EDITOR’S ABSTRACTIn this article, Huang provides a historical account of the way intellectuals have conceptualized democracy, representative assemblies, and political parties from the end of the Qing dynasty to the beginning of the Republican period. He outlines thirteen items that characterize Chinese democratic thought during this period, before tracing the historical origins of each.

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTIn this article, Huang stresses the important role played by the Chinese cultural context in the historical process of translation of Western concepts. Huang exemplifies this point through an analysis of Yan Fu’s translation of “individualism.”.

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTIn this article, Huang discusses the process whereby the concept of democracy was translated into the Chinese context during the transitional period of modern China. He asserts that while democracy was rooted in a pessimistic conception of human nature and epistemology in the West, Chinese intellectuals rather tended toward an optimistic view of both, a fact that brought them closer to the Rousseauian tradition of democratic thought. However, Huang also sees signs of a Millianism with Chinese characteristics (...) in the thought of Yan Fu and Liang Qichao. (shrink)

Creativity is so important for social and technological development that people are eager to find an easy way to enhance it. Previous studies have shown that mindfulness has significant effects on positive affect, working memory capacity, cognitive flexibility and many other aspects, which are the key to promoting creativity. However, there are few studies on the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. The mechanism between mindfulness and creativity is still uncertain. Meditation is an important method of mindfulness training, but for most (...) people who do not have the basic training, it’s difficult to master how to get into a state of mindfulness. Animation has been shown by many studies to help improve cognition and is often used as a guiding tool. Using animation as the guiding carrier of meditation is more convenient and easier to accept. Therefore, this study adopted the intervention method of animation-guided meditation, aiming to explore: the effect of animation-guided meditation on enhancing creativity; the role of flow and emotion in the influence of mindfulness on creativity. We advertised recruitment through the internal network of a creative industrial park, and the final 95 eligible participants were divided into two groups: animation and audio guided meditation. The animation group was given an animated meditation intervention, and the audio group was given an audio meditation intervention, both interventions were performed 3 times a week and last for 8 weeks. Results: Animation-guided meditation significantly increased participants’ mindfulness and creativity levels; Significantly reduced their cognitive load compared to audio-guided meditation. Mindfulness has a significant direct effect on creativity, and significant indirect effects on creativity; Flow and PA act as the mediating variable. Conclusion: Mindfulness, flow, and PA all helped to improve the subjects’ work creativity. In addition to the direct positive impact of mindfulness on creativity, mindfulness can also have an indirect positive impact on creativity through flow and PA. Compared with audio, animation can significantly reduce cognitive load and help improve users’ cognitive ability, which is more suitable for the guidance materials of mindfulness meditation to enhance the effect of meditation. (shrink)

Loving-kindness meditation was first practiced by Buddhists and then developed by clinical psychologist. Previous studies on LKM have mainly focused on the impact of real person-guided meditation on depression, anxiety, and other negative psychology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this study explored the effect and mechanism of media-guided LKM on the improvement of social presence, mindfulness, spirituality, and subjective wellbeing. From the viewpoint of positive psychology, this study compared the different media effects of animated pedagogical agent -guided LKM and audio-guided LKM. (...) A total of 82 flight attendants were recruited from airlines; then, they were randomly assigned to two groups: APA group and audio group, which both underwent an 8-week LKM training intervention. The aforementioned four main variables were measured pre and post the meditation experiment. The results indicated that both APA-guided meditation and audio-guided meditation significantly improved subjects’ spirituality and SWB. Compared with audio-guided meditation, APA-guided meditation significantly improved the subjects’ spirituality, SWB, and social presence. Audio-guided meditation has no significant effect on social presence. This study highlights APA-guided meditation has a positive effect on spirituality, SWB, and social presence, which may provide individuals with a simple and easy method to improve their mental health. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between principals’ leadership and student achievement. Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment 2015 United States data, a two-level...

