The tune of Chinese Culture By Xuefeng Pan What's the tune of Chinese Culture? and How to Perceive it if it does exist? For sure, any culture should have its own tune, including chinese culture. What's Chinese Culture then? Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest cultures. The area in which the culture is dominant covers a large geographical region in eastern Asia with customs and traditions varying greatly between provinces, cities, and even towns. Important components of Chinese culture include literature, music, visual arts, martial arts, cuisine, religion etc. (from wikipeddia) However, these literature, music, visual arts, martial arts, cuisine, religion etc. are all about e xternal phenomena (visible forms), There should be a spirit hidden in the bottom？ What's this spirit? 天行健, 君子以自强不息, 地势坤, 君子以厚德载物? (Heaven runs strong, a gentleman should always make self-improvement ( As Heaven maintains vigor through movement, a gentleman should constantly strive for self-perfection.” –《I CHING》 ）and 地势坤, 君子以厚德载(the momentum of land is generous and rolls , a gentleman should thickening virtue, and boatloads of things) So to be a chinese man, one should always strive for self-perfection, while thicking virtue, and boatloads everything. This may be the highest and the lowest tones of chinese culture, respectively. Between these, it should be 中庸”（Golden Mean）. Therefore, the highest heaven , the lowest Land , and Golden Mean in between Constitute a tune of Chinese culture.
Safety culture is an important topic for managers in high-hazard industries because a deficient safety culture has been linked to organizational accidents. Many researchers have argued that trust plays a central role in models of safety culture but trust has rarely been measured in safety culture/climate studies. This article used explicit (direct) and implicit (indirect) measures to assess trust at a UK gas plant. Explicit measures assessed trust by asking workers to consider and state their attitude to attitude objects... Calvin Burns , et al. Explicit and Implicit Trust Within Safety Culture Explicit and Implicit Trust Within Culture ( Citations: 11 ) Calvin Burns , Kathryn Mearns , Peter McGeorge Safety culture is an important topic for managers in high-hazard industries because a deficient safety culture has been linked to organizational accidents. Many researchers have argued that trust plays a central role in models of safety culture but trust has rarely been measured in safety culturesol;climate studies. This article used explicit (direct) and implicit (indirect) measures to assess trust at a UK gas plant. Explicit measures assessed trust by asking workers to consider and state their attitude to attitude objects. Implicit measures assessed trust in a more subtle way by using a priming task that relies on automatic attitude activation. The results show that workers expressed explicit trust for their workmates, supervisors, and senior managers, but only expressed implicit trust for their workmates. The article proposes a model that conceptualizes explicit trust as part of the surface levels of safety culture and implicit trust as part of the deeper levels of safety culture. An unintended finding was the positive relationship between implicit measures of trust and distrust, which suggests that trust and distrust are separate constructs. The article concludes by considering the implications for safety culture and trust and distrust in high-hazard industries. Journal: Risk Analysis - RISK ANAL , vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1139-1150, 2006 DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00821.x
The nature of safety culture: a reviewof theory and research F.W. Guldenmund Safety Science Group, DelftUniversity of Technology, Kanaalweg 2b, NL-2628 EB Delft, The Netherland The nature of safety culture.pdf
In their editorial titled “ China’s Research Culture” (Yigong Shi and Yi Rao, Science, 2010, 329, 1128), Shi and Rao pointed out the major drawback in China’s research that the building a good connection with bureaucrats and their favorite scientists, also called the evaluation experts in China, is more important than doing high quality research. At the end of the editorial, Shi and Rao made a very good suggestion for an improved funding process for the future. However, in my opinion, their suggestion will be a nice wish that will not come true in the framework of the culture. The reason is that they did not put forward an effective way to break the current conventions. In fact, most researchers