Search results

China and the USA are among the countries where depression is most prevalent. However, the treatment rate of depression is relatively low in these two countries. Negative attitudes toward depression is one of the major contributor to the low-treatment rate. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of narratives to promote positive attitudes toward depression in China and the USA. In addition, it examines that the psychological mechanisms underlying narrative persuasion in these two different cultural contexts.

An online survey was conducted in both China (n=84) and the USA (n=174). Participants were first asked to complete a short questionnaire about their demographic information and depressive symptoms. They were then asked to read a story featuring a college student with depression. After reading the message, participants completed another questionnaire measuring their attitudes toward depression, transportation (i.e. readers’ involvement with the story), and counterarguing (i.e. the generation of thoughts that dispute the persuasive argument).

Results from a multi-group analysis suggested that although narrative messages had similar persuasive effects for readers from different cultures, the relation between narrative transportation and counterarguing was different. For the US participants, the more they were transported to the story world, the less counter arguments they generated. However, transportation was not negatively associated with counterarguing for Chinese readers.

Findings provide implications for strategically using narrative persuasion to promote positive attitudes toward depression in different cultural contexts.

This study is the first to test the use of narratives to promote positive attitudes toward depression in different cultural contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence and psychosocial correlates of fear of crime in older Chinese. Attempt was made to test a theoretical model which integrated the vulnerability model, “broken windows” theory, victimization theory and risk interpretation model.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 453 older adults from a representative sample recruited from Kunming using stratified sampling methods.

More than half of the participants (n=258, 57.0 percent) reported fear of one or more types of depicted common crime. By comparison, a smaller percentage (n=57, 12.6 percent) reported fear of domestic violence (FDV). Correlational analysis indicated different correlates for fear of common crime (FCC) and FDV. Female gender, a younger age, poor financial and health statuses, perception of greater social instability and neighborhood disorder, direct and/or indirect victimization and perception of a higher risk of victimization were significantly associated with higher levels of FCC. Limited social networks, perception of greater neighborhood disorder, direct and/or indirect victimization and perception of a higher risk of victimization were salient correlates of FDV. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that the integrated model explained 37 and 43 percent of the variance in FCC and FDV, respectively.

This study found diverse patterns in terms of the prevalence and risk factors for FCC and FDV. The findings have important implications for policy, practice and research.

The purpose of this study is to identify which social and psychological factors better determine intentions to quit smoking to inform public health policy.

Data for this cross-sectional study were collected via face-to-face interaction following the pen-and-paper method. A total of 371 usable responses were received from randomly selected respondents of eight public sector universities located in the South Punjab province of Pakistan. Partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis was performed using SmartPLS program. A supplementary qualitative study, based on 21 in-depth interviews with the smokers, was conducted to augment findings of the quantitative study.

Results showed that protection motivation theory and theory of planned behaviour are supported to predict intentions to quit smoking. Subjective norms have a greater influence on intentions to quit smoking than attitudes towards smoking cessation, while perceived behavioural control fails to predict intentions to quit smoking. Perceived rewards and perceived cost are significant in predicting attitudes towards smoking cessation, while extrinsic rewards predict intentions to quit smoking.

The existing models reported in the literature have sparsely investigated the cognitive (such as motivation and emotions) and social factors (such as social influence and behavioural controls) together as determinants of intentions to quit smoking, leaving room for more studies on an integrated model of these factors. This study takes the opportunity and proposes an integrated model encompassing psycho-social factors to predict tobacco consumption quitting behaviour in an emerging economy context.

Because of the logic delay in the converter, the minimum turn on time of the switch is influenced by the constant time. When the inductor current gets to the threshold of the chip, the control signal will delay for a period. This makes the inductor current rising with the increasing of the clock and leads to the load current out of control. Thus, this paper aims to design an oscillator with a variable frequency protection function.

This paper presents an oscillator with the reducing frequency applied in the DC-DC converter. When the converter works normally, the operating frequency of the oscillator is 1.5 MHz. So the inductor current has enough time to decay and prevent the power transistor damaging. After the abnormal condition, the converter returns to the normal operating mode automatically.

Based on 0.5 µm CMOS process, simulated by the HSPICE, the simulation results shows that the frequency of the oscillator linearly decreases from 1.5 MHz to 380 KHz when the feedback voltage less than 0.2 V. The maximum deviation of the oscillator frequency is only 6 per cent from −50°C to 125°C within the power supply voltage of 2.7-5.5 V.

When the light load occurs at the output stage, the oscillator frequency will decrease as the load voltage drops. The test results shows that when the circuit works in the normal condition, the oscillator frequency is 1.5 MHz. When the load decreased, the operating frequency is dropped dramatically.

This paper, with the tobacco industry as the background, establishes an indicator system for tobacco supply chain performance evaluation using the FAHP method.

