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In the Western world, Carl Jung was the first to posit a theory of synchronicity to explain the startling divinatory power of the I Ching. Yet long before his time and unbeknownst to the West, the Chinese had already institutionalized as their tradition, simple practices for enabling decisions grounded on the synchronous concept. The purpose of this paper is to explain the process from within the context of Chinese Buddhist spirituality.

The approach here is to provide the background of Han Chinese Buddhism in modern China and within it, the wide practices of Kuan Yin spirituality and introducing the tools that the Chinese devised for consulting the Goddess of Mercy, as Kuan Yin is otherwise known. Then a discussion is made, for the first time, of the underlying mechanics as well as the mind and energy aspects. Having so introduced the religious background, spirituality, tools and mechanics, the processes of temple consultations for decisions are then explained. In the discussion, a framework for classifying decisions is outlined along with probability concepts. There is also the requirement for the inquirer to seek a metaphorical interpretation of the poetic imagery as contained in the Qian (a slip of paper).

Through writing this paper, the author wishes readers, both managerial and those in research, to understand what is still the approach (even more widely in China now than before) in how the Chinese – in and outside of China – approach the task of making major, complex decisions. These practices which date from antiquity clearly suggest the Chinese had gone beyond Jungian synchronicity in translating the theory into practice for decision making. In other words, they had long recognized the need for tools, techniques and approaches to help them make complex, difficult decisions: decisions that often go beyond the rational boundaries of the mind.

With the rising impact of the Chinese on the global economy and society, there is clearly a need for works that explain major Chinese processes such as the making of decisions. The art of decision making by the Chinese on the basis of what Jung theorized as synchronicity should become much better understood by researchers and managers.

There are very few academic papers exploring the process of Kuan Yin consultation in decision making by the Chinese. Yet this can be seen across many temples in everyday China and overseas Chinese communities as well as in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The understanding of such processes is necessary for anyone, who wishes to grasp the minds of the Chinese as regards the process involved in the making of major decisions.

Light field images (LFIs) have gained popularity as a technology to increase the field of view (FoV) of plenoptic cameras since they can capture information about light rays with a large FoV. Wide FoV causes light field (LF) data to increase rapidly, which restricts the use of LF imaging in image processing, visual analysis and user interface. Effective LFI coding methods become of paramount importance. This paper aims to eliminate more redundancy by exploring sparsity and correlation in the angular domain of LFIs, as well as mitigate the loss of perceptual quality of LFIs caused by encoding.

This work proposes a new efficient LF coding framework. On the coding side, a new sampling scheme and a hierarchical prediction structure are used to eliminate redundancy in the LFI's angular and spatial domains. At the decoding side, high-quality dense LF is reconstructed using a view synthesis method based on the residual channel attention network (RCAN).

In three different LF datasets, our proposed coding framework not only reduces the transmitted bit rate but also maintains a higher view quality than the current more advanced methods.

(1) A new sampling scheme is designed to synthesize high-quality LFIs while better ensuring LF angular domain sparsity. (2) To further eliminate redundancy in the spatial domain, new ranking schemes and hierarchical prediction structures are designed. (3) A synthetic network based on RCAN and a novel loss function is designed to mitigate the perceptual quality loss due to the coding process.

The paper aims to outline the legal framework with regards to the civil liability of online intermediaries for users' misconduct in China, to analyze the problems in applying the rules related, and to introduce recent efforts from the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and legislature to combat online misconduct.

The paper intends to introduce these rules by studying the legislative history and several important case decisions. Comparisons with European and American approaches have also been made with regard to the self‐regulation issue.

Chinese courts have made many inconsistent decisions on the liabilities of online intermediaries in the past, but the legal framework is improving and the situation will become better given more clarifications from the Supreme People's Court. The State proactively promotes industry self‐regulation, together with public supervision in order to ensure the enforcement of rules.

This paper gives a systematical analysis and thorough introduction to online intermediaries' liability since the first case in 1990s to the latest report, law amendment and provisions before July 2012 in China.

Cyberspace is an international community, thus, the worldwide harmonisation of cyber law shall be approached. An introduction of the Chinese legal framework and any latest updates from the State would be valuable for foreign policy makers and foreign online service providers to learn the Chinese situation and evaluate the Chinese internet market.

