Drawing on stakeholder theory and the concept of enlightened self-interest, we argue that firms that actively engage in corporate philanthropic giving also tend to demonstrate greater concern for investors’ interests by providing more transparent financial information and avoiding corporate misconduct. Moreover, the relationships between corporate giving, financial information transparency, and corporate misconduct vary significantly according to the firm’s ownership type, which affects the fundamental motivations for corporate philanthropy. In a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms from the 2003–2009 period, we (...) find a positive relationship between corporate giving and financial transparency, and note that the relationship is stronger for non-state-owned enterprises. We also find a significantly negative association between corporate giving and corporate misconduct for non-SOEs, but not for SOEs. Taken together, these findings suggest that responsibility to both stakeholders and shareholders is a vital part of building trust and reputations in China’s non-SOE sector. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper examines critically the notion of reflection as self-objectification and points out its insufficiency in accounting for the pathological phenomenon of hyperreflexivity. It proposes an understanding of reflection as situated and motivated from within a world and having a normative aspect that concerns the very life of the reflecting person. On this account, the paper argues, on the one hand, that both phenomenological reflection and hyperreflexivity can be viewed as forms of reflection characterized by loss of the world. On (...) the other hand, by construing the phenomenological loss as imaginative vis-à-vis the real loss of hyperreflexivity, the paper emphasizes a difference between the two domains. (shrink)

Job satisfaction, resilience, and teacher well-being, as the three major psychological variables emotioncy- based education, have received special attention among English as a foreign language researchers. To pursue the line of this inquiry, this particular study aimed to investigate the relationship between Chinese EFL teachers’ job satisfaction, resilience, and their well-being. To conduct the study, 343 Chinese EFL teachers with different academic qualifications, various academic degrees, and different majors voluntarily participated in this study. The results of the study showed that (...) job satisfaction and resilience could jointly predict 56.4 of the variance in psychological well-being. Both variables were the significant predictors of well-being, while job satisfaction was a better predictor, uniquely explaining 29.6 of well-being’s variance. Based on the findings, some pedagogical implication for administrators, educational institutions, and EFL teachers were discussed in the article. (shrink)

Objective: To systematically analyze the effectiveness of technology-based interventions for reducing loneliness in older adults.Methods: We searched relevant electronic databases from inception to April 2021, which included Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, SpringerLink, EMBASE, CNKI, and Wanfang. The following criteria were used: study design—randomized controlled trial designs, people—older adults, intervention—technology-based interventions in which a core component involved the use of technology to reduce loneliness in older adults; and outcome—reduction of loneliness level in terms of rating scale scores. Two reviewers (...) independently identified eligible studies, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies. A third reviewer resolved any conflicts. The Cochrane Collaboration's bias assessment tool was used to evaluate the risk of bias for the included studies, and Review Manager 5.4 software was used for the meta-analysis. A random effects model was adopted to measure estimates of loneliness reduction, and standard mean differences with a 95% confidence interval were calculated for each intervention-control contrast, and the I2 statistic was applied to examine heterogeneity.Results: A total of 391 participants from six RCTs were included in the review. Of these, three studies were rated as low-quality, and the remaining three were rated as moderate-quality studies. The meta-analysis showed that the evidence regarding the effects on loneliness of technology-based interventions compared with control groups was uncertain, and suggested that technology-based interventions resulted in little to no difference in loneliness reduction compared to control groups. Two types of technology-based interventions were identified: smartphone-based video calls and computer-based training with Internet usage. The subgroup analysis found low-quality evidence to support the effectiveness of both intervention types.Conclusions: We found no current evidence to support that technology-based interventions were effective compared to different control conditions in reducing loneliness in older adults. This suggests that more research is needed to investigate the effects of technology-based interventions on loneliness in older adults. (shrink)

Food safety and food quality are two closely related aspects of the food management system. The difference between the two is that one keeps consumers safe while the other keeps consumers satisfied. This study examined the differences in how consumers value food safety and food quality with a focus on the influence of loss aversion on one’s psychological level and of income effect on one’s socio-demographic level. Our findings indicate that loss aversion and income effect significantly influence the way consumers (...) value food safety vs. quality labels when considering potential health risks and food price. High risk-averse and low-income consumers with strong loss aversion and a weak income effect show a higher demand for food safety labels as a way to ensure easy access to safety indications. Low risk-averse and high-income consumers with weak loss aversion and a strong income effect show a higher demand for food quality labels because they hope to gain more health benefits from high-quality food at good prices. This study provides insights that will assist public authorities and food industry in balancing food safety control and food quality improvement in order to meet the heterogeneous market demand changing alongside the transition of China’s food consumption and production. (shrink)

