Given that women CEOs are usually more risk averse, engage less in opportunistic behavior, and provide higher quality earnings than men CEOs, we argue that firms with women CEOs are likely to face lower operational and information risk and thus enjoy cheaper external funds. Using a large sample of Chinese A-share listed firms operating from 2006 to 2012, we find consistent evidence that Chinese banks tend to impose lower loan costs on firms with women CEOs compared to firms with men (...) CEOs. This effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises than for state-owned enterprises, for firms without political connections than for firms with political connections, and during non-crisis periods. We do not find any significant effects for firms with women chairpersons, CFOs, or directors. (shrink)

This study aims to assess the level and determinants of the general public's willingness to organ donation. We conducted a population-based cross-sectional study of 4261 participants in China. The primary outcome was the willingness to donate organs. Logistic regression modelling was used to determine the factors that affect willingness to donate organs. Overall, the proportion of participants who showed a willingness to donate organs was 47.45% (95%CI: 0.46, 0.49) in this study. Logistic regression modelling showed participants from Western (OR = (...) 1.33, 95%CI = 1.11-1.59) and Eastern China (OR = 1.40, 95%CI = 1.19-1.65) were more willing to donate organs compared with those from Central China. The odds of being willing to donate organs was higher in females than males (OR = 1.35, 95%CI = 1.17-1.55); and was higher in those participants with experience of organ donation (OR = 1.58, 95%CI = 1.13-2.21), experience of caring for organ transplant patients (OR = 1.45, 95%CI = 1.01-2.07), and those undertaking related voluntary activities (OR = 1.67, 95%CI = 1.45-1.94), than those without. The general public's level of willingness to organ donation was not high in this study. Geographical region, gender, experience of organ donation related activities, taking care of organ transplant patients and volunteering in related activities were independently associated with participants' willingness to donate organs. (shrink)

In poor and remote areas, teachers frequently encounter serious ongoing challenges and experience teacher exhaustion due to the uneven distribution of resource supply, and a shortage of professional support. Maintaining teachers’ professional wellbeing in an unfavorable teaching environment has become a major challenge. The current study explores teachers’ professional wellbeing in the context of a five-month-long professional development program designed for teachers in areas of deep poverty in China. This study adopted the method of narrative enquiry and collected diaries written (...) before and after the program from 46 primary school English teachers. Based on the manually analyzed data, it was found that teachers’ overall wellbeing at work was enhanced in terms of their professional meaning, engagement, and achievement. The systematic analysis of the diaries helped to better understand how the program exerted such an effect on teachers’ learning experiences and their wellbeing. (shrink)

The current study aimed to verify the multidimensional factor structure of teacher reflection and to examine the psychometric properties of a widely used teacher reflection scale using a large-scale representative dataset of 1,611 practicing Iranian English as a Foreign Language teachers. Furthermore, the measurement invariance of the hypothesized, a priori six-factor model of teacher reflection as measured by the adapted scale was assessed across gender and educational degree in Mplus program. In addition, the differences in latent factor means of the (...) same groups were examined. The result of confirmatory factor analysis revealed that teacher reflection was a multidimensional construct, encompassing six underlying factors. Overall, the adapted teacher reflection scale based on the 6-factor model showed an overall good fit. The results also indicated metric and scalar invariance which manifests that the factors underlying the adapted scale had an identical theoretical structure across educational degree/gender groups. Finally, there were significant factor mean differences in reflection components across gender and educational degree groups. A discussion of the results and their implications ensue. (shrink)

