In contractual relations, malfeasance is subject to sanction by formal institutions. Trust is widely held to be an informal basis of non-contractual exchange, in which breaches of trust lead to ...exposure, resulting in the perpetrator’s loss of reputation and likely exclusion from future exchanges. The present article, on the other hand, shows that breaches of trust may lead to neither of these outcomes. Interview data reported here show that individuals who experience violations of agreement may develop coping strategies that do not include exposure of betrayal, confronting the trust-breaker, or retaliation. A contribution of the present article is to show that these differences can be conceptualized as involving two possible strategies by the betrayed party: one involving retaliation, directed to public disclosure of the betrayer’s unreliability and possible expulsion from future exchanges; the other is self-management, in which betrayal leads to the betrayed modifying their expectations and behaviour. A second contribution is to show how trust may be sociologically understood as a continuous process, requiring renegotiation, rearticulation, and even redefinition, rather than as a resolved and final commitment.
The enabling and constraining properties of networks, their effects on participants, and their subsequent social consequences have all been extensively explored in a large and growing literature. A ...feature of social network analysis lies in its tendency to deploy structural perspectives in explaining social outcomes. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, this article highlights the ways in which social networks operate as a context in which individual initiative and engagement lead to the making and remaking of network attributes. An empirical examination of business networks in Chinese cities reveals the way in which the formation and maintenance of networks require the conscious contributions of members, how network norms are produced by the expressed preferences of individual members, and finally how network membership involves management of network participants.
Discussion of China’s internal migration typically focuses on the movement of young rural workers to cities and, correspondingly, on the women, children and elderly who remain in villages and small ...towns, the so-called ‘left-behind’. This article fills a gap in the literature by examining the situation of grandparents who join their migrant adult children to facilitate their workforce participation by providing childcare. The article shows how grandparents and their adult children reinterpret and negotiate intergenerational family obligation in constructing their own lives. Based on extensive interview data the article provides a theoretically-informed and empirically-based understanding of intergenerational relations in China’s internal labor migration.
A sparse sociological literature on surnaming reports predominantly western cases. This article examines surnaming practices in present-day China, where married women universally retain their surname ...as part of a national political project. The one-child policy disrupts the practice of providing to a child his/her father’s surname. Wives from daughter-only families increasingly provide their surname to their child(ren). Various social forms of mother-surname-to-child practices are discussed, including those involving zhao-xu (uxorilocal marriage) and liang-tou-dun (‘two places to stay’). The article reports a gender strategy of mother-to-child surnaming that paradoxically enforces patriarchal inheritance and obligation. A concept, ‘veiled patriarchy’, is developed and applied to surnaming practices in contemporary China.
Photodynamic nanotheranostics has shown great promise for cancer therapy; however, its therapeutic efficacy is limited due to the hypoxia of tumor microenvironment and the unfavorable bioavailability ...of existing photodynamic agents. We herein develop hybrid core–shell semiconducting nanoparticles (SPN-Ms) that can undergo O2 evolution in hypoxic solid tumor to promote photodynamic process. Such oxygenic nanoparticles are synthesized through a one-pot surface growth reaction and have a unique multilayer structure cored and coated with semiconducting polymer nanoparticles (SPNs) and manganese dioxide (MnO2) nanosheets, respectively. The SPN core serves as both NIR fluorescence imaging and photodynamic agent, while the MnO2 nanosheets act as a sacrificing component to convert H2O2 to O2 under hypoxic and acidic tumor microenvironment. As compared with the uncoated SPN (SPN-0), the oxygenic nanoparticles (SPN-M1) generate 2.68-fold more 1O2 at hypoxic and acidic conditions under NIR laser irradiation at 808 nm. Because of such an oxygen-evolution property, SPN-M1 can effectively eradicate cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. Our study thus not only reports an in situ synthetic method to coat organic nanoparticles but also develops a tumor-microenvironment-sensitive theranostic nanoagent to overcome hypoxia for amplified therapy.
Western theoretical traditions can benefit from systematic engagement with non‐Western concepts: This is shown through an analysis of the Chinese concept guanxi. After considering the general nature ...of guanxi, including its possible association with corrupt practices and its particular cultural characteristics, the paper goes on to identify the elements of its general form which have universal representation. The possibility of conceiving guanxi as a variant form of social capital is explored. This shows the way in which both the expressive and instrumentalized forms of guanxi indicate otherwise neglected aspects of social and economic relationships not always recognized and addressed by analogous terms current in social theory but which are none the less important for its advancement.
In examining family relations in contemporary China the article reports the findings of an empirical investigation, which are discussed in terms of recent accounts in the specialist literature. While ...the individualization thesis suggests that the bonds between family members are diminishing and that family obligations are similarly less significant than they used to be, it is shown here that family bonds and obligations remain strong, even though the grounds on which they are performed and the attitudes and emotions associated with them have undergone change since China's marketization from the 1980s. The individualization thesis neglects the process of reinterpretation and re-negotiation of filial obligation, and fails to appreciate that modification of filial behaviour is initiated not only by the younger generation but also by the older. The article shows that contemporary filial relations are less concerned with authority, and more directed to financial and emotional support for parents, and from parents to children both adult and dependent.
The concept of face, as it is developed by Goffman, has strong conceptual links with the notion of a ‘looking-glass’ self outlined by Adam Smith and developed sociologically by Cooley. It also has ...links with the Chinese concept of face, which relates to the transfer of social science concepts from one cultural setting to another. By discussing the specificity and universality of face the article indicates the significance of the Chinese concept of face in a global sociology. The article goes on to examine aspects of the treatment of the Chinese concept of face and in doing so presents a more comprehensive account of a sociological conceptualization of face. The article then considers the relationship between face and emotions in indicating the mechanisms that underlie face. Finally, a distinction is made between face as an embedded social process and as an object of social contestation.
Compared with the conventional deposition techniques used for the epitaxial growth of metallic structures on a bulk substrate, wet-chemical synthesis based on the dispersible template offers several ...advantages, including relatively low cost, high throughput, and the capability to prepare metal nanostructures with controllable size and morphology. Here we demonstrate that the solution-processable two-dimensional MoS(2) nanosheet can be used to direct the epitaxial growth of Pd, Pt and Ag nanostructures at ambient conditions. These nanostructures show the major (111) and (101) orientations on the MoS(2)(001) surface. Importantly, the Pt-MoS(2) hybrid nanomaterials exhibit much higher electrocatalytic activity towards the hydrogen evolution reaction compared with the commercial Pt catalysts with the same Pt loading. We believe that nanosheet-templated epitaxial growth of nanostructures via wet-chemical reaction is a promising strategy towards the facile and high-yield production of novel functional materials.
The crystal phase-based heterostructures of noble metal nanomaterials are of great research interest for various applications, such as plasmonics and catalysis. However, the synthesis of unusual ...crystal phases of noble metals still remains a great challenge, making the construction of heterophase noble metal nanostructures difficult. Here, we report a one-pot wet-chemical synthesis of well-defined heterophase fcc-2H-fcc gold nanorods (fcc: face-centred cubic; 2H: hexagonal close-packed with stacking sequence of "AB") at mild conditions. Single particle-level experiments and theoretical investigations reveal that the heterophase gold nanorods demonstrate a distinct optical property compared to that of the conventional fcc gold nanorods. Moreover, the heterophase gold nanorods possess superior electrocatalytic activity for the carbon dioxide reduction reaction over their fcc counterparts under ambient conditions. First-principles calculations suggest that the boosted catalytic performance stems from the energetically favourable adsorption of reaction intermediates, endowed by the unique heterophase characteristic of gold nanorods.
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