Loving-kindness meditation was first practiced by Buddhists and then developed by clinical psychologist. Previous studies on LKM have mainly focused on the impact of real person-guided meditation on depression, anxiety, and other negative psychology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this study explored the effect and mechanism of media-guided LKM on the improvement of social presence, mindfulness, spirituality, and subjective wellbeing. From the viewpoint of positive psychology, this study compared the different media effects of animated pedagogical agent -guided LKM and audio-guided LKM. (...) A total of 82 flight attendants were recruited from airlines; then, they were randomly assigned to two groups: APA group and audio group, which both underwent an 8-week LKM training intervention. The aforementioned four main variables were measured pre and post the meditation experiment. The results indicated that both APA-guided meditation and audio-guided meditation significantly improved subjects’ spirituality and SWB. Compared with audio-guided meditation, APA-guided meditation significantly improved the subjects’ spirituality, SWB, and social presence. Audio-guided meditation has no significant effect on social presence. This study highlights APA-guided meditation has a positive effect on spirituality, SWB, and social presence, which may provide individuals with a simple and easy method to improve their mental health. (shrink)

Creativity is so important for social and technological development that people are eager to find an easy way to enhance it. Previous studies have shown that mindfulness has significant effects on positive affect, working memory capacity, cognitive flexibility and many other aspects, which are the key to promoting creativity. However, there are few studies on the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. The mechanism between mindfulness and creativity is still uncertain. Meditation is an important method of mindfulness training, but for most (...) people who do not have the basic training, it’s difficult to master how to get into a state of mindfulness. Animation has been shown by many studies to help improve cognition and is often used as a guiding tool. Using animation as the guiding carrier of meditation is more convenient and easier to accept. Therefore, this study adopted the intervention method of animation-guided meditation, aiming to explore: the effect of animation-guided meditation on enhancing creativity; the role of flow and emotion in the influence of mindfulness on creativity. We advertised recruitment through the internal network of a creative industrial park, and the final 95 eligible participants were divided into two groups: animation and audio guided meditation. The animation group was given an animated meditation intervention, and the audio group was given an audio meditation intervention, both interventions were performed 3 times a week and last for 8 weeks. Results: Animation-guided meditation significantly increased participants’ mindfulness and creativity levels; Significantly reduced their cognitive load compared to audio-guided meditation. Mindfulness has a significant direct effect on creativity, and significant indirect effects on creativity; Flow and PA act as the mediating variable. Conclusion: Mindfulness, flow, and PA all helped to improve the subjects’ work creativity. In addition to the direct positive impact of mindfulness on creativity, mindfulness can also have an indirect positive impact on creativity through flow and PA. Compared with audio, animation can significantly reduce cognitive load and help improve users’ cognitive ability, which is more suitable for the guidance materials of mindfulness meditation to enhance the effect of meditation. (shrink)

The study reported here, building on the research methods of Conversation Analysis, Politeness Theory, and Relevance Theory, attempts to examine the distribution of Mandarin qishi and shishishang across two different discourse modes in formal speech settings: formal lectures and TV panel news discussions. The results indicate that qishi is prevalent in TV panel news discussion data, which fall into the interactional mode, whereas shishishang is more prevalent in formal speech data, which fall into the transactional mode. The study shows that (...) in interaction, qishi is addressee-oriented and signals alignment or divergence, whereas shishishang is message-oriented and asserts a proposition with a tone of certainty. In addition, the study suggests that although the literal meanings of qishi and shishishang, which are concerned with factuality, are seemingly unrelated to emotive expressivity, they offer a rhetorical strategy for expressing the speaker’s attitudinal position, and can both serve to indicate the speaker’s epistemic inference. (shrink)

