Assisted reproductive technology treatment tends to involve significant physical and emotional commitments that can impact maternal, infant, and family health and well-being. An in-depth understanding of experiences is necessary to provide adequate support for women and their families during pregnancy and transition to parenthood following ART treatment. The aim of this study was to explore first-time mothers’ experiences of pregnancy and transition to parenthood following successful ART treatment in Taiwan. Twelve first-time mothers who conceived and gave live birth using ART (...) treatment were purposively selected from a fertility centre in Taipei, Taiwan. Women’s experiences in pregnancy and in their transition to motherhood were explored using semi-structured in-depth interviews. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using the Colaizzi strategy. The mothers’ accounts reflected three main themes: ‘being different from mothers who became pregnant naturally’, ‘ensuring health and safety of the foetus’, and ‘welcoming new lives with excitement’. The difference mothers felt about themselves was evident in four subthemes: becoming pregnant after a long wait, feeling vulnerable during pregnancy, relying on family’s assistance and support, and worrying about the impact of ART on health. The theme on ‘ensuring health and safety of the foetus’ encompassed three subthemes: activities to protect the unborn baby, monitoring foetal movement constantly to maintain peace of mind, and receiving foetal reduction for the sake of the pregnancy. Narratives around ‘welcoming new lives with excitement’ reflected four subthemes: overcoming hardship for worthwhile results, realising one’s life and dreams, proving to be fertile enough to give birth, and return to normal life track. Findings indicate the need for educational and psychosocial interventions to support women and their families physically and psychologically during ART treatment. The stigma related to infertility and the psychosocial support from family are aspects to consider while planning intervention programmes. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

001. 마르크스 철학의 탈현대적 재구성 002. 철학은 세계를 변혁시킬 수 있는가:인간소외와 사회실천의... 003. 이데올로기 개념의 탈현대적 이해 004. 페레스트로이카의 철학적 이해:마르크스주의의 해체와... 005. 마르크스의 자연개념과 생태학적 사회철학 006. 한스 요나스의 생태학적 윤리학:노동과 기술적 유토피아의 한계 007. 포스트마르크스주의의 사회철학적 비평 008. 자니 바티모의 '약한 존재론'과 포스트마르크스주의 009. 허무주의 시대의 책임윤리:세기전환기의 사회철학적 지평 010. 미셸 푸코-권력,지식 그리고 욕망:후기 자본주의 사회의... 011. 위르겐 하버마스-비판적 사회이론과 담론적 실천 012. 후기 자본주의의 생산양식과 삶의 형식:마르크스 유물론의...

The majority of women who freeze their eggs for non-medical or social reasons, commonly referred to as elective egg freezing (EEF), do not eventually utilize their frozen eggs. This would result in an accumulated surplus of unused frozen eggs in fertility clinics worldwide, which represents a promising source of donation to infertile women undergoing IVF treatment. Rigorous and comprehensive counseling is needed, because the process of donating one’s unused surplus frozen eggs involves complex decision-making. Prospective EEF donors can be broadly (...) categorized into those who have achieved motherhood and those who remained childless and have given up on motherhood aspirations. A two-step systematic counseling protocol is proposed. Firstly, it is imperative to verify and ensure that these women do not want to conceive any children with their surplus frozen eggs before proceeding with further counseling and signing of consent forms. Secondly, various motivating and dissuading factors in the donation of unused surplus frozen eggs should then be comprehensively discussed with egg freezers to facilitate informed decision-making. Key motivating factors for donation include reciprocity in wanting to share the joys of motherhood among egg freezers who already have children, goodwill to help others in need, and avoiding the wastage of surplus frozen eggs after expending so much money, time, and effort. Key dissuading factors include fear of accidental incest between natural and unknown donor-conceived offspring, as well as apprehension of unexpected future contact with unknown donor-conceived offspring due to either donor anonymity being abolished in their jurisdiction or widespread consumer DNA testing. (shrink)

A novel current-mode analog multiplier/divider based on voltage translinear principle is proposed, featuring favorable precision and wide dynamic range. It is suitable for VLSI implementation and can be successfully applied in a wide range of analog systems such as analog neural network and RMS-to-DC converter.

