The Neo‐Darwinian concept of natural selection is plausible when one assumes a straightforward causation of phenotype by genotype. However, such simple 1:1 mapping must now give place to the modern concepts of gene regulatory networks and gene expression noise. Both can, in the absence of genetic mutations, jointly generate a diversity of inheritable randomly occupied phenotypic states that could also serve as a substrate for natural selection. This form of epigenetic dynamics challenges Neo‐Darwinism. It needs to incorporate the non‐linear, stochastic (...) dynamics of gene networks. A first step is to consider the mathematical correspondence between gene regulatory networks and Waddington's metaphoric ‘epigenetic landscape’, which actually represents the quasi‐potential function of global network dynamics. It explains the coexistence of multiple stable phenotypes within one genotype. The landscape's topography with its attractors is shaped by evolution through mutational re‐wiring of regulatory interactions – offering a link between genetic mutation and sudden, broad evolutionary changes. (shrink)

The impacts of COVID-19 have spread rapidly to global financial markets. In this context, combining the spillover index method introduced by Diebold and Yilmaz and the complex network analysis framework, we examined the volatility connectedness and the topological structure among the top ten cryptocurrencies before and during the COVID-19 crisis. The results revealed that the total volatility connectedness of the cryptocurrency market markedly increased following the outbreak of COVID-19; statically, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Bitcoin Cash were the net transmitters before (...) COVID-19, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Cardano, and Stellar became the major net transmitters in the market after COVID-19. Dynamically, the dynamic performance of different cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 pandemic was heterogeneous, and the possible driving factors are diverse. Moreover, from network analysis, we further found that the COVID-19 crisis has significantly changed the topological structure of the cryptocurrency market. Our findings may help understand the typical dynamics in the cryptocurrency market and provide significant implications for portfolio managers, investors, and government agencies in times of highly stressful events like the COVID-19 crisis. (shrink)

The stunning possibility of “reprogramming” differentiated somatic cells to express a pluripotent stem cell phenotype (iPS, induced pluripotent stem cell) and the “ground state” character of pluripotency reveal fundamental features of cell fate regulation that lie beyond existing paradigms. The rarity of reprogramming events appears to contradict the robustness with which the unfathomably complex phenotype of stem cells can reliably be generated. This apparent paradox, however, is naturally explained by the rugged “epigenetic landscape” with valleys representing “preprogrammed” attractor states that (...) emerge from the dynamical constraints of the gene regulatory network. This article provides a pedagogical primer to the fundamental principles of gene regulatory networks as integrated dynamic systems and reviews recent insights in gene expression noise and fate determination, thereby offering a formal framework that may help us to understand why cell fate reprogramming events are inherently rare and yet so robust. (shrink)

The fateful combination of (i) the Dunning‐Kruger effect (ignorance of one's own ignorance) with (ii) the nonlinear dynamics of the echo‐chamber between reviewers and editors fuels a self‐reinforcing collective delusion system that sometimes spirals uncontrollably away from objectivity and truth. Escape from this subconscious meta‐ignorance is a formidable challenge but if achieved will help correct a central deficit of the peer‐review process that stifles innovation and paradigm shifts.

In the tradition of Western medicine that goes back to Hippocrates, we teach medical students to see beyond the disease and to consider the patient as a whole—to take into account the broader context of family, lifestyle, and environmental exposures. For instance, when measuring blood pressure to diagnose hypertension, family history and situational stress must be considered. Moreover, repeated measurements at multiple time points must be performed to avoid a false-positive diagnosis due to temporary fluctuations of blood pressure. The diagnosis (...) then provides, in adherence to standard-of-care guidelines, the indication for antihypertensive therapy. The recommendations have been... (shrink)

[Without a theorising], a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!Recent years have seen a steady shift of funding programs in biomedical research towards data collection, analysis, and management and its computational analysis. A sizable majority of new major funding opportunity announcements call for assembling (...) large sample banks and databases of molecular profiles of diseases or for computational tools for analysis, display, and distribution of the data. Large consortium projects, such as the Cancer Genome Atlas, the UK Biobank (Allen... (shrink)

As a result of the time‐ and context‐dependency of gene expression, gene regulatory and signaling pathways undergo dynamic changes during development. Creating a model of the dynamics of molecular interaction networks offers enormous potential for understanding how a genome orchestrates the developmental processes of an organism. The dynamic nature of pathway topology calls for new modeling strategies that can capture transient molecular links at the runtime. The aim of this paper is to present a brief and informative, but not all‐inclusive, (...) viewpoint on the computational aspects of modeling and simulation of a non‐static molecular network. BioEssays 26:68–72, 2004. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Xiu zhen xu yu (wai pian) -- Tan Lao sui gan -- Yin shi yang zhen.

