One of the most significant challenges in the application of brain-computer interfaces is the large performance variation, which often occurs over time or across users. Recent evidence suggests that the physiological states may explain this performance variation in BCI, however, the underlying neurophysiological mechanism is unclear. In this study, we conducted a seven-session motor-imagery experiment on 20 healthy subjects to investigate the neurophysiological mechanism on the performance variation. The classification accuracy was calculated offline by common spatial pattern and support vector (...) machine algorithms to measure the MI performance of each subject and session. Relative Power values from different rhythms and task stages were used to reflect the physiological states and their correlation with the BCI performance was investigated. Results showed that the alpha band RP from the supplementary motor area within a few seconds before MI was positively correlated with performance. Besides, the changes of RP between task and pre-task stage from theta, alpha, and gamma band were also found to be correlated with performance both across time and subjects. These findings reveal a neurophysiological manifestation of the performance variations, and would further provide a way to improve the BCI performance. (shrink)

Ethically challenging situations routinely arise in the course of illness and healthcare. However, very few studies have surveyed patients and family members about their experiences with ethically challenging situations. To address this gap in the literature, we surveyed patients and family members at three hospitals. We conducted a content analysis of their responses to open-ended questions about their most memorable experience with an ethical concern for them or their family member. Participants described 219 unique ethical experiences that spanned many of (...) the prevailing themes of bioethics, including the patient-physician relationship, end-of-life care, decision-making capacity, healthcare costs, and genetic testing. Participants focused on relational issues in the course of experiencing illness and receiving medical care and concerns regarding the patient-physician encounters. Many concerns arose outside of a healthcare setting. These data indicate areas for improvement for healthcare providers but some concerns may be better addressed outside of the traditional healthcare setting. (shrink)

BackgroundResearchers worry that patients in early-phase research experience unrealistic optimism about benefits and risks of participation. The standard measure of unrealistic optimism is the Comparative Risk/Benefit Assessment questionnaire, which asks people to estimate their chances of an outcome relative to others in similar situations. Such a comparative framework may not be a natural way for research participants to think about their chances.ObjectiveTo examine how people interpret questions measuring unrealistic optimism and how their interpretations are associated with their responses.MethodsUsing an early-phase (...) cancer trial vignette, we administered the CRBA to 297 adults from the general public. They estimated their comparative chances of risk and benefit, then provided rationales for their estimates.ResultsFor both CRBA benefit and risk questions, about 50% of respondents chose 0, and 50% chose a non-0 response. Respondents’ rationales for their estimates showed that overall only about 40%–44% gave comparative rationales, indicating that they interpreted the CRBA as intended. 68.7% of respondents who gave the ‘correct’ 0 rating gave comparative rationales, whereas only 11.6% of respondents who gave non-0 ratings did so. A similar trend was seen for chances of risk.ConclusionResearch participants may not understand comparative benefit and risk questions as intended; attributions of unrealistic optimism may require additional evidence that the respondents’ estimates are intended to be comparative. (shrink)

The ideas of continental philosopher Martin Heidegger have been influential in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, despite the fact that there has been no effort to analyze these ideas empirically. The experiments reported here are designed to lend empirical support to Heidegger’s phenomenology and more specifically his description of the transition between ready-to-hand and unready-to-hand modes in interactions with tools. In experiment 1, we found that a smoothly coping cognitive system exhibits 1/fβ type positively correlated noise and that its correlated (...) character is reduced when the system is perturbed. This indicates that the participant and tool constitute a self-assembled, extended device during smooth coping and this device is disrupted by the perturbation. In experiment 2, we examine the re-organization of awareness that occurs when a smoothly coping, self-assembled, extended cognitive system is perturbed. We found that the disruption is accompanied by a change in attention which interferes with participants’ performance on a simultaneous cognitive task. Together these experiments show that a smoothly coping participant-tool system can be temporarily disrupted and that this disruption causes a change in the participant’s awareness. Since these two events follow as predictions from Heidegger’s work, our study offers evidence for the hypothesized transition from readiness-to-hand to unreadiness-to-hand. (shrink)

