_A wide ranging consideration of the work of contemporary ethicist David Wong._.

Fingerprint recognition is the most widely used identification method at present. However, it still falls short in terms of cross-platform and algorithmic complexity, which exerts a certain effect on the migration of fingerprint data and the development of the system. The conventional image recognition methods require offline standard databases constructed in advance for image access efficiency. The database can provide a pre-processed image via a specific method that probably is compatible merely with the specific recognition algorithm. Then, the specific recognition (...) algorithm starts the process of retrieving these specific pre-proessing images for recognition and inevitably will be blocked from other datasets. The proposed method in this research designed an embedded image processing algorithm based on a Siamese neural network in the recognition method that allows the proposed method to recognize images from any source without constructing a database for image storage in advance. In this research, the proposed method was applied to fingerprint recognition and evaluation of the proposed method was evaluated. The results showed that the accuracy of the proposed algorithm was up to 92%, and its F1 score was up to 0.87. Compared with the conventional fingerprint matching methods, its significant advantage in the FRR, FAR, and CR jointly indicated the remarkable correct recognition rate of the proposed method. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

The multilevel model of meme diffusion conceptualizes how mediated messages diffuse over time and space. As a pilot application of implementing the meme diffusion, we developed the social media analytics and research testbed to monitor Twitter messages and track the diffusion of information in and across different cities and geographic regions. Social media analytics and research testbed is an online geo-targeted search and analytics tool, including an automatic data processing procedure at the backend and an interactive frontend user interface. Social (...) media analytics and research testbed is initially designed to facilitate searching and geo-locating tweet topics and terms in different cities and geographic regions; filtering noise from raw data ; analyzing social media data from a spatiotemporal perspective; and visualizing social media data in diagnostic ways. Social media analytics and research testbed provides researchers and domain experts with a tool that can efficiently facilitate the refinement, formalization, and testing of research hypotheses or questions. Three case studies are introduced to illustrate how the predictions of meme diffusion can be examined and to demonstrate the potentials and key functions of social media analytics and research testbed. (shrink)

The meshed control theory assumes that cognitive control and automatic processes work together in the natural attention of experts for superior performance. However, the methods adopted by previous studies limit their capacity to provide in-depth information on the neuromotor processes. This experiment tested the theory with an alternative approach. Twelve skilled golfers were recruited to perform a putting task under three conditions: (1) normal condition, with no focus instruction (NC), (2) external focus of attention condition (EC), and (3) internal focus (...) of attention condition (IC). Four blocks of 10 putts each were performed under each condition. The putting success rate and accuracy were measured and electroencephalographies (EEGs) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that the NC produced a higher putting success rate and accuracy than the EC and IC. The EEG data showed that the skilled golfers’ attentional processes in the NC initially resembled those in the EC and then moved toward those in the IC just before putting. This indicates a switch from more automatic processes to cognitive control processes while preparing to putt. The findings offer support for the meshed control theory and indicate the dynamic nature of neuromotor processes for the superior performance of athletes in challenging situations. (shrink)

Reluctance to adopt mask-wearing as a preventive measure is widely observed in many Western societies since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemics. This reluctance toward mask adoption, like any other complex social phenomena, will have multiple causes. Plausible explanations have been identified, including political polarization, skepticism about media reports and the authority of public health agencies, and concerns over liberty, amongst others. In this paper, we propose potential explanations hitherto unnoticed, based on the framework of epistemic injustice. We show how (...) testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice may be at work to shape the reluctant mask adoption at both the societal and individual levels. We end by suggesting how overcoming these epistemic injustices can benefit the global community in this challenging situation and in the future. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine preservice Chinese language teachers’ cognition in teaching intercultural communicative competence. In the study we collected data through in-depth interviews with seven preservice teachers in a Master of Education program at a university in Hong Kong SAR, China. The findings indicated that the participants had a relatively positive attitude and inclination toward the development of students’ intercultural communicative competence, while their conceptualizations of culture tended to be static and ambiguous. In addition, the participants’ (...) objectives in teaching intercultural communicative competence were found to be more attitude-than knowledge- or skill-oriented. The study offers valuable insights that preservice language teachers’ cognition plays a crucial role in their future professional development and calls for curricular innovations with intercultural aims in teacher education programs. (shrink)

