Objective:The purpose of this study was to describe the current situation of moral distress and to explore its influencing factors among Chinese nurses.Methods:This is an exploratory, descriptive design study. A total of 465 clinical nurses from different departments in three Grade-III, Level-A hospitals in Jinan, Shandong Province, completed the questionnaires, including demographics questionnaire, Chinese version of Moral Distress Scale–Revised, and Job Diagnostic Survey.Ethical considerations:The study was approved by the university ethics board and the local health service director.Results:The total score of (...) Moral Distress Scale–Revised was 36.01 ± 24.02 points. The mean frequency and intensity scores of moral distress were 1.13 ± 0.49 and 1.09 ± 0.58, respectively. The level of moral distress among Chinese clinical nurses was low, and the frequency and intensity of moral distress were on low to moderate level. The level of moral distress experienced by clinical nurses is associated with demographics features and job characteristics, including age, education degree, department, task significance, autonomy, and dealing with others.Conclusion:Our conclusion suggests that hospital and organizational administrations should attach much importance to the moral distress experienced by clinical nurses in China. Further studies should focus on interventions about how to reduce the levels of the frequency and intensity of moral distress among clinical nurses. (shrink)

Although more and more researches have shown that edge-based information is more important than surface-based information in object recognition, it remains unclear whether edge-based features play a more crucial role than surface-based features in category learning. To address this issue, a modified prototype distortion task was adopted in the present study, in which each category was defined by a rule or similarity about either the edge-based features (i.e., contours or shapes) or the corresponding surface-based features (i.e., color and textures). The (...) results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that when the category was defined by a rule, the performance was significantly better in the edge-based condition than in the surface-based condition in the testing phase, and increasing defined dimensions enhanced rather than reduced performance in the edge-based condition but not in the surface-based condition. The results of Experiment 3 showed that when each category was defined by similarity, there was also a larger learning effect when the category was defined by edge-based dimensions than by surface-based dimensions in the testing phase. The current study is the first to provide convergent evidence that the edge-based information matters more than surface-based information in incidental category learning. (shrink)

The scattering number and isolated scattering number of a graph have been introduced in relation to Hamiltonian properties and network vulnerability, and the isolated scattering number plays an important role in characterizing graphs with a fractional 1-factor. Here we investigate the computational complexity of one variant, namely, the weighted isolated scattering number. We give a polynomial time algorithm to compute this parameter of interval graphs, an important subclass of perfect graphs.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties in college students, and uncovered the mediating roles of core self-evaluation and career calling. A total of 1,127 undergraduates were recruited to complete the questionnaires about parenting styles, core self-evaluation, career calling, and career decision-making difficulties. The results showed that: Positive and negative parenting styles could positively predict career decision-making difficulties in college students. Core self-evaluation and career calling mediated the relationship between parenting (...) styles and career decision-making difficulties. Sequential dual mediators only found in which positive paternal and maternal parenting styles predict career decision-making difficulties through core self-evaluation and career calling. Further analysis revealed gender difference in the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties. The relation between paternal positive parenting style and career decision-making difficulties was significant in male students, but absent in female students; the relation between maternal positive parenting and career decision-making difficulties and the relation between paternal negative parenting and career calling were significant in female students, but absent in male students; and the relation between career calling and career decision-making difficulties was greater in male than in female. The current study expanded and deepened those existing understandings about the relationship between parenting styles and adolescents’ career decisions, so as to further reveal its internal mechanism and provide more reasonable suggestions and targeted guidance for career counseling. (shrink)

Sudden enlightenment is awakening to be attained all at once. Hyun-Eung, a Korean Buddhist monastic, has proposed a new interpretation that sudden enlightenment is the revolutionary awakening of the dynamical and indivisible structure of cognitive subject and objects. I argue that Hyun-Eung’s ‘revolutionary enlightenment’ is achieved through a ‘paradigm shift’ in Thomas Kuhn’s sense as presented in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Enlightenment is obtained when one’s essentialist and realist worldview is replaced, through a revolutionary change of paradigm shift, (...) by a new perspective based on the Buddhist teaching of dependent arising and emptiness. Prior to enlightenment, each person views oneself as a separate and independent individual who has her own essence. However, when our perspective on self and the world changes with the understanding of dependent arising and emptiness, it becomes clear that no one and nothing can exist independently of conditions. Everything comes into existence, abides, and passes out of existence only in dependence on conditions. Sudden enlightenment requires a revolutionary change in one’s perspective of self and the world. I conclude that this concept of revolutionary enlightenment aptly explains the features of sudden enlightenment. (shrink)

