L. I. Liu

IntroductionDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, many citizens were asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, which can pose a significant challenge with respect to remaining physically active and maintaining mental health. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of inadequate physical activity, anxiety, and depression and to explore the relationship of physical activity with anxiety and depression symptoms among Chinese college students during quarantine.MethodUsing a web-based cross-sectional survey, we collected data from 1,396 Chinese college students. Anxiety and depression were assessed with the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Self-Rating Depression Scale, respectively. The data on physical activity were collected by types of physical activity and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.ResultsDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, about 52.3% of Chinese college students had inadequate physical activity. The rates of anxiety and depression symptoms were 31.0 and 41.8%, respectively. A high level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with low anxiety, while a moderate, or high level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with reduced depression after adjusting confounding demographic factors. Moreover, specific types of physical activity, such as stretching and resistance training, were negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression; doing household chores was negatively correlated with depression.ConclusionOur findings highlight specific levels and types of home-based physical activities that need to be taken into consideration to protect the mental health of college students during the COVID-19 epidemic.

We investigate the dynamics of a nonautonomous stochastic SIS epidemic model with nonlinear incidence rate and double epidemic hypothesis. By constructing suitable stochastic Lyapunov functions and using Has’minskii theory, we prove that there exists at least one nontrivial positive periodic solution of the system. Moreover, the sufficient conditions for extinction of the disease are obtained by using the theory of nonautonomous stochastic differential equations. Finally, numerical simulations are utilized to illustrate our theoretical analysis.

In the process of rapid urbanization, urban heat island effect has been showing more and more significant impacts on human well-being. Therefore, a more detailed understanding of the impact of three-dimensional building morphology on UHI effect across a continuum of spatial scales will be necessary to guide and improve the human settlement.This study selected 31 provincial capital cities of mainland China to analyze the impacts of the 3D building morphology, including the number, area, height, volume, and the surface area of the buildings, on the land surface temperature. By exploring how the influence of 3D building morphology on LST changes with the increase of spatial scale, this study finally recognized which 3D building morphology index is the most significant index affecting LST in different cities, and which spatial scale these 3D building morphology indexes have the most significant impact on LST. The results showed that the building area is the most important 3D building morphology parameter affecting the LST, while the building height has the slightest influence on the LST. These effects are more significant in the spatial scale of 150 m–540 m, and the spatial scale increases with the increase of building areas in developed cities. These results highlight the necessity of considering fine-grained management in the governance and alleviating of the urban thermal environment through urban planning and urban renewal strategies.

Under the influence of social changes, latent factors in campus safety are increasing, and dealing with them is becoming more difficult. Facing the challenges in the pluralistic society, students need to cope with the changes of external and internal environments in the dynamic society. Additionally, there are new events on campus at any time, which may lead to campus risk. The frequent events that have occurred on campus in recent years have created difficulties for school administrative units. Implementing campus risk management strategies and conducting risk awareness education campaigns are, therefore, necessary. The fact that we are in a technologically dynamic age is another factor that makes risk awareness and proper risk management essential for individual survival and sustainable development of organizations. The participants of the study were university students in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Three hundred copies of the questionnaire were distributed, and 238 valid copies were retrieved, representing a retrieval rate of 79%. The results of the survey show that “life education” is the most emphasized dimension, followed by “curriculum and instruction,” and “environmental planning.” The five most emphasized indicators among the 14 indicators are opportunity education, physical activity, role-play, team competition, and learning area planning. The results suggest that school administrative units can take control in an emergency and reduce the likelihood of school members being threatened or harmed by the risk factor, and educators can make a quick decision to turn risk into opportunity.

ObjectiveIn the context of Healthy China, the effect of external motivation on sports anomie behavior from the perspective of gender among Chinese college students was investigated.ParticipantsIn total, 2,340 college students were involved in this study.MethodsThe self-made scales were used, which were about anomie behavior and external motivation in sports. The independent sample T-test was used to compare the sports anomie behavior between male and female students. Then, multiple linear regression analysis was adopted to examine the effects of external motivation on sports anomie behavior.ResultsGirls’ sports anomie behavior was lower than boys. There were significant gender differences in honor motivation, obedience motivation, and economic motivation; girls’ motivations were lower than boys. The academic motivation was negatively correlated with the sports anomie behavior of college students of both genders. The economic motivation was positively correlated with their sports anomie behavior. The honor motivation was negatively correlated with the sports anomie behavior of female college students.ConclusionFemale college students’ sports anomie behavior and external motivation are lower than that of male college students. External motivation had a significant influence on college students’ sports anomie behavior.

This study examines the feature of reasoning talk used by 37 Chinese families at the dinner table across three generations with the background of co-parenting and in consideration of different communicative contexts. Drawing upon Hasan’s semantic framework, reasons were mainly coded as logical or social types. We categorize the communicative context of reasoning talk into contextualized and decontextualized topics. When the proportion of social reasoning was found slightly higher than that of logical reasoning, the families’ reasoning talk account for only 3.85% of the total language. Specifically, the count of mothers’ total reasoning talk was significantly above other family members, while there were no significant differences among the other participants. The effect of the communicative contexts on family members’ social reasoning was found. The reasoning talk grounded on local rules and coercive power occurred significantly more frequently in contextualized than decontextualized context. A higher rate of local-rule grounded reasoning talk of all family members appeared in contextualized than decontextualized context, and this gap was particularly obvious among mothers. These findings reveal the significant role of mothers in family communications and confirm the pedagogical values of decontextualized communicative context for promoting children’s learning opportunities at the dinner table.

