The early Sino-Western contact was through the way in which religion and language interact to produce language contact. However, research on this contact is relatively limited to date, particularly in the realm of English language materials. In fact, there is a paucity of research on Western religions in English Language Teaching textbooks. By applying corpus linguistics as a tool and the Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework, this manuscript critically investigates the significant semantic domains in ten English language textbook (...) series that are officially approved and are widely used in Chinese universities. The findings suggest that various Western religious beliefs, which are the highly unusual topics in previous Chinese ELT textbooks, are represented in the textbook corpus. The results also show that when presenting the views and attitudes toward Western religious beliefs, these textbooks have adopted an eclectic approach to the material selection. Surprisingly, positive semantic prosody surrounding the concept of religion is evident and no consistent negative authorial stance toward religion is captured. Atheism has been assumed to be in the center of Chinese intellectual traditions and the essence of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party. Interestingly, the findings from this study provide a new understanding of Chinese foreign language textbooks in the new era, and its addition to the literature on the study of ELT textbooks, as well as its development worldwide. (shrink)

Challenge-oriented organizational citizenship behavior or the organization-improving tasks employees perform beyond their job description is important for high organizational performance, but the organizational factors influencing it are poorly understood. In this study, we explored how inclusive leadership influences employees’ challenge-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in the Chinese context, drawing on data from 558 employees in high-tech industries. Multivariate correlation analysis showed that inclusive leadership promotes employees’ challenge-oriented organizational citizenship behavior and that this influence is partly mediated by work engagement. Further, it (...) showed that organizational innovative atmosphere has a moderating effect on the relationship between inclusive leadership and employees’ challenge-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. In effect, this study expands the range of predictive variables for challenge-oriented organizational citizenship behavior and provides not only theoretical insight but also practical guidance for leaders who seek to motivate this behavior in their employees. (shrink)

Attention has been theorized as a system comprising three networks that can be estimated reliably by the attention network test ; the three networks are defined as alerting, orienting, and conflict control. The present study aims to identify the attention networks that are crucial for elite shooting and archery athletes and to examine whether mindfulness training can improve elite athletes' attention networks. We compared the performances in ANT between 62 elite athletes from the Chinese national team of shooting and archery (...) and 49 athletes from a provincial team in China. The results indicate three well-functioned attention networks in both groups, but elite athletes in the national team responded faster overall than athletes in the provincial team. The 62 elite athletes in the national team then received mindfulness training with varied periods ranging from 5 to 8 weeks, after which the ANT was re-administered. After mindfulness training, the elite athletes improved in orienting and conflict control networks compared with their pre-training performances. These results suggest that elite shooting and archery athletes in the national team are more efficient in all three attention networks, which means that they are able to reach the alerting state faster, make better use of environmental information, and suppress interference from distractors more efficiently. Moreover, the orienting and conflict control networks of the elite shooting and archery athletes can be improved by mindfulness training. We conclude that mindfulness practice should be considered as a useful addition to daily training for shooting and archery athletes. (shrink)

The paradox of pain refers to the idea that the folk concept of pain is paradoxical, treating pains as simultaneously mental states and bodily states. By taking a close look at our pain terms, this paper argues that there is no paradox of pain. The air of paradox dissolves once we recognize that pain terms are polysemous and that there are two separate but related concepts of pain rather than one.

Can an agent deliberating about an action A hold a meaningful credence that she will do A? 'No', say some authors, for 'Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction' (DCOP). Others disagree, but we argue here that such disagreements are often terminological. We explain why DCOP holds in a Ramseyian operationalist model of credence, but show that it is trivial to extend this model so that DCOP fails. We then discuss a model due to Joyce, and show that Joyce's rejection of DCOP rests (...) on terminological choices about terms such as 'intention', 'prediction', and 'belief'. Once these choices are in view, they reveal underlying agreement between Joyce and the DCOP-favouring tradition that descends from Ramsey. Joyce's Evidential Autonomy Thesis (EAT) is effectively DCOP, in different terminological clothing. Both principles rest on the so-called 'transparency' of first-person present-tensed reflection on one's own mental states. (shrink)

In recent literature on the metaphysics of consciousness, and in particular on the prospects of physicalism, there are two interesting strands of discussion. One strand concerns the so-called ‘thesis of revelation’, the claim that the essences of phenomenal properties are revealed in experience. The other strand concerns the intuition of dualism, the intuition that consciousness is nonphysical. With a particular focus on the former, this paper advances two main arguments. First, it argues that the thesis of revelation is intuitive; it (...) is part of our ordinary, implicit conception of experience. Second, it brings the two strands of discussion together and puts forward a rational explanation of the intuition of dualism in terms of the intuitiveness of the thesis of revelation. (shrink)

We prove that RCA₀ + RT $RT\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} 2 \\ 2 \\ \end{array} $ ̸͢ WKL₀ by showing that for any set C not of PA-degree and any set A, there exists an infinite subset G of A or ̅Α, such that G ⊕ C is also not of PA-degree.

