Indoor plants can positively impact physical and mental health in daily life. However, the benefits of viewing indoor plants may be enhanced if the plants emit a fragrant aroma. In this crossover-design study, we measured the physiological and psychological effects of fragrant and non-fragrant Primula plants on 50 female college students, and explored whether aroma stimulation had additive benefits for this group. Non-fragrant Primula malacoides Franch was used as a control stimulus, and Primula forbesii Franch, which has a floral fragrance, (...) was used as an experimental stimulus. We measured blood pressure, pulse rate, and electroencephalogram to evaluate physiological responses, and used a mood state profile and the semantic differential method to evaluate psychological responses. We found that mean blood pressure and pulse rate decreased significantly after the experiment in both conditions. EEGs showed that the mean values of high alpha waves, high beta waves, and relaxation scores were significantly higher in the experimental vs. control condition. The average scores on each subscale of the psychological questionnaire improved after the experiment in both conditions, and the vitality subscale and total emotional state scores were significantly better in the experimental vs. control condition. The results of the SD method showed that the sense of relaxation and comfort were significantly higher in the experimental vs. control condition. Compared with the non-fragrant Primula, the fragrant Primula induced relatively better physiological and psychological effects. (shrink)

Cellular reprogramming can manipulate the identity of cells to generate the desired cell types1– 3. The use of cell intrinsic components, including oocyte cytoplasm and transcription factors, can enforce somatic cell reprogramming to pluripotent stem cells4– 7. By contrast, chemical stimulation by exposure to small molecules offers an alternative approach that can manipulate cell fate in a simple and highly controllable manner8– 10. However, human somatic cells are refractory to chemical stimulation owing to their stable epigenome2,11,12 and reduced plasticity13,14; it (...) is therefore challenging to induce human pluripotent stem cells by chemical reprogramming. Here we demonstrate, by creating an intermediate plastic state, the chemical reprogramming of human somatic cells to human chemically induced pluripotent stem cells that exhibit key features of embryonic stem cells. The whole chemical reprogramming trajectory analysis delineated the induction of the intermediate plastic state at the early stage, during which chemical-induced dedifferentiation occurred, and this process was similar to the dedifferentiation process that occurs in axolotl limb regeneration. Moreover, we identified the JNK pathway as a major barrier to chemical reprogramming, the inhibition of which was indispensable for inducing cell plasticity and a regeneration-like program by suppressing pro-inflammatory pathways. Our chemical approach provides a platform for the generation and application of human pluripotent stem cells in biomedicine. This study lays foundations for developing regenerative therapeutic strategies that use well-defined chemicals to change cell fates in humans. (shrink)

The complexity of today’s organizational environment increasingly requires leaders to think in a dynamic and flexible way to resolve contradictory issues. This study explored and compared the effects of servant leadership and authoritarian leadership on employees’ work behavior from the perspectives of ambidextrous leadership theory and social exchange theory, and further examined the mediating role of psychological empowerment. In this study, 315 employees from state-owned communication companies in Shandong and Zhejiang Provinces in China were selected as subjects, and path analysis (...) was used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that servant leadership positively predicted organizational citizenship behavior and task performance. While authoritarian leadership negatively predicted organizational citizenship behavior and positively predicted task performance, psychological empowerment mediated the relationship between the two leadership styles and organizational citizenship behavior and task performance. Moreover, psychological empowerment and organizational citizenship behavior played a multiple mediating role between the two leadership styles and task performance. The theoretical implications of these findings for advancing the ambidextrous leadership theory in Chinese organizational contexts and practical approaches for corporate managers to effectively use ambidextrous leadership style were discussed. (shrink)

Locus equations contain an economical set of hidden (i.e., not directly observable in the data) parameters of speech that provide an elegant way of characterizing the ubiquitous context-dependent behaviors exhibited in speech acoustics. These hidden parameters can be effectively exploited to constrain the huge set of context-dependent speech model parameters currently in use in modern, mainstream speech recognition technology.

