In recent years, avowal has become increasingly central to the trans practice of gender. In this paper, I argue such avowal-based practices represent an attempt to escape the limitations and vulnerabilities of our bodies. But I also argue that this strategy is costly. For in draining the body of any relation to gender, we risk depriving ourselves of what is most valuable about our lives with gender in the first place.

We would like to open some questions here about the institutional and cultural conditions of anything that might be called cultural studies or multiculturalism. By introducing cultural studies and multiculturalism many intellectuals aim at a more democratic culture. We share this aim. In this essay, however, we would like to argue that the projects of cultural studies and multiculturalism require: a more international model of cultural studies than the dominant Anglo-American versions; renewed attention to the institutional environments of cultural studies; (...) and a questioning of the relations between multiculturalism and identity politics. We seek less to “fix” these problems than to provide a critical analysis of the languages, the methods of criticism, and the assumptions about identity, culture, and politics that present the problems to us. Because the thickets entangling what our group calls cultural studies are so deeply rooted in Western academia, which to a large degree constitutes our own group, the counterexample of cultural criticism in other contexts can be more than usually instructive. We begin by considering the position of cultural studies in China, since our group includes a number of Chinese intellectuals, on whose experience the following section is largely based. The Chicago Cultural Studies Group began meeting in June 1990. It includes Lauren Berlant, David Bunn, Vinay Dharwadker, Norma Field, Dilip Gaonkar, Marilyn Ivy, Benjamin Lee, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Xinmin Liu, Mathew Roberts, Sharon Stephens, Katie Trumpener, Greg Urban, Michael Warner, Jianyang Zha, and Jueliang Zhou. (shrink)

There has been much recent interest in imprecise probabilities, models of belief that allow unsharp or fuzzy credence. There have also been some influential criticisms of this position. Here we argue, chiefly against Elga (2010), that subjective probabilities need not be sharp. The key question is whether the imprecise probabilist can make reasonable sequences of decisions. We argue that she can. We outline Elga's argument and clarify the assumptions he makes and the principles of rationality he is implicitly committed to. (...) We argue that these assumptions are too strong and that rational imprecise choice is possible in the absence of these overly strong conditions. (shrink)

This paper presents a methodology to design and implement programs intended to decide cases, described as sets of factors, according to a theory of a particular domain based on a set of precedent cases relating to that domain. We useDialectical Frameworks, a recent development in AI knowledge representation, as the central feature of our design method. ADFs will play a role akin to that played by Entity–Relationship models in the design of database systems. First, we explain how the factor hierarchy (...) of the well-known legal reasoning system CATO can be used to instantiate an ADF for the domain of US Trade Secrets. This is intended to demonstrate the suitability of ADFs for expressing the design of legal cased based systems. The method is then applied to two other legal domains often used in the literature of AI and Law. In each domain, the design is provided by the domain analyst expressing the cases in terms of factors organised into an ADF from which an executable program can be implemented in a straightforward way by taking advantage of the closeness of the acceptance conditions of the ADF to components of an executable program. We evaluate the ease of implementation, the performance and efficacy of the resulting program, ease of refinement of the program and the transparency of the reasoning. This evaluation suggests ways in which factor based systems, which are limited by taking as their starting point the representation of cases as sets of factors and so abstracting away the particular facts, can be extended to address open issues in AI and Law by incorporating the case facts to improve the decision, and by considering justification and reasoning using portion of precedents. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the ethical foundations for a caring conversation. The analysis is based on the ethics of Paul Ricoeur and deals with questions such as what kind of person the nurse ought to be and how she or he engages in caring conversations with suffering others. According to Ricoeur, ethics (the aim of an accomplished life) has primacy over morality (the articulation of aims in norms). At the ethical level, self-esteem and autonomy were shown (...) to be essential for a person (nurse) to act with respect and responsibility. The ethical relationship of a caring conversation was found to be asymmetrical, because of the passivity inflicted by suffering. This asymmetry was found to be potentially unethical if not balanced with reciprocity. In the ethical context, the caring conversation is one in which the nurse makes room through the ethos of caritas for a suffering person to regain his or her self-esteem, and thus makes a good life possible. (shrink)

