Attention has become an important focal point of recent work in ethics and epistemology, yet philosophers continue to be noncommittal about what attention is. In this paper, I defend attention as selection for action in a weak form, namely that selection for action is sufficient for attention. I show that selection for action in this form is part of how we, the folk, experience it and how the cognitive scientist studies it. That is, selection for action pulls empirical and folk-psychology (...) together. Accordingly, philosophers who take seriously either source have reason to work with selection for action as their starting conception of attention. This conception provides a way to bridge empirical and philosophical concerns where attention is central. The theoretical advantages of selection for action have been obscured by the common opinion that it is easily refuted. I defend the position against many of the published objections and then deploy it to provide a foundation for the intuitive, but inchoate idea of attention being more or less, focusing on recent work in the ethics of attention. (shrink)

Attention has been theorized as a system comprising three networks that can be estimated reliably by the attention network test ; the three networks are defined as alerting, orienting, and conflict control. The present study aims to identify the attention networks that are crucial for elite shooting and archery athletes and to examine whether mindfulness training can improve elite athletes' attention networks. We compared the performances in ANT between 62 elite athletes from the Chinese national team of shooting and archery (...) and 49 athletes from a provincial team in China. The results indicate three well-functioned attention networks in both groups, but elite athletes in the national team responded faster overall than athletes in the provincial team. The 62 elite athletes in the national team then received mindfulness training with varied periods ranging from 5 to 8 weeks, after which the ANT was re-administered. After mindfulness training, the elite athletes improved in orienting and conflict control networks compared with their pre-training performances. These results suggest that elite shooting and archery athletes in the national team are more efficient in all three attention networks, which means that they are able to reach the alerting state faster, make better use of environmental information, and suppress interference from distractors more efficiently. Moreover, the orienting and conflict control networks of the elite shooting and archery athletes can be improved by mindfulness training. We conclude that mindfulness practice should be considered as a useful addition to daily training for shooting and archery athletes. (shrink)

We study the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance by comparing the portfolio returns of firms with changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR) intensity. Using an extensive US sample from the MSCI ESG database, we find that improvement in the overall CSR is generally value enhancing. The relationship varies with CSR dimensions. More importantly, the relationship shifts differently for various CSR dimensions during the crisis period when trust in the society is low and financial resource is limited. Improvement (...) in environment, human rights, and product characteristics shows higher financial returns during the financial crisis period, whereas the value enhancement of improvement in employee relations is more pronounced during the non-crisis period. (shrink)

Joe Horton argues that partial aggregation yields unacceptable verdicts in cases with risk and multiple decisions. I begin by showing that Horton’s challenge does not depend on risk, since exactly similar arguments apply to riskless cases. The underlying conflict Horton exposes is between partial aggregation and certain principles of diachronic choice. I then provide two arguments against these diachronic principles: they conflict with intuitions about parity, prerogatives, and cyclical preferences, and they rely on an odd assumption about diachronic choice. Finally, (...) I offer an explanation, on behalf of partial aggregation, for why these diachronic principles fail. (shrink)

Differential leadership as a localized leadership style gradually developed on the basis of the Pattern of Differential Sequence. It plays a dual role in stimulating “insider subordinates” and “outsider subordinates” through the dynamic transformation of the roles. Using the process of game reasoning, the study identifies the differing principles used by insider subordinates and outsider subordinates in implementing deviant innovative behaviors. The simulation graph presents the perceived benefits of employees performing or not performing deviant innovative behaviors as clues during the (...) reasoning process, and implements deviant innovative behaviors for the high risk-taking trait of insider subordinates and the high internal control personality of outsider subordinates who implement deviant innovation. The theoretical derivation of behavior provides relevant references, and provides counter measures for effectively promoting employees’ deviant innovative behavior in the context of differential leadership. (shrink)

Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists’ views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, (...) i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units. (shrink)

