Higher education (HE) mobility programmes around the globe have been key initiatives over the past thirty years, driven by combinations of supranational and national state-led knowledge economy policies, university strategies, and decisions made by individuals regarding employability, credentials, or academic tourism. In this paper we argue that mobility too often is understood through the prism of internationalism, itself umbilically tied to and nourished by Enlightenment liberal thinking, such as Kantian cosmopolitanism, and the romantic figure of the wandering scholar. This has (...) the effect of reducing our understanding of transnational mobility to individual actors, their desires, and experiences. In this paper we ask: to what extent and in what ways can HE transnational mobility projects be understood as forms of imperialism? In this regard we examine the literature on imperialism and argue for a more capacious use of the term; as taking economic, political and cultural forms. We use these to examine the links between the expansion and securing of empires historically, the state’s spatial projects and global market making. We do this through the prism of two nations, the UK and China, comparing their state’s transnational HE strategies, selectivities and outcomes. (shrink)

This paper studies the way supplier firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects their likelihood of being selected as new suppliers. Using a large sample of US public firms with detailed supply chain and CSR data, we provide empirical evidence that corporate customers prefer socially responsible suppliers, and that the effect is more prominent when the supplier industry is more competitive, the customer’s own CSR performance is better, or the supplier and the customer have more similar CSR focuses. Our paper contributes (...) to the literature of instrumental stakeholder theory (IST) by confirming corporate customer attraction as a desirable outcome of supplier CSR engagement. It complements the existing IST studies on customer responses by showing that CSR attracts not only final customers but also corporate customers. Moreover, by focusing on corporate customers’ revealed preferences for socially responsible suppliers, our paper also complements the stated-preference-based evidence in the literature of sustainable supply chain management. Our paper’s findings encourage supplier firm managers to invest in CSR to gain competitive advantages in the form of a higher likelihood of selection while simultaneously making positive contributions to society. (shrink)

The problem of finite-time tracking control is discussed for a class of uncertain nonstrict-feedback time-varying state delay nonlinear systems with full-state constraints and unmodeled dynamics. Different from traditional finite-control methods, a C 1 smooth finite-time adaptive control framework is introduced by employing a smooth switch between the fractional and cubic form state feedback, so that the desired fast finite-time control performance can be guaranteed. By constructing appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals, the uncertain terms produced by time-varying state delays are compensated for and (...) unmodeled dynamics is coped with by introducing a dynamical signal. In order to avoid the inherent problem of “complexity of explosion” in the backstepping-design process, the DSC technology with a novel nonlinear filter is introduced to simplify the structure of the controller. Furthermore, the results show that all the internal error signals are driven to converge into small regions in a finite time, and the full-state constraints are not violated. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

Since the bilateral commerce between the USA and China changes greatly and Chinese government continues to reform and delegate power in the economic field, it is of importance to study the Uniform Commercial Code of the USA. The study specifically studies the features of modal verbs in the UCC through the comparison with the United States Code and Frown. With the help of Antconc, the distribution of modal verbs, the modal value of the three sets of corpora are examined and (...) analyzed based on the theory of Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar. The results show that there are significant differences between the three sets of corpora and the three main features of modal verbs in the UCC are: the high frequency use of may, the relatively lower frequency use of legal modal verb shall, and the much higher frequency of must and may not. The seemingly contrary usages within the UCC are discussed and explained with the background of the legislation and the legal thoughts of the major legislator in a sociosemiotic approach. With both the quantitative and qualitative analysis combining the examples, the study hopes to shed light on the related legal translation and further enhance the understanding of the modal verbs in the UCC as well as legal discourse in a more general context. (shrink)

