This paper aimed to vindicate that Aristotle’s method of reaching the definition of something in Z 12 of Metaphysics is incomplete and suggest the way in which we can reach its true definition. This paper claimed that the definition reached by genus and differentia (say, “a human is a featherless, two-footed animal.”) is not true but merely a taxonomic definition¾“what a definition is like” (1038a35). The combination of essential differentiae of something does not express what it is intrinsically but what (...) other things are not, although the definition is the account of the essence. The combination of the differentiae ‘featherless’ and ‘two-footed’ are not what makes us humans in a positive sense. These differentiae simply set us apart from all other animals. Moreover, his method is arbitrary. The combination of essential differentiae is subject to change insofar as we can swap out one differentia for another. However, the essence of something cannot be changeable. In order to make “a definition like” be “a true definition,” this paper suggests another interpretation of the ultimate differentia. As he presents it, the ultimate differentia is the one that cannot be further divided. However, this paper interprets the ultimate differentia of something as its activity (ἐνέργειά) and its end (τέλος). Hence, it is necessary to combine Aristotle’s method of differentiation with the teleological ultimate differentia of something if we want to reach its true definition. Aristotle at various times refers to human as a rational animal, at other times as a featherless two-footed animal throughout his corpus. This paper suggests that one is taxonomic, an example of what definition is like, and the other one represents the achievement that can be made when we know the true end of a thing¾that is, true definition, if a human is for thinking with our logos. Keywords: definition, essence, taxonomy, differentia, the ultimate differentia, activity, end. (shrink)

Employability is an important indicator of the competency of the employees. Employability model is a useful analytical framework for studying the ever-changing relationship between higher education and the job market. At present, the demand for business English graduates is increasing, however, there is a skill gap between their educational readiness and the recruitment requirements. In order to solve this problem, this study adopted mixed methods research and carried out the research design according to the exploratory sequence design to construct an (...) employability model for business English graduates. A 46-item scale was developed to measure the employability of business English graduates’ employability. After assessment, it was found that the employability of business English graduates was multi-dimensional, with three dimensions—professional knowledge, generic competencies, and career management and 10 sub-dimensions—English language skills, foreign trade competencies, computer and internet application skills, social skills, learning and development, personal traits, thinking ability, work ethics, career identity and planning, and service awareness. This study verified that the employability of business English graduates reached the standard of talent training and met the requirements of employers. There were employability differences in gender, places of origin and educational institutions. From this study, it could be inferred that cultivation of business English majors should be multi-dimensional. (shrink)

Resumen: el arte es la encarnación de la cultura y el espíritu nacional. El canto y el baile son una de las formas más antiguas y ricas del arte humano. No es sólo el producto de la experiencia y la experiencia emocional, sino también la trascendencia de la vida cotidiana vulgar. Como la característica más distinde las películas modernas de la India, el arte de cantar y bailar herede las ideas estéticas tradicionales de la India y la filosofía religiosa en (...) el entorno audiovisual moderno se puede encontrar. Mantiene una impresión nacional distintiva en la marea de la internacionalización. Este tipo de arte es de gran importancia para la exploración de la nacionalidad del arte chino de canto y danza. (shrink)

The escalating integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in clinical settings carries profound implications for the doctrine of informed consent, presenting challenges that necessitate immediate attention. China, in its advancement in the deployment of medical AI, is proactively engaging in the formulation of legal and ethical regulations. This paper takes China as an example to undertake a theoretical examination rooted in the principles of medical ethics and legal norms, analyzing informed consent and medical AI through relevant literature data. The study reveals (...) that medical AI poses fundamental challenges to the accuracy, adequacy, and objectivity of information disclosed by doctors, alongside impacting patient competency and willingness to give consent. To enhance adherence to informed consent rules in the context of medical AI, this paper advocates for a shift towards a patient‐centric information disclosure standard, the restructuring of medical liability rules, the augmentation of professional training, and the advancement of public understanding through educational initiatives. (shrink)