This study examines the degree of state ownership on corporate bribery. Integrating the theories of state ownership and corporate corruption, we propose that state ownership influences bribery propensity and bribery intensity in different ways; it lowers a firm’s tendency to pay bribes but increases the relative amount of bribery payment. Building on the control rights/bargaining hypotheses, we demonstrate that state ownership shields firms from bribery demands by reducing administrative hurdles that include bureaucratic requirements of obtaining licenses or settling taxes in (...) business operations. However, state ownership elevates the level of bribes by weakening their capital mobility. Using a sample of 23,018 firms from 54 countries covering 2006 to 2013, we find evidence to support our hypotheses. This article contributes to corruption research by drawing attention to an important channel of corruption and by highlighting the importance of considering not only the propensity but also the intensity of bribe payments. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical disputes, medical disturbances, verbal and physical violence against physicians, and burnout have reached epidemic levels. They may negatively impact both physicians and the healthcare system. The experience of medical disputes, medical disturbances, verbal, and physical violence, and burnout and the correlates in physicians working in public hospitals in China needed to be investigated.MethodsA nationwide cross-sectional survey study was conducted between 18 and 31 March 2019. An anonymous online questionnaire was administered. The questionnaire included the 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services (...) Survey. We also collected data on demographic and job-related factors, as well as physicians’ experiences of medical disputes, medical disturbances, verbal and physical violence from patients and the patients’ family members.FindingsIn total, 22,213 physicians from 144 tertiary public hospitals in all of China’s 31 provinces completed the survey. The overall burnout rate among the surveyed physicians was 31.28%. Moreover, 33.48% of physicians experienced disputes, 20.86% experienced disturbances, 48.52% experienced verbal violence, and 5.84% experienced physical violence in the past 12 months. Factors found to be significantly associated with burnout included younger age, being divorced or widowed, having a lower educational background, working in internal medicine departments, longer working hours per day, working in general hospitals, being in East China, as well as having experienced disputes, disturbances, and physical and verbal violence.InterpretationClose to a third of the Chinese doctors working in the tertiary hospitals reportedly experienced burnout, and the problem is related to the unsafe working environment caused by the worsening doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

Recently, there is a renewed debate concerning the role of perspective in vision. Morales et al. (2020) present evidence that, in the case of viewing a rotated coin, the visual system is sensitive to what has often been called “perspectival shapes.” It has generated vigorous discussions, including an online symposium by Morales and Cohen, an exchange between Linton (2021) and Morales et al. (2021), and most recently, a fierce critique by Burge and Burge (2022), in which they launch various conceptual (...) and empirical objections. Although Morales and Firestone (2022) have responded to them recently, and we are in agreement with Morales and Firestone in general, there are further problems in Burge and Burge (2022) that are worth highlighting. The main point of this comment is that what the Burge–Burge team call “viewpoint-dependent relational properties” are simply instances of what the Morales–Firestone team call “perspectival shapes”; the confusion arises from Burge and Burge’s misconstrual of Morales et al.’s claims. This shows that conceptually, the two teams are in large agreement, as Morales and Firestone (2022) also point out, and the focus should be put on the empirical disagreements, which has been covered by Morales and Firestone (2022). Relatedly, we argue that Burge and Burge (2022) misinterpret Morales et al. (2020) as supporting a new entity in perception science, and that this misinterpretation is a primary source of their apparent disagreement. This is worth pointing out because such misunderstanding generates many unnecessary quarrels that hinder progress. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo survey the prevalence of burnout in a national sample of endocrinologists in China and to examine its correlates, with a special focus on gender differences.MethodsAn anonymous online survey was conducted among endocrinologists in 31 provincial government-owned “People’s Hospitals” of each province in mainland China. Demographic and work-related factors were collected from participants. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey was used to assess burnout, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment.ResultsA total of 711 endocrinologists completed the survey. Burnout was (...) reported by 32.8% of the participants. There were no significant gender differences in the overall prevalence of burnout or EE, DP, and PA. A multi-level linear regression revealed: In male participants, PA was significantly associated with age, DP was inversely associated with age, EE was significantly associated with shorter sleep duration, and longer work hours. In females, PA was significantly associated with age, EE and DP were both significantly associated with shorter sleep duration. EE and DP were also associated with work hours.ConclusionNearly one-third of endocrinologists in China experienced burnout. Although there were no significant gender differences in the prevalence of overall burnout or EE, DP, and PA scores, male and female participants differed in factors associated with EE, DP, and PA. Interventions need to be tailored to target different aspects in male and female endocrinologists and target different subgroups. (shrink)

Our paper draws attention to a neglected channel of corruption—the bribe payments by state-owned enterprises. This is an important phenomenon as bribe payments by SOEs fruitlessly waste national resources, compromising public welfare and national prosperity. Using a large dataset of 30,249 firms from 50 countries, we show that, in general, SOEs are less likely to pay bribes for achieving organizational objectives owing to their political connectivity. However, in deteriorated institutional environments, SOEs may be subjected to potential managerial rent-seeking behaviors, which (...) disproportionately increase SOE bribe propensity relative to privately owned enterprises. Specifically, our findings highlight the importance of fostering democracy and rule of law, reducing prevalence of corruption and shortening power distance in reducing the incidence of SOE bribery. (shrink)

