BackgroundPrevious findings indicated that breast cancer patients often have dysfunction in empathy and other cognitive functions during or after chemotherapy. However, the manifestations and possible neuro-electrophysiological mechanisms of pain empathy impairment in breast cancer patients after chemotherapy were still unknown.ObjectiveThe current study aimed to investigate the potential correlations between pain empathy impairment and event-related potentials in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.MethodsTwenty-two breast cancer patients were evaluated on a neuropsychological test and pain empathy paradigm before and after chemotherapy, containing the Chinese (...) version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, while recording ERP data.ResultsThe empathic concern scores were lower and personal distress scores were higher on IRI-C task compared with those before chemotherapy. Meanwhile, the accuracy rates were lower than those before chemotherapy for both pain and laterality tasks on the pain empathy paradigm. However, the response time was no significant differences before and after chemotherapy. Further, the amplitude of the N1 component was significantly increased, and the amplitude of the P2 component was significantly decreased in the subsequent ERP study. A linear mixed effect model was used to analyze the correlation, the average amplitude of N1 and P2 were positively correlated with the accuracy rates in laterality tasks.ConclusionThe results indicated that pain empathy impairment was performed in chemotherapeutic breast cancer patients, which was possibly correlated to the changes of N1 and P2 components in ERP. These findings provide neuro-electrophysiological information about chemo-brain in breast cancer patients. (shrink)

Product counterfeiting, a serious problem throughout the world, is particularly challenging for luxury brands, which often have simple designs and a value that depends largely on buyers' perceptions. This study incorporates the concept of customer value into an investigation of the anticounterfeiting strategies. Both hedonic and utilitarian values positively influence customer loyalty toward luxury brands. As a means to strengthen customer values, legal and product strategies positively influence customers' hedonic value, whereas communication and product strategies positively influence their utilitarian value. (...) The managerial implications of these findings and directions for further research are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study aimed to elucidate the influence of dementia etiologies on the degree of caregiver burden and determine which factors predict a high caregiving burden.MethodsThis 18-month retrospective cohort study enrolled 630 patients and their caregivers from the Dementia Center of Changhua Christian Hospital. The care team performed face-to-face interviews every 6 months, for 18 months from when a diagnosis of dementia was made. The primary outcome was the change in Zarit Burden Interview scores. Generalized estimating equations were used for the (...) longitudinal data analysis.ResultsParticipants with Lewy body disease had a significantly higher caregiving burden compared with those with Alzheimer's disease after adjusting for patient and caregiver features. Caregivers of mixed-type dementia and frontotemporal dementia experienced a greater burden than caregivers of AD, at 6- and 18-month follow-up. Patients with more severe dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms, being cared for by more than two caregivers, or utilizing social resources were associated with higher ZBI scores; the depressive mood of caregiver also predicted higher ZBI scores.ConclusionThis longitudinal study demonstrated that caregiver burden was influenced by the underlying dementia etiology of patients. The dementia care team should provide personalized education and transfer patients and caregivers to appropriate resources, especially for high-risk populations. (shrink)

Body ownership concerns what it is like to feel a body part or a full body as mine, and has become a prominent area of study. We propose that there is a closely related type of bodily self-consciousness largely neglected by researchers—experiential ownership. It refers to the sense that I am the one who is having a conscious experience. Are body ownership and experiential ownership actually the same phenomenon or are they genuinely different? In our experiments, the participant watched a (...) rubber hand or someone else’s body from the first-person perspective and was touched either synchronously or asynchronously. The main findings: (1) The sense of body ownership was hindered in the asynchronous conditions of both the body-part and the full-body experiments. However, a strong sense of experiential ownership was observed in those conditions. (2) We found the opposite when the participants’ responses were measured after tactile stimulations had ceased for 5 s. In the synchronous conditions of another set of body-part and full-body experiments, only experiential ownership was blocked but not body ownership. These results demonstrate for the first time the double dissociation between body ownership and experiential ownership. Experiential ownership is indeed a distinct type of bodily self-consciousness. (shrink)

This study proposed and examined a conceptual framework on the influence of real estate brokers’ personalities, psychological empowerment, social capital, and knowledge sharing on their innovation performance, and used moral hazard as a moderating variable. We used structural equation modeling for data analysis and estimation. The participants were real estate brokers in Kaohsiung City. A total of 1,000 questionnaires were administered to 100 branch offices of real estate companies, 571 of which were later recovered from 80 branch offices. After removing (...) 52 for being invalid, we were left with 519 valid questionnaires, indicating a 51.9% recovery rate. The empirical results suggest that the real estate brokers’ personalities and psychological empowerment positively and significantly influence social capital; personality and psychological empowerment also positively and significantly influence their innovation performance; and social capital significantly influences knowledge sharing, which in turn positively and significantly influences the brokers’ innovation performance. In environments with higher levels of moral hazard, the influence of social capital on the brokers’ knowledge sharing is significantly diminished. (shrink)

