The aim of the present study was to explore the differences in technical performances of players considering playing positions by controlling the effect of situational variables in each FIBA female continental basketball competition. Samples of 9,208 observations from 471 games in the America, Africa, Asia, and Europe Championships during 2013–2017 were collected and analyzed by generalized mixed linear modeling. The results showed that Centers from Europe had more 2-point made, 2-point attempted, and offensive and defensive rebounds than forward. Asian and (...) European guards performed a fewer number of 2-point made, 2-point attempted, and offensive and defensive rebounds than Asian and European centers. African and Asian forward had more 2-point made, 2-point attempted than guards. This study helps to better understand the technical demands of female basketball among different international competitions, which could pave a new way to analyze the development trend of female basketball and promoting specific training plans and game strategies for coaches and players. (shrink)

In the paper, titled ‘Choosing death in unjust conditions: hope, autonomy and harm reduction,’ Wiebe and Mullin argue that people living in unjust social conditions are sufficiently autonomous to request medical assistance in dying (MAiD). The ethical issue is that some people may request MAiD primarily because of unjust social conditions, not their illness, disease, disability or decline in capability. It is easily agreed that people living in unjust social conditions can be autonomous. Nevertheless, Wiebe and Mullin fail to appreciate (...) that autonomy is only a necessary condition for MAiD. In addition to autonomy, one must decide that providing assisted dying to a patient because they are living in unjust social conditions is ethical. Central to making this ethical decision is the principle of non-maleficence, famously articulated as ‘do no harm.’ The authors admit that performing MAiD in response to unjust social circumstances is harmful, but they justify this harmful action by appealing to the principle of harm reduction. A fundamental flaw of their approach is that it relies on the legislative definition of intolerable suffering, which is based on circular reasoning and given that 99.2% of patients that have applied for MAiD satisfied this criterion, it is essentially equivalent to no standard/criterion. Canadian society is struggling with the ethical implications of its permissive MAiD programme, and, fundamental to this debate, will be determining the proper balance between autonomy and non-maleficence for people living in unjust social conditions. (shrink)

Background:There is controversy concerning the use of physical restraint. Despite this controversy, some nurses still consider the application of physical restraint unavoidable for some of their clients.Aim:Identify the perceptions and practice of physical restraint in China.Research design:This was a descriptive study that combined qualitative interviews with a quantitative cross-sectional survey.Participants:A total of 18 nurses were interviewed and 330 nurses were surveyed.Ethical considerations:Approval of the study was obtained from the hospital ethics committee. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the (...) director of nursing. Participants were assured that their participation is voluntary.Results:Physical restraint was commonly used to protect patients’ safety. Naturally, intensive care unit nurses used physical restraint much more frequently than general medical/surgical ward nurses ( p < 0.01). In addition, night shift nurses tended to use physical restraint more frequently.Conclusion:Nursing managers should be aware of the role nurses play in the use of physical restraint. In-service training regarding the proper use of physical restraint should be strengthened and nurse staffing levels should be improved in order to minimize the use of physical restraint in China. (shrink)

This essay studies equality and inequality in Confucianism. By studying Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, and other classic thinkers, I argue that Confucian equality is manifested in two forms. Numerical equality is founded in the Mencian belief that every person is born with the same moral potential and the Xunzian notion that all people have the same xing and the same potential for moral cultivation. It is also manifested in the form of role-based equality. Proportional equality, however, is the main notion of (...) equality in Confucian philosophy. Proportional equality is realized in moral, economic, and political realms. On the basis of these notions of Confucian equality, I propose two Confucian political principles for contemporary society. The first is the inclusive principle of general election by citizenry, and the second is the exclusive principle of qualification for public offices. (shrink)

In this study we present a self-organizing connectionist model of early lexical development. We call this model DevLex-II, based on the earlier DevLex model. DevLex-II can simulate a variety of empirical patterns in children's acquisition of words. These include a clear vocabulary spurt, effects of word frequency and length on age of acquisition, and individual differences as a function of phonological short-term memory and associative capacity. Further results from lesioned models indicate developmental plasticity in the network's recovery from damage, in (...) a non-monotonic fashion. We attribute the network's abilities in accounting for lexical development to interactive dynamics in the learning process. In particular, variations displayed by the model in the rate and size of early vocabulary development are modulated by (a) input characteristics, such as word frequency and word length, (b) consolidation of lexical-semantic representation, meaning-form association, and phonological short-term memory, and (c) delayed processes due to interactions among timing, severity, and recoverability of lesion. Together, DevLex and DevLex-II provide an accurate computational account of early lexical development. (shrink)

