In recent years, the Audit Pilot of Natural Resources Assets (APNRA) pilot program has been implemented by the Chinese government to strengthen the protection of natural resources and the ecological environment. Based on the APNRA pilot program, we use the multi-period differences–in–differences model to investigate the response of corporate environmental responsibility to external governance pressure. We find that firms significantly improve their environmental investment and performance after the implementation of the APNRA pilot program. Sewage charges (including green fees) and ecological (...) protection incentives constitute the two main channels that explain the positive relationship. We further find that the impact of the program on corporate environmental investment and performance is more pronounced for firms in regions with poor environmental quality, and for firms in heavy-polluting industries. This paper introduces the role of government governance in generating positive externality for firms and provides a valuable understanding of environmental governance in an emerging market. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated the integration between neuroscience and entrepreneurship. First, we explored the concept of neuroentrepreneurship and the investigation of neuroentrepreneurship using scientific research methods. Second, we constructed a road map for entrepreneurial researchers interested in conducting neuroentrepreneurship-related research. This is an emerging research area; therefore, to more clearly analyze the dynamics of the research trends, we used a bibliometric method to capture patterns in current publications on subjects related to neuroentrepreneurship, examining papers published between 1999 and 2021 (...) using the keywords “neuroscience” and “entrepreneurship” or “neuroentrepreneurship.” To identify the keywords, we used two academic databases—the Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index—accessed through the Web of Science website. The three keywords were identified from studies integrating neuroscience with entrepreneurship. After carefully reviewing the research papers, we identified neuroentrepreneurship as a novel research area. The outcomes of this study provide a guide for describing the theoretical connection between neuroscience and entrepreneurship. In the future, this field of study should be empirically investigated. (shrink)

In light of the dramatic growth of Chinese learners worldwide and a need for cross-linguistic research on Chinese literacy development, this study drew upon theories of visual complexity effect (Su & Samuels, 2010) and dual-coding processing (Sadoski & Paivio, 2013) and investigated a) the effects of character properties (i.e., visual complexity and radical presence) on character acquisition and b) the relationship between individual learner differences in radical awareness and character acquisition. Participants included adolescent English-speaking beginning learners of Chinese in the (...) U.S. Following Kuo et al. (2014), a novel character acquisition task was used to investigate the process of acquiring the meaning of new characters. Results showed that a) characters with radicals and with less visual complexity were easier to acquire than characters without radicals and with greater visual complexity; and b) individual differences in radical awareness were associated with the acquisition of all types of characters, but the association was more pronounced with the acquisition of characters with radicals. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed. (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 practice of critical care medicine has long been a difficult task for most critical care physicians in the densely populated city of Hong Kong, where we face limited resources and a limited number of intensive care beds. Our triage decisions are largely based on the potential of functional reversibility of the patients. Provision of graded care beds may help to relieve some of the demands on the intensive care beds. Decisions to forego futile medical treatment are frequently physician-guided family-based (...) decisions, which is quite contrary to the Western focus on patient autonomy. However, as people acquire knowledge about health care and they become more aware of individual rights, our critical care doctors will be able to narrow the gaps between the dif ferent concepts of medical ethics among our professionals as well as in our society. An open and caring attitude from our intensivists will be important in minimizing the cross-cultural conflict on the complex issue of medical futility. (shrink)

Mutation and lateral transfer are two categories of processes generating genetic diversity in prokaryotic genomes. Their relative importance varies between lineages, yet both are complementary rather than independent, separable evolutionary forces. The replication process inevitably merges together their effects on the genome. We develop the concept of “open lineages” to characterize evolutionary lineages that over time accumulate more changes in their genomes by lateral transfer than by mutation. They contrast with “closed lineages,” in which most of the changes are caused (...) by mutation. Open and closed lineages are interspersed along the branches of any tree of prokaryotes. This patchy distribution conflicts with the basic assumptions of traditional phylogenetic approaches. As a result, a tree representation including both open and closed lineages is a misrepresentation. The evolution of all prokaryotic lineages cannot be studied under a single model unless new phylogenetic approaches that are more pluralistic about lineage evolution are designed. (shrink)

本书是我国南北朝时代一部有名的古籍,此书共分为七卷,为家训类著作。全书的语言平易朴实而又不乏文采,与当时盛行的浮华的骈文既有区别,又较先秦两汉的古文更为随意自然,在南北朝文学史上别具一格。.