Drawing on social exchange theory, we argue that family-supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB) inhibits employees’ unethical pro-family behavior (UPFB) via the mediation of felt obligation. We further propose that employees’ positive reciprocity beliefs strengthen the hypothesized relationships. Using a sample consisting of 345 full-time employees from an Internet service company located in China, we found that felt obligation partially mediated the negative relationship between FSSB and UPFB and that the FSSB-felt obligation relationship and the mediation relationship were stronger for employees with (...) higher positive reciprocity beliefs. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

We posit a key goal of firms’ corporate social responsibility efforts is to influence reputation through carefully crafted communicative practices. This trend has accelerated with the rise of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, which are essentially public message networks that organizations are leveraging to engage with concerned audiences. Given the large number of messages sent on these sites, only some will be effective and achieve broad public resonance. Building on signaling theory, this paper asks whether and how messages (...) conveying CSR-related topics resonate with the public and, if so, which CSR topics and signal qualities are most effective. We test our hypotheses using data on public reactions to Fortune 500 companies’ CSR-focused Twitter feeds, using the retweeting of firms’ messages as a proxy for public resonance. We find resonance is positively associated with messages that convey CSR topics such as the environment or education, those that make the topic explicit through use of hashtags, and those that tap into existing social movement discussions. (shrink)

Is it possible that there are extended simples—material objects extended in space or spacetime that have no proper parts? The most commonly cited argument for this possibility is based on a version of the Humean principle: namely (and with some qualifications), any pattern of instantiation of a fundamental relation is possible. In this paper, we make the Humean argument fully explicit, and criticise it from three aspects—the Disjunction problem, the Pluralist problem, and the Accidentality problem. First, the original argument only (...) shows a disjunctive thesis: either extended simples are possible, or unextended complexes are possible. In order to reach the desired conclusion, some additional premise is needed. Yet, even though we agree that the Disjunction problem can be met, we argue that the Humean argument fails to establish the possibility of extended simples, for two reasons: the first comes from compositional pluralism, and the second is about the definition of accidental properties. We contend that the latter two problems put the proponents of the Humean argument in serious difficulty. Thus, metaphysicians who hold that there are extended simples should find better arguments for this view. (shrink)

In this article, we contribute to sociological literatures on morality, professional and institutional contexts, and morally stigmatized ‘dirty work’ by emphasizing and exploring how they mutually inform one another in lawyers’ work activities. Drawing on interview data with 58 practitioners in the commercial legal industry in Singapore, we analyze how they experience professional and institutional constraints on the expressions of morality in their work. Our findings illustrate how a dominant managerial and economic focus maintains and reproduces a constrained form of (...) morality, limited to instrumental, utilitarian and commercial ends, and subordinated to lucrative client and firm interests. We discuss our findings in terms of the need to research and reform professions in ways that support more rounded and unconstrained moral reflexivity and autonomy in how work is undertaken and valued. This in turn has implications for how organizations and professions might achieve alternative moral institutional orders, and for legal work to avoid the moral and social taints of dirty work. (shrink)

Resumo: Para Paul Auster, um quarto é, em essência, “a própria substância da solidão”, uma solidão espacialmente definida. Nesse sentido, o fenômeno transcendeu suas limitações físicas e assumiu significado existencial e filosófico. Em seus escritos, uma sala é, antes de tudo, um espaço arquitetônico que um escritor solitário ocupa; além disso, é metaforizado como a mente que é a sala - um espaço construído intelectualmente; e, por fim, é um lugar narrado em suas histórias, onde seus personagens meditam e compõem, (...) um espaço que existe em palavras. O artigo realiza estudos sobre os escritos da vida de Auster e uma de suas ficções, Homem no Escuro, para apresentar a complexidade das três formas de quartos solitários e sua mútua inclusão na solidão intersubjetiva. (shrink)