This paper examined the relationship between coaches and youth athletes in China by comparing data collected before and after the lockdown. A total of 221 youth athletes aged 13-19 years in one professional football school completed coach-athlete relationship questionnaires. The rank-sum test was used to verify the differences in the data. The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed that the mean value of the three dimensions of the coach-athlete relationship (closeness, commitment, and complementarity) increased after the COVID-19 lockdown. The (...) results also showed that athletes of different age categories showed different changes in the coach-athlete relationship after the lockdown, and the changes were not significantly related to the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

I argue that the phenomenon of hypocrisy appears in many passages and connects to multiple ideas in the Analects: exemplary persons (junzi 君子), petty persons (xiaoren 小人), the village worthies or the village pleasers (xiangyuan 鄉愿), embellishment/concealment (wen 文), rituals (li 禮), the equilibrium aimed at between what is naturally given and how it is cultivated (wen zhi bin bin 文質彬彬), the madly ardent (kuang 狂), and the cautiously restrained (juan 獧). The discussion of hypocrisy in the Analects and its (...) further development in the Mengzi 孟子 can be detected in three different forms: (1) speech-action mismatch, (2) inner-outer mismatch, and (3) the village pleasers, those who try to please everyone and seek their own survival and success irrespective of any objective moral principles. My hope is to clarify what Confucius and Mengzi did say about hypocrisy in order to “clear the ground” so that readers of Confucianism do not jump to a conclusion that reads Confucianism itself as hypocritical. (shrink)

From the perspective of the integrative model of organizational trust, this study proposes a multi-level model for whether, how, and when differentiated empowering leadership influences followers’ trust in leaders and their work outcomes. Drawing on a sample of 372 followers from 97 teams in China, it was found that the negative effect of differentiated empowering leadership on followers’ trust in leaders became salient when followers’ Chinese traditionality was low. Moreover, followers’ trust in leaders mediated the effect of differentiated empowering leadership (...) and Chinese traditionality on followers’ in-role performance, extra-role performance, and counterproductive work behaviors toward the organization. These findings have implications for managerial theory and practice in the domains of trust and differentiated empowering leadership. (shrink)

This paper introduces Chinese synthetic verbs and analyses their contributions to debates in manner/result complementarity studies and cognitive typology studies. Chinese synthetic verbs simultaneously express manner information and path/result information, but encode them into separate root slots under Beavers and Koontz-Garboden’s (2012. Manner and result in the roots of verbal meaning. Linguistic Inquiry 43(3). 331–369) scopal modifier test, so they differ from English “manner+result verbs” and further challenge the manner/result complementarity hypothesis. Synthetic verbs followed by redundant path/result verbs constitute double-framing (...) structures that twice encode the framing information, and the non-motion case, i.e., the “synthetic verb+result verb” structure, supplements Croft et al.’s (2010. Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex event constructions. In Hans C. Boas (ed.), Contrastive studies in construction grammar, vol. 10, 201–235. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company) classification that only includes the motion case, so that Chinese synthetic verbs complement the discussion on double-framing structures. This paper thereby further falsifies the manner/result complementarity hypothesis and provides an overall illustration of the double-framing structure in cognitive typology. This paper also illustrates the diachronic changes of manner, which might be universal and await further investigation. (shrink)

To establish the evaluation index system of urbanization innovation level and ecological efficiency, the entropy method is applied to measure the comprehensive index of urbanization innovation level and ecological efficiency, the VAR model is established, and empirical measurement is used to study the internal relationship and dynamic development between urbanization innovation level and ecological efficiency. The empirical results show the following: The overall development of the innovation level in 30 cities in China is uneven, there is a large gap between (...) the urban innovation level in backwards areas and economically developed areas, and there is a certain coupling effect between the urban innovation level and ecological efficiency. There is a long-term dynamic equilibrium relationship between the urban innovation level and ecological efficiency, which will exert certain pressure on the ecological environment in the process of urbanization. However, the continuous improvement of urbanization will have a positive impact on the improvement of the ecological environment. The improvement of ecological efficiency will also promote the improvement of the urban innovation level. Therefore, this paper puts forwards policy suggestions to promote the harmonious development of urbanization and the ecological environment and provides a reference for realizing the balanced development of urbanization and ecological efficiency in China. (shrink)

