The Chinese Socio-Cultural Influence on the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China and Its Implications for Foreign Investment: A Critical Analysis

China’s dramatically increasing economic development has established a major presence in the global market since the commencement of its ‘Open Door’ policy in December 1978. An important result of this policy’s implementation was the involvement of foreign direct investment in China’s economic reform. Undoubtedly, foreign investors have begun to play a significant role in the course of China’s economic development. However, foreign investors in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) must deal with a different legal environment to that of their home country and find that the law is different both in appearance and in practice. In this research social and legal issues relating to foreign investors operating in China are used as a starting point to identify the nature and development of the PRC legal system. From a historical and cultural point of view, the reasons for those issues are explored. The study reveals that a feudal political system and the dominance of Confucian culture in China have had a significant effect on the Chinese legal system. The different implications for the concepts of law, and its standing in society are the effects of these factors on the application of law. To comprehend the PRC legal system for foreign investors doing business in China, it will be suggested that it is important to understand Chinese history and culture originating in the particular region. The social standing of law and the nature of its enforcement in practice reflect the PRC legal culture. This thesis begins with issues affecting foreign investors operating in China, accompanied by an analysis of the influence of historical and cultural factors, such as political power and Confucian concepts of law in society. It reveals an important interaction between law and culture affecting the Chinese legal system today. The research includes a survey illustrating how foreign-investment enterprises in the PRC are dealing with the shock of a different legal system and caused by cross-cultural phenomena. Even though legal reform has been undertaken in developing a legal system in China, clearly it is the attitude towards law that has been a primary tool for facilitation of a utilitarian reception of foreign legal institutions. A survey referring to these issues for existing foreign investors has been conducted and the results analysed to explore the relations between cultural and social factors and the development of the legal system in China. It illustrates the interaction between law and culture in the evolution of China’s history. It reveals that is important to have a rational and practical attitude to law in China involving an understanding of the effects of Confucian culture and legalism on the legal system in the course of its evolution. This is a vital ingredient not only for an entry strategy for foreign investment but also for continued operations in China. These issues have illustrated the fact that the function and standing of law are uncertain as a result of different needs of development. This can be traced to Chinese history and the acknowledgement of the place of law in society. The Chinese legal tradition developed from both Confucianism (with its emphasis upon morality) and Legalism (which emphasised the rule of law), and the legal system is characterised by the influence of these two influential and adversarial schools of thought. The Confucian ideology provided the fundamentals for the substance of traditional law and the Legalist school constructed the important framework of the traditional legal system. Although the legalist school and Confucianism were adversarial philosophies in terms of their political ideologies of how Chinese society should be ruled, they certainly shared some important ideas, such as the emperor’s power over all facets of life, including law. However, Chinese imperial law bears a strong Confucian moral character. Confucian morality and imperial law were two parallel behavioural codes that combined to order social conduct in Chinese society. The features of law in a society and at a particular historical stage are shaped not only by the prevailing environment but also by the cultural heritage of that society, even though the role of culture and tradition in shaping the law may be muted, implicit and even unconscious. The emphasis on the emperor’s superior power under the teaching of Confucius is a major tradition in political power in China. A good government is based on virtue and morality but not by law. Certain fundamental features of the traditional legal culture clearly persist in the contemporary legal system and social attitudes towards law. Thus, a legal system must be assessed within its historical and cultural context. This research examines how law in China is created in the light of cultural and historical dimensions. The patriarchal relationship and behavioural norms within the extended family or clan were not only reflected in the power structure of officialdom but also formed the basic foundation and standards for social conformity. Foreign investor operations in China must meet the challenge posed by differences in legal culture and tradition because they will continue to significantly influence the future shaping of the PRC legal system

Oyserman_Online_Appendix – Supplemental material for Upright and Honorable: People Use Space to Understand Honor, Affecting Choice and Perception

Supplemental material, Oyserman_Online_Appendix for Upright and Honorable: People Use Space to Understand Honor, Affecting Choice and Perception by Ying Lin and Daphna Oyserman in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</p

Selective sensing of a heterogeneous population of units with dynamic health conditions

<p>Monitoring a large number of units whose health conditions follow complex dynamic evolution is a challenging problem in many healthcare and engineering applications. For instance, a unit may represent a patient in a healthcare application or a machine in a manufacturing process. Challenges mainly arise from: (i) insufficient data collection that results in limited measurements for each unit to build an accurate personalized model in the prognostic modeling stage; and (ii) limited capacity to further collect surveillance measurement of the units in the monitoring stage. In this study, we develop a selective sensing method that integrates prognostic models, collaborative learning, and sensing resource allocation to efficiently and economically monitor a large number of units by exploiting the similarity between them. We showcased the effectiveness of the proposed method using two real-world applications; one on depression monitoring and another with cognitive degradation monitoring for Alzheimer’s disease. Comparing with existing benchmark methods such as the ranking-and-selection method, our fully integrated prognosis-driven selective sensing method enables more accurate and faster identification of high-risk individuals.</p

sj-docx-1-sgo-10.1177_21582440221085270 – Supplemental material for Biosafety Management Risk Analysis for Clinical Departments of Military Central Hospitals in the Fujian Province of China

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-sgo-10.1177_21582440221085270 for Biosafety Management Risk Analysis for Clinical Departments of Military Central Hospitals in the Fujian Province of China by Xiaoxiao Li, Maihong He, Xian Lin and Ying Lin in SAGE Open</p

