This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of news discourse analysis using CiteSpace to sketch its scientific landscape based on journal articles in English in the Scopus database from 1988 through 2020. The statistical analysis provides evidence for the interdisciplinarity of this area, and shows an upward trend in general over these years as well as an accelerating growth rate in the past decade. Findings also indicate that the problem-oriented CDA has gained the most popularity in this area since its emergence, (...) and the appraisal framework, multimodality analysis, and discursive news values have become three hotspots of news discourse analysis. In addition, the authors in the West have contributed most in this area, but those from Chinese Mainland, Malaysia, South Africa, and Indonesia have gradually been an emerging powerhouse, which has added diversity in topics and will enhance equality and promote dialogue between different communities, ethnics, and races across the globe. (shrink)

Emotional creativity refers to a set of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to the originality of emotional experience and expression. Previous studies have found that emotional creativity can positively predict posttraumatic growth and mental health. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed great challenges to people’s daily lives and their mental health status. Therefore, this study aims to address the following two questions: whether emotional creativity can improve posttraumatic growth and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and (...) how it works. To do this, a multiple mediation model has been proposed, which supposes that emotional creativity is associated with posttraumatic growth and mental health through perceived social support and regulatory emotional self-efficacy. The study involved 423 participants from multiple regions with different COVID-19 involvement levels. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire with six parts, which included Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI), Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RES), Stress-Related Growth Scale-Short Form (SRGS-SF), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support scale (MSPSS), Brief Symptom Inventory-18 scale (BSI-18), and COVID-19-related life events questionnaire. Path analysis used to examine the mediation model indicated that under the control of COVID-19-related life events and age, perceived social support mediated a positive association between emotional creativity and posttraumatic growth as well as a negative association between emotional creativity and all mental health problems, including somatization, depression, and anxiety. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy mediates the association between emotional creativity and posttraumatic growth, emotional creativity and anxiety, and emotional creativity and depression. The results suggest that emotional creativity plays an important role in coping with stressful events related to COVID-19. Furthermore, these results might provide a better understanding of the possible paths through which emotional creativity is related to psychological outcomes, such as mental health and posttraumatic growth. (shrink)

This study examines the determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its implications on firms’ investment policy, organizational strategy, and performance. First, we find that firms with better performance, higher R&D intensity, better financial health, and firms in new economy industries are more likely to engage in CSR activities, while riskier firms are less likely to do so. We also find U-shaped relation between firm size and CSR, indicating that either very small or very large firms exhibit high levels of (...) CSR strengths and concerns. Next, we find that firms’ CSR strengths relate favorably with their investments, organizational strategy, and performance, whereas CSR concerns and firm attributes are by and large negatively related. Using a 2SLS procedure, we verify that the CSR–performance relation is robust to corrections for endogeneity through reverse causation and/or biases introduced by time varying omitted variables. Finally, we find that the CSR–firm attributes relation is strengthened when the CEO’s incentives are below the sample median, suggesting that CSR participation is especially important when monetary incentives are lower than benchmark levels. (shrink)

Major construction projects have a great influence on the national economy and society, wherein cooperative relationship between construction suppliers plays an increasingly significant role in the overall supply chain system. However, the relationships between suppliers are noncontractual, multistage, dynamic, and complicated. To gain a deeper insight into the suppliers’ cooperative relationships, an evolutionary game model is developed to explore the cooperation tendency of multisuppliers. A replicator dynamic system is further formulated to investigate the evolutionary stable strategies of multisuppliers. Then, fourteen (...) “when-then” type scenarios are concluded and classified into six different evolutionary tracks. Meanwhile, the critical influencing factors are identified. The results show that the suppliers’ production capacity, owner-supplier contract, and the owner’s incentive mechanism influence the cooperation tendency of suppliers directly. The managerial implications contribute to insightful references for a more stable cooperative relationship between the owner and suppliers. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the current literature on political hope overlooks its non-instrumental value. By proposing a Kant-inspired account of treating reasonable hopes as fundamental hopes, I argue that it is rational for people to hold certain political hopes not only because such hopes promote particular ends but also because they are constitutive of a person’s practical identity as a responsible political agent with limited power to make changes. This view reveals that victims of injustice face an affective (...) injustice because the unjust social system forces them to face a double bind in upholding their fundamental political hopes. (shrink)

