Jing Zhang

Public and experts’ perceptions of benefits and risks of nanotechnology constitute an important element of nanoethics studies. On the one hand, compared with traditional ethics, nanoethics is a future-oriented ethics. The construction of ethical norms requires public participation. On the other hand, nanotechnology is characterized by uncertainty. Our previous research showed the Chinese public’s support for nanotechnology was associated more with beliefs, including views of technology and the weighing of benefits and risks of nanotechnology, and less with knowledge about nanotechnology; the support was high but might change over time. Meanwhile, Chinese researchers have been actively conducting studies on nanotechnology while being highly aware of nanosafety issues. In this context, we further examined in the present study Chinese nanoresearchers’ perceptions of specific benefits and risks of nanotechnology, compared them with those of the Chinese public, and examined the Chinese nanoresearchers’ perceptions of risks of specific nanoapplications. Initial cross-regional comparisons were made with results from equivalent US and European surveys. Results showed Chinese nanoresearchers perceived a higher level of overall nanobenefits than the public and an almost equal level of overall nanorisks with the public. Four nanorisks were perceived by a higher proportion of experts than public; the experts likely relied on technical expertise while the public, possessing little knowledge about nanotechnology, might have exercised caution based on experiences and observations of other technologies. Of 23 nanoapplications, Chinese nanoresearchers regarded food using nanomaterials as the most risky and displays using nanomaterials as the least risky. Similarities and differences were observed in comparisons of Chinese with US and European survey results. In our age of technology and economic globalization, this research is of significance both for China’s formulation of nanotechnology development strategies and for the further study on nanoethics and good governance of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology worldwide.

Grounding itself in the philosophical proposition of “human becoming”, this study explores how labor pedagogies, through the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty, promotes the holistic formation of individuals' intellectual, moral and aesthetic capacities. Based on the Marxist anthropological perspective as its theoretical foundation, it employs methods of philosophical reasoning and analytical-logical approaches to conduct the study. It constructs a theoretical model centered on the practice of the laboring subject, wherein individuals achieve the synergistic development of cognitive rationality (truth), ethical identification (goodness) and aesthetic creation (beauty) through labor praxis. The return to the values of truth, goodness and beauty in labor pedagogies fundamentally sublates educational alienation, empowering individuals to break free from the shackles of instrumental rationality, attain cognitive liberation, ethical reconstruction, and the life’s flourishing, ultimately advancing free and comprehensive human development. It achieves a triple breakthrough at the philosophical level: innovating labor pedagogies theoretical paradigms, deepening the critique of alienation and constructing Chinese discourse, offering a contemporary educational praxis elucidation of Marx’s concept of “the objectification of human essential powers”. Submission: 15/10/2025 – Decision: 12/11/2025 - Revision: 28/11/2025 – Publication: 10/12/2025.

Previous studies have provided evidence that automatic emotion regulation, which is primed by control goals, can change emotion trajectory unconsciously. However, the cognitive mechanism and associated changes in depression remain unclear. The current study aimed to examine whether subliminal goal priming could change the emotional response inhibition among patients with major depressive disorder and their healthy controls. A group of patients with depression and a healthy control group were both primed subliminally by playing control goal related or neutral words for 20 ms each; afterward, they judged the gender of happy or angry faces in an emotional Go/No-Go task. A group of depressed patients and a healthy control group both were both primed subliminally with control goal-related words or neutral words, and they judged the gender of happy or angry faces in an emotional Go/No-Go task. Among patients with depression, there were fewer false alarms of the No-Go response to emotional stimulus after priming with control goal rather than neutral words. Meanwhile, patients with MDD in the subliminal regulation goal priming condition reacted faster to happy rather than angry faces; no significant difference was found in the subliminal neutral priming condition. These findings suggest the malleability of inhibitory control in depression using subliminal priming goals.