Socialist courts are supposed to apply the law, not make it, and socialist legality denies judicial decisions any precedential status. In 2011, the Chinese Supreme People’s Court designated selected decisions as Guiding Cases to be referred to by all judges when adjudicating similar disputes. One decade on, the paucity of citations to Guiding Cases has been taken as demonstrating the incongruity of case-based adjudication and the socialist legal tradition. Citations are, however, an imperfect measure of influence. Reproduction of language uniquely (...) traceable to Guiding Cases can also be evidence of their impact on judicial decision-making. We employ a local alignment tool to detect unattributed text reuse of Guiding Cases in local court decisions. Our findings suggest that Guiding Cases are more consequential than commonly assumed, thereby complicating prevailing narratives about the antagonism of socialist legality to case law. (shrink)

In his feature article,1 McCullough LB et al highlights the importance of civility among medical educators and academic leaders in shaping the professional habits of junior doctors. He emphasises the role of medical educators in correcting unprofessional behaviour and emphasises the need for academic leaders to motivate junior doctors to develop virtuous professional habits. The relationship between junior doctors and medical educators can be likened to that between students and teachers. Through active or passive learning from medical educators, junior doctors (...) gain the necessary knowledge, experience and professional virtues. Academic leaders, as prominent experts in their field, play a guiding role in this process. Therefore, their relationship with junior doctors is akin to that between idols and fans. In this regard, academic leaders can serve as exceptional role models for guiding junior doctors to develop the inclination to …. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars of Confucian ethics have debated on important issues such as whether Confucian ethics embraces, or should embrace, universal values and impartiality. Some have argued that Confucian ethics integrates both care and justice, and that Confucian ethics is both particularistic and universalistic. In this essay, I will defend a view of the relation between care and justice and the relation between care ethics and justice ethics on the basis of the notion of 'configuration of values,' and show (...) why care ethics and justice ethics cannot be integrated. I will support this view by a reading of some pertinent passages in the Mencius. (shrink)

In this brief reply I respond to criticisms of my book, The referential mechanism of proper names, from Michael Devitt and Nicolo D'Agruma. I focus on the question of whether the perspectivism advocated in the book explains the empirical results there detailed.

In the essay, I want to disscuss Maritain's concept of freedom. If we want to understand some obscure thoughts about Maritain, we have to understand Thomas's thoughts. In the essay entitled "The Conquest of Freedom.", Maritain illustrates what freedom means. He indicates it is inseparable between the notions of personality and independent freedom. It is therefore necessary to study the Thomistic concepts of the will as nature and the will as reason . My purpose in this paper will be twofold: (...) to consider first of all the differences which Maritain establishes between individuality and personality, and secondly, to understand what he says about freedom by placing it within the Thomistic context which is both philosophical and theological. (shrink)

This study examines the representations of human gene patents in Chinese newspapers. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of news articles published between 2006 and 2017 to identify the major themes in media coverage, ethical considerations, perceptions of risks and benefits, and attitudes towards the patentability of human genes. The results show that two key ethical concerns were expressed by journalists: that it is morally wrong to own or patent human genes and that gene patents could potentially impede patients’ access (...) to healthcare services. Nonetheless, the press coverage has tended to be largely favorable, rather than opposed to human gene patenting. There were no normative claims that human genes should not be patentable in China, which indicates a generally positive attitude towards patentability in media discourse. Most articles that expressed criticism toward gene patenting discussed challenges in other countries, with significant attention given to the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in the Myriad case that invalidated Myriad Genetics’ patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Overall, the newspapers were uncritical of the Chinese gene patenting regime. News reporting on the issue was highly suggestive of a strong pro-commercialization stance, although some discussions emphasized potential risks over benefits. Our analysis highlights the need for balanced media reporting on human gene patents in China and a top-down approach to engage the public in substantive discussions on the ethical and societal implications of the existing patent regime. (shrink)

Samuel P. Huntington asserts that the world is now entering an age of “the clash of civilizations.” Specifically, the clash is between democratic Western civilization and undemocratic civilizations in the rest of the world, Confucian and Islamic civilizations in particular. Huntington also suggests that in order for democracy to take roots in a Confucian society, undemocratic elements in Confucianism must be superseded by democratic elements. The purpose of this essay is to examine the future relationship between democracy and Confucianism in (...) the part of the world where they are most likely to clash, namely, China. (shrink)