Based on the relevant data of tobacco enterprises in Guangxi, the paper calculates the performance values of tobacco companies in various cities of Guangxi, and through the analysis of each indicator and the performance values of each city, the authors find that the improvement ability has a major impact on tobacco supply chain performance. Then, the paper establishes a system dynamics model to further demonstrate the impact of information digitalization on the performance of the tobacco supply chain in Guangxi, thus providing theoretical support for building digital tobacco logistics in Guangxi.

The findings of the study show that the performance of the tobacco supply chains in various cities of Guangxi is generally at the level of “Pass–Good,” which can barely meet the requirements of tobacco supply chain operation, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The authors show that digital and IT-based empowerment can maximize the performance of Guangxi's tobacco logistics performance.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically investigate the dynamic strain aging (DSA) effect in solid solution treated IN718 at different temperatures through experiments and simulations to gain an understanding of the inelastic deformation mechanisms.

In the present work, uniaxial tensile tests have been carried out in conjunction with finite element (FE) simulations to investigate the behaviour of the solid solution treated Inconel 718 superalloy at different temperatures and strain rates. Dynamic strain aging (DSA) effects, which manifested during the tests in the form of a negative strain rate sensitivity and stress serrations, are investigated. The most significant DSA effect occurs at 500°C and at a strain rate of 10–4 s-1. In a newly proposed rate-dependent constitutive formulation, the DSA model, proposed by McCormick, Kubin and Estrin, was introduced into slip-assisted solute hardening, and an activation energy-dependent exponential flow rule was adopted.

The observed negative strain rate sensitivity and stress serrations are well predicted by a 3 D FE. The FE results indicate that the equivalent plastic strain rate distribution in the specimen gauge length is as highly inhomogeneous as in the other materials exhibiting DSA effects such as aluminium and titanium alloy. During inelastic deformation, propagating high strain rate bands can be closely correlated to the stress serrations.

For the DSA effect in solid solution treated IN718, the existing researching mainly focuses on the mechanical properties experiment and microstructure observation. In this study, a constitutive formulation, combined with the DSA model, has been proposed, and the mechanical behaviors, including the DSA effect, have been well predicted by a finite element model.

Perceived workplace support (PWS) is an employee’s perception of perceived organisational support (POS), perceived supervisor support (PSS), perceived co-worker support (PCS) and perceived sufficient resource support (PSRS) to operate effectively. The purpose of this paper is to explore the development and validation of employee’s PWS instrument in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A total of 15 items of employees’ PWS instrument in SMEs were developed from the measurement base of earlier published research, concepts and theory. The instrument was applied to a cross-sectional study and data were collected as factor analyses to confirm and ascertain construct validity. Reliability was tested by measuring the internal consistency.

The instrument showed excellent reliability at 0.894. Four factors as “POS”, “PSS”, “PCS” and “PSRS” were extracted and confirmed from the confirmatory factor analysis.

PWS studies are often used by researchers, human resource departments and organisations to investigate the level of employee support. The instrument developed from this study will enable researchers, human resource departments and organisations to explore levels of POS, PSS, PCS and PSRS.

Rural credit cooperatives (RCCs) have long dominated China’s rural credit market and met most of agricultural credit demands while the existing literature seldom examines their contribution to agricultural sector. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the contribution of RCCs to agricultural growth, using China’s provincial panel data from 1997 to 2014.

Both static fixed effects models and two-step generalized method of moment dynamic panel data models, which control the endogeneity, are employed to identify the causality from RCC credit to agricultural growth in China.

The results show that the credit from RCCs increases the agricultural output significantly. A 1 percent increase in RCC credit leads to agricultural growth of about 0.08 percent, which is robust to various empirical specifications. Further study shows that the contribution of RCC credit to agricultural growth decreases from the most developed eastern region to the least developed western region and increases over time.

The results imply that RCC credit is critical in financing agricultural activities by relaxing rural credit constraints and intense competition strengthens the contribution of RCCs to agricultural growth by improving managerial efficiency and developing diversified financial products to meet better rural credit demands.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is first empirical study on the effect of RCC credit on agricultural growth despite of many on the role of financial development in agricultural growth.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating effect of information search effort on the relationship between leader narcissism and team creativity in China based on attention theory. The paper also explores participative decision making as a moderator in the relationship between team leader narcissism and information search effort.

Through a survey of 667 team members and their team leaders from 96 research and development teams at 23 high-tech enterprises in China with paired samples, cross-time data were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical regression and path analysis were adopted to analyze the data.

This paper found that leader narcissism had a positive impact on team information search effort, thereby promoting team creativity, and the effect of leader narcissism on team information search effort is more positive in the context of high participation in decision making.

Narcissism should be a noteworthy trait in manager selection and promotion especially for the departments and teams which focus on innovation and creation. And companies should pay attention to the team work processes to ensure that team members have the opportunity to participate in decision making for promoting the team leader’s narcissistic “bright” side in the institutional environment and avoiding the “dark” side.

This paper discusses how and when leader narcissism influences team creativity in Chinese high-technology enterprises based on attention theory. This research expands the application of attention theory at the team level.