Although death statutes permitting physicians to declare brain death are relatively uniform throughout the United States, academic debate persists over the equivalency of human death and brain death. Alan Shewmon showed that the formerly accepted integration rationale was conceptually incomplete by showing that brain-dead patients demonstrated a degree of integration. We provide a more complete rationale for the equivalency of human death and brain death by defending a deeper understanding of the organism as a whole and by using a novel (...) strategy with shared objectives to justify death determination criteria. Our OaaW account describes different types of OaaW, defining human death as the loss of status as a human OaaW. We defend human death as similar to nonhuman death in terms of wakefulness, but also distinct in terms of the sui generis properties, particularly conscious awareness. We thereby defend the equivalency of brain death and human death using a resulting neurocentric rationale. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is a sustainable development tool that supports the alleviation of poverty and unemployment. Focusing on the promotion of entrepreneurial intention under the background of entrepreneurship education, this study used a structural equation model to examine the role of entrepreneurship policy, entrepreneurial practice, and entrepreneurial spirit on the EI of 384 college students from 22 universities in Guangdong Province. The test results show that there are significant positive correlations between EPo and EI; EPo and EPr; EPo and ES; and EPr (...) and EI. They also support the hypothesis that EPr enhances the positive effect that EPo has on EI. This study puts forth measures to improve EI and makes contributions to future research on EE. (shrink)

In the philosophy of science, abstraction has usually been analyzed in terms of the interface between our experience and the design of our concepts. The often implicit assumption here is that such interface has a definite identifiable and universalizable structure, determining the epistemic correctness of any abstraction. Our claim is that, on the contrary, the epistemic grounding of abstraction should not be reduced to the structural norms of such interface but is also related to the constraints on the cognitive processes (...) of specific abstractions. This suggests that we should understand abstraction as embodied in different kinds of abstraction practices. (shrink)

This study attempts to reconstruct Nietzsche’s reading of Aristotle in the 1860s and 1870s—the years before he left his career as a philologist. Against the popular view that Nietzsche read only one book by Aristotle, namely the Rhetoric, the present study hopes to show that he had direct knowledge of several of Aristotle’s main works, while much of his interest in Aristotle centred on the latter’s account of art. The particular aim of this study is to explore how Nietzsche’s reading (...) of Aristotle contributed to the formation of The Birth of Tragedy. It will show that, although Nietzsche mentions Aristotle in his first book only en passant, his theory of tragedy should be understood against the background of Aristotelian poetics, especially as interpreted by such contemporaries as Jacob Bernays, Joseph Hubert Reinkens, and Gustav Teichmüller. (shrink)

Background: The concept of digital twins has great potential for transforming the existing health care system by making it more personalized. As a convergence of health care, artificial intelligence, and information and communication technologies, personalized health care services that are developed under the concept of digital twins raise a myriad of ethical issues. Although some of the ethical issues are known to researchers working on digital health and personalized medicine, currently, there is no comprehensive review that maps the major ethical (...) risks of digital twins for personalized health care services. Objective: This study aims to fill the research gap by identifying the major ethical risks of digital twins for personalized health care services. We first propose a working definition for digital twins for personalized health care services to facilitate future discussions on the ethical issues related to these emerging digital health services. We then develop a process-oriented ethical map to identify the major ethical risks in each of the different data processing phases. Methods: We resorted to the literature on eHealth, personalized medicine, precision medicine, and information engineering to identify potential issues and developed a process-oriented ethical map to structure the inquiry in a more systematic way. The ethical map allows us to see how each of the major ethical concerns emerges during the process of transforming raw data into valuable information. Developers of a digital twin for personalized health care service may use this map to identify ethical risks during the development stage in a more systematic way and can proactively address them. Results: This paper provides a working definition of digital twins for personalized health care services by identifying 3 features that distinguish the new application from other eHealth services. On the basis of the working definition, this paper further layouts 10 major operational problems and the corresponding ethical risks. Conclusions: It is challenging to address all the major ethical risks that a digital twin for a personalized health care service might encounter proactively without a conceptual map at hand. The process-oriented ethical map we propose here can assist the developers of digital twins for personalized health care services in analyzing ethical risks in a more systematic manner. (shrink)