For decades, a review of environmental education initiatives in and beyond schools indicates that many of them were implemented from an anthropocentric perspective. The rationale behind them is often that we must not destroy the environment because doing so is harmful for ourselves, human beings. One striking feature of the various forms of environmental education is the use of fear as a motivator, as people are warned about the frightening consequences of environmental destruction on their life. While this type of (...) fear-based environmental education may be effective to some extent, intimidation cannot be a fundamental solution to environmental issues. We need to form a loving relationship with nature, through love-based environmental education. From intimidation to love, love-based environmental education focuses on enhancing public environmental awareness through inculcating love, respect, and gratitude toward nature, thereby helping to solve present and future environmental problems and construct an eco-friendly world.Love-based environmental education is richly embedded in Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and contemporary Western eco-ethics. In this article, we synthesize the tenets of love-based environmental education mainly through the lens of Taoist philosophy, discuss implementation approaches, and explore contemplative methods to cultivate connection with nature. Finally, we point out fear-based and love-based environmental education are not mutually exclusive. We need a combination of, or a diversity of approaches to ensure that we effectively change attitudes and behaviors of people. (shrink)

Through metaphor, we gain distinctive perspectives on reality and communicate in new ways, especially when we use metaphor intentionally. The COVID-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020, causing sign...

We show that as game theory was transferred from mathematical oncology to experimental cancer biology, a new mode of inquiry was created. Modeling was replaced by measuring. The game measured by a game assay can serve as a bridge that allows knowledge to flow backward from target (cancer research) to source (game theory). Our finding suggests that the conformist and creative (Houkes and Zwart 2019) types of transfer need to be augmented. We conclude by introducing the expansive and transformative types (...) to get a four-tier typology of knowledge transfer. (shrink)

The different sorts of virtuous people who display various virtues to a remarkable degree have brought the issue of individualisation of moral character to the forefront. It signals a more personal dimension of character development which is notoriously ignored in the current discourse on character education. The case is made that since in practice, the individualisation of moral character must, by necessity, advance side by side with the cultivation of virtues, a full account of character education needs to give consideration (...) to both concerns. After analysing the specific ways which temperament, social roles, and occupations respectively contribute to the individualisation of moral character, some practical implications are drawn to shed new light on the common practice of the inculcation of virtues. Firstly, since the varieties of moral personality is the norm, it is appropriate to encourage the educated to become virtuous people of different sorts. Secondly, given the influence that temperament may exert on virtue, having good knowledge of each child’s temperament, identifying the specific difficulties possibly confronting him/her accordingly, and then providing more opportunities to strengthen the cultivation of the related virtues are crucial. Thirdly, since children with different temperaments are inclined to identify with different sorts of moral exemplars, it is valuable to present them a great variety of moral models, from which they can choose the kind of virtuous people they would want to emulate. Lastly, since assuming different occupations and social roles is liable to result in various moral characters, character formation cannot be confined to the family or school. Among others, workplaces and communities are also important variables. (shrink)

Résumé Le mouvement israélien pour la justice sociale (J14) a surpris par son intensité et sa durée. Cet entretien revient sur les origines du mouvement, la critique de la souveraineté israélienne mais décrit les voies singulières qui traversent l’Assemblée du peuple, représentante du vaste courant d’indignation dans tout le pays. L’hétérogénéité sociale et culturelle du mouvement, la participation de minorités nationales prenant leur part dans la refondation de la politique, le dépassement de la gauche classique et du Bloc pour la (...) paix font que ce mouvement peut être considéré comme durable. (shrink)

Lexical evidence reveals that ordinary notions of space underwent a dramatic change from the late seventeenth century into the first decades of the nineteenth century: the word’s core meaning metamorphosed from INTERVAL to DIMENSION, revolutionizing relations between ordinary conceptions of time and space. Analyzing instances of the word in French over the years 1330–1835 indicates this conceptual change of SPACE was concurrent with growing interest in metaphysics and natural philosophy and echoed debates—provoked by Newton’s Principia (1687)—over the precise nature of (...) space. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, I show how changes in philosophical and scientific theory reshaped the general lexicon. I argue that ordinary lexical mechanisms largely determine the manner of science’s dissemination into culture and propose a model accounting for such changes. (shrink)