Financial development is often considered one of the main drivers promoting household consumption. As a form of financial development, whether digital financial inclusion can promote household consumption has been a concern for researchers and policymakers. Considering geographical connectivity characteristics, we examine the effects of digital financial inclusion on household consumption by applying spatial econometric models and using data from 31 provinces in China from 2013 to 2018. The impact of digital financial inclusion is further disaggregated into direct, indirect, and total (...) impacts. The results show that if digital financial inclusion is improved by 1%, household consumption will correspondingly increase by 0.2207%. The spatial spillover effect on neighboring areas is negative: a 1% increase in the level of digital financial inclusion of nearby provinces leads to a 0.1289% decrease in household consumption in the local province. For policymakers, it is necessary to balance the development of digital financial inclusion and view different areas as a whole when making policies to promote consumption. Further analysis based on subsamples finds that the effect of digital financial inclusion on household consumption is more considerable for rural households than for urban households. (shrink)

Higher education policy and manpower training fail to meet the requirement of rapidly-changing society and employers' expectation in Taiwan, resulting in the great gap between university education and employment. Students employability is also what all higher education institutions should focus whether a high degree of student learning outcomes can represent a high degree of students employability or not, this still unclarified. This study aims to explore the relationships among pedagogy for employability, problem-based teaching mode, absorptive capacity and student employability in (...) higher education institutions (HEIs). In terms of analyzing a total sample of 553 undergraduates from 12 Taiwanese HEIs by using structural equation model (SEM), the results show that the influences of pedagogy for employability and problem-based teaching mode on absorptive capacity and student employability are statistically positive significant. Based on the findings, specific suggestions and managerial implications for HEIs, curriculum and instruction planning, and future research are provided. (shrink)

The motivation of the study is to explore the nexus tourism-led sustainable human capital development in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa for the period 1984–2019. The study applied several econometrical techniques for exposing the empirical association between tourism and HCD, such as the conventional and structural break unit root test, the combined cointegration test, long-run and short-run coefficients detected through implementing the Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lagged, and directional causality by following Toda-Yamamoto with Fourier function. The unit-roots test established (...) variables are integrated in mixed order, wherein variables are stationary at a level or after the first difference. The estimated test statistics from the combined cointegration test and AARDL confirmed the long-run association between tourism, gross capital formation, financial development, and HCD. Tourism revealed a positive and statistically significant tie with HCD in the long run. Moreover, the joint effects of interactive terms TOR*GCF and TOR*FD established a positive and statistically significant relationship with HCD. In addition, the causality test revealed the feedback hypothesis available between tourism and HCD in all sample countries except India. In conclusion, the role of tourism development is critically important for sustainable HCD in BRICS. Therefore, in case of a policymaking concern, it is inevitable to address the tourism issues with care for capitalizing on the benefits for tourism development. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What Is Technology? Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge References and Further Reading.

Selective accessibility mechanisms indicate that anchoring effects are results of selective retrieval of working memory. Neuroimaging studies have revealed that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is closely related to memory retrieval and performance. However, no research has investigated the effect of changing the cortical excitability in right DLPFC on anchoring effects. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can modulate the excitability of the human cerebral cortex, while anodal and cathodal tDCS are postulated to increase or decrease cortical activity, respectively. In (...) this study, we used tDCS to investigate whether effects of increased or decreased right DLPFC excitability influence anchoring effects in willingness to pay (WTP) experiments. Ninety participants were first randomly assigned to receive either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation of 15 minutes, then they performed a valuation task regarding WTP. The results showed that anchoring effects were negatively related to activities of right DLPFC: the anodal stimulation diminished anchoring effects while the cathodal stimulation increased anchoring effects. These outcomes provide one of the first instances of neural evidence for the role of the right DLPFC in anchoring effects and support psychological explanations of the selective accessibility mechanisms and cognitive sets. (shrink)

Although data sharing platforms host diverse data types the features of these platforms are well-suited to facilitating biomarker research. Given the current state of biomarker discovery, an innovative paradigm to accelerate biomarker discovery is to utilize platforms such as Vivli to leverage researchers' abilities to integrate certain classes of biomarkers.