This article argues for an anti-deflationist view of scientific representation. Our discussion begins with an analysis of the recent Callender–Cohen deflationary view on scientific representation. We then argue that there are at least two radically different ways in which a thing can be represented: one is purely symbolic, and therefore conventional, and the other is epistemic. The failure to recognize that scientific models are epistemic vehicles rather than symbolic ones has led to the mistaken view that whatever distinguishes scientific models (...) from other representational vehicles must merely be a matter of pragmatics. It is then argued that even though epistemic vehicles also contain conventional elements, they do their job of demonstration in spite of such elements. (shrink)

Paintings of music are a significant presence in modern art. They are cross-modal representations, aimed at representing music, say, musical works or forms, using colors, lines, and shapes in the visual modality. This article aims to provide a conceptual framework for understanding paintings of music. Using examples from modern art, the article addresses the question of what a painting of music is. Implications for the aesthetic appreciation of paintings of music are also drawn.

In this paper, we first propose a simple formal language to specify types of agents in terms of necessary conditions for their announcements. Based on this language, types of agents are treated as ‘first-class citizens’ and studied extensively in various dynamic epistemic frameworks which are suitable for reasoning about knowledge and agent types via announcements and questions. To demonstrate our approach, we discuss various versions of Smullyan’s Knights and Knaves puzzles, including the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever (HLPE) proposed by Boolos (...) (in Harv Rev Philos 6:62–65, 1996). In particular, we formalize HLPE and verify a classic solution to it. Moreover, we propose a spectrum of new puzzles based on HLPE by considering subjective (knowledge-based) agent types and relaxing the implicit epistemic assumptions in the original puzzle. The new puzzles are harder than the previously proposed ones in the literature, in the sense that they require deeper epistemic reasoning. Surprisingly, we also show that a version of HLPE in which the agents do not know the others’ types does not have a solution at all. Our formalism paves the way for studying these new puzzles using automatic model checking techniques. (shrink)

“Apprehension” is a key term in Husserl’s phenomenology of perceptual consciousness. However, its modes of operation have not yet been closely analyzed. Apprehension has its own principles and foundations. According to Husserl, the principles of apprehension are 1) contiguity, 2) equality and 3) similarity, and each of them expresses a specific kind of qualitative connection between the apprehension-content and the apprehension-sense. When a content presents a sense through equality or similarity, this sense can be regarded as a “projection” from the (...) apprehension-content. Besides the principles, the working of perceptual apprehension as knowing is based on two foundations. The first foundation is a space of sense, in which a perceptual sense finds its place and is combined holistically with other senses. The second foundation is a concrete cultural and historical lifeworld, upon which the space of sense constructed. Similar ideas can also be found at work in Sellars and Searle. (shrink)

Background Performance evaluation is vital for IRB operations. As the number of IRBs and their responsibilities in reviewing and supervising clinical research grow in China, there is a significant need to evaluate their performances. To date, little research has examined IRB performance within China. The aim of this study was to ascertain the perspectives and experiences of IRB employees and researchers to understand the current status of IRBs; compare collected results with those of other countries; and identify shortcomings to improve (...) IRB performance. Methods This study was conducted in China from October 2020 to September 2021, using an online survey with the IRB-researcher assessment tool-Chinese version. Results 757 respondents were included in the analysis and classified into IRB employees, researchers, or those who are both IRB employees and researchers. Overall, the score for an ideal IRB was significantly higher than that of an actual IRB. Compared to the US National Validation study, Chinese participants and American participants both agree and differ in their perspectives on the most and least important ideal items. Conclusion This investigation provides a benchmark of the perceived performance of actual IRBs in China. IRBs in China can be precisely adjusted by targeting identified areas of weakness to improve their performances. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel fractional-order PID controller tuning strategy based on Bode’s optimal loop shaping which is commonly used for LTI feedback systems. Firstly, the controller parameters are achieved based on flat phase property and Bode’s optimal reference model, so that the controlled system is robust to gain variations and can achieve desirable transient performance according to various control requirements. Then, robustness analysis of the controlled system is carried out to support the results. Furthermore, the parameter setting is analyzed (...) to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed controller. At last, some simulation examples are shown to verify the accuracy and usefulness of the proposed control strategy. The proposed fractional-order PID controller does not have any restriction on the controlled plant, so it can be widely applied on both integer-order and fractional-order systems. (shrink)