Difficulty in emotional regulation is significantly correlated with depression. Depression is a psychological disease that seriously affects the physical and mental health of college students. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop diversified preventive interventions such as group impromptu music therapy. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of GIMT on the improvement of emotional regulation ability and the reduction of depressive symptoms in college students. A 71 college students were recruited to carry out randomized controlled trial was used. The experimental group was intervened by GIMT. After the 4th week of intervention, follow-up and scale measurement were carried out. In the experimental group, emotional regulation difficulty scales showed significant difference before and after GIMT, implying the improvement in the emotional regulation. But there was no significant improvement in the control group. In addition, the depressive symptoms of experimental group were relieved. All findings showed that GIMT can effectively improve college students’ emotional regulation and reduce depressive symptoms.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 面對現代社會中關於安樂死的倫理爭議，本文從儒家生命哲學的視角出發，系統考察了苦樂、榮辱與生死三大核心問題，以回應安樂死所涉及的價值困惑。本文認為：第一，儒家在承認生理痛苦的同時，更強調道德主體對苦樂的超越性把握；第二，儒家的尊嚴觀以“仁義”為終極尺度，主張人格價值不受生理殘缺影響；第三，儒家死亡觀通過祭祀制度與“三不朽”思想構建了生命的倫理延續性，否定了將死亡簡化為終結的預設。總之，儒家對安樂死總體上持審慎乃至反對的立場。 In the context of contemporary ethical controversies, this paper systematically examines three core issues - suffering and joy, honour and disgrace, and life and death - from the perspective of Confucian life philosophy, aiming to address the value dilemmas inherent in euthanasia. The paper presents the following arguments: 1) Confucianism, while acknowledging physiological pain, emphasises the moral agent’s transcendent mastery over suffering and joy. 2) The Confucian view of dignity, grounded in benevolence and righteousness, asserts that personal worth remains unaffected by physical impairment. 3) Confucianism constructs an ethical continuity of life through sacrificial rituals and the doctrine of “three forms of immortality”, rejecting the reduction of death to mere termination. Essentially, Confucianism adopts a cautious stance of general opposition towards euthanasia.

A work of art must have medium in order to express itself, come into existence, and pass along from generation to generation, but the issue of medium has not received adequate attention from the academic community. Some famous aestheticians have studied and written about the issue, but from the perspective of art history, the academic community is yet to fulfill its responsibility in that respect. I see medium mainly from the view of its internalization on the part of the artists. The “Shen Si” for artistic creation needs to work side by side with the medium of language which serves as a vehicle of thinking. In my point of view, medium serves as a link between an artist’s conceptualization and communication of that concept to the external world. That is the significance of medium I am going to discuss now.

As a mature aesthetic construct, “Shen Si” certainly has undergone changes and developed its own complexity in its evolution. Though Liu Xie’s chapter on “Shen Si” in The Literary Mind and Carving of Dragons has covered all basic connotations of “Shen Si,” what is advanced there is not exactly the same as the aesthetic construct of “Shen Si” after its continuous enrichment and integration over time since Liu Xie. Therefore, it is necessary to take stock in an objective and systematic way all the connotations of “Shen Si” as expounded by Liu Xie.

Aesthetic emotions in literary creation are an important content for the theory of “Shen Si.” They are the driving force for the genesis of “Shen Si,” the essential element that gives birth to aesthetic images. But at the same time, they are also part of the entire process of “Shen Si.” Ancient literary critics in China pay close attention to the role of emotions in artistic creation. Chinese poetics in particular is built upon the foundation of expressing emotions. The expression “emotions expressed as gifts to the scenery in sight, and associations evoked as its responses in kind” unravels the mind’s reception and expression of as well as the interactions with the perceived objects. Here, sceneries are not simply sceneries, but projected ones in the subject’s consciousness. And minds are not simply minds that have nothing to do with external objects, but the minds that have absorbed the objects one is faced with.

As a Chinese theory on the nature of thinking in artistic creation, “Shen Si” contains a component of imagination which has a clear feature of internal visualization that is characteristic of the creative products. Artistic imagination is internal to artists. It is not a visual image that external objects present to artists. That internal visualization is the feature of imagination, also known as inner images. An artist’s “Shen Si” does not merely copy external objects in his artistic conceptualization, but re-configure, process, transform the external objects, and create according to the artist’s own aesthetic ideals based on his emotions and thoughts. Therefore, this type of creation matters most in artistic imagination.