De-anthropocentrism is the leitmotif of philosophy in the twenty-first century, encouraging diverse and competing thoughts as to how this goal may be achieved. This article argues that the method by which we may achieve de-anthropocentrism is ethical rather than metaphysical – it must involve a creation of the self, rather than an interpretation of the given human conditions. Through engagements with the thought of Nietzsche, Levinas, and Foucault, and a close reading of Baudelaire’s poem “La Beauté,” I will illustrate three (...) ethical commitments essential to de-anthropocentrism: to abandon the claim to knowledge associated with human reason, to remain in perpetual quest of an object, and to transgress the given perceptual structure through aesthetic experience. In contrast to Kantian philosophy built upon universal human reason, art is the ethical arena where each artist creates their own way to relate to the object, while de-anthropocentrism occurs – this article argues – when the artist includes the self as the field of creation. Object-Oriented Ontology in my assessment is the only branch of philosophy that truly achieves de-anthropocentrism. (shrink)

According to one view of alethic modality, alethic modality is deontic modality with respect to thoughts or language. To say that something is necessary is to prescribe norms on how we must think or use language. This view has been argued to have many philosophical advantages over the traditional view that takes alethic modality to describe things in the world. In this article, I argue that the deontic view also enjoys a wide range of empirical support from linguistics and psychology.

In many real-world gambles, a non-trivial amount of time passes before the uncertainty is resolved but after a choice is made. An individual may have a preference between gambles with identical probability distributions over final outcomes if they differ in the timing of resolution of uncertainty. In this domain, utility consists not only of the consumption of outcomes, but also the psychological utility induced by an unresolved gamble. We term this utility anxiety. Since a reflective decision maker may want to (...) include anxiety explicitly in analysis of unresolved lotteries, a multiple-outcome model for evaluating lotteries with delayed resolution of uncertainty is developed. The result is a rank-dependent utility representation (e.g., Quiggin, 1982), in which period weighting functions are related iteratively. Substitution rules are proposed for evaluating compound temporal lotteries. The representation is appealing for a number of reasons. First, probability weights can be interpreted as the cognitive attention allocated to certain outcomes. Second, the model disaggregates strength of preference from temporal risk aversion and thus provides some insight into the old debate about the relationship between von Neumann–Morgenstern utility functions and strength of preference value functions. (shrink)

Using Conversation Analytic methods, the present study attempts to analyze the various functions of face-based therapist empathy, and how they are sequentially realized in different psychotherapeutic settings. Four types of face-based therapeutic functions are discussed; more specifically, it is illustrated how therapist empathy may serve to maintain, enhance, threaten or even save the client’s face. The findings gained could contribute to a better understanding of the face-based therapeutic functions of empathy; also, the study may inspire researchers to further investigate other (...) functions of therapist empathy in psychotherapy. (shrink)

When solving a complex problem in a group, should group members always choose the best available solution that they are aware of? In this paper, I build simulation models to show that, perhaps surprisingly, a group of agents who individually randomly follow a better available solution than their own can end up outperforming a group of agents who individually always follow the best available solution. This result has implications for the feminist philosophy of science and social epistemology.

One famous debate in contemporary epistemology considers whether there is always one unique, epistemically rational way to respond to a given body of evidence. Generally speaking, answering “yes” to this question makes one a proponent of the Uniqueness thesis, while those who answer “no” are called “permissivists”. Another influential recent debate concerns whether non-truth-related factors can be the basis of epistemic justification, knowledge, or rational belief. Traditional theories answer “no”, and are therefore considered “purists”. However, more recently many theorists have (...) argued to the contrary, claiming that impurist factors, such as practical stakes, can sometimes encroach or even override truth-related considerations. This paper bridges the two debates by presenting and defending what I call “Impurist Permissivism”. I support Impurist Permissivism by showing how it can resist Roger White’s famous Argument from Arbitrariness (2005). (shrink)

We explore Boolean-valued models of set theory with a class of urelements. In an existing construction, which we call UB, every urelement is its own B-name. We prove the fundamental theorem of UB in the context of ZFUR (i.e., ZF with urelements formulated with Replacement). In particular, UB is shown to preserve Replacement and hence ZFUR. Moreover, UB can both destroy axioms, such as the DCω1-scheme, and recover axioms, such as the Collection Principle. One drawback of UB is that it (...) does not permit mixing names, resulting in a lack of fullness. To address this, we introduce a new construction, UB‾, which is closed under mixtures. We prove that there is an elementary embedding from UB to UB‾. Over ZFUR with the Axiom of Choice, UB‾ is full for every complete Boolean algebra B just in case the Collection Principle holds. (shrink)