This study mainly focuses on the emotion analysis method in the application of psychoanalysis based on sentiment recognition. The method is applied to the sentiment recognition module in the server, and the sentiment recognition function is effectively realized through the improved convolutional neural network and bidirectional long short-term memory model. First, the implementation difficulties of the C-BiL model and specific sentiment classification design are described. Then, the specific design process of the C-BiL model is introduced, and the innovation of the (...) C-BiL model is indicated. Finally, the experimental results of the models are compared and analyzed. Among the deep learning models, the accuracy of the C-BiL model designed in this study is relatively high irrespective of the binary classification, the three classification, or the five classification, with an average improvement of 2.47% in Diary data set, 2.16% in Weibo data set, and 2.08% in Fudan data set. Therefore, the C-BiL model designed in this study can not only successfully classify texts but also effectively improve the accuracy of text sentiment recognition. (shrink)

Resumo: Uma das medidas mais significativas do progresso de uma nação, no fornecimento de educação para pessoas com deficiências, bem como uma medida de quão bem seus sistemas de apoio operam e quão longe a sociedade se encontra, em seu desenvolvimento social, é o crescimento do ensino superior para pessoas com deficiências. Os resultados indicaram que os alunos surdos com experiência escolar geral apresentaram melhor adaptabilidade. O modelo de integração era mais adequado para aumentar a conscientização dos alunos surdos sobre (...) a interação social e a adaptabilidade escolar. Ademais, os alunos surdos tinham uma demanda maior por orientação profissional. No entanto, é importante observar que o modelo de treinamento de integração ainda possui espaço para aprimoramentos. Com base nos resultados das referidas pesquisas e nos problemas da prática, o presente artigo apresenta as sugestões e pareceres de contramedidas correspondentes. O artigo sugere que devemos construir um modelo educativo de integração baseado no conceito “trindade”, orientado para talentos socialmente integrados em aplicações artísticas, aperfeiçoar o sistema de gestão da educação de integração, melhorar o sistema de apoio ao aprendizado de estudantes universitários surdos sob a liderança da escola, modificar e reconstruir o sistema curricular de integração das áreas de arte e artesanato e fortalecer o apoio e a orientação da sociedade para a construção de um ambiente de integração. (shrink)

As an essential direction for developing inclusive finance, digital financial inclusion breaks through the time and space constraints of inclusive finance development and has extensive connections between different regions. However, no research has modelled the network connections and the role and position of different digital financial inclusion development regions. This study constructed the spatial association network of China’s digital financial inclusion development and used the network analysis method and the quadratic assignment procedure method to study the structural and locational properties (...) and the influencing factors of the network. We found that although the network had a relatively low density, its connectivity and stability were excellent, and the network structure is not hierarchical; the centrality of some rapidly developing central and western provinces was greater than that of some developed eastern provinces; developed eastern provinces played a net spillover role, driving the development of digital financial inclusion in central and western provinces; and the spatial association was affected by the development level of the PC Internet and economy, the industrial structure, and the spatial adjacency. This study enriches the research on digital financial inclusion and provides a scientific basis for the formulation and implementation of policies to promote the further development of digital financial inclusion. (shrink)

Though complex networks have been widely applied in the research of chemistry, there is hardly any introduction about the establishment of networks using chemical bonds. In this paper, we consider chemical elements as a system linked by chemical bonds and create the undirected chemical bond network by abstracting nodes from elements and undirected edges from bonds. Connectivity, heterogeneity, small world and disassortativity of this network show the macro structural rationality of this system. The degree and k-order neighbors of an element, (...) which represent the micro topology of this network, can be used to measure its chemical reactivity and detect how many kinds of compounds it can form. The similarity between two elements is measured by the Jaccard index and the VOS mapping technique, results of which are similar to well-known similarities between elements shown by the periodic table. The establishment and topological analysis of this network provide another way to understand and study elements and bonds, and more chemical properties of elements and bonds can be studied by complex networks. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate whether independent directors’ attendance at board meetings enhances investor protection using a difference-in-difference approach. We find that independent directors’ attendance alleviates tunneling. This effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises than in state-owned enterprises. The reinforcement of external supervision substitutes for the role of independent directors’ attendance and this substitution effect is more significant in non-SOEs. Together, these results imply that independent directors’ attendance at board meetings can play an important role in protecting investors, especially (...) in non-SOEs and when external supervision is weak. This paper sheds new light on independent directors’ function in corporate governance, and has implications for institutional improvements. (shrink)