In sexually reproducing organisms maintenance of germ stem cell immortality is fundamental for transmitting genetic material to future generations. While previous research has mainly considered intrinsic regulatory mechanisms in the germline, our recent study has found a direct contribution of somatic cells in preserving germline immortality via the somatically expressed endoribonuclease ENDU‐2 in Caenorhabditis elegans. We have identified ENDU‐2 as a secreted protein that can be taken up by the germline. Here, we discuss how ENDU‐2 might uncouple its RNA‐binding and (...) RNA‐cleavage activities to control gene expression via either an endoribonuclease dependent or an independent way. We also speculate on a possible functional conservation of its mammalian homologs in mediating cell‐cell communication as well as its potential significance in understanding human pathogenesis such as cancer development. (shrink)

The evolution of a variety of important chromophore‐dependent biological processes, including microbial light sensing and mammalian color vision, relies on protein modifications that alter the spectral characteristics of a bound chromophore. Three different color opsins share the same chromophore, but have three distinct absorptions that together cover the entire visible spectrum, giving rise to trichromatic vision. The influence of opsins on the absorbance of the chromophore has been studied through methods such as model compounds, opsin mutagenesis, and computational modeling. The (...) recent development of rhodopsin mimic that uses small soluble proteins to recapitulate the binding and wavelength tuning of the native opsins provides a new platform for studying protein‐regulated spectral tuning. The ability to achieve far‐red shifted absorption in the rhodopsin mimic system was attributed to a combination of the lack of a counteranion proximal to the iminium, and a uniformly neutral electrostatic environment surrounding the chromophore. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge in accounts motivated by information theory that consider language production to be partially driven by a preference for communicative efficiency. Evidence from discourse production (i.e., production beyond the sentence level) has been argued to suggest that speakers distribute information across discourse so as to hold the conditional per-word entropy associated with each word constant, which would facilitate efficient information transfer (Genzel & Charniak, 2002). This hypothesis implies that the conditional (contextualized) probabilities of linguistic units (...) affect speakers’ preferences during production. Here, we extend this work in two ways. First, we explore how preceding cues are integrated into contextualized probabilities, a question which so far has received little to no attention. Specifically, we investigate how a cue's maximal informativity about upcoming words (the cue's effectiveness) decays as a function of the cue's recency. Based on properties of linguistic discourses as well as properties of human memory, we analytically derive a model of cue effectiveness decay and evaluate it against cross-linguistic data from 12 languages. Second, we relate the information theoretic accounts of discourse production to well-established mechanistic (activation-based) accounts: We relate contextualized probability distributions over words to their relative activation in a lexical network given preceding discourse. (shrink)

Between the sense of self and the reality of self Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 113-118 DOI 10.1007/s11097-011-9234-y Authors Wenjing Cai, Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 140-142, 5th floor, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark Journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Online ISSN 1572-8676 Print ISSN 1568-7759 Journal Volume Volume 11 Journal Issue Volume 11, Number 1.

This study empirically examines whether firms’ environmental capital expenditures impact institutional investors’ investment decisions in the Chinese market. We particularly examine the impact of ownership type on the relationship of environmental capital expenditures and the behavior of different types of institutional investors by classifying institutional investors into two categories, short-term and long-term investors. In addition, this study further investigates whether environmental capital expenditures related to ownership type increase firm value. We find that long-term institutional investors tend to invest in state-owned (...) firms making environmental capital expenditures. Results also indicate that, with governmental backing and encouragement, the market value of SOEs making more environmental capital expenditures is likely to increase. However, no similar results are found for non-SOEs. (shrink)

