Vaccine is one of the most effective means to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries, but vaccine hesitancy has been always widespread among people due to individual differences in access to vaccine information. This research aims to empirically investigate the relationship between media use preference, knowledge level, risk perception and willingness to vaccinate among Chinese residents. A cross-sectional survey of a Chinese sample was carried out to explore factors that influence the COVID-19 vaccination intention of Chinese residents. The (...) empirical results show that the knowledge level and risk perception of Chinese residents positively contribute to vaccination intention. People with video-usage preference have lower levels of knowledge about the COVID-19 vaccine than those with text-usage preference. People’s risk perception of the COVID-19 pandemic is not influenced by their media use preference or knowledge level, as COVID-19 is a global pandemic and a significant social risk. The current study yields health-related implications for the role of media use preference in vaccination intention. (shrink)

Teacher's emotions have been shown to be highly important in the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning. There is a recognized need to examine the essential role of teacher's emotions in students' academic achievement. However, the influence of teacher's displays of emotions on students' outcomes in small-group interaction activities, especially in the online environment, has received little attention in prior research. The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between teacher's different emotional displays and students' perceptions (...) of the teacher's competence, as well as students' collaborative feelings and productivity in online small-group discussions. Using a three-level between-subjects design, 74 participants were randomly divided into four-member groups comprising a teacher and three other participants. All the groups were asked to discuss an open-ended realistic problem using online software, during which the teacher's display of emotions varied. The participants' self-reported questionnaire data and productivity were measured to compare the participants who were exposed to different emotional displays. As expected, the results showed that the participants who received the teacher's positive emotional display reported that they experienced higher levels of pleasure during the task. However, in contrast to our expectations, those under the negative emotional display condition showed a significantly higher level of productivity in the group task. In addition, compared to emotional display, the participants' perceptions of the teacher's competence were rated significantly higher under the neutral condition, and they reported higher levels of collaborative satisfaction and greater willingness to continue collaborating with their group. The findings have the potential benefit of informing educational practice on whether teachers should display their emotions in a small-group discussion or how they should display emotions following adjustment for the relative aim of the teaching activities. (shrink)

We examine the implications of social trust for auditor reporting conservatism. Using a sample of listed companies in China, we find that clients located in high-trust regions are less likely to receive a non-clean audit opinion. This negative impact of social trust on auditor reporting conservatism increases when the client’s parent firm operates in a region of higher social trust, suggesting that social trust is contagious from a parent firm to its subsidiaries in a consolidated entity. We provide evidence that (...) the trust contagion is more pronounced for clients with a higher percentage of parent-appointed directors on their boards and clients whose parent firm has fewer subsidiaries. These findings indicate that monitoring and, to a lesser extent, personnel rotation may serve as potential channels of trust contagion. We also find that the impact of trust is more pronounced when the client is located closer to its audit firm, when the client’s parent firm is a state-owned enterprise or holds a higher percentage of the client’s shares, and when the client is associated with greater discretionary accruals. We provide further evidence that it is client rather than auditor trustworthiness that influences auditor reporting conservatism, auditors charge trustworthy clients lower fees, and clients from high-trust regions are less likely to manipulate earnings. Overall, our evidence suggests that social trust alleviates auditor concern about client moral hazard. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of underwriter–auditor relationship on pre-initial public offering earnings management. Using a sample of Chinese to-be-listed firms, we find that a close UAR, as reflected in repeated collaborations between an underwriter and an audit firm in IPOs, is positively associated with pre-IPO earnings management. This association is more pronounced for firms with politically connected auditors/underwriters, firms with less reputable auditors/underwriters, firms located in provinces with weak legal environment, firms to-be-listed on boards with lax listing requirements, and (...) firms whose auditors are with low industry specialization, and legal liability exposures. We provide further evidence that UAR is associated with greater likelihood of irregular activities in post-IPO period and poorer post-IPO financial performance. To the extent that we control for alternative explanations and potential endogeneity, our results suggest that the collusion incentive is likely to drive repeated collaborations between underwriters and auditors in the Chinese IPO market. Our findings provide interesting implications for auditors, investors, and regulators seeking to understand the Chinese IPO market. (shrink)

The surface grammar of reports such as ‘I have a pain in my leg’ suggests that pains are objects which are spatially located in parts of the body. We show that the parallel construction is not available in Mandarin. Further, four philosophically important grammatical features of such reports cannot be reproduced. This suggests that arguments and puzzles surrounding such reports may be tracking artefacts of English, rather than philosophically significant features of the world.