Resumen: El teatro chino tiene sus orígenes en formas primitivas de canto y danza, y desde entonces ha evolucionado hasta convertirse en una forma artística integral con una rica historia. Se considera una de las tres culturas dramáticas más antiguas, junto con la griega y la sánscrita de la India. Las distintas naciones tienen culturas diferentes con características nacionales únicas, mientras que los conceptos filosóficos personalizados desempeñan un papel destacado en la formación de la cultura. La ciencia, la literatura, el (...) arte, la educación, etc. que pertenecen a la categoría cultural están todos guiados e influenciados por pensamientos filosóficos, y el arte dramático es igual. Este artículo discute y analiza los pensamientos filosóficos que subyacen a la cultura dramática tradicional china. (shrink)

Although there are studies verifying that strategic entrepreneurship is positively related to the risk resistance and performance of enterprises, it is unclear how enterprises can implement effective strategic entrepreneurial activities in dynamic situations. This research aims to explore why and how the entrepreneur’s social identity influences and drives firm’s strategic entrepreneurial activities. In this study, it applied case study method to interview a technology-based family firms that have effectively conducted strategic entrepreneurial activities to meet challenges, and uses grounded theory for (...) data analysis. The research finds that the social identity of entrepreneurs actively promotes the strategic entrepreneurial activities of enterprises; sustainable leadership mediates the relationship between social identity and strategic entrepreneurship; at different stages of enterprise development, entrepreneurs dynamically adjust their social identity types to enhance sustainable leadership; through the focus and extension of technological advantages, sustainable leadership ensures that enterprises can promote the implementation of strategic entrepreneurial behavior by disintegrating and integrating the value chain. This study explores the strategic entrepreneurship path of family firms and also provides new insights for future research on the strategic entrepreneurship and sustainable growth of such firms. (shrink)

In accordance with the compositionality criterion and hierarchy principle of Rhetorical Structure Theory, this study reframes each tree in the RST Discourse Treebank into three new dependency trees with ultimate nodes being clauses, sentences, and paragraphs, respectively, which also draw on an analogy between syntactic and discourse trees. Detailed percentages of various RST relations at the three granularity levels are examined, illuminating the discourse processes of organizing units of one granularity level into those of the next upper level and suggesting (...) certain homogeneity and interaction across levels in the Treebank, particularly at the two upper levels. The study demonstrates the applicability of RST analysis between same-level terminal units. With unique analytical advantages, the newly constructed discourse dependency trees provide new research prospects. (shrink)

I argue that categorical realism, contrary to what most believe today, holds for quantum (and indeed for all) objects and substances. The main argument consists of two steps: (i) the recent experimental verification of the AB effect gives strong empirical evidence for taking quantum potentials as physically real (or substantival), which suggests a change of the data upon which any viable interpretation of quantum theory must rely, and (ii) quantum potentials may be consistently taken as the categorical properties of quantum (...) objects so that categorical realism can be restored. (shrink)

In late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread over the world, causing millions of deaths. In the first few months of the pandemic, several countries prevented the spread of the pandemic successfully. By contrast, the pandemic in many other countries was not controlled well. For example, India encountered a second serious outbreak of COVID-19 from April 2021 due to the poor resistance measures implemented by the government. To figure out the effective countermeasures to the pandemic, this research proposes a (...) COVID-19 pandemic and its response system, which consists of the infection subsystem, the quarantine subsystem, and the medical subsystem. On this basis, an improved SEIR-SD model is established which is utilized to analyze the response measures to the pandemic quantitatively. This model successfully simulates the actual epidemic scenarios in Wuhan, which verifies its effectiveness. Afterward, the impact of hospital administration rate, quarantine rate, average contact number, and contact infection rate on the cumulative number of infections and deaths are analyzed by simulation. The results show that both the medical and administrative efforts, especially in the early stage of the epidemic, are significant in reducing the number of infections and shortening the epidemic period. In the medical aspect, the more stringent quarantine brings the earlier inflection point of the epidemic; more importantly, improving the treatment rate significantly reduces the scale of the epidemic. In the administrative aspect, enforcing individual protection and strict community closure can effectively cut off the transmission of the virus and curb the spread of the epidemic. Finally, this research proposes several practical suggestions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main contribution of this research is that the effects of different response measures on the number of new infections daily and the cumulative number of deaths of a country or region in the COVID-19 pandemic are estimated quantitatively based on modeling and simulation. (shrink)