Urban inclusive green growth (UIGG) refers to the synergetic enhancement of the economy, the environment, and the society in a city. Achieving such enhancement requires addressing a series of problems in the development of urbanization, such as unemployment, lack of access to education, insufficient medical resources, inequity, and environmental pollution. As firms are critical to city development and urbanization, whether they practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a crucial part in UIGG. In this study, we focus on Chinese cities as (...) examples of UIGG and Chinese listed companies as CSR engagers, employing matched data on Chinese listed companies and cities to investigate how CSR affects UIGG. Specifically, the empirical results of a high-dimensional fixed effect model indicate that CSR significantly promotes UIGG. This finding remains valid after a set of robustness checks, including instrumental variable (IV) regression. CSR can promote UIGG by positively influencing enterprises’ economic performance, innovation, and employment. To promote firms’ substantive CSR actions, the government of Jiangsu Province, China, launched a pilot policy for CSR promotion by issuing an official guidance document, which can be considered a quasi-natural experiment to test the causality between CSR and UIGG. We find that the CSR pilot significantly promoted UIGG. The heterogeneity test results indicate that the influence of CSR on UIGG varies based on the audit company, the nature of the enterprise, and the structure of corporate leadership. (shrink)

The present study investigated whether physical cleansing can reduce the mindset effect in problem-solving in two experiments. Both experiments followed the same procedure. In the first stage, participants formed a mindset through the Luchins’ water-jar task (Experiment 1) or the idiom maze task (Experiment 2). The second stage is cleansing manipulation. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to clean their hands with wipes (cleansing condition) or examine the packaging of the wipes (no-cleansing condition). In Experiment 2, participants were asked to (...) watch a washing-hands video (cleansing condition) or watch an examining-pen video (no-cleansing condition). At last, all participants completed the mindset effect test problems. The results showed that the participants in the cleansing condition were less affected by the mindset than those in the no-cleansing condition, indicating that physical cleansing reduced the mindset effect. Our results provide new evidence for the clean-slate effects and support the hypothesis that physical cleansing is an embodied process of psychological separation. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the multiple mediating effects of achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing between social support and individual occupational identity.MethodsQuestionnaire method was used in this study. 565 junior college students majoring in pre-school education were tested by social support scale, achievement motivation scale, subjective wellbeing scale, and occupational identity scale.Results There isn’t significant relationship between perceptions of social support and individual occupational identity. Achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing individually play a mediating role between social support and individual occupational (...) identity. Achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing play a chain mediating effect between elf-efficacy and individual occupational identity.ConclusionSocial support can indirectly predict professional identity of pre-school “would-be teachers” through the mediating effect of achievement motivation, subjective wellbeing and the chain mediating effect of achievement motivation and subjective wellbeing. (shrink)

China apparel customization brands have been recently growing in massive quantities despite being in their infancy stages of brand value building. Although scholars have proven brand value’s importance in sustainable brand growth, studies on the specific context of CACBs are still limited. This research proposes a conceptual framework of CACBs’ brand value measured dimension based on previous studies and divides brand value into both general and specific dimensions. Accordingly, qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted from the perspectives of practitioners and (...) consumers. Ultimately, a scale of 30 items with nine dimensions was generated. Results reveal that brand association in the general dimensions and brand service in the special dimensions were the largest promoters of CACB brand value. Hence, practitioners should pay more attention to dimensions of cognitive conflicts. Practical suggestions for apparel customization marketers are proposed to build and enhance brand value. (shrink)