Post-stroke depression is a serious complication of stroke that significantly restricts rehabilitation. The use of immersive virtual reality for stroke survivors is promising. Herein, we investigated the effects of a novel immersive virtual reality training system on PSD and explored induced effective connectivity alterations in emotional networks using multivariate Granger causality analysis. Forty-four patients with PSD were equally allocated into an immersive-virtual reality group and a control group. In addition to their usual rehabilitation treatments, the participants in the immersive-virtual reality (...) group participated in an immersive-virtual reality rehabilitation program, while the patients in the control group received 2D virtual reality rehabilitation training. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, modified Barthel Index, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected before and after a 4-week intervention. rsfMRI data were analyzed using multivariate GCA. We found that the immersive virtual reality training was more effective in improving depression in patients with PSD but had no statistically significant improvement in MBI scores compared to the control group. The GCA showed that the following causal connectivities were strengthened after immersive virtual reality training: from the amygdala, insula, middle temporal gyrus, and caudate nucleus to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; from the insula to the medial prefrontal cortex; and from the thalamus to the posterior superior temporal sulcus. These causal connectivities were weakened after treatment in the control group. Our results indicated the neurotherapeutic use of immersive virtual reality rehabilitation as an effective non-pharmacological intervention for PSD; the alteration of causal connectivity in emotional networks might constitute the neural mechanisms underlying immersive-virtual reality rehabilitation in PSD. (shrink)

The contribution of women to China’s economic growth and development cannot be overemphasized. Women play important social, economic, and productive roles in any economy. China remains one of the countries in the world with severe gender inequality and sex ratio at birth (SRB) imbalance. Severe gender inequality and disenfranchisement of girls with abnormally high sex ratios at birth reflect deep-rooted sexism and adversely affect girls’ development. For China to achieve economic growth, women should not be ignored and marginalized so that (...) they can contribute to the country’s growth, but the sex ratio at birth needs to be lowered because only women can contribute to growth. Thus, this study empirically predicts an asymmetric relationship between gender inequality, sex ratio at birth and economic growth, using NARDL model over the period 1980–2020. The NARDL results show that increases in gender inequality and sex ratio at birth significantly reduce economic growth in both the short and long term, while reductions in gender inequality and sex ratio at birth significantly boost economic growth in both the short and long term. Moreover, the results show the significant contribution of female labor force participation and female education (secondary and higher education) to economic growth. However, infant mortality rate significantly reduced economic growth. Strategically, the study recommends equal opportunities for women in employment, education, health, economics, and politics to reduce gender disparities and thereby promote sustainable economic growth in China. Moreover, policymakers should introduce new population policy to stabilize the sex ratio at birth, thereby promoting China’s long-term economic growth. (shrink)

The preschool education profession often faces many challenges and preschool teachers, as important members of the preschool education profession must respond to a variety of emergencies with young children, which also leads to high levels of job stress and can have a negative impact on their ongoing well-being. Past research has pointed out that a healthy lifestyle is one of the key factors in enhancing sustainable well-being in high-stress work situations and many studies have found that good leisure activity engagement (...) as a healthy lifestyle is associated with higher levels of well-being. However, the relationship between preschool teachers’ leisure engagement and sustainable well-being has been less explored. Therefore, this study proposed seven research hypotheses based on the engagement theory proposed by Fredricks et al. and developed a research model to explore the relationship between three types of leisure engagement, including behavioral, affective and cognitive, and preschool teachers’ job stress and sustainable well-being, using age as a control variable. This study used a cross-sectional web-based questionnaire with a convenience sample of 500 preschool teachers in China. The collected data were analyzed for reliability and validity, model fit testing and structural equation modeling for model validation after removing invalid data and incomplete responses. The results of the study showed that behavioral engagement was not related with either the job stress or sustainable well-being of preschool teachers; Emotional and cognitive engagement were negatively related to job stress but positively related to the sustainable well-being of preschool teachers; and Job stress was negatively related to the sustainable well-being of preschool teachers; Age is an effective control variable. From the above results, it is clear that not all three types of leisure engagement are effective in terms of reducing the work stress of preschool teachers. As well as being related to the sustainable well-being of preschool teachers emotional and cognitive engagement contributed more to sustainable well-being acquisition. (shrink)