This research investigates firms’ bribery motivations in China. Based on resource dependence theory and anomie theory, we identify resource conditions as firms’ proactive motivation to bribe and firms’ perceived institutional environment as their passive motivation to bribe. We use the data from 2002 World Business Environment Survey, collected by the World Bank, to investigate firms’ bribery in the world’s largest emerging market, China. We employ a multi-level logistic model to test our hypotheses. The results show that unsatisfactory general and task (...) environmental conditions may trigger firms to bribe in order to compete for better resources and opportunities; institutional conditions such as the security expenditure and anomie climate may make firms perceive bribery as a common phenomenon and thus induce firms to bribe. This research provides some insights to understand business bribery behaviors in emerging market. It also discusses some managerial implications and guidelines for policy-making from the findings. (shrink)

The complexity and challenges of the external environment accelerate the awakening of the new generation of enterprise employees’ self-consciousness. Facing the continuous expansion of the information-based work mode, the traditional management mechanism of enterprises has a more limited impact on employee performance. Based on the goal-oriented theory, developing and excavating the creative personality traits of employees, making full use of goal-oriented behavior to improve their own innovation performance management path, are expected to become a new path to continuously enhance the (...) innovation ability of enterprises. In this study, we take the employees of high-tech enterprises as samples to explore the influence mechanism of creative personality traits, goal orientation and employee innovation performance. The results show that goal orientation significantly moderates the relationship between creative personality traits and innovation performance. The mediating effects of learning goal orientation, performance certification orientation, and performance avoidance orientation are all significant. (shrink)

Background: The pregnancy and psychological status of infertile couples has always been a concern, but there is no clear evidence for the efficacy of psychotherapy for infertile couples. This study aimed to summarize the current evidence of the effects of psychotherapy on psychological and pregnancy outcomes for infertile couples. Method: We searched Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMbase, The Cochrane Library, and Web of Science for articles published from 1946 to June 26, 2020. The pregnancy outcomes, psychological outcomes, and acceptability were involved (...) in the study. Results: Overall, 29 studies with a combined total of 3,522 adult participants were included in the meta-analysis. Compared with a placebo, psychotherapy was associated with the pregnancy rate [risk ratio = 1.43, 95% CI [1.07, 1.93]], total psychological scales associated with infertility [standardized mean difference = −0.33 95% CI [−0.63, −0.02]], subsymptoms of psychological scores using the 28-item version of GHQ, and the integrative body–mind–spirit ; total psychological scales associated with infertility using other treatments and more than a month; and anxiety using BMS had significant statistical significance. The funnel plots of all outcomes were approximately symmetrical, and no significant publication bias was found. Conclusions: The study showed that psychotherapy can lead to improvements in the pregnancy rate for infertile patients, especially for patients receiving assisted fertility. In addition, it may help improve total psychological scales associated with infertility and depression. CBT and BMS play an important role in improving rate of pregnancy, and BMS is associated with reducing anxiety. Although psychological interventions had limited effects on the pregnancy outcomes of infertility, our study still recommended that psychotherapies, in particular CBT and BMS, were applied to the therapeutic regimen for infertility, especially for patients receiving assisted fertility. (shrink)

Conceptions of omissions standardly come in two flavours: omissions are construed either as mere absences of actions or are closely related to paradigmatic ‘positive’ actions. This paper shows how the semantics of the verb ‘to omit’ constitutes strong evidence against the view of omissions as involving actions. Specifically, by drawing from an influential fourfold typology of verbal predicates popularised by Zeno Vendler, I argue that declarative statements involving reference to omissions are semantically stative, which is a finding that makes serious (...) trouble for the conception of omissions as being closely related to paradigmatic actions. But references to omissions, in certain linguistic contexts, undergo a shift of meaning to describe processes or activities engaged in by the agent. Still, despite the semantic flexibility of the verb ‘to omit’, its processive reading does not straightforwardly support the second conception of omissions. A subsidiary aim of this paper is to offer a sketch of the metaphysics of processive action in order to show what those who claim that omissions are closely related to actions might be committed to. (shrink)