As we all know, the Silk Road, as a famous ancient transportation route, was a trade line cross-Eurasian continent in history. Its name was from the delivery of silk. However, no Chinese ancient documents mentioned the name of “Silk Road”. German F. V. Richthofen (1933-1905) firstly used the term “Silk Road” in his book China, published in 1877. Afterwards, the name of “Silk Road” has been accepted universally and used by the world widely. The Silk Road was an ancient business (...) channel, acrossing the middle of China and countries in Central Asia, gradually forming after Qian Zhang visited Western Regions twice, two thousand and one hundred years ago. The north-west land Silk Road started from Chinese ancient Capital Chang’an (now Xi’an), acrossing Central Asia, and reaching ancient Rome in Europe. It was a bridge for communication of politics, economy, and culture between ancient China and the Western. Before 11 Century, the Sino-Western silk trade mainly depended on the land transportation. During Han Dynasty, it was a competition between the Huns and the Hans for occupy the Silk road. The silk as a kind of material culture was a sort of intermediary for making people to know how to get along together.This article attempts to describe the Sino-Western silk trade conditions before and after the two missions of Qian Zhang to Western Regions (Xiyu), including archaeological evidences, kinds of silk and trade scale, transportation routes, trade participants, and so on. (shrink)

The youngest generation of students prefers a more active learning style. Sandwich teaching may suit their learning style by alternating between active individual learning and passive collective learning. Sandwich teaching has been rarely applied to the Community Nursing Course for nursing students, and its teaching effects on this course remain unclear. This study applied Sandwich teaching to the Community Nursing Course for Chinese nursing undergraduates and investigated its effects on students' critical thinking, self-learning ability, course experience, and academic performance. This (...) is a quasi-experimental study with 72 Chinese nursing undergraduates. Students receiving traditional teaching were enrolled in the control group, and those who received Sandwich teaching were recruited into the experimental group. Both groups received the 12-week, 90-min Community Nursing Course. Our main outcome variable, including students' critical thinking, self-learning ability, and course experience, was assessed by specific questionnaire. The paired t-tests were applied to compare the differences of the same group in the pre-test and the post-test, and the independent-sample t-tests were used to compare the differences between the two groups. We observed that nursing students' critical thinking ability and self-learning ability were significantly improved after receiving Sandwich teaching. Students' course experience of Sandwich teaching was significantly better than that of traditional teaching. The final exam score in the experimental group was not significantly higher than that in the control group. These results suggest that Sandwich teaching in Community Nursing Course improved Chinese nursing undergraduates' critical thinking, self-learning ability, and course experience, but failed in improving academic performance. (shrink)

Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is a powerful regulator of various social behaviors across many species. However, seemingly contradictory effects of AVP have been found in both animal and human studies, e.g., promoting aggression on one hand and facilitating social bonding on the other hand. Therefore, we hypothesize that the role of AVP in social behaviors is context-dependent. To this end, we examined the modulatory effect of AVP on male’s behavioral and neural responses to infant and adult cues. After intranasal and double-blind (...) treatment of AVP or placebo, male participants were asked to rate their subjective approaching willingness to infant and adult faces in specific contexts informed by cue words while EEG recording. Our results showed that AVP treatment increased approaching ratings to neutral and positive other-gender adult faces compared to emotional matched same-gender adult faces, and to negative girl faces compared to negative boy faces. Furthermore, compared to placebo treatment, AVP treatment induced larger N1 amplitudes to neutral cues associated with both adults and infants, whereas AVP treatment only sustained pronounced late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes to neutral cues of infants but not adults. Those findings implicate differential roles of AVP in the processing of adult- and infant-related cues and thus lend support to the context-dependent account. (shrink)