Backgrounds Moral distress significantly affects pediatric ICU nurses, leading to nurse burnout, increased turnover and reducing patient care quality. Despite its importance, there’s a notable gap in knowledge on how to manage it effectively. Aims This review aimed to systematically identify and analyze coping strategies and interventions targeting moral distress among pediatric nurses in ICU, uncovering research gap and future studies directions. Methods A scoping review was conducted followed framework by Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien and Arksey and O'Malley. Searches were (...) performed in 11 electrical databases, like PubMed and China Biology Medicine disc, within a timeframe of the database construction to November 2023, and performed literature screening and data extraction. Results Sixteen articles were ultimately included. Coping strategies adopted by pediatric ICUs nurses can be categorized into adaptive and maladaptive strategies, with the latter including passive acceptance, taking leave, and drinking, while the former involve pursuing interests outside of work, reflection and philosophizing, and communication. Nine articles described and evaluated the effectiveness of interventions for moral distress, categorizing them into individual and institutional levels. Individual-level interventions include Interprofessional Perspective-Taking, the PICU Resiliency Bundle, Ethics Education/Skills, and the Center for Caring. Institutional-level interventions encompasses Comprehensive Care Round, Goals of Care Conversations, Pediatric Ethics and Communication Excellence Rounds, Nursing Ethics Council, and Medical Ethical Decision-Making, though not all were effective in alleviating moral distress. Conclusions Nurses often use self-adjustment strategies for moral distress, institutional ethical support focusing on enhancing nurses’ moral resilience, promoting reflective thinking and improving communication remains crucial. Various interventions for moral distress are currently available, but nurse engagement is low and their effectiveness remained to be verified. Future studies should explore what aids or hinders these interventions. There’s also a need for large, multicenter trials and ongoing evaluations to create effective support systems for pediatric ICU nurses. (shrink)

Several previous studies have reported atypicality in resting-state functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder, yet the relatively small effect sizes prevent us from using these characteristics for diagnostic purposes. Here, canonical correlation analysis and hierarchical clustering were used to partition the high-functioning ASD group into subgroups. A support vector machine model was trained through the 10-fold strategy to predict Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores within the ASD discovery group, which was further validated in an independent sample. The neuroimage-based partition derived (...) two subgroups representing severe versus mild autistic patients. We identified FCs that show graded changes in strength from ASD-severe, through ASD-mild, to controls, while the same pattern cannot be observed in partitions based on ADOS score. We also identified FCs that are specific for ASD-mild, similar to a partition based on ADOS score. The current study provided multiple pieces of evidence with replication to show that resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging FCs could serve as neural biomarkers in partitioning high-functioning autistic individuals based on their symptom severity and showing advantages over traditional partition based on ADOS score. Our results also indicate a compensatory role for a frontocortical network in patients with mild ASD, indicating potential targets for future clinical treatments. (shrink)

Superlative modifiers (SMs) are known to demonstrate an ambiguity between an epistemic reading (EPI) conveying speaker ignorance and a concessive reading (CON) conveying speaker concession. Such EPI-CON ambiguity has often been taken, implicitly or explicitly, to be a lexical coincidence. While there may be some justification for such a position when a single language is considered, we argue for an intrinsic connection between the two readings based on cross-linguistic considerations. This paper focuses on English _at least_ and Mandarin _zhi-shao_ as (...) representative of superlative modifiers across a wide range of languages to propose a unified account of the two readings. The proposal builds on Biezma (2013) in relying on the role of focus and scalarity in developing a unified semantics for the two readings, but differs in capitalizing on the fact that cross-linguistically superlative modifiers use the same morphological formants as quantity superlatives. It also follows Biezma (2013) in taking pragmatic factors as crucial in deriving the variation between EPI and CON readings. Elaborating on her account, it offers a more nuanced picture of the ways in which EPI is sensitive to the question of informativity while CON relates to issues of evaluativity. The paper shows how the proposed semantics and pragmatics account for several well-known properties of superlative modifiers. It ends by noting several open issues in the literature on this topic that the current proposal sheds new light on. (shrink)

