The purposes of research were to describe the neonatal clinicians' personal views and attitudes on neonatal ethical decision-making, to identify factors that might affect these attitudes and to compare the attitudes between neonatal physicians and neonatal nurses in Taiwan. Research was a cross-sectional design and a questionnaire was used to reach different research purposes. A convenient sample was used to recruit 24 physicians and 80 neonatal nurses from four neonatal intensive care units in Taiwan. Most participants agreed with suggesting a (...) do not resuscitate (DNR) order to parents for dying neonates (86.5%). However, the majority agreed with talking to patients about DNR orders is difficult (76.9%). Most participants agree that review by the clinical ethics committee is needed before the recommendation of ‘DNR’ to parents (94.23%) and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to agree to this (p=0.043). During the end-of-life care, most clinicians accepted to continue current treatment without adding others (70%) and withholding of emergency treatments (75%); however, active euthanasia, the administration of drug to end-of-life, was not considered acceptable by both physicians and nurses in this research (96%). Based on our research results, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage for neonatal clinicians are needed. In Taiwan, neonatal physicians and nurses hold similar values and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for neonates. In order to improve the clinicians' communication skills with parents about DNR options and to change clinicians' attitudes for providing enough pain-relief medicine to dying neonates, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage are needed. (shrink)

Time-varying formation-containment problems for a second-order multiagent system are studied via pulse-modulated intermittent control in this paper. A distributed control framework utilizing the neighbors’ positions and velocities is designed so that leaders in the multiagent system form a formation, and followers move to the convex hull formed by each leader. Different from the traditional formation-containment problems, this paper applies the PMIC framework, which is more common and more in line with the actual control scenarios. Based on the knowledge of matrix (...) theory, algebraic graph theory, and stability theory, some sufficient conditions are given for the time-varying formation-containment problem of the second-order multiagent system. Some numerical simulations are proposed to verify the effectiveness of the results presented in this paper. (shrink)

Customized bus services are conducive to improving urban traffic and environment, and have attracted widespread attention. However, the problems encountered in the new customized bus mode include the large difference between the basis of customized bus passenger flow data analysis and the basis of the traditional bus passenger flow data analysis, and the difficulty in different vehicle scheduling caused by the combination of traditional and customized bus modes. We propose a customized bus passenger flow analysis algorithm and multi-destination customized bus (...) line capacity scheduling algorithm, and display them in an intuitive way. The experimental results show that the algorithm model established in this paper can basically meet the data requirements of operation and management, and can provide decision support for customized bus line planning. (shrink)

The sizes of individual data files have steadily increased along with rising demand for customized services, leading to issues such as low efficiency of web-based geographical information system -based data compression, transmission, and rendering for rich Internet applications in complicated visualization systems. In this article, a WebGIS-based technical solution for the efficient transmission and visualization of meteorological big data is proposed. Based on open-source technology such as HTML5 and Mapbox GL, the proposed scheme considers distributed data compression and transmission on (...) the server side as well as distributed requests and page rendering on the browser side. A high-low 8-bit compression method is developed for compressing a 100 megabyte file into a megabyte-scale file, with a compression ratio of approximately 90%, and the recovered data are accurate to two decimal places. Another part of the scheme combines pyramid tile cutting, concurrent domain name request processing, and texture rendering. Experimental results indicate that with this scheme, grid files of up to 100 MB can be transferred and displayed in milliseconds, and multiterminal service applications can be supported by building a grid data visualization mode for big data and technology centers, which may serve as a reference for other industries. (shrink)

Objectives: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a juvenile onset neurodevelopmental disorder with social impairment and stereotyped behavior as the main symptoms. Unaffected relatives may also exhibit similar ASD features due to genetic factors. Although previous studies have demonstrated atypical brain morphological features as well as task-state brain function abnormalities in unaffected parents with ASD children, it remains unclear the pattern of brain function in the resting state.Methods: A total of 42 unaffected parents of ASD children (pASD) and 39 age-, sex-, (...) and handedness-matched controls were enrolled. Multiple resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) analyzing methods were applied, including amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), degree centrality (DC), and functional connectivity (FC), to reveal the functional abnormalities of unaffected parents in ASD-related brain regions. Spearman Rho correlation analysis between imaging metric values and the severity of ASD traits were evaluated as well.Results: ALFF, ReHo, and DC methods all revealed abnormal brain regions in the pASD group, such as the left medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and rectal gyrus (ROI-1), bilateral supplementary motor area (ROI-2), right caudate nucleus head and right amygdala/para-hippocampal gyrus (ROI-3). FC decreasing was observed between ROI-1 and right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), ROI-2, and bilateral precuneus. FC enhancing was observed between ROI-3 and right anterior cerebellar lobe, left medial temporal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, left precentral gyrus, right postcentral gyrus in pASD. In addition, ALFF values in ROI-1, DC values in ROI-3 were positively correlated with AQ scores in pASD (ρ1 = 0.298, P1 = 0.007; ρ2 = 0.220, P2 = 0.040), while FC values between ROI-1 and right ACC were negatively correlated with AQ scores (ρ3 = −0.334, P3 = 0.002).Conclusion: rsfMRI metrics could be used as biomarkers to reveal the underlying neurobiological feature of ASD for unaffected parents. (shrink)