know the China’s research culture and have a love-hate relationship with it. They often criticize the culture in public but try to find ways to integrate themselves into the culture on the sly. They almost totally attribute the generation of this clique culture to the bureaucratic management system. Unfortunately, they are barking on the wrong tree. The generation of the culture cannot be attributed only to bureaucrats, although a lot of people like to think so. The basic rule of bureaucrats is not to make mistakes and not to make decisions that will jeopardize their careers. However, they shoulder heavy responsibilities that make substantial demands on their personal abilities. They need scientists to share their heavy responsibilities through the use of a peer-review system consisting of panels of the experts. They can make their decisions on the proposed grant applications based on the evaluations of the quality of the proposal scientists. In this system, all mistakes will be attributed to the panels as a whole but not to any individual, which will not jeopardize the careers of either the bureaucrats or the experts. Thus, it is really the group of the experts that has led to the china’s current research culture. Since those experts take away the major responsibilities from the bureaucrats, they obtain privileges in return. For example, they have the chance to determine the annual funding guidelines based on their own fields of studies, which is the reason why Shi and Rao complained about the narrowly defined guidelines. They often approve the grant applications of persons who have good connections with them instead of basing decisions on the scientific merit of the proposals, demonstrating other researchers the importance of making good connections with the panel members. Some of them take the opportunity to punish their detractors simply by rejecting their grant applications year after year exposing the darker side of this culture. The reason that those experts can perform above ways is that the China’s peer-review system of grant application has both open and closed characteristics. When grant application reviewing starts, the names of the experts should be kept secret to prevent favor-seeking of people with grant proposals under review. Ironically, their names are soon known by most of researchers in this way and another. On the other hand, the experts can give any comments on a grant application whether they know the scientific merits or not. The authoritative of the experts will not be challenged because the applicants will never know the comments come from which of the experts when they finally get a feedbacks on their applications. Every year, some researchers publish the feedbacks on their grant application over the internet but this action has no effect on improving the system because of the special research culture. The major issue is that the experts are busy establishing the connections instead of concentrating on scientific study. Some of them cannot stay current with developments in their own study field and thus lose the ability to evaluate some proposals. However, their positions will not be changed because of their relation with the bureaucrats. Any attempt to change the culture by changing the bureaucrats’ system will encounter tremendous resistance because it will threaten the authority of the Government. It is not a realistic option to abandon the peer-review system because most of the experts are qualified and believable. On the face of it, there seems no way to change the bad culture. Fortunately, there is a potential way to remodel the China’s research culture. Based on the present situation, the best way is to establish an open peer-review system. In the system, both the names of the experts and their comments on grants applications are open to all researchers. Their evaluations will be analyzed by all researchers, which forces the experts to focus on the scientific merits of the grants applications instead of personal connections. I am sure that the experts will get admirations from other researchers instead of feuds if they really provide sound scientific evaluation of the grants applications no matter from whom the application are submitted. This kind of system will not impair the management of bureaucrats so should not be objections from the Government. We will not worry about the candidates of the peer-review system either. There are a large number of scientists who have both integrity and capacity. They are the people who can remodel the China’s research culture.
