X. Wang

Science and technology drive research progress but also introduce growing risks, value conflicts and ethical challenges. Science and technology ethics review committees (STERCs) serve as key institutional mechanisms to ensure that scientific activities comply with ethical principles and professional norms. However, the establishment of STERCs worldwide remains at an early developmental stage, and structured, systematic criteria for evaluating their quality are largely absent. This study aims to develop a structured evaluation indicator system for STERCs and to explore its preliminary applicability. This study conducted a literature review and qualitative interviews to develop a preliminary evaluation indicator system, which was organized using Donabedian’s three-dimensional framework of structure, process, and outcome. The final indicator system was established after two rounds of expert consultation. The preliminary self-assessment data were collected from 80 medical institutions and 19 companies across 14 cities in Hunan Province. Both rounds of the Delphi consultation achieved a 100% response rate. The mean authoritative coefficient (Cr) was 0.900, while familiarity (Cs) and judgment basis (Ca) scores were 0.867 and 0.933, respectively. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (Kendall’s W) was 0.300 (p < 0.001) in round one and 0.213 (p < 0.001) in round two. The final evaluation indicator system consisted of three first-level indicators, nine second-level indicators and 52 third-level indicators. This study proposes a unified framework for science and technology ethics review, integrating activities involving humans, animals, and other potential technological risks into a single evaluation system. The indicator system supports institutional self-assessment, promotes standardization, and guides continuous improvement. Preliminary findings indicate its feasibility and internal consistency, but these results should be interpreted cautiously due to the limited sample scope and reliance on self-reported data.

Clinical ethics consultations (CECs) play an important role in resolving ethical issues in clinical practice worldwide. The government has encouraged the development of CECs in China to address the ethical challenges arising in prenatal diagnosis. So far, the current state and challenges facing CEC remain understudied. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of employees on ethics committees for prenatal diagnosis in 13 medical institutions in Hunan Province, China. Twenty-eight employees participated in interviews. Our qualitative approach employed content analysis to identify major themes in interviewees’ responses, which covered the composition and vision of their prenatal diagnosis ethics committee, as well as the challenges they faced. The results show that CEC in China is in an exploratory stage, with models for CEC composition, and workflow varying significantly. Therefore, we propose the future direction of efforts to improve CECs, including improving CEC working mechanisms and operating procedures, strengthening ethical training for healthcare workers and ethics committee employees, and developing more specific ethical guidance based on the accumulated experiences of ethics committee employees in the early development of CEC for prenatal diagnosis.

The international community has proposed a comprehensive strategy to prevent congenital abnormalities. And China, with a high incidence of congenital diseases, has implemented measures including prenatal screening and diagnosis to reduce the morbidity of congenital abnormalities. However, ethical challenges arise in the practice of prenatal screening and diagnosis among healthcare professionals. Five focus group discussions were conducted with twenty-four health professionals working in maternal and child health services in Hunan Province, China, to explore the ethical challenges they encountered in prenatal testing decision-making and information disclosure practices, as well as their views on these challenges. Participants were selected through purposive sampling, ensuring maximum demographic diversity. Three main themes were identified: 1) balancing between information disclosure and privacy protection; 2) patient-oriented decision-making and tensions within family-oriented decision-making; 3) the disparity between the limited help clinical ethics committees (CECs) can provide and professionals’ need for CECs. Ethical norms for information disclosure and autonomous decision-making within prenatal screening and diagnostic institutions must be established. Utilizing CECs is crucial to guide professionals in delivering prenatal testing services while simultaneously focusing on targeted improvement of communication skills among these professionals.

本文从理查德道金斯的理论出发，即我们是染色体片段的装甲。随即将存在的属性附着于这一装甲之上，认为存在是染色体的片段的先天属性。这是起点。基于这一起点，我们这些基因的装甲基于我们的先天属性展现出来的现象是寻求自身的生存，获取生存资料，从而使得自身持存。为了更好地履行这一属性，我们演变出了储存信息，也就是记忆的能力。认为意识是持存这一属性对于信息的处理经过漫长演化的结果。而储存信息并作出反应这一过程，也就是关于康德黑格尔他们的论证我认为已经十分成熟，于是暂且将我认为合适的原文搬进来。在论证这一过程中，顺带对艺术作出阐释。我认为艺术是基于上述的存在原理，将自然或者说那个存在环境的信息符号化，从而获取在那个自然环境中的感知。紧接着设其他他者从而引申出群体是如何发生。因为存在一个最后的结论。如果不讲述群体如何发生，这一结论将无法展开。这一结论是我视生物圈或者往小了说，我视人类族群为一只灯塔水母。繁衍是肉体的更新，而若储存的信息不进行清空，则主体的意识终将会丧失。根据上述推论，新生需要清空信息，但是在漫长的演化过程中，我们拥有了将信息记录于媒介的能力。理论传递知识，艺术传递感觉，意识的精华由此传递。在这一语境下，整个族群的意识与精神都在更新，是永生的。