In the literature on expert trust, it is often assumed that track records are the gold standard for evaluating expertise, and the difficulty of expert identification arises from either the lack of access to track records, or the inability to assess them. I show, using a computational model, that even in an idealized environment where agents have a God’s eye view on track records, they may fail to identify experts. Under plausible conditions, selecting testimony based on track records ends up (...) reducing overall accuracy, and preventing the community from identifying the real experts. (shrink)

As patient autonomy expands, a highly controversial issue has emerged. Should the advance directives of refusing life-saving treatments or requesting euthanasia of persons with dementia who express changed minds or are often in a happy state be fulfilled? There are two autonomy-related positions. The mainstream position in philosophical discussions supports the priority of ADs based on precedent autonomy. Buchanan and Brock, and Dworkin represent this view. The other position supports the priority of PWDs’ current wishes based on minimal autonomy represented (...) by Jaworska. By rethinking the theoretical and practical challenges of the two positions and their arguments respectively, the paper concludes that in such a scenario, the priority of ADs is morally indefensible, and it is also challenging to establish minimal autonomy defend the moral priority of PWDs’ current wishes. For PWDs whose past values, beliefs, and preferences fade away but who retain apparent intrinsic sentience of well-being, a modified defined quality-of-life approach serves as another reasonable basis in their medical decision-making, and the ADs and the QoL should be further merged to reduce the uncertainty of the grey zone. (shrink)

Although we can observe noticeable progress in gender diversity on corporate boards, these boards remain far from gender balanced. Our paper builds on social identity theory to examine the impact of corporate elites—men and women who sit on multiple corporate boards—on board diversity. We extend the main argument of social identity theory concerning favouritism based on homophily by suggesting that boards with men with multiple appointments are unwilling to include female board members to protect the monopoly value generated by their (...) elite status. The empirical analysis, based on DAX 30 firms in the period of 2010–2015, shows that the presence of multi-board men is negatively associated with women’s participation, while the presence of multi-board women and other women on management boards is positively related to gender diversity on boards. Furthermore, robustness tests support and confirm our conclusion that multi-board men have a significant association with board diversity, even with small size. Additionally, we find a significant effect arising from pressure related to the introduction of gender quotas in Germany, effective in 2016, indicating the effectiveness of gender quota policies for board gender diversity. (shrink)

An engagement between Confucianism and the philosophy of Richard Rorty.

This volume brings together distinguished scholars from all over the world to present an authoritative, thorough, and yet accessible state-of-the-art survey of current issues in pragmatics. Following an introduction by the editor, the volume is divided into five thematic parts. Chapters in Part I are concerned with schools of thought, foundations, and theories, while Part II deals with central topics in pragmatics, including implicature, presupposition, speech acts, deixis, reference, and context. In Part III, the focus is on cognitively-oriented pragmatics, covering (...) topics such as computational, experimental, and neuropragmatics. Part IV takes a look at socially and culturally-oriented pragmatics such as politeness/impoliteness studies, cross- and intercultural, and interlanguage pragmatics. Finally, the chapters in Part V explore the interfaces of pragmatics with semantics, grammar, morphology, the lexicon, prosody, language change, and information structure. (shrink)

Incivility among employees in frontline encounters is prevalent, but little is known about its impact on customers’ ethics-related perceptions and behaviors. Drawing upon the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study examines how witnessing incivility among employees can serve as a social atmospheric cue to influence customers’ perceived ethicality of an organization and their subsequent behaviors. According to our results, in response to employee-to-employee incivility witnessed during frontline encounters, customers perceive the uncivil employees’ organization to have a lower level of ethicality. In turn, (...) customers engage more in unethical behavior and less in customer citizenship behavior. We further demonstrate that the negative effect of uncivil employee-to-employee interactions on customers’ perception of the ethicality of an organization is amplified when customers have an a priori perception that the organization is competent. The findings hold theoretical and practical implications for the management of employee-to-employee incivility and unethical customer behavior during frontline encounters. (shrink)

I have been developing an ethics that I initially identified in the text of the Zhuangzi and which I have characterized in different ways under different names. First, in contrast to the moral Golden Rule, which asks us to do unto others as we would like to have done unto us, I call it the moral Copper Rule: do unto others as they would like to have done unto them. Second, in contrast to the ethics of commonality, I call it (...) ethics of difference. Ethics of Commonality is a general term I use to include the moral Golden Rule, Kantian ethics, and even Rorty’s anti-Kantian ethics... (shrink)