突然看到这篇文章。对重测序的RIL来进行QTL定位比较感兴趣。作个记号 Plant Cell Rep. 2013 Jan;32(1):103-16. doi: 10.1007/s00299-012-1345-6. Epub 2012 Oct 12. Identification of QTLs associated with tissue culture response through sequencing-based genotyping of RILs derived from 93-11 × Nipponbare in rice (Oryza sativa). Li S, Yan S, Wang AH, Zou G, Huang X, Han B, Qian Q, Tao Y. SourceThe College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, 388 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, China, sujuanli2001@163.com . Abstract KEY MESSAGE : The performance of callus induction and callus differentiation was evaluated by 9 indices for 140 RILs; 2 major QTLs associated with plant regeneration were identified. In order to investigate the genetic mechanisms of tissue culture response, 140 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from 93-11 (Oryza sativa ssp. indica) × Nipponbare (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica) and a high quality genetic map based on the SNPs generated from deep sequencing of the RIL genomes, were used to identify the quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with in vitro tissue culture response (TCR) from mature seed in rice. The performance of callus induction was evaluated by indices of induced-callus color (ICC), induced-callus size (ICS), induced-callus friability (ICF) and callus induction rate (CIR), respectively, and the performance of callus differentiation was evaluated by indices of callus proliferation ability (CPA), callus browning tendency (CBT), callus greening ability (CGA), the average number of regenerated shoots per callus (NRS) and regeneration rate (%, RR), respectively. A total of 25 QTLs, 2 each for ICC, ICS, ICF, CIR and CBA, 3 for CPA, 4 each for CGA, NRS and RR, respectively, were detected and located on 8 rice chromosomes. Significant correlations were observed among the traits of CGA, NRS and RR, and QTLs identified for these three indices were co-located on chromosomes 3 and 7, and the additive effects came from both Nipponbare and 93-11, respectively. The results obtained from this study provide guidance for further fine mapping and gene cloning of the major QTL of TCR and the knowledge of the genes underlying the traits investigated would be very helpful for revealing the molecular bases of tissue culture response. 。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。 Mapping 49 quantitative trait loci at high resolution through sequencing-based genotyping of rice recombinant inbred lines. Wang L, Wang A, Huang X, Zhao Q, Dong G, Qian Q, Sang T, Han B. Theor Appl Genet . 2011 Feb;122(2):327-40. doi: 10.1007/s00122-010-1449-8. Epub 2010 Sep 28.
美国微软全国广播公司报道，音乐的创作如同生物进化，适者生存规则同样适用。近日，英国科学家创建了达尔文音乐引擎，它包含一些随机生成的短声音。6931名参与者试听了这些音乐，并对它们的美感进行评分。在自然选择下，经过约2500代后，这些声音从噪音变成了吸引人的音乐。 It has also given us the splendours of human culture. This may seem like a bold claim, but it is self-evidently true. People copy cultural artifacts – words, songs, images, ideas – all the time from other people. Copying is imperfect: there is "mutation". Some cultural mutants do better than others: most die but some are immensely successful; they catch on; they become hits. This process, repeated for fifty thousand years, has given us all that we make, say and do; it is the process of "cultural evolution". PNAS Paper http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/06/12/1203182109 Darwin Tunes http://darwintunes.org/
Fornew readers and those who request to be “ 好友 good friends” please read my 公告 栏 first. “UnderstandingAmerica” is a endeavor for which some scholars spend entire lifetimes to study;academic disciplines – American study – are named after; fascinatingdiscussions by other nationals ; and no doubt of great interest to many Chineseand students/parents planning to come to the US. Of course, one can alwaysacquire some understanding by going to a library for books written on thesubject, or try to read a US newspaper everyday for an extended period of time,or simply be totally immersed in living in the US for several years. However,when can you say you really understand the American popular culture? I submitthere is one test given every weekday night that one can take as a gauge to measurethat knowledge. This is the comic monologue ( 單人相聲 ) delivered onthe TONIGHT TV show by the host every weekday night at 11:30 pm. The monologueis a rapid fire series of one sentence jokes on a mixture of current events,world affairs, celebrity gossips and other popular topics of the day. If youcan follow and appreciate these jokes, then you can truly claim to be a wellinformed person that understands America. This is because you not only need tobe well informed, but also understand English perfectly as well as some ofsubtleties of the language, and know what is currently popular in the US. Eventhe audience of the show sometimes will miss a joke and do not laugh. Then thehost will simply add a supplemental joke deprecating himself, the staff whodreamed up the joke, or even occasionally the audience for being too slow. The “Tonight” show from the National BroadcastCompany (NBC) is the longest running talk show at the 11:30 pm slot in Americasince the 1950s. Its most famous host was the late Johnny Carson who did theshow for some 30+ years. During the height of its success, NBC decided toexport the show to Britain believing with the same language it should bepopular there also. It was a dismal failure since the British simply cannotfollow or appreciate the humor in the comic opening monologue by the host –another piece of experimental evidence of my thesis that this is a test ofreally understanding American culture. For myself, I only begin to like the monologueafter some 15 years living in the US in the mid 60s. Nowadays, I often watchthe 5 minute monologue of the show in bed immediately after the 11 o’clock newsand weather before turning off the light and go to sleep .