BackgroundTurnover intention, an employee’s intention to voluntarily leave their jobs, affects workforce sustainability. However, scarce data are available about turnover intention and its associated factors among psychiatrists in China, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current research was designed to address this gap.MethodsAn anonymous, nationwide online survey was disseminated to psychiatrists in 41 psychiatric hospitals in China. We collected demographic data, job-related information, and participants’ turnover intention in the next 12 months.ResultsIn total, 3,973 psychiatrists completed the survey. The sample was (...) predominantly female and married, and nearly three-fourths had children. More than one-third had a master’s or doctoral degree in addition to their medical degree. The overall level of job satisfaction was moderate. The rate of turnover intention was 22.0% and was comparable in males and females. Psychiatrists who had participated in the frontline work of COVID-19 were more likely to report an intention to leave their current job. Multiple regression analyses suggested that turnover intention was significantly associated with having insomnia, longer working hours, and more working days per week.ConclusionDuring the pandemic period, approximately one-fifth of psychiatrists in China reported turnover intention. Factors associated with turnover intention included high job-related burdens, low job satisfaction, participation in the frontline work against COVID-19, and insomnia. To improve psychiatric workforce sustainability, policymakers and hospital administrators need to be aware of this potential challenge and address the concerns of psychiatrists in China. (shrink)

How may feelings of love and hate impact people’s attention? We used a modified Attentional Blink (AB) task in which 300 participants were asked to categorise a name representing a person towards whom they felt either hate, love, or neutral (first target) plus identify a number word (second target), both embedded in a rapidly presented stream of other words. The lag to the second target was systematically varied. Contrary to our hypothesis, results revealed that both hated and loved names resulted (...) in higher accuracy for the second target than neutral names, which was largely independent of lag. Also, there we observed no sustained transfer effects of love and hate onto neutral name trials. The findings differ from prior research on attentional blink and transient, non-personal, stimulus-driven emotions, suggesting that interpersonal feelings activate different attention-relevant mechanisms. Relevant to future research, we speculate that love and hate are motivators of goal-directed behaviour that facilitate subsequent information processing. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of the technical and context-related variables of last strokes in rallies on the point outcomes of both men’s and women’s players in elite singles badminton matches. A total of 100 matches during the 2018 and 2019 seasons were analyzed, and the data of 4,080 men’s rallies and 4,339 women’s rallies were collected. The technical variables including strokes per rally, forehand strokes, overhead strokes, and defensive action, and the context-related variables including (...) game status, result against serve, importance of rally, and importance of set, were modeled with Probit regression modeling as the predictor variables. The binary variables of “winner or not” and “error or not” were considered the response variables. The results showed that defensive actions had the greatest impacts on the winners and errors of both the men’s and women’s singles players, and the forehand and overhead strokes were negatively associated with the winners and errors of the women’s singles players and the winners of the men’s singles players. No significant effects were found for the strokes per rally on the winners and errors of the men’s singles players, while significant effects were found for the women’s singles players. The context-related variables appeared to have positive effects on the winners and negative effects on the errors of both sexes. These findings can provide important insights for coaches and players to evaluate their performances of last strokes in rallies and to improve training interventions and match tactics and strategies. (shrink)

In an effort at ethical reform, Taiwan recently revised the Hospice Palliative Care Law authorising family members or physicians to make surrogate decisions to discontinue life-sustaining treatment if an incompetent terminally ill patient did not express their wishes while still competent. In particular, Article 7 of the new law authorises the palliative care team, namely the physicians, to act as sole decision-makers on behalf of the incompetent terminally ill patient's best interests if no family member is available. However, the law (...) fails to provide guidance as to what constitutes the patient's best interests or what specific procedures the treating physicians should follow, and so has raised constitutional concerns. It may be difficult to translate ethical reform into law but it is not impossible if essential requirements are carefully followed. First, there must be substantial nexus between the purpose of the statute and the measures provided under the statute. Second, advocates need to convince the public that futility or waste has amounted to a public health emergency so as to justify lower procedural requirements. Third, a remedy or compensation should be available if the surrogate decisions have not been appropriately made. Fourth, minimum procedural safeguards are necessary even though the statute is intended to reduce the procedural burdens of making surrogate decisions on behalf of incompetent patients who lack family members and did not express their wishes while still competent. (shrink)