This article challenges François Jullien’s reading of Chinese thought based on his disjunction between ontology and shi, or propensity. According to Jullien, the Chinese history of ideas has been a never-changing entity in a homogeneous society for thousands of years. Jullien’s juxtaposing and contrasting ‘European thought’ and ‘Chinese thought’ falls into the trap of cultural essentialism he wanted to avoid. Jullien’s interpretation of shi also led him to believe that Chinese people never challenge reality, never confront or resist, tend to (...) stay in conformity, and lack interest in critical thinking. This paper argues that, despite the combination of Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism that constituted a powerful paradigm of normative governmentality of the hierarchical system in different dynasties in Chinese history, the spirit of political resistance has never ceased. Zhang Taiyan, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of Republican China, demonstrated the tradition of such critical political thinkers. The re-reading of Zhang Taiyan’s Buddhist-inspired reading of Zhuangzi could offer us an additional possibility for the emancipatory and political thinking that can be inspirational even today. (shrink)

We study the strategic interactions within testing in a model of political agency. A principal decides between convicting and acquitting an agent of unknown innocence based on a noisy signal that is manipulable by the agent’s unobserved actions. We identify conditions under which the principal sets a threshold conviction strategy in the form of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” We show that, in spite of strategic concerns, the amount of information that a principal can glean from the test is entirely determined (...) by the threshold; in equilibrium, the threshold is set where the signal realization conveys just enough information to validate a conviction. As such, the game of testing is analytically equivalent to the principal’s statistical inference problem. We next examine how exogenous shocks on preference parameters affect the principal’s equilibrium threshold and welfare. In general, the principal benefits from being better at distinguishing types; whether she should increase or decrease the threshold depends crucially on whether the agent’s distribution of signals varies with types in the absence of manipulation. (shrink)

Yang Guorong advocates a postmetaphysical metaphysics marked as concrete metaphysics that goes beyond traditional metaphysics and reflects a critique of the negative results of the critique of traditional metaphysics. In discovering the original unity of being and the manifestations of being in the dimensions of knowledge, values, and meaning, Yang's concrete metaphysics aims at authentic being and, consequently, makes the following three claims: the pursuit of "thoroughgoingness" is the nature of philosophy; there is a unity of ethics and ontology; there (...) is a historical process of achieving the maturation of the self and the refinement of things. (shrink)

The Omani socio-cultural context, the mono-gender educational system in schools, and the learning environment at the higher educational institutions significantly affect learners' self-efficacy and academic achievement in the mixed-gender EFL classroom. Different studies have revealed both positive and negative implications of mixed-gender classrooms, especially for those who came from a mono-gender learning environment. The adjustment phase for the tertiary learners from school to the university is not only crucial but also significant for the continuation of higher education. The effects of (...) socio-cultural factors on self-efficacy and academic achievement have not been studied in depth, particularly in eastern countries. So, the current study aimed at investigating the role of gender, learning background, socio-cultural circumstances, and the effect of the learning environment on EFL learners' self-efficacy and their academic achievement within the scenario of the prevailing culture and traditions in the Dhofar Region. To conduct this study, mixed research methods have been adopted to investigate the perceptions of both teachers and learners. The sample of the study consists of 117 EFL learners ranging between 18–22 years of age and 25 EFL teachers ranging between 35–60 years of age. We used separate surveys for students and the teachers and interviewed students and teachers on a random basis. The results demonstrate that both genders were comfortable in segregated classes. The results also reveal that female learners were active learners and better performers than male learners in the school learning environment. The students reported that social restrictions discouraged them from mixing with the opposite gender in classroom activities and oral discussions. Most teachers believe that, compared to male learners, female learners performed better and were more engaged and responsive to different learning situations. The study found that there were statistically significant differences between both genders in terms of the effects of socio-cultural environment, self-efficacy, and the learning environment. Female learners were better than male learners in mono-gender schools, and they have higher self-efficacy than male students at the university. In conclusion, EFL teachers should consider the socio-cultural context, learners' learning background, and other challenges of learners to bring out positive outcomes in a mixed-gender classroom. (shrink)