Evolution: Adapted to culture Mark Pagel 1 Journal name: Nature Volume: 482 , Pages: 297–299 Date published: (16 February 2012) DOI: doi:10.1038/482297a Published online 15 February 2012 Mark Pagel proposes that our ability to share and build on ideas is what made us human. Subject terms: Culture Evolution Society Article tools Print Email Download PDF Download citation Order reprints Rights and permissions Share/bookmark Connotea Cite U Like Facebook Twitter Delicious Digg SUMMARY A capacity for culture makes humans unique Transmitting technology and skills is our strategy for survival We became ultra-social through visual theft, the stealing of others' ideas Language evolved from a need to negotiate Evolution has honed the range of our talents What made us human? I propose that the development of a unique capacity for culture around 200,000 years ago was the defining event in the evolution of modern humans. A fast-paced evolutionary process emerged, which by 60,000 years ago had propelled modern humans out of Africa in small tribal societies to occupy and re-shape the world in just a few tens of thousands of years. Culture became our strategy for survival. Our ability to learn from others and to transmit and build on knowledge, technology and skills might be the most potent trait the world has seen for converting new lands and resources into more humans. Whereas other species are confined to the environments their genes have adapted them to, we have adapted to nearly every environment on Earth. J. HUNT, COEUR D'ALENE PRESS/AP In many indigenous cultures, including that of the Coeur d'Alene tribe, dance is used to transmit stories and teachings on to younger generations. Humans today, I suggest, are the descendants of those who were best at using this social juggernaut to advance their interests. The defining features of our nature — our ultra-sociality and language plus various innate talents and skills — arose as adaptations to living in the prosperous social environment of human culture, not from our shared history with other animals. Our capacity for culture rests on two building blocks that together create an unbridgeable gap in evolutionary potential between us and all other species: social learning and 'theory of mind'. Through social learning, we can copy new behaviours merely by observing others. And with our theory of mind we can attribute mental states to others, allowing us to guess or understand their motives. We can then choose to copy the actions, ideas or inventions that have the best outcomes. Both characteristics may be unique to humans. What looks like social learning in other animals could be little more than socially influenced learning that makes use of behaviours already present in an animal's repertoire 1 . For instance, chimpanzees manipulate things with their hands, so when one chimp uses a rock to crack open nuts, or a stick to fish for termites, another might be drawn to playing with rocks or sticks. That might by chance lead to a nut being cracked open or a termite retrieved. The reward would then reinforce the behaviour even though there was no direct imitation. “Our species's history is the progressive triumph of cooperation over conflict.” Some birds modify their behaviour when they know they are being observed by others of their species — as if 'aware' that the observer might use the knowledge it gains to its advantage. Thus, when a nutcracker bird sees another bird watching it while it hides its food, it will return alone later to hide the food in a new spot. This behaviour, also seen in other corvids, is intriguing, but it may just be a predisposition to respond to a learned behaviour; there is no good evidence beyond humans for a theory of mind 2 , 3 . In fact, most human two-year-olds show a greater understanding of others' beliefs than even adult apes do. The upshot is that although some animals seem to have what we might call cultural 'traditions' — birds pecking at milk-bottle tops to get cream, for instance, or chimpanzees cracking open nuts with rocks — these habits do not evolve or improve over time 3 . Even after a million years, they will still be using the same techniques — unless they acquire true social learning and a theory of mind 4 . By comparison, human societies evolve steadily through cumulative cultural adaptation. Our knowledge, skills and technologies accumulate improvements and produce variety, as people imitate each other, choose from and modify existing forms and combine objects to make new ones 5 — when a shaped club was combined with a hand-axe, for example, the first hafted axe was born. The result is complex and varied culture that resembles animal cultural traditions about as much as a Bach cantata resembles a gorilla beating on its chest. Visual theft This capacity for improvement demanded changes that are not