Data envelopment analysis is a popular mathematical tool for analyzing the relative efficiency of homogenous decision-making units. However, the existing DEA models cannot tackle the newly confronted applications with imprecise and negative data as well as undesirable outputs simultaneously. Thus, we introduce undesirable outputs into modified slack-based measure model and propose an interval-modified slack-based measure model, which extends the application of interval DEA in fields that concern with less undesirable outputs. The novelties of the model are that it considers the (...) undesirable outputs while dealing with imprecise and negative data, and it is slack-based. Furthermore, the model with undesirable outputs is proven translation-invariant and unit-invariant. Moreover, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the changes of the lower and upper bounds of the efficiency score after considering the undesirable outputs. The empirical results show that, without considering undesirable outputs, most of the lower bounds of the efficiency scores will be overestimated when the DMUs are weakly efficient and inefficient. The upper bound will also change after considering undesirable outputs when the DMU is inefficient. Finally, an improved degree of preference approach is introduced to rank the DMUs. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly adopted to make decisions in domains such as business, education, health care, and criminal justice. However, such algorithmic decision systems can have prevalent biases against marginalized social groups and undermine social justice. Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is a recent development aiming to make an AI system’s decision processes less opaque and to expose its problematic biases. This paper argues against technical XAI, according to which the detection and interpretation of algorithmic bias can be handled (...) more or less independently by technical experts who specialize in XAI methods. Drawing on resources from feminist epistemology, we show why technical XAI is mistaken. Specifically, we demonstrate that the proper detection of algorithmic bias requires relevant interpretive resources, which can only be made available, in practice, by actively involving a diverse group of stakeholders. Finally, we suggest how feminist theories can help shape integrated XAI: an inclusive social-epistemic process that facilitates the amelioration of algorithmic bias. (shrink)

This study investigated students? perceptions of their own and their peers? academic dishonesty (AD), their reasons for this dishonesty, their achievement goals, and their willingness to report AD (WRAD) within a Chinese cultural context. The results identified students? belief that their peers had a greater likelihood of engaging in AD and had more motivation to do so than did the students themselves. Gender and academic major did not affect students? WRAD. However, students were significantly more willing to report classmates than (...) friends. In terms of the participants? self-perceptions and peer perceptions concerning motivations for AD, more female students cited the lack of penalties as the reason for their own and their peers? AD, whereas male students more frequently cited their lack of attention to schoolwork as the reason for their own AD. In contrast to students in the social sciences, business students more frequently cited inadequate capabilities as the reason for their AD, and engineering students more frequently attributed their AD to self-interest. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that three motivations for AD (opportunism, inadequacy, and self-promotion) could positively predict AD, whereas mastery-approach goals could negatively predict AD. (shrink)

Facial muscle activities are essential for the appearance and communication of human beings. Therefore, exploring the activation patterns of facial muscles can help understand facial neuromuscular disorders such as Bell’s palsy. Given the irregular shape of the facial muscles as well as their different locations, it should be difficult to detect the activities of whole facial muscles with a few electrodes. In this study, a high-density surface electromyogram system with 90 electrodes was used to record EMG signals of facial muscles (...) in both healthy and Bell’s palsy subjects when they did different facial movements. The electrodes were arranged in rectangular arrays covering the forehead and cheek regions of the face. The muscle activation patterns were shown on maps, which were constructed from the Root Mean Square values of all the 90-channel EMG recordings. The experimental results showed that the activation patterns of facial muscles were distinct during doing different facial movements and the activated muscle regions could be clearly observed. Moreover, two features of the activation patterns, 2D correlation coefficient and Centre of Gravity were extracted to quantify the spatial symmetry and the location of activated muscle regions respectively. Furthermore, the deviation of activated muscle regions on the paralyzed side of a face compared to the healthy side was quantified by calculating the distance between two sides of CGs. The results revealed that corr2 of the activated facial muscle region in Bell’s palsy subjects was significantly lower than that in healthy subjects, while CG distance of activated facial region in Bell’s palsy subjects was significantly higher than that in healthy subjects. The correlation between corr2 of these regions and Bell’s palsy [assessed by the Facial Nerve Grading Scale 2.0] was also significant in Bell’s palsy subjects. The spatial information on activated muscle regions may be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of Bell’s palsy in the future. (shrink)

