Strategyproof Mechanisms For Group-Fair Facility Location Problems

We study the facility location problems where agents are located on a real line and divided into groups based on criteria such as ethnicity or age. Our aim is to design mechanisms to locate a facility to approximately minimize the costs of groups of agents to the facility fairly while eliciting the agents' locations truthfully. We first explore various well-motivated group fairness cost objectives for the problems and show that many natural objectives have an unbounded approximation ratio. We then consider minimizing the maximum total group cost and minimizing the average group cost objectives. For these objectives, we show that existing classical mechanisms (e.g., median) and new group-based mechanisms provide bounded approximation ratios, where the group-based mechanisms can achieve better ratios. We also provide lower bounds for both objectives. To measure fairness between groups and within each group, we study a new notion of intergroup and intragroup fairness (IIF) . We consider two IIF objectives and provide mechanisms with tight approximation ratios

Ultrasound hyperthermia induces apoptosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma : an in vitro study

Hyperthermia is considered an efficient complement in the treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Hyperthermia induces cell apoptosis in a temperature- and time-dependent manner. However, the molecular mechanism of hyperthermia remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism of apoptosis induced by ultrasound hyperthermia in HNSCC cell lines HN-30 and HN-13. We examined the dynamic changes of early apoptosis and secondary necrosis in HN-30 and HN-13 cells treated by hyperthermia at 42°C for 10 min. We further examined mitochondrial membrane potential in vitro by ultrasound hyperthermia for different heating temperatures (38-44°C, 10 min) and heating times (42°C, 10-50 min). After heating by ultrasound at 42°C for 10 min, the apoptosis index achieved its highest level at 8 h after treatment, decreased rapidly and remained constant at a reduced level at 12 h. The level of secondary necrosis increased with the level of early apoptosis but remained at a higher level until 14 h. The level of secondary necrosis correlated with the level of early apoptosis (HN-13: r=0.7523, P=0.0030; HN-30: r=0.6510, P=0.016). The fractions of cells with low mitochondrial membrane potential (??) in the heating-temperature grads group and heating-time grads group decreased significantly over time. Therefore, HN-30 and HN-13 cells developed apoptosis after ultrasound hyperthermia treatment with decreases in the mitochondrial transmembrane potential level. Ultrasound hyperthermia induces apoptosis in HN-30 and HN-13 cells, possibly via the mitochondrial caspase pathway

Negative Parenting Style and Perceived Non-Physical Bullying at School: The Mediating Role of Negative Affect Experiences and Coping Styles

At present, school bullying incidents frequently occur, attracting increased attention from researchers. In this study, we attempt to explore the impact of parenting styles on perceived school non-physical bullying. Four hundred ninety-two students in the fifth and sixth grades of eight primary schools in Zhejiang province were surveyed. To control any potential confounding factors, a randomized sampling survey method was used to distribute questionnaires. The results showed that negative affect experiences, negative coping styles, negative family parenting styles, and the perceived school non-physical bullying were all positively correlated with each other (p < 0.05). Perceived verbal bullying differed significantly by gender, grade, and only/non-only children (p < 0.05). Perceived relationship bullying significantly differed between grades (p < 0.05). The gender difference in perceived cyberbullying also reached a significant level (p < 0.05). The rejection parenting style was shown to be an important factor that may be associated with students’ perceived school non-physical bullying; it was observed to be directly associated with students’ perceived school non-physical bullying and indirectly associated with students’ perceived school non-physical bullying by influencing negative affect experiences and negative coping styles. In conclusion, negative affect experiences and coping styles may have a chain-like mediating effect between the rejection parenting style and students’ perceived school verbal bullying. Moreover, negative affect experiences may have a partial mediating effect between the rejection parenting style and students’ perceived school cyberbullying, relationship bullying, and non-physical bullying total scores. This study provides first-hand empirical data support for schools, families, and education authorities to guide and manage non-physical bullying incidents in schools. They also provide a theoretical basis for subsequent related research in the field of non-physical bullying

Organizational Justice and Teachers’ Turnover Intention in Primary and Secondary Schools: The Importance of Sustainable Salary Management

Primary and middle school teachers are a critical part of China’s foundational education; teacher turnover heavily affects the stable development of foundational education. Aiming at the phenomenon of teacher turnover intention in primary and secondary schools, interviews and questionnaires were used to explore the relationship between teachers’ organizational justice, salary satisfaction, and turnover intention in the management of primary and secondary schools. The research subjects were more than 500 primary and secondary school teachers from Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. The data analysis results show that the sense of interactive fairness is the highest, followed by procedural fairness and the lowest sense of distributional fairness, with a certain sense of unfairness among the three dimensions of organizational fairness among primary and secondary school teachers. The average salary satisfaction score is 2.64, which is lower than the midpoint of 3, and there is a certain degree of dissatisfaction. The results of the correlation analysis showed that the pairwise correlations between the variables reached a very significant level. The results of regression analysis showed that organizational justice had the greatest impact on turnover intention, accounting for 20% of the variance. Salary satisfaction plays a partial mediating role between various dimensions of organizational justice and turnover intention, indicating that procedural fairness, interaction fairness, and distributional justice not only have a direct impact on turnover intention, but also indirectly affect turnover intention by affecting salary satisfaction. The results of this study can provide empirical data support for educational administrative departments and school managers in economically developed regions to improve their compensation management level and implement effective and sustainable compensation management policies and programs, as well as provide first-hand information for cross-country comparative studies of teacher compensation management in the field of education administration

Employees’ Belief in a Just World and Sustainable Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: The Moderating Effect of Interpersonal Intelligence

To both survive and develop continuously, enterprises must overcome many kinds of competition and challenges. Cultivating employees’ active and sustainable organizational citizenship behavior is important for enterprises to successfully cope with turbulence and uncertain events during their development. Building on social exchange theory, this study proposes a theoretical framework. In this framework, belief in a just world has a certain predictive effect on organizational citizenship behavior, and this effect is affected by interpersonal intelligence. In this study, we investigated the development level of and factors influencing employees’ organizational citizenship behavior in current organizations. This research adopted the empirical research method of a questionnaire survey, and investigated 230 employees from 15 different enterprises by using the Belief in a Just World Scale, Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale, and Interpersonal Intelligence Scale. After excluding the questionnaires that did not meet the requirements, a total of 193 valid questionnaires were obtained. To estimate the proposed relationships in the conceptual model, we analyzed the data through SPSS-21. The results showed that belief in a just world, interpersonal intelligence, and organizational citizenship behavior were significantly positively correlated. Interpersonal intelligence played a moderating role between belief in a just world and organizational citizenship behavior; the belief in a just world of individuals with high interpersonal intelligence had a more significant positive predictive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. This meant that under a certain level of belief in a just world, a high level of interpersonal intelligence was more conducive to promoting employees’ sustainable organizational citizenship behavior