Moral relativism familiar in the Western philosophical tradition, according to David Lyons, is either agent relativism or appraiser relativism or appraiser group). As Lyons has convincingly argued, they are both problematic. However, in the ancient Chinese Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi, we can find a different type of moral relativism, which I call patient relativism. In the essay, I aim to argue in what sense Zhuangzi is a patient relativist and how patient relativism can avoid the problem of agent relativism and (...) appraiser relativism. (shrink)

Individuals’ unverified information sharing on social media, namely, sharing information without verification, is a major cause of the widespread misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The association between perceived information overload and unverified information sharing has been well documented in the cognitive overload approach. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism of this process. This study aims to explore the mediating role of anxiety and the moderating role of perceived herd between perceived information overload and unverified information sharing on WeChat. (...) Anxiety demonstrates people’s emotional response to the pandemic, whereas perceived herd describes a willingness to share certain information if it has been shared by many. The results of an online survey in China showed that perceived information overload was positively associated with unverified information sharing. In addition, this relationship was partially mediated by anxiety. Moreover, perceived herd positively moderated the link between anxiety and unverified information sharing, such that the indirect effect of perceived information overload on unverified information sharing via anxiety was significant in conditions where the level of perceived herd was high, whereas the indirect effect was not significant in conditions where the level of perceived herd was low. The moderated mediation model extends the cognitive overload approach and indicates that unverified information sharing is not only an individual strategy to cope with information overload but also a herding behavior to manage anxiety. Practical implications for curbing people’s tendencies toward unverified information sharing on social media are discussed. (shrink)

This study examined how self-worth of students mediated and moderated their perceived positive teacher-student relationships and student engagement among middle-school students from rural China. Eighth graders completed surveys measuring their perceived relationships with teachers, their self-worth, and engagement. Statistical analyses revealed significant correlations among all three variables, with the strongest being between teacher-student relationships and student engagement. The structural equation modeling indicated that self-worth partially mediated the effect of teacher-student relationships on student engagement; however, positive teacher-student relationships were a stronger (...) predictor. Multigroup analyses identified self-worth as a moderator, whereby students with lower self-worth were more reliant on positive teacher-student relationships to enhance their engagement. This study provides insights into how self-worth of students and their perceived positive teacher-student relationships influence their academic engagement in disadvantaged rural areas of China. (shrink)

Technological products such as computer, communication, and consumer electronic products, apps, smart wearables, and streaming services have become inseparable from people’s lives. In technological fields of practice, imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship may influence one another. A vivid imagination can generate creativity and trigger the entrepreneurial intention to “bring new things to the market.” This study aims to understand the formation of internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study explores and empirically tests how (...) technology product imagination disposition and social support impact internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing from self-determination theory, this study proposes and examines the mediating role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the relationship between technology product imagination disposition and internet entrepreneurial intention, as well as the relationship between social support and internet entrepreneurial intention. We conducted a survey of 568 adults in Taiwan and used partial least squares to test our hypotheses. The results show the following: Technology product imagination disposition is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. Social support is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. Challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation are positively associated with internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Technology product imagination disposition intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products by strengthening challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. Social support intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention by increasing challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. The partial mediation model represents a significant improvement in the total effect over the direct effect. We discuss the implications of these results for research and internet entrepreneurship practices. (shrink)

As virtue ethics has developed into maturity, it has also met with a number of objections. This essay focuses on the self-centeredness objection: since virtue ethics recommends that we be concerned with our own virtues or virtuous characters, it is self-centered. In response, I first argue that, for Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism, the character that a virtuous person is concerned with consists largely in precisely those virtues that incline him or her to be concerned with the good of others. While such (...) an answer is also available to the Aristotelian virtue ethics, I argue that Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism can better respond to the objection on two deeper levels: (1) a virtuous person is not only concerned with others’ external well-being but also their virtuous characters, and (2) a virtuous person’s concern with others’ wellbeing, both internal and external, is neither self-indulgent nor self-effacing. (shrink)