Previous studies have reported that general or photo-specific social media use was associated with women’s body dissatisfaction and body image disturbance. The current study replicated and expanded upon these findings by identifying the positive association between social media influencer viewing and intentions to change appearance. This study surveyed a sample of 7,015 adult female TikTok users in China regarding their social media influencer viewing frequency, self-objectification, social comparison tendencies when watching short videos, intentions to change appearance, and demographics. The results (...) showed that female TikTok users’ self-objectification mediated the association between their influencer viewing frequency and their intentions to change appearance. Furthermore, social comparison tendencies moderated the association between influencer viewing and intentions to change appearance in that the proposed association was stronger for female TikTok users who had lower social comparison tendencies when watching short videos, compared to female TikTok users who had higher social comparison tendencies. The counter-intuitive finding on social comparison tendencies indicated that women who have higher social comparison tendencies may be more aware of the negative influences and adjust their expectations. The observed association between social media influencer viewing and intentions to change appearance was statistically significant but trivial in terms of effect size. Although the result could warn policymakers and practitioners to design media and health literacy campaigns to cultivate body positivity, caution should be exercised when evaluating the practical implications. (shrink)

This study examined factors including health-related anxiety, preexisting misinformation beliefs, and repeated exposure contributing to individuals’ acceptance of health misinformation. Through a large-scale online survey, this study found that health-related anxiety was positively associated with health misinformation acceptance. Preexisting misinformation beliefs, as well as repeated exposure to health misinformation, were both positively associated with health misinformation acceptance. The results also showed that demographic variables were significantly associated with health misinformation acceptance. In general, females accepted more health misinformation compared to males. (...) Participants’ age was negatively associated with health misinformation acceptance. Participants’ education level and income were both negatively associated with their acceptance of health misinformation. (shrink)

The evaluation of tourism competitiveness is an important tool for analyzing the potential of tourism in a specific context. Enshi Autonomous Prefecture in China is selected as a case through which to explore the potential of mountain tourism and its competitiveness in the tourism industry. This study develops EAP’s mountain tourism competitiveness model focusing on three criteria: core competitiveness of mountain tourism, the economic environment’s competitiveness, and infrastructure competitiveness. Context-specific customized evaluation index has been applied to data collected from EAP (...) Statistical Yearbook for 2005–2014. The study reveals that the value of EAP’s mountain tourism core competitiveness, economic and environmental competitiveness, and infrastructure competitiveness are 84.292, 13.4, and 2.308%, respectively. When tourism core competitiveness is increased by one unit, EAP’s mountain tourism competitiveness will increase by 0.84292 units. Similarly, when economic environment competitiveness is increased by one unit, EAP’s mountain tourism competitiveness will increase by 0.134 units. EAP’s mountain tourism competitiveness increases by 0.02308 units when infrastructure competitiveness increases by one unit. The major reasons for low levels of competitiveness were lack of awareness of the county authority, a low level of cooperation, and weak infrastructure. The recommendations from the study’s findings are as follows. Firstly, the county authority should appropriately improve the relationship between competition and cooperation, maintaining cooperation in competition, and competition in cooperation. Secondly, the county authority should strengthen communication by establishing an effective coordinated mechanism. Thirdly, the county authority should improve the sense of cooperation and jointly develop the mountain tourism market. Fourthly, the county authority should improve the construction of tourism infrastructure and break down the barriers to tourism cooperation. The study’s findings help develop a “win-win” cooperation mechanism within the competition and support the sustainable development of the mountain tourism industry while reducing poverty and promoting the revitalization of the mountains of China. (shrink)

The article explores a gradual refinement of the notion of reflection in Husserlian phenomenology. In his early period, Husserl takes phenomenological reflection to attain adequate evidence, since its object is self-given in an absolute and complete manner. However, this conception of reflection does not remain unchanged. Husserl later realizes that immanent perception or phenomenological reflection also involves a certain horizonality and naivety that has to do with its temporal nature and must be queried in a further critical, apodictic reflection. Focusing (...) more on the notion of apodicticity than adequacy, Husserl subsequently ascribes a new methodological role to reflection: instead of a mere epistemic warrant that guarantees for us the ultimate truth of our experiential life once and for all, phenomenological reflection ensures the strictness of phenomenology insofar as it entails an ethical-existential dimension as the norm of a life-form where the subject pursues full self-understanding and self-justification. (shrink)