Short-term traffic flow prediction is an effective means for intelligent transportation system to mitigate traffic congestion. However, traffic flow data with temporal features and periodic characteristics are vulnerable to weather effects, making short-term traffic flow prediction a challenging issue. However, the existing models do not consider the influence of weather changes on traffic flow, leading to poor performance under some extreme conditions. In view of the rich features of traffic data and the characteristic of being vulnerable to external weather conditions, (...) the prediction model based on traffic data has certain limitations, so it is necessary to conduct research studies on traffic flow prediction driven by both the traffic data and weather data. This paper proposes a combined framework of stacked autoencoder and radial basis function neural network to predict traffic flow, which can effectively capture the temporal correlation and periodicity of traffic flow data and disturbance of weather factors. Firstly, SAE is used to process the traffic flow data in multiple time slices to acquire a preliminary prediction. Then, RBF is used to capture the relation between weather disturbance and periodicity of traffic flow so as to gain another prediction. Finally, another RBF is used for the fusion of the above two predictions on decision level, obtaining a reconstructed prediction with higher accuracy. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed model are verified by experiments. (shrink)

Background The enhancement of nursing care quality is closely related to the clinical competence of nurses, making it a crucial component within health systems. Objective The present study investigated the relationship between nurses’ clinical competence, moral identity, and moral injury during the COVID-19 outbreak. Research design This cross-sectional study was carried out among frontline nurses, using the Moral Identity Questionnaire (MIQ), the Moral Injury Symptom Scale-Healthcare Professionals version (MISS-HP), and the Competency Inventory for Registered Nurse (CIRN) as data collection tools. (...) Participants and research context: The research population for this study consisted of all frontline nurses ( n = 251) employed in a hospital in southern Iran. Sampling was conducted between May 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021, during the COVID-19 outbreak. Ethical considerations The present study received approval from the research ethics committee of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, with project No. 99267 and code of ethics ID No. IR. RUMS.REC.1399.262, dated 15.02.2021. Results According to the study findings, 42.2% of the nurses demonstrated high clinical competence, while 51.4% exhibited moderate clinical competence. The results indicated a positive correlation between moral identity and clinical competence but a negative correlation between moral injury and clinical competence. Furthermore, the variables of moral identity and moral injury were found to predict 10% of the variance in clinical competence. Conclusion According to the results, moral identity and moral injury had an impact on the clinical competence of nurses. Therefore, implementing a program aimed at enhancing moral identity and providing training strategies to address moral injury during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to improvements in nurses’ clinical competence and the overall quality of care they provide. (shrink)

Industry groups engage in venue shifting when they seek to overturn or alter restrictive regulations imposed by one political venue through another. A critical step in this process is resolving uncertainties surrounding the preference of the targeted venue and the nature of the relevant policy proposal. While existing studies emphasize a long-term trial-and-error process of policy learning, we focus on nascent industries and argue that ventures seek other information sources to resolve these uncertainties quickly. In particular, nascent industry groups are (...) likely to perceive that the targeted venue will support their policy proposal if the targeted venue is ideologically distant from the venue that has enacted the restrictive regulations, if the targeted venue has recently supported other nascent industry groups’ similar policy proposals, or if the industry groups themselves are more exposed to industry peers’ success in promoting the same policy proposal in other jurisdictions. Under these conditions, the industry groups invest more to influence the targeted venue in response to restrictive regulations enacted by other venues. We find support for our theory by examining how from 2013 to 2019 the small unmanned aircraft systems industry trade associations in the United States lobbied state governments to nullify local regulations. (shrink)

Discourse connection is a challenging aspect of writing in a second language. This study seeks to investigate the effects of two classroom instructions on discourse connection in writing for EFL college students, focusing on their argumentative writing. Three classes were exposed to different pre-task conditions: receiving reading materials that provide content support for the writing, receiving planning instructions on effective outlining, and receiving no resources. The results showed that the instructions helped students attain better overall coherence in writing. However, noticeable (...) differences between the two experimental groups emerged in terms of cohesion features. The reading group was found to employ more lexical cohesion devices in writing than the outline group, which indicated a heightened genre awareness. This inquiry helped us identify the reading group’s alignment with content support materials, particularly the change in stance as a factor that contributes to a higher level of lexical cohesion in writing. (shrink)

