Background:Suicide remains an important cause of premature deaths and draws much media attention. However, unsafe reporting and portrayal of suicides by the media have been associated with increased risk of suicidal behavior. Current evidence suggests that media capacity-building could potentially prevent suicide. However, there are still knowledge gaps in terms of a lack of data on effective strategies for improving awareness and safe reporting of suicide-related media content. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a workshop conducted with members (...) of the media community on the safe reporting of suicide-related content.Methods:An interventional single-arm pre and post pilot study was conducted on a sample of the Malaysian media community recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. The media safe reporting workshop was conducted by a suicide prevention expert with a media industry background. Thirty participants completed a self-reported evaluation questionnaire on their awareness and knowledge of reporting on suicide-related media content; before and after the interventional workshop.Results:There was a significant difference between the total scores before and after the intervention, with a large effect size. Post-intervention scores were significantly improved in 8 items, namely those related to the reporting of: (i) the content of any suicide note; (ii) headlines with methods of suicide; (iii) headlines with the location of suicide; (iv) cases of suspected suicide despite the unconfirmed cause of death; (v) suicide news to cater to readers’ interests; (vi) cause of suicide; (vii) details of the location of suicide; and (viii) the negative impact to media community when reporting suicide stories. In particular, there was an improvement in the majority of items for people from the media community with no lived experience of suicidal behavior.Conclusion:The media safe reporting workshop is a potentially effective intervention for improving awareness and knowledge measures relating to safe reporting on suicide among the media community, with a more pronounced effect in those without lived experience of suicidal behavior. Limitations in the sample size, generalizability, short-term evaluation, and lack of a control group warrant future larger, longer-term controlled, and more representative studies. (shrink)

Young children with limited knowledge of formal mathematics can intuitively perform basic arithmetic‐like operations over nonsymbolic, approximate representations of quantity. However, the algorithmic rules that guide such nonsymbolic operations are not entirely clear. We asked whether nonsymbolic arithmetic operations have a function‐like structure, like symbolic arithmetic. Children (n = 74 4‐ to ‐8‐year‐olds in Experiment 1; n = 52 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds in Experiment 2) first solved two nonsymbolic arithmetic problems. We then showed children two unequal sets of objects, and (...) asked children which of the two derived solutions should be added to the smaller of the two sets to make them “about the same.” We hypothesized that, if nonsymbolic arithmetic follows similar function rules to symbolic arithmetic, then children should be able to use the solutions of nonsymbolic computations as inputs into another nonsymbolic problem. Contrary to this hypothesis, we found that children were unable to reliably do so, suggesting that these solutions may not operate as independent representations that can be used inputs into other nonsymbolic computations. These results suggest that nonsymbolic and symbolic arithmetic computations are algorithmically distinct, which may limit the extent to which children can leverage nonsymbolic arithmetic intuitions to acquire formal mathematics knowledge. (shrink)

With the implementation of national carbon emission reduction policies and the development of online shopping, manufacturers are making low-carbon efforts and selling products through dual channels. This paper constructs a dual-channel supply chain decision-making model composed of low-carbon emission reduction manufacturers and retailers and studies the optimal decision-making problem of the supply chain under subsidies by the government based on emission reduction R&D and per unit product emission reduction. The research results show the following: when the government subsidizes emission reduction (...) R&D, the emission reduction will have an impact on retailers’ optimal prices, manufacturers’ optimal wholesale prices, and optimal direct sales channel sales prices. The profit of the manufacturer increases with the increase in carbon emissions, and the profit of the manufacturer increases to a certain level and then appears to decline. When the government adopts a subsidy method based on the emission reduction per unit product, the manufacturer’s wholesale price and the selling price of direct sales channels, as well as the retailer’s own optimal price, will increase with the increase in emission reductions. Retailers’ profits will increase linearly with the increase in carbon emissions. Manufacturers’ profits will first increase in a straight line and then increase in a curve. (shrink)

When analyzing complex longitudinal data, especially data from different educational settings, researchers generally focus only on the mean part (i.e., the regression coefficients), ignoring the equally important random part (i.e., the random effect variances) of the model. By using Project English Language and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA) data, we demonstrated the importance of taking the complex data structure into account by carefully specifying the random part of the model, showing that not only can it affect the variance estimates, the standard errors, (...) and the tests of significance of the regression coefficients, it also can offer different perspectives of the data, such as information related to the developmental process. We used xxM (Mehta, 2013), which can flexibly estimate different grade-level variances separately and the potential carryover effect from each grade factor to the later time measures. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed. (shrink)

