Even if cognitive science has made some important progress in its approach to human mental activities, consciousness and subjective experience still strike us as highly puzzling from a 'scientific' point of view. This may not be surprising, since the Cartesian distinction between res cogitans and res extensa seems to have a priori ruled out the very possibility of understanding the human mind as an object of physical science. However, in this paper, I argue that some Cartesian intuitions about the nature (...) of consciousness may still deserve sustaining by showing that it is a mistake to seek some physicalist reduction of the phenomena of consciousness. At the same time, I also try to show in what sense Colin McGinn's transcendental naturalism may be intelligible. (shrink)

The paper argues that it is a mistake to interpret Thomas Reid as holding a libertarian notion of freedom, and to make use of Reid to argue in support of a libertarian position. More precisely, this paper shows that Reid’s theory of agent-causation may not be what these philosophers take it to be, once such crucial notions as agent-causation and active power in Reid’s theory of free agency have been fully explicated. Reid is more committed to accepting the view of (...) freedom as rational self-control over the determination of the will than a contracausal view of freedom. (shrink)

In the era of the global village, crowd sourcing as a new model of service outsourcing is increasingly being valued by all walks of life. This study uses the data envelopment analysis method to explain the crowd sourcing competitiveness of service outsourcing base cities by using input-output efficiency. The crowd sourcing competitiveness among crowd sourcing base cities is organized and analyzed by collating and analyzing the data of 21 service outsourcing base cities in China from 2016 to 2019. The results (...) show that there is no significant difference in the competitiveness of 21 service outsourcing, the overall trend is that the competitiveness of crowd sourcing is not strong, the match between input and output is not high. Comparatively speaking, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Wuxi are more competitive in crowd sourcing. Combining with the reality of China's economic development, taking the road of crowd sourcing with Chinese characteristics is a good choice for the development of China's crowd sourcing industry. (shrink)

Path selection is one of the key technologies of wireless sensor network. A reasonable choice of coverage path can improve the service quality of WSN and extend the life cycle of WSN. Biogeography-based optimization is widely used in the field of cluster intelligent optimization because its search method has a better incentive mechanism for population evolution. In this paper, the move-in and move-out operation and mutation operation of the BBO algorithm enable WSN to find an efficient routing path. In this (...) paper, simulation experiments are carried out in two scenarios of regular deployment and random deployment of WSN nodes. The experimental results show that the quality of the WSN coverage path solution optimized by the BBO algorithm in the two scenarios is better than that of the particle swarm algorithm and genetic algorithm. (shrink)

Six-month-old infants discriminate between large sets of objects on the basis of numerosity when other extraneous variables are controlled, provided that the sets to be discriminated differ by a large ratio (8 vs. 16 but not 8 vs. 12). The capacities to represent approximate numerosity found in adult animals and humans evidently develop in human infants prior to language and symbolic counting.

Relevant research shows teachers’ “psychological power” plays a more essential role in promoting their professional development compared with the powers provided by various external factors, and it is therefore held that exploring college English teachers’ individual psychological power is of great significance. To this end, this study investigated college English teachers’ psychological empowerment via the development and validation of CETPE’s scale. Based on our literature review on psychological empowerment and analysis of teachers professional development’s status quo, we made a working (...) definition of CETPE as a system involving perception of their occupation, sense of competence, experiencing of autonomy, judgment of their impact and understanding of their status. In our study, firstly the literature review and the interview with 17 college English teachers were adopted to conceptualize the dimensions of CETPE, and an exploratory factor analysis of data was conducted from 227 college English teachers and then the subsequent confirmatory factor analysis of data collected from another sample of 1030 generated 15 items belonging to five factors. The findings reveal that CETPE is systematically composed of teachers’ positive perception and experience of work meaningfulness, teaching autonomy, occupational competence, professional impact and social status. This study provides a new path for teachers’ professional development via strengthening their intrinsic driving force and thus helps improve the college English teaching effects. (shrink)

