Abstract:The haptic sense is an essential component of aesthetic evaluation that is often overlooked in today’s mobile internet age. Unlike hearing and vision, the sense of touch is less widely transmitted. Unfortunately, most aesthetic theories and explanations have focused solely on the visual and auditory senses, with minimal attention given to tactile evaluation. To address this gap in knowledge, we have collected studies on tactile aesthetics within the framework of experimental aesthetics from 2000 to 2022. After statistical generalization, our findings (...) suggest the following: The criteria for evaluating tactile aesthetics were mostly dichotomous, that is, positive (like/appreciation/pleasure) and negative (dislike/disgust/unpleasant). Tactile aesthetics predominantly involved the toucher dimension (synesthesia/need for touch/touch pattern) and the touch sample dimension (shape/type/texture), with the commonly overlooked factors of “need for touch” and “touch pattern.” Some studies did not restrict the shape and material of the touch samples. Based on our findings, we have systematically summarized and concluded what tactile factors influence aesthetic evaluation and have analyzed future research trends. (shrink)

on how to justify the rationality of sciences.

Memory exhibits episodic superposition, an analog of the quantum superposition of physical states: Before a cue for a presented or unpresented item is administered on a memory test, the item has the simultaneous potential to occupy all members of a mutually exclusive set of episodic states, though it occupies only one of those states after the cue is administered. This phenomenon can be modeled with a nonadditive probability model called overdistribution (OD), which implements fuzzy-trace theory's distinction between verbatim and gist (...) representations. We show that it can also be modeled based on quantum probability theory. A quantum episodic memory (QEM) model is developed, which is derived from quantum probability theory but also implements the process conceptions of global matching memory models. OD and QEM have different strengths, and the current challenge is to identify contrasting empirical predictions that can be used to pit them against each other. (shrink)

This study investigated the mediating roles of self-acceptance and self-esteem in the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and impulse buying, and tested the moderating effect of gender on the relationships. A sample of 374 college students and graduate students participated in the study. Results revealed that body image dissatisfaction positively associated with impulse buying; self-esteem plays a mediating role between body image dissatisfaction and impulsive buying; a serial indirect pathway emerged; the mediation path from self-acceptance to self-esteem was stronger for (...) female than that from male. The results underscore the importance of identifying the mechanisms that moderate the mediated path between body image dissatisfaction and impulse buying among students. These findings point to the potential implications about how to reduce impulse buying through improving body image satisfaction. (shrink)

Reflections on Plato's Poetics presents the reflections of leading scholars from China and the West on the form, nature and significance of Plato's engagement with poetry. The book does not adopt any monolithic point of view about Plato and poetry. Instead it openly explores Plato's attitudes to poetry, both comprehensively and within the intricate confines of particular dialogues. These reflections reveal a Plato who is deeply influenced by poetry; a Plato who writes, at least very often, from within a poetic (...) paradigm; a Plato whose concerns about the influence and ambiguity of words force him to play with meaning and to provoke questions about meaning. Thus, many of the contributions reveal a concern about the relation of philosophy to poetry, how the two categories are different and whether (or in what way) one is superior to the other.A unique feature of Reflections on Plato's Poetics is the establishment of a dialogue between Chinese and Western scholars, whose different background assumptions about philosophy, poetry and Plato lead, we hope, to further reflections of genuinely novel and significant interest. (shrink)