Ultrahigh Loading of Nanoparticles into Ordered Block Copolymer Composites

Phase selective, ultrahigh loading of nanoparticles into target domains of block copolymer composites was achieved by blending the block copolymer hosts with small molecule additives that exhibit strong interactions with one of the polymer chain segments and with the nanoparticle ligands via hydrogen bonding. The addition of d-tartaric acid to poly­(ethylene oxide-<i>block</i>-<i>tert</i>-butyl acrylate) (PEO-<i>b</i>-PtBA) enabled the loading of more than 150 wt % of 4-hydroxythiophenol-functionalized Au nanoparticles relative to the mass of the target domain (PEO + tartaric acid), which corresponds to greater than 40 wt % Au by mass of the resulting well-ordered composite as measured by thermal gravimetric analysis. The additive, tartaric acid, performs three important roles. First, as evidenced by small-angle X-ray scattering, it significantly increases the segregation strength of the block copolymer via selective interaction with the hydrophilic PEO block. Second, it expands the PEO block and enhances the number and strength of enthalpically favorable interactions between the nanoparticle ligands and the host domain. Finally, it mitigates entropic penalties associated with NP incorporation within the target domain of the BCP composite. This general approach provides a simple, efficient pathway for the fabrication of well-ordered organic/nanoparticle hybrid materials with the NP core content over 40 wt %

Additional file 2 of Machine learning methods to predict 30-day hospital readmission outcome among US adults with pneumonia: analysis of the national readmission database

Additional file 2. Study Cohort Derivation and Characteristics

Image_1_Characteristics of cardiac involvement in immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy.jpeg

ObjectiveTo investigate the characteristics of cardiac involvement due to Immune-mediated Necrotizing Myopathy (IMNM).MethodsPatients diagnosed with Immune-mediated Necrotizing Myopathy (IMNM) who attended the Department of Neurology and the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology at the First Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital between February 2011 and June 2022 were collected. Clinicopathological diagnosis of IMNM was performed according to the criteria established by the European Neuromuscular Center (ENMC). All patients underwent muscle biopsy and Myositis-specific antibodies (MSAs) testing. Information included age, gender, disease duration, intramuscular and extramuscular manifestations, laboratory findings (including creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase levels, troponin T, myoglobin and atrial natriuretic peptide), electromyography, skeletal muscle pathology and immunohistochemical staining.ResultsA total of 57 patients were included in this study. Of the serological tests, 56.1% (32/57) were positive for SRP, 21.1% (12/57) were positive for HMGCR and 22.8% (13/57) were seronegative. Thirty patients (52.6%, 30/57) presented with varying degrees of cardiac involvement. We performed ECG in 23 patients and found 6 patients with arrhythmia (26.1%), 12 patients with myocardial ischemia (52.2%), and 7 patients with acute coronary syndrome (ST elevation and non-ST elevation myocardial infarction) (30.4%), and 4 patients with left axis deviation or left ventricular high voltage, suggesting left ventricular hypertrophy (17.4%). Cardiac ultrasound was performed in 14 patients and 3 showed pericardial effusion (21.4%); Decreased left ventricular ejection fraction and atrial enlargement were 2 each; 8 showed a decrease in left ventricular diastolic function (57.1%). In addition, one patient had myocardial edema.ConclusionCardiac involvement is not uncommon in IMNM. However, besides clearly statistically significant differences in the disease course, and in the values of troponin T and myoglobin, our data did not show any statistically significant difference in other features of cardiac involvement between patients with different subtypes of IMNM.</p

Additive-Driven Self-Assembly of Well-Ordered Mesoporous Carbon/Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Composites for Supercapacitors

Ordered mesoporous carbon/iron oxide composites were prepared by cooperative self-assembly of poly­(<i>t</i>-butyl acrylate)-block-polyacrylonitrile (PtBA-<i>b</i>-PAN), which contains both a carbon precursor block and a porogen block, and phenol-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs). Because of the selective hydrogen bonding between the phenol-functionalized iron oxide NPs and PAN, the NPs were preferentially dispersed in the PAN domain and subsequently within the mesoporous carbon framework. Ordered mesoporous carbon nanocomposites with Fe₂O₃ NPs mass loadings as high as 30 wt % were obtained upon carbonization at the block copolymer composites at 700 °C. The morphology of the mesoporous composites was studied using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and N₂ adsorption. The results confirmed high-fidelity preservation of morphology of the NP-doped block copolymer composites in the mesoporous carbon composites. The electrochemical performance of the mesoporous composite films improved significantly upon the addition of iron oxide NPs. The specific capacitance (<i>C</i>_g) of neat mesopororous carbon films prepared from PtBA-<i>b</i>-PAN was 153 F/g at a current density of 0.5 A/g, whereas films containing 16 and 30 wt % Fe₂O₃ present as well-dispersed NPs within the mesoporous carbon framework exhibited capacitances of 204 and 235 F/g, respectively. The well-defined mesoporous in the template carbon structure together with high loadings of iron oxide nanoparticles are promising for use in supercapacitor applications

Additional file 1 of Machine learning methods to predict 30-day hospital readmission outcome among US adults with pneumonia: analysis of the national readmission database

Additional file 1. Model Development Parameters and Performance Metrics

Characterization of Guaiene Synthases from Stellera chamaejasme L. Flowers and Their Application in De novo Production of (−)-Rotundone in Yeast

Four terpene synthases for the biosynthesis of volatile terpenoids were identified from the transcriptome of Stellera chamaejasme L. flowers, including SchTPS1, SchTPS2, SchTPS3, and SchTPS4. Their functions were characterized by synthetic biology approaches in Escherichia coli and in vitro enzymatic assays. SchTPS1, SchTPS2, and SchTPS3 are guaiene synthases, while SchTPS4 is an (E,E)-geranyl linalool synthase. Next, SchTPS1 and α-guaiene 2-oxidase VvSTO2 were co-expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to reconstruct the biosynthetic pathway of (−)-rotundone, which is a unique aroma compound in fruits, vegetables, and wines. This is the first report for the construction of a (−)-rotundone-producing microbial platform