Yang Jiong 楊炯 (650–ca. 694), though hailed both by his contemporaries and later generations as one of the “Four Elites of the Early Tang,” has yet to receive due scholarly attention. This article contributes to the study of Yang Jiong by examining his “Fu on the Bookcase for Reading While Lying Down” (“Wodu shu- jia fu” 臥讀書架賦). It demonstrates how the poet displays his literary genius by skillfully employing various allusions, using self-deprecating humor for assertive self-display, devising close echoes among (...) different parts, and building an extremely well-balanced structure, written in verse of an elaborately parallel style. More importantly, he cleverly crafts a double text so that both the physical bookcase and he himself, the “mental bookcase,” become the dual subjects of the fu. The interplay between the bookcase, the poet, and his self-representation also contributes to the wider discussions of material culture, social norms, and literary expression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Distance of Irish Modernism: Memory, Narrative, Representation by John GreaneyXiaojing Chen and Hamid FarahmandianThe Distance of Irish Modernism: Memory, Narrative, Representation, John Greaney; 248 pp. London: Blooms-bury Academic, 2022.In his thought-provoking book The Distance of Irish Modernism, John Greaney embarks on a metacritical journey to unravel the paradoxical nature of Irish modernist fictions. The book delves into the enigma of how these works serve as vessels for (...) national and transnational histories while simultaneously presenting themselves as elusive and peculiar in terms of their temporal and geographical settings. Greaney skillfully examines the complexities of Irish modernism in the twenty-first century through close reading, formal analysis, narratology, philosophical accounts of literature, historicist and materialist approaches, and postcolonial and world literature paradigms. The result is a groundbreaking narrative that challenges existing notions of Irish modernism and offers a fresh perspective on the cultural memories they portray.IThe book's introduction, "The Vicinities of Irish Modernism," sets the stage for an engaging exploration of the subject matter. Greaney adeptly frames the paradox inherent in Irish modernist fictions and introduces the central question of how these texts function as mirrors of historical events and realities. By drawing attention to the proximities and distances between modernist aesthetic practices and the history of modernity in Ireland and beyond, the introduction lays the foundation for the subsequent chapters' analysis.In chapter 1, "Samuel Beckett and the Contexts of Modernism," Greaney evaluates the works of the renowned Irish author. Greaney meticulously examines Beckett's literary legacy, probing the contexts that shaped his artistic expression. Through comprehensive scrutiny, Greaney highlights how Beckett's writings transcend conventional boundaries and invite interpretations that go beyond the historical and geographical confines of Ireland. This chapter masterfully [End Page 251] combines textual analysis with an exploration of Beckett's broader contributions to the modernist movement."Brian, Flann, Myles and the Origins of Irish Modernism," the second chapter, delves into the works of one man—but three pivotal figures—in Irish literature: Brian O'Nolan, who wrote under the pen names Flann O'Brien and Myles na gCopaleen. Greaney uncovers the origins of Irish modernism through the lens of this iconic author, shedding light on his creative methodology and his impact on the Irish literary landscape. By situating his works within the broader modernist context, Greaney reveals the ways in which this writer revolutionized Irish literature and paved the way for the future generations of Irish modernists.Chapter 3, "Elizabeth Bowen's Modernist History," focuses on well-known novelist Elizabeth Bowen. Greaney conducts an in-depth analysis of Bowen's modernist approach to historical events, providing an intriguing investigation of how her texts intertwine with the collective memory of Ireland. Bowen's unique style and intricate narratives come under scrutiny, offering readers a profound understanding of her role in shaping Irish modernism and her contribution to the literary canon.Moving forward, "Kate O'Brien's 'Flawed' Modernism" explores the works of another significant figure in Irish literature. Greaney examines the perceived flaws in O'Brien's modernist approach, challenging conventional criticism and reevaluating her contributions to the Irish modernist tradition. By deftly analyzing O'Brien's works, the chapter seeks to reposition her within the context of Irish modernism, enriching the reader's comprehension of this multifaceted literary movement.The subsequent chapter, "John McGahern and the Limits of Irish Modernism," centers on an author whose writings have earned him a prominent place in Irish literature. Greaney investigates the boundaries and constraints of Irish modernism as portrayed in McGahern's oeuvre. By unraveling the complexities of McGahern's narratives, the chapter sheds light on how his works both align with and challenge the conventions of Irish modernism. This nuanced exploration opens up new perspectives on the extent of Irish modernist expression in the literary realm.The epilogue serves as a captivating conclusion, drawing together the threads of the preceding chapters to present a cohesive reflection on the book's core themes. Greaney reinforces the idea that the examination of Irish modernism necessitates a multifaceted approach, one that embraces various critical lenses and paradigms. The epilogue encourages readers to reevaluate their perceptions of Irish modernism, urging them... (shrink)

In this paper I investigate a reprint of a Meiji anthology titled Meiren qiantai shi 美人千態詩 by Shang- hai shuju in 1914. This is the first time that this anthology has received critical attention. I examine the poems collected by the anthologist, contextualize the anthology in relation to traditions and trends in Japan and China, and analyze the significance of the poetic tradition centered on images of women for understanding border-crossing literati culture from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. (...) My study revises both Japanese and Chinese literary history. I show that the practice of kanshi composition was sustained by major Japanese men of letters through the late Meiji era. With the rise of modern Japanese literature, especially in the genre of fiction, it is generally held that there was a rupture between Edo and Meiji-Taisho literature. Within the discursive space carved out by the beauty anthology, however, we see a continuity that unified the Edo and Meiji eras. Furthermore, the Japanese poets’ particular engagement with the subgenre on beautiful women and related sentiments was concurrent with developments among the Chinese literati from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. (shrink)

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 has resulted in widespread university lockdown. However, impacts of the university lockdown on the learning and academic development of university students have not been thoroughly investigated. The current study examined college students’ changes of learning outcomes during the COVID-19 lockdown period and clarified what might explain individual differences in students’ learning outcomes after they had learned from home for a whole semester when universities were physically closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were (...) derived from a longitudinal study examining the development of college students including students’ academic achievement and critical thinking before and after the university lockdown. We observed significant decreases in critical thinking skills and dispositions from pre- to post-lockdown. Both perceived academic achievement and critical thinking exhibited greater variability after the lockdown. In addition, students’ readiness for online learning, especially their self-management skills, consistently predicted post-lockdown learning outcomes after controlling for pre-lockdown outcomes and family socioeconomic status. Those who have assumed more responsibilities at home, or who were more vulnerable to emotional distress during the pandemic, performed less well in post-lockdown learning outcomes. These findings call for better management of student learning and development when major changes are required in higher education practices for responding to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis as well as other potential situations. (shrink)

