Doping as a barrier in universal acceptance of esports

PurposeEsports has been emerging as a multi-billion dollar industry by attracting players, viewers, advertisers and investors across the globe. Even though there are plenty of professional titles present, only a few have been considered mainstream due to lack of formal governance mechanisms, presence of corruption and cheating mechanisms. “Doping” is one such practice where the players try to gain unfair advantage over their competitors, causing major hindrance in esports development. This qualitative study would draw insights from their perceptions about different doping mechanisms and possible recommendations to curb them.Design/methodology/approachThis study has analyzed the semi-structured interviews of selected esports professionals to draw insights from their perceptions about different doping mechanisms and possible recommendations to curb them. This qualitative study would explore the content of their interviews for extracting relevant themes and subthemes.FindingsThe findings of this study have made significant contributions to deeply lacking literature about the esports industry and barriers it faces in order to be considered as a legitimate sport. The study has extracted contemporary and new emerging themes about the rising trends in the industry and their impact on society and the way we see sports as a whole. Moreover, this study dwells upon the rampant drug abuse persisting in this industry and how it offers itself as a barrier to the legitimization of esports as a viable global industry.Originality/valueThis study provides an on-ground reality reports on esports and various malpractices rampant in the industry by conducting interviews with various industry professionals and analyzing them through a thematic analysis method using an inductive approach.

The Influence of “Artificial Intelligence + Human–Computer Interaction” on Teachers’ Psychological Changes in Academic Management in Colleges

The purpose was to analyze the psychological changes of teaching staff in the academic management of local colleges, and briefly explore the role of teaching staff in the development of the social economy and colleges. In the environment of artificial intelligence and human–computer interaction (HCI), first, the relevant theories of teaching staffs’ psychological status and the characteristics of teaching staff in college academic management were analyzed and expounded. Next, the way of the questionnaire was selected to analyze the psychology of teaching staff in college academic management at different ages, professional titles, academic qualifications, disciplines, and teaching years. The results showed that the mental health level of college teachers was lower than the current national adult standard; the mental health level of female teachers in colleges was higher than that of male teachers; the p value of mental health of college teachers with different ages, professional titles, education, disciplines, and teaching years was greater than 0.05, indicating that there was no significant difference; the p-value of professional academic and mental health was less than 0.01, indicating that there was a significant correlation, that was, teachers’ professional academic exerted a significant impact on teachers’ mental health. In short, under the background of artificial intelligence and HCI’s rapid development, higher education was moving forward with high quality, and more attention should be paid to the psychological changes of college teaching staff.

The More Complex the More Inefficient: Evidence from Online Health Knowledge Sharing Platform Incentive Mechanism (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Online health knowledge-sharing platforms (OHKSPs) play an increasingly important role in enriching residents’ health knowledge, thus improving their health behaviors. The participation of physicians determines whether the platforms can provide high-quality health knowledge to the public. However, little research has focused on motivating physicians to share more professional health knowledge on the platforms. Understanding physicians’ behavioral intention for professional health knowledge sharing (PHKS) is essential to support the development of OHKSPs and improve public health. OBJECTIVE We examine the relationship between incentives and PHKS in OHKSPs. Specifically, we explore the effects of incentives with different complexities in an OHKSP on the quantity and quality of PHKS. We explore how such effects differ across varying levels of professional titles. METHODS We conducted four field experiments with different incentive strategies in one of China's largest OHKSPs. Monthly panel data of 10,584 physicians were collected from January 2018 to December 2019. An empirical study with a fixed-effect analysis was conducted to test our hypotheses. The time fixed effect and the individual fixed effect were considered to identify incentives' effects on physicians’ PHKS. Additionally, a cross-sectional analysis was performed for a robustness check. RESULTS The results show that the incentive has a significant positive effect on the quantity of physicians’ PHKS (β=0.50012, 0.35167, 0.28337, 0.22899; p<0.01). However, the incentive has a significant negative effect on the quality of physicians’ PHKS (β=-0.12911, -0.12039, -0.10948, -0.07933; p<0.01). We found that the positive effect of incentives with high complexity on the quantity of physicians’ PHKS is significantly smaller than incentives with low complexity (0.22899<0.50012, p<0.01). The absolute value of the negative effect of incentives with high complexity on the quality of physicians’ PHKS is also significantly smaller than incentives with low complexity (-0.12911<-0.07933, p<0.01). Moreover, we found that high professional title positively impacts the effect of incentives with low complexity on both the quantity and the quality of physicians’ PHKS (coefficients are in the same valence). CONCLUSIONS Incentives have a bilateral effect on PHKS, i.e., a positive effect on the quantity of physicians’ contribution and a negative effect on the quality of physicians’ PHKS. Such bilateral switches of PHKS require a balanced state in conjunction with practical implications. Furthermore, the more complex the incentives are, the more inefficient the effects on physicians’ PHKS are. This research also identifies a moderate effect of professional titles on incentives and physicians’ PHKS.