Purpose: The cognitive effects of total sleep deprivation on the brain remain poorly understood. Electroencephalography is a very useful tool for detecting spontaneous brain activity in the resting state. Quasi-stable electrical distributions, known as microstates, carry useful information about the dynamics of large-scale brain networks. In this study, microstate analysis was used to study changes in brain activity after 24 h of total sleep deprivation.Participants and Methods: Twenty-seven healthy volunteers were recruited and underwent EEG scans before and after 24 h (...) of TSD. Microstate analysis was applied, and six microstate classes were identified. Topographies and temporal parameters of the microstates were compared between the rested wakefulness and TSD conditions.Results: Microstate class A showed lower global explained variance, frequency of occurrence, and time coverage in TSD than RW, whereas microstate class D displayed higher GEV, frequency of occurrence, and time coverage in TSD compared to RW. Moreover, subjective sleepiness was significantly negatively correlated with the microstate parameters of class A and positively correlated with the microstate parameters of class D. Transition analysis revealed that class B exhibited a higher probability of transition than did classes D and F in TSD compared to RW.Conclusion: The observation suggests alterations of the dynamic brain-state properties of TSD in healthy young male subjects, which may serve as system-level neural underpinnings for cognitive declines in sleep-deprived subjects. (shrink)

Mixture item response theory models include a mixture of latent subpopulations such that there are qualitative differences between subgroups but within each subpopulation the measure model based on a continuous latent variable holds. Under this modeling framework, students can be characterized by both their location on a continuous latent variable and by their latent class membership according to Students’ responses. It is important to identify anchor items for constructing a common scale between latent classes beforehand under the mixture IRT framework. (...) Then, all model parameters across latent classes can be estimated on the common scale. In the study, we proposed Q-matrix anchored mixture Rasch model, including a Q-matrix and the traditional mixture Rasch model. The Q-matrix in QAMRM can use class invariant items to place all model parameter estimates from different latent classes on a common scale regardless of the ability distribution. A simulation study was conducted, and it was found that the estimated parameters of the QAMRM recovered fairly well. A real dataset from the Certificate of Proficiency in English was analyzed with the QAMRM, LCDM. It was found the QAMRM outperformed the LCDM in terms of model fit indices. (shrink)

Working memory (WM) is a fundamental cognitive ability to support complex thought, but it is limited in capacity. WM training has shown the potential to make benefit for those in need. Many studies have shown the potential of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to transiently enhance WM performance by delivering low current to the brain cortex of interest via electrodes on the scalp. TDCS has also been revealed as a promising intervention to augment WM training in a few studies. However, (...) those few tDCS-paired WM training studies focused more on the effect of tDCS on WM enhancement and its transferability after training but paid less attention to the variation of cognitive performance during the training procedure. The current study attempted to explore the effect of tDCS on the variation of performance during WM training in healthy young adults. All the participant received WM training with the load-adaptive verbal N-back task for five days. During the training procedure, active/sham anodal high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) was used to stimulate the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). To examine the training effect, pre- and post-test were performed respectively one-day before and after the training sessions respectively. At the beginning of each training session, stable-load WM tasks were performed to examine the performance variation during training. Compared to the sham stimulation, higher learning rates of performance metrics during the training procedure were found when WM training was combined with active anodal HD-tDCS. The performance improvements (post-pre) of the active group were also found to be higher than those of sham group and were transferred to a similar untrained WM task. Further analysis revealed that the negative relation between the training improvements and baseline performance. These findings show the potential that tDCS may be leveraged as an intervention to facilitate WM training for those in need of higher WM ability. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo investigate the attitudes of Chinese parents regarding the storage of dried blood spots collected for newborn screening (NBS) and their use in research.MethodsWe conducted a hospital-based survey of parents and examined parental attitudes regarding (a) allowing NBS sample storage, (b) permitting use of children’s NBS samples for research with parental permission, and (c) permitting use of children’s NBS samples for research without parental permission.ResultsThe response rate was 52 percent. Of parents surveyed, 68 percent would permit their infant’s NBS sample (...) to be stored for at least some length of time. If permission is obtained, 69 percent of parents “strongly agreed” or “agreed” to permit use of the NBS sample for research. If permission is not obtained, only 14 percent of parents “strongly agreed” or “agreed.” There was no significant association between permitting use of NBS samples for research and parental gender, education, household income, number of children, or site of residence.ConclusionsThis is the first survey of Chinese parents regarding the use of NBS samples for different types of research, with results indicating that most parents would permit their infant’s sample to be stored and would support the use of NBS dried blood spots for research purposes. (shrink)