With the development of technology, news media and film and television media are spreading faster and faster, and at the same time, the spread of rumors is also accelerated. This article briefly describes the application of artificial intelligence in news media and film and television media using a back-propagation neural network algorithm to reform refutation of rumors in news media and film and television media, and compared it with K-means and support vector machine algorithms in simulation experiments. The results showed (...) that the BPNN-based rumor recognition model had better recognition performance and shorter recognition time; it was more accurate in recognizing Weibo texts that were complete and faster in recognizing bullet screen comments that were short; the BPNN-based rumor recognition model also had the lowest false detection cost and performed stably when being used in actual Weibo platform and bullet screen video website. (shrink)

Virtual reality has developed rapidly, drawing more businesses to such development. Based on the diffusion of innovations theory, the study combines the flow theory and the satisfaction perspective to explore purchase intention influencing customers’ adoption of the VR shopping platform system. This study found that satisfaction and flow experience enhance their purchase intention. In technological characteristics, relative advantage, service compatibility, spatial presence, and complexity are important in satisfaction. Among them, both relative advantage and spatial presence impact flow experience. Additionally, a (...) cluster analysis based on gender was conducted, and the study found a significant difference between relative advantages, service compatibility, and complexity in women and men users. The flow experience is an important factor affecting women users’ shopping intention, while insignificant for male users. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

A growing interest has been observed among K-12 school educators to incorporate maker pedagogy into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education to engage students in the design and making process. Both cognitive engagement and emotional engagement of students can be promoted through satisfying the psychological need of relatedness that concerns a sense of connection and belonging. How to support relatedness would influence the effective development of students’ cognitive competencies, namely creativity and critical thinking, and non-cognitive characteristics, namely interest and identity. (...) Therefore, the present study investigated how two relatedness support strategies—real-world problems and mentoring influence the development of student’s STEM-related cognitive competencies and non-cognitive characteristics in STEM marker activities. We implemented a 7-week intervention study with three classes of Grade 9 students in Hong Kong. Three intervention conditions were designed in the experiment, comprising textbook problem, RWP, and RWP with mentoring. Our analysis showed that the differences in creativity among the three groups were non-significant, the RWP and RWPM groups showed stronger critical thinking than the TBP group, and the RWPM group exhibited stronger STEM interest and identity than the other two groups. This study revealed the effectiveness of adopting RWP strategy in developing secondary students’ perceived cognitive competencies and the feasibility of employing a mentoring mechanism for cultivating learners’ perceived non-cognitive characteristics. Hence, we also offered practical suggestions for teachers. (shrink)

The present study constructed a moderated mediation model to examine whether borderline pathological celebrity worship may be associated with higher levels of impulsive buying intent. The mediating role of empathy and the moderating role of gender were also examined. A total of 1,319 participants recruited from a college through the campus network. The results indicated that borderline pathological celebrity worship could positively predict individuals’ impulsive buying intent; the predictive effect of borderline pathological celebrity worship on impulsive buying intent could be (...) mediated by empathy; and gender moderated the predictive effect of borderline pathological celebrity worship on impulsive buying intent. Specifically, relatively higher levels of borderline pathological celebrity worship were found to be associated with higher impulsive buying intent among men. However, this was relatively less significant among women.ConclusionThe results contribute to previous findings by demonstrating that borderline pathological celebrity worship could affect impulsive buying intent. Moreover, the mediating role of empathy and the moderating role of gender were also revealed. (shrink)

Using the theoretical perspective of market stakeholders, we analyze the impact of external innovations from upstream enterprises, downstream enterprises, and competitors on the exports of private enterprises. By using data from the China Industrial Enterprises Database, we find that external innovations from upstream suppliers, downstream customers and horizontal competitors show positive impacts on the export propensity, intensity and scale for private enterprises. The results of a heterogeneity analysis indicate that the positive relationships between the external innovations of stakeholders and the (...) exports of private enterprises are stable in different factor-intensive industries. In addition, while the exports of private enterprises are positively correlated with their external innovations in the eastern and central regions, this relationship is not significant in the western region. Further, the mechanism analysis confirms that enterprise innovation played an important mediating role for the external innovations of stakeholders to promote the exports of private enterprises. This study provides useful policy implications for enhancing the export competitiveness of private enterprises. (shrink)