The sudden outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 has caused a huge impact on the Chinese residents' health and economic level. In the pandemic background, the country and its institutions have introduced pandemic-related insurance to stabilize the national situation. At this stage, insurance has played an increasingly important role in social life. With the popularization of insurance, the idea of buying insurance to avoid risk has gradually become popular among people. Among them, the New Rural Cooperative Medical System has been farmers' (...) common choice. The NRCMS, a mutual aid system created by farmers spontaneously in the country, plays a great role in guaranteeing farmers access to basic health services, alleviating poverty caused by disease and returning to poverty due to disease, and promoting poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Given this backdrop, we study the efficiency of the NRCMS that can effectively promote poverty alleviation and rural revitalization and ensure the people's happy life. Implementing the Data Envelopment Analysis, we find that technological progress is one of the main factors influencing the efficiency of the NRCMS. Therefore, it is important to improve the technology for providing the efficiency of the NRCMS and promoting the happiness of the society. (shrink)

Conflicts in land exploration are incisive social problems which have been the subject in many studies. Risk assessment of land conflicts is effective to resolve such problems. Specifically, fuzzy mathematics and the analytic hierarchy process were combined together to evaluate risk in land conflicts in our work, which is proved useful to solve uncertainty and imprecision problems. Based on the analysis of the principles for the risk assessment of a land conflicts index system, a set of risk assessment indexes using (...) the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process was presented. The results show that the overall risk is at medium level, and the risk of the feasibility index and controllability index need to be paid more attention to. The contribution of this article is reflected in two aspects: the application of FAHP in risk assessments of land conflicts is effective and valid; it is helpful for governments to establish a stricter management system of work safety for conflicts in land exploration based on the risk assessment results. (shrink)

As a way of human-computer interaction, game-based assessment is more suitable for young children because it is situational, interesting, and effective. National identity is an important factor affecting the overall development of young children and the future development of a country, which has attracted extensive attention from researchers. Nevertheless, the assessment of young children's national identity is still based on traditional evaluation, including questionnaires and interviews, which have the limitations of being inaccurate, dull, and time-consuming. To understand the characteristics of (...) children's national identity, it is necessary to use scientific and interactive assessment methods. The present study investigated whether the game-based assessment we developed specifically would be an appropriate tool to measure young children's national identity. The results show that the game-based assessment had good item discrimination. Exploratory factor analysis demonstrated the game covered three aspects: national cognition mastery, national emotion engagement, and national behavior tendency. The confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the model with three factors fit the data well. The internal consistency, the split-half reliability, and the test-retest reliability meet standards. Overall, the results indicated that this game can be successfully used to assess young children's national identity with acceptable validity and reliability. Our study provides strong evidence for the use of human-computer interaction in child measurement. These findings are the first to demonstrate the promise of game-based assessment in assessing children's national identity reliably and effectively. (shrink)

Objective: To investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment, psychological capital, job involvement, and the retention intention of kindergarten teachers in mainland China and the internal mechanism of action.Methods: A total of 554 kindergarten teachers were investigated by scales for psychological empowerment, psychological capital, job involvement, and retention intention.Results: Psychological empowerment was positively correlated with psychological capital and job involvement. Psychological capital was positively correlated with job involvement. Psychological empowerment, psychological capital, and job involvement were significantly and positively correlated with retention (...) intention. Psychological empowerment influences kindergarten teachers' retention intention mainly through three indirect effects: the single intermediary effects of psychological capital and job involvement and the chain intermediary effect of psychological capital → job involvement.Conclusion: Psychological empowerment can not only indirectly predict the retention intention of kindergarten teachers through the single intermediary effects of psychological capital and job involvement, but also indirectly predict the retention intention of kindergarten teachers through the chain intermediary effect of psychological capital and job involvement. (shrink)