Current development in a deep neural network has given an opportunity to a novel framework for the reconstruction of a holographic image and a phase recovery method with real-time performance. There are many deep learning-based techniques that have been proposed for the holographic image reconstruction, but these deep learning-based methods can still lack in performance, time complexity, accuracy, and real-time performance. Due to iterative calculation, the generation of a CGH requires a long computation time. A novel deep generative adversarial network (...) holography framework is proposed for hologram reconstruction. This novel framework consists of two phases. In phase one, we used the Fresnel-based method to make the dataset. In the second phase, we trained the raw input image and holographic label image data from phase one acquired images. Our method has the capability of the noniterative process of computer-generated holograms. The experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods. (shrink)

Abstract Objective Intuitive inquiry meditation is a unique form of Buddhist Zen/Chan practice in which individuals actively and intuitively utilize the cognitive functions to cultivate doubt and explore the concept of the self. This event-related potential (ERP) study aimed to investigate the neural correlates by which long-term practice of intuitive inquiry meditation induces flexibility in self-schema processing, highlighting the role of doubt and belief processes in this exploration. Methods Twenty experienced and eighteen beginner meditators in intuitive inquiry meditation were recruited (...) for this ERP study. The interactions of doubt and belief processes with concepts of the self and Buddha were investigated. A 128-channel electroencephalography (EEG) system was used to collect EEG data. The ERP data were processed and analyzed using EEGLAB. Results The data showed a double dissociation between beginners and experienced meditators (monks) in the concepts of the self and Buddha: intuitive inquiry meditation reduced the brain activity of beginners when viewing Buddha image but not when viewing a picture of themselves. However, in experienced meditators, intuitive inquiry meditation reduced brain activity when they viewed images of themselves but not when they viewed Buddha image. Further event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) analysis revealed that experienced meditators had a greater theta spectral power and higher intertrial coherence (ITC), indicating that they could more flexibly modulate ongoing cognitive processes than beginner meditators. Conclusion Intuitive inquiry meditation could help beginner meditators detach from the concept of Buddha but not from that of the self. However, in experienced meditators, the opposite was true. ERSP analysis showed that only experienced meditators exhibited significant alterations in brain activity dynamics during intuitive inquiry meditation, which might enable these practitioners to become spontaneously detached from the concept of the self. These findings revealed the neural mechanism by which long-term practice of intuitive inquiry meditation can influence the doubting process and its effect on self-schema processing. (shrink)

The predictors of attitudes regarding academic plagiarism were investigated in Hong Kong secondary school students. The participants were 257 Grade 10 and 11 students who were taking liberal studies. Quantitative analysis showed that the students were unfamiliar with what actions constituted plagiarism. The best predictor of attitudes was the perceived descriptive norm regarding plagiarism. We explain this finding by applying the cultural-self perspective and present our recommendations for teachers.

This study examines the effect of teaching ethics and the form of code of ethics on auditors’ ethical decision making. We draw upon Rest’s decision-making model and Hunt and Vitell’s theory of marketing ethics to assist us with this examination. We use accounting students as substitutes for auditors in this study to enhance its internal validity as students are “subjects who would not already have detailed knowledge and experience of the Code”. The research method includes a survey and an experiment (...) in the study. A between-subjects survey design with a sample of 271 students and a within-subjects experimental design with a sample of 146 students are used. A confirmatory factor analysis is conducted before other statistical methods are performed. Our results show that teaching codes of ethics improves accounting students’ awareness of audit independence issues and their ethical judgments and intentions. However, the form of a code of ethics does not make any significant difference in terms of the participants’ awareness of audit independence and their ethical judgments and intentions. Our study contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of principles-based versus rules-based codes of ethics and the importance of teaching ethics in non-Western economies. (shrink)