‘Spirit consonance engendering a sense of life’ (Qi Yun Sheng Dong) as the first law of Chinese painting, originally proposed by Xie He (active 500–535?) in his six laws of painting, has been commonly echoed by numerous later Chinese artists up to this day. Tracing back the meaning of each character of ‘Qi Yun Sheng Dong’ from Pre-Qin up to the Six Dynasties, along with a comparative analysis on the renderings of ‘Qi Yun Sheng Dong’ by experts in Western academia, (...) I establish ‘spirit consonance’ as the rendering of ‘Qi Yun’. By examining texts on painting by significant critics in Chinese art history, and by referring to specific works by painters from the Six Dynasties up to the Yuan Dynasty, I present the merits and demerits of the different interpretations by Western experts, and explore the essence of ‘Qi Yun’. Once the painter successfully captures ‘spirit consonance’ as the essential character or ‘internal reality’ of the object, and transmits it into the work, ‘Qi Yun’ further implies the expressive quality of the work beyond formal representation. Additionally, the fusion of expressive and representative functions also leaves space for further explaining the aesthetic interaction among artist, object, work, and audience. From the Six Dynasties onwards, Chinese painters have practised the expressive pursuit beyond epresentation on the basis of the unification of ‘Qi Yun’ (spirit consonance) and formal representation, although spirit consonance was valued more highly than formal likeness. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I will show that classical Chinese artists adopted either Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation to cultivate their mind to be in accord with the Dao, and that their view of the...

Background: The right of children to have their voice heard has been accepted by researchers, and there are increasing numbers of qualitative health studies involving children. The ethical and methodological issues of including children in research have caused worldwide concerns, and many researchers have published articles sharing their own experiences. Objectives: To systematically review and synthesise experts’ opinions and experiences about ethical and methodological issues of including children in research, as well as related solution strategies. Research design: The research design (...) was a systematic review of opinion-based evidence, based on the guidelines by Joanna Briggs Institute. Methods: A search of five computerised databases has been conducted in April 2014 and 2271 articles were found. After screening the titles, abstracts, full texts and appraising the quality, 30 articles were finally included in the review. A meta-aggregative approach was applied in the data analysis and synthesis process. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval is not needed as it is a systematic review of published literature. Results: Six themes were identified, including evaluating potential risks and benefits, gaining access, obtaining informed consent/assent, protecting confidentiality and privacy, building rapport and collecting rich data. The similarities and differences between research involving children and that involving adults were indicated. Conclusion: All potential incentives should be justified when designing the study. Further studies need to research how to evaluate individual capacity of children and how to balance protecting children’s right to participate and their interests in the research. Cultural differences related to researching children in different regions should also be studied. (shrink)

According to the Song critic Guo Ruoxu, the last five laws by Xie He are "open to study," while qiyun 氣韻 "necessarily involves an innate knowledge; it assuredly cannot be secured through cleverness or close application, nor will time aid its attainment. It is an unspoken accord, a spiritual communion; 'something that happens without one's knowing how'".1 For Guo Ruoxu, although the qiyun within a work refers to the quality of a painting and cannot be identical with the qiyun of (...) the artist, the ability to produce a painting replete with qiyun is determined by the painter's innate mental disposition. This idea has been echoed... (shrink)

This paper explores the elusive dialectic between concentration and forgetfulness, consciousness and unconsciousness in spontaneous artistic creation favoured by artists and advocated by critics in Chinese art history, by examining texts on painting and tracing back to ancient Daoist philosophical ideas, in a comparison with Kantian and post-Kantian aesthetics. Although artistic spontaneity in classical Chinese aesthetics seems to share similarities with Kant’s account of spontaneity in the art of genius, the emphasis on unconsciousness is valued by classical Chinese artists and (...) critics inspired by the Daoist idea of ‘Wu Wei’ (acting without conscious intention or effort). As the Qing painter Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) claimed when admitting his failure to copy the Yuan master Ni Zan (1301–1374), Ni Zan’s success in natural and untrammelled expression lies ‘in between having an intention and not having one’. A similar idea about the dialectic of consciousness and unconsciousness in artistic spontaneity was suggested by Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theatre (1880), which demonstrated that while self-consciousness might disturb and hinder the naturalness of artistic expression and thus encourage affectation, it does not mean that there is no role for consciousness. Although the views on unconsciousness in art and the co-play of consciousness and unconscious in artistic creation by Schelling, Schiller, Goethe, and even Nietzsche might get inspirations from Kant’s hidden view of the unconscious, Kant’s emphasis on the harmonious cooperation between imagination and understanding disguises his inexplicit idea of the unconscious. This paper will demonstrate that while in both Classical Chinese and European cultural contexts, artists, critics and philosophers talk about the same elusive relation, the philosophical explanations of the same phenomenon are essentially distinctive. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun (qi: spirit; yun: consonance) in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience, and work. By projecting Kant’s and Schiller’s conceptions of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art onto the qiyun-focused context, we see that the reflection on parallels (...) and differences between the two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