observed anywhere else in nature. Altruism is one example. Humans cooperate with unrelated individuals and perform acts of generosity that might not be repaid. We trade and exchange things, but we also hold doors open for people, give up seats on trains, contribute to charities and risk our lives by pulling someone from a burning building or fighting in a war. We are oddly group-focused: happy to wear silly matching shirts to sporting events, or paint our faces in the colours of our national flag, and keenly affected by the loss of our soldiers in battle. Who can forget images of Japan's fabled kamikaze warriors? You do not see this in chimpanzees. In the rest of the animal kingdom, cooperation is generally confined to helping relatives. The theory of kin selection explains why: actions that support your relatives benefit copies of your genes. But this theory is mute in the face of the human propensity to help strangers. We should therefore consider humans as 'ultra-social', having broken free of the usual genetic constraints on altruism. Why do we behave in these ways? I suggest that around 160,000–200,000 years ago our capacity for culture created a social crisis to which ultra-sociality was the evolutionary solution. That crisis was visual theft 4 — the capacity to steal others' ideas. Because we can learn simply by watching others, knowledge is available to everyone and cultures can evolve and adapt at great speed. But if I watch which lure you use to catch a fish or how you haft a hand-axe, I benefit from your ingenuity as much as you do, possibly even more, because you had to spend time tinkering before you arrived at the solution I am now copying. I might even catch that fish before you do. A. YOUNG-JOON/AP Humans are uniquely group-focused: many will deck themselves out in their team's colours. Thus, once a species acquires social learning, it becomes advantageous to keep the best ideas secret, lest they be stolen. This is illustrated today in our reluctance to share ideas — whether they be old family recipes, knowledge of fishing lures or new scientific or business plans — and also in our many patents and copyrights. But hiding the best innovations would have brought cumulative cultural adaptation to a halt and caused our fledgling societies to collapse under the weight of suspicion and rancour. To avoid this outcome, we had to evolve the social rules and psychology that make it possible for people to exchange their ideas, knowledge and technology without undue fear of being exploited. A great emphasis was then placed on demonstrating your own — and gauging others' — worthiness, because knowledge and technology were now held collectively by the social group, which wouldn't want to share them with cheats or competitors. The many peculiar acts of altruism that describe our ultra-social nature evolved as costly ways for us to demonstrate our commitment, and thus our worthiness, to our cooperative group. The clearest way to show others that you are an altruist is to behave altruistically. The good reputations we earn attract altruism from others, which in turn grants us access to the material and social rewards of our communities. We take our ultra-sociality for granted, but once such a system got going we had no choice but to become altruism 'show-offs', to compete with others for a slice of the cooperative pie. Our ultra-helpful nature is the altruism equivalent of a peacock's tail, except that the peacock uses his tail to attract a mate — we use our altruism to secure the spoils of cooperation. Other unique features of our psychology, including our norms and morality, our expectation of fairness and our tendency towards 'moralistic aggression' — punishing people who violate social rules — are emotions and social mechanisms we evolved to police those who might be tempted to exploit this fragile cooperative system. Something to talk about Human language differs from the grunts, chirrups, roars, odours, chest thumping and colourful displays of the rest of the animal kingdom in that it is compositional. We speak in sentences made from discrete sounds — words — that take the role of subjects, objects and verbs. Some animals make noun-like sounds — vervet monkeys can signal the approach of ground-based versus aerial predators — but only humans have been proven to use sentences. Why? A number of ancient features of our anatomy and behaviour, such as our finely coordinated facial muscles or our primate tendencies to gesture, might have contributed to elements of our language 6 . But they do not explain why it evolved. I suggest that the complicated forms of cooperation and exchange we evolved to defuse the crisis of visual theft demanded a social technology for handling our deals, for coordinating our activities, for negotiating agreements and for broadcasting our reputations 4 . Language is that piece of social technology. We acquired language because we were the only species with enough to talk about to pay for this expensive apparatus and the time and energy it takes to learn to use it. Lacking our social complexity, other animals don't need language, but human societies probably could not exist without it. BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY Our ability to build on and modify inventions has given us a selective advantage. Even the simplest acts of exchange depend on language. Imagine you are good at making bows and I am good at making arrows, but our species has no language. I give you some arrows hoping you will give me bows in return. But you smile and, thinking my arrows are a gift, take them and walk off. I chase you, a scuffle ensues and I get stabbed with one of my own arrows. Now replay that scene with both actors having language: a cooperative and peaceful deal can be reached. Research shows that the Neanderthals had the same version of a segment of DNA, known as FOXP2 , that we do, and that has been implicated in the fine motor movements we use for speaking, leading many to suggest that Neanderthals, too, had language. Yet little in the archaeological record points to cumulative cultural adaptation in the Neanderthals 7 — no musical instruments, no art, no fish-hooks or spear throwers. They did not even sew clothes. From the rule of visual theft, I suggest this dearth of culture tells us that the Neanderthals did not have language. Their human-like FOXP2 might have given them better communication abilities than other mammals, but in explaining the appearance of language we must look for the need for it, not just for pieces of anatomy or genes — some birds, for example, can mimic human speech, but do not share our version of FOXP2 . Domesticated by culture Humans have a surprisingly large range of abilities. Some of us are good at music, others at mathematics, design, language or sport, and all of these have been shown to have a significant genetic component 8 . Now, natural selection is the process by which some genetic varieties survive at the expense of others. It favours melodic singers among songbirds, and fast runners among lions and their antelope prey — poor singers remain lovelorn (and childless) and slow runners hungry or dead. We might therefore expect differences among us to get erased by natural selection. How, then, can we explain the diversity of human skills? I believe that this variety is yet another consequence of our capacity for culture. Once our cooperative systems made it possible for people to exchange skills, goods and services, those who specialized at what they did best would have had the most to trade with others. In no other species is this possible, because no other species practises such a division of labour among unrelated individuals. Our cultures domesticated and sorted us by our various talents, encouraging the skills to co-exist 4 . It is a scenario we should recognize, having inflicted it onto countless domesticated animals, notably dogs. Breeds ranging from chihuahuas to Newfoundlands bear the genetic marks of having evolved specialized temperaments, skills and morphologies in response to the social environment of human whims. Our genes might have been equally content to specialize to the opportunities our societies created, and if so, this could have implications that are relevant for contemporary society. Most of us support the societal goal of ensuring equality of opportunity. But if people have different innate skills, then such a policy could produce a 'genetic meritocracy', a society differentiated by innate predispositions. The modern world There is evidence of an upturn beginning around 40,000 years ago in the degree of positive selection acting on our genes 9 , and involving hundreds of them 10 . It may not be an accident that this coincided with a flourishing of human culture as seen in an explosion of artefacts, art and musical instruments, and in our occupation of the world. These fast-evolving genes constitute our wiring for culture, and they can be identified using the same methods that isolate the genes that cause medical problems. Modern societies differ vastly from the small tribes that once competed to occupy Earth. But the old psychology plays out well in our globalized multicultural world. Our species's history is the progressive triumph of cooperation over conflict as people recognized that cooperation could return greater rewards than endless cycles of betrayal and revenge. In a diverse world, the key to promoting this cooperation is to create among people a greater sense of trust and shared values that goes beyond the highly imprecise markers of ethnic or cultural differences. This is the social glue that has fostered our ultra-sociality and can continue to do so.