Controversies surrounding social media platforms have provided opportunities for institutional reflexivity amongst users and regulators on how to understand and govern platforms. Amidst contestation, platform companies have continued to enact projects that draw upon existing modes of privatized governance. We investigate how social media companies have attempted to achieve closure by continuing to set the terms around platform governance. We investigate two projects implemented by Facebook (Meta)—authenticity regulation and privacy controls—in response to the Russian Interference and Cambridge Analytica controversies surrounding (...) the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Drawing on Goffman’s metaphor of stage management, we analyze the techniques deployed by Facebook to reinforce a division between what is visible and invisible to the user experience. These platform governance projects propose to act upon _front-stage data relations:_ information that users can see from other users—whether that is content that users can see from “bad actors”, or information that other users can see about oneself. At the same time, these projects relegate _back-stage data relations_—information flows between users constituted by recommendation and targeted advertising systems—to invisibility and inaction. As such, Facebook renders the user experience actionable for governance, while foreclosing governance of back-stage data relations central to the economic value of the platform. As social media companies continue to perform platform governance projects following controversies, our paper invites reflection on the politics of these projects. By destabilizing the boundaries drawn by platform companies, we open space for continuous reflexivity on how platforms should be understood and governed. (shrink)

This paper studies a special scheduling problem under hierarchical management in nurse staff. This is a more complex rostering problem than traditional nurse scheduling. The first is that the rostering requirements of charge nurses and general nurses are different under hierarchical management. The second is that nurses are preferable for relative fair rather than absolute fair under hierarchical management. The model aims at allocating the required workload to meet the operational requirements, weekend rostering preferences, and relative fairness preferences. Two hybrid (...) heuristic algorithms based on multiobjective grey wolf optimizer and three corresponding single heuristic algorithms are employed to solve this problem. The experimental results based on real cases from the Third People’s Hospital, Panzhihua, China, show that MOGWO does not as good as it does on other engineering optimization. However, the hybrid algorithms based on MOGWO are better than corresponding single algorithms on generational distance and spacing of Pareto solutions. Furthermore, for relative fair rostering objective, NSGAII-MOGWO has more power to find the optimal solution in the dimension of relative fairness. (shrink)

Cooley's argument that persons with pre‐dementia have a Kantian duty to die has led to much debate. Cooley gives two reasons for his claim, the first being that a person with pre‐dementia should end his/her life when he/she will inevitably and irreversibly lose rationality and be unable to live morally as a result. This paper argues that this reason derives from an unsubstantiated premise and general confusion regarding the condition for a Kantian duty to die. Rather, a close reading of (...) Kant reveals that such a condition occurs when a person confronts an external handicap that does not undermine his/her rational ability but deprives him/her of the possibility of living the way a person should. People do not confront this experience with progressive dementia. The other reason Cooley proposes is that a person should not allow their continued existence to become a burden to others. This claim partly stems from a radical interpretation of a case discussed by Kant and is partly based on a misuse of Kant's formulation of humanity. Based on a prudent inference from Kantian ethics, this article argues against Cooley that persons with pre‐dementia have no Kantian duty to die. (shrink)

This study attempts to investigate the relationships among the ethical beliefs of Chinese consumers and orientations based on attitudinal attributes: materialism and moral philosophies (idealism and relativism). In addition, this study examines Chinese consumers' ethical beliefs in relation to five selected demographic characteristics (gender, age, religion, family income and education). Based on this exploratory study of 284 Chinese consumers, the following statistically significant findings were discovered. First, Chinese consumers regard that a passively benefiting activity is more ethical, but actively benefiting (...) from an illegal or a questionable activity is unacceptable. Second, the two dimensions of passively benefiting and no harm/no foul can be used to distinguish the consumers who endorse higher levels of idealism or relativism. Third, Chinese consumers with a high level of materialism are more likely to actively benefit from illegal and questionable activities, and the passively benefiting actions. Finally, the more ethical Chinese consumers seem to be younger, be religious, and have a lower family income. (shrink)

The philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi 公孫龍子 has been a hot topic since the 20th century, but there is still controversy about what point Gongsun Long 公孫龍 is making. This article reviews representative studies of the philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi in Sinophone academia since 2000. Some studies (especially in journal articles) conceive that one or two of the discourses are on the philosophy of language, while the other discourses concern ontology, epistemology, semiotics, or logic. In (...) contrast, certain scholars read the whole book as being about the philosophy of language. The divergence lies in whether the common thread is linguistic meaning or concept, and whether Gongsun Long’s doctrine is unveiled by one or several theories. These differences lead to a wide variation in their interpretation of the key terms and claims in the Gongsun Longzi. It is found that there is no theoretical framework that can perfectly interpret the book without incurring any criticism, and more efforts are needed to elucidate the philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi. (shrink)