Ben shu gong you ba jiang zu cheng, fen bie shi sheng ren bi ke xue er zhi, Wang Yangming de xin xue ti xi, shi gong yu bing xue, wen xue si xiang yu shi wen chuang zuo, jiao yu si xiang yu shi jian, Yangming hou xue, Yangming xue zai jin xian dai de ying xiang, Yangming wen hua yu Guizhou lü you. Mei ge lun ti lun shu ji zhong, shen du shi zhong, xu shu xing yu (...) yan tong su liu chang, gu shi xing qiang, hen shi he da zhong du zhe yue du. wei qi fa du zhe si kao, zeng qiang yue du xiao guo, zai mei yi jiang zhi hou shi liang she zhi le yi xie ming ci jie shi, jian da tao lun ti. ling pei he xiang guan wen zi, she zhi le yi xie tu pian, bei ke he Yangming shu fa zuo pin deng, ju you ji jia de guan shang xing. (shrink)

In 2016 the Chinese government initiated a nationwide campaign aiming to eliminate poverty in China by 2020. Over 20% of listed firms in China have made significant contributions to the campaign. Using hand-collected data on listed firms’ contributions to the campaign and multivariate analyses, we examine whether managers’ and politicians’ personal incentives play an important role in firms’ contributions to the campaign. The results show that firms are more likely to contribute if they are state-owned and managers are appointed by (...) governments, if managers have a higher risk of being targeted in a concurrent anti-corruption campaign, if the political leaders in their province are new or intend to seek promotion, and if managers or directors have experienced poverty in their early life. The results suggest that it is important to consider managers’ and politicians’ personal incentives in CSR activities that could have a grand social impact. (shrink)

This study investigates the role of religion in shaping the norms of citizenship from a cultural perspective for an East Asian country that exhibits fundamental differences in social contexts from Western advanced democracies. Using data drawn from the Taiwan Social Change Survey, we find that the Eastern religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Folk Religions are important for explaining the formation of the concept of being a good citizen. This study further examines the relationships between citizenship norms and various conventional and (...) unconventional types of political participation. The empirical results herein suggest that duty-based citizenship and engaged citizenship have significant differences in their effects on political participation. (shrink)

The global impact of COVID-19 has seriously affected health and livelihood in every country or region, especially in terms of physical consumption behaviors. Hairdressing is an essential physical consumption behavior. To prevent infection, the consumption model for using the beauty industry matchmaking platform has been used during the pandemic. This study investigates the changes in the behavior of media app users in the beauty industry in the post-epidemic era of COVID-19. The COM-B model is the basis for a research framework (...) to study the factors that affect changes in behavior in the areas of Capability, Motivation, and Opportunity of the theoretical framework. A new dimension of fashion sense has expanded the application and validation of the COM-B model to determine the causal relationship between the ability to pursue beauty, motivation, fashion sense, and opportunities by using the platform and the dimension of user behavior. The study finds that fashion sense in the BIMP has a positive and significant impact on beauty care ability, self-motivation to pursue beauty and future cooperation opportunities. The ability, motivation and opportunity to act are all positively significant, which is in agreement with the theoretical framework of the COM-B model. There is no mediating effect for motivation between fashion sense and behavior. The results of this study show that increasing the sense of fashion for members using the BIMP will increases active behavior for members using the platform. This study also proposes practical suggestions for the operation of the BIMP based on the results. (shrink)

COVID-19 began to spread worldwide in early 2020. Various governments have taken measures such as isolation, travel bans, and evacuation, mandating people to wear masks and go out less, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus. Governments also restrict human contact service industries, including beauty and hair salons. When the pandemic was very serious, consumers had great doubts about going for hairdressing so the beauty industry was greatly affected. This study designed and developed an app platform that (...) considers the COVID-19 and is used for the psychological role of consumer safety. The methodology of this research is a qualitative study. Based on the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behavior model, and presenting the context of capabilities, opportunities, and motives of the theoretical framework, this study investigates the factors that identify the demand for the development of the platform for the beauty industry app matching mechanism. Four groups of people including consumers, beauty technicians, store managers, and application development engineers all conduct interviews based on their ability, opportunity, and motivation after experiencing the using application of OpenBeautiful. The results found that all groups of people already had the knowledge and ability to avoid infection in a pandemic, so it was possible to establish the need and feasibility of using the app platform. The use of the beauty industry app platform can bring new consumption patterns and career opportunities, and can trigger more business behavior activities. Therefore, this study starts from the COM-B model, and then explores the user needs of the platform according to the COM-B model framework, and proposes the mechanism and platform of app matching. Finally, based on the conclusion of the study, we propose practices and suggestions for the future operation of the app matching platform. (shrink)