To add to the currently limited research on the degree of cultural uniqueness of Chinese EFL learners’ anxiety and the multidimensional nature of second language writing anxiety (SLWA), the present qualitative study used think-aloud protocol and interview to examine Chinese EFL learners’ three dimensions of SLWA and the related variables, so as to probe into this problem that could pose an obstacle to sustainable second language writing. Findings showed that Chinese EFL learners experienced much Cognitive Anxiety, but relatively little Avoidance (...) Behavior. Learner-internal, teacher-related, and human-external variables interacted with SLWA in a dynamic way. To a certain degree, Chinese EFL learners showcased uniqueness in some aspects of SLWA, under cultural influences, regarding ethnic culture, local culture, academic culture, and disciplinary culture. (shrink)

A growing group of Chinese students is returning to China following graduation, especially young returnees. This group is seen as one of the most innovative sectors of Chinese society. Based on the theory of planned behavior and three kinds of capital theories, this study explores entrepreneurial intention and its influencing factors among Newly Returned Chinese International Students. A survey of 211 NRCIS showed a low level of EI and little knowledge of supporting policies about entrepreneurship. Influencing factors included culture harmony (...) as culture capital, overseas social networks as social capital, and foreign entrepreneurship education and foreign language proficiency as human capital. Attitude mediated the effects of foreign language proficiency, culture harmony, and foreign entrepreneurship education on EI. Perceived behavior control mediated the effect of foreign language proficiency, Chinese language proficiency, culture harmony, foreign entrepreneurship education, domestic entrepreneurship education, and overseas social networks on EI, and subjective norms have no significant mediating effect in any mediation path. Based on these findings, policymakers could pay attention to examining whether the current policies are working and accessible for NRCIS, and domestic entrepreneurship education could keep cultivating students' cross-cultural communication and understanding abilities, and society and education sectors could encourage positive cognition of entrepreneurship and guide students to form a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship and enhance their confidence. (shrink)

Drawing upon the literature on complementary fit theory, the purpose of this study is to examine how the dynamic tenure moderates the relationship between leader–employee congruence/incongruence in humor and employee innovative behavior. Data were collected from 108 leader–employee dyads from information technology companies in China. Polynomial regression combined with the response surface methodology was used to test the hypotheses. Four conclusions were drawn. First, employee innovative behavior was maximized when leaders and employees were incongruent in humor. Second, in the case (...) of incongruence, employees had higher innovative behavior when employees were more humorous than their leaders. Third, in the case of congruence, employees had higher innovative behavior when a leader’s and an employee’s humor matched at high levels. Fourth, dynamic tenure moderated the leader–employee congruence/incongruence effect of humor on employee innovative behavior. This study enhanced theoretical developments by considering the importance of leaders’ congruence with employees in humor for the first time. Additionally, the research results provided better practical guidance for effectively promoting employee innovative behavior. (shrink)

Human population genetic research (HPGR) seeks to identify the diversity and variation of the human genome and how human group and individual genetic diversity has developed. This book asks whether developing countries are well prepared for the ethical and legal conduct of human population genetic research, with specific regard to vulnerable target group protection. The book highlights particular issues raised by genetic research on populations as a whole, such as the capacity for current frameworks of Western developed countries to provide (...) adequate protections for target groups in human population genetic research, and explores potential groups of people that may suffer harm in this kind of research. Using The People's Republic of China as a key example, Yue Wang argues that since the target groups of HPGR are almost always vulnerable groups from isolated and rural areas of developing countries, the ethical and legal frameworks for human subject protection need to be reconsidered in order to eliminate, or at least reduce, the vulnerability of those groups. While most research in this field focuses on the impact on individuals, this book breaks new ground in exploring how the interests of target groups are also seriously implicated in genetic work. The book argues that current regulations are far from sufficient to prevent harm to vulnerable groups and puts forward an alternative model for group protection in the context of human population genetic research in developing countries. The book will be of great interest to students and academics of medical law, ethics, and the implications of genetic research. (shrink)

This essay links Barthes’ late development on the Neutral in his 1978 Collège de France lecture course to his early reflections on the ‘white’ or ‘neutral’ writing by looking at lesser-known materials: articles published in the sanatorial student journal Existences (1942–4), and in the newspaper Combat (1947–51), as well as how these pieces were integrated into his first book, Writing Degree Zero (1953). I show that Barthes’ first approaches to the ‘neutral’, under the spell of Sartre’s theory of committed literature, (...) both ‘consents’ to the idea of the political responsibility of literature and rejects it, creating a third, crosswise notion of writing that prefigures the recalcitrant force of the Neutral. By exploring the complexities of these early pieces, I argue that some of the unsolved issues will reappear in the Collège de France lecture course, notably the figure of ‘aporia’, and I discuss the ethical implications of this ‘impossibility’. (shrink)