In this paper I will examine Husserl’s attempt to establish a ground for science with the so called transcendental reduction. This will entail both an identification of the problems that Husserl was attempting to solve as well as a careful analysis of Husserl’s account of his methodology. I will then examine how Derrida’s reading, which affirms the phenomenological project in many of its essential aspects, begins to signal a subtle yet ultimately radical disagreement. This disagreement will have lasting implications for (...) our understanding of the possibilities designated by the transcendental method in Husserl’s thinking. (shrink)

This study investigates and compares the impact of spiritual leadership on organizational citizenship behavior in finance and retail service industries to determine the possibility of generalizing and applying spiritual leadership to other industries. This study used multi-sample analysis of structural equation modeling. The results show that values, attitudes, and behaviors of leaders have positive effects on meaning/calling and membership of the employees, and further facilitate employees to perform excellent organizational citizenship behaviors, including the altruism of assisting colleagues and the responsible (...) conscientiousness toward organization. The effect of altruism toward colleagues is especially stronger. Finally, the effect of leaders’ values, attitudes, and behaviors on the spiritual survival of employees is stronger in retail than that in finance. (shrink)

Leukoaraiosis is a common imaging marker of cerebral small vessel disease. In recent years, with the continuous advances in brain imaging technology, the detection rate of leukoaraiosis is higher and its clinical subtypes are gradually gaining attention. Although leukoaraiosis has long been considered an incidental finding with no therapeutic necessity, there is now growing evidence linking it to, among other things, cognitive impairment and a high risk of death after stroke. Due to different research methods, some of the findings are (...) inconsistent and even contradictory. Therefore, a comprehensive and in-depth study of risk factors for leukoaraiosis is of great clinical significance. In this review, we summarize the literature on leukoaraiosis in recent years with the aim of elucidating the disease in terms of various aspects. (shrink)

In the present study, we use a training design in two experiments to examine whether bilingual language switching facilitates two components of cognitive control, namely monitoring and inhibitory control. The results of Experiment 1 showed that training in language switching reduced mixing costs and the anti-saccade effect among bilinguals. In Experiment 2, the findings revealed a greater decrease of mixing costs and a smaller decrease of the anti-saccade effect from pre- to post-training for the language switching training group compared to (...) the L2 training group. Overall, the results suggest that extensive exercise in monitoring and inhibitory control among languages in an experimental setting may enhance the corresponding components of cognitive control. We discuss these findings in the context of the relationship between bilingual language control and executive control. (shrink)

Integrated reporting, as a novel corporate reporting approach, focuses on how six forms of capital promote corporate value. This paper explores whether this kind of multiple capitals disclosure framework has an impact on the capital market. Using a sample of Chinese A-share firms from 2012 to 2016, we examine the relationship between MCD quality and firm value. The results indicate that a higher MCD quality leads to a greater firm value. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests. (...) Further evidence suggests that MCD quality could increase profitability by affecting the decision-making of non-financial stakeholders and enhance the value relevance of financial information by affecting the decision-making of investors. The paper helps understand how the IR approach affects the perception of investors on the value of a firm. The findings of the paper are of interest to academics, corporate management, investors, and governmental officials. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online education has become an important approach to learning in the information era and an important research topic in the field of educational technology as well as that of education in general. Teacher–student interaction in online education is an important factor affecting students’ learning performance. This study employed a questionnaire survey to explore the influence of teacher–student interaction on learning effects in online education as well as the mediating role of psychological atmosphere and learning engagement. The (...) study involved 398 college students studying at Chinese universities as the research object. Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire. The study found that the level of teacher–student interaction positively affected students’ learning effects. The psychological atmosphere mediated the positive effect of the level of teacher–student interaction on learning effects with mediating effect value of 0.1248. Learning engagement mediated the positive effect of teacher–student interaction on learning effects with a mediating effect value of 0.1539. The psychological atmosphere and learning engagement play a chain-mediating role in the mechanism of teacher–student interaction affecting students’ learning effects; that is, teacher–student interaction promotes students’ learning engagement by creating a good psychological atmosphere, which, in turn, influences learning effects. The mediating effect value was 0.0403. The results indicate that teacher–student interaction not only directly affects students’ learning effects but also influences students’ learning effects through the mediating effect of the psychological atmosphere and learning engagement. (shrink)