With the development of China’s higher education, China has become increasingly popular as an education destination for international students. To explore the rationale and the influencing factors for them to attend Chinese universities, this research adopted a questionnaire survey and interviews with international students from a top university in China. The data were analyzed from four aspects: home countries’ push factors, China’s pull factors, university attractiveness factors and personal choice factors. The findings show that university attractiveness factors are more significant (...) than the China’s pull factors and the home countries push factors; China’s pull factors have significant influence on the university attractiveness factors; For students from different regions, the factors of China’s pull, home country’s push and university attractiveness play significantly different role in affecting their choice of university, with Asian students much more affected than those from other parts of the world. Besides, individual subjective norms and individual value choices also affect students’ choices to study abroad. (shrink)

It is believed in many studies that the servitization of manufactures is driven by internal economy, but the situation in China may be somewhat different. In this study, we consider the influence of external institutional environment on manufacturers’ servitization and the final performance, and discuss the moderating effect of organizational identity orientation on firms’ response to external institutional pressures. We conduct a survey where we collect responses from 312 manufacturers in China. Regression analyses are performed to test whether institutional pressures (...) coming from the external institutional environment have a positive effect on the level of manufacturing servitization or not. Moreover, we study if this positive effect is moderated by the individualistic identity orientation and the relational identity orientation. We also examine the impact of servitization strategy on manufacture’s market performance and financial performances. Furthermore, we separate out the influences comes from institutional pressures by using a new estimated method and try to explain the cause of “servitization paradox.” Our study is innovative in that it bridges the servitization and institutional theory, and provides practical guidance for the adoption of manufacturing servitization strategy. (shrink)

Using Hofstede's culture theory (1980, 2001 Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviours, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nation. Sage, NewYork), the current study incorporates the moral development (e.g. Thorne, 2000; Thorne and Magnan, 2000; Thorne et al., 2003) and multidimensional ethics scale (e.g. Cohen et al., 1993; Cohen et al., 1996b; Cohen et al., 2001; Flory et al., 1992) approaches to compare the ethical reasoning and decisions of Canadian and Mainland Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students. The results indicate that Canadian accounting (...) students' formulation of an intention to act on a particular ethical dilemma (deliberative reasoning) as measured by the moral development approach (Thorne, 2000) was higher than Mainland Chinese accounting students. The current study proposes that the five factors identified by the multidimensional ethics scale (MES), as being relevant to ethical decision making can be placed into the three levels of ethical reasoning identified by Kohlberg's (1958, The Development of Modes of Moral Thinking and Choice in the Years Ten to Sixteen. University of Chicago, Doctoral dissertation) theory of cognitive moral development. Canadian accounting students used post-conventional MES factors (moral equity, contractualism, and utilitarianism) more frequently and made more ethical audit decisions than Chinese accounting students. (shrink)

Recent advances in mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) systems, featuring non-prep dry electrodes and wireless telemetry, have urged the needs of mobile brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for applications in our daily life. Since the brain may behave differently while people are actively situated in ecologically-valid environments versus highly-controlled laboratory environments, it remains unclear how well the current laboratory-oriented BCI demonstrations can be translated into operational BCIs for users with naturalistic movements. Understanding inherent links between natural human behaviors and brain activities is the key (...) to ensuring the applicability and stability of mobile BCIs. This study aims to assess the quality of steady-state visual-evoked potentials (SSVEPs), which is one of promising channels for functioning BCI systems, recorded using a mobile EEG system under challenging recording conditions, e.g., walking. To systemati-cally explore the effects of walking locomotion on the SSVEPs, this study instructed subjects to stand or walk on a treadmill running at speeds of 1, 2, and 3 mile (s) per hour (MPH) while con-currently perceiving visual flickers (11 and 12 Hz). Empirical results of this study showed that the SSVEP amplitude tended to deteriorate when subjects switched from standing to walking. Such SSVEP suppression could be attributed to the walking locomotion, leading to distinctly deteriorated SSVEP detectability from standing (84.87±13.55%) to walking (1 MPH: 83.03±13.24%, 2 MPH: 79.47±13.53%, and 3 MPH: 75.26±17.89%). These findings not only demonstrated the applicability and limitations of SSVEPs recorded from freely behaving humans in realistic environments, but also provide useful methods and techniques for boosting the translation of the BCI technology from laboratory demonstrations to practical applications. (shrink)