This study investigates the impact of bank digitalization on capital reallocation using the adoption of digital lending platforms and a difference-in-differences design. We find that digital transformation in banking facilitates the reallocation of capital from higher-risk to lower-risk sectors. This effect is particularly pronounced in regions with high levels of government influence and in city and rural commercial banks, which are more susceptible to government intervention. Our findings suggest that banks that implement digital platforms are better positioned to resist political (...) pressures, as the data-driven, automated decision-making processes make it difficult to justify risky, politically motivated loans, while increased transparency limits local government influence over credit allocation. The effects of digitalization on capital reallocation are further amplified in banks with opaque information environments, weak internal control, and high credit risks. Additional analyses show that the adoption of digital lending platforms improves the timeliness of loan loss recognition, reduces bank risk, and enhances operating performance. This study contributes to the literature on digitalization by highlighting its role in improving capital allocation in the banking sector and offers insights into how technological advancements can mitigate the risks posed by political intervention and high-risk lending. (shrink)

This study employs quantitative and qualitative methodologies mainly to examine how UNFCCC Executive Secretaries use concessive but-constructions and linguistic polyphony to implicitly argue points of view and convey stance in speeches on climate change. Our findings indicate that, in order to achieve its goals for global climate governance while adhering to humanitarian and diplomatic principles, UNFCCC speeches delivered to the Parties to the Convention and the Stakeholders emphasize the urgent need for concerted action on climate change while implicitly expressing discontent (...) and mild criticism of various Parties and Stakeholders for failing to do their fair share in support of such action. This style of discourse aims to promote group unity, solidarity, and transparency while minimizing the possibility of offending any Parties or Stakeholders. Nevertheless, given the urgency of addressing climate change challenges, we advise that UNFCCC speakers utilize more explicit linguistic methods that exert more direct pressure on specific Parties or Stakeholders who fail to assume their share of responsibility. In addition, we suggest that the UNFCCC focus on enabling the implementation of practical actions to limit the effects of global warming, while continuing to urge affluent countries to provide developing countries with much-needed financial and technological help. (shrink)

Lachlan observed that any nonzero d.c.e. degree bounds a nonzero c.e. degree. In this paper, we study the c.e. predecessors of d.c.e. degrees, and prove that given a nonzero d.c.e. degree , there is a c.e. degree below and a high d.c.e. degree such that bounds all the c.e. degrees below . This result gives a unified approach to some seemingly unrelated results. In particular, it has the following two known theorems as corollaries: there is a low c.e. degree isolating (...) a high d.c.e. degree [S. Ishmukhametov, G. Wu, Isolation and the high/low hierarchy, Arch. Math. Logic 41 259–266]; there is a high d.c.e. degree bounding no minimal pairs [C.T. Chong, A. Li, Y. Yang, The existence of high nonbounding degrees in the difference hierarchy, Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 138 31–51]. (shrink)

Transcranial Photobiomodulation has demonstrated its ability to alter electrophysiological activity in the human brain. However, it is unclear how tPBM modulates brain electroencephalogram networks and is related to human cognition. In this study, we recorded 64-channel EEG from 44 healthy humans before, during, and after 8-min, right-forehead, 1,064-nm tPBM or sham stimulation with an irradiance of 257 mW/cm2. In data processing, a novel methodology by combining group singular value decomposition with the exact low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography was implemented and performed (...) on the 64-channel noise-free EEG time series. The gSVD+eLORETA algorithm produced 11 gSVD-derived principal components projected in the 2D sensor and 3D source domain/space. These 11 PCs took more than 70% weight of the entire EEG signals and were justified as 11 EEG brain networks. Finally, baseline-normalized power changes of each EEG brain network in each EEG frequency band were quantified during the first 4-min, second 4-min, and post tPBM/sham periods, followed by comparisons of frequency-specific power changes between tPBM and sham conditions. Our results showed that tPBM-induced increases in alpha powers occurred at default mode network, executive control network, frontal parietal network and lateral visual network. Moreover, the ability to decompose EEG signals into individual, independent brain networks facilitated to better visualize significant decreases in gamma power by tPBM. Many similarities were found between the cortical locations of SVD-revealed EEG networks and fMRI-identified resting-state networks. This consistency may shed light on mechanistic associations between tPBM-modulated brain networks and improved cognition outcomes. (shrink)

