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.

This study takes a holistic view of flow and anti-flow experiences as interactive subsystems in blended English as a foreign language learning and examines the dynamic complex construct in the field of instructed second language acquisition. We first rephrased the 22-item Classroom Flow Questionnaire to better reflect the context of blended EFL learning. The modified CFQ was then administered to 661 first language Chinese EFL learners. A final 14-item Foreign Language Flow Scale was developed based on results from a series (...) of reliability and validity tests. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results have demonstrated that foreign language learning flow is a three-dimensional construct involving Enjoyment, Boredom, and Anxiety, thus conceptualizing and validating flow as a continuum with both positive and negative ends. Moreover, participants reported that they experienced the lowest degree of enjoyment, while with respect to the negative flow, they almost experienced similar degree of boredom and anxiety. The present study contributes to the development of the conceptual framework for flow in ISLA as well as constructive pedagogical implications for L2 researchers and educators. Suggestions for future research are also provided. (shrink)

Synthesizing insights from a dynamic capability perspective and social network theory, this study identifies the factors influencing green innovation and examines the relationships between influencing factors, green innovation, and performance. This study uses structural equation modeling to test the research hypotheses. The results indicate that dynamic capability, coordination capability, and social reciprocity are significant drivers of green innovation, including green product innovation and green process innovation. Green product and process innovation have positive effects on environmental performance and organizational performance. These (...) findings are relevant to firms in quest of green management and innovation. (shrink)

Drawing on ancient and modern sources, "a lucid discussion of Taoism and the Chinese language [that's] profound, reflective, and enlightening." —Boston Globe According to Deepak Chopra, "Watts was a spiritual polymatch, the first and possibly greatest." Watts treats the Chinese philosophy of Tao in much the same way as he did Zen Buddhism in his classic The Way of Zen. Critics agree that this last work stands as a perfect monument to the life and literature of Alan Watts. "Perhaps the (...) foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West,... Watts begins with scholarship and intellect and proceeds with art and eloquence to the frontiers of the spirit."—Los Angeles Times. (shrink)

As the essence of livestream e-commerce is social commerce, building a livestream brand community and attracting brand followers are the key aspects to achieving sustained revenue. For many companies, inviting celebrities has become a shortcut to attract new followers. Considering the unsustainability and high cost of the celebrity host mode, some companies switched to using their own branded broadcasters to attract followers. However, as branded broadcasters lack a fan base, choosing the suitable broadcaster type has become a challenge in livestream (...) e-commerce. The motivation of consumers to follow brand livestream accounts is mainly to obtain potential value by embedding them in social networks. Therefore, based on motive theory, this research explores how different broadcaster types affect consumer’s intention to follow a livestream brand community. Results from the analysis of secondary data from livestream platforms and two laboratory experiments reveal that celebrities contribute more to consumer’s intention to follow than branded broadcasters, and utilitarian products can strengthen the effect of branded broadcasters on attracting potential followers. Moreover, branded broadcasters can promote consumer’s intention to follow a livestream brand community by satisfying consumer’s need for informational value during utilitarian product evaluation. This research analyzes the differential effects of different types of broadcasters on livestream brand community building. The findings can deepen the understanding of the consumer’s behavior of following brand livestream communities and provide companies with suggestions on broadcaster selection in livestream e-commerce. (shrink)

Unlike in English, the role of phonology in word recognition in Chinese is unclear. In this event-related potential experiment, we investigated the role of phonology in reading both high- and low-frequency two-character compound Chinese words. Participants executed semantic and homophone judgment tasks of the same precede-target pairs. Each pair of either high- or low-frequency words were either unrelated or related semantically or phonologically. The induced P200 component was greater for low- than for high-frequency word-pairs both in semantic and phonological tasks. (...) Homophones in the semantic judgment task and semantically-related words in the phonology task both elicited a smaller N400 than the control condition, word frequency-independently. However, for low-frequency words in the phonological judgment task, it was found that the semantically related pairs released a significantly larger P200 than the control condition. Thus, the semantic activation of both high- and low-frequency words may be no later than phonological activation. (shrink)

The present study explored the correlation between music preference and mental health of college students to make an empirical contribution to research in this field. The self-reported music preference scale and positive mental health scale of college students were adopted to conduct a questionnaire survey in college students. Common method variance was conducted to test any serious common method bias problem. No serious common method bias problem was observed. The results showed that college students’ preference for pop music, Western classical (...) music, and Chinese traditional music has a significant and positive correlation with their mental health. Furthermore, college students’ preference for heavy music has a significant and inverse correlation with their mental health. This research presents a correlational study; therefore, no causality can be inferred. (shrink)