The study of illiberal constitutions has recently generated enormous scholarly interests. Few, however, have focused on whether democracies may still embrace constitutionalism mixed with illiberal elements. This article explores mixed constitutions of South Korea and Taiwan, the two democracies with vibrant civil societies in East Asia. Three distinctive features in both constitutions have demonstrated illiberal elements, including duty clauses imposed upon citizens, directives requiring the State to enact laws to fulfill the goals of governance, and constitutional cultures that exhibit high (...) deference to political elites based on the Confucian tradition. This article further examines the impacts of such mixed constitutions on three challenging issues: managing pandemic crisis, applying artificial intelligence, and combating fake news. This article finds mixed features of illiberal and democratic constitutions in the two countries by giving their governments more space in managing urgent crises, showing higher deference to experts who are generally trusted by the public, and making compromises to individual rights for greater public good. However, this does not imply that the government is not made democratically accountable, or rights and freedoms are not asserted or valued by individuals. To the contrary, nongovernmental organizations and courts in the two countries continue to act as a counterbalancing force, challenging the government’s policies and decisions if not reasonably balanced, weakening the tendency of power concentration that has been seen in other countries where democratic backsliding or authoritarian governance is gradually revived. (shrink)

Mo Tzu was active in ancient China's academic world during the late Spring and Autumn period and the early Warring States period when the slave system collapsed and the feudal system was gradually established. During this time of radical social change, class antagonism and struggle were acute, and ideological and theoretical struggles were fierce. According to the social classes to which they belonged, thinkers from different social classes and strata gave different answers for the existing social problems. As a result, (...) many schools of thought emerged, and "a hundred schools of thought contended." Among these schools of thought, advocates of Confucianism and followers of Mo Tzu were the most influential. Mutual repudiations developed between the advocates of Confucianism and the followers of Mo Tzu and between the followers of Mo Tzu and the advocates of Yang Tzu. Therefore, criteria for correct opinions became an important question in society. On this question, Mo Tzu voiced his views and conducted a thorough investigation. (shrink)

Previous studies with Westerners have found that both the mouth and eyes are crucial in identifying and interpreting smiles. We proposed that Easterners (e.g., Chinese and Japanese) evaluate the role of the mouth and eyes in smiles differently from Westerners. Individuals in collectivistic Eastern society heavily rely on information from the eyes to identify and interpret the meaning of smiles.

Double 11 shopping carnival, celebrated by the most successful electronic-commerce Chinese company, Alibaba, has always been the online shopping festival with the highest turnover and involves the largest number of consumers and enterprises in China. This study integrates the elaboration likelihood model and stimulus-organism-response theory to study the dual-processing path of information, which drives customers’ behavioral intention on Double 11. There are 454 valid samples of data are collected, and the research model is tested using the partial least squares method. (...) Results show that in the Double 11 context, two different processing mechanisms affect consumers’ behavioral intention. Thereinto, consumers’ behavioral intention is more affected by the peripheral path than the central path. The affective experience affected by the information stimulus has a greater impact on the behavioral intention than cognitive experience. Furthermore, we find situational involvement have different moderating effects on the relationship between two experiences and behavioral intention. (shrink)