The theory on “Shen Si” in the Chinese aesthetics commensurates to a large degree with the theory on “inspiration” in the Western aesthetics. However, the two are very different in attributing the source of “Shen Si.” The Chinese theory believes that “Shen Si” occurs to a creative artist moved by physical objects which stimulate his artistic associations. That is to say there is a serendipitous interaction between the mind and objects. The Western theory, on the other hand, is premised on such driving force as “god-send”, “genius”, and “unconsciousness.” “Being stimulated to make artistic associations” captures the main characteristics of “Shen Si” in its generative stage. At the same time, it illustrates the generative principle of that “imaginative” aspect in “Shen Si.”

“Fortuity” reflects the unique characteristics of “Shen Si” as a Chinese theory of thinking in artistic creation. In my view, “fortuity” refers to a kind of thinking that is accidental and spontaneous but enables a creative subject to stimulate his aesthetic emotions, thoughts, and creative impulse. It occurs with no pre-arrangement, but in response to the changes in the external objects that stimulate a creative subject. As something pivotal to “Shen Si” in artistic creation, “fortuity” enables an artistic product to have an air of “grandness,” artistic individuality that beyond replication, natural and perfect aesthetic conceptualization, aesthetic images, and astonishing aesthetic effects.

Emotion malleability beliefs (EMB) have been shown to be a potential predictor of cognitive reappraisal use. However, the nature of the relationship between EMB and cognitive reappraisal use remains unclear. The present study manipulated EMB with an online intervention and measured participants’ EMB and cognitive reappraisal before the intervention as well as at three follow-ups. Eighty-six late adolescents who scored in the bottom 50% on EMB in a previous investigation were randomly assigned to the intervention group (increasing EMB) and the control group. The intervention significantly increased EMB, and this effect remained one week and one month after the intervention. More importantly, the results showed that the lag paths from a previous measure of EMB on later cognitive reappraisal were positive and significant. The cross-lagged paths from cognitive reappraisal to EMB were not significant. The intervention to increase EMB showed significant indirect effects on cognitive reappraisal via EMB. The findings not only support that the intervention of EMB had a sustained effect but also evidenced that EMB had a causal effect on cognitive reappraisal. This suggests a promising way to enhance cognitive reappraisal for application in the treatment of clinical emotion disorders.

We investigate higher dimensional chain conditions, where the largeness notion is given by Fubini products of a given ideal. From strong saturation properties of an ideal, we derive abstractly versions of higher dimensional [Formula: see text]-system lemma, which imply many posets, including any finite support iteration of [Formula: see text]-centered posets and measure algebras, satisfy the higher dimensional chain conditions. We then show that if a poset satisfies a strengthening of the [Formula: see text]-finite chain condition by Horn and Tarski, then it satisfies higher dimensional chain conditions. As an application, we derive Ramsey-theoretic consequences, namely various partition hypotheses as studied by Bannister, Bergfalk, Moore and Todorcevic, from the existence of ideals satisfying strong chain conditions.

Background: An overview of ethical sensitivity among Chinese registered nurses is needed to develop and optimize the education programs and interventions to cultivate and improve ethical sensitivity. Aim: The study was conducted to explore the barriers to and facilitators of ethical sensitivity among Chinese registered nurses working in hospital settings. Research design: A convergent parallel mixed-methods research design was adopted. Participants and research context: In the cross-sectional quantitative study, the Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–revised version was used to assess the levels of ethical sensitivity among registered nurses, and the scores were correlated with key demographics, training experiences in ethics, and workplace cultural environments ( n = 306). In the qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the nurses’ perceptions of the barriers and facilitators in nurturing ethical sensitivity ( n = 15). The data were collected from February to June 2014. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. Results: Despite moderately high overall Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–revised version scores, the ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses lags in practice. Barriers to ethical sensitivity include the lack of knowledge related to ethics, lack of working experience as a nurse, the hierarchical organizational climate, and the conformist working attitude. The positive workplace cultural environments and application of ethical knowledge in practice were considered potential facilitators of ethical sensitivity. Discussion: The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the barriers and facilitators of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. Conclusion: This mixed-methods study showed that even though the Chinese nurses have moderately high sensitivity to the ethical issues encountered in hospitals, there is still room for improvement. The barriers to and facilitators of ethical sensitivity identified here offer new and important strategies to support and enhance the nurses’ sensitivity to ethical issues.