This study examines whether human gaze lacking the confounding factor of eye whites can be processed unconsciously and explores the critical aspects for such process. Utilizing the continuous flash suppression paradigm, a schematic face—with direct or averted gaze, and with neutral, fearful or happy expressions—was presented to one eye while dynamic masks rendered it invisible to the other eye. Schematic faces were used to avoid unwanted influence from salient eye whites. Participants’ detection time of anything other than the masks was (...) used as an index of unconscious processing time. Faster detection was found for faces with direct gaze than those with averted gaze. However, there was no difference between detection times for different facial expressions and upright-face, inverted-face, and eyes-only conditions . These results confirm that, with schematic faces, gaze can be processed unconsciously regardless of facial expression, and eyes alone are sufficient for such process. (shrink)

Recently, there is a renewed debate concerning the role of perspective in vision. Morales et al. (2020) present evidence that, in the case of viewing a rotated coin, the visual system is sensitive to what has often been called “perspectival shapes.” It has generated vigorous discussions, including an online symposium by Morales and Cohen, an exchange between Linton (2021) and Morales et al. (2021), and most recently, a fierce critique by Burge and Burge (2022), in which they launch various conceptual (...) and empirical objections. Although Morales and Firestone (2022) have responded to them recently, and we are in agreement with Morales and Firestone in general, there are further problems in Burge and Burge (2022) that are worth highlighting. The main point of this comment is that what the Burge–Burge team call “viewpoint-dependent relational properties” are simply instances of what the Morales–Firestone team call “perspectival shapes”; the confusion arises from Burge and Burge’s misconstrual of Morales et al.’s claims. This shows that conceptually, the two teams are in large agreement, as Morales and Firestone (2022) also point out, and the focus should be put on the empirical disagreements, which has been covered by Morales and Firestone (2022). Relatedly, we argue that Burge and Burge (2022) misinterpret Morales et al. (2020) as supporting a new entity in perception science, and that this misinterpretation is a primary source of their apparent disagreement. This is worth pointing out because such misunderstanding generates many unnecessary quarrels that hinder progress. (shrink)

Several previous studies have reported atypicality in resting-state functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder, yet the relatively small effect sizes prevent us from using these characteristics for diagnostic purposes. Here, canonical correlation analysis and hierarchical clustering were used to partition the high-functioning ASD group into subgroups. A support vector machine model was trained through the 10-fold strategy to predict Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores within the ASD discovery group, which was further validated in an independent sample. The neuroimage-based partition derived (...) two subgroups representing severe versus mild autistic patients. We identified FCs that show graded changes in strength from ASD-severe, through ASD-mild, to controls, while the same pattern cannot be observed in partitions based on ADOS score. We also identified FCs that are specific for ASD-mild, similar to a partition based on ADOS score. The current study provided multiple pieces of evidence with replication to show that resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging FCs could serve as neural biomarkers in partitioning high-functioning autistic individuals based on their symptom severity and showing advantages over traditional partition based on ADOS score. Our results also indicate a compensatory role for a frontocortical network in patients with mild ASD, indicating potential targets for future clinical treatments. (shrink)

We examine whether anti-corruption intensity strengthens tax enforcement effectiveness in China. Using hand-collected anti-corruption data and aggregate tax enforcement data, which include the probability of tax audits and tax deficiencies, for a sample of 11,687 firm-year observations from 2012 to 2017, we find that anti-corruption intensity increases the deterrence role and the enforcement role of tax audits. We also identify the fear effect as a possible channel through which anti-corruption intensity affects tax enforcement effectiveness. Overall, the results indicate that anti-corruption (...) intensity can improve a revenue agency’s effectiveness. (shrink)