Motivated by advances in mass customization in business practice, explosion in the number of internet of things devices, and the lack of published research on privacy differentiation and customization, we propose a contextual information relevance model of privacy. We acknowledge the existence of individual differences with respect to unique security and privacy protection needs. We observe and argue that it is unfair and socially inefficient to treat privacy in a uniform manner whereby a large proportion of the population remain unsatisfied (...) by a common policy. Our research results provide quantifiable means to measure and evaluate the customized privacy. We show that with privacy differentiation, the social planner will observe increases in demand and overall social welfare. Our results also show that business practitioners could profit from privacy customization. (shrink)

Business students appear predisposed to select disciplines consistent with pre-existing worldviews. These disciplines then further reinforce the worldviews which may not always be adaptive. For example, high levels of Social Dominance Orientation is a trait often found in business school students :691–721, 1991). SDO is a competitive and hierarchical worldview and belief-system that ascribes people to higher or lower social rankings. While research suggests that high levels of SDO may be linked to lower levels of empathy, research has not established (...) the potential relationship between another related adaptive trait in the workplace, compassion. Compassion facilitates workplace performance by lowering levels of litigation, easing stress, and facilitating cooperation. Accordingly, the following study aimed to examine the relationship between SDO and compassion while hypothesizing Economic Systems Justification would mediate this relationship. Because of the importance of compassion in the workplace, the prevalence of SDO in the business academic community and the topicality of ESJ, we conducted our study with business school students. Results confirmed all but one hypothesis. (shrink)

The establishment of research ethics committees (REC) in China’s higher education institutions (HEI) is lagging far behind western developed countries. This has at least partly directly led to anomie in scientific research ethics, as seen in the recent controversies involving a proposed human head transplant and gene-edited babies. At present, the problems for REC in China’s HEI include lack of regulation, informal ethics reviews, lack of supervision and insufficient ethics review capacity. To counteract these problems, suggested measures include mandatory formation (...) of formal ethics committee, administrative support from HEI, ethics approval letter prior to funding application, formulation of regulations and standard operating procedures, selecting and training for members and independent consultants, training for secretaries and staff, ethics training for investigators, and learning from the experience of HEI outside of China, such as the USA and Canada. The establishment of REC in China’s HEI will greatly enhance the overall quality of ethics reviews in China. In addition to better protecting the rights and welfare of human participants, it is also conducive to maintaining the reputation of China’s HEI. (shrink)

Frequent public uproar over forms of data science that rely on information about people demonstrates the challenges of defining and demonstrating trustworthy digital data research practices. This paper reviews problems of trustworthiness in what we term pervasive data research: scholarship that relies on the rich information generated about people through digital interaction. We highlight the entwined problems of participant unawareness of such research and the relationship of pervasive data research to corporate datafication and surveillance. We suggest a way forward by (...) drawing from the history of a different methodological approach in which researchers have struggled with trustworthy practice: ethnography. To grapple with the colonial legacy of their methods, ethnographers have developed analytic lenses and researcher practices that foreground relations of awareness and power. These lenses are inspiring but also challenging for pervasive data research, given the flattening of contexts inherent in digital data collection. We propose ways that pervasive data researchers can incorporate reflection on awareness and power within their research to support the development of trustworthy data science. (shrink)

Research is crucial to advancing knowledge about dementia, yet the burden of the disease currently outpaces research activity. Research often excludes people with dementia and other cognitive impairments because researchers and ethics committees are concerned about issues related to capacity, consent, and substitute decision-making. In Australia, participation in research by people with cognitive impairment is governed by a national ethics statement and a patchwork of state and territorial laws that have widely varying rules. We contend that this legislative variation precludes (...) a consistent approach to research governance and participation and hinders research that seeks to include people with impaired capacity. In this paper, we present key ethical principles, provide a comprehensive review of applicable legal rules in Australian states and territories, and highlight significant differences and ambiguities. Our analysis includes recommendations for reform to improve clarity and consistency in the law and reduce barriers that may exclude persons with dementia from participating in ethically approved research. Our recommendations seek to advance the national decision-making principles recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission, which emphasize the rights of all adults to make their own decisions and for those with impaired capacity to have access to appropriate supports to help them make decisions that affect their lives. (shrink)