Photovoltaic power forecasting can provide strong support for the safe operation of the power system. Existing forecasting methods are ineffective for grid scheduling decisions or risk analysis. The novel multicluster interval prediction method is proposed to consider the volatility and randomness of PV power output. First, this method utilizes the sparse autoencoder and Bayesian regularized NARX network for point forecasting of PV power. Second, density peak clustering improved by kernel Mahalanobis distance is applied to classify the dataset into multiple clusters, (...) including forecasting error and meteorological factors. Finally, the joint probability density is established by multivariate kernel density estimation to accomplish the PV power interval prediction. The proposed hybrid method is applied for the interval prediction of PV power at Yulara, Australia. Comparative research of point forecasting is implemented to evaluate the machine learning and deep learning methods, with the proposed SAE-BRNARX under four different periods. Results shows that the average values of nRMSE, MRE, nMAE, and R2 for the four periods are 4.45%, 0.90%, −0.15%, 3.39%, and 95.93%, respectively. Moreover, the results of interval prediction obtained by the other interval prediction approaches are compared with the proposed KMDDPC-MKDE. It shows that the average values of PICP, PINAW, ACE, and nMPICD for four periods are 93.93%, 9.50%, 3.93%, and 7.10% at 90% confidence level, respectively. Outcomes demonstrate that the proposed method can obtain more accuracy, a higher coverage rate, narrower average bandwidth, and a closer distance between the middle of interval and actual value than other methods. (shrink)

The relationship between gender and ethics has been extensively researched. However, previous studies have assumed that the gender–ethics association is constant; hence, scholars have seldom investigated factors potentially affecting the gender–ethics association. Thus, using managers as the research target, this study examined the relationship between gender and ethics and analyzed the moderating effect of cultural values on the gender–ethics association. The results showed that, compared with female managers, their male counterparts are more willing to justify business-related unethical behaviors such as (...) bribery and tax evasion, and that the gender difference in ethics becomes more pronounced under the cultural dimensions of collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, and gender egalitarianism. This study used data obtained through surveying 2,754 managers in 27 nations. (shrink)

Robot manipulators have been extensively used in complex environments to complete diverse tasks. The teleoperation control based on human-like adaptivity in the robot manipulator is a growing and challenging field. This paper developed a disturbance-observer-based fuzzy control framework for a robot manipulator using an electromyography- driven neuromusculoskeletal model. The motion intention was estimated by the EMG-driven NMS model with EMG signals and joint angles from the user. The desired torque was transmitted into the desired velocity for the robot manipulator system (...) through an admittance filter. In the robot manipulator system, a fuzzy logic system, utilizing an integral Lyapunov function, was applied for robot manipulator systems subject to model uncertainties and external disturbances. To compensate for the external disturbances, fuzzy approximation errors, and nonlinear dynamics, a disturbance observer was integrated into the controller. The developed control algorithm was validated with a 2-DOFs robot manipulator in simulation. The results indicate the proposed control framework is effective and crucial for the applications in robot manipulator control. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 10, Page 11-13, October 2011.

This research explores why a metallic basketball hoop is referred to as sacred within the secular realm of sports, drawing on Phil Jackson’s insights alongside the ideas of Mircea Eliade and Dōgen Zenji. Phil Jackson, known as the “Zen Master,” holds the most NBA championship rings as a coach. In Sacred Hoops, he explores a basketball world entangled with commercialism, violence, and scandals, while presenting a vision of the sport as “sacred.” Jackson’s Western religious background and his exploration of concepts (...) like “enlightened mind,” “no-mind,” and “action without intention” align closely with Eastern Zen principles. This article also examines Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane, where he explores the coexistence of the sacred and profane throughout history, and Dōgen Zenji’s philosophy of “casting off body and mind.” Using creative hermeneutics as its methodology, this study attempts to reinterpret the idea of sacredness in sports. The key findings are: (1) sacredness can emerge from the mundane/everyday world, with sports providing a space for such awareness; (2) Eliade views sacredness externally through the Western concept of hierophany; (3) Dōgen Zenji’s Eastern view focuses on internal transformation through casting off body and mind; (4) this study emphasizes the difference between Eastern and Western views of the sacred, proposing an Eastern interpretation; and (5) through mindful practice, basketball players can unify with the game, transcend individual limits, and achieve tranquility and sacredness. (shrink)

Student–teacher relationships have been examined by many studies. However, an omission still exists, the existing scales are not appropriate for studying STRs in private colleges because of the special character of these schools. This paper presents the development and validation of Private-College Student–Teacher Relationship Scale, the first instrument to evaluate student–teacher relationships in private colleges. The PCSTRS has six dimensions: trust, interaction, intimacy, care, approval, and comfort. In our main study, the validity and reliability of the six-factor PCSTRS model were (...) demonstrated. The result of internal consistency coefficient indicated the high reliability of the scale, and the result of concurrent validity indicated the significant correlational relationships between the PCSTRS with other STR measures. In supplementary study, the PCSTRS was administered to 360 participants to confirm the applicability of PCSTRS and investigate the relation of STRs and students’ traits, performance, and wellbeing, as well as the differences between the private school and the public school in this relation; the analyses revealed that there were significant differences in trust, intimacy, and care between private and public colleges; positive correlations were found between STRs and self-esteem, self-efficacy, academic performance, extracurricular activity involvement, and subjective wellbeing. Present research firstly develops the PCSTRS, examined the reliability and validity, and provides the proposed nomological network among related constructs. (shrink)