Aiming at the problems of poor adaptability and low secret key generation rate of secret key generation scheme based on single characteristic parameter of wireless channel, a secret key generation method based on joint characteristic parameters of amplitude and phase of wireless channel is proposed. This method is based on the single-eavesdropping wireless fading channel model; the joint characteristic model of amplitude and phase of wireless fading channel is established; it detects and extracts the joint characteristic parameters of amplitude and (...) phase of channel, and then the proposed characteristics are quantified by using the equal probability joint quantization strategy of amplitude and phase to generate the secret key random parameters. In this paper, the amplitude and phase joint feature parameter detection method of wireless channel can not only improve the generation rate of random secret key parameters but also make the eavesdropping party’s eavesdropping error rate closer to 0.5. The test results show that the proposed scheme can significantly improve the rate, reliability, and security of generating key random parameters. (shrink)

Resumo: A civilização ecológica é uma forma de civilização e possui valores culturais. No processo de desenvolvimento econômico e social, devido às diferenças nas práticas sociais, diferentes países, regiões e grupos étnicos são forçados a diferir em sua compreensão da conotação da civilização ecológica e de sua expressão externa. No contexto da diversidade cultural, o desenvolvimento da educação da civilização ecológica na China é um projeto sistemático de longo prazo, que requer a participação conjunta do povo, e pode, de modo (...) geral, ser realizado em três níveis, incluindo o nível social, o nível nacional e o nível escolar. O presente artigo argumenta que toda a sociedade é o solo para desenvolver a educação da civilização ecológica; na China, o governo é a garantia externa e as escolas são o principal campo de batalha. Nesse sentido, o governo confia essencialmente nas escolas para alcançar o objetivo da educação da civilização ecológica. Portanto, o presente artigo se concentrará no nível escolar, baseado na diversidade cultural dos dias atuais, para discutir as contramedidas para o desenvolvimento da educação da civilização ecológica, na China, que inclui o sistema de metas, professores, estudantes, currículo, metodologia e meio ambiente. Além disso, o presente artigo toma a região de Sichuan-Tibet e a cidade de Tianjin como exemplos para elaborar as ações específicas de integração da cultura ecológica étnica com a educação da civilização ecológica nas escolas. (shrink)

Career planning and career decision are important tasks for college students. The process may be affected by career stress, career exploration, and future work self, with some students facing career indecision. Combining both construction career and proactive motivation model, this study investigated the relationships between career stress, career exploration, future work self, career planning and career indecision among 1,012 Chinese college students using the Structure equation model to test the proposed mediation model. Results show that career stress negatively predicts career (...) planning, while career exploration positively predicts career planning. The mediating role of future work self has on career stress and career exploration's effects on both career planning and career indecision was verified. Moreover, the study also found future work self's positive effects on both career planning and career indecision in Chinese college students. Finally, the study's theoretical and practical significance and implications are discussed. (shrink)

The sampling-based motion planner is the mainstream method to solve the motion planning problem in high-dimensional space. In the process of exploring robot configuration space, this type of algorithm needs to perform collision query on a large number of samples, which greatly limits their planning efficiency. Therefore, this paper uses machine learning methods to establish a probabilistic model of the obstacle region in configuration space by learning a large number of labeled samples. Based on this, the high-dimensional samples’ rapid collision (...) query is realized. The influence of number of Gaussian components on the fitting accuracy is analyzed in detail, and a self-adaptive model training method based on Greedy expectation-maximization algorithm is proposed. At the same time, this method has the capability of online updating and can eliminate model fitting errors due to environmental changes. Finally, the model is combined with a variety of sampling-based motion planners and is validated in multiple sets of simulations and real world experiments. The results show that, compared with traditional methods, the proposed method has significantly improved the planning efficiency. (shrink)

Venture capital syndication, an investment model, is gaining increasing attention. This paper uses a new perspective on knowledge transfer to explore the influence mechanism of knowledge heterogeneity in VCS on the innovation performance of entrepreneurial firms. We use firm-year panel data from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange for 2000–2017 and find that the knowledge heterogeneity of VCS includes, at least, management knowledge heterogeneity, investment knowledge heterogeneity, and technical knowledge heterogeneity. In particular, management knowledge heterogeneity and technical knowledge heterogeneity positively affect the (...) IP of entrepreneurial firms. We further find that the intellectual capital of entrepreneurial firms mediates these positive relationships. Moreover, the equity concentration of VCS positively moderates the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and IP and negatively moderates the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and IC. This paper provides a new theoretical explanation of the relationship between VCS and IP of entrepreneurial firms from a knowledge transfer perspective and explores the impact paths of this relationship. (shrink)