The existing literature provides conflicting results on the association between firm performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. This paper empirically examines the effect of firm performance on CSR disclosure in terms of disclosure frequency and quality among Chinese listed firms and the possible mediating effect of corporate ownership on the relationship between firm performance and CSR disclosure. Our findings show that better-performing firms are more likely than worse-performing ones to disclose CSR information and to produce higher quality CSR reports. (...) In addition, the link between firm performance and CSR disclosure is found to be weaker among state-owned enterprises compared with non-state-owned ones. (shrink)

The existing literature provides conflicting results on the association between firm performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. This paper empirically examines the effect of firm performance on CSR disclosure in terms of disclosure frequency and quality among Chinese listed firms and the possible mediating effect of corporate ownership on the relationship between firm performance and CSR disclosure. Our findings show that better‐performing firms are more likely than worse‐performing ones to disclose CSR information and to produce higher quality CSR reports. (...) In addition, the link between firm performance and CSR disclosure is found to be weaker among state‐owned enterprises compared with non‐state‐owned ones. (shrink)

We are pleased to provide two explorations on the topic of dialogue in Chinese philosophy. In this paper, we consider the educational and theoretical dialogues in China resulting from the encounter...

Cyberloafing, a new type of deviant workplace behavior, has become widespread across organizations. Although there has been an increasing amount of research on cyberloafing, it is unclear whether its influence on employee task performance is linearly positive or negative. To reconcile such an inconsistency, we developed and tested a model, grounded in the effort-recovery model, considering a potential curvilinear relationship between cyberloafing and task performance while also examining the mediating role of relaxation. We further reasoned that this indirect curvilinear effect (...) is contingent on employees’ time management skill. To test our theoretical model, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, multi-time data collected from 243 Master of Public Administration (MPA) students showed that cyberloafing had an inverted U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with task performance, and relaxation mediated this relationship. In Study 2, using a sample of 392 public sector employees, we replicated the results of Study 1 and found that time management skill moderated the curvilinear effect of relaxation on task performance, as well as the indirect curvilinear effect of cyberloafing on task performance via relaxation. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are further discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundNurses working in the intensive care unit clung tenaciously to their job during the COVID-19 pandemic in spite of enduring stressed psychological and physical effects as a result of providing nursing care for the infected patients, which indicates that they possessed a high degree of professionalism and career calling. The aim of this study was to explain the associations between resilience, thriving at work, and ethical leadership influencing the calling of ICU nurses.MethodsFrom December 2020 to January 2021 during the COVID-19 (...) pandemic, a cross-sectional survey of 15 provinces in China was conducted using an online questionnaire. A total of 340 ICU nurses completed sufficient responses to be used in the study. Sociodemographic factors, job demographic factors, resilience, calling, thriving at work, and ethical leadership were assessed using the questionnaire. General linear modeling, hierarchical linear regression analysis, and generalized additive model were performed to examine all the considered research hypotheses.ResultsResilience was positively and significantly associated with calling. Moreover, thriving at work partially mediated the relationship between resilience and calling. The indirect effect of resilience on calling was 0.204, and the direct effect of resilience on calling through thriving at work was 0.215. The total effect of resilience on calling was 0.419. In addition, ethical leadership played a moderating role in the relationship between resilience and calling.ConclusionGreater resilience can positively predict increased calling among Chinese ICU nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, thriving at work is a mechanism that partly transmits the positive effects of resilience on calling. Overall, nurses possessing greater resilience tend to maintain thriving at work in the face of such adversity, further resulting in subsequently increased calling. Besides, findings suggest that there is stronger influence of resilience on calling among nurses working in an organization managed by an ethical leader. The current findings may offer two insights for nursing practitioners and policymakers in the postpandemic world. First, resilience training and intervention are necessary to foster nurses' sense of thriving at work in the nursing industry, further promoting career calling. Second, better training and effort on the development of ethical leadership for leaders in nursing practice are essential to encourage followers to engage in social learning of ethical behaviors and abiding by normatively appropriate conduct, further enacting prosocial values and expressing moral emotions. (shrink)