Blasting in water-conveyance tunnels that cross rivers is vital for the safety and stability of embankments. In this work, a tunnel project that crosses the Yellow River in the north district of the first-phase Eastern Line of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project was selected as the research object. A complex modeling and numerical simulation on embankment stability with regard to the blasting power of the tunnel was conducted using the professional finite difference software FLAC3D to disclose the relationships between the (...) blasting seismic waves with vibration velocity and embankment displacement under different excavation steps. Calculation results demonstrated that displacement generally attenuated from the tunnel wall to the internal structure of rocks under the effect of blasting seismic waves. The tunnel wall was in tension, and tensile stress gradually transformed into compressive stress with increased depth into the rocks. The curtain-grouting zone was mainly concentrated in the compressive zones. For different excavation steps, the vibration velocity at different feature points was high at the beginning of blasting and then gradually decreased. The resultant displacement was relatively small in the early excavation period and slowly increased as blasting progressed. The effects of different excavation steps on the safety of surrounding rocks and embankment under blasting seismic waves were simulated. We found that the blasting-induced vibration velocity was within the safe range of the code and that the calculated displacement was within the allowed range. Numerical simulation was feasible to assess the safety and stability of engineering projects. (shrink)

This study aims to enrich our understanding of the relationship between political connections and the adoption of environmental corporate socially responsible investments. In addition to the individual-level political connections, i.e., entrepreneurs’ personal ties to government officials, we propose in China the creation of Communist Party of China branches in privately owned firms serve as organizational and institutionalized dimensions of political connection building. Drawing on the social exchange theory, this paper details how CPC branches function in privately owned firms and how (...) entrepreneurs are motivated by the reciprocal logic to engage in ECSR. We also supplement this main effect by examining the boundary conditions of it at the firm and regional level. Using a dataset with 17,690 firm observations in China, we find that the existence of CPC branches gives rise to the ECSR investments and the firm-level contingencies such as centralized governance and financial constraints, and the regional-level contingencies such as the development of the market system, are important moderators that shape the association of political links and ECSR investments. These findings have ample implications to understand the ECSR activities and extend social exchange theory beyond the individual level on which it is typically applied. (shrink)

Since Oregon implemented its Death with Dignity Act, many additional states have followed suit demonstrating a growing understanding and acceptance of aid in dying processes. Traditionally, the patient has been the one to request and seek this option out. However, as Death with Dignity acts continue to expand, it will impact the role of physicians and bring up questions over whether physicians have the ethical obligation to facilitate a conversation about AID with patients during end of life discussions. Patients have (...) the right to make informed decisions about their health, which implies that physicians have an obligation to discuss with and inform patients of the options that will accomplish the patients’ goals of care. We will argue that physicians have an ethical obligation to inform certain patients about AID during end of life care discussions. We will also address what this obligation encompasses and explore guidelines of when and how these conversations should occur and proceed. Earlier guidelines, presented by various palliative care and ethics experts, for proceeding with such conversations have mostly agreed that the discussion of hospice and end of life care with patients should be initiated early and that the individual goals of a patient during the remaining duration of life should be thoroughly examined before discussion of appropriate options. In discussing AID, physicians should never recommend but inform patients about the basics so that they can make an informed decision. If patients express further interest in AID, the physician should open up the dialogue to address the reasoning behind this decision versus other possible treatments to ensure that patients clearly comprehend the process and implications of their decision. Ultimately, any end of life choice should be made by patients with the full capacity to express what they envision for the remaining duration of life and to comprehend the advantages and disadvantages of all the possible options. (shrink)

Time preference reversals refers to systematic inconsistencies between preferences and valuations in intertemporal choice. When faced with a pair of intertemporal options, people preferred the smaller-sooner option but assign a higher price to the larger-later one. Different hypotheses postulate that the differences in evaluation scale or output format between the choice and the bid tasks cause the preference reversal. However, these hypotheses have not been distinguished. In the present study, we conducted a hybrid task, which shares the same evaluation scale (...) with the bid task and shares the same output format with the choice task. By comparing these three tasks, we can figure out the key reason for time preference reversal. The eye-tracking measures reflecting attention allocation, cognitive effort and information search pattern were examined. Results showed that participants' time preference and eye-tracking measures in the hybrid task were similar to those in the choice task, but different from those in the bid task. Our findings suggest that the output format is the core reason for time preference reversal and may deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie time preference reversal. (shrink)