With the rapid growth of various complex networks, link prediction has become increasingly important because it can discover the missing information and predict future interactions between nodes in a network. Recently, the CAR and CCLP indexes have been presented for link prediction by means of different triangle structure information. However, both indexes may lose the contributions of some shared neighbors. We propose in this work a new index to make up the weakness and then improve the accuracy of link prediction. (...) The proposed index focuses on a new triangle structure, i.e., the triangle formed by one seed node, one common neighbor, and one other node. It emphasizes the importance of these triangles but does not ignore the contribution of any common neighbor. In addition, the proposed index adopts the theory of resource allocation by penalizing large-degree neighbors. The results of comparison with CN, AA, RA, ADP, CAR, CAA, CRA, and CCLP on 12 real-world networks show that the proposed index outperforms the compared methods in terms of AUC and ranking score. (shrink)

BackgroundThe therapeutic effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson's disease (PD) is related to the modulation of pathological neural activities, particularly the synchronization in the β band (13–35 Hz). However, whether the local β activity in the STN region can directly predict the stimulation outcome remains unclear.ObjectiveWe tested the hypothesis that low-β (13–20 Hz) and/or high-β (20–35 Hz) band activities recorded from the STN region can predict DBS efficacy.MethodsLocal field potentials (LFPs) were recorded in (...) 26 patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery in the subthalamic nucleus area. Recordings were made after the implantation of the DBS electrode prior to its connection to a stimulator. The maximum normalized powers in the theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (7–13 Hz), low-β (13–20 Hz), high-β (20–35 Hz), and low-γ (40–55 Hz) subbands in the postoperatively recorded LFP were correlated with the stimulation-induced improvement in contralateral tremor or bradykinesia–rigidity. The distance between the contact selected for stimulation and the contact with the maximum subband power was correlated with the stimulation efficacy. Following the identification of the potential predictors by the significant correlations, a multiple regression analysis was performed to evaluate their effect on the outcome.ResultsThe maximum high-β power was positively correlated with bradykinesia–rigidity improvement (rs = 0.549, p < 0.0001). The distance to the contact with maximum high-β power was negatively correlated with bradykinesia–rigidity improvement (rs = −0.452, p < 0.001). No significant correlation was observed with low-β power. The maximum high-β power and the distance to the contact with maximum high-β power were both significant predictors for bradykinesia–rigidity improvement in the multiple regression analysis, explaining 37.4% of the variance altogether. Tremor improvement was not significantly correlated with any frequency.ConclusionHigh-β oscillations, but not low-β oscillations, recorded from the STN region with the DBS lead can inform stimulation-induced improvement in contralateral bradykinesia–rigidity in patients with PD. High-β oscillations can help refine electrode targeting and inform contact selection for DBS therapy. (shrink)

This study proposed a children’s digital art ability training system with artificial intelligence-assisted learning, which was designed to achieve the goal of improving children’s drawing ability. AI technology was introduced for outline recognition, hue color matching, and color ratio calculation to machine train students’ cognition of chromatics, and smart glasses were used to view actual augmented reality paintings to enhance the effectiveness of improving elementary school students’ imagination and painting performance through the diversified stimulation of colors. This study adopted the (...) quasi-experimental research method and designs the pre-test and post-test for different groups. The research subjects are the Grade 4 students of an elementary school in Taitung City, Taiwan. The test tools included an imagination test and an evaluation of painting performance ability. The test results of a total of 30 students before and after the experiment included the experimental group that received the children’s digital art ability training system with AI-assisted learning and 30 students in the control group that had not received the teaching were analyzed by covariance. These results were supplemented by the description and interpretation of student feedback, teachers’ reflection notes, and other qualitative data to understand the performance of the students in the experimental group in terms of imagination and painting performance. (shrink)

BackgroundDrawing from Erikson’s theory, Domino and Affonso constructed the Inventory of Psychosocial Balance, a scale with satisfactory reliability and validity. However, the lack of a credible Chinese version of the scale may hinder research on ego development in Taiwan. The aim of the present study was to construct a short form Chinese IPB. In addition, factor analysis was employed to shorten the original 120-item scale to make it suitable for application in the older adults in the future.MethodsThe study involved three (...) steps: The first step was to establish the 120-items of the Chinese Inventory of Psychosocial Balance, and we conducted translation, back-translation, expert validity, and reliability of pilot study for this step. Following the first step was to construct the short-form C-IPB in the second step, and the CIPB-SF was developed via item analysis and factor analysis. Finally, we assessed the reliability and validity of the CIPB-SF via structural equation model in the third step.ResultsThree hundred eight older adults without cognitive disorder completed the IPB. The 40-item CIPB-SF was completed through item analysis and factor analysis. The internal consistency test of CIPB-SF and the eight stages were good. The CIPB-SF had acceptable validity, except in the intimacy and identity stages, in which validity was only fair. Compared with the IPB, the CIPB-SF had good reliability and acceptable validity. However, because of its conciseness, the 40-item CIPB-SF was more suited for application among the Chinese elderly population because its application avoids physical overload.ConclusionThe CIPB-SF served as a concise scale for assessing ego development in our study. This scale can also serve as a useful tool for convenient screening in the future. (shrink)