Crowdsourcing platforms are powerful tools for academic researchers. Proponents claim that crowdsourcing helps researchers quickly and affordably recruit enough human subjects with diverse backgrounds to generate significant statistical power, while critics raise concerns about unreliable data quality, labor exploitation, and unequal power dynamics between researchers and workers. We examine these concerns along three dimensions: methods, fairness, and politics. We find that researchers offer vastly different compensation rates for crowdsourced tasks, and address potential concerns about data validity by using platform-specific tools (...) and user verification methods. Additionally, workers depend upon crowdsourcing platforms for a significant portion of their income, are motivated more by fear of losing access to work than by specific compensation rates, and are frustrated by a lack of transparency and occasional unfair treatment from job requesters. Finally, we discuss critical computing scholars’ proposals to address crowdsourcing’s problems, challenges with implementing these resolutions, and potential avenues for future research. (shrink)

Phosphatidylinositol 4,5‐bisphosphate (PI4,5P2) is a key lipid signaling molecule that regulates a vast array of biological activities. PI4,5P2 can act directly as a messenger or can be utilized as a precursor to generate other messengers: inositol trisphosphate, diacylglycerol, or phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5‐trisphosphate. PI4,5P2 interacts with hundreds of different effector proteins. The enormous diversity of PI4,5P2 effector proteins and the spatio‐temporal control of PI4,5P2 generation allow PI4,5P2 signaling to control a broad spectrum of cellular functions. PI4,5P2 is synthesized by phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinases (...) (PIPKs). The array of PIPKs in cells enables their targeting to specific subcellular compartments through interactions with targeting factors that are often PI4,5P2 effectors. These interactions are a mechanism to define spatial and temporal PI4,5P2 synthesis and the specificity of PI4,5P2 signaling. In turn, the regulation of PI4,5P2 effectors at specific cellular compartments has implications for understanding how PI4,5P2 controls cellular processes and its role in diseases. (shrink)

We show that the structure R of recursively enumerable degrees is not a Σ₁-elementary substructure of Dn, where Dn (n > 1) is the structure of n-r.e. degrees in the Ershov hierarchy.

When states perpetrate injustices, do their individual citizens develop liabilities to repair such wrongdoings? Most existing accounts of citizens’ liabilities for state-perpetrated injustices, whilst applicable across certain democratic contexts, struggle to provide robust accounts of the grounds and nature of liabilities for citizens in non-democratic contexts. This problematically leaves a lacuna when it comes to the responsibilities and appropriate responses of citizens in these states. This article advances a distinctive two-pronged authorisation-based account applicable to non-democracies. Objective authorisers are individuals who (...) derive presumptive benefits, are comparably better-off under, and can reliably influence the decision-making processes over the injustice perpetrated by the state. Subjective authorisers are citizens who autonomously endorse their state as credible interpreters and upholders of their aims in relation to the injustices in question. Both objective and subjective authorisers of the state in relation to particular injustices perpetrated, are liable to compensate, actively oppose, and commemorate the victims of state-perpetrated injustices. This account will be shown to be empirically applicable to a large number of minimally decent non-democratic states, where the political elite enjoy moderate popular support over their incorporation and reflection of citizen interests and preferences in their governance, despite the absence of formal democratic electoral mechanisms. This authorisation-based view differs from existing accounts oriented around complicity and participatory intentions, in better accounting for non-participants who are nevertheless intuitively liable for the actions of their authorised state, as well as circumventing structural shortcomings affecting complicity-centric accounts. (shrink)

This paper compares the very different results of the use of the theories of Arthur Lewis in constructing the mixed economies of China and the Caribbean, the widely diverging paths these economies took in the era of neoliberal globalization, and how the two can cooperate now that China has entered its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) phase. We argue that in response to the great depression of the 1930s, both China and the Caribbean embarked on socialist alternatives to pure capitalism. (...) China took the path of revolutionary socialism, while many of the Caribbean territories embarked on reformist paths of democratic socialism. Although both of these experiments went through what we have called their Lewisian phases, several decades later China, now a market socialist state is the home of the world’s number two economy, and will soon be, if it is not already a major center of the global economic system. China now exports not only industrial goods but also capital on global scale, with the Caribbean being one of the major recipients of China’s exporting of surplus capital via its BRI. With the Caribbean remaining very much a peripheral area within the global economic system, the paper discusses the complicating factors that are likely to arise in the cooperative relations between the two regions as this gap in their locations in the global economy continues to widen. (shrink)