Background: In 2019, an outbreak of COVID-19 broke out in Hubei, China. Medical workers from all over the country rushed to Hubei and participated in the treatment and care of COVID-19 patients. These nurses, dedicated to their professional practice, volunteered to provide compassion and expert clinical care during the pandemic. As with other acts of heroism, the ethical dilemmas associated with working on the front line must be considered for future practice. Purpose: To explore the ethical dilemmas of frontline nurses (...) of Jiangsu Province in China during deployment to Wuhan to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia, and to provide a basis for developing strategies to help nursing staff address personal and practice concerns in order to work more effectively during this pandemic and other disasters in the future. Research design and method: Using the phenomenological research method and the purpose sampling method, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 nurses, post-deployment to Wuhan, who had worked on the front line to fight the novel coronavirus. Ethical considerations: The research proposal was approved by the Research Ethic Committee of Yangzhou University, China. Findings: From the analysis of the interviews of the 10 participants, three main themes were identified: ethical dilemmas in clinical nursing, ethical dilemmas in interpersonal relationships, and ethical dilemmas in nursing management. Conclusion: During a quick response to public health emergencies, where nurses are deployed immediately as a call to action, the issues surrounding ethical dilemmas from several perspectives must be considered. This research suggests that a team approach to proactive planning and open communication during the emergency is an efficient and productive strategy to improve the nurses’ experience and sense of well-being. (shrink)

Background Patient dignity is sometimes neglected in intensive care unit (ICU) settings, which may potentially cause psychological harm to critically ill patients. However, no instrument has been specifically developed to evaluate the behaviors of dignified care among critical care nurses. Aim This study aimed to develop and evaluate ICU Dignified Care Questionnaire (IDCQ) for measurement of self-assessed dignity-conserving behaviors of critical care nurses during care. Methods The instrument was developed in 3 phases. Phase 1: item generation; phase 2: a two-round (...) Delphi survey and a readability pilot study; phase 3: cross-sectional survey with model estimation. The questionnaire was evaluated by item analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, assessment of internal consistency reliability, and test-retest reliability. The investigation was conducted using a convenience sample of 392 critical care nurses from 6 cities in Zhejiang Province, China, of which 30 participated in the test-retest reliability survey 2 weeks later. Ethical considerations The study was approved by ethics committee. All participants provided written informed consent before the survey. The questionnaire survey was anonymous. Results The results showed acceptable reliability and validity of the IDCQ. The 17-item final version questionnaire was divided into 2 dimensions: absolute dignity and relative dignity. These two factors accounted for 62.804% of the total variance, and model fitting results were acceptable. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.94, and the test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.88 after 2 weeks. Conclusions This study developed a brief and reliable instrument (IDCQ) to assess dignified care in ICU nursing. It can help critical care nurses identify their behaviors in maintaining patient dignity and discover their deficiencies. It may also serve as a clinical nursing management tool to help reduce patient disrespect experience in ICU. (shrink)

By introducing the theory of social co-governance into the field of e-commerce intellectual property protection, this paper builds an evolutionary game model among the government, e-commerce platforms, and rights holders, and studies the conditions under the stakeholders form a stable equilibrium state under different constraints. Combined with numerical simulation, the influence of individual factors and factor combinations on the system stability is analyzed. Results shows that: Strictly controlling the action costs and response costs of all parties can enhance their willingness (...) to actively deal with infringement issues; reasonable adjustment of the reward and punishment measures of government supervisory agencies can produce sufficient reverse shock and positive guidance to platform and operators; penalties should be imposed on government supervisory agencies that are not sufficiently supervised; strengthen the construction of the social environment for intellectual property protection, improve the social benefits of actively responding to infringement issues, and increase the sense of acquisition by the government, platforms and rights holders. And it provides certain positive references and suggestions for the government to formulate relevant policies. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement on the necessity to obtain informed consent in research, opinions vary on the threshold of disclosure necessary and the best method to obtain consent. We aimed to investigate Australian researchers’ views on, and their experiences with, obtaining informed consent. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 researchers from NSW institutions, working (...) in various fields of research. Interviews were analysed and coded to identify themes. Results Researchers reported that consent involved information disclosure, understanding and a voluntary decision. They emphasised the variability of consent interactions, which were dependent on potential participants’ abilities and interests, study complexity and context. All researchers reported providing written information to potential participants, yet questioned the readability and utility of this information. The majority reported using signed consent forms to ‘operationalise’ consent and reported little awareness of, and lack of support in implementing more dynamic informed consent procedures, such as verbal informed consent, that was fit for the purposes of their studies. Views on Human Research Ethics Committees varied. Some reported inconsistent, arduous inputs on the information form and consent process. Others expressed reliance on HRECs for guidance, viewing them as institutional safeguards. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of transparent relationships, both between researchers and participants, and between researchers and HRECs. Where the relationship with study participants was reported as more robust, researchers felt that they were better able to ensure participants made better, more informed decisions. Where the relationship with HRECs was reported as more robust, researchers were more likely to view them as institutional safeguards, rather than as bureaucratic hindrances. Conscientious and mindful researchers are paramount to ensuring the procedure accommodates individual requirements. This study advocates that when designing ethical informed consent practices, researchers should be integrated as autonomous players with a positive input on the process, rather than, in the worst case, predatory recruiters to be curtailed by information forms and oversight. (shrink)

