Doing business: an obscure notion of the ethics of public associations in ordinary Chinese

Along with the notion of being a person (zero run 做人), the notion of doing business (zuo shi 做事) in ordinary Chinese is basically an over-all notion of the norms in the practical and associative activities, carrying typically obscure meanings on practice and association affairs in some external world. Ordinary Chinese not only distinguishes these two notions but also defines a dictionary order of them, with the affairs of the internal world prior to those of the external. The fact that the notion of doing business refers to business (shi 事) rather than person (ren 人) makes this order clear at a deeper level. It shows that this notion regards the practical affairs of the external world less important to the person itself than those of the internal. Except for these qualities, the notion of doing business holds some normative meanings, although contains no definite rules. These meanings indirectly relate to the notion of person that people form in their private associations and emerge as some mixture with a tactical attitude out of the need of earning a life. The notion of person gives birth to some obscure requirements, for instance, the requirement of ‘doing business in accordance with your conscience’ and that of ‘doing business seriously’. The core world of family is marginalized in the public transition of associations. There are reasons to anticipate that in this process the notion of doing business will undergo more radical changes than that of being a person. __________ Translated from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Studies), 2005 (7)     

The relationship between acceptance,fatigue, and subjective cognitive impairment in hematologic cancer survivors

Background/Objective: Cancer and its treatment can have a detrimental impact on psychological well-being. Acceptance as the basis of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has shown beneficial effects on depression and anxiety. However, its relationship to fatigue and cognitive impairment has not been investigated. A protective effect of acceptance may open up a new target for psychological intervention.Method: A cross-sectional postal survey was undertaken. 922 hematological cancer survivors (≥ 2.5 years post diagnosis) were recruited through two regional cancer registries in Germany. Acceptance (AAQ-II), fatigue (BFI) and subjective cognitive impairment (AFI) were assessed.Results: Higher levels of acceptance were negatively associated with fatigue and subjective cognitive impairment (R²= .34 and R²= .26, respectively). The relationship between fatigue and fatigue-related impairment of daily life was weaker for survivors with high acceptance.Conclusions: Acceptance is strongly associated with fatigue and subjective cognitive impairment. ACT may be useful to reduce symptoms of fatigue and subjective cognitive impairment in cancer survivors.     

A Daoist way of being: clarity and stillness as embodied practice*

Daoism, especially classical Daoism, is often constructed as a ‘philosophy,’ ‘set of ideas,’ or ‘system of thought.’ This is particularly the case in studies of Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy. The present article draws attention to the central importance of clarity and stillness (qingjing 清靜) as a Daoist form of meditative practice, contemplative experience, and way of being. Examining historical precedents in classical Daoism, the article gives particular attention to the Tang dynasty (618–907) ‘Clarity-and-Stillness Literature,’ specifically the eighth-century Qingjing jing 清靜經 (Scripture on Clarity and Stillness; DZ 620). In the process, one finds that qingjing is one of the major connective strands throughout the Daoist tradition, a connective strand that reveals the central importance of embodied, experiential, and applied dimensions of human being from a Daoist perspective.     

S’engager c’est consentir CE, 7 juin 2018 : no 406207

Information obligation on medical acts during medical examination is on the whole of the examination. The idea of information on each act seems to be swept over. Despite the age of the facts, the implication of the decision can be seen in the Universal national service project.     

Three-channel convolutional neural networks for vegetable leaf disease recognition

The color information of diseased leaf is the main basis for leaf based plant disease recognition. To make use of color information, a novel three-channel convolutional neural networks (TCCNN) model is constructed by combining three color components for vegetable leaf disease recognition. In the model, each channel of TCCNN is fed by one of three color components of RGB diseased leaf image, the convolutional feature in each CNN is learned and transmitted to the next convolutional layer and pooling layer in turn, then the features are fused through a fully connected fusion layer to get a deep-level disease recognition feature vector. Finally, a softmax layer makes use of the feature vector to classify the input images into the predefined classes. The proposed method can automatically learn the representative features from the complex diseased leaf images, and effectively recognize vegetable diseases. The experimental results validate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods of the vegetable leaf disease recognition.     

Exploratory study of the effect of binaural beat stimulation on the EEG activity pattern in resting state using artificial neural networks

Anxiety disorders afflict almost 7.3 percent of the world’s population. One in 14 people will experience anxiety disorder at the given year. When associated with mood disorders, anxiety can also trigger or increase other diseases’ symptoms and effects, like depression and suicidal behavior. Binaural beats are a low-frequency type of acoustic stimulation perceived when the individual is subjected to two slightly different wave frequencies, from 200 to 900 Hz. Binaural beats can contribute to anxiety reduction and modification of other psychological conditions and states, modifying cognitive processes and mood states. In this work, we applied a 5 Hz binaural beat to 6 different subjects, to detect a relevant change in their brainwaves before and after the stimuli. We applied 20 min stimuli in 10 separated sessions. We assessed the differences using a Multi-Layer Perceptron classifier in comparison with non-parametric tests and Low-Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography (eLORETA). eLORETA showed remarkable changes in High Alpha. Both eLORETA and MLP approaches revealed outstanding modifications in high Beta. MLP evinced significant changes in Theta brainwaves. Our study evidenced high Alpha modulation at the limbic lobe, implicating in a possible reduction of sympathetic system activation in the studied sample. Our main results on eLORETA suggest a strong increase in the current distribution, mostly in Alpha 2, at the Anterior Cingulate, which is related to the monitoring of mistakes regarding social conduct, recognition and expression of emotions. We also found that MLPs are able of evincing the main differences with high separability in Delta and Theta.     

Stress and inflammation among older adults: The moderating role of religiosity

Chronic stress weakens the immune system and leads to heightened bodily inflammation, which in turn is linked with serious health conditions. This study examined whether religiosity moderates the relationship between stress and inflammation (measured by C-reactive Protein (CRP)). A sample of 4,734 community-dwelling older adults was drawn from the 2006 wave of the Health and Retirement Study. Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between chronic stress (8-item index), inflammation (high CRP level), and religiosity (organizational, nonorganizational, and intrinsic), controlling for other factors. Higher levels of stress were significantly associated with high inflammation/CRP (p = .039). Further, intrinsic religiosity acted as a moderator of this relationship (p = .024), such that the relationship between stress and inflammation is lessened for persons with higher levels of intrinsic religiosity. Higher intrinsic religiosity attenuated the effects of stress on inflammation, suggesting that individuals with stronger religious commitment/motivation may better cope with stress.     

橡胶手错觉:拥有感研究的实验范式及其应用

橡胶手错觉是一种健康个体将非肉体的假手视为自己真实身体的一部分的体验, 这种错觉可以通过同时轻刷被试面前可见的橡胶手及其不可见的真手而产生.橡胶手错觉已成为一种研究身体拥有感的重要范式, 其产生机制可以分为“自下而上的认知匹配”与“自上而下的认知匹配”两种加工方式.前者涉及视觉与触觉刺激的同步性; 而后者涉及被试心中预存的身体意象与身体图式(包括真假手之间模态特征,位置空间的相似性).综合上述证据, 身体模型假说与个人边缘空间理论进一步为拥有感产生的复杂机制提供了整合两种加工方式的解释.橡胶手错觉范式已经被用于探索精神分裂症患者等特殊被试病理分析,错觉产生和心理特质之间的关系, 以及神经外科和术后恢复上.未来的研究应该更加重视范式本身的拓展, 应用虚拟现实技术来提高身体模态的仿真效果, 利用橡胶手拥有感的易感性作为筛选与预测身体意象障碍疾病的指标.