Inspired by the debate about character between situationism and virtue ethics, I argue that John Doris's idea, ‘local trait’, offers a fresh insight into contemporary character education. Its positive variant, ‘local virtue’, signals an inescapable relay station of the gradual development of virtue, and serves as a promising point of departure for advanced growth. The idea of converting local virtues to more global ones is accordingly proposed to represent an empirically more realistic way of conceiving how to approach the ethical (...) ideal of global virtues. It helps to direct our gaze to the great intermediate developmental stages of virtue, which mark out a whole spectrum of virtues of varying degrees that fall short of full virtue. This new notion works together with the traditional Aristotelian account to provide a full account of how to effectively undertake the age-old educational business of the inculcation of virtues. (shrink)

Focusing on the domain of self-compassion, this study explored the promotion mechanism of online learning behavioral engagement of international students in China under COVID-19. Positive emotion and self-improvement motivation were selected as mediators. Participants were 606 international students from 8 countries who were studying online in their own countries due to the international travel restriction of COVID-19. Results showed positive emotion and self-improvement motivation completely mediated self-compassionate mindfulness and OLBE of international students. Positive emotion and self-improvement partially mediated SCM and (...) OLBE of international students respectively. Students with higher SCM engage with online learning more in that they possess more positive emotion and self-improvement motivation. This study suggested that SCM may facilitate OLBE via positive emotion and effective self-improvement motivation. (shrink)

In his article "Marxism and Revisionism," Lenin pointed out that Marxist theory "had to fight at every step in its journey of life." The history of the development of Marxism is one of the struggle against streams of various socialist ideas. Marxism developed in the struggle. In the 1840s Germany was on the eve of a bourgeois democratic revolution. In order to mobilize the proletariat and the broad masses of the people to participate in the impending democratic revolution, the bourgeoisie (...) had first of all to bring the theory of revolution into the workers' movement, combine the theory of revolution with the workers' movement, and found a proletarian revolutionary party on the basis of this combination. However, at that time, not only in France and Britain but also in Germany there were various socialist schools and ideas and "genuine socialism" was one of the influential socialist schools. Up to 1864 the "genuine socialists" vigorously disseminated their philistine viewpoint in the Union of Justice Advocates and hindered the founding of a proletarian revolutionary party. In order to arm the proletariat with the theory of revolution, win over the Union of Justice Advocates to their side, and turn the union into a real proletarian revolutionary party which would be armed with scientific socialism, Marx and Engels put up a firm struggle against various socialist schools which were hostile to scientific socialism, particularly against "genuine socialism," which had great influence in the Union of Justice Advocates, and theoretically smashed the "genuine socialist" school. In this struggle, Marx and Engels exposed the real class nature of the philistine theory, thoroughly refuted its erroneous viewpoints, particularly the "genuine socialist" flapdoodle about "love," smashed this school, and eliminated this school's evil effects on the workers' movement. Today it is still highly pertinent for us to study the writings and letters of Marx and Engels during the struggle. (shrink)

Despite the fact that dockless bike-sharing usage first experienced explosive growth, its continuous usage rate remains low. The ultimate success of a DBS service is more dependent on its continued usage rather than its initial adoption. Following the extended technology acceptance model, this study aims to explore factors that influence the continuance intention of DBS users. The framework of research was validated using a sample of 369 DBS users in China. The results show that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of (...) use positively influence a user’s intention to continue using DBS. Both descriptive social norms and injunctive social norms are positively related to the continuance intention of DBS users. Moreover, environmental concern significantly affects the continuance intention of a user indirectly via perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Furthermore, the extended TAM has stronger prediction ability than the original TAM in the context of DBS services. (shrink)