Reading presents an unsolved difficulty for children with hearing loss and research on factors influencing their literacy development is very limited. This work aimed to study the influence of home literacy environment on literacy development of children with hearing loss and explore possible mediating effects of reading interest and parent-child relationship. 112 Chinese children with hearing loss were surveyed for scales of HLE, literacy development, reading interest, and parent-child relationship. Result analysis showed that HLE significantly predicted literacy development of children (...) with hearing loss and this effect was no longer significant after including reading interest and parent-child relationship as variables. Further, HLE significantly predicted reading interest and parent-child relationship, each of which predicted literacy development and played a significant mediating role in HLE’s influence on literacy development. These findings provide educational tips for families of children with hearing loss. (shrink)

Safeguarding GenAI models against threats and aligning them with security requirements is imperative yet challenging. This chapter provides an overview of the security landscape for generative models. It begins by elucidating common vulnerabilities and attack vectors, including adversarial attacks, model inversion, backdoors, data extraction, and algorithmic bias. The practical implications of these threats are discussed, spanning domains like finance, healthcare, and content creation. The narrative then shifts to exploring mitigation strategies and innovative security paradigms. Differential privacy, blockchain-based provenance, quantum-resistant algorithms, (...) and human-guided reinforcement learning are analyzed as potential techniques to harden generative models. Broader ethical concerns surrounding transparency, accountability, deepfakes, and model interpretability are also addressed. The chapter aims to establish a conceptual foundation encompassing both the technical and ethical dimensions of security for generative AI. It highlights open challenges and lays the groundwork for developing robust, trustworthy, and human-centric solutions. The multifaceted perspective spanning vulnerabilities, implications, and solutions is intended to further discourse on securing society’s growing reliance on generative models. Frontier model security is discussed using Anthropic proposed approach. (shrink)

Music education is one of human kind most universal forms of expression and communication, and it can be found in the daily lives of people of all ages and cultures all over the world. As university life is a time when students are exposed to a great deal of stress, it can have a negative impact on their mental health. Therefore, it is critical to intervene at this stage in their life so that they are prepared to deal with the (...) pressures they will face in the future. The aim of this study was to see how music education affects university students’ mental health, with emotional intelligence functioning as a moderator. The participants in this research were graduate students pursuing degrees in music education. Non probability convenience sampling technique was used to collect and evaluate the data from 265 students studying in different public and private Chinese universities. The data was gathered at a time, and therefore, the study is cross-sectional. The data was collected from January 2022 till the end of March 2022. Many universities have been closed because to COVID-19, therefore data was also gathered online through emails. The data was analyzed quantitatively using the partial least squares –structural equation modeling technique. The findings backed up the hypotheses. The results revealed that there is a significant effect of music education on student’s mental health. Also, emotional intelligence as a moderator significantly and positively moderates the relationship between music education and students’ mental health. Music has numerous physiological aspects, and listening to it on a daily basis may be beneficial to your general health and well-being. Furthermore, musicians and music students with a high level of emotional intelligence have a better chance of not just performing well in school, college and university or in the music industry, but also of maintaining mental health and improving it. (shrink)

In response to the lack of research on the online social network structure of athletes, elements of research on the online social network structure of athletes were constructed based on the whole network perspective and through the study of the characteristics of the whole online social network structure of athletes, in order to provide reference for the physical and mental health development of athletes from a new perspective. Data were collected through questionnaires, and several software programs were used to preprocess (...) and analyse the collected data. Through the analysis of the online whole network structure, it was found that the network density of the online support network was generally greater than that of the online discussion network, and athletes still showed stronger practical support demands and behaved more rationally in the process of training and learning life, while from the perspective of the relationship structure, the athletes’ family and classmates’ online support is weaker than that in previous studies; in terms of the whole network, strong relationships still dominate in this population, while attention should be paid to the impact of weak relationships. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Husserl’s view on the normativity of intentionality and its neutralization. Husserl reaches his mature, normative-transcendental conception of intentionality by way of critical engagement with Brentano’s position. As opposed to Brentano, Husserl does not conceive of the normativity of intentionality as deriving from the more basic character of polar opposition. Normativity comes first and it is an original, though not universal determination of intentionality which is expressed in the identificatory achievement of constitution. Even where it is (...) absent, this absence makes itself felt since neutrality is never the simple omission of normativity but essentially its neutralizing modification. The discussion of neutrality-modification in Ideas I is, however, problematic, as I will argue by drawing upon Husserl’s research manuscripts. I aim to show that neutralization is not a single but a group of closely related intentional modifications and that ways of neutralization are best conceptualized as changes of attitude. I will then examine phantasy and aesthetic consciousness as involving two such neutralizing attitudes. What they have in common is a spirit of playfulness in contrast to the serious commitment to truth that characterizes original intentionality. The neutralization of normativity takes place in play. (shrink)