Challenging the way critical thinking is often considered a skill, this article explores possible discursive reasons for the skill-orientation and technicization of this concept. First, using Michel Foucault’s ‘division and rejection’ theory as a discursive analytical lens, the discussion explores the neoliberal alliance of international organizations, national governmental authorities, the media, job markets, schools, and concerned parents. It explores how this alliance promotes the discourse of skill and competence, and prepares the ground for critical thinking’s technicization. Drawing further on Foucault’s (...) decoding of human capital as the essence of neoliberalism, the article explores the way that the technicization of critical thinking fits with a conception of human beings as a complex mix of production and consumption, where, as homo economicus, they become entrepreneurs of themselves. Second, in the light of Foucault’s discursive analytical conception of the will to truth, the article traces a possible historical underpinning of critical thinking’s technicization. It argues that power-knowledge, the dark side of Enlightenment technological rationality, creates an increasingly technical conception of the world that tampers with the criticality of critical thinking. If critical thinking does not render people aware of the power impinging on them, it loses its value and meaning. The article proposes that critical thinking should rather be conceived along the lines of a Foucauldian conception of critique: the art of not being governed, which takes inspiration from Kant’s conception of enlightenment. It explores how to practise Foucauldian critical thinking, how Foucault’s technology of the self can be enacted as the protector of subjectivity against the governmentality of power. (shrink)

This paper aims to defend the use of the notion of experimental individuation, which has recently been developed by Ruey-Lin Chen, as a criterion for the reality of theoretical entities. In short, when scientists experimentally individuate an entity, a realist conclusion about that entity is warranted. We embed this claim regarding experimental individuation within a framework that allows for other criteria of reality. And we understand so-called retail arguments regarding the reality of a particular theoretical entity as arguments that concern (...) choosing an appropriate criterion of reality for that entity and determining whether the relevant first-order scientific evidence satisfies that criterion. We argue that such retail arguments are philosophical because defending criteria of reality, and showing that they are or are not satisfied in particular cases, involves work that is distinctively philosophical. And we illustrate this philosophical work by applying our criterion of experimental individuation to three historical cases: Davy’s potassium, Lavoisier’s muriatic radical, and Thomson’s electrified particles. (shrink)

We examine whether sex discrimination contributes to the underrepresentation of female executives in large corporations. China’s strong cultural preference for sons has made newborn boys greatly outnumber newborn girls. Using the male-to-female sex ratio at birth as the proxy for discrimination against women, we find that firms headquartered in more discriminatory areas hire fewer female executives. Even conditional on a woman reaching an executive position, she faces a higher likelihood of dismissal and receives lower compensation than her male counterparts. Overall, (...) our findings suggest that sex discrimination plays an important role in preventing women from climbing the corporate ladder. (shrink)

Dysfunctional customer behavior is common in service settings. For frontline employees, negative encounters can cause short-term despondency or have profound, long-term psychological effects that often result in both direct and indirect costs to service firms. Existing research has explored the influence of dysfunctional customer behavior on employee emotions, but it has not fully investigated the psychological mechanism through which customer misbehavior transforms into employee responses. To maintain service quality and employee well-being, it is important to understand the impact of customer (...) misconduct on employee emotions and its effect on subsequent service behavior. To assess the process through which dysfunctional customer behavior manifests as negative emotions in frontline service employees, and the influence of negative employee emotions on their prosocial service behavior, we surveyed 185 frontline banking service employees. We sought information on service employee experiences, attitudes, and feelings regarding dysfunctional customer behaviors, the perceived level of supervisor support, and employee prosocial service behavior intentions. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling were used for statistical analysis and hypothesis verification. Results indicate that dysfunctional customer behavior has a positive relationship with bank service employee negative emotions and a negative influence on employee prosocial service behavior. The study found that negative emotions fully mediated the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and prosocial service behavior. The moderating role that perceived supervisor support plays on the relationships between dysfunctional customer behavior and negative emotion was also investigated. The results show that perceived supervisor support moderates the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and negative employee emotions. Finally, the study provides bank managers with effective strategies to assist frontline employees to manage and deter dysfunctional customer behavior, and presents employees with internal recovery strategies when encountering dysfunctional customer behavior. (shrink)

Toxic gas leakage has diffusion characteristics and thus dynamically affects surrounding zones. Most of current evacuation traffic management models set the road risk level as a static value, which is related to the distance to the hazard source, or a dynamic value, which is determined by the toxic gas concentration. However, the toxic gas propagation direction is not considered, and this may lead some evacuees driving from less dangerous regions to higher dangerous regions. To address the shortcomings of traditional evacuation (...) traffic management models, this paper proposes an improved road risk level assessment method based on the difference of the risk levels of upstream and downstream zones of road and develops a safer evacuation traffic management model under the diffusion of toxic gas. The Cell Transmission Model is used to depict the evacuation traffic loading process. A numerical test is carried out on Nguyen and Dupuis Network. The test results show that the improved road risk level assessment method can avoid the evacuees driving into higher risk level regions from less dangerous regions. (shrink)

BioArt has become an umbrella term for art practices utilizing biotechnology and living matter. Pioneering BioArt creations erode the boundaries between science and art, provoking a series of social and cultural debates. BioArtists deprive the pragmatic function of biotechnology and alter life itself. However, BioArt is an art practice strongly tied to the development of biotechnologies and evolving bio-media. The increasing familiarity of biotechnologies enables the creative works to evolve as technologies evolve. This article aims to contextualize the issues presented (...) in the artworks by two artists based in Taiwan, Kuang-Yi Ku and Pei-Ying Lin, who adapted emerging biotechnologies for their artworks. This article attempts to use affect theory as a lens to observe post-biological artworks and suggests that the Autonomy of Affect, the postmodern power after ideology, should play a significant role in their works. (shrink)