Family financing has become a powerful channel for entrepreneurs to obtain entrepreneurial funding. How do family members use intent and quality signals to select new ventures to provide lending support? Building on the signaling theory, this study provides the first quantitative evidence using a sample of 166 samples of family lenders in China. Our findings reveal that psychological capital can support entrepreneurs to obtain family lending. As an intent signal, psychological capital becomes more influential when quality signals, corporate competitive advantage, (...) and firm performance perform more positively. This study emphasizes that family financing support is not only out of love or altruism and extends the literature concerning the influence of positive psychological capital in financial investment decisions. (shrink)

The social network in the organizational learning process is a critical knowledge source to realize superior performance. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between relational memory, relational embeddedness, and absorptive capacity, and their impact on the relational performance of small and middle enterprises. This study empirically verifies the research framework from 223 Chinese internationalized SMEs. The results confirm previous studies that indicate positive correlations among relational embeddedness, relational memory, and absorptive capacity. The results also indicate that (...) relational embeddedness and relational memory have positive effects on relational performance. The findings show that relational memory plays a mediating role in the relationship between relational embeddedness, absorptive capacity, and relational performance. (shrink)

The United States wastes approximately 40% of its food supply. This article will examine the implications of this waste for food insecurity and climate change. It will also explore how the law and social entrepreneurship can be used to confront this public health challenge.

Food insecurity in the United States is a profound public health challenge that hospitals are uniquely situated to address. Through the enactment of the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, the Affordable Care Act provides a strong economic incentive for hospitals to actively confront food insecurity within the communities they serve. While there is a spectrum of nutrition interventions that hospitals can look to when engaging in these efforts, healthy food prescriptions and medically tailored meals are two particularly innovative and promising approaches (...) that could help hospitals reduce readmissions by addressing the nutritional needs of vulnerable patients. (shrink)

With increasing market competition and rapid development of service economy, more and more enterprises are shifting from providing products or services to providing product-service systems that integrate products and services, in order to improve competitiveness and profitability. Meanwhile, consumers have strategic delayed purchasing behavior when purchasing the PSS and high requirements for service quality. This paper investigates the two-period pricing and service quality decisions of product-service supply chain considering consumers’ strategic behavior under decentralized and centralized scenarios. The equilibrium results are (...) compared in two scenarios. In order to eliminate performance loss under the decentralized scenario, we design two-period dynamic contracts to coordinate the PSSC. Furthermore, numerical simulation is provided to verify the feasibility of the contracts. The following conclusions can be drawn: the higher the service input-efficiency, the more beneficial for alleviating consumers’ strategic purchase behavior under two scenarios, but this mitigation effect is more obvious under the centralized scenario. Compared with the centralized scenario, the service quality is lower, the two-period PSS sales prices are higher, and the two-period profit is lower under the decentralized scenario. The proportion of service valuation will promote the widening of the service quality gap under two scenarios, but in some cases, the service input-efficiency will weaken the promotion effect of the proportion of service valuation. The design of the two-period combined contracts depends on the proportion of service valuation. When the proportion of service valuation is high, the “two-period revenue sharing + service-cost sharing” combined dynamic contract can achieve PSSC perfect coordination. However, when the proportion of service valuation is low, it is necessary to design complexity combined dynamic contract which can achieve PSSC perfect coordination. (shrink)

In the education context, The Motivational Strategies for Learning Questionnaire is extensively used in assessing self-regulated learning strategies. However, more research is needed to address whether it is applicable for distance education. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to test the Chinese version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire part-B for distance learning using two samples totalling 385 participants. This paper substantiates MSLQ-B-DL's criterion-related, convergent, and factorial validity, as well as its internal consistency, in China. Specifically, the (...) concurrent validity of the MSLQ-B-DL was shown from three aspects: the negative correlation of MSLQ-B-DL with trait procrastination; the positive correlation of MSLQ-B-DL with self-control; and the positive correlation of MSLQ-B-DL with instrumental help-seeking and the former's negative correlation with help-seeking avoidance and executive help-seeking. Finally, this study highlights the MSLQ-B-DL's validity and reliability in evaluating the learning strategies in adult distance education in China. (shrink)