Serial entrepreneurship is a very common phenomenon in the world. Research on serial entrepreneurs is the core of understanding entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, such as, why entrepreneurs insist on starting businesses many times? What affects the sustainability of entrepreneurship? Based on the interpretive structure model of systems engineering, this study constructs a hierarchical model of the factors affecting serial entrepreneurial intention, which proposed the basic conditions, key factors, and paths affecting serial entrepreneurial intention. Based on this, the hierarchical model of factors (...) affecting serial entrepreneurial intention is also tested through a typical serial entrepreneurial case. The results show that: there are 16 factors affecting serial entrepreneurial intention, and each factor plays a role at a specific level; entrepreneurial expectations and identification and evaluation of opportunities are the key factors affecting serial entrepreneurial intention. We can improve the ability of the identification and evaluation of opportunities through entrepreneurial failure learning, and form reasonable entrepreneurial expectations; entrepreneurial cognitive schema and behavioral addiction tendency directly affect entrepreneurs’ identification and evaluation of opportunities; demographic factors, financial conditions, environmental conditions, and entrepreneurial experience are the basic conditions that affect serial entrepreneurial intention indirectly through emotional perception and motivation factors. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to develop and empirically test a model for predicting the key factors affecting nurses’ behavioral intention to use mobile learning. We explored behavioral intention from users’ perspectives by applying an extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model with the addition of information quality, system quality, technostress, and satisfaction. We conducted a survey of the district and regional hospitals in central Taiwan. Data were derived from 434 respondents. Structural equation modeling was applied (...) to analyze the causal effects of 15 hypothesized predictive factors. We determined that satisfaction, social influence, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, and effort expectancy positively impacted nurses’ behavioral intention to use m-learning. In addition, technostress was a negative antecedent of effort expectancy. Information quality and system quality had significantly positive effects on satisfaction, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy. This study provides hospital managers with a reference when assessing future developments and informs approaches to promote m-learning. (shrink)

Employees often experience ethical dilemmas throughout their service in an organization. This study utilized a multilevel standpoint to address employees’ differences in ethical reasoning. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze responses from 40,485 full‐time employees across 54 countries. Drawing from Durkheim's concepts of the homo duplex, socialization process, and social conditions, this study found a positive relationship between employees’ income level and unethical reasoning. Furthermore, the results indicate that modern social regulation, technological advancement, economic development, and economic change moderate (...) the relationship between income and ethical judgment. The study findings contribute to the Durkheimian model by validating the effects of individual‐ and country‐level factors on employees’ ethicality. Considering that the results contradict Durkheim's initial propositions, another concept and theory are proposed, which may complement Durkheim's arguments. Practical implications for organizations and society are further discussed to reinforce employees’ ethics. (shrink)

Publicly-funded health systems, including those national health services and social or National Health Insurances, are institutionalized solidarity in health. In Europe, solidarity originated from the legacies of labor movements, the Judeo-Christian traditions, and nationalist sentiments in the re-construction Era after the WWII. In middle-to-high income East Asian countries, such as Japan, Taiwan, Korea, the health systems were built on different grounds and do not have such ethical origins of solidarity. As health systems in Europe and East Asia are both facing (...) sustainability crises due to aging population, stagnant economy, changing boundaries, and advancing medical technologies, how those systems with the European solidaristic ethical traditions can be revived and how those without the European traditions could survive become a matter of theoretical interests and an urgent policy problem to be addressed. Drawing on contemporary theories of solidarity, this essay analyzes the boundary problem and its impact on the sustainability of the health system in Taiwan. It then considers two plausible origins of solidarity in Taiwan. One is the re-emerged civic nationalism, and the other is an ethos of common life. It is argued that after years of implementation, the National Health Insurance in Taiwan might have shaped the social values and people’s habits and formed an ethos of common life. Such ethos could be an ethical origin of solidarity in non-western societies and help the health systems endure the prolonged sustainability crises. (shrink)