Young hospital pharmacists’ job stress and career prospects amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Background Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic posed a critical threat to public health in the past year and has not been fully controlled so far. The nature of front-line young hospital pharmacists’ occupation puts them at an increased risk of contracting any contagious disease, including COVID-19. Recent survey indicated that hospital pharmacists in China are depressive, hostile amid the pandemic. Aim The present investigation aims to understand the job stress among young hospital pharmacists during the outbreak of COVID-19 and to provide basic information for pharmacy managers to help young fellows to cope with job stress. Method This study is adopting pharmacist job stress questionnaire as the key instrument of data collection through WJX App in mobile phone. Demographic information, career prospects and stress management proposals were obtained synchronously. Quantitative data were processed with SPSS. Significant differences were examined using analysis of variance and Chi-square analysis. Result About 60% of 289 questionnaire respondents complained of job stress (178 respondents). According to the narrative description of the data, young pharmacists’ gender, education background, hospital grade, and specific work post had no significant effect on job stress difference. However, young pharmacists in different age-groups and professional titles showed different job stress. Pharmacists at the age of 31–35 complained more stress than the others. Pharmacists with high professional title (deputy chief pharmacist) complained more stress than the others. About 65% of 289 respondents had long-term plan for their practice, although 61% of young pharmacists felt troubled or worried with their future. As for stress management proposal, almost all young pharmacists hoped to improve their professional identity via raising their wages. Conclusion More than half of young pharmacists suffer from job stress amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in China, and various intervention measures should be taken to relieve the stress and finally improve their social identity.

‘Unfettered Freedom’ Revisited: Hungarian Historical Journals between 1989 and 2018

In his 1992 article, ‘Today, Freedom is Unfettered in Hungary,’ Columbia University history professor István Deák argued that after 1989 Hungarian historical research enjoyed ‘unfettered freedom. Deák gleefully listed the growing English literature on Hungarian history and hailed the ‘step-by step dismantling of the Marxist-Leninist edifice in historiography’ that he associated with the Institute of History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) under the leadership of György Ránki (1930–88). In this article he argued that the dismantling of communist historiography had started well before 1989. Besides celebrating the establishment of the popular science-oriented historical journal, History (História) (founded in 1979) and new institutions such as the Európa Intézet – Europa Institute (founded in 1990) or the Central European University (CEU) (founded in 1991) as turning points in Hungarian historical research, Deák listed the emergence of the question of minorities and Transylvania; anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; as well as the 1956 revolution. It is very true that these topics were addressed by prominent members of the Hungarian democratic opposition who were publishing in samizdat publications: among them János M. Rainer, the director of the 1956 Institute after 1989, who wrote about 1956. This list of research topics implies that other topics than these listed before had been free to research and were not at all political. This logic interiorised and duplicated the logic of communist science policy and refused to acknowledge other ideological interventions, including his own, while also insisting on the ‘objectivity’ of science. Lastly, Deák concluded that ‘there exists a small possibility that the past may be rewritten again, in an ultra-conservative and xenophobic vein. This is, however, only a speculation.’ Twenty years later Ignác Romsics, the doyen of Hungarian historiography, re-stated Deák's claim, arguing that there are no more ideological barriers for historical research. However, in his 2011 article Romsics strictly separated professional historical research as such from ‘dilettantish or propaganda-oriented interpretations of the past, which leave aside professional criteria and feed susceptible readers – and there are always many – with fraudulent and self-deceiving myths’. He thereby hinted at a new threat to the historical profession posed by new and ideologically driven forces. The question of where these ‘dilettantish or propaganda-oriented’ historians are coming from has not been asked as it would pose a painful question about personal and institutional continuity. Those historians who have become the poster boys of the illiberal memory politics had not only been members of the communist party, they also received all necessary professional titles and degrees within the professional community of historians.

Gender Differences in Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance Among Chinese Physicians in Tertiary Public Hospitals