Guiding core enterprises to participate in supply chain work safety governance is an innovative mode of work safety control, which has an important impact on improving the work safety level of small and medium-sized enterprises in the supply chain. Through in-depth interviews, the grounded theory is adopted to explore the driving factors of work safety management behaviors of core enterprise. It is found that the work safety management behavior of the core enterprise is driven by both internal and external factors. (...) External driving factors are the main category of institutional pressure composed of regulatory pressure, normative pressure, and cognitive pressure. Internal driving factors are divided into the main category of behavioral awareness and the behavioral capability of the core enterprises. The behavioral awareness is composed of responsibility sense, problem cognition and behavioral effect perception. The behavioral capability is composed of safety management strength and safety coordination capability. Institutional pressure, behavioral awareness, and behavioral capability all influence the work safety management behavior of core enterprise in supply chain significantly, but with different ways and paths. On this basis, the driving mechanism model of the above three main categories on the work safety management behavior in core enterprise supply chain is explored. The research can provide targeted policy ideas and implementation paths for the government to formulate effective guiding policies to promote the work safety management behavior of core enterprise. (shrink)

The international community has proposed a comprehensive strategy to prevent congenital abnormalities. And China, with a high incidence of congenital diseases, has implemented measures including prenatal screening and diagnosis to reduce the morbidity of congenital abnormalities. However, ethical challenges arise in the practice of prenatal screening and diagnosis among healthcare professionals. Five focus group discussions were conducted with twenty-four health professionals working in maternal and child health services in Hunan Province, China, to explore the ethical challenges they encountered in prenatal (...) testing decision-making and information disclosure practices, as well as their views on these challenges. Participants were selected through purposive sampling, ensuring maximum demographic diversity. Three main themes were identified: 1) balancing between information disclosure and privacy protection; 2) patient-oriented decision-making and tensions within family-oriented decision-making; 3) the disparity between the limited help clinical ethics committees (CECs) can provide and professionals’ need for CECs. Ethical norms for information disclosure and autonomous decision-making within prenatal screening and diagnostic institutions must be established. Utilizing CECs is crucial to guide professionals in delivering prenatal testing services while simultaneously focusing on targeted improvement of communication skills among these professionals. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study was to explore the direct influence of self-concept and self-imagination on English language learning outcomes. Furthermore, this study examined the mediating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between self-concept, self-imagination, and ELLO. A survey questionnaire of 21 items was used in this study. We distributed the questionnaire through QR code and collected the data from 2,517 participants who enrolled in blended learning courses at the undergraduate level in Chinese universities. The relationship among the variables (...) was measured through SmartPLS-SEM 3.3.3. The outcomes of the present study indicated a direct, positive, and significant connection of self-concept, self-imagination, and self-efficacy with ELLO. Looking at indirect influences, self-concept and self-imagination, positive and significant, influence ELLO through self-efficacy. Thus, self-efficacy was indicated to play a mediating role between self-concept, self-imagination and ELLO. We can conclude that self-concept, self-imagination, and self-efficacy are the main predictors of ELLO in blended learning courses during the pandemic. Additionally, self-concept and self-imagination along with the intervening role of self-efficacy, play a more effective role in improving ELLO. Moreover, this study provided some useful, practical implications, and future research directions. (shrink)

The concept of _feeling trusted_, which has received far less attention from researchers than _trusting_, refers to the trustee’s awareness of trustor’s exposed vulnerability and positive expectations. Previous research has merely centered on employees’ feeling of being trusted by their leaders and its influences on their work-related outcomes, but there is little work about the impact of leader feeling trusted by employees. Grounded in social exchange theory and moral licensing theory, the current research centers on explaining why leaders’ sense of (...) being trusted by employees brings about both positive and negative reactions and considering how leaders’ moral identity moderates these effects. One qualitative study and two quantitative studies were conducted to examine the benefits and drawbacks of leader feeling trusted. Results demonstrated that leader feeling trusted has two main consequences: trusted leaders are more likely to have strong feelings of obligation toward their subordinates, and further engage in benevolent leadership behavior to repay the kindness; and leaders’ sense of being trusted may be conducive to the accumulation of moral credits, thereby stimulating leaders to display laissez-faire leadership behavior. Additionally, our findings indicate that the leader’s moral identity would affect the decisions of the trusted leader to behave better or worse, which promotes benevolent leadership behavior through enhanced felt obligation, and lessens laissez-faire leadership behavior via reduced moral credits. (shrink)