This study aimed to discuss the relationships among the brand image of universities (external variables), university satisfaction (mediating variables) and customer lifetime value (internal variables). The findings can serve as a reference for higher educational institutions in strengthening their advantages and overcoming their shortcomings, as well as for administrative decision-making. A questionnaire survey was conducted on university students in Taiwan, and 470 valid samples were retrieved. The data were analysed with structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis. The results showed that (...) brand image influences customer satisfaction, which in turn affects customer lifetime value. Satisfaction is a partial mediating variable between brand image and customer lifetime value. Multi-group analysis found that gender has no interfering effect between brand image and satisfaction, nor does it between satisfaction and customer lifetime value or between brand image and customer lifetime value. (shrink)

To date, game-based learning programs that include comprehensive creativity skills and disposition training are still very limited. The present researchers developed a comprehensive game-based creativity learning program for fifth and sixth grade pupils. Further analysis presented relationship trends between mindful learning experience, flow experience, self-efficacy, and mastery experience. Eighty-three 5th and 6th grade participants undertook the six-week game-based creativity learning program. Upon the completion of experimental instruction, those who scored higher on the concerned variables improved more in self-evaluation of both (...) creativity ability and confidence, than their counterparts. Additionally, path model analysis revealed that mindful learning experience was a powerful predictor of both mastery experience and flow experience; it also influenced mastery experience through flow experience and self-efficacy during game-based creativity learning. The findings support the effectiveness of the game-based learning program developed in this study. Moreover, this study contributes to the theoretical construction of how game-based learning can be designed to facilitate mindful learning experience, flow experience, self-efficacy, and mastery experience during creativity training among pupils. Effective mechanisms include providing rewards for high-quality performance, challenging tasks, free choices of design components, immediate feedback, and idea sharing. The profound theoretical framework proposed in this study provides a valuable approach for creativity instruction through game-based learning or classroom instruction. (shrink)

We investigated whether a pre-change representation is inhibited or weakened under correct change detection. Two arrays of six objects were rapidly presented for change detection in three experiments. After detection, the perceptual identification of degraded stimuli was tested in Experiments 1 and 2. The weakening of a pre-change representation was not observed under correct detection. The repetition priming effect was observed for a pre-change object and the magnitude was equivalent to the effect for a post-change object. Under change blindness, repetition (...) priming for a pre-change representation was observed when detection did not require report of location in Experiment 1 and was not observed when location was required to be reported in Experiment 2. The results of Experiment 3 showed that a pre-change representation was recognized at a higher rate under correct detection than under change blindness, reflecting a stronger rather than a weaker pre-change representation in the former context. (shrink)

Balancing self‐renewal and differentiation of stem cells is an important issue in stem cell and cancer biology. Recently, the Drosophila neuroblast (NB), neural stem cell has emerged as an excellent model for stem cell self‐renewal and tumorigenesis. It is of great interest to understand how defects in the asymmetric division of neural stem cells lead to tumor formation. Here, we review recent advances in asymmetric division and the self‐renewal control of Drosophila NBs. We summarize molecular mechanisms of asymmetric cell division (...) and discuss how the defects in asymmetric division lead to tumor formation. Gain‐of‐function or loss‐of‐function of various proteins in the asymmetric machinery can drive NB overgrowth and tumor formation. These proteins control either the asymmetric protein localization or mitotic spindle orientation of NBs. We also discuss other mechanisms of brain tumor suppression that are beyond the control of asymmetric division. (shrink)

Digitized information and network have made an enormous impact on the music and movie industries. Internet piracy is popular and has greatly threatened the companies in these industries. This study tests Hunt-Vitell’s ethical decision model and attempts to understand why and how people share unauthorized music files with others in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The norm of anti-piracy, the ideology of free software, the norm of reciprocity, and the ideology of consumer rights are proposed as four deontological norms related to (...) using P2P systems. The model is tested using a scenario survey with four alternatives; the results indicate that the deontological norm of anti-piracy is not a main factor in affecting P2P users’ ethical considerations regarding sharing files with others. This finding suggests that to protect their property rights, record companies should try to realize the consumer benefits brought via new digital and network technology, instead of simply declaring their intellectual property and resisting the innovations resulting from new technologies. (shrink)

Pylyshyn's effort in establishing the cognitive impenetrability of early vision is welcome. However, his view about the role of attention in early vision seems to be oversimplified. The allocation of focal attention manifests its effect among multiple stages in the early vision system, it is not just confined to the input and the output levels.