Background: Gender has been associated with job-related experience, including job satisfaction and work-life balance. This study aimed to identify gender differences in job satisfaction and work-life balance among Chinese physicians in a large, nationally representative sample.Methods: A national cross-sectional survey was conducted between March 18 and 31, 2019, using an anonymous online questionnaire. The questionnaire included the short-form MSQ (Chinese version) and a work-life balance item. The demographic and job-related factors were also collected.Findings: In total, 22,128 physicians (9,378 males and 12,750 females) from 144 tertiary public hospitals completed the survey. The overall MSQ score (job satisfaction) was 70.31 ± 12.67, and it was 69.89 ± 13.24 in males, and 70.63 ± 12.22 in females, respectively (p &lt; 0.001). Only 931 (4.21%) physicians were very satisfied with WLB (421 males, 510 females), and 2,534 (11.45%) were rated as satisfied. Age, education, monthly income, working hours, specialty, and professional titles were significantly associated with job satisfaction; while number of children, specialty, professional titles, monthly income, age, working hours were significantly associated with WLB. No significant gender differences were observed in job satisfaction or WLB after controlling confounding factors (both p &gt; 0.05).Interpretation: While many demographic and work-related factors are significantly associated with job satisfaction and WLB, we found no significant gender differences, which is different from many other studies. To improve Chinese physicians' job satisfaction and work-life balance, interventions should be focused on certain specialties and on other modifiable factors, such as income, working hours.

Tendências do Fitness em Portugal para 2021

El Colegio Americano de Medicina Deportiva (ACSM) publica anualmente un estudio que identifica las tendencias mundiales de fitness para el próximo año. El presente estudio reproduce la metodología del estudio de las tendencias del ACSM y pretende caracterizar las tendencias del fitness en Portugal para 2021 según profesionales y estudiantes bien como de practicantes del sector, comparando los resultados con estudios a nivel mundial, europeo y español. Además de la caracterización, se compararon las tendencias entre practicantes y profesionales/estudiantes, y en esta entre géneros, si ejercer o no funciones como profesional y tener el título de Técnico en Ejercicio Físico (TEF), Director Técnico (DT) o no tener título. En este estudio participaron 300 profesionales/estudiantes y 85 practicantes, qué respondieron a un cuestionario online diseñado para tal fin. Los resultados de los profesionales/estudiantes mostraron que las principales tendencias se refieren a licencias (títulos) para profesionales de fitness, empleo de profesionales de fitness certificados, entrenamiento personal, ejercicio para bajar de peso y estilo de vida saludable y cambio de comportamiento. Portugal tiende a estar más en línea con las tendencias europeas que con las mundiales. En la comparación entre profesionales y practicantes hay diferencias en 4 de 42 tendencias. En cuanto al género, se identificaron diferencias significativas en 20 de las 42 tendencias. Comparando los profesionales que realizaban funciones con los que no, se encontraron diferencias en 7 de las 42 tendencias, mientras que entre los títulos profesionales de TEF, DT o sin título profesional se encontraron diferencias en 9 de las 42 tendencias. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) annually publishes a study that identifies worldwide fitness trends for the next year. The present study reproduced the methodology of the study of ACSM trends and intends to characterize the fitness trends in Portugal for 2021 according to professionals/students and clients in the sector, comparing the results with studies at a worldwide, European and Spanish level. In addition to the characterization, the trends between clients and professionals/students were compared, and in this between genders, whether or not to perform functions as a professional and hold the title of Physical Exercise Technician (TEF), Technical Director (DT) or not have title. 300 professionals/students and 85 clients answered an online questionnaire built for this purpose. The results of the professionals/students showed that the main trends concern licenses (titles) for fitness professionals, employ certified fitness professionals, personal training, exercise for weight loss and healthy lifestyle and behaviour change. Portugal tends to be more in line with European trends than worldwide ones. In the comparison between professionals and clients there are differences in 4 out of 42 trends. Regarding gender, significant differences were identified in 20 of the 42 trends. Comparing the professionals who performed functions with those who did not, differences were found in 7 of the 42 trends, while among the professional titles of TEF, DT or without professional title, differences were found in 9 of the 42 trends. O American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) publica anualmente um estudo que identifica as tendências mundiais do fitness para o ano seguinte. O presente estudo reproduziu a metodologia do estudo das tendências do ACSM e pretende caracterizar as tendências do fitness em Portugal para 2021 segundo os profissionais e estudantes do setor bem como os dos praticantes, confrontando os resultados com os estudos a nível mundial, europeu e espanhol. Para além da caracterização, foram comparadas as tendências entre os praticantes e os profissionais/estudantes, e nestes entre géneros, exercer ou não funções enquanto profissional e possuir o título de Técnico de Exercício Físico (TEF), Diretor Técnico (DT) ou não possuir título. Participaram neste estudo 300 profissionais/estudantes e 85 praticantes, que responderam a um questionário online construído para o efeito. Os resultados dos profissionais/estudantes demonstraram que as principais tendências dizem respeito a licenças (títulos) para profissionais de fitness, empregar profissionais de fitness certificados, treino personalizado, exercício para perda de peso e estilo de vida saudável e mudança comportamental. Portugal tende a ir mais ao encontro das tendências europeias, do que das mundiais. Na comparação entre os profissionais/estudantes e os praticantes existem diferenças em 4 das 42 tendências. Em relação ao género foram identificadas diferenças significativas em 20 das 42 tendências. Comparando os profissionais que exerciam funções com os que não exerciam, foram encontradas diferenças em 7 das 42 tendências, enquanto entre os títulos profissionais de TEF, DT ou sem título profissional foram encontradas diferenças em 9 das 42 tendências.

