L. Sun

Undergraduate education is very important for higher education. Among the factors affecting the quality of undergraduate education, teaching quality is the most important factor. At present, an important issue that affects teaching quality is insufficient teaching investment. An open-ended questionnaire survey was conducted on 62 faculty members and 65 university students in China. Results found that the undergraduate teaching investment of faculty members mainly consists of four parts: workload investment, ability investment, energy investment, and teaching emotional investment. A preliminary test was conducted on 342 faculty members, and the results of an exploratory factor analysis supported the proposed four-dimensional teaching investment model. The test involved 293 faculty members and confirmatory factor analysis showed that the four-dimensional model had a good degree of fit. A further criterion-related test showed that the four-dimensional teaching investment of faculty members has a significant positive correlation with classroom management, clarity of teaching materials, teacher–student interaction, teaching strategies, and skills application, and work engagement. These results show that the proposed four dimensions of teaching investment effectively measure the teaching investment of faculty members, specifically the indicators of teaching investment and that they promote the development of faculty teaching investment research.

As an important standard for enterprises to investigate employees, job performance is one of the hotspots in social science. Job performance is affected by professional environment and physical and mental characteristics, showing its individual differences. Based on the ego-depletion theory, this study explores the impact of family-work conflict on job performance, as well as the mediating role of mental fatigue and the regulating role of neurotic personality in the above relationship. From the research conclusions, this study puts forward suggestions to alleviate female employees’ mental fatigue and promote family-work balance from the aspects of role conflict, physiological adaptation and human resource development.

The successful manufacture of the 120 mega newtons Shanghai Hydraulic Forging Press (SHFP) in 1962 has been considered a typical example of modern Chinese industry and the development of local technology. Actually, it was neither a victory of the Great Leap Forward campaign nor a product of so-called indigenous methods. Taking into account the technical process and decision-making during the project, it is hard to interpret the success of the SHFP as either Mao’s “politics in command” or technological determinism. The project, in fact, largely depended on a series of appropriate decision-making and prudent risk analysis by Shen Hong, the chief engineer, who successfully adopted a strategy to maintain a careful balance between technology and politics.

Video games have grown in number, variety, and consumer market penetration, encroaching more aggressively into the domestic realm. Within the home therefore, parents whose children play video games have to exercise mediation and supervision. As video games evolve, parental mediation strategies have also had to keep pace, albeit not always successfully. By transposing our appreciation of parental concerns over the historical development of video games, we propose an analytical framework identifying key affordances of video games, elucidating how their evolution has distinct implications for effective parental mediation. These affordances are portability, accessibility, interactivity, identity multiplicity, sociability, and perpetuity.

ObjectiveWe aimed to explore profiles of subgroups of United States students based on their motivational and affective characteristics and investigate the differences in math-related behaviors, persistence, and math achievement across profiles.MethodWe used 1,464 United States students from PISA 2012 United States data in our study. First, we employed latent profile analysis and secondary clustering to identify subgroups of students based on motivational and affective factors. Next, we used regression to compare differences in math behavior, persistence, and achievement among all identified subgroups.ResultsWe found five distinct groups of students with different patterns of motivation and affection. The subgroup of students with the lowest math anxiety and the highest motivation levels showed the highest math achievement and levels of persistence. The groups with high math interest, math self-concept, and instrumental motivation showed the most frequent math-related behaviors.ConclusionsOur findings reveal the complexity of the students’ motivational and affective profiles. Our findings are significant for teachers and educators to understand the diversity of students and provide theoretical and practical support for individualized and differentiated instruction.