To realize the coordinated and sustainable development of hydropower projects and regional society, comprehensively evaluating hydropower projects’ influence is critical. Usually, hydropower project development has an impact on environmental geology and social and regional cultural development. Based on comprehensive consideration of complicated geological conditions, fragile ecological environment, resettlement of reservoir area, and other factors of future hydropower development in each country, we have constructed a comprehensive evaluation index system of hydropower projects, including 4 first-level indicators of social economy, environment, safety, (...) and fairness, which contain 26 second-level indicators. To solve the problem that existing models cannot evaluate dynamic nonlinear optimization, a projection pursuit model is constructed by using rough set reduction theory to simplify the index. Then, an accelerated genetic algorithm based on real number coding is used to solve the model and empirical study is carried out with the Y hydropower station as a sample. The evaluation results show that the evaluation index system and assessment model constructed in our paper effectively reduce the subjectivity of index weight. Applying our model to the social impact assessment of related international hydropower projects can not only comprehensively analyze the social impact of hydropower projects but also identify important social influencing factors and effectively analyze the social impact level of each dimension. Furthermore, SIA assessment can be conducive to project decision-making, avoiding social risks and social stability. (shrink)

In this research we apply the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to study decisions related to information privacy protection. A TPB-based model was proposed to investigate whether organization-based self-esteem and perceived deindividuation can be employed to measure the strength of the perceived behavioral control construct. In addition, we examined if the addition of a causal path linking subjective norms to attitudes and another causal path linking organization-based self-esteem to subjective norms enhanced our research model's predicting power. Our study shows that (...) information systems (IS) professionals' intentions to protect personal information privacy are influenced by their attitudes, subjective norms, perceived deindividuation, and organization-based self-esteem. It further shows that attitudes are influenced by subjective norms, which, in turn, are influenced by organization-based self-esteem. (shrink)

BackgroundProfessional ethics is the regulation and discipline of nurses’ daily nursing work. Nurses often encounter various ethical challenges and problems in their clinical work, but there are fe...

Public health emergencies can trigger individual death anxiety. Most previous studies focus on the negative effects of death anxiety via the Western materialistic view, neglecting both the positive aspects of death anxiety within the Chinese cultural background and the positive effects of death anxiety upon environmental consumption. By implementing the unique Chinese cultural background for the concepts of justice and interests, this study explores the positive influence of individual death anxiety on altruistic environmental consumption during the COVID-19 crisis by analyzing (...) personal life reviews and other sources. The results show that under the guidance of the correct concept of justice and benefit, individuals with high death anxiety during the epidemic period not only enhance their self-esteem through positive self-perception and social evaluation, but they are more inclined to benefit from other environmental consumption behaviors and attain a symbolic self-survival; and during the epidemic period, mental resilience, as a transformation mechanism of external defense and the internal growth of death psychology, can directly affect altruistic environmental consumption by consumers without relying on external standards. In the context of the Chinese culture’s concept of justice and interests, this study enriches the knowledge of fear management theory and the positive impact of death anxiety on environmental consumption. The introduction of mental resilience as a boundary condition has important theoretical and practical significance within the study of consumer behavior in public health emergencies and post-epidemic economic recovery. (shrink)