Using a manually collected dataset on the overseas experiences of directors of Chinese listed firms, we examine the effects of returnee directors on firms’ corporate social responsibility engagement. Our results show that returnee directors significantly improve their firms’ CSR engagement. The positive relationship between the percentage of returnee directors and CSR engagement is more significant when a firm is in a competitive industry, when a firm has no government ownership, when a firm’s CEO is not politically connected, and when a (...) firm’s CEO is older. Furthermore, we find that only long-term foreign professional or academic experience matters, whereas short-term visiting experience does not. Finally, our results are robust after controlling for endogeneity. Therefore, this paper offers clear policy implications by suggesting that hiring more returnees as corporate directors is an efficient way to enhance firms’ CSR, which may be of particular interest to regulators in emerging markets. (shrink)

With the rapid development of renewable generators such as distributed photovoltaic and profound changes of the power structure, this paper analyzes the frequency characteristics of the power system with high penetration of renewable generations in the process of low-frequency load shedding and discusses the influence of the distributed renewable generator frequency endurance capabilities on the implementation effect of low-frequency load shedding in detail. Finally, the influences of the distributed renewable generator frequency endurance capability and the capacities of the distributed renewable (...) generator on frequency response characteristics of an actual Hunan power grid are simulated. The simulation results show that more distributed photovoltaic capacity without frequency endurance capability leads to deeper frequency drops after the disturbance and requires more basic rounds of load shedding. When the penetration rate of distributed photovoltaic is too high, it may cause load shedding, resulting in power grid load losses and, at the same time, leading to an overshoot phenomenon in the process of frequency recovery. Therefore, the influence of distributed photovoltaic on the control of low-frequency load shedding should be considered when designing low-frequency load shedding schemes for the power grid with high penetration of distributed photovoltaic. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo explore the effect of independently developed transcranial pulsed current stimulation on alleviating athlete’s mental fatigue.MethodsA total of 60 college athletes were randomly divided into the active stimulation group and the sham stimulation group. Subjective questionnaires, behavior test, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy test were conducted before and after the experiment. Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures was used to compare the differences in mental fatigue indexes before and after the two experimental conditions.ResultsAfter 7 days of exercise training, there was a significant (...) difference in the main effect of the time factor in all indexes of the two groups. The scores of rated perceived exertion scale, positive and negative affect schedule, critical flicker frequency, and reaction time, in the tPCS treatment group, were better than those in the sham stimulation group. After 7 days of exercise training, all the subjects had different degrees of athlete’s mental fatigue; the subjects in the active stimulation group have a good evaluation of the tPCS developed by the research group without adverse actions.ConclusiontPCS intervention can improve emotional state, reduce the subjective evaluation of fatigue, improve behavioral levels such as attention and reaction time and increase cerebral prefrontal blood flow and oxygen supply. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to explore the causal relationship among athlete gratitude, athlete engagement, athlete burnout by cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted on 352 Chinese athletes with an interval of 1 year using gratitude questionnaire, athlete engagement questionnaire and athlete burnout questionnaire. The analysis yielded four main findings. The overall level of athlete gratitude and athlete engagement was high in China. Chinese athletes at master level had higher levels of gratitude and athlete engagement (...) than athletes at I and II grades. Athlete gratitude is a significant negative predictor of athlete burnout, and also a significant positive predictor of athlete engagement. Athlete engagement and athlete burnout are mutually causal and can be mutually predicted. Athlete gratitude indirectly affects athlete burnout through athlete engagement, and also indirectly affects athlete engagement through athlete burnout. The results of the current study demonstrated the important value of gratitude in the growth process of athletes, and clarified the mechanism of gratitude affecting athlete engagement and athlete burnout. These findings have important implications for athlete development by raising athlete gratitude, motivating athlete engagement levels and relieve athlete burnout. (shrink)

