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Defining and identifying causal intervention effects for transmissible infectious disease outcomes is challenging because a treatment – such as a vaccine – given to one individual may affect the infection outcomes of others. Epidemiologists have proposed causal estimands to quantify effects of interventions under contagion using a two-person partnership model. These simple conceptual models have helped researchers develop causal estimands relevant to clinical evaluation of vaccine effects. However, many of these partnership models are formulated under structural assumptions that preclude realistic (...) infectious disease transmission dynamics, limiting their conceptual usefulness in defining and identifying causal treatment effects in empirical intervention trials. In this paper, we propose causal intervention effects in two-person partnerships under arbitrary infectious disease transmission dynamics, and give nonparametric identification results showing how effects can be estimated in empirical trials using time-to-infection or binary outcome data. The key insight is that contagion is a causal phenomenon that induces conditional independencies on infection outcomes that can be exploited for the identification of clinically meaningful causal estimands. These new estimands are compared to existing quantities, and results are illustrated using a realistic simulation of an HIV vaccine trial. (shrink)

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This study applies the concept of reported speech advanced by the renowned Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin to compare the argumentative styles of Mainland China and Taiwan. These societies in question are considered by many scholars as sharing the same argumentative style. The study reports that the Mainland debaters more frequently than the Taiwanese debaters maintained the authenticity of the quotations cited from ancient Confucian sources, whereas Taiwanese debaters paraphrased more frequently. On the other hand, this difference cannot be found (...) when debaters quoted from sources other than Ancient Confucians. The findings, according to Bakhtin, imply a contrast of monologic and dialogic tendencies toward authority, which results in a style difference between Mainland and Taiwan argumentation. (shrink)

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Teacher support makes students feel loved and cared for because they believe that their teachers will provide them with opportunities to make choices, support them in independent problem solving, and understand their inner feelings. High TS levels reduce depression and anxiety, thereby improving students' mental well-being. This cross-sectional study involved 3,573 students from 29 schools in 16 counties/cities of six provinces, namely, Guizhou, Hubei, Jiangxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, and Yunnan. The aim was to examine the impact of TS on students' level (...) of depression. The results indicated that for children in elementary schools, their status as left-behind children played a moderating role between TS and depression. The level of depression in non-LBC children decreased significantly with increases in TS, but the reduction for LBC children was not significant. For children in middle/junior high schools, their LBC status did not play a moderating role between TS and depression. TS was negatively correlated with the children's level of depression, but there was a significant positive relationship between their LBC status and depression. The theoretical and practical significance of the research findings were further discussed. (shrink)

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本书以欧洲的社会政治、经济历史为背景,以技术史为基础,以欧洲哲学史的历史脉络为主线,研究从古希腊到19世纪中叶哲学的技术思想,揭示出技术哲学由萌芽到产生的历史过程。.

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The distinction between the first-person perspective (1PP) and the third-person perspective (3PP) has been widely regarded as fundamental and rigid, and many researchers hold that genuine bodily illusions can only be experienced from the 1PP. We applied VR technology to investigate whether this mainstream view is correct. In our experiments, the participants were immersed in a VR environment in which they saw a life-sized virtual body either from the 1PP or from the 3PP. They either passively received tactile stimulations and/or (...) actively interacted with a virtual soccer ball. Our VR system created novel visuo-motor-tactile correlations between the real and the virtual world: when the participant interacted with a real plastic soccer ball, he/she would feel corresponding tactile sensations and see the avatar performing the exact same movements. We found that a clear sense of ownership over the avatar was induced not only in the 1PP condition but also in the Passive-3PP and the Active-3PP conditions. We also observed evidence suggesting that it is possible to experience one’s body-location, 1PP-location, as well as self-location, both from the 1PP and from the 3PP. Together, we demonstrate that there is in fact no fundamental gap between embodied 1PP and embodied 3PP in the virtual world. (shrink)

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BackgroundThe underrepresentation of scholarly works from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in academic literature is a documented concern, attributed partly to editorial biases. This trend, prevalent across various disciplines, has been less explored in the context of medical ethics journals. This study aimed to examine the composition of editorial board members (EBM) in high-impact medical ethics journals and to evaluate the extent of international diversity within these editorial teams.MethodsThis study incorporated an analysis of 16 high-impact medical ethics journals. Information regarding (...) the EBM of these journals was systematically gathered and categorized based on the World Bank’s country income classifications. An in-depth examination of the editorial board compositions was then conducted.ResultsThe study identified 669 EBM across the selected journals. A predominant 89.84% (601) of these members were from high-income countries (HICs), with upper-middle-income countries contributing 7.47% (50) and lower-middle-income countries 2.69% (18). No EBM were associated with low-income countries. A regional breakdown indicated that North America was the most represented area, accounting for 48.88% (327), followed by Europe & Central Asia (27.50%, 184), East Asia & Pacific (13.45%, 90), Latin America & Caribbean (4.63%, 31), Sub-Saharan Africa (4.19%, 28), Middle East & North Africa (0.75%, 5), and South Asia (0.60%, 4). In total, these EBMs hailed from 46 different countries, with the United States representing the largest proportion (43.80%, 293), followed by the United Kingdom (13.15%, 88), Australia (7.92%, 53), Germany (6.73%, 45), and Canada (5.08%, 34).ConclusionsThere is a significant lack of international representation within the EBM of high-impact medical ethics journals. The majority of editors in this field are affiliated with HICs, leading to a severe underrepresentation of LMICs within the editorial boards. (shrink)