Resumo: Para Paul Auster, um quarto é, em essência, “a própria substância da solidão”, uma solidão espacialmente definida. Nesse sentido, o fenômeno transcendeu suas limitações físicas e assumiu significado existencial e filosófico. Em seus escritos, uma sala é, antes de tudo, um espaço arquitetônico que um escritor solitário ocupa; além disso, é metaforizado como a mente que é a sala - um espaço construído intelectualmente; e, por fim, é um lugar narrado em suas histórias, onde seus personagens meditam e compõem, (...) um espaço que existe em palavras. O artigo realiza estudos sobre os escritos da vida de Auster e uma de suas ficções, Homem no Escuro, para apresentar a complexidade das três formas de quartos solitários e sua mútua inclusão na solidão intersubjetiva. (shrink)

Amid the social background of China where the Internet has penetrated into every corner of an adolescent’s life, we were concerned of the role of Internet usage in influencing the educational gap among social classes. We investigated the mediating role of Internet usage preference for entertainment in the relationship between the family socioeconomic status and the adolescent’s academic achievement and explored the moderating role of future orientation in the relationship. A total of 614 junior high school students were recruited to (...) complete a questionnaire survey, including questionnaires for family SES, Internet usage preference, and adolescent future orientation. The results showed that the relationship between family SES and academic achievement was mediated by Internet usage preference for entertainment; the indirect effect was moderated by future orientation, such that the negative association between family SES and Internet usage preference for entertainment was only indicated in adolescents with low future orientation; and the direct association between family SES and Internet usage preference for entertainment was moderated by future orientation. (shrink)

Exploring the locality stereotype with respect to CEO’s trustworthiness, we find that firms whose CEOs are from more reputable hometowns have a higher likelihood of stock price crashes, indicating the presence of a CEO “Trust Exploitation” effect, i.e. a high-trust identity does not guarantee managerial ethics; to the contrary, it could tempt CEOs to abuse outsiders’ trust, camouflage their misconducts and conceal adverse information more severely. The effect of CEO’s perceived trustworthiness on tail risk of stock price remains robust when (...) controlling for the region-level trust of firm’s headquarters, and in 2SLS regression with an instrumental variable. Further, CEO’s “Trust Exploitation” effect is more prominent among firms with lower disclosure quality, higher capital market pressure and higher CEO incentives. Our findings highlight an unexplored imperfection of individual-level trustworthiness as a reliable substitute for formal monitoring devices in terms of improving stock market stability. (shrink)

Engagement, a psychological individual difference variable with three facets, has recently attracted scholarly attention. Through a large-scale survey, we examined what we call ‘L2 engagement’ among 21,370 secondary school students in China, with an L2 engagement scale adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale -student version. Factor analysis showed this scale to be empirically unidimensional with three highly intercorrelated facets and very high internal consistency; this contributes to our understanding of the conceptual challenges surrounding the construct of engagement and the (...) broader issue concerning the correspondence between empirical constructs and theoretical terms. Hierarchical regression revealed that the selected sociobiographical variables were linked to L2 engagement to varying degrees; adopting a more refined approach to gauge the unique contribution of a predictor to L2 engagement in hierarchical regression, we identified L2 proficiency, parental attention, study time and frequency of parental coaching as important predictors for L2 engagement. We call for more studies to adopt our L2 engagement scale, a sufficiently valid and reliable instrument developed based on a large sample. We also propose a few future research directions. (shrink)

In this article, we propose a new method to learn the underlying acyclic mixed graph of a linear non-Gaussian structural equation model with given observational data. We build on an algorithm proposed by Wang and Drton, and we show that one can augment the hidden variable structure of the recovered model by learning multidirected edges rather than only directed and bidirected ones. Multidirected edges appear when more than two of the observed variables have a hidden common cause. We detect the (...) presence of such hidden causes by looking at higher order cumulants and exploiting the multi-trek rule. Our method recovers the correct structure when the underlying graph is a bow-free acyclic mixed graph with potential multidirected edges. (shrink)