Gender segregation in baccalaureate degree fields declined rapidly in the first half of the period from 1971 to 2002; at the same time, women's representation among baccalaureate degree recipients increased most rapidly relative to men's. The desegregation of the early period resulted mainly from women's increased entry into business-related fields and declining proportions of women majoring in traditional fields such as education and English. Men did not contribute to integration by moving toward fields numerically dominated by women. Fixed-effects regression models (...) suggest that feminization of fields discourages later cohorts of men from entering them, as predicted by the devaluation perspective. The stalling of desegregation came from a combination of men's disinclination to enter fields that are “too” filled with women, and the slowdown in women making less traditional choices. (shrink)

This study evaluated the online privacy policies of business-to-consumer e-commerce firms in five industries of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Based on the neo-institutional theory, we also tested whether the four institutional factors, top management’s legal education, managerial ethics, rule of law in information privacy protection and peer practices, had any effects on e-information and e-communication content. Results from a content analysis of 229 websites found that the privacy policy contents that complied with generally accepted privacy standards were lesser (...) in mainland China firms than those of Taiwan and Hong Kong firms. There were also significant differences in the amount of contents among the five industries. The results of regression analyses showed the importance of all four factors on e-information content. They also showed the importance of coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphisms on e-information content. The validation of normative isomorphism highlighted the importance of managerial ethics and legal education. Our findings supplemented extant literature which identified economic motive as the main factor in influencing privacy practice disclosures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi ed. by Kim-chong ChongLuyao Li (bio)Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi. Edited by Kim-chong Chong. Dordrecht: Springer, 2022. Pp. 835. Hardcover US $133.15, isbn 978-3-030-92330-3.Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi, edited by Kim-chong Chong, is the sixteenth volume in the Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy series. This volume includes a total of 34 chapters and is (...) divided into six parts: "Authorship and Commentary" (Part I), "Concepts" (Part II), "Language and Metaphor" (Part III), "Zhuangzi in the Context of Chinese Philosophy" (Part IV), "Ethical, Social, and Epistemic Issues" (Part V), and "The Zhuangzi and Western Philosophy" (Part VI). These six parts not only provide students or non-specialists with a clear overview of the various possible aspects and approaches to Zhuangzi studies, but also present the latest discussions and diverse perspectives on crucial issues in the Zhuangzi, making the volume a valuable resource for experts in this field.Each part of the Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi extensively explores diverse research perspectives on a specific theme in Zhuangzi studies. Part IV, "Zhuangzi in the Context of Chinese Philosophy," serves as an exemplary illustration of this approach. Considering the possibility that Laozi and the Logicians may have influenced the thought in the Zhuangzi to some extent, this part is comprised of two chapters that respectively examine the connections and distinctions between Zhuangzi and Laozi, and Zhuangzi and the Logicians. Regarding scholars who may have lived after Zhuangzi, Angel On Ki TING envisions Zhuangzi's response to Xunzi's criticism, exploring their respective attitudes towards rites (li 禮) through examining the motivation for action. Additionally, there are chapters that discuss the influence of Zhuangzi's thoughts after the Warring States period, on Neo-Daoism, Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism, as well as on inner alchemy and religious Daoism.In Part II, however, such extensive exploration proves to be less satisfactory. Here, some crucial concepts in the Zhuangzi are illustrated, including heaven (tian 天) and human (ren 人), transformation (hua 化), vast or big (da 大) and minute (xiao 小), true person (zhen ren 真人) and true knowledge (zhen zhi 真知), no-emotion (wu qing 无情), and ming 命 (fate, destiny, mandate and command). It is unclear why certain concepts are chosen, whereas the central concepts of Dao (道) and de (德) are not focused on. It would perhaps be worthwhile to look closer into more of the above listed concepts, and the [End Page 1] relevance of Dao and de, particularly in terms of Dao and de's relationships to closely connected notions like heaven (tian 天) and ming (命).Furthermore, clear distinctions of themes in various parts of this edited volume overlook the connections among them. Certain terms and issues are addressed in chapters of different parts, with little or no communication between them. For example, the true person is the main concern in a number of chapters: "The True Person and True Knowledge in the Zhuangzi" (Part II, pp. 179-198); "Those Who Fly Without Wings: Depictions of the Supreme Idea Figure in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi" (Part III, pp. 305-376); and "Zhuangzi's Notion of the True Master and Wittgenstein's Grammatical Investigation" (Part VI, pp.807-824). Such exploration of various perspectives on a particular theme is noteworthy. It is regrettable, however, that there is a lack of correspondence between those perspectives. Some discussion on interactions among relevant chapters would certainly enhance the volume.In addition to presenting an extensive range of studies on the Zhuangzi, the Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi also makes contributions to specific issues, which will be appealing to specialists in this field. I will elaborate on three of these contributions drawing on various parts of the volume.First, this work contributes to discussions on the issue of authorship. The traditional viewpoint attributes the Inner Chapters, or at least their main part, to the historical figure Zhuang Zhou, and assumes that they were written in the Warring States period and composed earlier than other chapters. Therefore, the Inner Chapters are prioritized in studies of the Zhuangzi. Esther Klein has previously challenged the view that the Inner... (shrink)

