1,107 research outputs found
The nature of the self, selfâregulation and moral action: implications from the Confucian relational self and Buddhist nonâself
YesThe concept of the self and its relation to moral action is complex and subject to varying interpretations, not only between
different academic disciplines but also across time and space. This paper presents empirical evidence from a cross-cultural study on the Buddhist and Confucian notions of self in SMEs in Vietnam and Taiwan. The study employs Hwangâs Mandala Model of the Self, and its extension into Shiahâs non-self-model, to interpret how these two Eastern philosophical representations of the self, the Confucian relational self and Buddhist non-self, can lead to moral action. By demonstrating the
strengths of the model, emphasizing how social and cultural influences constrain the individual self and promote the social person leading to moral action, the paper extends understanding of the self with empirical evidence of the mechanisms involved in organizational context
The association of osteoarthritis risk factors with localized, regional and diffuse knee pain
SummaryObjectiveTo identify determinants of different patterns of knee pain with a focus on risk factors for knee osteoarthritis (OA).DesignThe Knee Pain Map is an interviewer-administered assessment that asks subjects to characterize their knee pain as localized, regional, or diffuse. A total of 2677 participants from the Osteoarthritis Initiative were studied.We used multinomial logistic regression to examine the relationship between risk factors for OA and knee pain patterns. We examined the bivariate and multivariate relationships of knee pain pattern with age, body mass index (BMI), sex, race, family history of total joint replacement, knee injury, knee surgery, and hand OA.ResultsWe compared 2462 knees with pain to 1805 knees without pain. In the bivariate analysis, age, sex, BMI, injury, surgery, and hand OA were associated with at least one pain pattern. In the multivariate model, all of these variables remained significantly associated with at least one pattern. When compared to knees without pain, higher BMI, injury, and surgery were associated with all patterns. BMI had its strongest association with diffuse pain. Older age was less likely to be associated with localized pain while female sex was associated with regional pain.ConclusionsWe have shown that specific OA risk factors are associated with different knee pain patterns. Better understanding of the relationship between OA risk factors and knee pain patterns may help to characterize the heterogeneous subsets of knee OA
Parameter free calculation of hadronic masses from instantons
We propose a non-perturbative calculation scheme which is based on the
semi-classical approximation of QCD and can be used to evaluate quantities of
interest in hadronic physics. As a first application, we evaluate the mass of
the pion and of the nucleon. Such masses are related to a particular
combination of Green functions which, in some limit, is dominated by the
contribution of \emph{very small-sized} instantons. The size distribution of
these pseudo-particles is determined by the 't Hooft tunneling amplitude
formula and therefore our calculation is free from any model parameters. We
prove that instanton forces generate a light pion and a nucleon with realistic
mass (). In connection with sum-rules approaches, we discuss
the overlap of instantons with pion and nucleon resonances
Understorey plant community and light availability in conifer plantations and natural hardwood forests in Taiwan
Questions: What are the effects of replacing mixed species natural forests with Cryptomeria japonica plantations on understorey plant functional and species diversity? What is the role of the understorey light environment in determining understorey diversity and community in the two types of forest?
Location: Subtropical northeast Taiwan.
Methods: We examined light environments using hemispherical photography, and diversity and composition of understorey plants of a 35âyr C. japonica plantation and an adjacent natural hardwood forest.
Results: Understorey plant species richness was similar in the two forests, but the communities were different; only 18 of the 91 recorded understorey plant species occurred in both forests. Relative abundance of plants among different functional groups differed between the two forests. Relative numbers of shadeâtolerant and shadeâintolerant seedling individuals were also different between the two forest types with only one shadeâintolerant seedling in the plantation compared to 23 seedlings belonging to two species in the natural forest. In the natural forest 11 species of tree seedling were found, while in the plantation only five were found, and the seedling density was only one third of that in the natural forest. Across plots in both forests, understorey plant richness and diversity were negatively correlated with direct sunlight but not indirect sunlight, possibly because direct light plays a more important role in understorey plant growth.
Conclusions: We report lower species and functional diversity and higher light availability in a natural hardwood forest than an adjacent 30âyr C. japonica plantation, possibly due to the increased dominance of shadeâintolerant species associated with higher light availability. To maintain plant diversity, management efforts must be made to prevent localized losses of shadeâadapted understorey plants
Cooling Properties of Cloudy Bag Strange Stars
As the chiral symmetry is widely recognized as an important driver of the
strong interaction dynamics, current strange stars models based on MIT bag
models do not obey such symmetry. We investigate properties of bare strange
stars using the Cloudy Bag Model, in which a pion cloud coupled to the
quark-confining bag is introduced such that chiral symmetry is conserved. We
find that in this model the decay of pions is a very efficient cooling way. In
fact it can carry out most the thermal energy in a few milliseconds and
directly convert them into 100MeV photons via pion decay. This may be a very
efficient -ray burst mechanism. Furthermore, the cooling behavior may
provide a possible way to distinguish a compact object between a neutron star,
MIT strange star and Cloudy Bag strange star in observations.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, accepted by Astroparticle Physics, abstract
appeared here has been shortene
Hadron Masses From Novel Fat-Link Fermion Actions
The hadron mass spectrum is calculated in lattice QCD using a novel fat-link
clover fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators in the fermion
action are constructed using smeared links. The simulations are performed on a
16^3 x 32 lattice with a lattice spacing of a=0.125 fm. We compare actions with
n=4 and 12 smearing sweeps with a smearing fraction of 0.7. The n=4 Fat-Link
Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) action provides scaling which is superior to
mean-field improvement, and offers advantages over nonperturbative 0(a)
improvement, including a reduced exceptional configuration problem.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, new simulation with mean-field improved clover,
further discussion of actio
Instantons and Condensate
We argue that the is similar to .Comment: 6 pages, 1 fig., 1 tab., RevTeX to be use
Instanton Contribution to the Pion Electro-Magnetic Formfactor at Q^2 > 1 GeV^2
We study the effects of instantons on the charged pion electro-magnetic
formfactor at intermediate momenta. In the Single Instanton Approximation
(SIA), we predict the pion formfactor in the kinematic region Q^2=2-15 GeV^2.
By developing the calculation in a mixed time-momentum representation, it is
possible to maximally reduce the model dependence and to calculate the
formfactor directly. We find the intriguing result that the SIA calculation
coincides with the vector dominance monopole form, up to surprisingly high
momentum transfer Q^2~10 GeV^2. This suggests that vector dominance for the
pion holds beyond low energy nuclear physics.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, minor revision
Application of the Maximum Entropy Method to the (2+1)d Four-Fermion Model
We investigate spectral functions extracted using the Maximum Entropy Method
from correlators measured in lattice simulations of the (2+1)-dimensional
four-fermion model. This model is particularly interesting because it has both
a chirally broken phase with a rich spectrum of mesonic bound states and a
symmetric phase where there are only resonances. In the broken phase we study
the elementary fermion, pion, sigma and massive pseudoscalar meson; our results
confirm the Goldstone nature of the pi and permit an estimate of the meson
binding energy. We have, however, seen no signal of sigma -> pi pi decay as the
chiral limit is approached. In the symmetric phase we observe a resonance of
non-zero width in qualitative agreement with analytic expectations; in addition
the ultra-violet behaviour of the spectral functions is consistent with the
large non-perturbative anomalous dimension for fermion composite operators
expected in this model.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figure
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