Individuals often fail to accurately predict others’ decisions in a risky environment. In this paper, we investigate the characteristics and causes of this prediction discrepancy. Participants completed a risky decision-making task mixed with different domains (gain vs. loss) and probabilities (small vs. large), with some participants making decisions for themselves (the actor) and the others predicting the actors’ decisions (the predictor). The results demonstrated a prediction discrepancy: predictions were more risk-averse than the actual decisions over small-probability gains and more risk-seeking over large-probability gains, while these patterns were reversed in the loss domain. Reported and predicted levels of emotional stimulation revealed a pattern that is consistent with the notion of risk-as-feelings and empathy gaps. Mediation analysis provided strong evidence that such prediction discrepancy is driven mainly by the predictor’s underestimate of the intensity (not the impact) of the actor’s emotional state.

The present study examined the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs and daily positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in adolescents. 639 participants provided information about emotion malleability beliefs and emotion regulation strategies on the first day of the study and six daily measurements of PA and NA. Emotion malleability beliefs had a positive relationship with PA and a negative relationship with NA. Higher emotion malleability beliefs predicted lower carryover effects of PA and NA across assessment days. We also found that cognitive reappraisal might affect the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs and daily affect, such that those who held high levels of malleability beliefs were more likely to engage in cognitive reappraisal and report lower NA and higher PA. The findings of the present study suggest that emotion malleability beliefs could predicate daily emotions and emotion dynamics across days in adolescents.

In recent years, the analysis of legal judgments and the prediction of outcomes based on case factual descriptions have become hot research topics in the field of judiciary. Among them, the task of charge prediction aims to predict the applicable charges of a judicial case based on its factual description, making it an important research area in the intelligent judiciary. While significant progress has been made in machine learning and deep learning, traditional methods are limited to handling data in Euclidean space and cannot effectively capture the semantic information in the text. To overcome the limitations of traditional learning approaches, many studies have started exploring the use of graphs to represent rich relationships between entities in text and employing graph convolutional neural networks to learn text representations. In this paper, we propose a charge prediction method based on graph convolutional neural networks. By constructing a similarity graph between cases and utilizing graph convolutional neural networks to learn case feature representations, we can better capture the relational information between cases and improve the accuracy of charge prediction. Experimental results on multiple benchmark datasets demonstrate that our proposed model outperforms traditional methods in charge prediction tasks.

Background: Ethical issues pose challenges for nurses who are increasingly caring for patients in complicated situations. Ethical sensitivity is a prerequisite for nurses to make decisions in the best interest of their patients in daily practice. Currently, there is no tool for assessing ethical sensitivity in Chinese language, and no empirical studies of ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. Research objectives: The study was conducted to translate the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised Version (MSQ-R) into Chinese and establish the psychometric properties of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised Version into Chinese (MSQ-R-CV). Research design: This research was a methodological and descriptive study. Participants and research context: MSQ-R was translated into Chinese using Brislin’s model, and the Translation Validity Index was evaluated. MSQ-R-CV was then distributed along with a demographic questionnaire to 360 nurses working at tertiary and municipal hospitals in Changsha, China. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. Findings: MSQ-R-CV achieved Cronbach’s alpha 0.82, Spearman-Brown coefficient 0.75, significant item discrimination (p < 0.001), and item-total correlation values ranging from 0.524 to 0.717. A two-factor structure was illustrated by exploratory factor analysis, and further confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Chinese nurses had a mean total score of 40.22 ± 7.08 on the MSQ-R-CV, and sub-scores of 23.85 ± 4.4 for moral responsibility and strength and 16.37 ± 3.75 for sense of moral burden. Discussion: The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the structure and meaningful implications of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. Conclusion: The two-factor MSQ-R-CV (moral responsibility and strength, and sense of moral burden) is a linguistically and culturally appropriate instrument for assessing ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses.