In this study, we used the framework of institutional anomie theory The future of anomie theory, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1997) to examine the relationship between supervisors’ ethics and their personal value orientation, including achievement and pecuniary materialism. We further investigated whether these individual-level associations were moderated by societal factors consisting of income inequality, government efficiency, foreign competition, and technological advancement. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze data of 16,464 supervisors from 42 nations obtained from the 2010–2014 wave of (...) the World Values Survey. Results showed that strong achievement value orientation was positively related to willingness to justify ethically suspect behaviors; government efficiency and technological advancement, respectively, had negative and positive moderating effects on this relationship. On the other hand, foreign competition had a positive moderating effect on the association between pecuniary materialism and ethicality. (shrink)

We investigate two issues about the subjective experience of one's body: first, is the experience of owning a full-body fundamentally different from the experience of owning a body-part?Second, when I experience a bodily sensation, does it guarantee that I cannot be wrong about whether it is me who feels it? To address these issues, we conducted a series of experiments that combined the rubber hand illusion (RHI) and the “body swap illusion.” The subject wore a head mounted display (HMD) connected (...) with a stereo camera set on the experimenter's head. Sitting face to face, they used their right hand holding a paintbrush to brush each other's left hand. Through the HMD, the subject adopted the experimenter's first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP: the subject watched either the experimenter's hand from the adopted 1PP, and/or the subject's own hand from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP) in the opposite direction (180°), or the subject's full body from the adopted 3PP (180°, with or without face). The synchronous full-body conditions generate a “self-touching illusion”: many participants felt that “I was brushing my own hand!” We found that (1) the sense of body-part ownership and the sense of full-body ownership are not fundamentally different from each other; and (2) our data present a strong case against the mainstream philosophical view called the immunity principle (IEM). We argue that it is possible for misrepresentation to occur in the subject's sense of “experiential ownership” (the sense that I am the one who is having this bodily experience). We discuss these findings and conclude that not only the sense of body ownership but also the sense of experiential ownership call for further interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

This mixed-methods study examined Grade 4 students’ growth in two types of civic competencies—argumentation skills and disciplinary thinking, and how civic competencies interweave and co-develop over an academic year in the context of an interdisciplinary social studies curriculum called Digital Civic Learning (DCL). A total of 106 fourth-grade students (38.7% girls) and 6 social studies teachers participated in the study. Quantitative evidence indicates that students in the DCL curriculum significantly improved in their argumentation skills (argument-counterargument integration, claim-evidence integration) and disciplinary (...) thinking. These civic competencies became more strongly associated with each other by the end of the curriculum. Multiple case studies revealed how two students synergistically applied their evolving argumentation skills and disciplinary thinking through distinct learning pathways. These results paint a complex picture of the development of students’ disciplinary thinking and integrating of argumentation skills, and the role of the curriculum in fostering the concurrent development of these civic competencies. Findings align with our overarching assumption that, through collaborative discourse and immersive learning about complex social issues, students can leverage their disciplinary thinking during argumentative social interactions, grappling with solutions and seeking common ground; continuous discourse among peers further enhances argumentation skills while honing disciplinary thinking. This study bridges the research-practice gap by providing evidence for the co-development of argumentation and disciplinary thinking within social studies classrooms. Our findings underscore the importance of inquiry-based learning, aligning with the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework, fostering critical civic competencies, and empowering students to actively participate in democratic processes. Particularly in this digitalized society, DCL emerges as a promising approach to integrate disciplinary thinking and argumentation skills across both physical and digital environments, fostering informed and active citizenship among students. (shrink)

