Yao Li

Anxious major depressive disorder is a common subtype of major depressive disorder; however, its unique neural mechanism is not well-understood currently. Using multimodal MRI data, this study examined common and specific alterations of amygdala subregions between patients with and without anxiety. No alterations were observed in the gray matter volume or intra-region functional integration in either patient group. Compared with the controls, both patient groups showed decreased functional connectivity between the left superficial amygdala and the left putamen, and between the right superficial amygdala and the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex and medial orbitofrontal cortex, while only patients with anxiety exhibited decreased activity in the bilateral laterobasal and superficial amygdala. Moreover, the decreased activity correlated negatively with the Hamilton depression scale scores in the patients with anxiety. These findings provided insights into the pathophysiologic processes of anxious major depressive disorder and may help to develop new and effective treatment programs.

Group interaction is an essential way of social interaction and plays an important role in our social development. It has been found that when individuals participate in group interactions, the group identity of the interaction partner affects the mental processing and behavioral decision-making of subjects. However, little is known about how deaf college students, who are labeled distinctly different from normal hearing college students, will react when facing proposers from different groups in the ultimatum game and its time course. In this study, we recruited 29 deaf college students who played the UG in which they received extremely unfair, moderately unfair, or fair offers from either outgroup members or ingroup members, while their brain potentials were recorded. The behavioral results showed that group membership did not impact the acceptance rate of deaf college students. But, event-related potential analysis demonstrated an enhanced feedback-related negativity elicited by ingroup members compared to outgroup members. Importantly, we found that under fairness conditions, deaf college students induced more positive P2 and P3 facing ingroup members compared to outgroup members. Our results demonstrated that group membership may modulate the performance of deaf college students in the UG and the existence of ingroup bias among deaf college students. This provides some evidence for the fairness characteristics of special populations, so that to improve the educational integration of colleges and universities.

We assess the extent to which Chinese MBOs of listed corporations enable a balance to be achieved between facilitating growth and supporting the interests of minority shareholders other than the buyout organization. Using novel, hand-collected data from 19 MBOs of listed corporations in China, a matched sample of 19 non-MBOs and the population of listed corporations, we examine the extent to which boards of directors are changed to bring in executive and outside directors with the skills to grow as well as restructure a business. We also examine the extent to which outside directors become involved in actions to develop the business rather than actions related to fostering the interests of all shareholders. We find in fact little evidence that outside board members have the skills to add value to the MBO firms. Boards appear to focus mainly on related-party transactions with some more limited attention to growth strategies. Outside directors do not seem to openly disagree with incumbent managers on the disclosure of their actions but may express their views and exert pressure behind the scenes

Financial development is often considered one of the main drivers promoting household consumption. As a form of financial development, whether digital financial inclusion can promote household consumption has been a concern for researchers and policymakers. Considering geographical connectivity characteristics, we examine the effects of digital financial inclusion on household consumption by applying spatial econometric models and using data from 31 provinces in China from 2013 to 2018. The impact of digital financial inclusion is further disaggregated into direct, indirect, and total impacts. The results show that if digital financial inclusion is improved by 1%, household consumption will correspondingly increase by 0.2207%. The spatial spillover effect on neighboring areas is negative: a 1% increase in the level of digital financial inclusion of nearby provinces leads to a 0.1289% decrease in household consumption in the local province. For policymakers, it is necessary to balance the development of digital financial inclusion and view different areas as a whole when making policies to promote consumption. Further analysis based on subsamples finds that the effect of digital financial inclusion on household consumption is more considerable for rural households than for urban households.

Due to extensive product differentiation and the personalized aesthetic needs of consumers, modern enterprises need different expressions of information to attract consumers’ interest and improve their purchase intention. This study draws from the elaboration likelihood model, anchoring theory, and media richness theory to explore how the expression of advertised information can be effectively matched to the product type to enhance consumers’ purchase intention. The mediating effect of information-processing fluency and moderating effect of consumers’ personal involvement on this relationship is also explored. Data from experiments and questionnaires involving 1,292 participants were analyzed. The results show that direct expression of advertised information is more suitable for advertising search products, while metaphorical expressions of advertised information are more suitable for advertising experience products. These combinations of product type and expression of advertised information can effectively improve consumers’ purchase intention. Meanwhile, the main combined effect of the product type and expression of advertised information is mediated by consumers’ information-processing fluency, and moderated by consumers’ personal involvement positively.

In the recent decade, increasing costs of labor, water, and fertilizers around the world led to a change in the method of crop establishment from traditional transplanted rice to direct-seeded rice and to a substantial rise in the DSR-managed area. Since water management in areas with DSR is quite different from those with TPR, vertical water movement and water and nutrient losses during the crop season may be different as well. Water flow and water losses in a DSR field in the Taihu Lake Basin of east China were monitored and evaluated using Hydrus-1D during two seasons with different rainfalls and irrigation managements. While during the 2008 season, irrigation accounted for 57% of the total water input, during the 2009 season, it accounted for only 32%. Due to large rainfall during the wet, 2009 rice season, surface runoff accounted for about 17.0% of TWI. During the much drier 2008 rice season with higher irrigation inputs, surface runoff could be controlled much better. Modeled evapotranspiration during the 2008 and 2009 seasons accounted for 54.6% and 44.6% of TWIs, respectively. Measured and simulated results indicate that water leaching was the main path of water loss from the DSR fields, which implies that frequent irrigation increases water leaching. The plough sole layer played a major buffering role for water flow during both dry and wet seasons. Water productivities evaluated from TWIs during the 2008 and 2009 seasons were 0.71 and 0.59kg/m3, respectively; they were 1.30 and 1.33kg/m3 when evaluated from modeled evapotranspiration fluxes. Pressure heads and vertical fluxes simulated using Hydrus-1D matched measured data well. The Hydrus-1D can be used to simulate water flow and water balance in the DSR fields. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.