Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu [Spring and Autumn of the House of Lü] appeared on the scene in 239 B.C. This was the latter part of the Warring States period. Our country's transition from slavery to feudalism had already been basically completed, but chaotic wars of secession among the feudal princes still occurred. Remnant forces of the slave system were still quite strong, and the restoration-counterrestoration struggle between the declining slave-owning class and the newly emerging landlord class was proceeding violently. Lü Pu-wei was (...) a careerist and plotter of the declining slave-owning class and a representative of the Confucians. In response to the needs of the slave-owning class's counterrevolutionary restoration, Lü adopted the tactic of "attacking the mind." He sneaked into the government of the newly emerging landlord class in the state of Ch'in and played the role of an ardent vanguard for restoration. This big commercial slave owner, who had originally run around among Ch'in, Chao, and other states, had amassed thousands of gold pieces at home and possessed more than ten thousand slaves. He played around with political conspiracies and became chancellor of the state of Ch'in. Before King Ying Cheng of Ch'in personally took power in 238 B.C., political power fell for a time into Lü's hands. Lü Pu-wei worked in collusion with Lao Ai, a eunuch he sponsored, and joined the industrial and commercial slave owners and the aristocratic slave owners to form a frenzied restorationist force. On the one hand, they formed factions to strengthen private interests, expanded their power, and prepared for an armed coup d'état. On the other hand, they took in riff-raff [literally, people who had surrendered and rebelled], assembled Confucian scholars, set to work on ideology, and grandly created public opinion for the restoration of the slave system. At that time, a reactionary adverse current favoring the restoration of the slave system hung over the state of Ch'in. Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu, which was compiled under Lü's direction by his retainers, was the product of this adverse current. (shrink)

Most previous empirical studies just addressed the influence of geographical proximity on interactive learning regarding the collaboration between knowledge-intensive business service and manufacturing industries. Drawing upon the social cognitive and knowledge-based perspective, this study bridged the research gaps by investigating the joint effects of geographical proximity and two representative non-geographic-proximities in fostering manufacturing firms’ innovation performance. In terms of the empirical analysis, we applied a research sample that involves the data of various manufacturing industries in 260 cities of China from (...) 2003 to 2014 to test the corresponding hypotheses. Additionally, the Spatial Durbin Model was adopted and the research findings showed that: the geographic and social proximity significantly promote the knowledge transfer from KIBS to manufacturing firms, which further improves the innovation performance of the latter. However, the effect of cognitive proximity presents insignificant; the interactive effect of geographic and social proximity was positively associated with the innovation collaboration between KIBS and manufacturing firms; although the individual effect of cognitive proximity was insignificant, when it interacted with geographic or social proximity, the joint effects were proved to promote the innovation performance of manufacturing firms. This study extends our understanding pertaining to the influencing mechanism of proximity for KIBS and the innovation process. The findings proved that geographic and social proximity are two imperative facilitators of knowledge-creating collaboration, highlighting their indispensable role in moderating and mediating the knowledge transfer of KIBS as well as the innovation performance of manufacturing firms. Notably, cognitive proximity is contingent upon geographic and social proximity on its positive effects on the innovation performance for KIBS and their clients’ collaboration. (shrink)

The relationships between age and the life-supporting treatments use, and between gender and the life-supporting treatments use are still controversial. Using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as an example of life-supporting treatments, the objectives of this study were: to examine the relationship between age and the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use; to examine the relationship between age and the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use; and to deliberate the ethical and societal implications of age and gender disparities in the initiation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. This (...) is a population-based, retrospective cohort study. Taiwan’s extracorporeal membrane oxygenation cases from 2000 to 2010 were collected. The annual incidence rate of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use adjusting for both age and gender distribution for each year from 2000 to 2010 was derived using the population of 2000 as the reference population. The trend of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use was examined using time-series linear regression analysis. We conducted joinpoint regression for estimating the trend change of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use. The trends of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use both for different gender groups, and for different age groups have been significantly increasing over time. Men were more likely to be supported by extracorporeal membrane oxygenation than women. Women’s perspectives toward life and death, and women’s perception of well-being may be associated with the phenomenon. In addition, the patients at the age of 65 or older were more likely to be supported by extracorporeal membrane oxygenation than those younger than 65. Family autonomy/family-determination, and the Confucian tradition of filial piety and respecting elders may account for this phenomenon. This study showed gender and age disparities in the initiation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use in Taiwan, which may be accounted for by the cultural and societal values in Taiwan. For a healthcare professional who deals with patients’/family members’ medical decision-making to initiate life-supporting treatments, he/she should be sensitive not only to the legality, but also the societal and ethical issues involved. (shrink)