An organotypic slice culture model of chronic white matter injury with maturation arrest of oligodendrocyte progenitors. References 1. Wilke S, Thomas R, Allcock N, Fern R: Mechanism of acute ischemic injury of oligodendroglia in early myelinating white matter: the importance of astrocyte injury and glutamate release. J Neuropath Exp Neurol 2004, 63:872-881. 2. Back SA, Luo NL, Mallinson RA, O’Malley JP, Wallen LD, Frei B, Morrow JD, Petito CK, Roberts CT Jr, Murdoch GH, Montine TJ: Selective vulnerability of preterm white matter to oxidative damage defined by F2- isoprostanes. Ann Neurol 2005, 58:108-120. 3. Back SA, Han BH, Luo NL, Chricton CA, Xanthoudakis S, Tam J, Arvin KL, Holtzman DM: Selective vulnerability of late oligodendrocyte progenitors to hypoxia-ischemia. J Neurosci 2002, 22:455-463. 4. Segovia KN, McClure M, Moravec M, Luo NL, Wan Y, Gong X, Riddle A, Craig A, Struve J, Sherman LS, Back SA: Arrested oligodendrocyte lineage maturation in chronic perinatal white matter injury. Ann Neurol 2008, 63:520-530. 5. Fancy SP, Kotter MR, Harrington EP, Huang JK, Zhao C, Rowitch DH, Franklin RJ: Overcoming remyelination failure in multiple sclerosis and other myelin disorders. Exp Neurol 2010, 225:18-23. 6. Huang Z, Liu J, Cheung PY, Chen C: Long-term cognitive impairment and myelination deficiency in a rat model of perinatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. Brain Res 2009, 1301:100-109. 7. Skripuletz T, Bussmann JH, Gudi V, Koutsoudaki PN, Pul R, Moharregh- Khiabani D, Lindner M, Stangel M: Cerebellar cortical demyelination in the murine cuprizone model. Brain Pathol 2010, 20:301-312. 8. Anderson JM, Hampton DW, Patani R, Pryce G, Crowther RA, Reynolds R, Franklin RJ, Giovannoni G, Compston DA, Baker D, Spillantini MG, Chandran S: Abnormally phosphorylated tau is associated with neuronal and axonal loss in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis. Brain 2008, 131:1736-1748.
Two studies investigated the impact of culturally instilled folk theories on the perception of physical events. In Study 1, Americans and Chinese with no formal physics education were found to emphasize different causes in their explanations for eight physical events, with Americans attributing them more to dispositional factors (e.g., weight) and less to contextual factors (e.g., a medium) than did Chinese. In Study 2, Chinese Americans identity as Asians or as Americans was primed before having them explain the events used in Study 1. Asian-primed participants endorsed dispositional explanations to a lesser degree and contextual explanations to a greater degree than did American-primed participants, although priming effects were observed only for students with little physics education. Together, these studies suggest that culturally instilled folk theories of physics produce cultural differences in the perception of physical causality. Keywords: culture; attribution; ethnic identity; physical causality 全文
One potential problem for creativity theory is whether both novelty and appropriateness are equally valid dimensions across cultures. Taking an implicit theory approach, the authors surveyed more than 400 students from Japan, China, and the United States. Using repeated measures scenarios of cooking and textbook products, novelty was found to be important across the three countries for evaluations of creativity. However, the Chinese were more swayed than were the Americans by the novelty manipulation in terms of how much they desired the products. Appropriateness was more important for Americans and Japanese for evaluations of creativity and desire for products. Both novelty and appropriateness had large effects. Rather than relying on assumed country variations, the authors argue that cross-cultural research be used to understand the nature of creativity. 全文
About three months ago, a colleague of mine bought a knockoff (or Shan Zhai in Chinese) cell phone---a very sleek, nice-looking phone with all the bells and whistles, and certainly all the look-and-feel of a brand-named model---only at a fractional cost of the original. The uncanny similarity between the knockoff and the original actually went beyond the look-and-feel: even the brand name imprinted on the phone was almost identical with only one single alphabet difference. I, too, was amazed by the workmanship, even though I knew that the chipset inside it came most likely from outside the mainland China . My colleague was evidently elated by his new possession, showing off his toy whenever he got the chance. Yet his euphoria was short-lived: After about 2 months use, the touch-screen of his phone no longer responded to his instructions, or even frenzied pounding---literally. He eventually gave up and bought another phone. In all likelihood, this annoying incident is not an isolated event. Chances