This article reports on the evolution of breakdance. Given the inclusion of breakdancing in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, scholars have generated substantial international research related to breakdance teaching in recent years. However, few researchers have focused on the impact of formal formative assessment on breakdance teachers’ teaching and students’ learning. We wish to contribute to the quality of breakdance teaching and learning by identifying the positive impact of recent research on formative assessment on student learning and designing (...) a formal formative assessment task related to breakdance. This article lays out a framework of formal formative assessment tasks and identifies the positive impact of formative assessment on dance education. Although our work is far from perfect, it does provide a general methodological framework for assessing breakdance students’ abilities in formal educational settings. (shrink)

In this study, we examine whether, how, and when corporate social responsibility increases promotive and prohibitive voices in accordance with ethical climate theory and multi-experience model of ethical climate. Data from 382 employees at two time points are examined. Results show that CSR is positively related to promotive and prohibitive voices. Other-focused and self-focused climates mediate the relationship between CSR and the two types of voice. Moreover, humble leadership moderates the positive relationship between CSR and other-focused climate. Such leadership moderates (...) the negative relationship between CSR and self-focused climate. Humble leadership also moderates the indirect effect between CSR and the two kinds of voice through other-focused and self-focused climates. The findings of this study provide important insights into how and when CSR influences employee voice. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The meshed control theory assumes that cognitive control and automatic processes work together in the natural attention of experts for superior performance. However, the methods adopted by previous studies limit their capacity to provide in-depth information on the neuromotor processes. This experiment tested the theory with an alternative approach. Twelve skilled golfers were recruited to perform a putting task under three conditions: (1) normal condition, with no focus instruction (NC), (2) external focus of attention condition (EC), and (3) internal focus (...) of attention condition (IC). Four blocks of 10 putts each were performed under each condition. The putting success rate and accuracy were measured and electroencephalographies (EEGs) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that the NC produced a higher putting success rate and accuracy than the EC and IC. The EEG data showed that the skilled golfers’ attentional processes in the NC initially resembled those in the EC and then moved toward those in the IC just before putting. This indicates a switch from more automatic processes to cognitive control processes while preparing to putt. The findings offer support for the meshed control theory and indicate the dynamic nature of neuromotor processes for the superior performance of athletes in challenging situations. (shrink)

To cope with the water deficit resulting from saline environment, plant cells accumulate three kinds of osmotica: salts, small organic solutes and hydrophillic, glycine-rich proteins. Salts such as NaCl are cheap and available but has ion toxicity in high concentrations. Small organic solutes are assistant osmotica, their main function is to protect cytoplasmic enzymes from ionic toxicity and maintain the integrity of cellular membranes. Hydrophillic, glycine-rich proteins are the most effective osmotica, they have some characteristics to avoid crystallization even in (...) high concentration, but because they are expensive they are not as commonly used as salts or organic solutes. In addition there is the question of whether the genetic information for growth in saline environment is present in all kinds of plants, both halophytes and nonhalophytes. (shrink)

Anti-intellectualists claim that knowledge-how requires at least a corresponding ability or performance success that includes non-intellectual components. They argue that an insistence on the close relationship between knowledge-how and performance success is needed to account for our intuitions on the practical aspects of knowledge-how. In this paper, we examine three main anti-intellectualist proposals for what constitutes performance success, those of Hawley, Noë, and Kumar, and argue that all of them are non-informative in a practical manner. We further point out that (...) the problem of non-informativeness is dominant in anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