The present study examines the bilingual aging lexicon by comparing word association networks across four age groups of Chinese–English bilingual adults. Adopting network analysis with breadth‐first search‐based sampling, results showed that in L1 (Chinese) networks, global connectivity increases from early to mid‐adulthood, accompanied by reduced local clustering and enhanced global efficiency; the network remains relatively stable through midlife, followed by declining efficiency and progressively pronounced modular structure in late adulthood. The L2 (English) networks mirror L1 developmental trends in early and mid‐adulthood but with substantially larger shifts; throughout adulthood, L2 exhibits lower global and local connectivity and weaker modularity compared to L1. These findings reveal distinct developmental trajectories for L1 and L2 semantic networks in bilinguals, underscoring greater structural stability in the dominant language (L1) across adulthood relative to the nondominant language (L2). This L1–L2 asymmetry points to differential impacts of aging on bilingual lexical organization. Results are discussed in relation to compensatory mechanisms and enrichment accounts of cognitive aging.

The agentic web marks a structural transition from a human-centered information network to a digital environment populated by artificial intelligence (AI) agents that perceive, decide, and act autonomously. As delegated action unfolds at machine speed, exceeds discrete moments of human judgment, and distributes decision-making across non-human actors, existing legal frameworks face growing strain, creating an urgent need for new mechanisms capable of sustaining legality in this emerging order. A trustworthy agentic web therefore depends on the infrastructuring of legality through interoperable protocols that organize identity, delegation, and accountability across systems, enabling coherent governance beyond isolated platforms. Towards this end, this article advances a distributed legal infrastructure (DLI), a governance paradigm composed of five interlocking layers: (1) self-sovereign, soulbound agent identities; (2) cognitive AI logic and constraint systems; (3) decentralized adjudication mechanisms for dispute resolution; (4) bottom-up agentic market regulation to mitigate information asymmetries and network effects, including insurance-based models; and (5) portable institutional frameworks that enable legal interoperability while preserving plural sources of authority. This reference framework contributes to emerging research on embedding legality within agentic web infrastructure, aligning distributed technical systems with accountability, contestability, and rule-of-law principles.

Background: In China, research ethics is a subject of increasingly formal regulation. However, little is known about how nursing researchers understand the concept of research ethics and the ways in which they can maintain ethical standards in their work. Aim: The aim of this study is to examine nursing researchers’ perspectives on research ethics in China. Research design: We conducted a descriptive qualitative study. Qualitative research methods enabled us to gain an in-depth understanding of nursing researchers’ views on research ethics. Participants and research context: We carefully selected and extensively interviewed 28 nursing researchers, nursing faculty, and clinical nurses who had been involved in research or who may undertake research in the future. We collected data between October 2014 and March 2015. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the institutional review boards of Yale University and Central South University. Findings: We grouped the data into five categories based on the interviewees’ responses: (1) perceptions of ethics, bioethics, and research ethics; (2) perception of the ethics review process; (3) perception of the function of institutional review boards; (4) the need for comprehensive ethical guidelines for future studies; and (5) ethical challenges faced by the interviewees. Discussion and conclusion: This study contributes new insights into nursing researchers’ views on research ethics in China and finds considerable shortcomings in researchers’ understanding and implementation of ethical principles. Intensive educational efforts are needed to provide nursing researchers, institutional review board members, and even study subjects with accurate and up-to-date information and guidance on research ethics. In addition, while Western research ethics theoretically have guided Chinese clinical research for several years, the ways in which nursing researchers have implemented these ethical standards highlight the differences between the Eastern and Western ethical paradigms. This finding suggests the need for ethical standards that are more tailored to the Chinese context.