Thinking of Death places Plato's Euthydemus among the dialogues that surround the trial and death of Socrates. A premonition of philosophy's fate arrives in the form of Socrates' encounter with the two-headed sophist pair, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who appear as if they are the ghost of the Socrates of Aristophanes' Thinkery. The pair vacillate between choral ode and rhapsody, as Plato vacillates between referring to them in the dual and plural number in Greek. Gwenda-lin Grewal's close reading explores how the (...) structure of the dialogue and the pair's back-and-forth arguments bear a striking resemblance to thinking itself: in its immersive remove from reality, thinking simulates death even as it cannot conceive of its possibility. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus take this to an extreme, and so emerge as the philosophical dream and sophistic nightmare of being disembodied from substance. The Euthydemus is haunted by philosophy's tenuous relationship to political life. This is played out in the narration through Crito's implied criticism of Socrates-the phantom image of the Athenian laws-and in the drama itself, which appears to take place in Hades. Thinking of death thus brings with it a lurid parody of the death of thinking: the farce of perfect philosophy that bears the gravity of the city's sophistry. Grewal also provides a new translation of the Euthydemus that pays careful attention to grammatical ambiguities, nuances, and wit in ways that substantially expand the reader's access to the dialogue's mysteries. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:776 Feminist Studies 43, no. 3. © 2018 by Shirley Geok-lin Lim Shirley Geok-lin Lim Cassandra Days: Poems Vox populi vox Dei “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” June 20, 2016 The voice bellowing from the stage Will not be upstaged. The rage Swelling from its undercurrents Is its own fixed swirling warrant When actor and audience are one. One, the agent and their actions; (...) One, litigant and ombudsman. When the voice of God is human One is the voice of the people. Scattered—the lame and the crippled, When the voice of God is human And bellows on stage from this man. Shirley Geok-lin Lim 777 Cassandra November 8, 2016 This Cassandra opens a bottle of red, Begins drinking early, alone, in bed. Fascism with a friendly face does not Console, his leers do not cheer, that knowing nod To end times was foretold in the entrails Blasted by unreturned fire. They who were hailed Heroes in their homeland enter the temple, Swagger, swearing, seared in the Sun King’s call To torch and burn. This Cassandra has no gift For light. She’s depressed. No Thanksgiving will lift Her day. No deeds already in the doing Can be undone. The blood in the sheetings That she sees, the world that’s winding down, And none to scare, none can tell, none, none. 778 Shirley Geok-lin Lim What rough beast? November 11, 2016 It’s me, Ruth, slouching to who knows where. It’s me—the palace grounds are secured, the woods fenced, the house’s red-lined seats reserved, fruits forbidden, streets barred to one walking. Have you a permit? Are you licensed? Your papers, documents, ID cards? Speak, Ruth, when spoken to, only not now, not here. Shirley Geok-lin Lim 779 The Laws January 21, 2017 Law of the stone: I smash, I own. Law of the flower: Live for the hour. Law of the bee: No flight is free. Law of the man: I rule, I ban. Law of the sun: Above me, none.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to Benjamin I. Schwartz' "China and Contemporary Millenarianism—Something New under the Sun"Lin Yu-shengIn the spring of 1998, my colleague Mike Clover, a historian of the ancient West and an admirer of Benjamin I. Schwartz' The World of Thought in Ancient China, invited Professor Schwartz to participate, with Heiko Oberman, J. C. Heesterman, and Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, among others, in a conference he had been organizing on "Eurasia and Africa (...) during the Last Thousand Years." The essay that follows—the last piece of scholarly writing by Ben Schwartz, finished thirty-seven days before his passing—was read by me on his behalf at the conference, held on October 11 and 12, 1999, in Madison.From my telephone conversations with Ben in the summer of 1999, I learned that while he intended to work on a paper for the conference to be titled "The Idea of Unilinear Evolution and the Destinies of China," his attention was very much drawn to the fact of the onset in America of unbridled consumerism and materialism, whose characteristic of feeding on themselves with ever increasing intensity and widespread impact seemed to indicate to him the rise of a profoundly disturbing new phenomenon in this world. When I visited with Ben and Bunny (Mrs. Schwartz) in Cambridge on October 2 and 3, Ben was in the midst of writing an essay on what he would call the "new technological-economic millenarianism" or "materialistic apocalypticism." He said that he preferred to have me read this essay, which he would finish before the conference, rather than the one he originally intended to write. Since the conference was meant to take note of the significance of the passage of time from a world-historical perspective, the reflections by a thinker as deeply serious and searching as Ben Schwartz at the juncture of the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third on the implications of an entirely new worldwide phenomenon as he perceived it—though having little direct bearing on China's past—would of course be most welcome at the conference.Ben's health deteriorated almost immediately after he had completed the essay on Friday, October 8, and he died on November 14, 1999. We now know from hindsight that Ben had probably felt that he might soon leave us, but he summoned enough energy not to let this happen before his completion of the essay, partly due to his sense of responsibility to deliver what he had promised and partly, and more importantly, because of the imperative he felt to issue, in the spirit of the old prophets, as his parting words, a grave warning to his fellow human beings.The essay is discursive, with many important points implied through nuance rather than formally argued. We can hardly expect more, given the physical condition of its author at the time of its writing. Although this does not, in my opinion, diminish its importance, it does demand close reading from its readers. The following is my brief attempt at this task, for whatever it may be worth. [End Page 189]To begin with, that Ben chooses to use religious language (which is related to "ultimate concerns")—words like "millenarianism" or "apocalypticism," which are ordinarily reserved for depicting the rare and drastic deliverance of humankind from "the vast burden of human suffering and despair"—as a means to explore metaphorically the nature and implications of the new consumerism and materialism is indicative of how serious he has perceived the onset of the phenomenon under consideration to be.To the extent that consumerism and materialism promise to their true believers "a totally new way of neutralizing the age-old causes of human suffering" (italics mine) through their "total attention on every aspect of human life from the techno-economic side," it is legitimate to speak of them as "materialistic apocalypticism," in that they transcend all tensions and agonies in life and elevate the true believers to a state of salvation. However, in its exclusive concern with "unalloyed, unreflective contentment" and pleasure in the self without any regard for the ethical consequences of techno-economic progress, it is a new materialism very different from... (shrink)