This study examines consumers’ uses of corporate social responsibility communication channels, the relationship of such uses to consumers’ CSR awareness, and the mechanisms through which consumers’ CSR awareness can lead to their intention to participate in CSR activities. Specifically, we explored the mediation effects of consumers’ CSR associations with a company, consumers’ assessment of the company’s CSR credibility, and consumers’ perceptions of their relationship with the company, applying the conceptual frameworks of the uses and gratification theory, source credibility theory, and organization–public relationship scholarship. We conducted an online survey of a company’s customers, and the results showed that their level of awareness of the company’s CSR activities was positively related to the degree of use of all communication channels through which they received CSR messages, except CSR reports. The degree of the customers’ awareness of the company’s CSR programs, however, did not always correspond to the customers’ intention to participate in the programs: a crucial condition mediating between the customers’ knowledge of CSR programs and their intention to participate in the programs was their associating the company with CSR. The CSR associations influenced CSR credibility and perceived OPR quality, which, in turn, led to CSR participation intention. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Early in the new Shanghai School to borrow the original narrative mode at the same time, do not have means for the conversion of the Theme. They will "society - against the" Theme of the evolution of the same strain values ​​with the public "body - fall" story; from the discussion of the concept of high tread down to the daily dilemma of gender description; as "Nora away" in the new literature provides a different the outcome of the narrative; in relation to "the revolution + love" theme, it will be the story of the revolution within the context of quality replacement gender game. Theme changes after the most points to the daily passions. In the meantime, kitsch cultural orientation affect the aesthetic quality of literature, but also helps to open a particular sense of narrative imagination is different from the mainstream way to China for the Shanghai civilian world was written to provide the experience. The Shanghai writers took over the original narrative modes but changed the themes with special meaning in their literature works in the early period. There are several kinds as following: The theme of "Society-Rebellion" had been evolved as the story of "flesh- Corruption "in the same line as the value of citizen. The discussion on the abstract theories had been changed to the description of regular troubles between the two genders. As for the subject mailer of" Revolution-Love "stories. their contents had been replaced by the gender games under the background of revolutionary. Therefore, the themes almost had been directed to sexual passion. Although it decreased the aesthetic taste of the works it was helpful to some degree to imagine China by non mainstream narrative and provided some experience for the later Shanghai writers to write the life of the civilian world

Since Husserl raised the mysterious concept of life world in his later philosophy, there has been a great change in western philosophy in the 20th century. It not only causes the philosophical change in theoretic content and trend which leads to existentialism, neo-pragmatism, but also brings about the radical transformation in understanding on philosophy itself. Hence, the touch between philosophy and life, and the basis of philosophy in life world is getting clear more and more. This change gives us a new angel in thinking about the difference and intercourse between Chinese philosophy and western philosophy. There might be some fresh elements in contemporary philosophical research if we can put Chinese philosophy and western philosophy together from the aspects of life modes, life ideals and the reflective ways in them.

This study had two aims: to test the effect and the effect size of specific problematic Internet use [online shopping, online pornography, social network site usage, and Internet gaming] on generalized problematic Internet use and to reveal the gender differences in GPIU and SPIU for students from the elementary school level to the university level. In total, 5,215 Chinese students from four types of schools provided self-report data on demographic variables, online shopping, online pornography, SNS usage, Internet gaming, and GPIU. After calculations had been controlled for demographic variables, the results indicated that online shopping, online pornography, SNS usage, and Internet gaming positively predicted GPIU—and Internet gaming was the most critical predictor of GPIU—and that gender differences were revealed in Internet gaming and GPIU in all educational levels, except at senior high school where the gender differences in GPIU were not significant. Significant gender differences were found for online shopping and online pornography for all educational levels above elementary school. These results provided further understanding of the association between GPIU and SPIU and gender differences in PIU, which suggested that gender differences across different educational levels should be considered in interventions of PIU.

This study investigates the impact of item parameter drift (IPD) on parameter and ability estimation when the underlying measurement model fits a mixture distribution, thereby violating the item invariance property of unidimensional item response theory (IRT) models. An empirical study was conducted to demonstrate the occurrence of both IPD and an underlying mixture distribution using real-world data. Twenty-one trended anchor items from the 1999, 2003, and 2007 administrations of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were analyzed using unidimensional and mixture IRT models. TIMSS treats trended anchor items as invariant over testing administrations and uses pre-calibrated item parameters based on unidimensional IRT. However, empirical results showed evidence of two latent subgroups with IPD. Results showed changes in the distribution of examinee ability between latent classes over the three administrations. A simulation study was conducted to examine the impact of IPD on the estimation of ability and item parameters, when data have underlying mixture distributions. Simulations used data generated from a mixture IRT model and estimated using unidimensional IRT. Results showed that data reflecting IPD using mixture IRT model led to IPD in the unidimensional IRT model. Changes in the distribution of examinee ability also affected item parameters. Moreover, drift with respect to item discrimination and distribution of examinee ability affected estimates of examinee ability. These findings demonstrate the need to caution and evaluate IPD using a mixture IRT framework to understand its effect on item parameters and examinee ability.