“Non-Self from the perspective of the Gene” September 2021, Buddhism and Culture (a Korean-language Buddhist magazine sponsored by the Foundation for the Promotion of Korean Buddhism), Korea.

“Non-Self from the perspective of the Gene” November 2021, Buddhism and Culture (a Korean-language Buddhist magazine sponsored by the Foundation for the Promotion of Korean Buddhism), Korea.

죽고 다시 태어나는 반복의 과정을 논하는 불교의 윤회설은 끊임없이 변화하는 생명현상의 본래 모습을 그대로 보여준다. 어느 생명체도 변하지 않고 영구한 것은 없다. 오래된 개체의 삶이 끝나고 새로운 삶이 시작되는 반복의 자연현상이 윤회이다. 본고는 윤회를 생명과학적으로 해석하며 삼라만상에서 일어나는 윤회란 개체들뿐만 아니라 세포와 분자선상에서도 일어나는 자연스런 생명현상임을 밝히겠다.

“Impermanent Biological Phenomena” July 2021, Buddhism and Culture (a Korean-language Buddhist magazine sponsored by the Foundation for the Promotion of Korean Buddhism), Korea.

“Stem Cells Dependently Arising and Empty” May 2021, Buddhism and Culture (a Korean-language Buddhist magazine sponsored by the Foundation for the Promotion of Korean Buddhism), Korea.

“Buddhism Evolving” December 2021, Buddhism and Culture (a Korean-language Buddhist magazine sponsored by the Foundation for the Promotion of Korean Buddhism), Korea.

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun (spirit consonance) in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience and work. By projecting Kant’s, and Schiller’s somewhat modified Kantian philosophy of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art into the qiyun-focused context, we shall see that reflection on (...) parallels and differences between the two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper deals with stochastically globally exponential stability for stochastic impulsive differential systems with discrete delays and infinite distributed delays. By using vector Lyapunov function and average dwell-time condition, we investigate the unstable impulsive dynamics and stable impulsive dynamics of the suggested system, and some novel stability criteria are obtained for SIDSs with DDs and IDDs. Moreover, our results allow the discrete delay term to be coupled with the nondelay term, and the infinite distributed delay term to be coupled with (...) the nondelay term. Finally, two examples are given to verify the effectiveness of our theories. (shrink)

This book discusses qiyun aesthetics in Chinese painting formulated by leading sixth to fourteenth-century intellectual elite. In light of Kant’s account of artistic genius, it considers the role of the mind in creating a painting replete with qiyun, thereby both demystifying qiyun aesthetics and illuminating some limitations in Kant’s aesthetics.

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience, and work. By projecting Kant’s and Schiller’s conceptions of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art onto the qiyun-focused context, we see that the reflection on parallels and differences between the (...) two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

Research in the field of Chinese as a foreign language education has been increasing in the past decades. However, the number of studies on CFL teacher identity is limited. To bridge the gap, this study employed a qualitative method to explore Chinese CFL teachers’ identity formation and reformation in Australian contexts. A Chinese-Australian language program was studied to examine the challenges, struggles and developments of Chinese CFL teachers who came to Australia to pursue professional growth. Five Master’s theses and three (...) interview participants were included to paint a picture of how Chinese CFL teachers interact internally and externally with a new environment. Guided by Mead’s theory of self and other, we found that Chinese CFL teachers’ identity formation and reformation in Australian classrooms are deeply influenced by their self-identification and their integration with others in the community. Cultural connectedness is a key for organizational attitudes in the relationship of self and other. Chinese CFL teachers were found lacking the wholeness of self in Australian contexts, which led to obstacles in teacher identity construction. Insufficient communication between self and other resulted in their positioning crisis. (shrink)