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of urban public transportation capacity, citizens’ travel has become more and more convenient, but there are still some potential problems, such as morning and evening peak congestion, imbalance between the supply and demand of vehicles and passenger flow, emergencies, and social local passenger flow surged due to special circumstances such as activities and inclement weather. If you want to properly guide the local passenger flow and make a reasonable deployment of operating buses, it is necessary to grasp the changing law of public transportation short-term passenger flow. This paper builds a short-term passenger flow prediction model for urban public transportation based on the idea of integrated learning. The goal is to use the integrated model to accurately predict the short-term passenger flow of urban public transportation, using Multivariable Linear Regression, K-Nearest Neighbor, eXtreme Gradient Boosting, and Gated Recurrent Unit as the four seed models, and then use regression algorithm to integrate the model and predict the passenger flow, station boarding and landing, and cross-sectional passenger flow data of the typical representative line 428 in the “Huitian Area” of Beijing from January 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020. Finally, the prediction results of the submodels are compared with those of the integrated model to verify the superiority of the integrated model. The research results of this paper can enrich the short-term passenger flow forecasting system of urban public transportation and provide effective data support and scientific basis for the passenger flow, vehicle management, and dispatch of urban public transportation.

The extant research has attached increasing importance to the role of nonstandard managerial beliefs in affecting the decision-making process of firms. This study takes Zodiac year beliefs as an example of nonstandard managerial beliefs and investigates their influence on greenwashing, as well as the corresponding influence mechanism. The analysis is grounded in a dataset of A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2023. The results demonstrate that Zodiac year beliefs can inhibit firms from engaging in greenwashing. In addition, it is corroborated that Zodiac year beliefs can reduce the risk-taking level of firms, which in turn further mitigates the intention to engage in greenwashing. Finally, we also demonstrate that Confucianism can reinforce the negative influences of Zodiac year beliefs on greenwashing and risk-taking levels. The findings of this study provide some insights into how nonstandard managerial beliefs shape corporate unethical behaviour.

Pascal’s Wager has generated persistent decision-theoretic objections—many-gods symmetry, policy indeterminacy, prior arbitrariness, and infinite-utility pathologies—that resist resolution despite sophisticated refinements. This article diagnoses these objections as symptoms of a shared presupposition: the _neutral calculator_, a supposed context-transcendent standpoint from which all religious options can be compared on a single decision matrix. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s forms of life, Austin’s felicity conditions, and Ryle’s category-mistake analysis, I argue that positing such a standpoint constitutes a category mistake. Religious evaluation necessarily occurs within practices that give determinate meaning to concepts like salvation, belief, and infinite reward. From this diagnosis, I develop the principle of _Background-Conditioned Rationality_ (BCR), which holds that rational assessment must be conducted within the background that confers sense on its evaluative tokens. Applying BCR dissolves the standard objections by showing they demand an impossible standpoint. The article clarifies Pascal’s original project as situated pastoral counsel rather than neutral arbitration, and indicates how inter-religious dialogue can proceed without the mythical _neutral calculator_. This diagnosis explains why technical solutions generate endless counter-objections. They attempt to solve practice-constituted problems from a practice-transcendent standpoint.

This study aims to prove the Riemann Hypothesis and the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis by extending the Riemann zeta function and Dirichlet $L$ -functions to the elliptic complex domain, based on a newly constructed system of elliptic complex numbers $\mathbb{C}_\lambda(\lambda<0)$. The core challenge addressed is the inherent difficulty in resolving these conjectures within the traditional "circular complex domain" framework ($\lambda=-1$); the author posits that a complete proof is unattainable strictly within this conventional setting. The primary innovation of this work lies in the formulation of the theory of elliptic complex numbers, specifically identifying the limiting case as $\lambda\to 0^{-}$ as the key to the proof. Through rigorous deduction, a bijective correspondence between zeros across different complex planes is established. By employing proof by contradiction and leveraging the correspondence between $\mathbb{C}_\lambda$ (as $\lambda\to 0$) and the circle complex plane $\mathbb{C}$, the Riemann Hypothesis and the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis are ultimately proven. This paper is organized into three parts: \begin{enumerate} \item Construction and Geometric Properties: The first part details the construction of elliptic complex numbers and their fundamental geometric properties, laying the necessary foundation for subsequent analysis and the proof of the conjectures. \item Analytic Extension: The second part introduces elliptic complex numbers into mathematical analysis, deriving numerous results analogous to those in classical complex variable function theory. \item Proof of Conjectures: The final part presents the formal proofs of the Riemann Hypothesis and the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis.