Frequent and open interaction between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs is necessary for venture capital investments to occur. Increasingly, these investments are made across jurisdictions. The vast majority of these cross-border investments are carried out in a syndicate of two or more VCs, indicating the effects of intra-industry networks needing further analysis. Using China as a model, we provide a novel multidimensional framework to explain cross-border investments in innovative ventures across developed and emerging economies. By analyzing a unique international dataset, we (...) examine worldwide venture capital investment flows from 2000–2012 and consider the effects of geographical, cultural, and institutional proximity as well as institutional and relational trust. We find trust to mitigate the negative effects of geographical and cultural distance, where institutional trust is more relevant for investments in emerging economies, and relational trust is more relevant for investments in developed economies. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making is central to the practice of construction engineering and management. This is no more evident than in the twenty-first century, when the construction industry must function in very diverse organizational contexts. Whilst construction companies pursue projects in international markets, many investors are buying or forming joint ventures with domestic companies. New and varied professional attitudes have recently arrived in western markets such as the United States and Australia because construction companies are increasingly employing managers from developing nations to (...) undertake commercial and infrastructure engineering projects. In many developing countries the construction industry is vulnerable to unethical behavior or corruption – vulnerability in part because of differences in culture and managerial systems across countries; and this diversity is manifest in the different perspectives of professional ethics and professional practice. Importantly, professionals in construction engineering must be aware of these differences; however current ethics education for engineering professionals generally lacks global components. In this chapter, emphasis is placed upon professional registration, including mandatory awareness of professional ethics, as an imperative for the welfare of world citizens; discussion on the nature of the construction industry and globalized trends emphasizes why ethics and professional education must be integrated within civil and construction engineering and management curricula. Only then we can anticipate an appropriate educational foundation for professional registration of the international engineer. (shrink)

It has long been suggested that emotion, especially threatening emotion, facilitates early visual perception to promote adaptive responses to potential threats in the environment. Here, we tested whether and how fearful emotion affects the basic visual ability of visual acuity. An adapted Posner’s spatial cueing task was employed, with fearful and neutral faces as cues and a Vernier discrimination task as the probe. The time course of the emotional attention effect was examined by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony of the (...) cue and probe. Two independent experiments consistently demonstrated that the brief presentation of a fearful face increased visual acuity at its location. The facilitation of perceptual sensitivity was detected at an SOA around 300 ms when the face cues were presented for both 250 ms and 150 ms. This effect cannot be explained by physical differences between the fearful and neutral faces because no improvement was found when the faces were presented inverted. In the last experiment, the face cues were flashed very briefly, and we did not find any improvement induced by the fearful face. Overall, we provide evidence that emotion interacts with attention to affect basic visual functions. (shrink)