The concept of work engagement has aroused the interest of many scholars. However, there has been limited academic research in examining how authentic leadership can influence WE, which consequently influences organizational citizenship behavior and task performance. In particular, this study divides WE into cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and physical engagement to fully reflect the engagement theory. This study introduces three dimensions of WE and tests the theoretical model to validate cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and physical engagement. Empirical testing using a (...) survey of 151 employees of retail travel agencies in Taiwan revealed that the AL can influence cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and physical engagement, and also OCB and TP. These analysis results can assist vendors to implement OCB and TP through WE and AL. (shrink)

Body ownership concerns what it is like to feel a body part or a full body as mine, and has become a prominent area of study. We propose that there is a closely related type of bodily self-consciousness largely neglected by researchers—experiential ownership. It refers to the sense that I am the one who is having a conscious experience. Are body ownership and experiential ownership actually the same phenomenon or are they genuinely different? In our experiments, the participant watched a (...) rubber hand or someone else’s body from the first-person perspective and was touched either synchronously or asynchronously. The main findings: (1) The sense of body ownership was hindered in the asynchronous conditions of both the body-part and the full-body experiments. However, a strong sense of experiential ownership was observed in those conditions. (2) We found the opposite when the participants’ responses were measured after tactile stimulations had ceased for 5 s. In the synchronous conditions of another set of body-part and full-body experiments, only experiential ownership was blocked but not body ownership. These results demonstrate for the first time the double dissociation between body ownership and experiential ownership. Experiential ownership is indeed a distinct type of bodily self-consciousness. (shrink)

In various guises (usually referred to as the “basic emotion” or “discrete emotion” approach), scientists and philosophers have long argued that certain categories of emotion are natural kinds. In a recent paper, Colombetti (2009) proposed yet another natural kind account, and in so doing, characterized and critiqued psychological constructionist approaches to emotion, including our own Conceptual Act Model. In this commentary, we briefly address three topics raised by Columbetti. First, we correct several common misperceptions about the discrete emotion approach to (...) emotion. Second, we discuss misconceptions of our Conceptual Act Model. Finally, we briefly comment on Columbetti's Dynamical Discrete Emotion model. (shrink)

本文集收入了当代西方科学哲学的逻辑进程、意识经验的感受性和涌现、现象学与逻辑学、西方形而上学的实存哲学路线等共26篇文章。.

With the rise of live streaming commerce, the relationship between consumers and content creators on the short-video platforms has become closer, forming a peculiar culture and language in each consumer community, which promotes the short-video platforms to become a natural breeding ground for forming consumer communities. While such communities give birth to its own language and culture from the interaction between content creators and consumers, this kind of co-creation can not only enhance the consumers’ trust to improve commodity premium space, (...) but also strengthen the ties within the community and spread the information outside the communities, and consequently, expand community scale. Based on the view of the value co-creation from the language and culture among content creators and consumers in the communities, this study starts from the point of product type, employs consumers’ Willingness to pay premium as a proxy variable of brand advocacy in the co-creation of cultural and language values in consumer communities, and conducts three single-factor experiments between two groups. By analyzing the experimental results, this study identified the influence under the potential relationship mechanism, social comparison, and found another variable that can moderate the relationship, consumer trust, portrays the relationship between the product types of the live streaming commerce and the consumers’ WoPP, and explores the mediating effect of social comparison and the moderate effect of consumer trust effect. This paper also analyzes and discusses the WoPP caused by the co-creation of cultural and language values co-created by creators and consumer communities. (shrink)