ObjectiveThe aim of our study was to investigate abnormal changes in brain activity in patients with persistent postural-perceptual dizziness using magnetoencephalography.MethodsMagnetoencephalography recordings from 18 PPPD patients and 18 healthy controls were analyzed to determine the source of brain activity in seven frequency ranges using accumulated source imaging.ResultsOur study showed that significant changes in the patterns of localization in the temporal-parietal junction were observed at 1–4, 4–8, and 12–30 Hz in PPPD patients compared with healthy controls, and changes in the frontal cortex were found at 1–4, 80–250, and 250–500 Hz in PPPD patients compared with controls. The neuromagnetic activity in TPJ was observed increased significantly in 1–4 and 4–8 Hz, while the neuromagnetic activity in frontal cortex was found increased significantly in 1–4 Hz. In addition, the localized source strength in TPJ in 1–4 Hz was positively correlated with DHI score, while the localized source strength in frontal cortex in 1–4 Hz was positively correlated with HAMA score.ConclusionOur results demonstrated that alterations in the TPJ and frontal cortex may play a critical role in the pathophysiological mechanism of PPPD. The neuromagnetic activity in TPJ may be related to dizziness symptom of PPPD patients, while the neuromagnetic activity in frontal lobe may be related to emotional symptoms of PPPD patients. In addition, frequency-dependent changes in neuromagnetic activity, especially neuromagnetic activity in low frequency bands, were involved in the pathophysiology of PPPD.

Workplace incivility remains a prevailing issue and has significant potential for harmful consequences. This study aims to investigate the influencing mechanism of workplace incivility on work alienation from the perspective of targets. Based on the social exchange theory, our research examines the role of interpersonal trust as a mediator along with the moderator of career resilience in the said association. Through a two-wave-time-lagged quantitative research design, a sample of 315 nurses from China was investigated with questionnaires on workplace incivility, work alienation, interpersonal trust, and career resilience. The results indicated that workplace incivility was positively related to work alienation with interpersonal trust as a mediator. Workplace incivility caused a decline in interpersonal trust, which led to work alienation. Career resilience buffered such an impact. High career resilience weakened the association linking workplace incivility to interpersonal trust. Organizations should pay more attention to workplace incivility and consider empowering nurses’ career resilience, which could alleviate the negative impact of workplace incivility.

ObjectiveBasic combat training is a kind of necessary high-intensity training to help each military recruit convert into a qualified soldier. In China, both the physical fatigue and passive psychological state have been observed in new recruits during BCT. However, after same-intensity training, the degree of fatigue and passive mood vary among recruits. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of BCT on mood state of recruits with different physical fitness levels from a perspective of fatigue.Materials and methodsBefore and after BCT, the degree of fatigue and mood state of participants were evaluated via the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale and Profile of Mood States Questionnaire immediately after 20 push-ups as RPE and POMS scores [total mood disturbance, passive mood and positive mood ]. The participants were divided into two groups according to the RPE score measured after BCT: group 1: RPE score after BCT < 13 and group 2: RPE score after BCT ≥ 13.ResultA total of 564 recruits were included. After BCT, in group 1, TMD and passive mood Ttension, Tfatigue, Tdepression, Tconfusion declined significantly, but positive mood both increased significantly ; while in group 2, only Tanger and Testeem increased significantly.ConclusionBCT could alleviate passive mood and add to positive mood for recruits with better physical fitness, while had no ameliorative effects on or even deteriorate most of the passive mood for recruits with worse physical fitness.

Organizations are increasingly required to achieve sustainable performance that integrates long-term growth with environmental and social responsibility. Although strategic management quality is widely viewed as essential, the mechanism through which it shapes sustainable outcomes remains unclear. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 468 middle- and senior-level managers from multiple industries in China. Strategic management quality, decision quality, and sustainable performance were measured using validated scales. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 4) with 5,000 bootstrap samples. Strategic management quality was positively associated with both decision quality and sustainable performance. Decision quality was strongly related to sustainable performance and partially mediated the effect of strategic management quality. The indirect effect was significant. Strategic management enhances sustainability primarily by improving how organizations make decisions. Decision quality serves as a micro-level mechanism translating strategy into durable performance.