Interpretation of the Japanese Great White Tower Novel from the Perspective of Cognitive Poetics

As the representative of postwar Japanese female writers, Yamazaki Toyoko expressed the theme from her unique perspective, sharp language and realistic techniques, revealing the contradictions and conflicts in Japanese society. Yamazaki constructs the conceptual metaphor of “the system is the white tower” running through the novel, so that readers could gradually change their cognition and realize an unknown confrontation and competition between good and evil in the hospital. The Great White Tower revolves around the medical insider and the dispute between doctors and patients. The characters in the novel are real and full, which well shows the struggle for professional titles, the erosion of human nature. Based on this, from the perspective of cognitive poetics, this paper mainly uses conceptual metaphor, archetypal category theory and event framework theory to interpret the novel and analyzes the characters of novels, explores the themes of novels and reveals the explanatory power of cognitive poetics to literary novels. Through the dynamic construction of the character image and conflict escalation, it is obvious that money-power politics caused by rapid development of capitalist economy, authority worship and excessive power caused by the deep-rooted hierarchical culture also further triggered the pursuit of professors’ authority and the struggle between different interest groups.

(Nie)honoryfikatywne sposoby określania znanych publicznie osób w polskim dyskursie medialnym na Litwie

(Non-)Honorific Ways of Referring to Public Figures in the Polish Media Discourse in LithuaniaThis article focuses on the ways of referring to public figures which involve the use of honorifics when talking about high-ranking representatives of society. In the Polish cultural tradition this function is performed by official and professional titles and the honorific pan/pani ‘mister/misses’. The study analyses designations used by participants of the discussion programme “Szósty dzień tygodnia” [The Sixth Day of the Week], which is broadcast on the Polish Radio “Znad Wilii” [By the Wilia River] in Lithuania. The research material includes 10 radio broadcasts aired in 2015 and 2016, featuring a total of 24 people (the host and 23 guests). The aim of the study is to identify the most frequently applied constructions that consist of personal names and official/professional titles, and to determine different functions of the honorific pan/pani in these constructions. The quantitative analysis makes it possible to identify the frequency of particular constructions and the tendencies prevailing in the media discourse. The qualitative analysis of the collected material reveals a variety of functions performed by the honorific pan/pani. Depending on the formal or pragmatic context, this item may endow a construction with a shade of respect or, conversely, make it derogatory. The female honorific pani firstly has a grammatical function: it is used with the titles and surnames which are masculine in form as the only indicator of female gender (e.g. pani prezydent, pani premier Szydło). (Nie)honoryfikatywne sposoby określania znanych publicznie osób w polskim dyskursie medialnym na LitwieTematem niniejszego artykułu są sposoby określania znanych publicznie osób w użyciu referującym z uwzględnieniem stosowanych środków honoryfikatywności, które przysługują im ze względu na wysoką rangę w hierarchii społecznej. W polskiej tradycji kulturowej taką funkcję pełnią tytuły funkcyjne i profesjonalne oraz jednostka honoryfikatywna pan/pani. Przedmiotem analizy są określenia używane w wypowiedziach referujących w audycji dyskusyjnej „Szósty dzień tygodnia”, emitowanej w polskiej rozgłośni radiowej „Znad Wilii” na Litwie. Podstawę materiałową stanowi 10 pochodzących z lat 2015–2016 audycji, w których uczestniczyły 24 osoby (prowadząca oraz 23 gości programu). Celem badania jest ujawnienie najczęściej stosowanych konstrukcji złożonych z antroponimów i tytułów funkcyjnych / profesjonalnych oraz ukazanie różnych funkcji jednostki pan/pani w analizowanych wyrażeniach. Zastosowanie w badaniu materiału metody ilościowej pozwala ustalić częstotliwość użycia poszczególnych konstrukcji i dominujące w dyskursie medialnym tendencje w tym zakresie. Dzięki analizie jakościowej można ujawnić różne funkcje jednostki leksykalnej pan/pani, która w zależności od uwarunkowań formalnych i pragmatycznych może nadać konstrukcji nie tylko nacechowanie godnościowe, lecz również deprecjonujące. Jednostka rodzaju żeńskiego pani w większości przypadków pełni przede wszystkim funkcję gramatyczną – przy rzeczownikach tytularnych i nazwiskach mających postać męską jest jedynym wyznacznikiem rodzaju żeńskiego, np. pani prezydent, pani premier Szydło.