This study explored the relationship between teacher job stress and job burnout using a sample of 558 primary and secondary school teachers, who were administered with a teacher job stress scale, teacher job burnout scale, work–family conflict questionnaire, and general self-efficacy scale. The results showed that: job stress had a significant predictive effect on work–family conflict and job burnout; work–family conflict played a mediating role in the relationship between job stress and job burnout; self-efficacy was found to play a moderating (...) role in work–family conflict and job burnout. However, this indirect effect was stronger for teachers with high self-efficacy, which means that the protective effects of self-efficacy were limited. These findings add to research on the relationship between teacher job stress and job burnout, and provide ideas for teachers to balance work–family relationships and reduce job burnout. (shrink)

Time preference reversals refers to systematic inconsistencies between preferences and valuations in intertemporal choice. When faced with a pair of intertemporal options, people preferred the smaller-sooner option but assign a higher price to the larger-later one. Different hypotheses postulate that the differences in evaluation scale or output format between the choice and the bid tasks cause the preference reversal. However, these hypotheses have not been distinguished. In the present study, we conducted a hybrid task, which shares the same evaluation scale (...) with the bid task and shares the same output format with the choice task. By comparing these three tasks, we can figure out the key reason for time preference reversal. The eye-tracking measures reflecting attention allocation, cognitive effort and information search pattern were examined. Results showed that participants' time preference and eye-tracking measures in the hybrid task were similar to those in the choice task, but different from those in the bid task. Our findings suggest that the output format is the core reason for time preference reversal and may deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie time preference reversal. (shrink)

Glowacki offers many new directions for understanding and even eliminating the problem of war, especially creating positive interdependencies with out-group members. We develop Glowacki's intriguing proposition that in-group dynamics provide a route to peace by describing a prosocial motivational system, the caregiving system, that aligns individual interests and eliminates the need to use coercion to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

Cooperative innovation has become a critical method for freight logistics firms in supply chain management. The previous study has proved that relational embeddedness has a positive effect on service innovation performance. However, the influence of organizational learning capacity has been widely ignored. This study focuses on explaining the mechanism of OLC on the relationship between RE and innovation performance of freight logistics service. Firstly, a theoretical model is constructed based on Social Network Theory, and four research hypotheses are presented. Secondly, (...) a sample of 236 respondents from freight logistics firms in China is analyzed to test the hypotheses. Finally, several management implications and recommendations are suggested. The research results demonstrate that both RE and OLC have positive effects on IPFLS. Meanwhile, OLC partially mediates the relationship between RE and IPFLS. The findings provide practical guidance for managers to strengthen the relationship with partners and enhance OLC. (shrink)

Good balance between product and service is the key in the innovative design of product service systems. In this study, the evolution route of the PSS based on Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch ideal final result was provided. The function model of the PSS was constructed according to the service blueprint and function system diagrams. On this basis, an innovation design method of the PSS based on function incentive was established. The function incentive strategies included function synergy, function supplement, and function (...) substitution. Finally, the PSS design process of agricultural machinery based on computer-aided innovation platform was analyzed to verify this method. (shrink)

Purpose Over the past decade, many research works in various disciplines have benefited from the endless ocean of people and their potentials as an effective problem-solving strategy and computational model. But nothing interesting is ever completely one-sided. Therefore, when it comes to leveraging people's power, as the dark side of crowdsourcing, there are some possible threats that have not been considered as should be, such as recruiting black hat crowdworkers for organizing targeted adversarial intentions. The purpose of this paper is (...) to draw more attention to this critical issue through investigation of its different aspects. Design/methodology/approach To delve into details of such malicious intentions, the related literature and previous researches have been studied. Then, four major typologies for adversarial crowdsourced attacks as well as some real-world scenarios are discussed and delineated. Finally, possible future threats are introduced. Findings Despite many works on adversarial crowdsourcing, there are only a few specific research studies devoted to considering the issue in the context of cyber security. In this regard, the proposed typologies for such human-mediated attacks can shed light on the way of identifying and confronting such threats. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this the first work in which the titular topic is investigated in detail. Due to popularity and efficiency of leveraging crowds' intelligence and efforts in a wide range of application domains, it is most likely that adversarial human-driven intentions gain more attention. In this regard, it is anticipated that the present research study can serve as a roadmap for proposing defensive mechanisms to cope with such diverse threats. (shrink)