Short-form videos are popular worldwide as a thriving form of entertainment. Its fragmentation pattern, which presents users with intensive and engaging information, might lead to addiction and adverse effects. This study aims to investigate the effect of addiction to short-form videos on users’ attention, including attention while watching videos and the ability of attentional concentration after watching time. Users addicted or non-addicted to short-form videos were screened to participate in a short-form video watching task and a Stroop task based on eye-tracking technology. The results showed that addicted users reported less interest, centration, and more distractions and exhibited more fixation counts and shorter average fixation duration during watching short-form videos than non-addicted users. In the Stroop task, addicted users achieved longer response time and less accuracy and showed longer average fixation duration, more fixation counts, and saccades between the targets and the distractors than non-addicted users. The results suggest that addicted users might suffer more difficulties maintaining attention, have more attention deficits while watching short-form videos, and have impaired attentional concentration for processing interference. The findings contribute to understanding the effect of addiction to short-form videos and provide helpful insight into using it healthily and preventing addiction. ARTICLE HISTORY.

The cultural program "Partial" cuts into the field of art with a unique perspective. Each episode is centered on a specific theme, and through telling the historical and cultural stories of different countries, it incorporates Chen Danqing's profound understanding and unique insights into art. The program directs viewers' attention to the beauty of details that are often overlooked, thus stimulating viewers' thinking and emotional resonance. This paper takes the interpretation of "The Picture of the Displaced People" in the first season of "Partial" as an example, combines the contemporary social background, uses the theory of art aesthetics, and deeply analyzes the embodiment of the aesthetic value level in the art works. Through the analysis of this classic case, it explores how the program, while disseminating artistic knowledge, triggers the audience to think deeply about the relationship between art and society, history and reality, and provides new perspectives and thinking paths for the study of the aesthetic value of art works.

This study investigates the role of intrinsic motivation in enhancing deep learning in early childhood education (ECE), a critical period for cognitive, emotional, and social development. Intrinsic motivation, driven by children’s natural curiosity and desire to explore, is essential for fostering active engagement, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. However, as children progress through their educational journey, intrinsic motivation often diminishes in favor of extrinsic rewards, leading to surface-level learning. This research, grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), examines how meeting children’s psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—supports intrinsic motivation in preschool classrooms. Through case studies, this paper highlights various teaching strategies, including inquiry-based learning, emotional support, play-based exploration, and collaborative learning, that promote intrinsic motivation and deepen engagement with academic content. The study’s findings underscore the importance of creating supportive learning environments that nurture intrinsic motivation, contributing to children’s long-term academic success and personal development. Practical recommendations for educators and policymakers are provided, focusing on curriculum design, teacher-student interactions, and fostering autonomy-supportive practices in the classroom. Ultimately, the research emphasizes the crucial role intrinsic motivation plays in creating lasting, meaningful learning experiences, laying the foundation for lifelong learning.

With the advent of the digital era, artificial intelligence and informatization have integrated and converged with various industries, and accounting work is also gradually undergoing digital transformation. Accounting informatization has a profound impact on the financial management of the entire enterprise. The article mainly takes China as the background, introducing the connotation of accounting informatization and the development path of accounting informatization in China. Then it analyzes in detail the impacts of accounting informatization on enterprise financial management. The main impacts are enhancing the transparency of data, improving decision-making capabilities, increasing the efficiency of data processing, and optimizing resource allocation. Meanwhile, it points out the problems that accounting informatization will encounter in its development process, such as the lack of a unified accounting informatization standard system, the imperfection and non-uniformity of the accounting informatization system construction, the low matching degree of accounting informatization talents, data security issues, and shortcomings in data elements. Finally, this article puts forward five countermeasures to address these problems, such as constructing the accounting informatization standard system, comprehensively planning accounting data elements, strengthening the integration of financial data, enhancing data security protection and risk management, and strengthening the construction of the professional team of accounting informatization.

This study explores the impact of AIGC-generated sports content on user sentiment and engagement on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform.Using MediaCrawler, we collected posts and comments related to sports topics generated by AI. Sentiment analysis was performed using SnowNLP to classify comments as positive or negative, with 57.1% showing positive sentiment and 42.9% negative. Despite the prevalence of positive sentiment, no significant difference in engagement (measured by likes) was observed between positive and negative comments.Temporal analysis revealed that user engagement is event-driven, with spikes in positive sentiment during major sports events. Additionally, word cloud analysis highlighted promotional and spam-like themes, suggesting challenges in content moderation. The interaction patterns showed a skewed distribution, with a small number of highly active users dominating discussions.The findings suggest that timing, relevance, and event alignment are more critical than sentiment polarity in driving engagement.The study provides insights for content creators and platforms on optimizing AIGC strategies through trend alignment and effective user collaboration.