Based on event history analysis, this study examined the survival distribution of the duration of online public opinions related to major health emergencies and its influencing factors. We analyzed the data of such emergencies that took place in China during a period of 10 years. The results of the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that the average duration of online public opinions regarding health emergencies is 43 days, and the median is 19 days, which dispels the (...) myth of the “Seven-day Law of Propagation.” Furthermore, the duration of online public opinions can be divided into three stages: the rapid decline stage, the slowdown stage, and the disappearing stage. In addition, the type of event, and the volume of both social media discussion and traditional media coverage all had significant impacts on the duration. Our findings provide practical implications for the carrying out of targeted and stage-based governance of public opinions. (shrink)

Innovation adoption is the necessary element for the success of any organization around the globe, and this phenomenon needs a foremost solution. The current study examines this area and explores the impact of customers, employees, and social enterprises' traditional behavior on the resistance to innovation in social enterprises in China. The current article also investigates the mediating role of fear for change among customers, employees, and social enterprises' traditional behavior and resistance to innovation in social enterprises in China. This article (...) has followed the primary data gathering methods and adopted the questionnaires for this purpose. The employees and customers of social enterprises are the respondents and ~11,000 population in the study. According to Krejcie & Morgan, the sample size criteria is around 370. Thus, the researchers' have forwarded around 615 surveys and received only 357 after a few weeks. The present research has also applied the SPSS-AMOS to analyze the association among variables and test the hypotheses. The results revealed that the traditional behavior of customers, employees, and social enterprises has a significant and positive linkage with resistance to innovation in social enterprises in China. The findings also exposed that the fear of change also significantly mediates among customers, employees, and social enterprises' traditional behavior and resistance to innovation in social enterprises in China. This study helps the regulators establish policies related to innovation adoption by changing traditional behavior to advance the behavior of customers, employees, and social enterprises. (shrink)

Exploring the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention is crucial to entrepreneurial practice and education. For a comprehensive understanding of the influence of narcissistic personality on entrepreneurial intention, this study analyzed the relationship between narcissistic personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention in college students sampled from three higher vocational colleges in Beijing, China. A total of 252 valid questionnaires were collected. The results show that the narcissistic personality of the college students has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. (...) Entrepreneurial self-efficacy of the college students has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial intention and plays a partial mediation role in the relationship between narcissistic personality and entrepreneurial intention. Thus, the study results provide some reference for further improving entrepreneurial practice and education. (shrink)

A case study of multimodal systems and a new interpretation of Charles S. Peirce's theory of reasoning and signs based on an analysis of his system of ...

With the fast development of web 2.0, information generation and propagation among online users become deeply interweaved. How to effectively and immediately discover the new emerging topic and further how to uncover its evolution law are still wide open and urgently needed by both research and practical fields. This paper proposed a novel early emerging topic detection and its evolution law identification framework based on dynamic community detection method on time-evolving and scalable heterogeneous social networks. The framework is composed of (...) three major steps. Firstly, a time-evolving and scalable complex network denoted as KeyGraph is built up by deeply analyzing the text features of all kinds of data crawled from heterogeneous online social network platforms; secondly, a novel dynamic community detection method is proposed by which the new emerging topic is detected on the modeled time-evolving and scalable KeyGraph network; thirdly, a unified directional topic propagation network modeled by a great number of short texts including microblogs and news titles is set up, and the topic evolution law of the previously detected early emerging topic is identified by fully utilizing local network variations and modularity optimization of the “time-evolving” and directional topic propagation network. Our method is proved to yield preferable results on both a huge amount of computer-generated test data and a great amount of real online network data crawled from mainstream heterogeneous social networks. (shrink)

本书采用百家之精华、集思想之大成,涵盖了部队建设的各个方面,并按类别独立成篇,集中反映了新时期部队建设的特点和规律,是新时期建设思想方法和工作方法的大观园。.