are many of us have encountered numerous similar events, big and small, in our daily lives. After all, many of us may have unwittingly consumed milk or milk powders laced with melamine not long ago. And there were incidences in which people got killed by taking shots of purportedly therapeutic agents. Outside of China, products made in China do not fare much better. We have witnessed recalls of Chinese-made pet food ingredients in the US and tainted toys. Aside from Haier refrigerators, which can be found in Sams Club, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy stores, but not high-end boutique stores, in North America , one can hardly name any other quality Chinese product that is designed and manufactured by a Chinese company. This is certainly incompatible to a nation aspiring to be a superpower. While the clich has it that the Germen and the Japanese are by-the-book people, the quality and superb workmanship of their products are world-renowned. Sony is almost synonymous with high-quality electronic consumer products, just as Mercedes-Benz with quality and luxury cars. Audi, Bayer, Carl Zeiss, Honda, Leica, Mitsubishi, Nikon, Olympus, Siemens, Toyota , Volkswagen, Yamaha, , the list can go on and on. Many products from other western nations are also reputable, too. The heart (engines) and mind (flight-control system) of Chinas first regional jet aircraft ARJ-21, which was launched with great fanfare, are rumored to be imported from the US (GE, Hamilton Sundstrand, Honeywell, Parker Hannifin, Rockwell Collins)---high-tech is certainly a factor but quality also matters here. An excellent reputation is an invaluable asset that can garner premium prices and bring handsome profits for its owners. Admit it or not, the quest for perfection is likely not in our genes. Indeed, when just getting fed and clothed is of top priority, perfection and quality are not likely in our mind. So the meticulous workmanship probably is not our forte. Many products made domestically are either ill-designed or have a sloppy or shoddy workmanship. In the last years Detroit Auto Show, the Chinese cars were derided as the worst of show ( http://blogs.reuters.com/events/2008/01/15/detroit-auto-show-autonation-ceo-calls-chinese-cars-worst-of-show/ ). Yet in a modern society, being cheap and affordable without quality wont go very far, and will ultimately prove to be fatal. The fate of Yugo cars in North America is a primary example. In 1986, Yugo cars, made in the former Yugoslavia , were introduced into the North American market. With an eye-popping price-tag of $3,990, it cost half as much as the next cheapest car, and generated a great deal of interest. Orders poured in, but quickly owners complained of all sorts of problems major and minor. With an irreparably tarnished reputation, the interest in the car quickly dwindled to a halt, and the car was eventually phased out of the market. At one time, the car was called hardly a car at all and became the butt of jokes. One could not help but wonder as why the manufacture of the knockoff cell phone could be a bit less myopic and put some more effort in quality. After all, low quality is simply a death knell to the manufacture and is not sustainable. The boom and bust of Kongs House Wines and Spirits (Kong Fu Jia Jiu) and the collapse of the dairy-product giant San-Lu are the most recent testimonies. True, one can make a quick buck but he could make even much more bucks if more efforts on quality were in place. Needless to say, products with inferior quality and poor workmanship are an enormous waste of resources, only to the benefit of the unscrupulous. But why are such products so rampant and ubiquitous? We have a seemingly insatiable appetite for haute cuisines, exotic and gourmet foodespecially if they are spiced with taxpayers money. Yet ironically we seem to havelittle stomachfor making quality cell phones, medicines, or simply baby formula. Something must be wrong with this culture. Will the growing middle-class change this situation? When there is lax of codes and regulations (and, equally important, their rigorous enforcement) for industry standards and intellectual rights, the unscrupulous would surely cut corners and will surely prey upon those unsuspected whenever possible. Consumers would then pay the price, but ultimately would vent their frustration and even anger towards the regulatory agencies for apparent mismanagement, sheer incompetence, or outright corruption as evidenced by the downfall of Zheng Xiao-Yu, the FDA Tsar of China . Perhaps a cell phone isnt much. Yet the product quality is not merely a matter of making a few more extra RMBs---it could also mean satisfaction or displeasure, health or sickness, or even life and death, to all walks of people. It is also a source of national prideor shame.
标签: Culture