In this study, two novel fluorescent dyes, based on naphthalimide derivatives have been synthesised from acenaphthene as a starting material. The ability of the dyes to graft to polymer chain was then demonstrated. The novel synthesised dyes and self-coloured polymers were characterised by a variety of techniques.

The novel dyes were prepared through by halogenation, oxidation, imidation and amination reactions. All steps of these processes were monitored by thin layer chromatography. The fluorescent dyes and their intermediates were characterised by differential scanning calorimeter, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13-CNMR) spectroscopic techniques. The molar extinction coefficients and absorption maximum wavelength were obtained by examining the dyes and polymer solutions in Dimethylformamide (DMF) and toluene solvents. The fluorescency of novel dyes and self-coloured polymers was evaluated. Their quantum yields and Stokes shift values were determined as DMF and toluene solutions. The percentage of the covalently bounded dyes into the polymer chain was calculated.

The characterisation of the synthesised dyes and self-coloured polymers verified their structural correctness. The results of reaction dyes with resin demonstrated that the dyes were covalently bonded to the chain of an acrylic polymer (resin) containing carboxylic acid groups giving self-coloured polymers. The extent of fluorescence of the synthesised dyes and their polymers showed that compounds containing functional amino group in C-4 position of naphthalimide ring have high fluorescence properties.

This study is original. Self-coloured polymers based on acrylic were synthesised by novel naphthalimide dyes with acrylic resin for the first time, successfully. The novel dyes and their self-coloured polymers exhibit good and acceptable fluorescent activity.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an information system which is based on the Internet of things (IoT) and used to support the communication and coordination in a cooperative robot team.

The architecture of the IoT applications for decision-making activities in a complex system is elaborated, the focus lies on the effective implementation of system interactions at the device-level. A case study is provided to verify system performances.

The IoT concept has been introduced in an information system of a football robot team to support the coordination among team players. Various sensors are used to collect data from IoT, and data are processed for the controls of robotic players to achieve the better performance at the system level. The field test has shown the feasibility and effectiveness.

To investigate how IoT can be utilized in an information system for making complex decisions effectively, the authors use the decision-support system for a football robot team to illustrate the approaches in developing data acquisition infrastructure, processing and utilizing real-time data for the communication and coordination of robot players in a dynamic competing environment. While the presented work has shown the feasibility of an IoT-based information system, more work are needed to integrate advanced sensors within the IoT and develop more intelligent algorithms to replace manually remote control for the operations of robot players.

The proposed system is specifically for a football robot team; however, the associated approaches are applicable to any decentralized system for developing an information system to support IoT-based communication and coordination within the system in the real-time mode.

The exploration of IoT applications is still at its early stage, existing relevant work is mostly limited to the development of system architecture, sensor networks, and communication protocols. In this paper, the methods on how to use massive real-time data for decision-making of a decentralized team have been investigated, and the proposed system has its theoretical significance to developing other decentralized wireless sensor networks and decision-making systems.

This study aims to investigate the impact of primary building information modelling (BIM)-related factors, extracted from the literature on the subject, on construction project performance.

Based on data collected from 134 BIM users, this study used structural equation modelling to assess the impact of these factors in five main BIM-related factor clusters.

The results of the analysis confirmed the reliability and validity of the research design and outcomes. The findings indicated that the BIM-related external factors cluster is the most influential cluster affecting construction project performance. BIM-related project factors and BIM-related technological factors also had a significant impact on project performance. These were followed by the BIM-related management factors cluster, while the BIM-related human factors cluster had a low impact on project performance.

This study will contribute to fostering BIM adoption and implementation in the construction industry in developing countries.

This study has filled a crucial knowledge gap by providing information on manageable primary BIM-related factors affecting construction project performance.

The investigation of pro-environmental behaviors (PEB) among college students is essential for future sustainability endeavors. Existing research seldomly concentrated on college students and their PEB. This study aims to address the gap in understanding PEB among college students.

This study constructed an integrated model combining the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory, with the novel addition of environmental risk perception. Through an empirical study involving 844 college students, this research analyzed the data with the structural model.