Creativity is an essential factor in ensuring the sustainable development of a society. Improving students’ creativity has gained much attention in education, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics education. In a quasi-experimental design, this study examines the effectiveness of a project-based STEAM program on the development of creativity in Chinese elementary school science education. We selected two fourth-graders classes. One received a project-based STEAM program, and the other received a conventional science teaching over 6 weeks. Students’ creativity was (...) assessed before and after the intervention using a multi-method approach, including a test of divergent thinking, a story completion through the Consensus Assessment Technique, a creative self-efficacy measure, and a group-based creative project. Moreover, all students received a test of their science knowledge after the intervention. The results showed that compared with the control group, the creativity of the experimental group students improved significantly for 6 weeks at both individual and group level, even though their knowledge in science were comparable. This result confirmed the effectiveness of a project-based STEAM educational program improving elementary school students’ creativity. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

In association with the development of intermittent renewable energy generation, dynamic multiobjective dispatch faces more challenges for power system operation due to significant REG uncertainty. To tackle the problems, a day-ahead, optimal dispatch problem incorporating energy storage is formulated and solved based on a robust multiobjective optimization method. In the proposed model, dynamic multistage ES and generator dispatch patterns are optimized to reduce the cost and emissions. Specifically, strong constraints of the charging/discharging behaviors of the ES in the space-time domain (...) are considered to prolong its lifetime. Additionally, an adaptive robust model based on minimax multiobjective optimization is formulated to find optimal dispatch solutions adapted to uncertain REG changes. Moreover, an effective optimization algorithm, namely, the hybrid multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimization and Teaching Learning Based Optimization, is employed to seek an optimal Pareto front of the proposed dispatch model. This approach has been tested on power system integrated with wind power and ES. Numerical results reveal that the robust multiobjective dispatch model successfully meets the demands of obtaining solutions when wind power uncertainty is considered. Meanwhile, the comparison results demonstrate the competitive performance of the PSO-TLBO method in solving the proposed dispatch problems. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of emotional labor on job performance and satisfaction, as well as to examine the mediating effect of sleep problems and the moderating effects of personality traits. A time-lagged study was conducted on 864 health professionals. Scales for emotional labor, sleep, personality traits, and job satisfaction were used and job performance data was obtained from records maintained by human resources. Structural equation modeling was performed to investigate the relations. Sleep problems only (...) partially mediated the relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction but completely mediated the relationship between surface acting and job performance. Several personality traits were shown to moderate the relationship between surface acting and sleep problems. The effects were stronger for people with low agreeableness and high neuroticism. The relationship between high levels of deep acting and low levels of sleep problems was more pronounced in individuals with low extraversion. Supervisors should be conscious of emotional labor in the work context and provide necessary deep acting training to facilitate emotional regulation. (shrink)

Mandarin speakers, like most other language speakers around the world, use spatial terms to talk about time. However, the direction of their mental temporal representation along the front-back axis remains controversial because they use the spatial term “front” to refer to both earlier times and the future. Although the linguistic distinction between time- and ego-reference-point spatiotemporal metaphors in Mandarin suggests a promising clarification of the above controversy, there is little empirical evidence verifying this distinction. In this study, Mandarin speakers’ time- (...) and ego-reference-point temporal representations on three axes were separately examined through two tasks. In a time-reference-point task, Mandarin speakers judged whether the time point of the second picture was earlier or later than the time point of the first picture, while in an ego-reference-point task, they judged whether an event or phase had happened in the past or would happen in the future. The results indicate that Mandarin speakers construe an earlier-times-in-front-of-later-times temporal sequence and adopt the front-to-the-future orientation. (shrink)