In order to solve a series of problems brought about by rapid development of science and technology, it is necessary not only to conduct in-depth research on science and technology ethics, but also to strengthen ethics education in science and technology. China’s five technical universities exemplify the specific situation and characteristics of ethics at Chinese technical universities, and can be compared to the situation in South Africa. China’s ethics education in the 5TU emphasizes the use of traditional ideological and cultural (...) resources, and practical cases. The teaching methods focus on combining traditional Chinese ethics with foreign experience and teaching methods, aiming at cultivating students’ ability to solve specific problems in the real world. This paper also evaluates and reflects on the short-term and long-term effects of China’s ethics education in science and technology, revealing some special problems. Ethics education in science and technology at the 5TU is based on the principle of “unity of knowledge and behaviour”. It is hoped that China’s ethics education founded on traditional Chinese thought, can make a valuable contribution to the development of global engineering ethics. (shrink)

The present article aims to illuminate a notion of finite freedom in both Heidegger and Levinas. Levinas criticizes the Heideggerian ontology for holding an egoistic, unconstrained notion of freedom. The article first responds to such a criticism by showing that the Heideggerian notion of freedom as self-binding involves normativity. It then argues that both Heidegger and Levinas propose a notion of finite freedom as the unity of autonomy and heteronomy. Finally, the article also sheds light on what different approaches to (...) the source of normativity separate the two philosophers’ understandings of freedom. (shrink)

Prior research suggests that ownership structure is associated to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developed countries. This article examines whether and how ownership structure affects CSR in emerging markets using Chinese firms' social responsibility ranking. Our empirical evidences show that for non-state-owned firms, corporate ownership dispersion is positively associated to CSR. However, for state-owned firms, whose controlling shareholder is the state, this relation is reversed. We attribute the reversed relationship to political interferences and further test this hypothesis by demonstrating that (...) regional economic development is negatively related to CSR for state-owned firms due to decreased political interference in more developed areas. This study is the first to directly examine the relationship between the dispersion of corporate ownership and CSR in emerging markets, and our results depict that it is important to consider ownership type in assessing CSR in emerging market where state ownership is still prevalent such as China. The results also reveal that firm size, profitability, employee power, leverage, and growth opportunity affect CSR in China. (shrink)

This research investigates an integrated problem of construction scheduling and resource allocation. Inspired by complex construction practices, multi-time scale resources are considered for different length of terms, such as permanent staff and temporary workers. Differing from the common stochastic optimization problems, the resource price is supposed to be an uncertain parameter of which probability distribution is unknown, but observed data is given. Hence, the problem here is called Data-Driven Construction Scheduling and Multiscale Resource Allocation Problem. Based on likelihood robust optimization, (...) a multiobjective programming is developed where project completion time and expected resource cost are minimized simultaneously. To solve the problem efficiently, a double-layer metaheuristic comprised of Multiple Objective Particle Swarm Optimization and interior point method named MOPSO-interior point algorithm is designed. The new solution presentation scheme and decoding process are developed. Finally, a construction case is used to validate the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that the MOPSO-interior point algorithm can reduce resource cost and improve the efficiency of resource utilization. (shrink)

This study aims to optimize the enterprise criminal law-based copyright protection. This exploration discusses the role of the entrepreneurial spirit in criminal law-based copyright protection. To study the relationship between ES and criminal law-based copyright protection, the concepts of ES, criminal law-based copyright protection, and enterprise innovation are given. Next, by collecting literature, hypotheses are put forward. They include the relationship between ES and enterprise innovation, ES and the criminal law-based copyright protection, and the intermediary role of ES in the (...) criminal law-based copyright protection and economic growth. Then, relevant models are established. Finally, the hypotheses are tested through experiments and empirical analysis, and the model is regressed to test the experimental data’s robustness and the scale’s reliability and validity. The empirical analysis shows that: the significance of ES under the 1% index is greater than 0. It indicates that the higher the managers’ ES is, the greater the enterprise innovation is. The significance of criminal law-based copyright protection on ES under the 1% index is greater than 0 and the regression coefficient is 0.59. This shows that criminal law-based copyright protection has a significant positive impact on ES. Under the l% index, the significance of ES on economic growth is greater than 0 and the regression coefficient is 0.63. It shows that ES mediates the relationship between criminal law-based copyright protection and economic growth. Therefore, strengthening criminal law-based copyright protection improves the ES and leads to faster enterprise and regional economic development. Therefore, the state should pay attention to criminal law-based copyright protection to encourage innovation to promote enterprise development. This exploration studies the relationship among ES, economic growth, enterprise innovation, and criminal law-based copyright protection. The finding provides a theoretical reference for criminal law-based copyright protection. (shrink)