Consumers often feel embarrassed when buying products like condoms, hemorrhoid cream, and beriberi cream in crowded pharmacies. There is an interesting phenomenon in life: Some beriberi creams use the images of a “real foot”, while others use the images of a “cartoon foot.” Imagine if a young woman needed to go to a retail store for beriberi cream that would embarrass her, she would choose a “real foot image” or a “cartoon foot image” beriberi cream? It has been shown that (...) the embarrassment of these products has a strong negative impact on consumer buying behavior. Previous researches have explored how changing packaging elements of embarrassing products can effectively reduce consumer embarrassment. However, few have examined the impact of different image types of embarrassing product packaging with embarrassment. Therefore, this research explores the effect of image types on consumers’ willingness to purchase embarrassing products and reveals the mechanisms of the underlying effects. The results show that natural images can lead to lower purchase intention of embarrassing products when the advertisement uses first-person pronouns due to the mediating role played by negative body imagery. However, there is no significant difference in purchase intention between different image types in the third-person pronouns. Finally, this paper discusses its contributions and limitations. (shrink)

Many studies assume a significant relationship between intention and behavior. However, the data do not always support this assumption. This study used a modified version of social cognitive theory with self-evaluations as an intermediate variable to explore and resolve the problems associated with applying the theory of planned behavior to explain students’ adoption of technology for self-directed learning. We surveyed 285 college students who enrolled in an e-book publishing course using multifaceted technological learning tools. We found that, as an intermediate (...) variable, self-evaluation enhanced the influence of intentions on behavior and improved the accuracy of predictions of college students’ adoption of technology for self-directed learning. Students’ attitudes and perceived behavioral control were important factors influencing their adoption of technology for self-directed learning through their effects on intention; subjective norms were not important in this respect. (shrink)

BackgroundThe prognosis of hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage is poor at high altitudes. The objective of this study was to explore whether hyperbaric oxygen can improve the results of computed tomography perfusion imaging and the neurological function of patients with HICH, and influence the hemoglobin concentration.MethodThe patients with HICH were treated with puncture and drainage. Twenty-one patients were treated with HBO after the operation, and the other patients received conventional treatment. CTP was performed twice, and all indices were measured. Scatter plots were (...) used to determine the effect of hemoglobin concentration on CTP imaging. Receiver operating characteristic curves were plotted to analyze the effects of hemoglobin concentration and hematoma volume on recovery results. The patients were followed up for 6 months.ResultsForty-one patients with HICH were treated with puncture and drainage. In total, 21 were treated with HBO after the operation, and 20 received conventional treatment as the control group. No significant differences in the CBV and CBF values of the two groups were noted before treatment. After 10 days, the values of CBV and CBF in the HBO group were significantly higher than those in the control group. A scatter diagram showed there was no significant in the HBO group, but significant correlation for the CBV and CBF values in the control group’s hematoma center and margin. The ROC curves showed that hematoma volume had an influence on prognosis of the control group. The Glasgow Coma Scale scores of the HBO group were significantly higher than those of the control group.ConclusionsHBO therapy can improve the postoperative CBV and CBF values of patients with HICH and ameliorate their prognoses. There was no significant correlation between HBO group and hemoglobin concentration on admission. (shrink)

Although previous studies showed that women’s menopause-related symptoms varied in different ethnic groups and countries, and were affected by specific social and cultural factors, few studies have been conducted to explore menopause-related symptoms and its influencing factors in middle-aged women among ethnic groups in China. This study aimed to explore the characteristics of menopause-related symptoms and its influencing factors among Mosuo, Yi, and Han women in Yongning area of Yunnan province, China. A cross-cultural design by snowball sampling method was used (...) to recruit 208 women aged 40–60 from Yongning Township, Ninglang County, Yunnan province, China. The 11-item Menopause Rating Scale was used to assess menopause-related symptoms. Compared with Yi and Han women, Mosuo women were accorded the highest family status. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that ethnicity, age, family support, and family decision-making patterns were associated with the severity of menopause-related symptoms. Yi and Han women had more severe menopause-related symptoms than Mosuo women. Among the three groups, women living in “female-dominated” and “co-deliberated” households had significantly lower scores of menopause-related symptoms than those in “male-dominated” households. This study indicates that menopause-related symptoms vary among middle-aged women in different ethnic groups. A higher level of female status in the family and family support may be protective factors of menopause-related symptoms in middle-aged women. (shrink)