This article examines the interlinked impacts of gender and race on occupational prestige, segregation, and earnings. Included are occupations about which Bose and Rossi reported prestige ranks and about which the 1980 census reported earnings and relevant gender/race breakdowns. White men are used as the comparison group. Contrasted to them are the gender/race groups of white women, Black men, Black women, Asian-American men, Asian-American women, Hispanic men, and Hispanic women. Race has a more powerful impact than gender on the prestige (...) level a worker is likely to enjoy, but gender does affect prestige within particular racial groups. For segregation and earnings, the strongest effects are those of gender, although there are clear race effects too. Segregation examined in terms of the prestige of occupations in which different groups find themselves shows race and gender effects. Many researchers have pointed to the need for considering both gender and race in examining the American occupational structure. Our findings strongly support that call. (shrink)

To explore the motivations underpinning corporate social responsibility (CSR) decisions in China, a country characterized by extensive government intervention, this paper investigates whether building a good relationship with the government is a political incentive that is driving firms to conduct CSR by examining the effects of political connections on the latter. Our results indicate that politically connected firms exhibit better CSR. However, the effect is considerably more significant for firms with existing political relationships. Additionally, findings show that the effect is (...) more prominent in firms for which political connections are more valuable, namely, non‐state‐owned enterprises, small firms, and firms operating in less market‐oriented cities, indicating that CSR can serve as a differentiation strategy to compete against other bidders. Dividing CSR activities into economic, environmental and social aspects, we find that the social‐based activities are more likely to be driven by political motivations. By categorizing CSR and political connections, this paper not only expands the scope of political CSR and renders the generated results that have been mixed together more distinguishable, but also provides a more precise understanding of the fundamental drivers of CSR in China from the perspective of resource exchange. (shrink)

Herring and mackerel are two of the most important pillars of Scottish fisheries. In recent years, global warming has caused a gradual rise in ocean temperatures. In order to survive and reproduce, herring and mackerel populations will migrate. This will have a huge impact on Scotland’s fisheries. Therefore, we need to predict the relocation of fish stocks in advance, make timely adjustments to the fishing range, and minimize the loss of the fishing industry. In this article, we subdivide the research (...) target sea area into 39 regions, establish the optimal SARIMA model for each region based on the collected seawater temperature time series data, and take region 13 and region 15 as examples to fit the ARIMA and ARIMA models with a period of 12. The results show that the SARIMA model fits well in all regions and predicts the temperature changes in the studied sea area from 2021 to 2050. Finally, according to the predicted sea temperature in different periods, the migration position of the fish school is predicted. (shrink)

Grounded in Bandura’s social cognitive theory of moral thought and action, we develop a conceptual model linking supervisors’ perceptions of organizational injustice and abusive supervision with moral disengagement mechanisms acting as the underlying process. Specifically, we elaborate why and how supervisors’ experiences of each type of injustice would trigger their adoption of distinctive moral disengagement mechanisms, which in turn lead to their abusive supervisory conduct. The present conceptual model sheds new light on linking organizational injustice to abusive supervision from a (...) moral perspective. In addition, it also provides important theoretical and managerial implications to our current understanding of why and how abusive supervision happens. (shrink)

We present in this paper an axiomatization of Belnap and Perloff's stit theory (a logic of "seeing to it that") with a single agent. The idea of the proof is to apply the notion of companion sets--the same notion as used in another paper by the author that showed the decidability of stit theory with a single agent and Refref equivalence.

Using a panel data of 806 U.S. firms from 2006 to 2015, we find that in their ratings of corporate social responsibility performance, firms with top managers who attended religiously affiliated schools outperform their peers with no such managers. The positive relationship between religious school attendance and CSR performance is stronger among firms with lower level of community religiosity or less external monitoring. Our findings lend support to early theoretical work that suggests managerial CSR-oriented values can be key motivating factors (...) for CSR initiatives. (shrink)

Chengbing WangShanxi University, Taiyuan, ChinaMichael A. PetersBeijing Normal University, Beijing, ChinaContemporary Chinese Marxism is not only an important theory in the humanities and social sc...