Although research has demonstrated the benefit of psychological detachment for employee well-being, the explanatory mechanisms related to work behaviors underlying this effect remain underdeveloped. Addressing this research gap, we consider self-discrepant time allocation (preferred–actual allocation) as a mediating mechanism through which psychological detachment affects employee well-being. We hypothesize that psychological detachment is associated with self-discrepant time allocation at work. Specifically, we suggest that employees with low detachment tend to allocate more time than preferred to work activities that demand fewer self-regulatory (...) resources, and allocate less time than preferred to activities demanding greater self-regulatory resources. These self-discrepant time allocations at work are associated with employee well-being. Polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology were used to test the hypotheses. The results, based on a sample of 390 faculty members from 19 universities, showed that, when psychological detachment during weekends is low and self-regulatory resources are insufficient, employees will allocate less time than preferred to work activities that require more self-regulatory resources (i.e., researching activities) during the subsequent work period. Instead, employees tend to allocate more time to activities that require less resources (i.e., teaching activities). These discrepancies between actual and preferred time allocation at work activities, in turn, negatively affect employee well-being and mediate the relationship between psychological detachment and employee well-being. (shrink)

As more and more multi-national companies expand their operations globally, their responsibilities extend beyond not only the economic motive of profitability but also other social and environmental factors. The objective of this article is to examine the impact of national culture and geographic environment on firms’ corporate social performance (CSP). Empirical tests are based on a global CSP database of companies from 49 countries. Results show that the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are significantly associated with CSP. In addition, European companies are (...) found to out-perform other regions and countries in CSP. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy combined with medication therapy in preventing the recurrence of major depressive disorder in convalescent patients.MethodsA total of 130 patients with convalescent MDD were enrolled in this prospective study. Sixty-five patients were assigned to the experimental group and received medication therapy combined with MBCT, and 65 patients were assigned to the control group and treated with medication alone. The recurrence rate and related hormonal changes were compared between the two groups.ResultsAfter (...) 1 year of MBCT intervention, eight patients experienced recurrence in the experimental group, a recurrence rate of 12.31%, and 19 patients experienced recurrence in the control group, a recurrence rate of 29.23%. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale scores in both the experimental and the control groups were significantly improved after treatment. The difference in the HAM-D scores before and after treatment in the experimental group was 16.74 ± 4.54; this was significantly higher than that of the control group. The WHOQOL-BREF scores in the experimental group were significantly improved compared with those of the control group. The differences in the levels of corticotrophin-releasing hormone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and cortisol before and after treatment in the experimental group and the control group were statistically significant. The difference in CRH before and after treatment in the experimental group was 16.8 ± 7.2, which was higher than that of the control group. The intervention with MBCT had a significant impact on the recurrence of MDD [β = 1.206, P = 0.039, 95% CI = 0.0790–1.229]. The difference in the HAM-D scores also had a significant impact on the recurrence of MDD.ConclusionCompared with medication therapy alone, the use of MBCT combined with medication therapy can effectively prevent the recurrence of MDD in convalescent patients. (shrink)

With the rapid development of modern technology, people has stepped into an risky era. Ethical stipulation is the important means to reduce the risks. But in reality, ethical stipulation of technology always face some kind of dilemma which mainly come from two aspects: one is that when we try to regulate the subject oftechnology, we find that it always difficult to distinguish the responsibilities. The other aspect is that when we try to limit the result of technology, we often have (...) to give up because of lacking feasibility, which means we sink into the famous “Collingridge dilemma”. Are we able to get out of the dilemma? What should we doif we want to got out of it? First, in the modern technological system, individual’s action is taken over by group’s action according to the technological criterion. Any part of the modern technology need multiple subjects finish his job during the course. Therefore a new form of responsibility named group responsibility has been formed. Like Johnas said, in this ethics, ‘I’ will be replaced by ‘we’ and decision will be the business of a group. So it is difficult for us to find out that “I” from “us” once the technological risks happened. We lost the object of ethical stipulation as the result of no convinced standard and principals of prescribing the group responsibility. Second, when we try to stimulate some certain results of technology, we find we lack not only the wisdom of precisely judging or assessingtechnology itself, but also the ability of correcting the bad results if it has. Here again do we fall into the dilemma. This make it difficult for us to stipulate technology with ethic. From above discussion we can see, the stipulation, no matter from the aspect of technological responsibility or from aspect of the application of technology, has been sure to meet the dilemma. If the conflicts between a hypothesis and experiment cannot be eliminated, we have to rethink the theoryand come back again to technology itself and pursue the essence of technology again. Technology is a process from inventing, designing to forming material technological products; is a process from invisible technology to visible technology; is a process potential technology to real-life technology or intellective technology to reallife technology. Technology exists in process. The essential and innate characteristic is it’s process and dynamics. The transition oftechnological form involves many factors of economic, social, historical, constitutional and cultural. Technological creation of intellectual form is the duty of inventor or technologist. And it is entrepreneur’s job to use the technology or invention, and make them in large quantity, apply them in reality or get economic or other profit. Although there need be interaction, understanding, cooperation, support, coordination among scientist, technologist and enterpriser, they have different responsibility and delimitation. Technology exists in process, no doubt, so does modern technology. This decides that the ethical stipulation of modern technology should be a process stipulation. The essence of modern technological is not only the limitation of subject of technology either not only controlthe object of technology. It is the ethical stipulation in the unity of subject and object of technological dynamic process. This is basic point of understanding ethical stipulation of modern technology. Responsibility ethics consider that the group responsibility as the premise of technological stipulation.It noticed the static structure of modern technological system, but neglect the dynamic linkage between factors. And it only analysed the special construction, neglected the evolution of system of technological responsibility and the inter relationship between space dimension and time dimension. If we unfold the group responsibility along with the process of technology, we will see the different responsibility belong to different subject in different stage of the process. We can also see that different actors obey different norm or criteria according to their task. In this case, we can distinct the distribution of the group responsibility. Collingridge fixed the effective control on the two points of “before ”and ”after” the process of the technological action, namely, the stipulation for the staring point and stipulation of terminal point. But the whole process was neglected. According to the point of view of process stipulation.it is not the sudden occurrence for technology from “nothing ”to “having”. There are time and space during the process. From middle experiment to industrial experiment, the most characters of the result of technology will havebeen shown gradually, so will the social results. So we can give the small quantity an ethical evaluation and ethical choice which is possible and feasible. Over all, if we confirm the ethical stipulation of modern technology is a process regulation, we can delimitate the responsibility of the subjects of technology and also settle the prestipulation of the application of technology. At the end, we can eliminate the dilemma of ethical regulation of modern technology. (shrink)