The Omani socio-cultural context, the mono-gender educational system in schools, and the learning environment at the higher educational institutions significantly affect learners' self-efficacy and academic achievement in the mixed-gender EFL classroom. Different studies have revealed both positive and negative implications of mixed-gender classrooms, especially for those who came from a mono-gender learning environment. The adjustment phase for the tertiary learners from school to the university is not only crucial but also significant for the continuation of higher education. The effects of socio-cultural factors on self-efficacy and academic achievement have not been studied in depth, particularly in eastern countries. So, the current study aimed at investigating the role of gender, learning background, socio-cultural circumstances, and the effect of the learning environment on EFL learners' self-efficacy and their academic achievement within the scenario of the prevailing culture and traditions in the Dhofar Region. To conduct this study, mixed research methods have been adopted to investigate the perceptions of both teachers and learners. The sample of the study consists of 117 EFL learners ranging between 18–22 years of age and 25 EFL teachers ranging between 35–60 years of age. We used separate surveys for students and the teachers and interviewed students and teachers on a random basis. The results demonstrate that both genders were comfortable in segregated classes. The results also reveal that female learners were active learners and better performers than male learners in the school learning environment. The students reported that social restrictions discouraged them from mixing with the opposite gender in classroom activities and oral discussions. Most teachers believe that, compared to male learners, female learners performed better and were more engaged and responsive to different learning situations. The study found that there were statistically significant differences between both genders in terms of the effects of socio-cultural environment, self-efficacy, and the learning environment. Female learners were better than male learners in mono-gender schools, and they have higher self-efficacy than male students at the university. In conclusion, EFL teachers should consider the socio-cultural context, learners' learning background, and other challenges of learners to bring out positive outcomes in a mixed-gender classroom.

Digital transformation of traditional enterprises can better develop new customer relationships and help mitigate the business risk of their over-reliance on single-customer relationships. However, little research has been conducted on the internal mechanisms of how enterprise digitalization reshapes corporate customer relationships. In this manuscript, from the perspective of dynamic capability theory, we construct conceptual models of enterprise digital transformation, innovation capability, operational cost, and customer satisfaction, and explore the internal mechanisms of enterprise digital transformation to reduce the dependence of enterprises on large customers. The model is empirically studied by obtaining data on the degree of digital transformation of enterprises through “search statistics” of keywords in the annual reports of Chinese listed companies during 2011–2019. This manuscript finds that digital transformation significantly reduces the concentration of large customers and has become a powerful driver of business model innovation in the digital economy, and this finding remains robust to the use of PSM and instrumental variable methods to address endogeneity. Digital transformation reduces firms’ dependence on large customers through three mechanisms: improving firms’ innovation capabilities, reducing firms’ operating costs, and increasing customer satisfaction. The impact of digital transformation on reducing the dependence of non-state enterprises on large customers is greater than that of state-owned enterprises; the implementation of digital transformation strategies is more helpful for enterprises that have active interactions with customers to reduce their customer concentration; and the reduction of customer concentration is greater for enterprises in regions with higher levels of digital development compared to those in regions with lower levels of digital development. The economic consequence test finds that digital transformation diversifies customer structure and reduces business risks. The analysis of the innovation effect and customer satisfaction effect on reducing the concentration of large customers of enterprisesby implementing digital transformation enriches and expands the dynamic capability theory and provides important insights for enterprises to diversify their customer structure.

Major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Olympic Games, and G20 Summit bring about supplier disruption risks and challenges to supply chain management. To help deal with these risks, a virtual dual-sourcing production-inventory system can be deployed. In this paper, we study such a system which consists of a raw material supplier, a manufacturer, and a virtual dual-sourcing contingency supplier. The manufacturer needs to determine the production, procurement, and inventory plan of raw materials. When its supplier is interrupted, the manufacturer may need to adjust the production and inventory plan and work with the contingency supplier. We develop a system dynamics method to simulate the operations in this production-inventory system to identify the approximately optimal order-up-to-level inventory policies. We find that the virtual dual production-inventory strategy can be the optimal contingency policy to deal with supplier dynamic disruption risks. Furthermore, for disruption risk with low frequency and long duration, the manufacturer should increase the safety inventory level before the disruption. Otherwise, it should increase the safety inventory level in every cycle.