Understanding personality effects and their role in influencing relationship quality, varied according to gender and relationship duration, could help us better understand close relationships. Participants were Chinese dating dyads and were asked to complete both the Big Five Inventory and Perceived Relationship Quality Component scales. Males and those who had a long-term relationship perceived better relationship quality; individuals who scored higher on agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and emotional stability enjoyed better relationship quality; gender and/or relationship duration moderated the actor effect of (...) extraversion and the partner effects of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness on relationship quality. Regarding the profile similarity, those couples who were more dissimilar in their profile personality had better relationship quality, especially when they were in a relatively long-term relationship. Meanwhile, with an increase in profile similarity, the males’ perceived relationship quality decreased. (shrink)

By 2007, 127 universities had obtained permission from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China to run MBA programs. To gain a thorough understanding of the status of business ethics education in MBA programs in China, we conducted a national survey. This survey was begun in October 2006 and concluded in December 2007. Our goal in conducting this survey was twofold. We wanted to understand, first, the extent of business ethics teaching currentlybeing offered in MBA programs, and (...) second, the prospects for the development of business ethics teaching in the near term. Our survey results show that business ethics instruction is presently offered on a limited scale, and there are constraints impacting business ethics education. However, we also discovered that future prospects for business ethics teaching are promising. (shrink)

Sex robots are humanoid robots with artificial intelligence, designed to interact sexually with humans. They have received much attention in recent discussions about technology, human relationships and the future of human sexuality. Based on available evidence so far, this outlook aims to give tentative answers to two fundamental questions surrounding the topic of human–robot intimate relationships. First, whether intelligent humanoid robots are technologically ready to be our intimate partners. Second, whether humans are ready to accept the idea of developing intimate (...) relationships with robots, and how far we have engaged and will engage in such activity. We highlight the importance of a scientific transdisciplinary approach to the study of human sexuality in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Genre analysis has been applied to a sizable body of linguistic studies on various text types. However, little attention has been paid to advertorials as an emerging hybridized genre. To identify the generic and linguistic characteristics of advertorials, and therefore to classify advertorials into an appropriate genre, this study carries out a comprehensive genre analysis of advertorials based on Bhatia’s seven-step genre analysis methodology. A corpus of 55 advertorials was collected from four English-language magazines and two English-language newspapers, from which (...) a sub-corpus of 12 samples was further selected for a thorough examination of linguistic characteristics. Attempting to gain a comprehensive view of generic features of advertorials, this study makes a critical comparison of advertorials with three inextricably related genres: advertisements, news stories and editorials. Linguistic evidence sufficiently demonstrates that advertorials share fundamental generic and linguistic natures with advertisements and proposes classifying advertorials as a sub-genre of advertisements. (shrink)

A recent theory provides a unified cross-linguistic analysis of the interpretations that are assigned to expressions for disjunction, Negative Polarity Items, Free Choice Items, and the non-interrogative uses of wh-phrases in languages such as Mandarin Chinese. If this approach is on the right track, children should be expected to demonstrate similar patterns in the acquisition of these linguistic expressions. Previous research has found that, by age four, children have acquired the knowledge that both the existential indefinite renhe “any” and wh-words (...) in Mandarin Chinese are interpreted as Negative Polarity Items when they are bound by downward entailing operators, but the same expressions are interpreted as Free Choice Items when they are bound by deontic modals or by the Mandarin adverbial quantifier dou “all”. The present study extends this line of research to the Mandarin disjunction word huozhe. A Truth Value Judgment Task was used to investigate the possibility that disjunction phrases that are bound by the adverbial quantifier dou generate a conjunctive interpretation in the grammars of Mandarin-speaking 4-year-old children. The findings confirmed this prediction. We discuss the implications of the findings for linguistic theory and for language learnability. (shrink)