Reinvention of the form of expression is a conceptual approach characteristic for the evolution of all arts. This research study provides one such step forward in the advancement of scientific paper, a standard form of expression in natural sciences, toward more progressive terrains. The paper adopts the form of a theatrical play where a scientific family of four attempts to find the way around a writer’s block (Act I). Their idealess sense of confinement is overcome through arts or, more specifically, (...) through scientific research implementing the aesthetics of music as its key element. The characters record compositions differing in the degrees of consonance, rhythmicity and tonality, and play them to birds to observe their vocal and behavioral responses (Act II). They note that the birdsong volume drops significantly when the piano tunes, especially the compositionally complex ones, are played to the birds and increases signifcantly when the white noise of ocean waves is played. The bird count experiment proves indirectly that the birdsong volume reduction is an auditory response of the birds to music rather than the effect of their migrating to or away from the sound source. This science with the flavor of art elevates the characters beyond the limits of their confinement and they, exalted and uplifted, gain ideas for creative research in their own disciplines of biomedical science (Act III). They relinquish the newly gained freedom in favor of embracing love for humanity that underlies medical research and return to their confinement, where they conduct, in the coda of the paper, a series of experiments that venture beyond musicology and ornithology and fall in the domains of tissue engineering and drug delivery, but also psychology (Act III). First, sparrow nests are used as templates for tissue engineering constructs, which facilitate the growth of human fibroblastic cells better than their artificial, gridded replicas. Next, the shell of an Easter egg, predominantly calcite in composition, is used with success as a drug delivery carrier. Lastly, the bird nest drawing experiment demonstrates a greater mental health of children than that of the adults, correlating with one of the overarching points of the paper, which is to present children as a model for grownups to follow rather than the other way around. Over the course of the play, the characters discuss the value of the various fusions between art and science, question the limits of human language and repeatedly go off-topic to celebrate the freeness of the creative thinking process. The play reports on real-life research methods and scientific results through a narrative, without diminishing their empirical rigor and analytical accuracy. (shrink)

The increasing number of quick response code mobile payment users heralds the coming of a cashless society. However, the extent to which the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic accelerated the adoption of QR code mobile payment has not been sufficiently researched. Based on social learning theory, this study models how external interaction with the environment has affected the internal appraisal and behavioral intention to adopt QR code mobile payment during COVID-19. Empirical results from 248 respondents revealed that perceived severity and social (...) influence positively affected the perception of utilitarian and health benefits of respondents, which in turn influenced the behavioral intention to use the QR code mobile payment. The theoretical contribution and managerial implications of this study are also discussed. (shrink)

Empirical research has shown that maladaptive perfectionism may lead to lower life satisfaction. However, the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and life satisfaction among medical students and the mechanism underlying this relationship still need to be further explored. The present study used a large sample of undergraduate medical students to examine the associations between maladaptive perfectionism and life satisfaction and to explore the mechanism underlying the associations. Specifically, the present study tried to probe the mediating role of academic burnout and the (...) moderating role of self-esteem in the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and life satisfaction in medical students. We invited 1628 undergraduate medical students from two medical universities in Northeastern China to participate in the survey. Among the students recruited, 1377 medical students completed questionnaires including the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale maladaptive perfectionism subscales, the Chinese College Student Academic Burnout Inventory, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and demographic information. Results show that maladaptive perfectionism was significantly negatively related to life satisfaction among medical students and academic burnout played a significant mediating role in this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses reveal that the mediating effect of maladaptive perfectionism on life satisfaction via academic burnout was moderated by self-esteem. Maladaptive perfectionism exerted a stronger effect on life satisfaction via the mediating role of academic burnout for medical students with high self-esteem [β = −0.026, SE = 0.009, 95%CI = ] than for medical students with low self-esteem [β = −0.019, SE = 0.009, 95%CI = ]. Medical institutions can implement effective interventions to decrease medical students’ maladaptive perfectionism levels and academic burnout levels, and increase their self-esteem levels in order to enhance their life satisfaction. (shrink)