Using logic analysis method with contemporary philosophy conception, made the definition of a life. Analyzing the reason of a disease and characteristics of drug, explained the Chinese traditional theory of materia medica. Demonstrated the best drug contain the function of Monarch drug, Minister drug, serviceman drug and missioner drug, instructed human drug reseach in future.

Economy is one of the major issues in the United States presidential election campaign. In order to investigate the impact of the US presidential election on the economy, this paper first constructs an analysis model of the economic impact on the United States based on stepwise regression and principal component analysis to analyze the focus of different candidates’ attention on the economic issues and its possible impact on the US economy in the election year and after the election; secondly, a (...) Chinese economic impact analysis model based on factor analysis and machine learning logistic regression was constructed to analyze the impact of the US presidential election on the Chinese economy. At the same time, the future economic development of the United States and China based on the time series prediction model is forecast and analyzed, respectively. Finally, the countermeasures and policy suggestions on China’s related economic development are put forward. (shrink)

As a promising method with excellent characteristics in terms of resilience and dependability, distributed methods are gradually used in the field of energy management of microgrid. However, these methods have more stringent requirements on the working conditions, which will make the system more sensitive to communication failures and cyberattacks. As a result, it is both theoretical merits and practical values to investigate the malicious effect of cyber attacks on microgrid. This paper studies the distributed economic dispatch problem under denial-of-service attacks (...) for the microgrid, in which each generator can communicate with its neighbors and has the computational capability to implement local operation. Firstly, a DoS attack model is proposed, in which the DoS attacker intentionally jams the communication channel to deteriorate the performance of the microgrid. Then, the evolution mechanism of the dispatch system of the microgrid under different attack scenarios is adequately discussed. On this basis, an optimal attack strategy based on enumerating-search algorithm is presented to allocate the limited attack resources reasonably, so as to maximize the effect of DoS attacks. Finally, the validity of the theoretical studies about the attack effect under different scenarios and the effectiveness of the proposed enumerating-search-based optimal attack strategy are illustrated through the simulation examples on the IEEE 57-bus system and IEEE 39-bus system, respectively. (shrink)

The question of what determines brain laterality for auditory cognitive processing is unresolved. Here, we demonstrate a swap of hemisphere dominance from right to left during semantic interpretation of Chinese lexical tones in native speakers using simultaneously recorded mismatch negativity response and behavioral reaction time during dichotic listening judgment. The mismatch negativity, which is a brain wave response and indexes auditory processing at an early stage, indicated right hemisphere dominance. In contrast, the behavioral reaction time, which reflects auditory processing at (...) a later stage, indicated a right ear listening advantage, or left hemisphere dominance. The observed swap of hemisphere dominance would not occur when the lexical tone was substituted with a meaningless pure tone. This swap reveals dependence of hemisphere labor division initially on acoustic and then on functional cues of auditory inputs in the processing from sound to meaning. (shrink)