In multimodal multiobjective optimization problems, multiple Pareto optimal sets, even some good local Pareto optimal sets, should be reserved, which can provide more choices for decision-makers. To solve MMOPs, this paper proposes an evolutionary algorithm with clustering-based assisted selection strategy for multimodal multiobjective optimization, in which the addition operator and deletion operator are proposed to comprehensively consider the diversity in both decision and objective spaces. Specifically, in decision space, the union population is partitioned into multiple clusters by using a density-based (...) clustering method, aiming to assist the addition operator to strengthen the population diversity. Then, a number of weight vectors are adopted to divide population into N subregions in objective space. Moreover, in the deletion operator, the solutions in the most crowded subregion are first collected into previous clusters, and then the worst solution in the most crowded cluster is deleted until there are N solutions left. Our algorithm is compared with other multimodal multiobjective evolutionary algorithms on the well-known benchmark MMOPs. Numerical experiments report the effectiveness and advantages of our proposed algorithm. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article argues that Anglophone works on Chinese democracy have tended to build their analyses on assumptions that tradition is either a premodern phenomenon unrelated to China’s democratization process, a hindrance that should be gotten rid of if China is to democratize, a static phenomenon that cannot but appear antiquated with regard to a dynamic, fast-paced modern China, or an object from which modern agents can freely draw. In order to challenge these assumptions, this article suggests that modernity and democracy (...) were translated into a Chinese milieu already ripe with Gadamerian prejudices: prejudices that not only modified the meaning of modernity and democracy, but also provided the very conditions without which modernity and democracy would not have been meaningful or understood at all. Max Ko-wu Huang’s work can contribute to our understanding of the role played by various traditions in the process of translating democracy during the transitional period of modern Chin... (shrink)

We propose a novel model to explain the mechanisms underlying dominance hierarchical structures. Guided by a predetermined social convention, agents with limited cognitive abilities optimize their strategies in a Hawk-Dove game. We find that several commonly observed hierarchical structures in nature such as linear hierarchy and despotism, emerge as the total fitness-maximizing social structures given different levels of cognitive abilities.

Topologically associating domain (TAD) boundaries are the flanking edges of TADs, also known as insulated neighborhoods, within the 3D structure of genomes. A prominent feature of TAD boundaries in mammalian genomes is the enrichment of clustered CTCF sites often with mixed orientations, which can either block or facilitate enhancer–promoter (E‐P) interactions within or across distinct TADs, respectively. We will discuss recent progress in the understanding of fundamental organizing principles of the clustered CTCF insulator codes at TAD boundaries. Specifically, both inward‐ (...) and outward‐oriented CTCF sites function as topological chromatin insulators by asymmetrically blocking improper TAD‐boundary‐crossing cohesin loop extrusion. In addition, boundary stacking and enhancer clustering facilitate long‐distance E‐P interactions across multiple TADs. Finally, we provide a unified mechanism for RNA‐mediated TAD boundary function via R‐loop formation for both insulation and facilitation. This mechanism of TAD boundary formation and insulation has interesting implications not only on how the 3D genome folds in the Euclidean nuclear space but also on how the specificity of E‐P interactions is developmentally regulated. (shrink)

This study examines whether penalties issued to Chinese listed companies by securities regulators for violations of corporate law affect the cost of debt, and the moderating role of corporate social responsibility fulfillment on this relationship. Our sample consists of firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2011 to 2017 and the data are collected from the announcements of China Securities Regulatory Commission. The findings are as follows: punishment announcements by regulatory authorities increase the cost of debt; and the (...) effect of punishment announcements on the cost of debt is partially offset by prior CSR performance. These findings are shown to be robust. The reputation insurance effect of CSR is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises and in an institutional environment with low marketization, a weak legal environment, and low information transparency. The findings support the reputation insurance hypothesis of CSR and employ the cost of debt as a governance mechanism. (shrink)

Grounded on the social exchange theory (SET), social cognitive theory (SCT), and self-determination theory (SDT), this study aims to explore the mediating role of self-efficacy (SE) and work engagement (WE) on the effect of social support (SS) on job satisfaction (JS) among Chinese ethnic minority kindergarten teachers (KTs). The results show that: (1) SS has a directly significant effect on JS; (2) WE mediates the relationship between SS and JS; and (3) SE mediates the relationship between SS and WE. Although (...) the mediation of SE on the relationship between SS and JS is not found, the posited multiple mediations of SE and WE on the relationship between SS and JS are totally accepted. The results reveal that SS mainland Chinese ethnic minority KTs received can not only have a direct effect on JS but also have an indirect impact through the one-path mediating role of WE and the chain mediating role of SE and WE. The results suggest that governments, supervisors, and sponsors should work together to provide ethnic minority KTs with more prioritized SS from both cultural psychology and financial material and opportunities for facilitating professional knowledge and skills in order to enhance their SE, inspire their WE, and eventually accumulate their JS. (shrink)