Bistable figures provide a fascinating window through which to explore human visual awareness. Here we demonstrate for the first time that the semantic context provided by a background auditory soundtrack can modulate an observer’s predominant percept while watching the bistable “my wife or my mother-in-law” figure . The possibility of a response-bias account—that participants simply reported the percept that happened to be congruent with the soundtrack that they were listening to—was excluded in Experiment 2. We further demonstrate that this crossmodal (...) semantic effect was additive with the manipulation of participants’ visual fixation , while it interacted with participants’ voluntary attention . These results indicate that audiovisual semantic congruency constrains the visual processing that gives rise to the conscious perception of bistable visual figures. Crossmodal semantic context therefore provides an important mechanism contributing to the emergence of visual awareness. (shrink)

This paper proposes an experiment-based methodology for both classical genetics and molecular biology by integrating Lindley Darden’s mechanism-centered approach and C. Kenneth Waters’s phenomenon-centered approach. We argue that the methodology basing on experiments offers a satisfactory account of the development of the two biological disciplines. The methodology considers discovery of new mechanisms, investigation of new phenomena, and construction of new theories together, in which experiments play a central role. Experimentation connects the three type of conduct, which work as both ends (...) and means, occurring in a circular way and constituting an overall process of scientific practice from classical genetics to molecular biology. (shrink)

This paper explores multiple experimental interventions in molecular biology. By “multiple,” we mean that molecular biologists often use different modes of experimental interventions in a series of experiments for one and the same subject. In performing such a series of experiment, scientists may use different modes of interventions to realize plural goals such as testing given hypotheses and exploring novel phenomena. In order to illustrate this claim, we develop a framework of multiple modes of experimental interventions to analyze a series (...) of experiments for a single subject. Our argument begins with a brief characterization of Craver and Darden’s taxonomy of experiments, because the taxonomy they have made implies various modes of interventions. We propose to extract two interventional directions and two interventional effects from their taxonomy as the basis of classification. The vertical or inter-level direction means that an intervention is performed between different levels of organization and the horizontal or inter-stage direction means that an intervention is performed between different stages of a mechanism. Interventions may produce an excitatory or an inhibitory effect. As a consequence, we can classify modes of interventions according to different directions and effects. We illustrate our claims by doing a case study of the PaJaMo experiment, which is a series of experiments for a single subject. The final goal in this paper is to provide a taxonomy of characteristics of experimentation in which the PaJaMo experiment is adequately located. (shrink)

Given the widespread acceptance of computational thinking in educational systems around the world, primary and higher education has begun thinking about how to cultivate students' CT competences. The artificial intelligence of things combines artificial intelligence and the Internet of things and involves integrating sensing technologies at the lowest level with relevant algorithms in order to solve real-world problems. Thus, it has now become a popular technological application for CT training. In this study, a novel AIoT learning with Augmented Reality technology (...) was proposed and explored the effect of CT skills. The students used AR applications to understand AIoT applications in practice, attempted the placement of different AR sensors in actual scenarios, and further generalized and designed algorithms. Based on the results of the experimental course, we explored the influence of prior knowledge and usage intention on students' CT competence training. The results show that proposed AIoT learning can increase students' learning intention and that they had a positive impact on problem solving and comprehension with AR technology, as well as application planning and design. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis which has witnessed consumers experiencing significant anxiety provoked by the threats to their health and even lives. Meanwhile, consumers have been observed to make more ethical purchases since the start of the pandemic. Drawing on literature on terror management and negotiable fate, this research employs a moderated moderating model to investigate how consumers’ perception of the pandemic severity leads to ethical consumption as a defensive mechanism against death-related anxiety, as well as the differential (...) role of consumers’ belief in negotiable fate in moderating this pandemic impact across tight and loose cultures. We conducted two cross-cultural studies with 592 and 423 respondents, respectively, at different times during the pandemic. Results consistently show that perceived pandemic severity increases consumers’ intention to consume ethically. Consumers’ belief in negotiable fate directly enhances ethical consumption, but it alleviates the effect of pandemic severity on ethical consumption among consumers who live in a tight culture. Our findings reveal the existential meaning of ethical consumption as a buffer against pandemic-triggered mortality salience, identify the positive psychological functions of negotiable fate in promoting ethical consumption but mitigating consumers’ need to buffer death-related concerns, and advances the importance of investigating the cultural variances in the terror management process toward ethical consumption. The findings offer insights for marketers and policy makers to develop effective strategies to support consumers’ ethical coping during societal crises. (shrink)