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of urban public transportation capacity, citizens’ travel has become more and more convenient, but there are still some potential problems, such as morning and evening peak congestion, imbalance between the supply and demand of vehicles and passenger flow, emergencies, and social local passenger flow surged due to special circumstances such as activities and inclement weather. If you want to properly guide the local passenger flow and make a reasonable deployment of operating buses, it (...) is necessary to grasp the changing law of public transportation short-term passenger flow. This paper builds a short-term passenger flow prediction model for urban public transportation based on the idea of integrated learning. The goal is to use the integrated model to accurately predict the short-term passenger flow of urban public transportation, using Multivariable Linear Regression, K-Nearest Neighbor, eXtreme Gradient Boosting, and Gated Recurrent Unit as the four seed models, and then use regression algorithm to integrate the model and predict the passenger flow, station boarding and landing, and cross-sectional passenger flow data of the typical representative line 428 in the “Huitian Area” of Beijing from January 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020. Finally, the prediction results of the submodels are compared with those of the integrated model to verify the superiority of the integrated model. The research results of this paper can enrich the short-term passenger flow forecasting system of urban public transportation and provide effective data support and scientific basis for the passenger flow, vehicle management, and dispatch of urban public transportation. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page W12-W14.

This paper presents an active fault-tolerant control strategy for quadrotor helicopters to simultaneously accommodate sensor faults and external disturbances. Unlike most of the existing fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control schemes for quadrotor helicopters, the proposed fault diagnosis scheme is able to estimate sensor faults while eliminating the effect of external disturbances. Moreover, the proposed fault-tolerant control scheme is capable to eliminate the adverse effect of external disturbances as well by designing a disturbance observer to effectively estimate the unknown external disturbances (...) and integrating with the designed integral sliding-mode controller. In this case, the continuous operation of the quadrotor helicopter is ensured while avoiding the unexpected control chattering. In addition, the stability of the closed-loop system is theoretically proved. Finally, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed scheme are validated and demonstrated through comparative numerical simulations of the quadrotor helicopter under different faulty and uncertain scenarios. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between chief executive officers ’ collectivistic cultural background and corporate pollution abatement behavior among industrial firms in China. Using hand-collected data on birthplaces of CEOs of the industrial firms, we provided robust evidence that CEOs born in provinces with a higher level of collectivistic culture promote corporate pollution abatement performance. This study further shows that firms exhibit significant differences in their emission reduction behavior when firms are subjected to environmental regulation shocks: firms with collectivistic CEOs (...) tend to reduce more pollution than firms with individualistic CEOs without sacrificing their firms’ production. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the psychological mechanisms underlying the relation between college students’ post-traumatic growth and their entrepreneurial intentions in the post-COVID-19 era. Using the post-traumatic growth, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, prosocial tendency, and entrepreneurial intention scales, we tested 690 valid samples of Chinese undergraduates. The results revealed that post-traumatic growth of college students in the post-COVID-19 era will have a significant and positive effect on their entrepreneurial intentions. Additionally, the results indicated that students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and prosocial tendencies play a (...) partial mediation role between post-traumatic growth and entrepreneurial intentions in the post-COVID-19 era and that there is a chain mediating effect between students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and prosocial tendencies. This study provides valuable insights into the influence of post-traumatic growth on entrepreneurial intentions among college students in the post-COVID-19 era and suggests that colleges and universities can improve students’ entrepreneurial intentions by adopting measures to foster their post-traumatic growth, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and prosocial tendencies. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis article explores the effect of preoperative health education, in the form of animation videos, on postoperative self-reported pain levels and anxiety in femoral fractures.MethodsNinety cases of femoral fracture were divided at random into the oral instruction group, the recorded video group, and the animation video group, with 30 cases in each group. Sociodemographic data were collected the day before surgery. Health education was then offered in one of three ways: orally, using a recorded video, or using an animation video. (...) On days 2, 4, and 7 after surgery, the state-trait anxiety inventory and the visual analog scale were used to assess postoperative anxiety and pain levels, respectively, in the participants.ResultsAt different time points during the evaluation, total anxiety scores in the animation and recorded video groups were significantly lower than in the oral instruction group. STAI scores in the three groups were found to have significant interactions with the measurement time in the three groups.ConclusionPreoperative health education with the aid of multimedia is more effective than oral instruction in lowering patients’ postoperative anxiety and pain levels. In addition, animation videos are superior to recorded videos in mitigating postoperative anxiety. Whether the two approaches differ in reducing postoperative pain in bone fractures remains to be further tested. (shrink)