Recent studies have shown that the brain functional connectome constitutes a unique fingerprint that allows the identification of individuals from a group. However, what information encoded in the brain that makes us unique remains elusive. Here, we addressed this issue by examining how individual identifiability changed along the language hierarchy. Subjects underwent fMRI scanning during rest and when listening to short stories played backward, scrambled at the sentence level, and played forward. Identification for individuals was performed between two scan sessions for each task as well as between the rest and task sessions. We found that individual identifiability tends to increase along the language hierarchy: the more complex the task is, the better subjects can be distinguished from each other based on their whole-brain functional connectivity profiles. A similar principle is found at the functional network level: compared to the low-order network (the auditory network), the high-order network is more individualized (the frontoparietal network). Moreover, in both cases, the increase in individual identifiability is accompanied by the increase in inter-subject variability of functional connectivities. These findings advance the understanding of the source of brain individualization and have potential implications for developing robust connectivity-based biomarkers.

Wang Fuzhi develops from the doctrine of Mencius a moral philosophy based on the doctrine of vital energy (qi) and affective mindset (xin). Base on Mencius, Wang criticizes Gaozi, Buddhism and Laozi on the one hand, and the Cheng Brothers, Zhu Xi, Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming on the other. Wang advocates that vital energy is always good while emotions can be evil, and emphasizes the significance of the affective mindset of dao to the accomplishment of human’s natural tendency. The position humans possess in the cosmos is founded on the affective mindset of dao. Humans are able to know their own nature (xing 性) – this fact is of primary significance for humans. The daily rebirth and daily regrowth of the natural human tendency (xing 性), and the capacity of humans “to be” is made possible by human beings’s capacity to sense reflexively, by virtue of the affective mindset of dao, the natural human tendency and the being of oneself. It is only in this state of self-awareness that the natural human tendency is one’s own natural tendency and the being is one’s own being.

The relationship between the public (gong 公) and the private (si 私) was a vital issue in the intellectual circle of the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE or 403–221 BCE). Although the thinkers of that time did not frequently use the terms gong and si in their works, to a certain extent, they realized that they had no alternative but to face the relevant problems directly and present ideal schemes to properly address them. In-depth discussions concerning the public and the private, in fact, had already taken place in the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE or 770–403 BCE). For example, Kongzi (Confucius) once exchanged views with the Duke of She on the virtue of uprightness (zhi 直). The latter held that an environment of uprightness should be one in which one would bear witness against his father even if he commits only a minor crime; however, Kongzi had a completely opposite opinion: “The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this” (Lunyu 2022: 13.18; Ruan 1980: 2507). This conversation has already touched the overlapping field between the public and the private. However, the changes of social order and social structure in the Spring and Autumn period were relatively minor, compared with those in the Warring States Period. During the latter period, thinkers became more and more interested in the issue of the public and the private; and they also frequently and directedly used the terms gong and si to express their previsions and hopes of a new social order. Xunzi (c. 310-c. after 238 BCE) and Hanfei (c. 280–233 BCE) were representative thinkers in the terminal stage of the Warring States Period putting forward systematic theses about the gong-si relationship. For example, Xunzi emphasized that the noble person should “overcome selfish desires (siyu 私欲) through public righteousness (gongyi 公義)” (Xunzi 2022: 2.12; Wang 1988: 36). Hanfei, once a disciple of Xunzi, also firmly believed that “carrying out selfish righteousness (siyi 私義) leads to disorder; carrying out public righteousness (gongyi 公義) leads to order” (Hanfeizi 2022: 19.5; Wang 1998: 128). From the above account, we can roughly conclude that the problem about the relationship between the public and the private, from Kongzi to Xunzi and Han Fei, was becoming increasingly acute and intense. And in the final stage of the Warring States period, thinkers including Xunzi and Han Fei generally called for a “sage-king” (shengwang 聖王) with the ability to advance a mode of absolutely political-religious unity, regardless how different their elaborations of the concept of “sage-king” may be.

We study the strategic interactions within testing in a model of political agency. A principal decides between convicting and acquitting an agent of unknown innocence based on a noisy signal that is manipulable by the agent’s unobserved actions. We identify conditions under which the principal sets a threshold conviction strategy in the form of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” We show that, in spite of strategic concerns, the amount of information that a principal can glean from the test is entirely determined by the threshold; in equilibrium, the threshold is set where the signal realization conveys just enough information to validate a conviction. As such, the game of testing is analytically equivalent to the principal’s statistical inference problem. We next examine how exogenous shocks on preference parameters affect the principal’s equilibrium threshold and welfare. In general, the principal benefits from being better at distinguishing types; whether she should increase or decrease the threshold depends crucially on whether the agent’s distribution of signals varies with types in the absence of manipulation.

Evidences are important proofs to support judicial trials. Automatically extracting evidences from judgement documents can be used to assess the trial quality and support “Intelligent Court”. Current evidence extraction is primarily depended on sequence labelling models. Despite their success, they can only assign a label to a token, which is difficult to recognize nested evidence entities in judgment documents, where a token may belong to several evidences at the same time. In this paper, we present a novel evidence extraction architecture called ATT-MRC, in which extracting evidence entities is formalized as a question answer problem, where all evidence spans are screened out as possible correct answers. Furthermore, to address the data imbalance problem in the judgement documents, we revised the loss function and combined it with a data enhancement technique. Experimental results demonstrate that our model has better performance than related works in evidence extraction.