Concerns with improper collection and usage of personal information by businesses or governments have been seen as critical to the success of the emerging electronic commerce. In this regard, computer professionals have the oversight responsibility for information privacy because they have the most extensive knowledge of their organization's systems and programs, as well as an intimate understanding of the data. Thus, the competence of these professionals in ensuring sound practice of information privacy is of great importance to both researchers and (...) practitioners. This research addresses the question of whether male computer professionals differ from their female counterparts in their self-regulatory efficacy to protect personal information privacy. A total of 103 male and 65 female subjects surveyed in Taiwan responded to a 10-item questionnaire that includes three measures: protection, non-distribution, and non-acquisition. The findings show significant gender differences exist in the subjects' overall self-regulatory efficacy for information privacy, and, in particular, that female subjects in this study exhibited a higher level of self-regulatory efficacy than males for the protection and non-acquisition of personal privacy information. The identification of the factorial structure of the self-regulatory efficacy concerning information privacy may contribute to future research directed to examining the links between privacy efficacy and psychological variables, such as ethical attitude, ethical intention, and self-esteem. Studies can also be extended to investigate how different cultural practices of morality and computer use in men and women may shape the different development patterns of privacy self-efficacy. Understanding the different cultural practices may then shed light on the social sources of privacy competence and the appropriate remedies that can be provided to improve the situation. (shrink)

Over the span of nearly 10 years, the social work labor force grew from 0.2 million to approximately 1.2 million in China. Despite these increases, studies have shown social workers in China are also experiencing equally high burnout rates. For this analysis, we collected data from 537 social workers based in Guangzhou, China. We used the job demands and resources theory, to examine the relations between JD-R and burnout and whether mindfulness practice could reduce any such burnout. Our results suggest (...) JD-R affects social workers’ burnout through both health and motivation impairment. High job demands were linked to high burnout while high job resources were linked to a reduction in burnout. Formal and informal MP were associated with low burnout amongst social workers. The significant interaction between JD and MP also suggests that MP can reduce burnout for social workers with high JD. The findings call for using MP to be used to shield social workers from the effects of increasing JD and to prevent an increase of burnout amongst Chinese social workers. (shrink)

In functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, object selectivity is defined as a higher neural response to an object category than other object categories. Importantly, object selectivity is widely considered as a neural signature of a functionally-specialized area in processing its preferred object category in the human brain. However, the behavioral significance of the object selectivity remains unclear. In the present study, we used the individual differences approach to correlate participants’ face selectivity in the face-selective regions with their behavioral performance in (...) face recognition measured outside the scanner in a large sample of healthy adults. Face selectivity was defined as the z score of activation with the contrast of faces versus non-face objects, and the face recognition ability was indexed as the normalized residual of the accuracy in recognizing previously-learned faces after regressing out that for non-face objects in an old/new memory task. We found that the participants with higher face selectivity in the fusiform face area (FFA) and the occipital face area (OFA), but not in the posterior part of the superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), possessed higher face recognition ability. Importantly, the association of face selectivity in the FFA and face recognition ability cannot be accounted for by FFA response to objects or behavioral performance in object recognition, suggesting that the association is domain-specific. Finally, the association is reliable, confirmed by the replication from another independent participant group. In sum, our finding provides empirical evidence on the validity of using object selectivity as a neural signature in defining object-selective regions in the human brain. (shrink)

Bimanual robots have been studied for decades and regulation on internal force of the being held object by two manipulators becomes a research interest in recent years. In this paper, based on impedance model, a method to obtain the optimal target position for bimanual robots to hold an object is proposed. We introduce a cost function combining the errors of the force and the position and manage to minimize its value to gain the optimal coordinates for the robot end effectors. (...) To implement this method, two necessary algorithms are presented, which are the closed-loop inverse kinematics method to work out joint positions from desired EE pose and the generalized-momentum-based external force observer to measure the subjected force acting on the EE so as to properly compensate for the joint torques. To verify the effectiveness, practicality, and adaptivity of the proposed scheme, in the simulation, a bimanual robot system with three degrees of freedom in every manipulator was constructed and employed to hold an object, where the results are satisfactory. (shrink)