Combining games with mobile commerce applications has been a trend in recent years. Mobile commerce is attracting a large number of people, especially females, to play mini games on the platform. The gamification of mobile commerce may affect users’ platform satisfaction. This study aims to explore the intention of female users to play mobile commerce games and its impact on platform satisfaction. We collected data from females in China who played mobile commerce games and then used a structural equation model (...) to test the various hypotheses we made. The results showed that game use intention fully mediated the impact of performance expectation, hedonic motivation, and social influence on platform satisfaction. Effort expectation had no significant impact on game use intention but had a positive impact on platform satisfaction. Game use intention had a positive impact on platform satisfaction. The frequency of playing games and the amount of money spent on the platform were positively correlated with game use intention. Females over 25 years old preferred to play mobile commerce games. This study provides a theoretical reference and practical enlightenment and makes a specific contribution to the development of mobile commerce platform and the application of gamification. However, this study has limitations in terms of test samples, research methods and research content, and further research on mobile commerce is required in the future. (shrink)

This project uses machine learning and computer vision techniques and a novel interactive visualization tool to provide street-level characterization of urban spaces such as safety and maintenance in urban neighborhoods. This is achieved by collecting and annotating street-view images, extracting objective metrics through computer vision techniques, and using crowdsourcing to statistically model the perception of subjective metrics such as safety and maintenance. For modeling human perception and scaling it up with a predictive algorithm, we evaluate perception predictions across two points (...) in time separated by economic changes in the urban core of Raleigh, North Carolina, in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession. We hypothesize specific socioeconomic processes can be substantially reflected in the built environment of cities and, thus, render themselves visible at the street level. This paper describes the process of incorporating subjective visual ratings across two datasets of temporally separated street-view images, an algorithm, and a visualization tool. This work serves as a case study for utilizing AI and visualization techniques in a richer characterization of urban spaces that includes both objective metrics such as income (that operates at a broader scale) and subjective metrics such as perception of individuals (that operates at a narrower scale at specific locations). We outline an interdisciplinary methodology to test this hypothesis in streetscape data from Raleigh, NC, from 2008 to 2020. We describe the results of training algorithms that utilized image features with crowdsourced human perception ratings. We provide a comparison of the results with income data. The analysis and interpretation of this comparison provide insight into the challenges and opportunities for using AI technology in characterizing changes in urban environments. One challenge is the ability of human domain experts to interpret the output of algorithms through manipulation and to integrate these results into their workflow. This is addressed with a novel interface designed for interactive analysis and visualization. We conclude with a discussion of some of the benefits and limitations of integrating AI models in the human expert’s decision-making process in the presence of both subjective and objective metrics. (shrink)

Resumen: El piano, de origen europeo, es la cristalización de la civilización musical occidental y es conocido como el rey de los instrumentos musicales. Después de cientos de años de desarrollo, ha desarrollado un sistema relativamente completo de creación, interpretación y enseñanza. En este proceso, se puede ver que hay muchas obras de música para piano con el estilo y el encanto únicos del pensamiento tradicional chino, utilizando el método de la música folclórica china y la melodía con características chinas. (...) La combinación de pensamientos tradicionales y piano demuestra el encanto único de la música china, con una fuerte herencia cultural y atractivo artístico. Por lo tanto, las obras de música para piano infiltradas en el pensamiento tradicional chino no son sólo un tesoro de China, sino también un elemento indispensable en la interpretación y educación del piano chino. El propósito de este artículo es comprender y reflexionar profundamente sobre las obras de música para piano en la cultura tradicional china, explorar la singularidad y el encanto de las obras de música para piano chinas y comprender la encarnación de los pensamientos tradicionales chinos en la creación de música para piano, explorando así la singularidad y la innovación. de la creación de música para piano china, proporcionando referencia y apoyo para promover el desarrollo de las obras de música para piano china. (shrink)

Interest in sustainability is increasing, and research on ESG management continues. The first issue to be discussed in the present situation is the environment. The study between the environment and internationalization was conducted around two conflicting arguments. First, the pollution haven hypothesis states that multinational corporations move to countries with looser regulations depending on environmental regulation. Next is the Porter Hypothesis, which argues that well-designed environmental regulations offset the cost of compliance and ultimately help firms gain a competitive advantage through (...) innovation that enhances performance. However, the two arguments have not yet reached a consensus conclusion. In addition, studies on the national level and studies considering the distance between countries, an important factor in international management, are lacking. This manuscript aims to revisit the relationship between the strength of environmental regulation and foreign direct investment in the context of increasing environmental concerns. Differences between countries are an important field of international management, but research on environmental regulations is lacking. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between existing environmental regulations and FDI and to discuss how the distance between countries can affect existing theories. (shrink)