Knowledge graphs entity typing aims to predict the potential types to an entity, that is,. Recently, several embedding models are proposed for KG entity types prediction according to the existing typing information of the tuples in KGs. However, most of them unreasonably assume that all existing entity typing instances in KGs are completely correct, which ignore the nonnegligible entity type noises and may lead to potential errors for the downstream tasks. To address this problem, we propose ConfE, a novel confidence-aware (...) embedding approach for modeling the tuples, which takes tuple confidence into consideration for learning better embeddings. Specifically, we learn the embeddings of entities and entity types in separate entity space and entity type space since they are different objects in KGs. We utilize an asymmetric matrix to specify the interaction of their embeddings and incorporate the tuple confidence as well. To make the tuple confidence more universal, we consider only the internal structural information in existing KGs. We evaluate our model on two tasks, including entity type noise detection and entity type prediction. The extensive experimental results in two public benchmark datasets demonstrate that our proposed model outperforms all baselines on all tasks, which verify the effectiveness of ConfE in learning better embeddings on noisy KGs. The source code and data of this work can be obtained from https://github.com/swufenlp/ConfE. (shrink)

In the discussion whether Confucianism supports human rights, it is necessary to distinguish between the content and the form of human rights. Regarding the content of human rights, only the normative texts in Confucianism can contribute to the discussion. Even though Confucianism concedes that people are equal in nature, this equality is restricted in certain areas of normative justification. Regarding the form of human rights, the Confucian idea of graded love is against the universal nature of human rights. However, the (...) pre-ontology of Heidegger shows us how graded love can actually be the ground of the Confucian approach to universality, which overcomes the opposition between universality and particularity within Western metaphysics. Therefore, in the Confucian approach to universality, graded love can be the motivation to universalizing of human rights. Moreover, as the Confucian approach to universality is not a principle that transcends all particularities, it helps construct an inclusive form of human rights. (shrink)

Collaborative filtering technology is currently the most successful and widely used technology in the recommendation system. It has achieved rapid development in theoretical research and practice. It selects information and similarity relationships based on the user’s history and collects others that are the same as the user’s hobbies. User’s evaluation information is to generate recommendations. The main research is the inadequate combination of context information and the mining of new points of interest in the context-aware recommendation process. On the basis (...) of traditional recommendation technology, in view of the characteristics of the context information in music recommendation, a personalized and personalized music based on popularity prediction is proposed. Recommended algorithm is MRAPP. The algorithm first analyzes the user’s contextual information under music recommendation and classifies and models the contextual information. The traditional content-based recommendation technology CB calculates the recommendation results and then, for the problem that content-based recommendation technology cannot recommend new points of interest for users, introduces the concept of popularity. First, we use the memory and forget function to reduce the score and then consider user attributes and product attributes to calculate similarity; secondly, we use logistic regression to train feature weights; finally, appropriate weights are used to combine user-based and item-based collaborative filtering recommendation results. Based on the above improvements, the improved collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm in this paper has greatly improved the prediction accuracy. Through theoretical proof and simulation experiments, the effectiveness of the MRAPP algorithm is demonstrated. (shrink)

Two kinds of probability expressions, verbal and numerical, have been used to characterize the uncertainty that people face. However, the question of whether verbal and numerical probabilities are cognitively processed in a similar manner remains unresolved. From a levels-of-processing perspective, verbal and numerical probabilities may be processed differently during early sensory processing but similarly in later semantic-associated operations. This event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the neural processing of verbal and numerical probabilities in risky choices. The results showed that verbal probability (...) and numerical probability elicited different N1 amplitudes but that verbal and numerical probabilities elicited similar N2 and P3 waveforms in response to different levels of probability (high to low). These results were consistent with a level-of-processing framework and suggest some internal consistency between the cognitive processing of verbal and numerical probabilities in risky choices. Our findings shed light on possible mechanism underlying probability expression and may provide the neural evidence to support the translation of verbal to numerical probabilities (or vice versa). (shrink)