We introduce a natural two-cardinal version of Bagaria’s sequence of derived topologies on ordinals. We prove that for our sequence of two-cardinal derived topologies, limit points of sets can be characterized in terms of a new iterated form of pairwise simultaneous reflection of certain kinds of stationary sets, the first few instances of which are often equivalent to notions related to strong stationarity, which has been studied previously in the context of strongly normal ideals. The non-discreteness of these two-cardinal derived topologies can be obtained from certain two-cardinal indescribability hypotheses, which follow from local instances of supercompactness. Additionally, we answer several questions posed by the first author, Holy and White on the relationship between Ramseyness and indescribability in both the cardinal context and in the two-cardinal context.

Background: High ethical sensitivity positively affects the quality of nursing care; nevertheless, Chinese nurses’ ethical sensitivity and the factors influencing it have not been described. Research objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe ethical sensitivity and to explore factors influencing it among Chinese-registered nurses, to help nursing administrators improve nurses’ ethical sensitivity, build harmony between nurses and patients, and promote the patients’ health. Research design: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. Participants and research context: We recruited 500 nurses from several departments in three tertiary hospitals. The Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised version and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals were used to assess the nurses’ ethical sensitivity and empathy ability, respectively. Fifteen sociodemographic variables were included in the questionnaires. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was obtained from the participants regarding participation and data storage and handling. This program has been examined and supported by the research center of medical ethics and professional ethics of Guilin Medical University. The Approval No. was 2016RWYB04. The whole research process is conducted strictly according to ethical requirements. Results: The valid response rate was 84.40% ( n = 422). The total score of Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised was 35.82 ± 8.17. The subscale scores of moral responsibility and strength and sense of moral burden were 21.50 ± 4.91 and 14.33 ± 3.98, respectively. Significant differences were found among age groups, gender, years of working, category of profession, and quality of family communication regarding nurses’ ethical sensitivity ( p < 0.05). Regression analysis showed that the main factors influencing nurses’ ethical sensitivity were gender, years of working, quality of family communication, career satisfaction, and empathic ability. Discussion: Our findings suggest that Chinese nurses’ ethical sensitivity in tertiary hospitals in Guilin is at a medium level. Conclusion: The director of nursing schools and hospitals in China should pay attention to nurses’ ethical sensitivity and should intensify education and training to improve nurses’ ethical sensitivity. Further studies should focus on interventions aimed at improving Chinese nurses’ ethical sensitivity.

Widespread unethical corporate misconduct in an industry triggers industry-wide crises. This research investigates how industry misconduct affects consumers’ trust in the industry, by incorporating insights from a micro-level psychological aspect of institutions. The conceptual framework proposes that consumer legitimacy judgement lies at the core of industry trust, following an industry-wide crisis. The results demonstrate that perception of normalisation of misconduct affects industry trust through consumer legitimacy judgement. Moreover, the PNM-CLJ-industry trust relationship is stronger during industry-wide crises compared with crises that involve only one firm, and this relationship is not dependent on the frequency of crises. This research contributes to the knowledge of product-harm crisis by deepening understanding of the trust erosion mechanism during industry-wide crises, with a focus on legitimacy judgement. The findings have implications for prevention of industry-wide crises and for boosting ethically desirable business activities.

The barriers to responsiveness and the initiation of communication are the two key problems encountered by children with autism spectrum disorders. Prior interventions based on behavioral reinforcement have had an obvious effect on responsive communication but a weak effect on the initiation of communication. Based on psychological development theory, we designed ultra-light clay interventions involving hands-on production or multi-interaction around key concepts and themes, teaching children about basic concepts, relationships, and logic, making abstract knowledge concrete and experience. Two studies showed that ultra-light clay intervention improved both the initiation of and response to communication among children with ASD, but that such improvements show a peer-generalization effect in initiation communication, not in responsive communication. These findings provide a set of ultra-light clay interventions for communication in children with ASD and suggest a relationship between endogenous interventions and the initiation of communication.