Short-term motor practice leads to plasticity in the primary motor cortex. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that determine the increase in corticospinal tract excitability after motor practice, with special focus on two factors; “the level of muscle activity” and “the presence/absence of a goal of keeping the activity level constant.” Fifteen healthy subjects performed four types of rapid thumb adduction in separate sessions. In the “comfortable task” and “forceful task”, the subjects adducted their thumb using (...) comfortable and strong forces. In the “comfortable with a goal task” and “forceful with a goal task”, subjects controlled the muscle activity at the same level as in the C and F, respectively, by adjusting the peak electromyographic amplitude within the target ranges. Paired associative stimulation, which combines peripheral nerve stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation, with an inter-stimulus interval of 25 ms was also done. Before and after the motor tasks and PAS25, TMS was applied to the M1. None of the four tasks showed any temporary changes in behavior, meaning no learning occurred. Motor-evoked potential amplitude increased only after the FG and it exhibited a positive correlation with the MEP increase after PAS25, suggesting that FG and PAS25 share at least similar plasticity mechanisms in the M1. Resting motor threshold decreased only after FG, suggesting that FG would also be associated with the membrane depolarization of M1 neurons. These results suggest task-dependent plasticity from the synergistic effect of forceful muscle activity and of setting a goal of keeping the activity level constant. (shrink)

The purposes of research were to describe the neonatal clinicians' personal views and attitudes on neonatal ethical decision-making, to identify factors that might affect these attitudes and to compare the attitudes between neonatal physicians and neonatal nurses in Taiwan. Research was a cross-sectional design and a questionnaire was used to reach different research purposes. A convenient sample was used to recruit 24 physicians and 80 neonatal nurses from four neonatal intensive care units in Taiwan. Most participants agreed with suggesting a (...) do not resuscitate (DNR) order to parents for dying neonates (86.5%). However, the majority agreed with talking to patients about DNR orders is difficult (76.9%). Most participants agree that review by the clinical ethics committee is needed before the recommendation of ‘DNR’ to parents (94.23%) and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to agree to this (p=0.043). During the end-of-life care, most clinicians accepted to continue current treatment without adding others (70%) and withholding of emergency treatments (75%); however, active euthanasia, the administration of drug to end-of-life, was not considered acceptable by both physicians and nurses in this research (96%). Based on our research results, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage for neonatal clinicians are needed. In Taiwan, neonatal physicians and nurses hold similar values and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for neonates. In order to improve the clinicians' communication skills with parents about DNR options and to change clinicians' attitudes for providing enough pain-relief medicine to dying neonates, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage are needed. (shrink)

With the emergence of organ donation and donation technology, the previous indivisibility of the human body becomes divisible, and different human organs form a new life subject. With reference to specific case studies in China, a new life, consisting of donated organs from different bodies by donation, can be called “donated life.” Donated life is a win‐win action between altruism and egoism, that is, to save the lives of others and to regenerate the organs of donors or their relatives. Due (...) to the emergence of this kind of life, traditional social ethics theories based on the marriage‐related family find it difficult to difficult to explain the new realities. Thus, new thinking about social ethics is necessary. (shrink)

The Hygiene Hypothesis has been recognized as an important cornerstone to explain the sudden increase in the prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases in modernized culture. The recent epidemic of allergic diseases is in contrast with the gradual implementation of Homo sapiens sapiens to the present-day forms of civilization. This civilization forms a gradual process with cumulative effects on the human immune system, which co-developed with parasitic and commensal Helminths. The clinical manifestation of this epidemic, however, became only visible in (...) the second half of the twentieth century. In order to explain these clinical effects in terms of the underlying IgE-mediated reactions to innocuous environmental antigens, the low biodiversity of antigens in the domestic environment plays a pivotal role. The skewing of antigen exposure as a cumulative effect of reducing biodiversity in the immediate human environment as well as in changing food habits, provides a sufficient and parsimonious explanation for the rise in allergic diseases in a highly developed and helminth-free modernized culture. Socio-economic tendencies that incline towards a further reduction of environmental biodiversity may provide serious concern for future health. This article explains that the “Hygiene Hypothesis”, the “Old Friends Hypothesis”, and the “Skewed Antigen Exposure Hypothesis” are required to more fully explain the rise of allergy in modern societies. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of leader emotional intelligence, leadership styles, organizational commitment, and trust on job performance. A questionnaire was administered to the participants, who were real estate brokers in Kaohsiung City. Of the 980 questionnaires administered, 348 valid responses were received, indicating an effective response rate of 35.5%. Structural equation modeling was used for the analysis. The results show that leader emotional intelligence has a significant and positive effect on trust in supervisors, and transformational leadership and trust within (...) a team have significant and positive effects on job performance. In addition, organizational commitment has a significant and positive effect on job performance. Trust within a team mediates the significant and positive effect of leader emotional intelligence on job performance. Although transactional leadership has no direct, positive, and significant effects on employee job performance, trust in the workplace shaped by a leader’s leadership style will empower a team’s spirit and boost their morale, thereby indirectly affecting their job performance in a positive manner. (shrink)