Companies increasingly communicate about corporate social responsibility (CSR) through interactive online media. We examine whether using such media is beneficial to a company’s reputation. We conducted an online experiment to examine the impacts of interactivity in CSR messages on corporate reputation and word-of-mouth intentions. Our findings suggest that an increase in perceived interactivity leads to higher message credibility and stronger feelings of identification with the company, which also boost corporate reputation and word-of-mouth. This result implies that using interactive channels to (...) communicate about CSR can improve corporate reputation. Our results also show that the detrimental impacts of negative user evaluations on corporate reputation are much higher than the favorable impacts of positive evaluations. This finding suggests that, despite the effectiveness of interactive communication channels, firms need to carefully monitor these channels. (shrink)

Death with dignity is a significant issue in modern bioethics. In modern healthcare, the wide use of new technologies at the end of life has caused heated debate on how to protect human dignity. The key point of contention lies in the different understandings of human dignity and the dignity of death. Human dignity has never been a clear concept in Western ethical explorations, and the dignity of death has given rise to more confusions. Although there is no such term (...) as “dignity” in Confucian ethics, there are discussions of a number of ideas related to human dignity and the dignity of death. Therefore, Confucian bioethics can offer a new perspective for understanding the theoretical difficulties associated with the dignity of death and new methods for solving them. In this article, we attempt to reconstruct Confucian views on human dignity and the dignity of death and, based on those views, to analyze the following issues: the relationship between the dignity of death and biological life, the relationship between the dignity of death and suffering, the relationship between the dignity of death and the autonomy of human beings, and the relationship between the dignity of death and social justice. This article will also compare the Confucian views on these issues with the views of Western philosophers. Confucian ethics can offer distinct answers to the above issues and help resolve some confusions concerning concepts and theories in Western research on the dignity of death. (shrink)

With growing global concerns about water scarcity and environmental sustainability, understanding the factors influencing individual water conservation behaviors is crucial. This study utilizes the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics to investigate the relationship between concerns of local issues and water conservation behaviors in a sample of 1831 residents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. New Mexico is an arid region of which 90% faced severe drought driven by the most significant wildfire in state history and some of the driest months ever (...) recorded in 2022. The results show a positive association between the drought or water scarcity concern and the number of water conservation behaviors adopted. Likewise, the positive association between the concern about population growth and development and water conservation behaviors is also observed. However, further examination is needed due to the weak reliability of this relationship. In contrast, negative associations between concerns about water quality and water bills with water conservation behaviors are also identified. Based on these findings, the study discusses the potential of building the eco-surplus culture by improving information dissemination of water-saving methods and existing water-related issues in the local areas. (shrink)

Modality and negation, as two important linguistic features used to realise subjectivity, have been investigated within various disciplines, such as logic, linguistics and philosophy, and law. The interaction between modality and negation, as a relatively new and undeveloped domain, has however not been paid due attention in scholarship. This corpus-based study investigates three aspects of their interaction: the differentiation of the deontic value by negation, the categorization of deontic modality in Hong Kong legislation via negation, and distribution patterns of deontic (...) modality, especially distribution patterns of the negation of modality, in Hong Kong legislation. This study shows that negation is a powerful linguistic mechanism not only for determining the nature and functions of modality, but also for determining the value of modality. This study also reveals that negation helps us to investigate the distribution of deontic modality in Hong Kong legislation and hence revisit the legal framework in Hong Kong. A study taking into account the discursive and professional aspects of the interaction between deontic modality and negation will provide a theoretical basis for the natural language processing of modality and negation in legislation and also offer important implications for the study of negation and modality in general contexts. (shrink)