In this study, we investigated the integration between neuroscience and entrepreneurship. First, we explored the concept of neuroentrepreneurship and the investigation of neuroentrepreneurship using scientific research methods. Second, we constructed a road map for entrepreneurial researchers interested in conducting neuroentrepreneurship-related research. This is an emerging research area; therefore, to more clearly analyze the dynamics of the research trends, we used a bibliometric method to capture patterns in current publications on subjects related to neuroentrepreneurship, examining papers published between 1999 and 2021 (...) using the keywords “neuroscience” and “entrepreneurship” or “neuroentrepreneurship.” To identify the keywords, we used two academic databases—the Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index—accessed through the Web of Science website. The three keywords were identified from studies integrating neuroscience with entrepreneurship. After carefully reviewing the research papers, we identified neuroentrepreneurship as a novel research area. The outcomes of this study provide a guide for describing the theoretical connection between neuroscience and entrepreneurship. In the future, this field of study should be empirically investigated. (shrink)

Immersive 360-degree video has become a new learning resource because of its immersive sensory experience. This study examined the effects of textual and visual cues on learning and attention in immersive 360-degree video by using eye-tracking equipment integrated in a virtual reality head-mounted display. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: no cues, textual cues in the initial field of view, textual cues outside the initial FOV, and textual cues outside the initial FOV + visual cues. The results (...) showed that the cues helped learners achieve better learning outcomes and spend more time focusing on the areas with cues. In addition, the study found a serious imbalance in the distribution of learners’ attention in each region of the video. The attention directed to textual cues in the initial FOV is much higher than the attention directed to textual cues outside the initial FOV. Adding visual cues can effectively direct attention to textual cues outside the initial FOV and alleviate the imbalance of attention distribution. Consequently, adding cues to immersive 360-degree video can be an appropriate approach to promote learning and guide attention in immersive 360-degree video learning environments. This study provided new insights into the design and development of immersive 360-degree video instructional resources. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created enormous challenges for organizations and employees. Due to the effectiveness of idiosyncratic deals in management practices, more and more organizations use this human resource management tool to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, whether there are potential risks or negative effects of i-deals in the COVID-19 pandemic environment is not very clear. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, we proposed that i-deals may foment focal employees’ unethical behavior by triggering their hubristic pride, and (...) such process may be moderated by their trait of grandiose narcissism. We conducted a survey during the COVID-19 outbreak and tested our hypotheses with 492 samples from Shandong Province, China. Consistent with predictions, we found a positive relationship between i-deals and hubristic pride, which, in turn, increased their unethical behavior. And the relationship between i-deals and unethical behavior was mediated by hubristic pride. Furthermore, grandiose narcissism strengthened the positive relationship between i-deals and hubristic pride, as well as the indirect effect of i-deals on unethical behavior via hubristic pride. Our findings contributed to the literature on i-deals and provided guidance for organizations to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, we investigate the legitimacy of platform governance and whether consumers with greater ranges of risk propensity are more likely to purchase innovative products. This study develops a moderated mediation model involving risk propensity, cognitive legitimacy, purchase intention and perceived benefit. To examine our hypotheses, we conducted a survey of 315 consumers from Shanghai, China. The results reveal that risk propensity is positively related to consumers’ purchase intentions, in which cognitive legitimacy plays a mediating (...) role. Furthermore, the interaction suggests that perceived benefit moderates the relationship between risk propensity and cognitive legitimacy. (shrink)

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between posttraumatic growth, resilience, positive coping style, and self-efficacy among the primary caregivers of children with developmental disorders in Chongqing, China. A total of 198 primary caregivers aged from 22 to 66 years old, including 155 females and 43 males, were enrolled. The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, and General Self-Efficacy Scale were used for data collection. The results found that PTG could be positively predicted by resilience. (...) Positive coping style and self-efficacy mediated the relationship between resilience and PTG. The different levels of PTG were determined by the resident location, monthly income and education of the primary caregivers. The results suggest that it is critical to improve the mental health of the primary caregivers of children with developmental disabilities. Our results also provide a scientific basis for future research. (shrink)