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The sudden outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 has caused a huge impact on the Chinese residents' health and economic level. In the pandemic background, the country and its institutions have introduced pandemic-related insurance to stabilize the national situation. At this stage, insurance has played an increasingly important role in social life. With the popularization of insurance, the idea of buying insurance to avoid risk has gradually become popular among people. Among them, the New Rural Cooperative Medical System has been farmers' (...) common choice. The NRCMS, a mutual aid system created by farmers spontaneously in the country, plays a great role in guaranteeing farmers access to basic health services, alleviating poverty caused by disease and returning to poverty due to disease, and promoting poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Given this backdrop, we study the efficiency of the NRCMS that can effectively promote poverty alleviation and rural revitalization and ensure the people's happy life. Implementing the Data Envelopment Analysis, we find that technological progress is one of the main factors influencing the efficiency of the NRCMS. Therefore, it is important to improve the technology for providing the efficiency of the NRCMS and promoting the happiness of the society. (shrink)

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Urban rail transit can improve a city’s accessibility. However, high construction and operation costs restrict the development of urban rail transit. Value capture recoups the additional value that the investments of urban rail transit confer to local land and is considered to be an effective measure to alleviate this financial problem. Understanding the land value uplift effects of urban rail transit is essential for understanding value capture. This study applied a Space-P model of urban rail transit network based on complex (...) network theory and demonstrated the influence of urban rail transit network characteristics on residential and commercial land prices. The model was tested with eight metropolises in China, using the 2003 to 2022 timeframe as the context. The results showed a significant positive correlation between the number of nodes and the land prices, the average clustering coefficient was highly positively correlated with the land prices, and there was a significant negative correlation between the average path length and the land prices. This study provides theoretical support for value capture, is beneficial for urban rail transit planning, and supports improvements in the development quality of urban rail transit networks. (shrink)

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Body ownership concerns what it is like to feel a body part or a full body as mine, and has become a prominent area of study. We propose that there is a closely related type of bodily self-consciousness largely neglected by researchers—experiential ownership. It refers to the sense that I am the one who is having a conscious experience. Are body ownership and experiential ownership actually the same phenomenon or are they genuinely different? In our experiments, the participant watched a (...) rubber hand or someone else’s body from the first-person perspective and was touched either synchronously or asynchronously. The main findings: (1) The sense of body ownership was hindered in the asynchronous conditions of both the body-part and the full-body experiments. However, a strong sense of experiential ownership was observed in those conditions. (2) We found the opposite when the participants’ responses were measured after tactile stimulations had ceased for 5 s. In the synchronous conditions of another set of body-part and full-body experiments, only experiential ownership was blocked but not body ownership. These results demonstrate for the first time the double dissociation between body ownership and experiential ownership. Experiential ownership is indeed a distinct type of bodily self-consciousness. (shrink)

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BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare landscape drastically. Stricken by sharp surges in morbidity and mortality with resource and manpower shortages confounding their efforts, the medical community has witnessed high rates of burnout and post-traumatic stress amongst themselves. Whilst the prevailing literature has offered glimpses into their professional war, no review thus far has collated the deeply personal reflections of physicians and ascertained how their self-concept, self-esteem and perceived self-worth has altered during this crisis. Without adequate intervention, this may (...) have profound effects on their mental and physical health, personal relationships and professional efficacy.MethodsWith mentions of the coronavirus pervading social media by the millions, this paper set out to collate and thematically analyse social media posts containing first-person physician reflections on how COVID-19 affected their lives and their coping mechanisms. A consistent search strategy was employed and a PRISMA flowchart was used to map out the inclusion/exclusion criteria.ResultsA total of 590 social media posts were screened, 511 evaluated, and 108 included for analysis. Salient themes identified include Disruptions to Personal Psycho-Emotional State, Disruptions to Professional Care Delivery, Concern for Family, Response from Institution, Response from Society and Coping Mechanisms.ConclusionIt is evident that the distress experienced by physicians during this time has been manifold, multi-faceted and dominantly negative. Self-concepts were distorted with weakened self-esteem and perceived self-worth observed. The Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) was adopted to explain COVID-19’s impact on physician personhood as it considers existential, individual, relational and social concepts of the self. These entwined self-concepts serve as ‘compensatory’ to one another, with coping mechanisms buffering and fortifying the physician’s overall personhood. With healthcare institutions playing a vital role in providing timely and targeted support, it was further proposed that a comprehensive assessment tool based on the RToP could be developed to detect at-risk physicians and evaluate the presence and effectiveness of established support structures. (shrink)