The number of surplus frozen human embryos in storage in the United Kingdom (UK) is at its highest level since records began in 1991 and the formation of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). This study features a quantitative analysis of data from 1991 to 2019 provided by the HFEA as well as a commentary on observed trends within this data. We also discuss trends relating to the final destiny of surplus embryos. Data analysis show that at least (...) 130,000 stored embryos have been discarded in the UK since 1991, while another 500,000 embryos are currently being stored in a frozen state, of which a significant proportion is likely to be discarded in the future. However, this creates a moral dilemma since UK legislation relating to human embryos is based on the 1984 Warnock Report which recognizes that they have a special moral status. (shrink)

Precise DNA replication is fundamental for genetic inheritance. In eukaryotes, replication initiates at multiple origins that are first “licensed” and subsequently “fired” to activate DNA synthesis. Despite the success in identifying origins with specific DNA motifs in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, no consensus sequence or sequences with a predictive value of replication origins have been recognized in metazoan genomes. Rather, epigenetic rules and chromatin structures are believed to play important roles in governing the selection and activation of replication origins. We propose that (...) replication initiation is facilitated by a group of sequence‐specific “replication pioneer factors,” which function to increase chromatin accessibility and foster a chromatin environment that is conducive to the loading of the prereplication complex. Dysregulation of the function of these factors may lead to gene duplication, genomic instability, and ultimately the occurrence of pathological conditions such as cancer. (shrink)

Many studies demonstrate that people form their first impression of a stranger based on facial appearance, and these impressions influence their subsequent decisions and behaviors. However, much less research has examined the factors that moderate the accuracy of first impressions based on a photo of face. The present study included three experiments to explore gender differences in the accuracy of impressions based on faces. The results showed that people judge facial attractiveness more accurately for female faces than for male faces (...) while giving more accurate wealth judgments for male faces than for female faces. Interestingly, although we did not find a significant correlation between confidence ratings and the accuracy of wealth rating, we recognized a significant moderate correlation between confidence ratings and the accuracy of attractiveness ratings when female participants rated male faces. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to reveal gender biases in the accuracy of impression judgments based on facial appearance. These findings imply a significant influence of traditional gender roles on accurate facial judgments. (shrink)

Though a few scholars have discussed the transnational engagement of Caribbean thinkers with China, hitherto unknown is the imaginative alliance Left-wing Chinese writers crafted with the Caribbean via their works on the Haitian Revolution. This paper explores writings by four Chinese Marxists—Li Chunhui, Wang Chunliang, Lu Guojun, and Mao Xianglin—who engaged with Caribbean intellectuals, like Eric Williams, and used the history of the first anti-colonial revolution to rethink China’s own decolonial experiment. During the Maoist era, these thinkers argued for the (...) independence of the Haitian Revolution from the French Revolution, imagining Haiti’s revolutions as prefigurations of Third-World Revolution. In the deradicalized Deng era, these writers held contradictory stances towards capitalism, stressing how old and neocolonialism plundered Haiti. By reducing Sino-Caribbean relations to the Chinese diaspora in the Caribbean, or to the recent Belt and Road Initiative, scholars overlook lost revolutionary solidarities that aimed to dismantle world white supremacy. (shrink)