The authors identified that environmental values, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms and risk perception play crucial roles in shaping PEB. This study also revealed age-related differences, highlighting that older students might be less influenced by attitudes and subjective norms due to more established habits. Findings underscore the importance of fostering PEB through environmental education, promotion of low-carbon lifestyle choices and incentives. This investigation not only enriches the theoretical framework for PEB but also offers practical insights for policymakers and educators to enhance sustainable practices among the youth.

Though the authors offer valuable findings, this research has two key limitations: the use of observational data for hypothesis testing, which weakens causal inference, and the collection of data through questionnaires, which may be biased by social desirability. Respondents of self-report tend to behave in the socially desired ways. Consequently, they usually exaggerate their pro-environmental intention or PEB. To comprehend the influencing aspects more thoroughly, future research should consider incorporating experimental methods and objective data, such as digitalized data.

The findings provide valuable evidence for guiding college students’ PEB, including strengthening environmental education, promoting of low-carbon fashion and providing incentives for PEBs.

First, the authors examine the internal factors influencing PEB among Chinese university students within the “dual-carbon” initiative framework. Second, this research pioneers the use of structural equation modeling to merge TPB and VBN theories, offering a predictive model for university students’ PEB. Third, the authors introduce “environmental risk perception” as a novel variable derived from both TPB and VBN, enhancing the model’s explanatory power.

This study intends to explore the relationship between digital finance and the vertical specialization of firms. The following questions are discussed: (1) As a representative new financial development model, what is the role of digital finance in the vertical specialization of firms? (2) If digital finance improves the level of vertical specialization of firms, what is the mechanism behind such improvement? (3) How does digital finance impact the vertical specialization of firms in different regions, industries, and firms?

A two-way fixed-effect model of panel data is proposed to verify the relationship between digital finance and the vertical specialization of firms. This model is constructed by matching the city-level data of digital finance with the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2018. Meanwhile, the instrumental variable (IV) method and difference-in-difference (DID) method are adopted to deal with the endogeneity problem of the model.

The authors' study finds that digital finance has significantly improved the level of vertical specialization of firms. The result is robust under the endogeneity consideration and a series of robustness tests. After the dimensionality of the index is reduced, the depth of digital finance usage is more conducive to the improvement of the vertical specialization of firms compared with the width of digital finance coverage and the level of financial digitization. Digital finance mainly improves the level of vertical specialization of firms by reducing transaction costs and increasing the market thickness of the intermediate products. Moreover, digital finance has certain heterogeneity in promoting the vertical specialization of firms, an effect that is more significant in the eastern region, manufacturing industry and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The first limitation is the mechanism test. This research only analyzes the mechanism from transaction cost and the market thickness of the intermediate products. With the rapid development of information technology, digital finance will be further integrated into people's production and life. There will then be more mechanisms that should be explored between digital finance and the vertical specialization of firms. Another limitation is the data sample of this paper. The conclusions of this research are based only on the data of listed companies. However, in the authors' opinion, the specialization level of small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) should be higher. Therefore, the conclusions of this work are underestimated, which can be considered as the lower limit of digital finance for enterprise specialization.

As a favorable financing channel to supplement traditional financial service functions, digital finance plays a critical role in the operating efficiency of enterprises and the effective allocation of macro resources. The authors' research shows that digital finance has significantly improved the vertical specialization of firms. This conclusion provides guides to improve the production efficiency of enterprises and the quality of economic development.

This paper has three main contributions. (1) The relationship between financial development and the vertical specialization of firms is innovatively discussed from the perspective of digital finance, which implies that digital finance can effectively promote the level of vertical specialization of firms. (2) This paper provides new perspectives and ideas to reveal the impact mechanism of digital finance on the real economy by systematically analyzing the mechanism of digital finance on the vertical specialization of firms from the perspectives of transaction costs and financing constraints. (3) The regional differences in the development of digital finance, industry differences in the vertical specialization of firms and differences in the nature of enterprise property rights are all under consideration, which improves the effectiveness and pertinence of digital finance in promoting the vertical specialization of firms.