This study investigates the interaction between suppliers and fraudulent customer firms from the perspective of reputation damage and reputation recovery. Specifically, reputation damage from the regulatory penalty for corporate fraud induces the trust crisis and suppliers respond to fraudulent firms by reducing the trade credit supply. To repair a damaged reputation and rebuild the trust, fraudulent firms raise the ratio of prepayment to purchase volume when purchasing from small suppliers and increase the proportion of purchase from large suppliers in the (...) next year. Channel analysis shows that the declining trust is one of potential mechanisms to reduce the trade credit. Furthermore, the negative effect is more pronounced for fraudulent firms with non-related party suppliers, higher supplier concentration, less analyst coverage, and for fraudulent firms located in regions with less-developed financial environment. Additionally, supplier sanctions have a spillover effect on non-fraudulent customer firms in the same industry. The conclusions are robust to a series of checks, including PSM–DiD, firm and year fixed effect, the alternative measure for trade credit financing, the industry-year fixed effect and the consideration of the monetary policy and financial crisis. (shrink)

Background The Patient Right to Autonomy Act (PRAA), implemented in Taiwan in 2019, enables the creation of advance decisions (AD) through advance care planning (ACP). This legal framework allows for the withholding and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment (LST) or artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) in situations like irreversible coma, vegetative state, severe dementia, or unbearable pain. This study aims to investigate preferences for LST or ANH across various clinical conditions, variations in participant preferences, and factors influencing these preferences among urban (...) residents. Methods Employing a survey of legally structured AD documents and convenience sampling for data collection, individuals were enlisted from Taipei City Hospital, serving as the primary trial and demonstration facility for ACP in Taiwan since the commencement of the PRAA in its inaugural year. The study examined ADs and ACP consultation records, documenting gender, age, welfare entitlement, disease conditions, family caregiving experience, location of ACP consultation, participation of second-degree relatives, and the intention to participate in ACP. Results Data from 2337 participants were extracted from electronic records. There was high consistency in the willingness to refuse LST and ANH, with significant differences noted between terminal diseases and extremely severe dementia. Additionally, ANH was widely accepted as a time-limited treatment, and there was a prevalent trend of authorizing a health care agent (HCA) to make decisions on behalf of participants. Gender differences were observed, with females more inclined to decline LST and ANH, while males tended towards accepting full or time-limited treatment. Age also played a role, with younger participants more open to treatment and authorizing HCA, and older participants more prone to refusal. Conclusion Diverse preferences in LST and ANH were shaped by the public’s current understanding of different clinical states, gender, age, and cultural factors. Our study reveals nuanced end-of-life preferences, evolving ADs, and socio-demographic influences. Further research could explore evolving preferences over time and healthcare professionals’ perspectives on LST and ANH decisions for neurological patients.. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy has been developing in China for over a century, and philosophers shaped by the analytic tradition have grown into an important philosophical community in China. The views of contemporary analytic philosophers in China on central philosophical issues and their similarities and differences with analytic philosophers in English-speaking countries have not been systematically investigated. Bourget and Chalmers have conducted two large-scale online questionnaire surveys on analytic philosophers in English-speaking countries. Inspired by their studies, a survey on analytic philosophers in (...) China was performed. It is found that philosophers in China had no agreement on most issues. According to the comparative analysis with the results of Bourget and Chalmers’ second survey, there were significant differences in views as well as thinking styles between analytic philosophers in China and English-speaking countries. And these differences may be partially explained by cultural factors and academic environments. (shrink)

Creative role identity is an important antecedent of innovative behaviors. Both the mechanism of how external factors and individual factors affect the formation of creative role identity and details of this process have yet to be discovered. Based on data collected from 226 students in 6 classes at a university in Guangdong during the development of innovative projects, the influence of innovation climate on the students’ creative role identity, especially the mediating effect of flow, was investigated. The results show that (...) the innovation climate has a positive impact on creative role identity and that flow plays a partial mediating role in this relationship. (shrink)