Objective: The COVID-19 epidemic has generated great stress throughout healthcare workers. The situation of HCWs should be fully and timely understood. The aim of this meta-analysis is to determine the psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health care workers.Method: We searched the original literatures published from 1 Nov 2019 to 20 Sep 2020 in electronic databases of PUBMED, EMBASE and WEB OF SCIENCE. Forty-seven studies were included in the meta-analysis with a combined total of 81,277 participants.Results: The pooled prevalence of (...) anxiety is 37% from 44 studies. Depression is estimated in 39 studies, and the pooled prevalence of depression is 36%. There are 10 studies reported the prevalence of insomnia, and the overall prevalence of insomnia is 32%. The subgroup analysis showed a higher incidence of anxiety and depression among women and the frontline HCWs compared to men and non-frontline HCWs respectively.Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused heavy psychological impact among healthcare professionals especially women and frontline workers. Timely psychological counseling and intervention ought to be implemented for HCWs in order to alleviate their anxiety and improve their general mental health. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:476 Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Wang Zheng Detention of the Feminist Five in China On March 6 this year, just before International Women’s Day, the Chinese police in Beijing arrested five young women who had engaged in activism to protest sexual harassment on public transportation. The month-long detention of these five young feminists has changed the landscape of Chinese feminism. The (...) global feminist mobilization that emerged to appeal for their release also presents a fascinating example of a successful feminist response to authoritarianism. In this short piece, I open with a few personal snapshots to briefly illustrate the history of Chinese feminist engagement with sexist sexual norms. Next, I will situate the five young feminists’ actions within this historical context in order to illustrate significant changes in Chinese feminist practices as well as in Chinese society. Finally, I will discuss the political implications of the detention of the so-called Feminist Five as well as the global mobilization for their release. In 1985 I came from Shanghai to study US history at the University of California, Davis. I made quite a few American friends in the graduate program. They were very curious about my life in China, and I was very proud of being a liberated woman from socialist China. I acted like an ambassador, talking to different groups about the great accomplishments of women’s liberation under socialism in China. As a young, urban woman I enjoyed equal education, equal employment, equal pay, and equal opportunity for promotion. I had never experienced gender News and Views 477 inequality, I thought. One day I was telling my friends about how I once confronted a thief who had just snatched my wallet on a crowded bus in Shanghai and how I forced him to drop my wallet. My friends were very impressed: “Wow! You were so brave,” they said. A few days later, I happened to mention that on the same crowded Shanghai buses, men would frequently grope women, and my friend asked instantly, “How did you respond to them?” I replied without thinking, “What could I do? I just tried my best to move to another spot to avoid such rascals.” My friend then raised a question that shattered my self-perception as a brave and liberated woman: “Why did you dare to confront a thief but not a sexual harasser?” I answered, “Oh, I would be so ashamed if people around me noticed.” Immediately, I realized that my reply was highly problematic. That conversation set in motion a process of soul searching. Why would a liberated woman still continue to observe the patriarchal value of chastity? Why would women of my generation—the liberated Chinese women in socialist China—have no consciousness of the serious problems contained within these sexual norms? It was not only a personal reflection. From this point, I embarked on a long review and contemplation of women’s liberation in socialist China. I realized that in the realm of sexuality, while state feminists were able to transform the sexual double standard to a single standard for the general public (although some top male leaders continue double standards and engage in extramarital sexual relationships without being punished), puritanical sexual morality did not shake deeply entrenched masculinist cultural values of women’s chastity and virginity. As a result, a liberated woman such as myself could internalize such sexist values with no consciousness, let alone action, focused on changing such sexist culture. In 1992, I attended a conference by the Shanghai Women’s Federation. When a US feminist scholar asked if there were any cases of sexual harassment in China, the Chinese women participants all replied, “No, no, we don’t have sexual harassment.” I stood up and named things that happened to women every day on Shanghai buses as sexual harassment. By then I had long been empowered by my study of feminist history and theories. In 1995, at the NGO forum at the Fourth UN Conference on Women held in Beijing, feminists from inside and outside China openly challenged pervasive sexist sexual norms. Sexual violence and sexual harassment were clearly defined as violations of women’s human rights... (shrink)

Infants are sensitive to statistical regularities (i.e., transitional probabilities, or TPs) relevant to segmenting words in fluent speech. However, there is debate about whether tracking TPs results in representations of possible words. Infants show preferential learning of sequences with high TPs (HTPs) as object labels relative to those with low TPs (LTPs). Such findings could mean that only the HTP sequences have a word‐like status, and they are more readily mapped to a referent for that reason. But these findings could (...) also suggest that HTP sequences are easier to encode, just like any other predictable sequence. Here we aimed to distinguish between these explanations. To do so, we built on findings that infants become resistant to learning labels that are not typical of their native language as they approach 2 years of age and add words to their lexicons. If tracking TPs in speech results in identifying candidate words, at this age TPs may have reduced power to confer lexical status when they yield a unit that is very dissimilar to word forms that are typical of infants’ native language. Indeed, we found that at 20 months, English‐learning infants with relatively small vocabularies learned HTP Italian words (but not LTP words) as object labels, while infants with larger vocabularies resisted learning HTP Italian words. These findings suggest that the HTP sequences may be represented as candidate words, and more broadly, that TP statistics are relevant to word learning. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs' live streaming is an important tool for marketing, and it can increase consumer engagement, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous live streaming literature mainly focused on third-party live streaming, targeted at professional streamers and online celebrities. This study aims to discuss the factors underlying consumer engagement in the ELS. Using a mixed method of a quasi-experiment and an online survey, we analyzed the impact of the ELS on consumer engagement and the factors that drive consumer engagement in the ELS (...) in each of 231 samples. In the enterprises' live streaming, the ELS has a significantly higher influence on consumer engagement compared with the employees' live streaming. In the ELS, based on source credibility theory and signaling theory, this study concludes that factors of ELS's credibility consist of internal factors and external factors. The authors demonstrate that both internal and external factors positively affect trust in activities. Trust in activities positively affects consumer engagement and mediates the effects of reputation, expertise, interactivity, guarantee, and authenticity on consumer engagement. Moreover, reputation and expertise positively improve consumers' admiration toward the entrepreneur streamer and in turn, positively increase consumer engagement. Interactivity and expertise shorten the psychological distance. Psychological distance negatively affects consumer engagement and only helps increase the positive effect of interactivity on consumer engagement. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for live streaming e-commerce. (shrink)