Consumers play an important role as one of the main actors in food safety social co-governance. To create a pattern of food safety social co-governance, the active and effective participation of consumers is critical. To encourage consumers to participate in food safety social co-governance voluntarily and positively, we attempted to develop and preliminarily validate a multidimensional questionnaire on consumer psychological capital that could be used to measure the degree of consumer participation in food safety social co-governance. The aim of the (...) initial sample and test sample 2 was to investigate the factor structure of a preliminary measure of consumer psychological capital. A 4-factor model with 23 items explained 61.05% of the total variance in item scores. The aim of test sample 3 was to measure the retest reliability. Test sample 4 was randomly allocated to the modeling sample and validation sample to verify questionnaire reliability and validity. Convergent validity, discriminant validity, and the internal inconsistency coefficients of the questionnaire were assessed in the modeling sample. While processing CFA, we deleted 9 items with small standardized factor loadings. The remaining 14 items in the final revised 4-factor model included self-efficacy, resilience, hope, and optimism. The fit indices of the revised four-factor model and second-order factor model in the modeling sample revealed an acceptable model fit. The convergent validity and discriminant validity of the revised model were good and acceptable, respectively. A cross-validation procedure confirmed the appropriateness of the revised four-factor model and second-order factor model in the validation sample. The cross-validation results confirmed that the fit indices of the revised four-factor model fitted the data well and the second-order factor model in the validation sample reached acceptable values. We concluded that the questionnaire developed in this study had good reliability and stable and acceptable construct validity. It could provide a theoretical basis for measuring psychological capital in food safety co-governance. (shrink)

Retraction note: García-Alonso Montoya, P., Shan, X. & Fan, X. (2023). Strategic transformation of the business model in the information company. HUMAN REVIEW. International Humanities Revista Internacional De Humanidades, 17(3), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.37467/revhuman.v11.4732 The Editorial Office of Eurasia Academic Publishing Group has retracted this article. An investigation carried out by our Research Integrity Department has found a group of articles, among which this one is found, that are not within the thematic scope of the journal. We believe that the editorial process (...) was manipulated and, furthermore, acceptance decisions were made under possibly inappropriate peer review. (shrink)

La información se ha convertido en el nuevo valor fundamental. Resulta indispensable disponer de contenidos actualizados, tanto para empresas y entidades como para personas. Así sucede en todos los ámbitos: culturales y profesionales, sociales y económicos... Si saber es poder, los ciudadanos de hoy somos los más poderosos de toda la historia pues podemos conocer casi cuanto queramos gracias a los medios de comunicación, vía Internet.Pero no todo son ventajas. Han surgido nuevos elementos, como la Inteligencia Artificial, que pueden remplazar (...) a los profesionales. Tristemente, la tecnología que en su día pareció suponer una gran ayuda para la prensa ha estado casi a punto de aniquilarla. (shrink)