We provide a critical assessment of the account of causal emergence presented in Erik Hoel’s 2017 article “When the map is better than the territory”. The account integrates causal and information theoretic concepts to explain under what circumstances there can be causal descriptions of a system at multiple scales of analysis. We show that the causal macro variables implied by this account result in interventions with significant ambiguity, and that the operations of marginalization and abstraction do not commute. Both of (...) these are desiderata that, we argue, any account of multi-scale causal analysis should be sensitive to. The problems we highlight in Hoel’s definition of causal emergence derive from the use of various averaging steps and the introduction of a maximum entropy distribution that is extraneous to the system under investigation. (shrink)

PurposeTo study the changes in functional connections between the left and right hemispheres of patients with high myopia and healthy controls by resting functional magnetic resonance imaging based on voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity. To study the changes in resting-state functional connectivity between the left and right hemispheres of patients with HM and healthy controls at rest by using resting functional magnetic resonance imaging based on voxel-mirror homotopy connectivity.Patients and MethodsA total of 89 patients with HM and 59 HCs were collected and (...) matched according to gender, age, and education level. The VMHC method was used to evaluate the changes in rsFC between cerebral hemispheres, and a correlation analysis was carried out to understand the differences in brain functional activities between the patients with HM and the HCs.ResultsCompared with the HCs, the VMHC values of the putamen and fusiform in the HM group were significantly lower.ConclusionThis study preliminarily confirmed the destruction of interhemispheric functional connection in some brain regions of the patients with HM and provided effective information for clarifying the neural mechanism of patients with HM. (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)

Drawing on team creativity literature and social comparison theory, we investigate how leader-member exchange differentiation influences team creativity. Using a survey based on 91 R&D teams from Chinese companies, we observe that LMX differentiation is negatively related to team creativity. More importantly, we demonstrate that team behavioral integration mediates the relationship between LMX differentiation and team creativity, and team emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between LMX differentiation and team behavioral integration, such that LMX differentiation has a weaker negative influence on (...) team behavioral integration when TEI is higher. These results provide relevant suggestions for organizational team building, management, and development. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo examine the association between illness uncertainty, resourcefulness, and poststroke depression and identifies whether stroke patients’ resourcefulness plays a mediating role in the relationship between illness uncertainty and PSD.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2020 to April 2021. A convenience sample of 355 stroke patients was recruited. A general characteristic questionnaire, the Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale, the Resourcefulness Scale, and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were used to obtain data. Descriptive analysis, Student’s t-test, Mann–Whitney U-test, chi-squared test, hierarchical regression (...) analyses, Pearson correlation analysis, and mediation analysis with the PROCESS macro were used to analyze the data.ResultsIllness uncertainty, resourcefulness, and PSD were significantly related to each other. Resourcefulness partially mediated the relationship between illness uncertainty and PSD.ConclusionIllness uncertainty and resourcefulness were significantly associated with PSD, and resourcefulness played a mediating role between illness uncertainty and PSD. Interventions designed to reduce illness uncertainty and enhance resourcefulness may contribute to the prevention and improvement of PSD. (shrink)

In examining the practice of power in the Birth Planning Policy of China, the author argues that the theorizing of the public-private frame and public patriarchy based on the welfare state in the West fails to capture the specific gender and state relations in the Chinese socialist context. With the convergence of the traditional familial order and the development of a modern nation-state, the “public” sphere of the Chinese socialist state is a disrupted space where the “state” still calls for (...) its people's sacrifice for the collective good and yet at the same time, a terrian where citizens can claim their rights. It is also a domain where Chinese women's reproduction is collectivized for the cause of socialist modernization and yet a realm where they claim their voices. In the conclusion, the author addresses the question of Chinese women's agency in maneuvering through the patriarchal system and using the policy as a springboard to effecting changes in it. (shrink)