As a rising power, China has become actively involved in regional bilateral/multilateral arrangements in the post-Cold War, especially post-crisis (1997– 98 financial crises) era, and this has attracted much attention from within and outside East Asia. Diverse understandings of China's regional ambition have appeared, especially since the launch of the China-ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA). Aiming at deciphering the ideas behind China's regional thinking, this paper argues that China's perspective on regionalism is a broadened economic regionalism, which is basically economic-centered, (...) because economic performance is vital both to its long-term strategic target and to its internal social stability. This economic regionalism will last for some time because China will be a developing country at least in the mid-term, which means China will have to focus more on its economic performance. In practice, China will engage bilaterally or multilaterally with others through its FTA strategy. Thus, China cannot be a main contributor to East Asian integration as expected, owing to the inward-looking nature of its economic regionalism. Also, the institutional integration of East Asia needs the effort of all the players in the region. (shrink)

In the modern business environment, characterized by rapid technological advancements and globalization, abetted by IoT and Industry 5.0 phenomenon, innovation is indispensable for competitive advantage and economic growth. However, many organizations are facing problems in its true implementation due to the absence of a practical innovation management framework, which has made the implementation of the concept elusive instead of persuasive. The present study has proposed a new innovation management framework labeled as “Absolute Innovation Management (AIM)” to make innovation more understandable, (...) implementable, and part of the organization’s everyday routine by synergizing the innovation ecosystem, design thinking, and corporate strategy to achieve competitive advantage and economic growth. The current study used an integrative literature review methodology to develop the “Absolute Innovation Management” framework. The absolute innovation management framework links the innovation ecosystem with the corporate strategy of the firm by adopting innovation management as a strategy through design thinking. Thus, making innovation more user/human-centered that is desirable by the customer, viable for business and technically feasible, creating both entrepreneurial and customer value, and boosting corporate venturing and corporate entrepreneurship to achieve competitive advantage and economic growth while addressing the needs of IoT and Industry 5.0 era. In sum, it synergizes innovation, design thinking, and strategy to make businesses future-ready for IoT and the industry 5.0 revolution. The present study is significant, as it not only makes considerable contributions to the existing literature on innovation management by developing a new framework but also makes the concept more practical, implementable and part of an organization’s everyday routine. (shrink)

The Slow Movement brought with itself a focus on the speed of our living, and a desire to slow down our daily activities, including movement activities. Also, in the time of the current pandemic, m...

Evidence accumulation has been the core component in recent development of perceptual and value-based decision-making theories. Most studies have focused on the evaluation of evidence between alternative options. What remains largely unknown is the process that prepares evidence: how may the decision-maker sample different sources of information sequentially, if they can only sample one source at a time? Here we propose a normative framework in prescribing how different sources of information should be sampled proactively to facilitate the decision process: beliefs (...) for different noisy sources are updated in a Bayesian manner and participants can proactively allocate resource for sampling (i.e. saccades) among different sources to maximize the information gain in such process. We show that our framework can account for human participants’ actual choice and saccade behaviors in a two-alternative value-based decision-making task. Moreover, our framework makes novel predictions about the empirical eye movement patterns. (shrink)