Posttraumatic growth has been correlated with coping style among patients with breast cancer. However, to date, there is no consensus on the extent to which coping style is associated with PTG in patients with breast cancer. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to quantitatively synthesize previous findings. Based on the PRISMA method, this study employed a random effects model using the Stata software to calculate the pooled correlation coefficient and examined a range of moderators: cancer stage, publication type, participants’ age, and (...) coping style measurement tools. Relevant studies, published from inception to 9 March 2022, were identified through a systematic search in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO, WANFANG DATA, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and China Science and Technology Journal Database databases. Finally, 20 studies involving 3,571 breast cancer patients were included in this investigation. The results showed a high positive relation between confrontation coping and PTG and a moderate positive relation between avoidance coping and PTG. Additionally, a moderate negative relation was identified between acceptance–resignation coping and PTG. Publication type and coping style measurement tools moderated the relation between coping style and PTG among breast cancer patients. The findings indicated that breast cancer patients should either confront the disease or avoid coping with it according to their disease state, which would facilitate better growth. More studies, especially, large prospective studies, are warranted to verify our findings.Systematic review registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42022319107], identifier [CRD42022319107]. (shrink)

As a pair of important categories in traditional Chinese culture, "ming 命 (destiny or decrees)" and "tian ming 天命 (heavenly ordinances)" mainly refer to the constraints placed on human beings. Both originated from "ling 令 (decrees)," which evolved from "wang ling 王令 (royal decrees)" into "tian ling 天令 (heavenly decrees)," and then became "ming" from a throne because of the decisive role of "heavenly decrees" over a throne. "Ming" and "tian ming" have different definitions: "Ming" represented the limits Heaven placed (...) on the natural lives of human beings and was an objective force that men could not direct, but was embodied in human beings as their "destiny"; "Tian ming" reflected the moral ideals of human beings in their self-identification; It originated in man but had to be verified by Heaven, and it was therefore the true ordinance that Heaven placed on human beings. "Ming" and "tian ming" are two perspectives on the traditional relationship between Heaven and human beings, and at the same time Confucians and Daoists placed different emphasis on them. /// 摘要 "命" 与 "天命" 是传统文化中的-对重要范畴，主要指人所受到的限制。 二者都起源 "令", 由 "王令" "而" 天令又因 "天令" 对王权的决定作用从 而成为王权之 "命" 。"命" 与 "天命" 有不同规定 "命" 体现着天对人之自然 生命的限制，表现的是人所无法驾驭的客观力量，但落实于人并表现为人之 "命" ; "天命" 体现的则是人之自我确认的道德理想，其虽然出于人却又必须证之于天， 所以是天之真正的命于人者。命与天命，既体现了传统天人关系的双重视角，同时 也是儒道两家不同探索侧重的一个基本分野。. (shrink)

ObjectivesIn this study, the effect of WeChat use on the subjective health of older adults was examined.MethodsUsing 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study survey data, we attempted to rule out potential endogeneity bias by employing instrumental variable regression to estimate the effects of WeChat use on the health of older individuals. Mobile phone price was chosen as the instrumental variable, and the health of older adults was measured from two aspects: self-rated health and the Center for Epidemiological Studies of (...) Depression Scale.ResultsWeChat use has a significant positive impact on the subjective health of older adults and can significantly improve their self-rated health and mental health status. WeChat use has significant positive effects on the subjective health of both older men and women, but relatively younger older adults obtain more health benefits from WeChat use.ConclusionThe virtual social participation prompted by WeChat use affects the health of older adults. This finding provides a reference for promoting the active integration of older adults into digital life. (shrink)