Business moral values are defined as the personal moral values held by individuals who are engaged in business interactions. Direct supervisors may play an important role in shaping the business moral values of their subordinates. Using 264 supervisor— subordinate dyadic data from Taiwanese organizations, the study investigated the relationships among supervisor business moral values, subordinate business moral values, subordinate organizational commitment, job performance, and attendance. The results indicated that supervisor business moral values were positively associated with subordinate business moral values, (...) and that the latter mediated the relationship between the former and subordinate outcomes. Implications for business moral values research are discussed. (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)

Neddylation, a ubiquitylation‐like post‐translational modification, is catalyzed by a cascade composed of three enzymes: E1 activating enzyme, E2 conjugating enzyme, and E3 ligase with cullins as physiological substrates. Specifically, neddylation E2 UBE2M couples with E3 RBX1 to neddylate cullins 1–4, whereas neddylation E2 UBE2F couples with E3 RBX2/SAG to neddylate cullin 5, leading to activation of CRL1‐4 (Cullin‐RING ligases 1–4) and CRL5, respectively. While over‐activation of the neddylation‐CRLs axis occurs frequently in many human cancers, how neddylation‐CRLs regulate the function of (...) immune cells, particularly Treg cells was previously unknown. To this end, we recently performed Treg selective knockout of two neddylation E2s and two E3s, individually, driven by Foxp3‐Cre, and found that while the Ube2f‐Sag E2/E3 pair plays a minimal role, if any, the Ube2m‐Rbx1 pair is essential for the maintenance of Treg functionality, since their deletion triggers robust inflammatory response with autoimmune phenotypes. Milder phenotype severity upon Treg KO of upstream Ube2m than that of downstream Rbx1 strongly suggested that Rbx1 regulates Treg function in a manner dependent and independent of neddylation. (shrink)

Under the innovation-driven development strategy, the improvement of the core competitiveness of enterprises demonstrates increasing dependence on the ability of technological innovation. In this article, data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2008 to 2018 were selected as research samples for the analysis of the influencing factors and mechanism of enterprise technological innovation from the dual perspectives of the external economic environment and internal management system based on the use of the fixed-effect model. The results (...) show that government intervention significantly hinders enterprises' investment in resources for technological innovation, and less government intervention can improve the innovation investment of enterprises. The intervention of internal control fails to bring institutional advantages; rather, it aggravates the negative effect of government intervention on enterprise technological innovation. The research enriches the existing academic research results on government intervention, internal control quality, and enterprise technological innovation. The findings provide experience for accelerating the marketization process in China, enterprise governance, and improving the level of enterprise technological innovation. (shrink)

Wireless devices consume large amounts of energy during wireless communication. As the energy storage of battery is limited, improving energy efficiency has become an important approach to prolong the lifetime of devices. The IEEE 802.11 protocol supports the power save mode in wireless local area networks. However, the standard PSM cannot adapt to the changes of traffic load or channel conditions. Therefore, this article proposes an adaptive traffic-aware PSM mechanism that improves energy efficiency of wireless devices in a WLAN with (...) an access point. According to the current channel condition and traffic load, the AP adjusts the interval of beacons that give devices different priorities to fetch buffered packets. The devices can adaptively adjust listening intervals according to network traffic, and adopt different congestion backoff timers when channel collisions happen or the network topology changes. The APSM has been implemented and evaluated in NS-2. The simulation results have shown that devices using the APSM can improve energy efficiency by 115% at most compared with the ones using the standard PSM. The benefit of adaptive beacon interval and listening intervals is significant, while the improvement due to the adaptive backoff timer is minor. The improvement of the APSM over the PSM is more significant when the network traffic level decreases and the ratio of idle power to sleeping power increases. Additionally, the APSM increases the delay of data frames within a limited range, which does not bring any bad effect on network throughput. (shrink)

Speakers of different languages perceive time differently depending on various factors such as age, pace of life, religion, time of day, and even pregnancy. In recent years, studies have shown that...