Many studies assume a significant relationship between intention and behavior. However, the data do not always support this assumption. This study used a modified version of social cognitive theory with self-evaluations as an intermediate variable to explore and resolve the problems associated with applying the theory of planned behavior to explain students’ adoption of technology for self-directed learning. We surveyed 285 college students who enrolled in an e-book publishing course using multifaceted technological learning tools. We found that, as an intermediate (...) variable, self-evaluation enhanced the influence of intentions on behavior and improved the accuracy of predictions of college students’ adoption of technology for self-directed learning. Students’ attitudes and perceived behavioral control were important factors influencing their adoption of technology for self-directed learning through their effects on intention; subjective norms were not important in this respect. (shrink)

Kindergarten teachers’ professional commitment affects their emotional input and turnover intention, and it is affected by the spiritual and material factors of teachers’ families, kindergartens, and society. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of the dimensions of subjective well-being in the relationship between social support and professional commitment. The study is grounded in human ecology theory and social exchange theory. We surveyed 778 kindergarten teachers from different educational systems in Guangdong Province in China. We used the “Appreciative (...) Social Support” and “Subjective Well-being” Scales and the “Professional Commitment Questionnaire.” The results showed that the four variables of social support, positive affect, life satisfaction, and professional commitment of kindergarten teachers were significantly and positively correlated with each other: social support positively predicted positive affect and life satisfaction, positive affect and life satisfaction positively predicted professional commitment, and social support indirectly influenced professional commitment through the parallel and chain path of positive affect and life satisfaction. This represents a compound multiple mediating effects on professional commitment. (shrink)

The concept of right or fit is an important element entailed, but not fully articulated, in the concept of action or practice in Aristotle's theory of virtue; which, however, turns to be of the utmost importance in later Western ethics. Right is concerned with both feelings and actions, and is not the same for all individuals. It lies in between the two extremes of the spectrum of practical affairs, yet by no means equidistant from them. This account of the concept (...) of fitness or right is derived from the categories of quantity, relationship, and quality rather than from that of substance. Thus, it seems that virtue is relative to vice or error within a continuous existence. If, however, the right of passion and action is environmental and concrete, is it multiple and not singular? To this question, Aristotle gives his reply on two levels: On the level of concrete practitioners, what is right and fit to one man might not be so to another man, and hence the right of practice is not singular but multiple; whereas on the level concerned with the only right choice compared with the two extremes or errors, the right of practice will always be singular. /// "正确"是隐含于亚里士多德的德性学说中的一个重要而未充分展开的，在 后来的西方伦理学中却变成极为重要的关于行为或实践的概念。"正确"与感情和 行为都相关。"正确"并不是对所有人同样的。它是两端间的那个中间，但井不始 终与两端距离相等。对适度或正确的这种说明基本上是从数量、关系与性质范畴引 出，而不是从实体范畴引出的述说。所以，德性似乎始终是在一种有连续性的存在 中相对于恶或错误而言的。感情与行为的正确如果是环境的、具体的，它是否是多 而不是一?亚里士多德在两个层面上回答这个问题。在相对于具体实践者的层面， 对我而言的适度或正确很可能不同于对你而言的，实践的正确不是一而是多:在相 对于两端或错误唯有一个正确的选择而言，实践的正确始终只是一。. (shrink)

How is a scientific theory, especial a classical physical theory, tested? This problem has a long history. In this paper I’ll propose a theory of testing based on but differentiated from Giere’s studies on the structure of scientific theories. I will show, from both theoretical and historical perspectives, that a scientific theory can always be understood as one contains a classified model population, including both higher-level models and realizable models, and that scientists always test a theory through its realizable models. (...) To transmit the consequences of testing realizable models to a higher-level model is a very complicated mechanism. Therefore, it is unlikely that a whole theory could ever be completely confirmed or falsified, even if some of its realizable models havebeen conclusively confirmed or falsified. Finally, I’ll illustrate such a theory of testing can give an adequate account of the testing history of a scientific theory, for example, the Newtonian theory. This theory of testing is a rational reconstruction, in Lakatosian sense, of the process of scientific testing. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Distributive Justice Nanotechnology and the Developing World Water Purification Solar Energy Medicine Nanotechnology, the Developing World, and Distributive Justice.

This article uses simulation as an empirical method for identifying process models of strategy effects in a category-learning task. A general set of learning assumptions defined a symbolic learning framework in which alternative simulation models were defined and tested. The goal was to identify process models that could account for previously reported data on the interaction between how a learner encounters category variance across a series of training samples and whether the task instructions suggested an active, hypothesis-testing approach, or a (...) more passive learning mode. Descriptive characterizations of active and passive learning were mapped into complementary settings of parameters operating with the general learning framework. Alternative models, defined by different configurations of these parameters, were evaluated on their goodness of fit to the observed data. The signature differences between models that best fit the passive learning data and models that best fit the active learning data concerned a delayed versus immediate learning parameter and a degree-of-match parameter that determined which patterns were retrieved to make category decisions. A functional account of these parameters is given by considering the learning task as a search process and the role of these parameters in localizing the impact of learning mechanisms in certain areas of the search space. Issues related to simulation as an empirical method for identifying candidate process models are discussed. (shrink)