Human resource management risks are due to the failure of employer organization to use relevant human resources reasonably and can result in tangible or intangible waste of human resources and even risks; therefore, constructing a practical early warning model of human resource management risk is extremely important for early risk prediction. The back propagation neural network is an information analysis and processing system formed by using the error back propagation algorithm to simulate the neural function and structure of the human (...) brain, which can handle complex and changeable things that do not have an obvious linear relationship between output results and input factors, so as to find the objective connection between the two. Based on the summary and analysis of previous research works, this article expounded the research status and significance of early warning for human resource management risks, elaborated the development background, current status, and future challenges of the BP neural network, introduced the method and principle of the BP neural network’s connection weight calculation and learning training, performed the risk inducement analysis, index system establishment, and network node selection of human resource management, constructed an early warning model of human resource management risk based on the BP neural network, conducted the risk warning model training and detection based on the BP neural network, and finally carried out a simulation and its result analysis. The study results show that the early warning model of human resource management risk based on the BP network is effective, and this trained and tested BP network risk warning model can be used to conduct early warning empirical research on human resource risks to prevent human resource risks, ensure enterprise’s benign operation, and at the same time play a role in supervision and promotion of market order rectification. (shrink)

To identify relationships among entities in natural language texts, extraction of entity relationships technically provides a fundamental support for knowledge graph, intelligent information retrieval, and semantic analysis, promotes the construction of knowledge bases, and improves efficiency of searching and semantic analysis. Traditional methods of relationship extraction, either those proposed at the earlier times or those based on traditional machine learning and deep learning, have focused on keeping relationships and entities in their own silos: extracting relationships and entities are conducted in (...) steps before obtaining the mappings. To address this problem, a novel Chinese relationship extraction method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the triple is treated as an entity relation chain and can identify the entity before the relationship and predict its corresponding relationship and the entity after the relationship. Secondly, the Joint Extraction of Entity Mentions and Relations model is based on the Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory and Maximum Entropy Markov Model. Experimental results indicate that the proposed model can achieve a precision of 79.2% which is much higher than that of traditional models. (shrink)

Tax haven investment has become an increasingly important topic in business ethics. Given the considerable tax haven investments from emerging market firms, understanding how home-country institutions shape their investments in tax havens is theoretically intriguing and practically crucial. By integrating resource dependence and institutional theories, we hypothesize the existence of a negative relationship between firms’ home-country political status and tax haven investment. State-owned enterprises controlled by the central government dominate the political hierarchy. Compared with other types of enterprises, central SOEs (...) receive the strongest institutional support and are the most prone to institutional oversight, thereby exhibiting the weakest tendency to invest in tax havens. This top group is followed by SOEs controlled by local governments, politically connected private firms, and private firms without political connections. These groups exhibit an increasing tendency to invest in overseas tax havens. The empirical analysis of Chinese listed firms during 2003–2013 supports our hypotheses. This research contributes to the business ethics literature by identifying institutional drivers of overseas tax haven investment by emerging market firms, thereby adding to the ethical debate on international tax avoidance. (shrink)

Based on upper echelon theory, we employ machine learning to explore how CEO characteristics influence corporate violations using a large-scale dataset of listed firms in China for the period 2010–2020. Comparing ten machine learning methods, we find that eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) outperforms the other models in predicting corporate violations. An interpretable model combining XGBoost and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) indicates that CEO characteristics play a central role in predicting corporate violations. Tenure has the strongest predictive power and is negatively (...) associated with corporate violations, followed by marketing experience, education, duality (i.e., simultaneously holding the position of chairperson), and research and development experience. In contrast, shareholdings, age, and pay are positively related to corporate violations. We also analyze violation severity and violation type, confirming the role of tenure in predicting more severe and intentional violations. Overall, our findings contribute to preventing corporate violations, improving corporate governance, and maintaining order in the financial market. (shrink)