In the real-world complex product design process, task allocating is an ongoing reactive process where the presence of unexpected design change is usually inevitable. Therefore, reallocating is necessary to respond to design change positively as a procedure to repair the affected task plan. General reallocating literature addressed the reallocating versions with fixed executing time. In this paper, a multi-objective reallocation model is developed with a feasible assumption that the task executing time is controllable. To illustrate this idea, a compressing executing (...) time strategy is proposed in CPD process, where the executing time can be controlled with a non-linear compression cost. When design change occurs during the executing, task-resource reallocating is required to absorb the interference effects. Reallocating implies an increase in design cost and system instability; the proposed method CETS can address this issue effectively. CETS considers three objectives: completing time, stability, and change-adaptation cost. An adaptive multi-objective hybrid genetic algorithm and tabu search is developed to solve this mathematical method. The computational results of specific simulation examples verify the superiority. It shows that CETS is sensitive to design change, and the proposed algorithm AMOGATS can be effective to achieve the allocating by coordinating the objective consistency. (shrink)

This paper focuses on performance assessment of a freight network with stochastic capacities by using reliability analysis, in which a node denotes a supplier, a transfer center, a distribution center, or a market, while an arc denotes a logistics service provider offering the freight traffic service for a pair of nodes. Due to some uncertainties in real environment, the available capacity of the provider along each arc is stochastic. Thus, network reliability that at least d units of commodity demand can (...) be successfully delivered from the source to the destination denotes the operational performance of such a freight network. A d-minimal path–based method is developed to evaluate the freight network reliability. To advance the efficiency of solving d-minimal paths, an improved model is established by redefining capacity bounds of arcs and minimal paths. Furthermore, a new concept of expected capacity grounded on network reliability is presented to measure the service performance of the freight network. A practical case related to the coal delivery network is studied to demonstrate the implications of both network reliability and expected capacity. (shrink)

Choosing Freedom is an accessible and accurate introduction to Kant’s moral philosophy that brings a Kantian way of living to life. It’s not a moral instruction manual that provides readers the ten...

In this paper, it is argued that there are (at least) two different kinds of ‘epistemic normativity’ in epistemology, which can be scrutinized and revealed by some comparison with some naturalistic studies of ethics. The first kind of epistemic normativity can be naturalized, but the other not. The doctrines of Quine’s naturalized epistemology is firstly introduced; then Kim’s critique of Quine’s proposal is examined. It is argued that Quine’s naturalized epistemology is able to save some room for the concept of (...) epistemic normativity and therefore his doctrine can be protected against Kim’s critique. But, it is the first kind of epistemic normativity that can be naturalized in epistemology. With the assistance of Goldman’s fake barn case, it is shown that the concept of epistemic normativity that is involved in the concept of knowing, which cannot be fully naturalized. The Gettier problem indicates that Quine only gets partially right idea concerning whether epistemology can (and should) be natualized. (shrink)

With the problems of climate warming and ecological destruction becoming more and more serious, natural risks have attracted more and more attention, and corporate natural resource disclosure has gradually become a focal topic in academia. Therefore, based on the institutional theory and the upper echelon theory, this study selects 348 Chinese natural resource-based listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2014 to 2021 as samples to investigate the influence of clan culture on corporate natural resource disclosure and the (...) moderating effect of natural resource endowment on the relationship between the two, and analyzes the heterogeneity from the two aspects of the workplace and growth experience of corporate executives. The results indicate that clan culture has a significant positive effect on corporate natural resource disclosure. Natural resource endowment can negatively moderate the effect of clan culture on corporate natural resource disclosure. The positive effect of clan culture on the quality of corporate natural resource disclosure is significant when executives work in their birthplace or are born before the Cultural Revolution, but it is not significant when executives do not work in their birthplace or are born after the Cultural Revolution. These findings help to extend the analysis of the influence of informal institutions on information disclosure, providing a reference for future research on natural resource disclosure and informal institutions in developing countries. (shrink)