ObjectiveStatic regional homogeneity based on the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging has been used to study intrinsic brain activity in Alzheimer’s disease. However, few studies have examined dynamic ReHo in AD. In this study, we used rs-fMRI and dReHo to investigate the alterations in dynamic IBA in patients with AD to uncover dynamic imaging markers of AD.MethodIn total, 111 patients with AD, 29 patients with mild cognitive impairment, and 73 healthy controls were recruited for this study ultimately. After the rs-fMRI (...) scan, we calculated the dReHo values using the sliding window method. ANOVA and post hoc two-sample t-tests were used to detect the differences among the three groups. We used the mini-mental state examination and Montreal Cognitive Assessment to evaluate the cognitive function of the subjects. The associations between the MMSE score, MoCA score, and dReHo were assessed by the Pearson correlation analysis.ResultsSignificant dReHo variability in the right middle frontal gyrus and right posterior cingulate gyrus was detected in the three groups through ANOVA. In post hoc analysis, the AD group exhibited significantly greater dReHo variability in the right MFG than the MCI group. Compared with the HC group, the AD group exhibited significantly increased dReHo variability in the right PCG. Furthermore, dReHo variability in the right PCG was significantly negatively correlated with the MMSE and MoCA scores of patients with AD.ConclusionDisrupted dynamic IBA in the DMN might be an important characteristic of AD and could be a potential biomarker for the diagnosis or prognosis of AD. (shrink)

Aiming at the problem of low pedestrian target detection accuracy, we propose a detection algorithm based on optimized Mask R-CNN which uses the latest research results of deep learning to improve the accuracy and speed of detection results. Due to the influence of illumination, posture, background, and other factors on the human target in the natural scene image, the complexity of target information is high. SKNet is used to replace the part of the convolution module in the depth residual network (...) model in order to extract features better so that the model can adaptively select the best convolution kernel during training. In addition, according to the statistical law, the length-width ratio of the anchor box is modified to make it more accord with the natural characteristics of the pedestrian target. Finally, a pedestrian target dataset is established by selecting suitable pedestrian images in the COCO dataset and expanded by adding noise and median filtering. The optimized algorithm is compared with the original algorithm and several other mainstream target detection algorithms on the dataset; the experimental results show that the detection accuracy and detection speed of the optimized algorithm are improved, and its detection accuracy is better than other mainstream target detection algorithms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDeception has been reported to be influenced by task-relevant emotional information from an external stimulus. However, it remains unclear how task-irrelevant emotional information would influence deception. In the present study, facial expressions of different valence and emotion intensity were presented to participants, where they were asked to make either truthful or deceptive gender judgments according to the preceding cues. We observed the influence of facial expression intensity upon individuals’ cognitive cost of deceiving. Larger cost was observed for high intensity faces (...) compared to low intensity faces. These results provided insights on how automatic attraction of attention evoked by task-irrelevant emotional information in facial expressions influenced individuals’ cognitive cost of deceiving. (shrink)

The adverse effects of life stress on social networking sites addiction are increasingly recognized, but so far there is little evidence on how and which specific types of life stress are conducive to the addictive behavior. Interpersonal relationship stress being the main source of stress for undergraduates, the purpose of the current paper is thus to delve into whether perceived stress in interpersonal relationships significantly leads to WeChat addiction and, if so, how this type of stress drives the excessive use (...) of WeChat. The data was collected from self-report questionnaires completed by 463 Chinese undergraduate students and then analyzed with structural equation modeling. The results revealed that the positive association between WeChat users’ interpersonal relationship stress and addictive behavior is fully and sequentially mediated by WeChat use intensity and social interaction. More specifically, accumulation of stress in interpersonal relationships gives rise to the intensity of WeChat use, which in turn fuels rising addiction to WeChat both directly and indirectly via social interaction on WeChat. These findings contribute to a more refined understanding of the pathological use of WeChat. (shrink)