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We investigated whether adults have attentional bias toward infant faces, whether it is moderated by infant facial expression, and the predictive effect of the adult attachment state on it. One hundred unmarried nulliparous college students [50 men and 50 women; aged 17–24 years ] were recruited. Each completed a self-report questionnaire—the Chinese version of the State Adult Attachment Measure, and a dot-probe task with a stimulus presentation duration of 500 ms, which used 192 black-and-white photographs of 64 people as the (...) experimental stimuli. The results showed that, at the duration of 500 ms, individuals' attentional bias toward infant faces disappeared, regardless of the facial expression. However, when the interaction between avoidant attachment state and face was controlled, the attentional bias was significant again, and the avoidant attachment state negatively predicted individuals' attentional bias toward infant faces. This indicates that at the suprathreshold stage, there are individual differences in the attentional bias toward infant faces, and high avoidant attachment will weaken individuals' attentional bias toward infant faces. This study advances previous studies that focused only on individuals' attention to infant faces occurring at the early processing stage of attention. The results provide direction for interventions; specifically, changing the attachment state of avoidant individuals can affect their attention to infants, which may promote the establishment of parent–child relationships. (shrink)

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Grounded on the social exchange theory (SET), social cognitive theory (SCT), and self-determination theory (SDT), this study aims to explore the mediating role of self-efficacy (SE) and work engagement (WE) on the effect of social support (SS) on job satisfaction (JS) among Chinese ethnic minority kindergarten teachers (KTs). The results show that: (1) SS has a directly significant effect on JS; (2) WE mediates the relationship between SS and JS; and (3) SE mediates the relationship between SS and WE. Although (...) the mediation of SE on the relationship between SS and JS is not found, the posited multiple mediations of SE and WE on the relationship between SS and JS are totally accepted. The results reveal that SS mainland Chinese ethnic minority KTs received can not only have a direct effect on JS but also have an indirect impact through the one-path mediating role of WE and the chain mediating role of SE and WE. The results suggest that governments, supervisors, and sponsors should work together to provide ethnic minority KTs with more prioritized SS from both cultural psychology and financial material and opportunities for facilitating professional knowledge and skills in order to enhance their SE, inspire their WE, and eventually accumulate their JS. (shrink)

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Using a novel Chinese gambler conviction database to proxy the local gambling preference, we examine the impact of gambling preference on the disclosure of key audit matters (KAMs). Our findings suggest that the number of KAMs is significantly greater for firms in cities with a strong gambling preference than for firms in cities with a weak gambling preference. Our results are consistent with the view that firms located in areas with a sin culture may improve the quality of their financial (...) reports to overcome their stigmatized image. Additional analysis suggests that large audit firms, shorter audit terms, and closer audit-client distance strengthen the positive relationship between the gambling preference and the disclosure of KAMs. Namely, audit firms with a good reputation, strong independence, and information advantages play a more significant role in “destigmatization”. Finally, we show that auditors charge more audit fee and exert more audit effort towards clients located in areas with a strong gambling preference. This finding suggests that attempts by firms that are affected by a sin culture to achieve “destigmatization” by improving the quality of their financial reports are also costly. (shrink)

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Background: To evaluate the effectiveness of a multifaceted intervention in improving emergency department (ED) patient privacy and satisfaction in the crowded ED setting. Methods: A pre- and post-intervention study was conducted. A multifaceted intervention was implemented in a university-affiliated hospital ED. The intervention developed strategies to improve ED patient privacy and satisfaction, including redesigning the ED environment, process management, access control, and staff education and training, and encouraging ethics consultation. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated using patient surveys. Eligibility (...) data were collected after the intervention and compared to data collected before the intervention. Differences in patient satisfaction and patient perception of privacy were adjusted for predefined covariates using multivariable ordinal logistic regression. Results: Structured questionnaires were collected with 313 ED patients before the intervention and 341 ED patients after the intervention. There were no important covariate differences, except for treatment area, between the two groups. Significant improvements were observed in patient perception of "personal information overheard by others", being "seen by irrelevant persons", having "unintentionally heard inappropriate conversations from healthcare providers", and experiencing "providers' respect for my privacy". There was significant improvement in patient overall perception of privacy and satisfaction. There were statistically significant correlations between the intervention and patient overall perception of privacy and satisfaction on multivariable analysis. Conclusions: Significant improvements were achieved with an intervention. Patients perceived significantly more privacy and satisfaction in ED care after the intervention. We believe that these improvements were the result of major philosophical, administrative, and operational changes aimed at respecting both patient privacy and satisfaction. (shrink)