This paper explores the relevance of Karl Marx's philosophy to contemporary research on religious organizations. Despite Marx's primary association with political economy, his insights offer valuable perspectives for understanding the structure and function of religious institutions today. Marx's analysis of societal structures highlights the entrepreneurial nature of modern society, which is also reflected in the dynamics of religious organizations. This study revisits Marx's core philosophical and historical hypotheses, particularly his critique of political economy, and applies them to the analysis of (...) religious institutions. By distinguishing between Marxist and non-Marxist methodologies, this paper demonstrates how Marxist theory provides both critical and hopeful interpretations of the organizational structures within religious contexts. The goal is to show how Marxist philosophy can contribute to a deeper understanding of the socio-economic dimensions of religious institutions, thereby enriching the field of philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This article focuses on the 1952 visit to the Jingjiang Flood Diversion Project, the first large-scale water infrastructure built on the Yangzi river after the founding of the People's Republic of China, by a foreign delegation from the Asia-Pacific Peace Conference. Serving as a form of technology diplomacy, this trip advanced two main purposes for the newly established country – to build up closer ties with ‘foreign friends’ who advocated international peace in the context of the Korean War, and to (...) demonstrate China's own technical capabilities and achievements as part of the national campaign of ‘peaceful construction’ of the early 1950s. I argue that vernacular technologies, which were grounded in indigenous knowledge and practices for water control in the mid-Yangzi region, were essential in shaping China's self-reliant modernization and China's public diplomacy, which targeted individuals without scientific or technical backgrounds. (shrink)

This paper engages in a comparative study between the vital materialism in the works of political theorist Jane Bennett (primarily, The Enchantment of Modern Life) and the ontology of flesh in the late works of the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (“The Intertwining—The Chiasm,” “Eye and Mind”). There are striking echoes in their descriptions of the aesthetic experience of enchantment. I show how both thinkers reject philosophical accounts of form as extra-material. The reconfigured matter-form relationship in each onto-story leads to a phenomenology (...) of enchantment with the world. The stakes of the latter are ethical and political for Bennett, who argues in The Enchantment of Modern Life that the mood of enchantment also applies to fetishized commodities and is necessary for more just social, political, and economic reconfigurations. Finally, I gesture towards a Merleau-Pontean intervention on this question through his analogy between works of art and commodities in “Marxism and Philosophy.” Can the ontology of flesh and its implicit theory of perception help us understand both commodity fetishism and enchantment? In reading Bennett and Merleau-Ponty alongside each other on the phenomenology of enchantment with worldly objects, my hope is to find grounds for drawing on the rich phenomenology of perception found in Merleau-Ponty’s late works as a resource for conversations around political aesthetics more broadly. (shrink)

The conflict of administrative morality among civil servants at the grassroots level arises from the background of China’s long-standing traditional culture, and the current administrative system cannot keep up with the pace of economic development. In the process of grassroots management, due to the lag in the construction of administrative morality, the traditional official standard thinking, the imperfection of the current system, and the restriction of human nature, it is easy to cause the administrative moral conflict of the grassroots civil (...) servants in practice. This paper takes the interpersonal society as the research background, analyzes the influence of the interpersonal society on the environment, and studies the administrative ethics conflicts and governance issues of basic civil servants from the interpersonal background. In addition, this paper conducts a more detailed field investigation based on fuzzy cluster analysis, analyzes the manifestations and causes of the administrative moral conflict of grassroots civil servants in the context of human society from multiple perspectives and levels, and then proposes countermeasures to solve the administrative moral conflict. The administrative moral conflict and governance of grass-roots civil servants under the background of interpersonal relationship is of great positive significance for solving the administrative moral conflict and improving the service awareness and service level of grass-roots civil servants. (shrink)

This research examines the speeded detection and, separately, classification of photographic images of animals. In the initial experiments each display contained various images of animals and, in the detection task, participants responded whether a display contained only images of birds or also included an oddball target image of a cat or dog. In the classification search task, a target was always present and participants classified this as an image of a cat or a dog. Half of the target images depicted (...) the animal in a non-threatening state and the remaining half images depicted the animal in a threatening state. A complex pattern of effects emerged showing some evidence of more efficient detection of a threatening than non-threatening target. No corresponding pattern emerged in the data for the classification task. Next the tasks were repeated when the stimuli were more carefully matched in terms of general pose and salience of facial features. Now the effects in the detection task were reduced but more consistent than before. Threatening targets were more readily detected than non-threatening targets. In addition, non-threatening targets were more readily classified than threatening targets. The nature of these effects appears to reflect decisional/response mechanisms and not search processes. The performance benefit for the non-threatening images was replicated in a final classification task in which, on each trial, only a single peripheral image was presented. The results demonstrate that a number of different affective and perceptual factors can influence performance in speeded search tasks and these may well be confounded with the variation in threat content of the experimental stimuli. The evidence for the automatic detection of visual threat remains illusive. (shrink)