Background. Herpes zoster is a disease that mainly causes severe segmental neuralgia and vesicles after infection with herpes zoster virus. At the same time, more than 9 to 34 percent of patients have postherpetic neuralgia present with chronic pain for months or even years. Moxibustion has been used to treat herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia for many years; however, there has been no comprehensive study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of moxibustion in the treatment of herpes zoster and postherpetic (...) neuralgia. More studies evaluated the combined effects of acupuncture and moxibustion. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate their efficacy and safety, so as to provide an evidence-based basis for the clinical application of moxibustion in the treatment of HZ and PHN. Method. The literature search was conducted in nine Chinese and English databases, and randomized controlled trials were pooled from their inceptions to June 2020. The included literature was screened, and data were extracted. RevMan 5.3 software and Stata software were used for statistical analysis. The primary outcome was the total effect. The secondary outcomes include VAS, NRS, and time of analgesia. Outcomes. From a total of 1957 identified studies, 31 were included in analysis. 31 RCTs contained the experimental sample of 1185 cases and the control sample of 1149 cases reported efficiency of different moxibustions in the treatment of herpes zoster, statistical heterogeneity inspection without heterogeneity. So, we used the fixed-effects model, merge effect quantity OR = 3.89, Z = 8.86, and it suggested sample merger analysis was statistically significant. Also, the moxibustion, compared to other methods in the treatment of herpes zoster and herpes zoster neuralgia efficiency, increased significantly. The VAS scales, WMD = 1.69, and the time of analgesia, WMD = 2.41, indicated that moxibustion surpassed others in the relief of pain. NRS was just reported in one study. It was not statistically significant. There was no significant difference in adverse effects OR = 0.61, Z = 1.56. Conclusion. Moxibustion has obvious advantages over other therapies in the treatment of HZ and PHN. However, due to the obvious publication bias, the interpretation of the results should be cautious, and more rigorous randomized controlled clinical studies should be included to further confirm the results in the future. (shrink)

The notion of “agent bookkeeping” was proposed when the “Accounting Law of the People’s Republic of China” was updated in 1993. Since their business is specialized in serving small and micro-enterprises, this has created the industry characteristic of generally small in the size of company and low in the salary of employees in Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. Such characteristic results in a series of problems including negative work attitude of employees in the development process, which seriously limit the development of (...) Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. However, issues occurred in the development of agent bookkeeping, such as negative employee attitudes, which severely hampered the growth of Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. Therefore, a model of three dimensions of work attitude has been set up in this paper to demonstrate the working attitude of the staff of the agent bookkeeping companies in China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, including emotional dimension, behavioral dimension, and cognitive dimension which consists of eight factors: work environment, career satisfaction, interpersonal relationship, role engagement, work vitality, responsibility attitude, emotional identity, and retention attitude. The result indicates that female employees outnumber male ones in agent bookkeeping companies, most employees have a low sense of belonging to the company, limited career development affects employees’ enthusiasm for work, work attitudes are influenced by mediocre work performance among employees with a graduate degree or higher. (shrink)

Safeguarding GenAI models against threats and aligning them with security requirements is imperative yet challenging. This chapter provides an overview of the security landscape for generative models. It begins by elucidating common vulnerabilities and attack vectors, including adversarial attacks, model inversion, backdoors, data extraction, and algorithmic bias. The practical implications of these threats are discussed, spanning domains like finance, healthcare, and content creation. The narrative then shifts to exploring mitigation strategies and innovative security paradigms. Differential privacy, blockchain-based provenance, quantum-resistant algorithms, (...) and human-guided reinforcement learning are analyzed as potential techniques to harden generative models. Broader ethical concerns surrounding transparency, accountability, deepfakes, and model interpretability are also addressed. The chapter aims to establish a conceptual foundation encompassing both the technical and ethical dimensions of security for generative AI. It highlights open challenges and lays the groundwork for developing robust, trustworthy, and human-centric solutions. The multifaceted perspective spanning vulnerabilities, implications, and solutions is intended to further discourse on securing society’s growing reliance on generative models. Frontier model security is discussed using Anthropic proposed approach. (shrink)