People often judge trustworthiness based on others’ faces (e.g., facial expression and facial gender). However, it is unclear whether social context plays a moderating role in forming trustworthiness judgments. Based on the emotions as social information (EASI) model, differing contexts may impact the effect of facial expression; however, there is no evidence demonstrating that differing contexts will or will not influence the effect of facial gender. In this study, we used two experiments to examine how facial expression and facial gender (...) affect facial trustworthiness judgments and whether the effects on facial trustworthiness judgments are consistent in cooperative and competitive settings. Twenty-seven undergraduates (14 female; Mage = 21.81 years, SD = 2.66) participated in experiment 1. The results showed significant main effects of facial expression and facial gender as well as the interaction between them. To examine the social context effect, 28 undergraduates (18 female; Mage = 20.93 years, SD = 2.94) participated in experiment 2. The results showed the main effects of facial expression, facial gender, and social context. Moreover, there was a significant interaction between facial gender and facial expression and a marginally significant interaction between social context and facial expression. These results suggest that in the process of judging facial trustworthiness, individuals’ judgments are affected by both facial expression and facial gender. Furthermore, the effect of facial gender on facial trustworthiness judgments presents cross-situational stability, and the role of facial expression is influenced by the settings. These findings support and expand the EASI model. (shrink)

One famous debate in contemporary epistemology considers whether there is always one unique, epistemically rational way to respond to a given body of evidence. Generally speaking, answering “yes” to this question makes one a proponent of the Uniqueness thesis, while those who answer “no” are called “permissivists”. Another influential recent debate concerns whether non-truth-related factors can be the basis of epistemic justification, knowledge, or rational belief. Traditional theories answer “no”, and are therefore considered “purists”. However, more recently many theorists have (...) argued to the contrary, claiming that impurist factors, such as practical stakes, can sometimes encroach or even override truth-related considerations. This paper bridges the two debates by presenting and defending what I call “Impurist Permissivism”. I support Impurist Permissivism by showing how it can resist Roger White’s famous Argument from Arbitrariness (2005). (shrink)

Biological pacemakers can be achieved by various gene‐based and cell‐based approaches. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs)‐derived pacemaker cells might be the most promising way to form biological pacemakers, but there are challenges as to how to control the differentiation of ESCs and to overcome the neoplasia, proarrhythmia, or immunogenicity resulting from the use of ESCs. As a potential approach to solve these difficult problems, tissue‐engineering techniques may provide a precise control on the different cell components of multicellular aggregates and the forming (...) of a construct with‐defined architectures and functional properties. The combined interactions between ESC‐derived pacemaker cells, supporting cells, and matrices may completely reproduce pacemaker properties and result in a steady functional unit to induce rhythmic electrical and contractile activities. As ESCs have a high capability for self‐renewal, proliferation, and potential differentiation, we hypothesize that ESCs can be used as a source of pacemaker cells for tissue‐engineering applications and the ambitious goal of biological cardiac pacemakers may ultimately be achieved with ESCs via tissue‐engineering technology. (shrink)

Biological pacemakers can be achieved by various gene‐based and cell‐based approaches. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs)‐derived pacemaker cells might be the most promising way to form biological pacemakers, but there are challenges as to how to control the differentiation of ESCs and to overcome the neoplasia, proarrhythmia, or immunogenicity resulting from the use of ESCs. As a potential approach to solve these difficult problems, tissue‐engineering techniques may provide a precise control on the different cell components of multicellular aggregates and the forming (...) of a construct with‐defined architectures and functional properties. The combined interactions between ESC‐derived pacemaker cells, supporting cells, and matrices may completely reproduce pacemaker properties and result in a steady functional unit to induce rhythmic electrical and contractile activities. As ESCs have a high capability for self‐renewal, proliferation, and potential differentiation, we hypothesize that ESCs can be used as a source of pacemaker cells for tissue‐engineering applications and the ambitious goal of biological cardiac pacemakers may ultimately be achieved with ESCs via tissue‐engineering technology. -/- . (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations need to effectively manage changes, and employees need to proactively adapt to these changes. The present research investigated when and how individual employees’ narcissism was related to their change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, based on a trait activation perspective, this research proposed the hypotheses that individual employees’ narcissism and environmental uncertainty would interactively influence employees’ change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change; furthermore, the effect of narcissism on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via (...) felt responsibility for constructive change would be stronger when the environmental uncertainty prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic was high rather than low. Two studies were conducted to test these hypotheses: an online survey of 180 employees in mainland China and a field study of 167 leader–follower dyads at two Chinese companies. The current research reveals a bright side of narcissism, which has typically been recognized as a dark personality trait, and enriches the understanding of the antecedents of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. This research can also guide organizations that wish to stimulate employee proactivity. (shrink)