Current inter-disciplinarity has rendered it feasible to utilize implements and methodologies to navigate around the communication of fashion at textual as well as material levels, reified by inter-semiotic and cultural translation. Fashion communication, from the perspective of post-translation studies, is a process of cultural translation with visual symbols as its text, visual rhetoric as its core meaning system, and visual stylists as its translator. This study takes one of the most formidable and awe-inspiring icons – the Chinese totem Loong 龙 (...) as the main research object, through the analysis of multifarious styles of visual text structures across the entire process of fashion communication, to deconstruct the semiotic transformation of Loong 龙 by means of visual rhetoric. In forging this rhetorical dynamic within the realm of visual art, the cultural translative procedure is orchestrated primarily through the registers of field, tenor, and mode. Furthermore, it is molded by the intricate interplay of transitivity, mood, and modality, culminating in this newly proposed concept – “cultural functionality” through the lens of systemic functional grammar. This study, by means of this rhetorical, semiotic approach, forays into the profundity of what is named as “Made in China” and showcases Chinese spirit in fashion communication. (shrink)

Companies take project-based management as their organizational strategy, and project quality assurance plays a vital role in improving customer satisfaction and enhancing corporate image. Starting from the perspective of optimizing project quality, this paper assigns different quality influencing factors to each project and each task of the project, divides the labor resources shared by multiple projects in the enterprise according to the skill level, and transforms the problem of project quality optimization. The problem of the highest skill level of labor (...) resources allocated to all projects of the enterprise is designed, and algorithms are designed to achieve the optimization of project quality through the optimal allocation of labor resources. The various links in this article are closely related to form a comprehensive, scientific, and systematic research system for optimal human resource allocation, human resource management, and development. Finally, case analysis is used to confirm the usability of the model and provide a quantitative method and perspective for project-oriented companies to allocate workforce. (shrink)

Drawn upon optimum stimulation level theory, and in view of the impact of mobile terminal usage on tourist decision-making, the present study aims to investigate how personality influences tourist trip planning behavior in the mobile era. A sample of 344 respondents in China completed measures of sensation seeking, travel risk perception, smartphone usage, as well as tourist planfulness. Results indicated that sensation seeking was negatively associated with tourist planfulness and travel risk perception partially mediated this association. Besides, both the direct (...) effect of sensation seeking on tourist planfulness and the indirect effect of travel risk perception were moderated by smartphone usage, in that these effects were stronger for tourists with a high-level of smartphone usage than those with low-level smartphone usage. This study can significantly advance existing research on tourist behavior from the perspective of personality and reconfiguring our traditional understanding on tourist decision-making in the mobile era. Our study may also provide indicative support for theoretical perspective that information technology is changing customer behavior. (shrink)

China’s E-commerce market is very active. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the market has ushered in major development opportunities. Alongside, the level of intellectual property protection in China is constantly improving. However, there are relatively few studies on intellectual property protection in the field of E-commerce. This study introduces the theory of social cogovernance and explores the construction of China’s E-commerce intellectual property protection system with the participation of collective organizations. Evolutionary game method is applied to model construction. Through numerical (...) simulation, the study analyzes the evolution of E-commerce platform and collective organization strategic choice. The results depict that improving the open space provided by E-commerce platforms for collective organizations and strengthening their public service capabilities can promote the construction of social cogovernance systems. The establishment of reasonable reward and punishment mechanisms can increase cooperation enthusiasm. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications for governments, E-commerce platforms, and collective organizations, to improve the level of intellectual property protection in E-commerce. This study can provide suggestions for China’s E-commerce intellectual property protection, improve the overall level of intellectual property protection in China, and provide a reference for global E-commerce intellectual property protection. (shrink)

Aging has become a serious social problem in China. Traditional informal long-term care is hard to sustain because of the reduction in family size and elders’ children migration to big cities. The institution offering services for the disabled elders has been a tendency. There exists a strange phenomenon: some nursing homes are difficult to enter for most disabled elders, while the other ones must search for elders to maintain operation. Therefore, for the evaluation of nursing homes, two problems should be (...) considered: selecting suitable nursing homes for disabled elders; obtaining the key factors influencing the selection of elders and helping nursing homes improve their services based on the key factors. First, we propose a new DEMATEL method for PLTSs to solve the second problem. Then, we present a novel PROMETHEE method to rank the alternatives and make a sensitivity analysis for criteria. Finally, we illustrate our proposed methods to an evaluation problem in Zhenjiang City by a case study. Based on the case study, we can obtain that our proposed methods are effective and practicable. (shrink)