BackgroundSmartphone addiction has become a social problem that affects peoples’ quality of life and is frequently reported to be correlated with alexithymia, avoidant or anxious attachment styles, and subjective well-being. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between SA and alexithymia, attachment style, and subjective well-being.MethodsA meta-analysis was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. The following electronic databases were searched: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WANFANG DATA, and Chongqing (...) VIP Information Co., Ltd.. Stata 16.0 was used to analyze the overall effect and test the moderating effect.ResultsOne hundred and ten studies were included, involving a total of 96,680 participants. SA had a significantly high positive correlation with alexithymia, attachment anxiety, and negative emotions, and a low positive correlation with attachment avoidance. In addition, there was a high negative correlation between SA and subjective well-being and a low negative correlation between SA, life satisfaction, and positive emotions. A moderation analysis revealed that age significantly moderated the relationship between SA and positive emotions. The tools for measuring SA significantly moderated the relationship between SA, alexithymia, attachment anxiety, and subjective well-being. Meanwhile, subjective well-being measurement tools significantly moderated the relationships between SA, subjective well-being, and negative emotions.ConclusionSA was closely related to alexithymia, attachment style, and subjective well-being. In the future, longitudinal research can be conducted to better investigate the dynamic changes in the relationship between them.Systematic review registration[www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/], identifier [CRD42022334798]. (shrink)

Few studies have examined the relationship between personality traits and social networking sites (SNSs) with a dominant concentration on the personality alterations under SNSs influence. The relationship between personality and privacy control was less focused and discussed. In order to figure out the internal mechanism of such link among youth SNSs users, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was extended by including Five-Factor Model of Personality to explore how personality traits interact with privacy control behavior on SNSs. The investigation using (...) the theoretical method mentioned led to several hypotheses which were later assessed by an online study conducted within randomly chosen college students (N = 201) from two randomly chosen universities in China. This sampling strategy was designed to mimic the situation of targeted research population in the most reasonable way. The results suggested neuroticism and openness predicted SNSs privacy. Neuroticism and openness predicted “networked privacy” was also found. Theoretical implications of these findings were addressed. (shrink)

According to experimental philosophers, the diversity and sensitivity of intuitions have posed a severe threat to the traditional philosophical methodology, which relies extensively on intuitions triggered by thought experiments. However, defenders of traditional armchair philosophical methodology argue that experimental philosophers misunderstand the importance of intuitions for philosophy. What philosophers genuinely rely on are arguments, which provide a reliable foundation for their judgments on thought experiments. However, a recent cross-cultural experiment conducted by Wysocki (2017) indicates that arguments do not affect the (...) judgments about Gettier cases as philosophers once expected. That poses a challenge to those philosophers who contend that judgments are based on arguments. In this paper, we expand the experimental investigation of the effect of arguments on judgments about thought experiments. We report the result of three experiments in which eleven thought experiments drawn from multiple philosophical subdisciplines were used. It turns out that arguments have significant impacts on Chinese participants’ judgments in response to most of these thought experiments. These results present new resources for defending the traditional methodology but also bring new challenges. (shrink)

Identification of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) has been significantly improved over the past decade. On the other hand, semantic annotation of ncRNA data is facing critical challenges due to the lack of a comprehensive ontology to serve as common data elements and data exchange standards in the field. We developed the Non-Coding RNA Ontology (NCRO) to handle this situation. By providing a formally defined ncRNA controlled vocabulary, the NCRO aims to fill a specific and highly needed niche in semantic annotation of (...) large amounts of ncRNA biological and clinical data. (shrink)

Maker education mainly involves “hands-on” as the core concept and combines various educational theories to redefine interactions between learners and teachers in a learning environment. Identification of meaningful “hands-on” behaviors is crucial to evaluate students’ learning performance, although an instructor’s observation of every student is not feasible. However, such observation is possible with the aid of the artificial intelligence image processing technique; the AI learning behavior recognition system can serve as the second eyes of teachers, thus accounting for individual differences. (...) However, in previous studies, learning behavior recognition was applied to the traditional or static classroom. A behavior recognition system for identifying “hands-on” actions in the learning context has still not been developed. Therefore, this study designed a human posture evaluation system, obtained human articulation node information from learning field images, and built a learning behavior recognition model suitable for maker education based on the AI convolutional neural network. A learning behavior model was defined, along with a number of student behavior indexes. Subsequently, the effectiveness of the model and behavior indexes was verified through practical learning activities. The model evaluation results indicated that the proposed model achieved a training accuracy of 0.99 and a model accuracy of 0.83. Thus, the model can be applied to dynamic maker activity learning environments. (shrink)