As the aging population, including frail older people, continues to grow in Mainland China, quality of life and end-of-life care for frail older people has attracted much attention. Advance care planning is an effective way to improve end-of-life care for people with advanced diseases, and it is widely used in developed countries; however, it is a new concept in Mainland China. The effects of advance care planning and its acceptability in Mainland China are uncertain because of its culture-sensitive characteristics. The (...) objective of this article is to discuss the serious social issue of caring for frail older people and illustrate the possibility of implementing advance care planning in nursing homes in Mainland China through a review of relevant literature, which will focus on legislation, healthcare system engagement, public engagement, and cultural issues. Recommendations to promote and implement advance care planning include choosing nursing homes as a proper setting, establishing an ethical climate, and enhancing public awareness. (shrink)

In contemporary European policy discussion, “innovation“ is a term popularly used for finding responses to the pressure of global competition. In various forms of innovation, the accent is mainly given to technical and business innovation but less to social innovation. This article studies the issue of social innovation with reference to the local practice in Hangzhou city, which aims to strengthen the life quality of citizens in this city. These practices develop various forms of inter-sectoral collaboration, resulting in numerous “common (...) denominator subject“ (CDS) groups that are promoted by the local government. These practices follow the principles of cooperation and partnership, and thus develop a corporatist mechanism for urban development. Through discussion of these practices this article explores the nature and the features of these CDS groups, and evaluates its meaning for social innovation, local administration, life quality and social quality. (shrink)

BackgroundThe death of a loved one can trigger a range of responses, including painful thoughts and emotions, as well as positive changes, such as post-traumatic growth. To understand more about the relationship between these outcomes this study explored the co-occurrence of depression, anxiety and PTG among a group of bereaved Chinese adults.MethodsData were collected from 194 participants, who had lost a first-degree relative. Latent class analysis was used to analyze the data to identify subgroups of participants with shared symptom profiles.ResultsThree (...) classes were identified: a Growth class, a Depression/Anxiety/Growth class and a Depression/Anxiety class. Marital status, social support, close relationship with the deceased and witnessing the suffering of the deceased were identified as differential predictors of class membership.ConclusionThe findings contribute to our understanding of the potentially wide ranging impacts of bereavement and highlight the important role of stressor characteristics and support and in influencing impairment and positive outcomes. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the resource-based mechanism underlying the relationship between political skill and salespersons’ work outcomes. Specifically, we propose that political skill influences salespersons’ sales performance and job satisfaction through organizational resources and salesperson–customer guanxi, which serve as their internal and external resources. To examine our model, we collected data from 203 salespersons working at a large financial services institution in China. The findings reveal that both access to resources and build-up of s–c guanxi mediate the effect of (...) political skill on salespersons’ work outcomes. Moreover, access to resources and build-up of s–c guanxi interact to predict salespersons’ sales performance and job satisfaction. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundExercise is increasingly recognized as a key component of Parkinson’s disease treatment strategies, but the underlying mechanism of how exercise affects PD is not yet fully understood.ObjectiveThe activation likelihood estimation method is used to study the mechanism of exercise affecting PD, providing a theoretical basis for studying exercise and PD, and promoting the health of patients with PD.MethodsRelevant keywords were searched on the PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases. Seven articles were finally included according to the screening criteria, (...) with a total sample size of 97 individuals. Using the GingerALE 3.0.2 software, an ALE meta-analysis was performed using seven studies that met the requirements, and the probability of the cross-experiment activation of each voxel was calculated.ResultsThe meta-analysis produced seven clusters, and major activations were found in the cerebellum, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, and frontal lobe brain regions.ConclusionExercise for PD mainly results in the enhanced activation of the cerebellum, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, and frontal lobe. Exercise for PD does not cause a change in the activation of a single brain area, and the observed improvement may result from coordinated changes in multiple brain areas. (shrink)