The Chinese government capped executive compensation in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to address income inequality and promote a more equitable distribution of wealth. This study investigates whether regulating top executives' pay alters their motivation for corporate green innovation (GI) initiatives. Using data from 2006 to 2018 for Chinese-listed SOEs, the regression analysis and difference-in-difference methods revealed that government restrictions on executive compensation negatively affect GI. Furthermore, the types of SOE results show that the negative effect of pay restrictions on GI exists (...) only in local SOEs, as opposed to central SOEs. Moreover, high managerial shareholding positively moderates this negative effect, demonstrating that the adverse effects of compensation restrictions are mitigated by the convergence of interests between managers and stakeholders. These findings are robust to instrumental variables and other robustness tests. This study provides policy recommendations for the government to boost its assistance in GI and establish new environment-related incentives that motivate managers to promote GI and inspire enterprises to deploy sustainable environmental initiatives. (shrink)

Adrian Heathcote has proposed a truth-making account of knowledge that combines traditional conditions of justified true belief with the truth-making condition, which would jointly provide us with the sufficient condition of knowledge, and this truth-maker account of knowledge in turn explains why a gettiered justified true belief fails to be regarded as a genuine instance of knowledge. In this paper, by the comparison of two different casual models that are illustrated by the thermometer and the clock respectively, however, it will (...) be argued that Heathcote’s truth-making account of knowledge fails to cope with the Gettier case of the stopped clock and therefore is called for some further remedy. (shrink)

The ancient aesthetics of yijing has played a crucial role in traditional Chinese philosophy, literature and art since the eighth century CE. Defined variously by early and contemporary writers, yijing links an artist's emotional domain to objects in the world. This article conceptualises yijing as an ecological aesthetics and distinguishes it from an environmental aesthetics. In particular, two aspects of yijing render it an eco-aesthetics: subject-object correspondence (or 'engagement'); and empathic identification with the environment (or 'bio-empathy'). Three brief case studies (...) from urban planning, environmental conservation and the creative arts demonstrate the contemporary importance of yijing to ecological issues. (shrink)

The notion of respect is central to many moral requirements in daily life. In the Western philosophical tradition, there is a tendency to explore the nature of respect based on the nature of the object of respect. The Kantian account of respect for the moral law is one representative of this approach. In contrast, the classical Confucian notion of jing 敬 not only has a meaning similar to the Western notion of respect but also emphasizes the value of having a (...) respectful state of mind. Both Sin Yee Chan and Pengbo Liu argue that jing, the Confucian conception of respect, has significant theoretical and practical value for obtaining an adequate understanding of the role of respect in moral life (Chan 2006, Liu 2019). However, their discussions primarily focus on the distinction between Western and Eastern views of respect. In this essay, I will focus on revealing the theoretical and practical value of combining the two perspectives on respect. I aim to demonstrate that by borrowing insights from each side, we will gain a deeper understanding of the nature of respect and what it requires in terms of proper treatment of other individuals. (shrink)

Apoptosis proteins play an essential role in regulating a balance between cell proliferation and death. The successful prediction of subcellular localization of apoptosis proteins directly from primary sequence is much benefited to understand programmed cell death and drug discovery. In this paper, by use of Chou’s pseudo amino acid composition , a total of 317 apoptosis proteins are predicted by support vector machine . The jackknife cross-validation is applied to test predictive capability of proposed method. The predictive results show that (...) overall prediction accuracy is 91.1% which is higher than previous methods. Furthermore, another dataset containing 98 apoptosis proteins is examined by proposed method. The overall predicted successful rate is 92.9%. (shrink)

Driven by the use cases of PubChemRDF and SCAIView, we have developed a first community-based clinical trial ontology (CTO) by following the OBO Foundry principles. CTO uses the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as the top level ontology and reuses many terms from existing ontologies. CTO has also defined many clinical trial-specific terms. The general CTO design pattern is based on the PICO framework together with two applications. First, the PubChemRDF use case demonstrates how a drug Gleevec is linked to multiple (...) clinical trials investigating Gleevec’s related chemical compounds. Second, the SCAIView text mining engine shows how the use of CTO terms in its search algorithm can identify publications referring to COVID-19-related clinical trials. Future opportunities and challenges are discussed. (shrink)