The existing differential item functioning detection approaches relying on item difficulty or item discrimination are limited for understanding the associates of DIF items, and consequently, DIF items were conventionally either deleted or ignored. Given the importance of minimizing DIF items in test construction, teachers or testing practitioners need more information regarding possible associates of DIF items. Using an example of a teacher-made mathematics achievement test, this study aimed to examine how the Poly-BW indices contributed to the properties of gender-related DIF (...) items. Data from a 34-item mathematics achievement test that involved 1,439 seventh-grade students from Taiwan showed that the differences of the defenselessness and power indices between men and women served as salient predictors of the DIF measures estimated by the Poly Simultaneous Item Bias Test procedure and with satisfactory accuracy of hit rates. Items with relatively large defenselessness for men were likely to present male-favoring DIFs, whereas items with relatively large power for men were likely to present female-favoring DIFs. The Poly-BW indices yielded directions for modifying items for teachers in practice. (shrink)

Labels provide a quick and effective solution to obtain people interesting content from large-scale social network information. The current interest label extraction method based on the subgraph stream proves the feasibility of the subgraph stream for user label extraction. However, it is extremely time-consuming for constructing subgraphs. As an effective mathematical method to deal with fuzzy and uncertain information, rough set-based representations for subgraph stream construction are capable of capturing the uncertainties of the social network. Therefore, we propose an effective (...) approach called RS_UNITE_SS, which is suitable for large-scale social network user interest label extraction. Specifically, we first propose the subgraph division algorithm to construct a subgraph stream by incorporating a rough set. Then, the algorithm for user real-time interest label extraction based on upper approximation is proposed by using sequentially characteristics of the subgraph. Empirically, we evaluate RS_UNITE_SS over real-world datasets, and experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach is more computationally efficient than existing methods while achieving higher precision value and MRR value. (shrink)

Many studies of bribery acknowledge the important role of bribe-givers, but their true motives remain unclear. We propose that the likelihood of bribery depends on the willingness of an organization to affiliate with local parties or to be successful in a host country, or to have power over local parties. We further argue that different opportunities, either pervasive or arbitrary, facilitate different types of motives that affect the likelihood of bribery. In addition, we investigate the effect of perceived fairness on (...) the likelihood of bribery. We employ a 3 (motives: affiliation vs. achievement vs. power) × 2 (opportunities: pervasiveness vs. arbitrariness) × 2 (perceived fairness: high vs. low) factorial design in experimental settings among Executive MBA students in southern Taiwan. Our findings indicate that, when companies perceive a higher level of distributive fairness, high-achieving organizations are more likely to offer a bribe when the condition is pervasive. When they have a powerful motive, arbitrariness engenders a higher likelihood of bribery. When they perceive less distributive fairness, there are no significant differences between motive and opportunity. (shrink)

The regulatory effect of embodied emotion on one’s general emotion and the impact of the compatibility or incompatibility of the two types of emotion on creative thinking are still debatable. The purpose of this study is to investigate these issues experimentally. In Experiment 1, participants completed an explicit positive and negative emotion test [Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)] and an implicit positive and negative emotion test [Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT)] twice on a computer after emotional video (...) priming was used to induce negative emotions and facial expression manipulation was performed to induce embodied positive or negative emotions. It was found that maintaining the expression of a suppressed smile was helpful in regulating negative emotions ( p = 0.047). Specifically, the implicit negative emotions induced by facial expression manipulation had a positive regulating effect on the implicit negative emotions induced by the video (T1, M = 47.813; to T2, M = 44.188). In Experiment 2, the positive or negative emotions of the participants were induced using emotional videos, and facial expression manipulation was used to induce their embodied positive or negative emotions. Then, the participants completed a creative test by completing alternative use tasks (AUTs) and Chinese character riddles. The AUT fluency score in the emotionally compatible group was significantly higher than that in the emotionally incompatible group ( p = 0.032), but while experiencing negative emotions, the emotionally compatible group had a significantly higher originality score and insight in Chinese character riddle score than the emotionally incompatible group ( p = 0.017, p = 0.004). Therefore, embodied negative emotion has a significant regulating effect on implicit negative emotion. The compatibility of emotion activated by facial expression and viewing a video contributes to creative thinking, whereas the incompatibility of emotion hinders creative thinking. The compatibility of emotion under positive emotions improved thinking fluency, whereas under negative emotions, it activated originality and insight in creative thinking. The influence of such emotional compatibility on creative thinking may be due to the regulating effect of embodied emotions on implicit emotions induced by emotional stimuli. (shrink)