The relationship between gender and ethics has been extensively researched. However, previous studies have assumed that the gender–ethics association is constant; hence, scholars have seldom investigated factors potentially affecting the gender–ethics association. Thus, using managers as the research target, this study examined the relationship between gender and ethics and analyzed the moderating effect of cultural values on the gender–ethics association. The results showed that, compared with female managers, their male counterparts are more willing to justify business-related unethical behaviors such as (...) bribery and tax evasion, and that the gender difference in ethics becomes more pronounced under the cultural dimensions of collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, and gender egalitarianism. This study used data obtained through surveying 2,754 managers in 27 nations. (shrink)

Business moral values are defined as the personal moral values held by individuals who are engaged in business interactions. Direct supervisors may play an important role in shaping the business moral values of their subordinates. Using 264 supervisor— subordinate dyadic data from Taiwanese organizations, the study investigated the relationships among supervisor business moral values, subordinate business moral values, subordinate organizational commitment, job performance, and attendance. The results indicated that supervisor business moral values were positively associated with subordinate business moral values, (...) and that the latter mediated the relationship between the former and subordinate outcomes. Implications for business moral values research are discussed. (shrink)

This study developed a measure of autonomy for adolescents in contemporary China. First, data from 44 interviewees—40 secondary school students, 2 parents, and 2 secondary school teachers—were used to explore the connotation and theoretical structure of autonomy in adolescents in China. Next, a preliminary Adolescent Autonomy Questionnaire was created from the interview data and administered to 775 secondary school students. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to verify the factor structure. Finally, 614 secondary school students completed the (...) Adolescent Autonomy Questionnaire, Personal Growth Initiative Scale-II, and Adolescence Ego Identity Crisis Scale to evaluate criterion validity. The final version of the Adolescent Autonomy Questionnaire included 16 items and four subscales: autonomous decision-making, autonomous regulation, autonomous protection, and autonomous problem-solving. The total variance of the cumulative interpretation questionnaire was 62.54%. The CFA results showed that the four-factor model fits the data well: χ2/df = 2.340, CFI = 0.949, RMSEA = 0.042, SRMR = 0.046. Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Adolescent Autonomy Questionnaire provided support for the reliability and validity of the measure. Thus, it serves as an effective measurement tool for assessing the autonomy of adolescents in China. (shrink)

This study examines whether human gaze lacking the confounding factor of eye whites can be processed unconsciously and explores the critical aspects for such process. Utilizing the continuous flash suppression paradigm, a schematic face—with direct or averted gaze, and with neutral, fearful or happy expressions—was presented to one eye while dynamic masks rendered it invisible to the other eye. Schematic faces were used to avoid unwanted influence from salient eye whites. Participants’ detection time of anything other than the masks was (...) used as an index of unconscious processing time. Faster detection was found for faces with direct gaze than those with averted gaze. However, there was no difference between detection times for different facial expressions and upright-face, inverted-face, and eyes-only conditions . These results confirm that, with schematic faces, gaze can be processed unconsciously regardless of facial expression, and eyes alone are sufficient for such process. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a method to design the pseudorandom number generator using three kinds of four-wing memristive hyperchaotic systems with different dimensions as multientropy sources. The principle of this method is to obtain pseudorandom numbers with good randomness by coupling XOR operation on the three kinds of FWMHSs with different dimensions. In order to prove its potential application in secure communication, the security of PRNG based on this scheme is analyzed from the perspective of cryptography. In addition, PRNG (...) has passed the NIST 800.22 and ENT test, which shows that PRNG has good statistical characteristics. Finally, an image encryption algorithm based on PRNG is adopted. In the encryption algorithm, the optimized Arnold matrix scrambling method and the diffusion processing based on XOR are used to obtain the final encrypted image. Through the evaluation of encryption performance, it is concluded that there is no direct relationship between the pristine image and encrypted image. The results show that the proposed image encryption scheme has good statistical output characteristics and security performance in line with cryptography. (shrink)