This research focuses on the complex relationship between the musical narrative and emotional expression in piano works from a philosophical point of view. It aims at identifying how emotions are enacted within music and how they can influence and mold the listener’s experience. Building on the premises of important philosophical theories, the study explores the idea of musical narrative, its origins, and its impact on forming emotions within music. Emotional communication in piano works is also discussed in the study, with (...) an emphasis on how composers incorporate various musical features to portray certain emotions. Furthermore, this research elaborates on the philosophical perspective of musical narrative and emotional expression and contributes to the understanding of the aspects within the framework of piano music. The findings of this research are intended to add to the debates in the philosophy of music, with regard to performance and listener’s reception. (shrink)

Lumbar Exoskeleton, as an important instance of wearable exoskeleton, has broad application prospects in logistics, construction, and other industries. Specifically, in the working scenarios that require long-term and repeated bending and rising movements, active lumbar exoskeleton can provide effective protection and flexible assistance to wear’s waist muscles and bones, which will significantly reduce the risk of lumbar muscle strain. How to improve the human-machine coupling and enhance the assistance performance are the main challenges for ALE’s development. Based on the biomechanical (...) analysis of the movement of lifting heavy objects from bottom up, this paper proposes a lightweight but powerful ALE, named as SIAT-WEXv2, which can output maximum assistive force of 28 N. Additionally, we use robust fuzzy adaptive algorithm to improve SIAT-WEXv2’s antidisturbance ability, so that it can provide continuous and supple assistance for wearer. Electromyography signals of the lumbar erector spinae from ten subjects in two experimental cases were collected to evaluate the effectiveness of our new ALE. The experimental results indicate that the reduction of iEMG signal at LES decreased monotonically from 60% ± 5.5% to 40.5% ± 6.5% as the weight of lifting load increased from 0 to 25 kg. (shrink)

The research study explores the philosophical viewpoints on cultural hybridity and considers how they affect the development of identities, moral behaviour, epistemological criticism, and real-world applications in a variety of fields. Cultural hybridity, which is defined as the blending of different cultural aspects, calls into question established ideas about identity and encourages us to reevaluate the flexibility and diversity that are fundamental to the human self. For measuring, the research study used the Smart PLS Algorithm Model related to variables through (...) this software run results included descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient, and the Smart PLS Algorithm Model between them. Philosophical investigations into cultural hybridity shed light on the dynamic interactions between identity and alterity, ethics and epistemology, and draw on the works of philosophers like Stuart Hall, Emmanuel Levinas, and Homi K. Bhabha. Cultural hybridity is an ethical imperative that requires us to shift our perspective towards the Other and welcome cultural variety with warmth and kindness. From an epistemological point of view, cultural hybridity upends hegemonic knowledge frameworks and creates pluralistic modes of knowledge creation that provide voice to underrepresented groups. Philosophical viewpoints on cultural hybridity have practical implications in urban planning, education, diplomacy, and intercultural communication. Overall result found that there is a direct and significant link between philosophical perspectives on the cultural hybridity related to dynamics of identity and alterity. These applications promote inclusive societies, social cohesion, and creativity. We began a revolutionary route towards a more globalized, compassionate, and linked society by accepting cultural hybridity. (shrink)

The neural crest is a transient population of multipotent progenitors arising at the lateral edge of the neural plate in vertebrate embryos. After delamination and migration from the neuroepithelium, these cells contribute to a diverse array of tissues including neurons, smooth muscle, craniofacial cartilage, bone cells, endocrine cells and pigment cells. Considerable progress in recent years has furthered our understanding at a molecular level of how this important group of cells is generated and how they are assigned to specific lineages. (...) Here we review a number of recent studies supporting a role for Wnt signaling in neural crest induction, differentiation, and apoptosis. We also summarize the timing of expression of a number of Wnt ligands and receptors with respect to neural crest induction. BioEssays 25:317–325, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It was in the mid-seventh century that Buddhism was introduced into the Tibetan region of our country. At that time, the crucible of its fermentation was exclusively the royal court of the Turfan and several noble families; it had very little effect on the masses of the Tibetan people. In society, the dominant position, as far as religious belief was concerned, was occupied by a primitive, naturalistic religion known as Bon-po.