Students often face difficulties and experience negative emotions toward second language learning. The affective tutoring system is a next-generation learning approach that can detect the affective status of learning to increase performance. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, an innovative affective mobile language tutoring system was designed to support Japanese language learning. The effects of AMLTS, along with asynchronous discussion, that were intended to improve performance, were examined using a triangulation method. To investigate the effect on emotion, the proposed (...) AMLTS provides a virtual emotion agent that can interact with users and record emotional events, learning assessments, and the results of the interaction into a database. Learning effectiveness evaluations were conducted via two experiments: prototype evaluation and final evaluation. Sixty-three students, all beginners, were invited to use the AMLTS to learn Japanese. The research results show that the proposed AMLTS affective interaction design significantly improves learner engagement and performance. In the emotion feedback analysis and learning process, AMLTS helped students deepen their understanding of the content, enabled them to clearly understand the content, and to engage in peer interaction and experience positive emotions. In the evaluation of system usability, AMLTS reveals good usability for foreign language acquisition. (shrink)

This work is developed to explore the form of mental health education, strengthen scientific educational ideas, and improve the effect of psychological therapy. Virtual reality technology is innovatively applied in adolescent mental health treatment and education. Based on this, the mental health treatment and system design based on virtual reality technology are discussed, and the feasibility of applying VR technology to adolescent mental health education is explored. Second, the research concept of adolescent mental health is discussed. Based on the VR (...) platform setup, questionnaire survey is implemented to analyze the factors influencing the mental health of primary and secondary school students in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, and five factors are obtained. Based on this, the adolescent mental health treatment system based on VR is designed, and the effectiveness of the system is tested and evaluated. The results show that the integrated delay of the VR equipment used is 29 ms, which can effectively provide service. There are significant differences in mental health status among adolescents of different genders, different ages, only children and non-only children, parents’ accompaniment during growing up, and urban and rural adolescents. Finally, after 3 months of psychological treatment, the mental health score of the experimental group of teenagers is 50–55 points. However, the mental health scores of the control group remain at 56–65 points, indicating that the mental health treatment system designed in this work can effectively help the adolescents to improve their mental health, thus proving the effectiveness of the system. To sum up, this work provides scientific reference for adolescent mental health education in schools. Psychological treatment system can help teenagers improve their psychological problems and promote the development of mental health education. (shrink)

ObjectiveWhen regaining consciousness, patients who emerge from a minimally conscious state (EMCS) present with different levels of functional disability, which pose great challenges for treatment. This study investigated the frontoparietal activity in EMCS patients and its effects on functional disability.Materials and methodsIn this preliminary study, 12 EMCS patients and 12 healthy controls were recruited. We recorded a resting-state scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) for at least 5 min for each participant. Each patient was assessed using the disability rating scale (DRS) to determine (...) the level of functional disability. We analyzed the EEG power spectral density and sensor-level functional connectivity in relation to the patient’s functional disability.ResultsIn the frontoparietal region, EMCS patients demonstrated lower relative beta power (P < 0.01) and higher weighted phase lag index (wPLI) values in the theta (P < 0.01) and gamma (P < 0.01) bands than healthy controls. The frontoparietal theta wPLI values of EMCS patients were positively correlated with the DRS scores (rs = 0.629, P = 0.029). At the whole-brain level, EMCS patients only had higher wPLI values in the theta band (P < 0.01) than healthy controls. The whole-brain theta wPLI values of EMCS patients were also positively correlated with the DRS scores (rs = 0.650, P = 0.022). No significant difference in the power and connectivity between the frontoparietal region and the whole brain in EMCS patients was observed.ConclusionEMCS patients still experience neural dysfunction, especially in the frontoparietal region. However, the theta connectivity in the frontoparietal region did not increase specifically. At the level of the whole brain, the same shift could also be seen. Theta functional connectivity in the whole brain may underlie different levels of functional disability. (shrink)