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Life education, also known as life and death education, is an important subject in Taiwan with institutions offering degree programs and courses that focus on quality learning and implementation of life education. What is interesting from the perspective of Taiwanese Education is that the teaching of life education also incorporates a number of Eastern-derived and conceptualized tenets, for example, Buddhist teaching and the importance of spiritual wisdom. This premise contends then that life education in Taiwan, in general, is concerned with (...) the promotion, fulfillment, and cherishing of quality life experiences (e.g., personal contentment, happiness). One example of life education, which resonates with other spiritual beliefs and religious faiths (e.g., Hinduism), is related to spiritual cultivation and the enlightenment of life wisdom. Our own teaching of the subject, likewise, places emphasis on the goal of teaching students to seek meaningful understanding of and appreciation for three major, interrelated components of life education: life wisdom, life practice, and life care. Life education is a beneficial subject as its theoretical understanding may help individuals cope with pathologies and negative life experiences. One negative life experience, in this case, is the ultimate fate of humankind: death. Approaching death and/or the onset of grief is something that we all have to experience. How does one approach death? It is not easy feat and, of course, grief for a loved one is personal and some of us struggle with this. We contend that spiritual cultivation and enlightenment, arising from life education, may assist us with the coping of death (e.g., the possibility of transcendence beyond the realm of life). Forming the premise of the present article, we propose that a person’s ‘spiritual and enlightened self’, reflecting the convergence of three major aspects of life education (i.e., Philosophical reflection, Enrichment of personal well-being, and Spiritual cultivation), would result in the initiation and creation of a number of virtues and positive characteristics – for example: having a positive outlook in life, showing compassion, forgiveness, etc. These virtues and quality characteristics, from our philosophical reasoning, are equivalent to those qualities that positive psychology advocates for. (shrink)

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Previous research has found no consistent relationship between measures of disconfirmatory evidence, alternative hypotheses, and people's success in rule-discovery tasks. The present paper explores falsification's inductive benefit under the ?context of discovery? in Wason's 2?4?6 task by developing a new type of alternative hypothesis, which we label the ?new-perspective hypothesis?. Experiment 1 found that falsification is effective only when a new-perspective hypothesis is generated, rather than a same-perspective hypothesis. The total number of alternative hypotheses was also unrelated to rule-discovery success. (...) Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 but included the addition of a different name-content task as well as two levels of task difficulty. The main findings were similar to those for Experiment 1, and the new-perspective hypothesis was observed to be most important for the difficult rule-discovery task. These results help to clarify the important ways new-perspective hypotheses and disconfirmatory evidence contribute to successful rule-discovery performance. (shrink)

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BackgroundThe Basal ganglia (BG) played a crucial role in the brain-level mechanisms of chronic pain disorders. However, the functional changes of BG in chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) are still poorly understood. This study investigated the BG subregions’ resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) in CP/CPPS patients compared with healthy controls.MethodsTwenty eight patients with CP/CPPS and 28 age- and education-matched healthy males underwent clinical measurements and 3T brain MR imaging, including T1-weighted structural images and resting-state functional imaging. The data were analyzed (...) by the seeded-based rs-FC analysis. Then, a machine learning method was applied to assess the feasibility of detecting CP/CPPS patients through the changed rs-FC.ResultsCompared with healthy males, patients presented decreased rs-FC between the BG subregions and right middle cingulate cortex, and correlated with pain (r = 0.51, p-uncorrected = 0.005) and urinary symptoms (r = –0.4, p-uncorrected = 0.034). The left superior temporal gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus showed decreased rs-FC with the BG subregions as well. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.943 (accuracy = 80%, F1-score = 80.6%) was achieved for the classification of CP/CPPS patients and healthy males with support vector machine (SVM) based on the changed rs-FC.ConclusionThese findings provide evidence of altered BG subregions’ rs-FC in CP/CPPS, which may contribute to our understanding of the BG’s role in CP/CPPS. (shrink)

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本书研究了西方科学哲学中的八个主要问题,即:认知意义的判断标准、归纳与验证、科学说明模型及其问题、科学的发展模式、科学划界、科学实在论、科学与价值、社会科学哲学。.

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BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

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本书作者介绍了董仲舒“兴太学”、限制土地兼并、“薄赋税,省徭役,以宽民力”等一些政治主张,并对董仲舒的生平学行思想学说进行研究。.

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