The dissertation examines the conceptualization of interface that separates and combines the two dimensions of a dyadic system in texts of Geoffrey Chaucer and James Joyce in a theoretical relation to Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida. The anthropomorphic image of interface for Chaucer and Joyce, and many other canonical writers in the Western literary tradition, as I argue in the dissertation, is unfailingly that of a woman, which is always already subject to the shaping power of patriarchal language so thoroughly that woman ceases to be woman herself, but that which conforms to the solipsistic male phantasy. What is problematic is the use of language as medium to represent woman, for it is precisely the language through which woman slips away over and over again beyond the confine of logocentricism. ;The making of logocentricism is the major concern in the first chapter. By showing the solipsistic system in Freud's fort/da game, I argue that the diametric values , whose meanings are based upon their individual difference, are made undistinguishable from each other by the authorial manipulation of ambiguous rhetorics. The authority is however paradoxically instituted by the very concept of ambiguity embedded in the language that structures the unconscious. The unravelling of the system where an authority no longer "authors" motivates the act of interpenetration, as I argue in the second chapter, between the two opposing dimensions in an endless process of chiasmatic reinscription. The interface in question is the notion of incest, upon which hinges the classical distinction between culture and nature. Nevertheless, as I discuss in the third chapter, that which constitutes the infrastructures of the inter-penetrability, rather than the inter-penetrability itself, makes woman as well as language capable of not being positioned in the interface, and it is exactly this ultimate negative capability that opens up the possibility of further conversations with the texts for the generations to come

This study examined the emergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a public issue over 25 years using a content analysis of two national news- papers and seven regional, geographically-dispersed newspapers in the U.S. The present study adopted a comprehensive definition encompassing all four CSR dimensions: economic, ethical, legal, and philanthropic. This study examined newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, op-ed columns, news analyses, and guest columns for three aspects: media attention, media prominence, and media valence. Results showed an increase in the number of opinion pieces covering CSR issues over the 25-year period. The prominence of each of the four CSR dimensions varied over time. Each of the four CSR dimensions had its moment of media prominence when it was more important than the other dimensions. The most prevalent valence of the opinion pieces was negative; the volume of negative pieces increased over the 25 years, whereas the number of opinions with positive, neutral, and mixed tones showed little change over time. The study concludes by tracing the implications of the role of the news media for business ethics research.

Indoor plants can positively impact physical and mental health in daily life. However, the benefits of viewing indoor plants may be enhanced if the plants emit a fragrant aroma. In this crossover-design study, we measured the physiological and psychological effects of fragrant and non-fragrant Primula plants on 50 female college students, and explored whether aroma stimulation had additive benefits for this group. Non-fragrant Primula malacoides Franch was used as a control stimulus, and Primula forbesii Franch, which has a floral fragrance, was used as an experimental stimulus. We measured blood pressure, pulse rate, and electroencephalogram to evaluate physiological responses, and used a mood state profile and the semantic differential method to evaluate psychological responses. We found that mean blood pressure and pulse rate decreased significantly after the experiment in both conditions. EEGs showed that the mean values of high alpha waves, high beta waves, and relaxation scores were significantly higher in the experimental vs. control condition. The average scores on each subscale of the psychological questionnaire improved after the experiment in both conditions, and the vitality subscale and total emotional state scores were significantly better in the experimental vs. control condition. The results of the SD method showed that the sense of relaxation and comfort were significantly higher in the experimental vs. control condition. Compared with the non-fragrant Primula, the fragrant Primula induced relatively better physiological and psychological effects.