From the perspective of entrepreneurial team processes, this study examines the effect of dynamic team environment on entrepreneurial team innovation. Through applying the uncertainty reduction theory and group process theory, this study proposes the influence mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between dynamic team environment on entrepreneurial team innovation. By analyzing a sample of 270 entrepreneurial teams in China, this study found that dynamic team environment could evoke entrepreneurial team innovation via triggering team members’ agreement seeking behavior and then (...) promoting team knowledge integration. In addition, team centralization of decision making can weaken the relationship between agreement seeking behavior and team knowledge integration. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of entrepreneurial teams’ reactions to dynamic environment and the multistep mechanism that transfers the impact of dynamic team environment to entrepreneurial team innovation through team members’ reactions and team interactions. (shrink)

Significant research has been conducted on the influence of entrepreneurial intention on entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurship practice. Similarly, this study aims to explore how creativity plays a mediating role in the influence of personality traits on entrepreneurial intention. As many as 674 valid questionnaires were collected from college students in China, allowing the relationship between personality traits, creativity, and entrepreneurial intention to be analyzed in detail. The following results are found through a series of explorations. First, neuroticism in personality traits (...) has a significant negative impact on entrepreneurial intention, while conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion have a significant positive impact. Second, neuroticism has a significant negative impact on creativity, while conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion have a significant positive impact. Third, creativity has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial intention, it has a partial mediating role between neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion, and entrepreneurial intention along with a complete mediating role between openness and entrepreneurial intention. The research results further provide a reference value for the improvement and optimization of entrepreneurial practice. (shrink)

The predominant use of junk food in our societies is continuously held responsible for the obese body physiques and overweight among the kids and adolescents. The current supportive environments where organic foods are limited, and new processed foods have been brought to the market with more variant tastes and acceptability for the kids and adolescents that have diverged their eating patterns. It has significantly contributed to the health issues and growth discrepancies of the users. However, the awareness of the food (...) contents is an important milestone for understanding the risks associated with the usage of junk foods. A quantitative approach has been used in this study to measure the effect of perceived severity, vulnerability and fear on the junk food eating behaviors and ultimately on the obesity. The moderating role of product knowledge hiding has also been measured on the relationship of junk food eating and obesity. Structural equation modeling is used using the software Smart-PLS for measuring the hypothesis with a sample size of 228 selected through purposive sampling. The sample consisted of kids and adolescents who were reached on purpose for data collection. The current study has explored the role of perceived severity, vulnerability and the fear of using junk foods which have been found as a negative effect on junk food eating behavior which is positively associated with obesity among the kids and adolescents. The result of study shows that perceived threat has a negative effect on the junk food eating behavior of the adolescents. However, the positive relationship of junk food eating behavior with obesity can be decreased if the information about the products is not hidden. This study will be useful for making the consumers aware of the product knowledge hiding of the junk food usage. Moreover, it will help the users in creating understanding of risks allied with the use of junk food which may be addressed in order to avoid obesity issues in the kids and adolescents globally. (shrink)

This article considers the government, opinion leaders, and Internet users to be a system for correcting false information, and it considers the problem of correcting false information that arises in the aftermath of major emergencies. We use optimal control theory and differential game theory to construct differential game models of decentralized decision-making, centralized decision-making, and subsidized decision-making. The solutions to these models and their numerical simulations show that the government, opinion leaders, and Internet users exercise cost-subsidized decision-making instead of decentralized (...) decision-making. The equilibrium strategies, local optimal benefits, and overall optimal benefits of the system achieve Pareto improvement. Given the goal of maximizing the benefits to the system under centralized decision-making, the equilibrium results are Pareto-optimal. The research here provides a theoretical basis for dealing with the mechanism of correcting false information arising from major emergencies, and our conclusions provide methodological support for the government to effectively deal with such scenarios. (shrink)