While collaborative curriculum design has gained increasing attention in the field of education, there is scant research as to how EFL teachers implement it in authentic design contexts. The present case study places particular emphasis on teacher activities during collaborative EFL curriculum development in China. The researchers adopt Activity Theory as an analytical tool to understand the relationships between EFL teachers, reform goals, and various aspects of the sociocultural context in which CCD is advocated, highlighting the pivotal role that mediation (...) of knowledge/experience plays in the teacher learning community. Research findings indicate that the TDTs’ collaborative process is a socially constructed and culturally mediated activity that promotes EFL teacher development. Moreover, in-service teachers are prone to take challenges through educational reforms out of teacher motives and external stimuli. Limitations of the CCD model are also discussed to shed light on future research. (shrink)

The no-wait flow-shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times and release times is a typical NP-hard problem. This paper proposes an enhanced differential evolution algorithm with several fast evaluating strategies, namely, DE_FES, to minimize the total weighted tardiness objective for the NFSP with SSTs and RTs. In the proposed DE_FES, the DE-based search is adopted to perform global search for obtaining the promising regions or solutions in solution space, and a fast local search combined with three presented strategies is designed (...) to execute exploitation from these obtained regions. Test results and comparisons with two effective meta-heuristics show the effectiveness and robustness of DE_FES. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

COVID-19 mortality rates are increasing worldwide, which has led to many highly restrictive precautionary measures and a strong sense of anxiety about the outbreak for many people around the world. There is thus an increasing concern about COVID-19 anxiety, resulting in recommending approaches for effective self-care. From a positive psychology perspective, it is also important for people to have positive affect when dealing with this pandemic. According to previous literature, respiration is considered to be an effective way to enhance people’s (...) mental health. Among all the wearable devices, Apple Watch has the largest market share, so this study recruited Chinese users that use respiration exercise function on Apple Watch; a total of 316 valid data were retrieved. Meanwhile, to understand one approach related to using Apple Watch to practice respiration to reduce COVID-19 anxiety about being infected during the COVID-19 outbreak, this study used a web-based cross-sectional survey to examine anxiety about being infected by COVID-19 among Chinese people who had been using the Apple Watch to practice respiration during the period of the COVID-19 outbreak. The study was based on the Health Theoretical Model, and the model was developed with four dimensions and was validated with structural equation modeling. The results of this study showed that practicing few minutes had a positive relationship on positive attitude, and positive attitude had a negative relationship on pandemic anxiety and a positive relationship on continuance use intention. Anxiety about the pandemic had a negative relationship on the intention to continue using the function. This showed that respiration practice can help to suppress the increase in anxiety levels regarding this pandemic. (shrink)

Teacher self-efficacy is one of the most critical factors influencing Students’ learning outcomes. Studies have shown that teacher-perceived principal leadership, teacher collaboration, and teaching experience are the critical factor that affects teacher self-efficacy. However, little is known about the mechanisms behind this relationship. This study examined whether teacher collaboration would mediate the relationship between teacher-perceived principal leadership and teacher self-efficacy, and the moderating role of teaching experience in the mediating process. With an analysis of a dataset from 14,121 middle school (...) teachers in China, this study first testified to the positive role that teacher-perceived principal leadership played in teacher self-efficacy. Furthermore, it revealed that teacher collaboration mediates this relationship and the mediated path was moderated by teaching experience. Finally, it also indicated that the threshold of teaching experience linking the teacher-perceived leadership with teacher self-efficacy was approximately in the third year, and their relationship was stronger when teaching experience was below the threshold. This study highlighted the mediating and moderating mechanisms linking the teacher-perceived principal leadership and teacher self-efficacy, which has important theoretical and practical implications for intervention and enhancement of teacher self-efficacy. (shrink)

本文集收入“传统道德文化的继承与批判”、“中国传统文化的现代化意义”、“关于中国传统道德和文化的几个问题”等文章61篇。.

本书作者对谋略的加与减进行了研究。内容包括什么是加减法;加减法的用途;越减越多,越加越少;加法的三种境界等。.

法学是春秋战国时期的一个主要学派。“法者,编著之图藉, 设之于官府, 而布之于百姓者也。”法家主张法、术、势的结合。法、指法律制度 ; 术, 指君王驾御群臣、掌握政权、推行法令的政策和手段 ; 势 ; 指君王的权势.