual decision-making style score. The face data was obtained using the Kinect camera, and the (...) decision-style score were obtained via a questionnaire. To realize automatic recognition of an individual decision-making style, machine learning was employed to establish the mapping relationship between the face data and a scaled evaluation of the decision-making style score. This study adopts a variety of classical machine learning algorithms, including Linear regression, Support vector machine regression, Ridge regression, and Bayesian ridge regression. The experimental results show that the linear regression model returns the best results. The correlation coefficient between the linear regression model evaluation results and the scale evaluation results was 0.6, which represents a medium and higher correlation. The results verify the feasibility of automatic decision-making style recognition method based on facial analysis. (shrink)

Yan Xin Life Science Technology-Optimized Caloric Restriction (YXLST-CR) is a unique food abstinence, which suppresses appetite and sensation of hunger while maintaining physiological homeostasis. The authors review the first clinical case study on YXLST-CR, or YXLST-bigu, a 15-day, 24-hour observation in 1987 on a 21-year-old female undergoing YXLST-bigu for several months. The participant took no food or water and conducted normal physical activities. The daily records of body weight, temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure, and daily urine test results showed no (...) abnormalities. Homeostasis was maintained during YXLST-CR. The authors also report serum leptin levels in a group of individuals undergoing YXLST-CR and a control group before and after a 24-hour water-only period. The leptin level prior to the observation for the YXLST-CR group was lower than that for the control group and remained unchanged during the observation, suggesting the possibilities of an established metabolic adaptation. (shrink)

Incivility among employees in frontline encounters is prevalent, but little is known about its impact on customers’ ethics-related perceptions and behaviors. Drawing upon the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study examines how witnessing incivility among employees can serve as a social atmospheric cue to influence customers’ perceived ethicality of an organization and their subsequent behaviors. According to our results, in response to employee-to-employee incivility witnessed during frontline encounters, customers perceive the uncivil employees’ organization to have a lower level of ethicality. In turn, (...) customers engage more in unethical behavior and less in customer citizenship behavior. We further demonstrate that the negative effect of uncivil employee-to-employee interactions on customers’ perception of the ethicality of an organization is amplified when customers have an a priori perception that the organization is competent. The findings hold theoretical and practical implications for the management of employee-to-employee incivility and unethical customer behavior during frontline encounters. (shrink)

Several functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have demonstrated abnormalities in static intra- and interhemispheric functional connectivity among diverse brain regions in patients with major depressive disorder. However, the dynamic changes in intra- and interhemispheric functional connectivity patterns in patients with MDD remain unclear. Fifty-eight first-episode, drug-naive patients with MDD and 48 age-, sex-, and education level-matched healthy controls underwent resting-state fMRI. Whole-brain functional connectivity, analyzed using the functional connectivity density approach, was decomposed into ipsilateral and contralateral functional connectivity. We computed (...) the intra- and interhemispheric dynamic FCD using a sliding window analysis to capture the dynamic patterns of functional connectivity. The temporal variability in functional connectivity was quantified as the variance of the dFCD over time. In addition, intra- and interhemispheric static FCD patterns were calculated. Associations between the dFCD variance and sFCD in abnormal brain regions and the severity of depressive symptoms were analyzed. Compared to HCs, patients with MDD showed lower interhemispheric dFCD variability in the inferior/middle frontal gyrus and decreased sFCD in the medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus in both intra- and interhemispheric comparisons. No significant correlations were found between any abnormal dFCD variance or sFCD at the intra- and interhemispheric levels and the severity of depressive symptoms. Our results suggest intra- and interhemispheric functional connectivity alterations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and default mode network regions involved in cognition, execution and emotion. Furthermore, our study emphasizes the essential role of altered interhemispheric communication dynamics in the DLPFC in patients with MDD. These findings contribute to our understanding of the pathophysiology of MDD. (shrink)

Gender differences in science and engineering have been studied in various countries. Most of these studies find that women are underrepresented in the S&E workforce and publish less than their male peers. The factors that contribute to gender differences in experience and performance in S&E careers can vary from one country to another, yet they remain underexplored. This paper is among the first to systematically compare gender differences in the publication productivity of academic scientists and engineers with doctoral degrees in (...) the U.S. and China. Findings from negative binomial regressions show that women publish less than their male counterparts in science but not in engineering in the U.S. In China, women do not differ from men in publication productivity in science but publish more than their male counterparts in engineering. In addition, we find that some background variables affect men’s and women’s publication productivity differently. The findings are analyzed in the context of the different cultures of the two fields and of the two countries. Limitations and policy implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Consensus of fractional-order multiagent systems with single integral has been wildly studied. However, the dynamics with multiple integral also exist in FOMASs, and they are rarely studied at present. In this paper, consensus problems for multi-integral fractional-order multiagent systems with nonuniform time-delays are addressed. The consensus conditions for MIFOMASs are obtained by a novel frequency-domain method which properly eliminates consensus problems of the systems associated with nonuniform time-delays. Besides, the method revealed in this paper is applicable to classical high-order multiagent (...) systems which is a special case of MIFOMASs. Finally, several numerical simulations with different parameters are performed to validate the correctness of the results. (shrink)

Consensus of fractional-order multiagent systems with single integral has been wildly studied. However, the dynamics with multiple integral also exist in FOMASs, and they are rarely studied at present. In this paper, consensus problems for multi-integral fractional-order multiagent systems with nonuniform time-delays are addressed. The consensus conditions for MIFOMASs are obtained by a novel frequency-domain method which properly eliminates consensus problems of the systems associated with nonuniform time-delays. Besides, the method revealed in this paper is applicable to classical high-order multiagent (...) systems which is a special case of MIFOMASs. Finally, several numerical simulations with different parameters are performed to validate the correctness of the results. (shrink)