This study explored how the nature of CEOs’ human capital affects the scope of their firms’ corporate social responsibility initiatives. By integrating upper echelons theory with the attention-based view of the firm, the analyses showed that generalist CEOs with a broader range of knowledge and skills tend to aim their firms’ corporate social responsibility efforts toward a broader range of responsibility domains than do specialist CEOs with a narrower range of knowledge and skills. The difference is weaker when a firm’s (...) board has a sustainability committee or when industry peers are active in a broad range of corporate social responsibility domains. These findings are supported by data on S&P 1500 firms spanning 2000 to 2018. (shrink)

This paper explores what is understood by the phrase ‘spontaneous movement’. We discern five different understandings of spontaneity in the usage of the phrase: 1) spontaneous movement as automatic machine-like mechanistic, 2) spontaneous movement as free, 3) spontaneous movement as primal animateness of the body, 4) spontaneous movement as embodied responsive dealing in the world, 5) spontaneous movement as a force of nature. The first two understandings are rooted in a dualistic view, with the dichotomies of voluntary/involuntary and mind/body in (...) the Western philosophical tradition. The next two arise from a phenomenological reflection on the body, drawn from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, while the last comes from a holistic Eastern view of the body, human beings and nature. We argue that the latter three understandings of spontaneity demonstrate three aspects of a more comprehensive picture of the spontaneity of human movement. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe guiding question of this comparative study is the relation between transcendental theory and common-sense realism: how to understand their compatibility, but also possible tensions between the two. This question concerns, in a broader sense, the relation between philosophy and natural life, or more precisely, what philosophy possibly can and cannot do for natural life. In the following discussion, I first introduce the idealism-realism controversy in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. I then move on to McDowell’s theory and look into a significant (...) convergence between the two philosophies, namely, their insistence on the “unboundedness” of subjectivity, and I clarify how this shared viewpoint makes their proposals compatible with common-sense realism. In a third section, I elaborate the relation between a transcendental and a natural stance by turning to Husserl’s method of phenomenological reduction. In the end, by attending to the anti-naturalism of Husserl and McDowell, I wish to shed s... (shrink)

Metaphors function not only as linguistic constructs but also as profound vehicles for spiritual and philosophical reflection in visual narratives. In cinema, multimodal metaphors—expressed through sound, imagery, and narrative structure—serve as powerful tools for conveying existential, ethical, and religious themes. Within the context of globalization and modernization, contemporary Chinese ethnic films often explore themes of ecological crisis, cultural displacement, and the search for identity. These themes, embedded in public consciousness, are projected onto the cinematic screen through a rich tapestry of (...) multimodal metaphors, shaping audiences' perceptions of human nature, spirituality, and the cultural imagination of China’s ethnic minorities. Grounded in cognitive metaphor theory and philosophical hermeneutics, this study employs the Film Metaphor Identification Procedure (FILMIP) to analyze the Tibetan film Snow Leopard, directed by Pema Tseden. It examines how multimodal metaphors contribute to the cognitive construction of religious and philosophical meaning in Chinese ethnic cinema, mapping various modalities to explore their deeper metaphysical and moral connotations. Through an analysis of symbolic imagery, environmental motifs, and human-animal relationships, the study reveals how the film engages with Buddhist and indigenous spiritual traditions, reinforcing themes of karma, interconnectedness, and moral redemption. By investigating the role of multimodal metaphor in expressing transcendent and existential concerns, this research offers insights into how Chinese ethnic cinema fosters religious dialogue and shapes national and spiritual identity. The findings suggest that ethnic films, through their metaphorical richness, not only deepen audience engagement with cultural and religious narratives but also contribute to a broader philosophical discourse on faith, belonging, and the human condition. Future studies should further explore the intersection of religious symbolism, cognitive semiotics, and cinematic storytelling in constructing spiritual and philosophical meaning. (shrink)

Recent studies have revealed an astonishing diversity of sex chromosomes in many vertebrate lineages, prompting questions about the mechanisms of sex chromosome turnover. While there is considerable population genetic theory about the evolutionary forces promoting sex chromosome replacement, this theory has not yet been integrated with our understanding of the molecular and developmental genetics of sex determination. Here, we review recent data to examine four questions about how the structure of gene networks influences the evolution of sex determination. We argue (...) that patterns of epistasis, arising from the structure of genetic networks, may play an important role in regulating the rates and patterns of sex chromosome replacement. (shrink)