This study, based on Bem’s gender schema theory, investigates gender differences in and the relationship between gender role characteristics and entrepreneurial self-efficacy of 261 female and 265 male entrepreneurs in China. The results show that male and female entrepreneurs did not differ significantly in ESE or in masculine gender role characteristics, but differed significantly in feminine gender role characteristics. Examining four different stages in the entrepreneurial life cycle, we find that for female entrepreneurs, feminine characteristics had a positive influence on (...) ESE in the searching and planning stages of entrepreneurship, and masculine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the searching stage. For male entrepreneurs, feminine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the searching and planning stages, and masculine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the marshaling and implementing stages. In addition, one feminine characteristic, “Friendly,” showed a positive association with male entrepreneurs’ ESE in the marshaling stage. Overall, the feminine gender role factor of “Friendly” and the masculine gender role factor of “Compete” played a greater role on ESE than other characteristics. Implications of the findings are discussed. This study contributes a new perspective to extant research on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and female entrepreneurship. (shrink)

Two kinds of probability expressions, verbal and numerical, have been used to characterize the uncertainty that people face. However, the question of whether verbal and numerical probabilities are cognitively processed in a similar manner remains unresolved. From a levels-of-processing perspective, verbal and numerical probabilities may be processed differently during early sensory processing but similarly in later semantic-associated operations. This event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the neural processing of verbal and numerical probabilities in risky choices. The results showed that verbal probability (...) and numerical probability elicited different N1 amplitudes but that verbal and numerical probabilities elicited similar N2 and P3 waveforms in response to different levels of probability (high to low). These results were consistent with a level-of-processing framework and suggest some internal consistency between the cognitive processing of verbal and numerical probabilities in risky choices. Our findings shed light on possible mechanism underlying probability expression and may provide the neural evidence to support the translation of verbal to numerical probabilities (or vice versa). (shrink)

The recent Canadian lawsuit on patent infringement, filed by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, has engendered a significant public debate on whether patenting genes should be legal in Canada. In part, this public debate has involved the use of social networking sites, such as Twitter. This case provides an opportunity to examine how Twitter was used in the context of this gene patent controversy.

The patenting of human genes has been the subject of debate for decades. While China has gradually come to play an important role in the global genomics-based testing and treatment market, little is known about Chinese scholars’ perspectives on patent protection for human genes. A content analysis of academic literature was conducted to identify Chinese scholars’ concerns regarding gene patents, including benefits and risks of patenting human genes, attitudes that researchers hold towards gene patenting, and any legal and policy recommendations (...) offered for the gene patent regime in China. 57.2% of articles were written by law professors, but scholars from health sciences, liberal arts, and ethics also participated in discussions on gene patent issues. While discussions of benefits and risks were relatively balanced in the articles, 63.5% of the articles favored gene patenting in general and, of the articles that explored gene patents in the Chinese context, 90.2% supported patent protections for human genes in China. The patentability of human genes was discussed in 33 articles, and 75.8% of these articles reached the conclusion that human genes are patentable. Chinese scholars view the patent regime as an important legal tool to protect the interests of inventors and inventions as well as the genetic resources of China. As such, many scholars support a gene patent system in China. These attitudes towards gene patents remain unchanged following the court ruling in the Myriad case in 2013, but arguments have been raised about the scope of gene patents, in particular that the increasing numbers of gene patents may negatively impact public health in China. (shrink)

The long-periodic/infinite discrete Gabor transform is more effective than the periodic/finite one in many applications. In this paper, a fast and effective approach is presented to efficiently compute the Gabor analysis window for arbitrary given synthesis window in DGT of long-periodic/infinite sequences, in which the new orthogonality constraint between analysis window and synthesis window in DGT for long-periodic/infinite sequences is derived and proved to be equivalent to the completeness condition of the long-periodic/infinite DGT. By using the property of delta function, (...) the original orthogonality can be expressed as a certain number of linear equation sets in both the critical sampling case and the oversampling case, which can be fast and efficiently calculated by fast discrete Fourier transform. The computational complexity of the proposed approach is analyzed and compared with that of the existing canonical algorithms. The numerical results indicate that the proposed approach is efficient and fast for computing Gabor analysis window in both the critical sampling case and the oversampling case in comparison to existing algorithms. (shrink)