With the rapid development of computer science and information technology, artificial intelligence has been developed from theory to application. As a key technology in the modern society, AI is increasingly affecting all aspects of people’s daily lives, including sports training. AI can be considered as an assistive technology to provide specific support to athletes’ physical education training through various means such as data analysis and simulation of training scenarios. Although research on AI is still in the preliminary stage, it is (...) significant to explore how AI can be applied in sports training since this emerging technology could facilitate people’s physical training to some extent. This paper first reviews the existing research on AI applications. Then, based on the fundamental concept and related research results of AI, this study explores three specific cases of AI application in sports training and explains the main principles. This research focuses on discussing the strong relationship between AI technology and physical education training and highlights the advantages of AI, including utilization, convenience, and innovation. (shrink)

Although lean search is seen as an important action in lean startup, previous studies have less knowledge on how to realize it, especially in the face of traditional plans that cannot cope with sudden changes in the environment. To fill the research gap, this study investigates the effects of improvisation on lean search. Meanwhile, this research also discusses the moderating effects of entrepreneurial team heterogeneity and the environmental uncertainty to identify the boundary conditions of this relationship. Supported by the cross-sectional (...) data from 203 Chinese startups, the results show that explorative and ambidextrous improvisation are positively associated with lean search. However, the effect of exploitative improvisation on lean search is unsupported. Additionally, technology uncertainty positively moderates the relationship between exploitative improvisation and lean search. Market uncertainty positively moderates the relationship between explorative improvisation and lean search. However, the entrepreneurial team heterogeneity negatively moderates the relationship between ambidextrous improvisation and lean search. These findings contribute to understanding how startups could conduct lean search in a rapidly changing environment, which provides theoretical guidance for improving the success rate of startups. (shrink)

This commentary focuses on two issues. First, reflecting on the distinction between public and private institutions in protecting individual rights is necessary. Second, the current regulatory appr...

PurposeThis study aimed to explore current developments and trends in the field of subjective well-being of older adults at a macro level and identify research hotspots.MethodsWe included reviews and articles on the SWB of older adults in the Web of Science Core Collection published from 2002 to 2021. We used CiteSpace to draw a knowledge map of the authors, institutions, countries, references, and keywords for visual analysis and used Microsoft Excel tables to count basic information details.ResultsA total of 354 papers (...) were included, and the number of papers published over the past two decades showed a pattern of growth. The core force of publications was primarily attributed to studies conducted in Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania, which have relatively major issues of aging and good economic strength. However, links between states, institutions, and authors were relatively weak. Cluster analysis showed that the research field could be divided into eight topics: the application of social psychology in the study of the SWB of older adults, aging in older adults, health condition of older adults, achieving successful aging, interventions for SWB, age differences in SWB research, an economic perspective of SWB research and social support for older adults. Current research frontiers are socioeconomic status, community, intervention, participation, adjustment, validation, and personality.ConclusionThe results of the present study provided a comprehensive picture in the research field of SWB of older adults. It showed that the mechanism, especially the bidirectional effect, between the SWB of older adults and its influencing factors is still worthy of further exploration. More research on evidence-based and intervention strategies should be conducted in the future. (shrink)

感通有三層結構，依照場所論來理解，主體性中的自我關係、人我關係、天人關係是按照三方向而配置。 這三種方向彼此無法任意取代，卻仍然有相互呼應的關聯。 黃冠閔《感通與迴盪：唐君毅哲學論探》核心論題是唐君毅的感通概念，此一概念選擇考慮到「感通」是一個傳統詞彙，唐君毅有意識地取用此一概念連結上傳統思想資源，但又賦與它一些新的理解，帶入新的不同脈絡。 感通概念蘊含著動態歷程中的時間性與歷史性，一方面符合中國哲學「易」（包含《易經》、《易傳》）重視時與位的思想傳統，另一方面也能夠結合歷史與文化的思想特色，不受限在自然的層面上。 本書《感通與迴盪》嘗試的方式是從批判論與觀念論的傳統略微挪移，結合著二十世紀發展出的現象學來審視感通論；本書也努力於探測這一哲學論述的理論效果，從 「迴盪」的角度來評估。迴盪，既是拉開了距離，此即觀點挪移所產生的距離，也是時間的差異，重新安置在當代的思想氛圍中來回應。迴盪，也有一個來自音響上的效果，不是追求同聲相應，但是在異音變調中尋求一種呼應的 可能，也試著重新調音，探索創造新調性的樣貌。.