Evidence suggests divergent thinking is the cognitive basis of creative thoughts. Neuroimaging literature using resting-state functional connectivity has revealed network reorganizations during divergent thinking. Recent studies have revealed the changes of network organizations when performing creativity tasks, but such brain reconfigurations may be prolonged after task and be modulated by the trait of creativity. To investigate the dynamic reconfiguration, 40 young participants were recruited to perform consecutive Alternative Uses Tasks for divergent thinking and two resting-state scans were used for mapping (...) the brain reorganizations after AUT. We split participants into high- and low-creative groups based on creative achievement questionnaire and targeted on reconfigurations of the two brain networks: default-mode network and the network seeded at the left inferior frontal gyrus because the between-group difference of AUT-induced brain activation located at the left IFG. The changes of post-AUT RSFCs indicated the prolonged effect of divergent thinking. More specifically, the alterations of RSFCIFG−AG and RSFCIFG−IPL in the high-creative group had positive relationship with their AUT performances, but not found in the low-creative group. Furthermore, the RSFC changes of DMN did not present significant relationships with AUT performances. The findings not only confirmed the possibility of brain dynamic reconfiguration following divergent thinking, but also suggested the distinct IFGN reconfiguration between individuals with different creativity levels. (shrink)

Free markets alone do not work effectively to solve certain kinds of human problems, such as education, old age care, or disaster relief. Nor have markets ever been the sole solution to the psychological challenges of death, suffering, or injustice. Instead, we find a major role for the non-market institutions of society - the family, the state, and social institutions. The first in-depth anthropological study of charities in contemporary Chinese societies, this book focuses on the unique ways that religious groups (...) have helped to solve the problems of social well-being. Using comparative case studies in China, Taiwan and Malaysia during the 1980s and onwards, it identifies new forms of religious philanthropy as well as new ideas of social 'good', including different forms of political merit-making, new forms of civic selfhood, and the rise of innovative social forms, including increased leadership by women. The book finally argues that the spread of these ideas is an incomplete process, with many alternative notions of goodness continuing to be influential. (shrink)

Objective: Automatic detection of auditory stimuli, represented by the mismatch negativity, facilitates rapid processing of salient stimuli in the environment. The amplitude of MMN declines with ageing. However, whether automatic detection of auditory stimuli is affected by visually perceived negative emotions with normal ageing remains unclear. We aimed to evaluate how fearful facial expressions affect the MMN amplitude under ageing.Methods: We used a modified oddball paradigm to analyze the amplitude of N100 and MMN in 22 young adults and 21 middle-aged (...) adults.Results: We found that the amplitude of N1 elicited by standard tones was smaller under fearful facial expressions than neutral facial expressions and was more negative for young adults than middle-aged adults. The MMN amplitude under fearful facial expressions was greater than neutral facial expressions, but the amplitude in middle-aged adults was smaller than in young adults.Conclusion: Visually perceived negative emotion promotes the extraction of auditory features. Additionally, it enhances the effect of auditory change detection in middle-aged adults but fails to compensate for this decline with normal ageing.Significance: The study may help to understand how visually perceived emotion affects the early stage of auditory information processing from an event process perspective. (shrink)

This study is intended to create an innovative contextual English learning environment making use of the widely used communication software, LINE ChatBot, based on the Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, in order to improve speaking and listening ability among learners. A total of 73 students were invited to participate in learning activities involving a 4-week English conversation exercise including both speaking and listening. Additionally, in order to explore the influence of competition on language acquisition, we added competition characteristics to the learning (...) activities in the experimental group to enhance learning motivation and learning outcomes. The results showed that with the help of the LINE ChatBot contextual learning environment, the performance of both groups of students was slightly enhanced, but no significant differences were found. Meanwhile, extrinsic motivation in both the experimental and control group was improved if they spoke anonymously. That is, the contextual learning environment based on the LINE ChatBot significantly improved the learners’ English speaking and listening ability. In addition, the results showed that the addition of a competition element effectively enhanced the learners’ intrinsic motivation to learn English on the LINE ChatBot. (shrink)

Prediction is one of the major challenges in complex systems. The prediction methods have shown to be effective predictors of the evolution of networks. These methods can help policy makers to solve practical problems successfully and make better strategy for the future. In this work, we focus on exporting countries’ data of the International Trade Network. A recommendation system is then used to identify the products that correspond to the production capacity of each individual country but are somehow overlooked by (...) the country. Then, we simulate the evolution of the country’s fitness if it would have followed the recommendations. The result of this work is the combination of these two methods to provide insights to countries on how to enhance the diversification of their exported products in a scientific way and improve national competitiveness significantly, especially for developing countries. (shrink)