This article puts forward a novel class of Bézier smooth semi-supervised support vector machines(BS4VMs) for classification. As is well known, semi-supervised support vector machine is introduced for dealing with quantities of unlabeled data in the real world. Labeled data is utilized to train the algorithm and then adapting it to classify the unlabeled data. However, the objective semi-supervised function is not differentiable globally. It is required to endure heavy burden in solving two quadratic programming problems with inversion matrix operation. To (...) solve this problem, the interpolation Bézier functions for replacing the non-smooth term have been investigated. Firstly, the development of the novel BS4VMs classifier is introduced. Then, the non-linear model and convergence analysis are presented. To show how the BS4VMs can be practically implemented, experiments on synthetic and real data sets are offered. The theoretical analysis and experiments comparisons clearly illustrate the BS4VMs are superior to the proposed methods in both cross-validation classification accuracy and calculating time. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Quality of Life in Life-threatening Illness-Family Carer Version has been proven to be a brief, reliable, and valid instrument for measuring the caregivers’ QOL in western cultures. However, whether it is suitable to be used in Chinese culture is unclear. This study aimed to test the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of.Materials and methodsA total of 202 family caregivers of advanced cancer patients from Fujian Provincial hospice care center were investigated using the Chinese version of QOLLTI-F-CV from (...) September 2019 to August 2020. The questionnaire was evaluated using an exploratory structural equation model. Its psychometric properties were examined in terms of factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability.ResultsDifferently from the seven-domain original QOLLTI-F, its Chinese version had only three domains including caregiver’s self-feelings, caregiver’s stress, and caregiver’s outlooks. The total variance explanation rate for the domains was 55.4%. The Chinese version fitted well with the structure model ; its comparative fit index was 0.971; Tucker–Lewis index was 0.954; and the root mean square error of approximation was 0.072. The success rate of its convergent and discriminant validity calibration test was 100%. Its Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the whole questionnaire and three domains was from 0.650 to 0.874, and test–retest reliability was 0.836.ConclusionThe 3-domain QOLLTI-F-CV is a valid and reliable instrument for identifying QOL concerns of FCs of advanced cancer patients in China. The refactoring structure optimally matches Chinese culture and value system well. (shrink)

Most ordinary objects - cats, humans, mountains, ships, tables, etc. - have indeterminate mereological boundaries. If the theory of mereology is meant to include ordinary objects at all, we need it to have some space for mereological indeterminacy. In this paper, we present a novel degree-theoretic semantics - Boolean semantics - and argue that it is the best degree-theoretic semantics for modeling mereological indeterminacy, for three main reasons: (a) it allows for incomparable degrees of parthood, (b) it enforces classical logic, (...) and (c) it is compatible with all the axioms of classical mereology. Using Boolean semantics, we will also investigate the connection between vagueness in parthood and vagueness in existence/identity. We show that, contrary to what many have argued, the connection takes neither the form of entailment nor the form of exclusion. (shrink)

This study aims to disclose how the magnetic resonance imaging neuroimaging approach has been applied in education studies, and what kind of learning themes has been investigated in the reviewed MRI neuroimaging research. Based on the keywords “brain or neuroimaging or neuroscience” and “MRI or diffusion tensor imaging or white matter or gray matter or resting-state,” a total of 25 papers were selected from the subject areas “Educational Psychology” and “Education and Educational Research” from the Web of Science and Scopus (...) from 2000 to 2019. Content analysis showed that MRI neuroimaging and learning were studied under the following three major topics and nine subtopics: cognitive function, science education, and brain development. As for the type of MRI neuroimaging research, the most frequently used approaches were functional MRI, followed by structural MRI and DTI, although the choice of approach was often motivated by the specific research question. Research development trends show that the neural plasticity theme has become more prominent recently. This study concludes that in educational research, the MRI neuroimaging approach provides objective and empirical evidence to connect learning processes, outcomes, and brain mechanisms. (shrink)

Conscience can err. Yet erroneous conscience still seems binding in that it is likely to be morally wrong to ignore the call of conscience. Meanwhile, it seems equally wrong to act according to such a wrong judgment of conscience. The moral dilemma of erroneous conscience poses a challenge to any coherent theory of conscience. In light of this, I will examine Aquinas’s reflections on the psychological mechanism of erroneous conscience and reconstruct a sophisticated explanation of the obligatory force of erroneous (...) conscience, in which the conscientious integrity of the agent is intimately integrated with the sovereignty of divine law. Next, I will appeal to Aquinas’s distinction between the judgment of conscience (iudicium consentiae) and that of free decision (iudicium liberi arbitrii) to show that the judgments pertaining to conscience are purely cognitive rather than affective. This analysis will also help specify in what sense we can tolerate conscience’s wrong judgments. (shrink)

This article supplements the article by Fubin Yang in vol. 39 (2010) of this journal. The goal is to account for the recent surge of interest in process thought in China.