Combining games with mobile commerce applications has been a trend in recent years. Mobile commerce is attracting a large number of people, especially females, to play mini games on the platform. The gamification of mobile commerce may affect users’ platform satisfaction. This study aims to explore the intention of female users to play mobile commerce games and its impact on platform satisfaction. We collected data from females in China who played mobile commerce games and then used a structural equation model (...) to test the various hypotheses we made. The results showed that game use intention fully mediated the impact of performance expectation, hedonic motivation, and social influence on platform satisfaction. Effort expectation had no significant impact on game use intention but had a positive impact on platform satisfaction. Game use intention had a positive impact on platform satisfaction. The frequency of playing games and the amount of money spent on the platform were positively correlated with game use intention. Females over 25 years old preferred to play mobile commerce games. This study provides a theoretical reference and practical enlightenment and makes a specific contribution to the development of mobile commerce platform and the application of gamification. However, this study has limitations in terms of test samples, research methods and research content, and further research on mobile commerce is required in the future. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the multiple mediating effects of achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing between social support and individual occupational identity.MethodsQuestionnaire method was used in this study. 565 junior college students majoring in pre-school education were tested by social support scale, achievement motivation scale, subjective wellbeing scale, and occupational identity scale.Results There isn’t significant relationship between perceptions of social support and individual occupational identity. Achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing individually play a mediating role between social support and individual occupational (...) identity. Achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing play a chain mediating effect between elf-efficacy and individual occupational identity.ConclusionSocial support can indirectly predict professional identity of pre-school “would-be teachers” through the mediating effect of achievement motivation, subjective wellbeing and the chain mediating effect of achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing. (shrink)

The ongoing pandemic has transformed communication modes globally. Especially in the case of higher education, where countermeasures against coronavirus disease 2019 have affected students’ learning experience. This study emphasized the case of business simulation games, where critical factors were underlined to define learners’ intention to use an online learning environment through the lens of task technology fit as a theoretical stance. This study considered the statistical analysis of 523 students who attended the business simulation module online at the tertiary level (...) of education. Findings conclude that flow experience is the most critical factor to define learners’ perceived TTF in the case of an online learning experience. However, the learners’ self-efficacy is significant enough to map learners’ intentions to use an online environment for learning. The study discussed several theoretical and practical implications for learners’ educators and policymakers. (shrink)

This article examines the way in which the British press reported on typhoons that affected Hong Kong during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Typhoons were a significant element in the narration of the British Empire, featuring frequently in British accounts of their involvements in the Far East, where Hong Kong was its only colony. I suggest that these accounts need to be considered alongside the consolidation of the ‘tropics’ as a region in British perceptions, and in doing so, this (...) article opens discussions of the study of tropicality to the consideration not just of climate, but also of the significance of singular weather events. This article argues that the cultural representations of typhoons in the British press were a tool of ‘othering’. In particular, there were two significant shifts around the 1880s in these reports. First, the term ‘typhoon’ became tied to these types of storms that affected Hong Kong. Second, the stories that were told about typhoon events emphasized British heroism and colonial management. Both these shifts in reporting stripped away the weather wisdom that British sailors had earlier identified in the local population. (shrink)

The role of the two hemispheres in processing metaphoric language is controversial. In order to complement current debates, the current divided visual field study introduced scientific metaphors as novel metaphors, presenting orientation mapping from the specific and familiar domains to the abstract and unfamiliar domains, to examine hemispheric asymmetry in metaphoric processing. Twenty-four Chinese native speakers from science disciplines took part in the experiment. The participants were presented with four types of Chinese word pairs: scientific metaphors, conventional metaphors, literal word (...) pairs, and unrelated word pairs. The first word in each pair was presented centrally, and the second was presented to the left visual field or the right visual field. Event-related potentials were recorded when participants read the target words and judged whether words in each pair were related. The data demonstrated that both hemispheres were involved at the initial stage of metaphor processing, but the right hemisphere took a more privileged role. The significant activation of the left hemisphere for scientific metaphoric processing supports the fine-coarse coding hypothesis. During right-visual-field presentation, the left hemisphere, responsible for the processing of closely related domains, has to integrate the loosely associated domains of scientific metaphor, which greatly increased cognitive taxes. Moreover, the data of late positive components revealed different hemispheric activation between scientific metaphors and conventional metaphors. Compared with literal pairs, conventional metaphors elicited significantly higher LPCs during right visual field presentation, while the scientific metaphor elicited significantly lower LPCs during left visual field presentation. These results suggest different processing mechanisms between novel metaphors and conventional metaphors and the special role of the right hemisphere in novel metaphoric processing at the later mapping stage. (shrink)