Concerns with improper collection and usage of personal information by businesses or governments have been seen as critical to the success of the emerging electronic commerce. In this regard, computer professionals have the oversight responsibility for information privacy because they have the most extensive knowledge of their organization's systems and programs, as well as an intimate understanding of the data. Thus, the competence of these professionals in ensuring sound practice of information privacy is of great importance to both researchers and (...) practitioners. This research addresses the question of whether male computer professionals differ from their female counterparts in their self-regulatory efficacy to protect personal information privacy. A total of 103 male and 65 female subjects surveyed in Taiwan responded to a 10-item questionnaire that includes three measures: protection (protecting privacy information), non-distribution (not distributing privacy information to others), and non-acquisition (not acquiring privacy information). The findings show (1) significant gender differences exist in the subjects' overall self-regulatory efficacy for information privacy, and, in particular, (2) that female subjects in this study exhibited a higher level of self-regulatory efficacy than males for the protection and non-acquisition of personal privacy information. The identification of the factorial structure of the self-regulatory efficacy concerning information privacy may contribute to future research directed to examining the links between privacy efficacy and psychological variables, such as ethical attitude, ethical intention, and self-esteem. Studies can also be extended to investigate how different cultural practices of morality and computer use in men and women may shape the different development patterns of privacy self-efficacy. Understanding the different cultural practices may then shed light on the social sources of privacy competence and the appropriate remedies that can be provided to improve the situation. (shrink)

BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

As heritage is the precious treasure of human society, heritage also carries the genes of culture. It is of vital importance to effectively develop heritage tourism resources and explore the mechanisms that influence tourists’ cultural identity. This study has integrated the stimulus-organism-response framework with the attitude-behavior-context theory to construct a hypothetical model of heritage tourism aesthetics, tourist involvement, mental experience, and cultural identity so as to figure out their relationships. The questionnaires were collected to investigate the impact paths and mechanisms (...) between heritage aesthetics, tourist involvement, mental experience, and cultural identity. The structural equation model was used to examine the relationship between heritage tourism aesthetics, tourist involvement, mental experience, and cultural identity. The main findings include: the positive impact of aesthetics driving mental experience and cultural identity is significant; the impact of tourist involvement on mental experience and cultural identity is also significant; the impact of aesthetics on cultural identity is not significant, but mental experience mediates the relationship between aesthetics and cultural identity in heritage tourism. This study provides a new research framework and perspective for the aesthetics, tourist involvement, mental experience, and cultural identity of tourists in heritage tourism. This study also provides practical implications for government culture sectors to propagandize culture and for heritage destination managers to better manage heritage sites. (shrink)

This study presents an evolutionary game to model interactions among stakeholders with potential conflicts, including the operational enterprise of incineration plant, the local government, and the residents nearby. System dynamics is used to simulate the change of strategic actions corresponding to the three players, in order to seek for the evolutionary stability strategies. A numerical case is proposed to demonstrate the game theory application, in which the impacts of governmental incentive and punishment on the player’s actions are investigated. The results (...) indicated that administrative penalty is effective not only in motivating the enterprises to upgrade treatment facilities for ensuring environmental quality but also in helping the local government and residents to approach dominant strategies. Policy implications are given based on the results to lay out a foundation for the alleviation of the conflicts. (shrink)

This paper highlights the significance of popular astronomy lectures in British theatres during the first half of the nineteenth century. The popular astronomy lecturing trade inherited from Enlightenment natural philosophy discourses. A ‘theatrical turn’ developed in the late eighteenth century and became extensive by the 1820s. Lecturers moved astronomy displays into theatres and used theatrical facilities, which resulted in a distinct type of show blending scientific instruction with sensational amusement. Lent was especially high season for this business in a metropolitan (...) entertainment market. Pre–eminent cases of private entrepreneurs in this trade included William Walker, Deane Franklin Walker, George Bartley, and C. H. Adams. By exploring astronomy lectures in theatres, this paper also shows the spatial influence of the site on the format and style of the performance: the benefits and constraints of a theatre made a theatrical astronomy lecture distinct from others at a formal institution. (shrink)