PurposeThe effect of sensorimotor stripping on neuroplasticity and motor imagery capacity is unknown, and the physiological mechanisms of post-amputation phantom limb pain (PLP) illness remain to be investigated.Materials and methodsIn this study, an electroencephalogram (EEG)-based event-related (de)synchronization (ERD/ERS) analysis was conducted using a bilateral lower limb motor imagery (MI) paradigm. The differences in the execution of motor imagery tasks between left lower limb amputations and healthy controls were explored, and a correlation analysis was calculated between level of phantom limb pain (...) and ERD/ERS.ResultsThe multiple frequency bands showed a significant ERD phenomenon when the healthy control group performed the motor imagery task, whereas amputees showed significant ERS phenomena in mu band. Phantom limb pain in amputees was negatively correlated with bilateral sensorimotor areas electrode powers.ConclusionSensorimotor abnormalities reduce neural activity in the sensorimotor cortex, while the motor imagination of the intact limb is diminished. In addition, phantom limb pain may lead to over-activation of sensorimotor areas, affecting bilateral sensorimotor area remodeling. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that the color red can affect basic motor functioning. However, these studies utilized simple gross motor tasks rather than those assessing complex fine motor skills. Moreover, these empirical studies were theoretically based on the threat–behavior link in human and non-human animals, and neglected the relationship between arousal and motor performance. According to the Yerkes–Dodson law and the inverted-U hypothesis in sport psychology, for simple motor tasks, high arousal is more advantageous than low arousal ; for complex (...) motor tasks, low arousal is more advantageous than high arousal. The current research examined the effect of color on different kinds of motor skills based on the inverted U-hypothesis. In Experiment 1, we examined the effect of red and blue on dart-throwing performance, whereas in Experiment 2, we examined the effect of red and blue on grip strength performance. The results showed that performance of fine motor skill in the blue condition was better than in the red condition, and performance of gross motor skill in the red context was better than in the blue context. These results indicate that the type of motor skill assessed moderates the influence of red and blue on motor performance. (shrink)

Public concern over major agricultural product safety incidents, such as swine flu and avian flu, can intensify financial losses in the livestock and poultry industries. Crawler technology were applied to reviewed the Weibo social media discussions on the African Swine Fever incident in China that was reported on 3 August 2018, and used content analysis and network analysis to specifically examine the online public opinion network dissemination characteristics of verified individual users, institutional users and ordinary users. It was found that: (...) attention paid to topics related to “epidemic,” “treatment,” “effect” and “prevent” decrease in turn, with the interest in “prevent” increasing significantly when human infections were possible; verified individual users were most concerned about epidemic prevention and control and play a supervisory role, the greatest concern of institutional users and ordinary users were issues related to agricultural industry and agricultural products price fluctuations respectively; among institutional users, media was the main opinion leader, and among non-institutional users, elites from all walks of life, especially the food safety personnel acted as opinion leaders. Based on these findings, some policy suggestions are given: determine the nature of the risk to human health of the safety incident, stabilizing prices of relevant agricultural products, and giving play to the role of information dissemination of relevant institutions. (shrink)

We examine managers’ earnings forecasts for evidence of incentive alignment or subversion characteristics. We find that forecasts by managers compensated via relative performance (RP) goals are more likely to be pessimistic and less accurate than those by managers compensated via absolute performance (AP) goals. For firms not issuing earnings forecasts, disclosures in Form 10-Ks are more pessimistic for RP firms than for AP firms. Furthermore, we find that RP firms perform worse than AP firms in terms of future stock returns. (...) Overall, our evidence is consistent with a proposition that, contrary to sound ethical business practices, RP managers make self-serving earnings disclosures to subvert the efforts of their peers to meet performance targets more easily. (shrink)

Anton Bruckner, the Austrian composer famous for his monumental and sophisticated symphonies, has never been among the most popular composers in the English-speaking world. However, the fact that his works became the favourites of the Nazis before and during WWII has been the subject of an ongoing scholarly debate since the 1990's. Not only did Hitler show personal approval of the symphonist, the National Socialist Party used the orchestral music of Bruckner to accompany a number of important party events. For (...) example, in the 1939 video footage of Hitler's 50th birthday celebration, we hear the final climax of the Fifth Symphony accompanying images of the F??hrer. After the German radio announced the death of Hitler on 1st May 1945, the Adagio of the Seventh Symphony was played, perhaps as a kind of funeral music for the Nazi dictator. (shrink)