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness characterized by a disconnection between brain regions. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a non-invasive brain intervention technique that can be used as a new and safe treatment option for patients with schizophrenia with drug-refractory symptoms, such as negative symptoms and cognitive impairment. However, the therapeutic effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation remain unclear and would be investigated using non-invasive tools, such as functional connectivity. A longitudinal design was adopted to investigate the alteration in FC dynamics using (...) a dynamic functional connectivity approach in patients with schizophrenia following high-frequency repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation with the target at the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Two groups of schizophrenia inpatients were recruited. One group received a 4-week high-frequency rTMS together with antipsychotic drugs, while the other group only received antipsychotic drugs. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and psychiatric symptoms were obtained from the patients with schizophrenia twice at baseline and after 4-week treatment. The dynamics was evaluated using voxel- and region-wise FC temporal variability resulting from fMRI data. The pattern classification technique was used to verify the clinical application value of FC temporal variability. For the voxel-wise FC temporary variability, the repeated measures ANCOVA analysis showed significant treatment × time interaction effects on the FC temporary variability between the left DLPFC and several regions, including the thalamus, cerebellum, precuneus, and precentral gyrus, which are mainly located within the cortico-thalamo-cerebellar circuit. For the ROI-wise FC temporary variability, our results found a significant interaction effect on the FC among CTCC. rTMS intervention led to a reduced FC temporary variability. In addition, higher alteration in FC temporal variability between left DLPFC and right posterior parietal thalamus predicted a higher remission ratio of negative symptom scores, indicating that the decrease of FC temporal variability between the brain regions was associated with the remission of schizophrenia severity. The support vector regression results suggested that the baseline pattern of FC temporary variability between the regions in CTCC could predict the efficacy of high-frequency rTMS intervention on negative symptoms in schizophrenia. These findings confirm the potential relationship between the reduction in whole-brain functional dynamics induced by high-frequency rTMS and the improvement in psychiatric scores, suggesting that high-frequency rTMS affects psychiatric symptoms by coordinating the heterogeneity of activity between the brain regions. Future studies would examine the clinical utility of using functional dynamics patterns between specific brain regions as a biomarker to predict the treatment response of high-frequency rTMS. (shrink)

Inspired by a framework of multi lingual sequent calculus, we introduce a formal logical system called locally continuous sequent calculus to represent _L_-domains. By considering the logic states defined on locally continuous sequent calculi, we show that the collection of all logic states of a locally continuous sequent calculus with respect to set inclusion forms an _L_-domain, and every _L_-domain can be obtained in this way. Moreover, we define conjunctive consequence relations as morphisms between our sequent calculi, and prove that (...) the category of locally continuous sequent calculi and conjunctive consequence relations is equivalent to that of _L_-domains and Scott-continuous functions. This result extends Abramsky’s “Domain theory in logical form” to a continuous setting. (shrink)

ObjectivesSeveral studies have examined the effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on associative memory (AM) but findings were inconsistent. Here, we aimed to test whether twice-daily rTMS could significantly improve AM.MethodsIn this single-blind, sham-controlled experiment, 40 participants were randomized to receive twice-daily sham or real rTMS sessions for five consecutive days (a total of 16,000 pulses). The stimulation target in left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) exhibiting peak functional connectivity to the left hippocampus was individually defined for each participant. Participants (...) completed both a picture-cued word association task and Stroop test at baseline and 1 day after the final real or sham rTMS session. Effects of twice-daily rTMS on AM and Stroop test performance were compared using two-way repeated measures analysis of variance with main factors Group (real vs. sham) and Time (baseline vs. post-rTMS).ResultsThere was a significant Group × Time interaction effect. AM score was significantly enhanced in the twice-daily real group after rTMS, but this difference could not survive the post hoc analysis after multiple comparison correction. Further, AM improvement in the twice-daily real group was not superior to a previously reported once-daily rTMS group receiving 8,000 pulses. Then, we combined the twice- and once-daily real groups, and found a significant Group × Time interaction effect. Post hoc analysis indicated that the AM score was significantly enhanced in the real group after multiple comparisons correction.ConclusionOur prospective experiment did not show significant rTMS effect on AM, but this effect may become significant if more participants could be recruited as revealed by our retrospective analysis. (shrink)