The effect of COVID-induced public anxiety on stock markets, particularly in European stock market returns, is examined in this research. The search volumes for the notion of COVID-19 gathered by Google Trends and Wikipedia were used as proxies for COVID-induced public anxiety. COVID-induced public anxiety was shown to be linked with negative returns in European stock markets when a panel data method was used to a sample of data from 14 European stock markets from January 2, 2020 to September 17, (...) 2020. Using an automated trading system, we used this finding to suggest investment methods based on COVID-induced anxiety. The findings of back-testing indicate that these techniques have the potential to generate exceptional profits. These results have significant consequences for government officials, the media, and investors. (shrink)

Epithelial tissues serve as critical barriers in metazoan organisms, maintaining structural integrity and facilitating essential physiological functions. Epithelial cell polarity regulates mechanical properties, signaling, and transport, ensuring tissue organization and homeostasis. However, the barrier function is challenged by cell turnover during development and maintenance. To preserve tissue integrity while removing dying or unwanted cells, epithelial tissues employ cell extrusion. This process removes both dead and live cells from the epithelial layer, typically causing detached cells to undergo apoptosis. Transformed cells, however, (...) often resist apoptosis, leading to multilayered structures and early carcinogenesis. Malignant cells may invade neighboring tissues. Loss of cell polarity can lead to multilayer formation, cell extrusion, and invasion. Recent studies indicate that multilayer formation in epithelial cells with polarity loss involves a mixture of wild‐type and mutant cells, leading to apical or basal accumulation. The directionality of accumulation is regulated by mutations in polarity complex genes. This phenomenon, distinct from traditional apical or basal extrusion, exhibits similarities to the endophytic or exophytic growth observed in human tumors. This review explores the regulation and implications of these phenomena for tissue biology and disease pathology. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic called for a new ethical climate in the designated hospitals and imposed challenges on care quality for anti-pandemic nurses. Less was known about whether hospital ethical climate and nurses’ ethical sensitivity were associated with care quality. This study examined the association between the perceived hospital ethical climate and self-evaluated quality of care for COVID-19 patients among anti-pandemic nurses, and explored the mediating role of ethical sensitivity in this relationship.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted through an online survey. A (...) total of 399 anti-pandemic nurses from ten designated hospitals in three provinces of China were recruited to fill out an online survey. Multiple linear regression analysis and a bootstrap test were used to examine the relationships between ethical climate, ethical sensitivity and care quality.ResultsNurses reported mean scores of 4.43 ± 0.577 (out of 5) for hospital ethical climate, 45.00 ± 7.085 (out of 54) for ethical sensitivity, and 5.35 ± 0.661 (out of 6) for self-evaluated care quality. After controlling for covariates, perceived hospital ethical climate was positively associated with self-evaluated care quality (direct effect = 0.710, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.628, 0.792), and was partly mediated by ethical sensitivity (indirect effect = 0.078, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.002, 0.145).ConclusionsChinese nurses who cared for COVID-19 patients perceived high levels of hospital ethical climate, ethical sensitivity, and self-evaluated care quality. Positive perceptions of hospital ethical climate were both directly associated with a higher level of self-evaluated care quality and indirectly associated, through the mediation effect of ethical sensitivity among anti-pandemic nurses. (shrink)

Cross-sector relationship building is an important strategy in corporate social responsibility initiatives, and communicating cross-sector relationships on social media can help raise the visibility of collaborative relationships. A noticeable gap in the literature is how social media enables and constrains the formation patterns of cross-sector connections. To understand how businesses communicate their relationships with government agencies and nonprofits about social issues on social media, we propose a theoretical framework that centers public attention as a critical resource and considers different sectors' (...) interests in the COVID-19 issue. We tested this framework with a nationally representative sample of 1,980 organizations on Twitter. The analysis reveals that the increase in public attention to the COVID-19 issue was accompanied by a greater likelihood of cross-sector ties. Specifically, firms severely affected by COVID-19 were more likely to build ties with government agencies, and the increase in public attention also drove firms to build more ties with nonprofits, especially advocacy nonprofits. Our findings suggest managers of social media communication should observe the volatile public attention and design communicative strategies accordingly. (shrink)