One of the most efficient nondestructive methods for pipeline in-line inspection is magnetic flux leakage inspection. Estimating the size of the defect from MFL signal is one of the key problems of MFL inspection. As the inspection signal is usually contaminated by noise, sizing the defect is an ill-posed inverse problem, especially when sizing the depth as a complex shape. An actor-critic structure-based algorithm is proposed in this paper for sizing complex depth profiles. By learning with more information from the (...) depth profile without knowing the corresponding MFL signal, the algorithm proposed saves computational costs and is robust. A pinning strategy is embedded in the reconstruction process, which highly reduces the dimension of action space. The pinning actor-critic structure helps to make the reward for critic network more efficient when reconstructing the depth profiles with high degrees of freedom. A nonlinear FEM model is used to test the effectiveness of algorithm proposed under 20 dB noise. The results show that the algorithm reconstructs the depth profile of defects with good accuracy and is robust against noise. (shrink)

Little attention has recently been paid to Aquinas's analyses of mixed actions, which constitute a significant sort of border line cases between the voluntary and the involuntary. A textual inconsi...

The axiological research in contemporary Chinese Marxism has always oriented itself towards the practice of reform and opening up, profoundly expressing the practical logic of reform and opening up by way of the theoretical logic of axiology. First, contemporary Chinese axiology focuses on the concept of value and reveals its essence, it explores the relationship between truth and value, deepens the understanding of practice as a standard, and thus it provides a philosophical basis for solving the problem of right and (...) wrong in the practice of China’s reform and opening up. Second, contemporary Chinese axiology frames evaluation standards and examines their rationality, considers the ‘three-favorables’ criterion and also provides a theoretical basis for solving the problems of good and bad in the practice of China’s reform and opening up. Third, it considers the change of values and the conflict of values, constructs core socialist values, and responds to the question of ‘what is socialism and how to build it’ from the perspective of value, thus providing the most fundamental conceptual and theoretical support for promoting both the reform and opening up and the construction of the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Understanding the development of contemporary Chinese axiology on the basis of the practice of reform and opening up makes us not only grasp accurately the overall picture of contemporary Chinese axiology, but also understand better the academic pursuit and practical implications of contemporary Chinese Marxist research. (shrink)

This study investigates the use of musical intelligence to improve the English pronunciation of Chinese third level students. It is relevant for a human-centred systems engineering approach to cross-cultural interaction. Language learning is important as valid communication can help interactions and cultural understanding between countries, this also may benefit international stability. There are natural barriers between the English and Chinese language which are reflected in teaching approaches. The teaching of English in Chinese classrooms is removed from real-world English learning environments. (...) The academic environments and approaches focus on the learning of grammar, spelling and writing with little real-life conversation and interaction with native English speakers. English language learning in China is from a more academic perspective rather than practical utilisation. Correct pronunciation and accent is therefore diminished. This study demonstrates that a musical intelligence e-Learning approach can benefit Chinese English language students. (shrink)

This exploratory research compares the interactive metadiscourse use by native English-speaking English for academic purposes writing teachers in the United Kingdom and their non-native counterparts in the Chinese contexts. The analysis is based on a self-compiled corpus, including two sub-corpora, which were composed of instructor contributions to classroom discourse: eight sessions of EAP lessons from the Chinese context and eight sessions of EAP lessons from the British context. Adopting an interpersonal model of metadiscourse, the two sub-corpora were compared to examine (...) the similarities and differences in their use of interactive metadiscourse. Findings of the comparative analysis reveal that EAP teachers from both contexts rely heavily on transition markers and frame markers to organize their teaching but differ in particular linguistic realizations. This may indicate the impact of a range of factors such as logical preferences, development order of acquisition, discourse community, and speech community on teachers’ interactive metadiscourse strategies. The article concludes with a few implications for metadiscourse research in spoken academic genres. (shrink)