Early childhood development intervention has gained considerable achievements in eliminating intergenerational transmission of poverty in rural areas. Paying further attention to rural children’s community inclusion can also promote the sustainable development of the village. However, there is a lack of systematic theoretical constructs on the village inclusion of rural children. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the problem mechanism and solution strategy of community inclusion of rural children using a grounded theory approach of in-depth interviews. Seventeen parents (...) of children in a national-level poverty-stricken county in Inner Mongolia of China were investigated, adopting the strategy of intensity sampling. The results revealed that the content of rural children’s activities demonstrates enhanced participation in the virtual environment and weakened participation in the real community environment. That is, the activities are characterized by more virtualization and individualization. Rural parents and community peers are two major channels for children’s community inclusion, while both the community peer environment and parental community participation show a weakening trend. This may be an important reason for the virtualization and individualization of the children’s psychological development environment. Developmental intervention programs for rural children in poverty-stricken areas should focus on the reconstruction of children’s community peer environment, encourage the community participation of parents, and fully mobilize local-based educational resources. (shrink)

BackgroundBilateral cerebral palsy is the most common type of CP in children and is often accompanied by different degrees of communication impairment. Several studies have attempted to identify children at high risk for communication impairment. However, most prediction factors are qualitative and subjective and may be influenced by rater bias. Individualized objective diagnostic and/or prediction methods are still lacking, and an effective method is urgently needed to guide clinical diagnosis and treatment. The aim of this study is to develop and (...) validate an objective, individual-based model for the prediction of communication impairment in children with BCP by the time they enter school.MethodsA multicenter prospective cohort study will be conducted in four Chinese hospitals. A total of 178 children with BCP will undergo advanced brain magnetic resonance imaging at baseline. At school entry, communication performance will be assessed by a communication function classification system. Three-quarters of children with BCP will be allocated as a training cohort, whereas the remaining children will be allocated as a test cohort. Multivariate lesion- and connectome-based approaches, which have shown good predictive ability of language performance in stroke patients, will be applied to extract features from MR images for each child with BCP. Multiple machine learning models using extracted features to predict communication impairment for each child with BCP will be constructed using data from the training cohort and externally validated using data from the test cohort. Prediction accuracy across models in the test cohort will be statistically compared.DiscussionThe findings of the study may lead to the development of several translational tools that can individually predict communication impairment in children newly diagnosed with BCP to ensure that these children receive early, targeted therapeutic intervention before they begin school.Trial registrationThe study has been registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. (shrink)

Conquering print-sound mappings is vital for developing fluent reading skills. In neuroimaging research, this ability can be indexed by activation differences between audiovisual congruent against incongruent conditions in brain areas such as the left superior temporal cortex. In line with it, individuals with dyslexia have difficulty in tasks requiring print-sound processing, accompanied by a reduced neural integration. However, existing evidence is almost restricted to alphabetic languages. Whether and how multisensory processing of print and sound is impaired in Chinese dyslexia remains (...) underexplored. In this study, we applied a passive audiovisual integration paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the possible dysfunctions in processing character-sound and pinyin-sound associations in Chinese dyslexic children. Unexpectedly, the dyslexic group did not show reduced neural integration compared with typically developing readers in either character or pinyin experiment. However, the results revealed atypical correlations between neural integration and different reading abilities in dyslexia. Specifically, while the neural integration in the left inferior frontal cortex in processing character-sound pairs correlated with silent reading comprehension in both children with and without dyslexia, it was associated with morphological awareness in controls but with rapid naming in dyslexics. This result indicates Chinese dyslexic children may not use the same grapho-semantic processing strategy as their typical peers do. As for pinyin-sound processing, while a stronger neural integration in the direction of “congruent > incongruent” in the left occipito-temporal cortex and bilateral superior temporal cortices was associated with better oral reading fluency in the control group, an opposite pattern was found in dyslexia. This finding may reflect dyslexia's dysfunctional recruitment of the regions in grapho-phonological processing, which further impedes character learning. (shrink)

Before we investigate Mencius' art, should we not first define the term "art" [i-shu] and identify the essentials in Mencius' art?