In response to the lack of research on the online social network structure of athletes, elements of research on the online social network structure of athletes were constructed based on the whole network perspective and through the study of the characteristics of the whole online social network structure of athletes, in order to provide reference for the physical and mental health development of athletes from a new perspective. Data were collected through questionnaires, and several software programs were used to preprocess (...) and analyse the collected data. Through the analysis of the online whole network structure, it was found that the network density of the online support network was generally greater than that of the online discussion network, and athletes still showed stronger practical support demands and behaved more rationally in the process of training and learning life, while from the perspective of the relationship structure, the athletes’ family and classmates’ online support is weaker than that in previous studies; in terms of the whole network, strong relationships still dominate in this population, while attention should be paid to the impact of weak relationships. (shrink)

Economic and social disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have important implications for gender and class inequality. Drawing on Statistics Canada’s monthly Labour Force Survey, we document trends in gender gaps in employment and work hours over the pandemic. Our findings highlight the importance of care provisions for gender equity, with gaps larger among parents than people without children, and most pronounced when care and employment were more difficult to reconcile. When employment barriers eased, so did the gender–employment gap. The pandemic (...) could not undo longer-standing cultural and structural shifts motivating contemporary mothers’ employment. The pandemic also exacerbated educational inequalities among women, highlighting the importance of assessing gendered impacts through an intersectional lens. (shrink)

Psycholinguistics has provided numerous theories that explain how a person acquires a language, produces and perceives both spoken and written language, including theories of proceduralization. Learners of English as a foreign language (hereafter referred to as EFL learners) often find it difficult to achieve oral fluency, a key construct closely related to the mental state or even mental health of learners. According to previous research, this problem could be addressed by the mastery of formulaic sequences, since the employment of formulaic (...) sequences could often promote oral fluency in the long run, reflected in the positive relationship between formulaic sequence use and oral fluency. However, there are also findings contradicting the abovementioned ones, without adequate explanations. This study aims to explore the roles of formulaic sequences in oral fluency, taking into account the relationship between formulaic sequence use and oral fluency. This study investigated 120 pieces of spoken narratives by Chinese EFL learners, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, combined with artificial intelligence techniques. Results of canonical correlation analysis showed that the frequency of formulaic sequences was significantly related to speed fluency (r = 0.563,p = 0.000) and breakdown fluency (r = 0.360,p = 0.001), while the variety of formulaic sequences was significantly related to repair fluency (r = 0.292,p = 0.035). Case studies further demonstrated that formulaic sequences could contribute to oral fluency development by promoting speed and reducing pausing when retrieved holistically, but they sometimes lost processing advantages when retrieved and processed in a word-by-word manner. The inappropriate use of formulaic sequences also neutralized the facilitative effects of formulaic sequences on repair fluency and could mirror speakers’ occasional tendency to sacrifice repair fluency for the improvement of speed and breakdown fluency when using formulaic sequences. Pedagogical implications were provided accordingly to promote sustainable oral fluency development through the use of formulaic sequences. (shrink)

The coaxiality and unbalance are the two important indexes to evaluate the assembly quality of an aeroengine. It often needs to be tested and disassembled repeatedly to meet the double-objective requirements at the same time. Therefore, an intelligent assembly method is urgently needed to directly predict the optimal assembly orientations of the rotors at each stage to meet the double-objective requirements simultaneously. In this study, an assembly optimization method for the multistage rotor of an aeroengine is proposed based on the (...) genetic algorithm. Firstly, a spatial location propagation model is developed to accurately predict the spatial position of each rotor after assembly. The alignment process of the assembly screw holes of the adjacent rotors is considered for the first time. Secondly, a new assembly optimization strategy is proposed to select different assembly data for the specific values of the coaxiality and unbalance, respectively. Finally, a double-objective fitness function is constructed based on the coaxiality and unbalance. The simulation and experimental results show that the assembly optimization method proposed in this study can be utilized to achieve synchronous optimization of the coaxiality and unbalance of an aeroengine during preassembly. (shrink)

Evidence for a dysfunction in cognitive coordination in schizophrenia is emerging, but it is not specific enough to prove (or disprove) this long-standing hypothesis. Many aspects of the external world are spatially mapped in the brain. A comprehensive internal representation relies on integration of information across space. Focus on spatial integration in the perceptual and cognitive processes will generate empirical data that shed light on the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.