Whether or not a public relations code of ethics should be enforced, among others, has become one of the most widely controversial topics, especially after the Hill and Knowlton case in 1992. I take the position that ethical codes should be enforced and address this issue from eight aspects: (a) Is a code of ethics an absolute prerequisite of professionalism? (b) Should problems of rhetoric per se in a code of ethics become a rationale against code enforcement? (c) Is a (...) code of ethics of any significance? (d) Is the ethical code is enforceable, (e) Would the licensure system interfere with the freedom of expression of the practitioners? (f) Do PR practitioners choose to be ethical (if they do) because they have to be or because they want to be? (g) Would the public interest be virtually assured as a result of a public relations? and (h) Can education in ethics overcome the ethical problems in public relations? (shrink)

The purposes of research were to describe the neonatal clinicians' personal views and attitudes on neonatal ethical decision-making, to identify factors that might affect these attitudes and to compare the attitudes between neonatal physicians and neonatal nurses in Taiwan. Research was a cross-sectional design and a questionnaire was used to reach different research purposes. A convenient sample was used to recruit 24 physicians and 80 neonatal nurses from four neonatal intensive care units in Taiwan. Most participants agreed with suggesting a (...) do not resuscitate (DNR) order to parents for dying neonates (86.5%). However, the majority agreed with talking to patients about DNR orders is difficult (76.9%). Most participants agree that review by the clinical ethics committee is needed before the recommendation of ‘DNR’ to parents (94.23%) and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to agree to this (p=0.043). During the end-of-life care, most clinicians accepted to continue current treatment without adding others (70%) and withholding of emergency treatments (75%); however, active euthanasia, the administration of drug to end-of-life, was not considered acceptable by both physicians and nurses in this research (96%). Based on our research results, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage for neonatal clinicians are needed. In Taiwan, neonatal physicians and nurses hold similar values and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for neonates. In order to improve the clinicians' communication skills with parents about DNR options and to change clinicians' attitudes for providing enough pain-relief medicine to dying neonates, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage are needed. (shrink)

Vagueness is understood as the problem of associating imprecise application criteria with ordinary predicates such as ‘bald’ or ‘blue’. It is often construed as due to one’s tolerance to a minute difference in forming a verdict on the application of a vague predicate. This paper reports an experiment conducted to test the effect of tolerance, using as paradigm categorisation tasks performed with respect to transitional series, e.g., a series of tomatoes from red to orange. The findings suggest a negative effect (...) of tolerance on categorisation with vague predicates. The implication of the findings for certain commonly-held assumptions about tolerance is discussed. (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the three main themes of Neville's The Goodness Is One, Its Manifestations Many: Whether Confucian ethics can be appropriately characterized as a virtue ethics. It first examines some unique features of virtues ethics, concluding that Confucian ethics may be plausibly regarded as a virtue ethics. Then it shows that virtue ethics is immune to the two diseases that Neville worries about: subjectivism and individualism. Finally, it argues that what Neville regards as salient features of Confucian (...) ethics, (1) situationism, (2) attention to knowledge and skills beyond virtues, and (3) consequentialism of principle, can all be kept intact when it is characterized as a virtue ethics. (shrink)

The present study aimed to delineate the characteristics of empathy and mental health in preschool teachers and examine the role of empathy in preschool teachers’ mental health. The sample in this study consisted of 4348 preschool teachers, who were divided into 4 groups according to their years of teaching experience (less than 2 years, 2 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years, and more than 10 years). The Chinese version of the Symptom Checklist 90 was used to measure the mental (...) health symptoms of the participants, and the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index was employed to assess various aspects of the participants’ empathy. The results indicated that preschool teachers scored higher than the controls for most mental symptoms, and most symptoms increased as teaching experience increased, independent of the effect of age. The study also found that the four dimensions of empathy showed different trends across the four teaching experience groups: fantasy remained stable, empathic concerns and perspective taking showed decreasing trends, and personal distress showed an increasing trend. Moreover, the present research found a relatively complex relationship between empathy and mental health in preschool teachers: while fantasy and personal distress positively predicted mental health symptoms in preschool teachers, perspective taking and empathic concern negatively correlated with most of the symptoms. It seems that empathy contains both risky and protective factors for individuals’ mental health, and these factors are affected by years of teaching experience. (shrink)

Objectives: To investigate the current situation of completing the informed consent for do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders among the competent patients with terminal illness and the ethical dilemmas related to it. Participants: This study enrolled 152 competent patients with terminal cancer, who were involved in the initial consultations for hospice care. Analysis: Comparisons of means, analyses of variance, Student’s t test, χ2 test and multiple logistic regression models. Results: After the consultations, 117 (77.0%) of the 152 patients provided informed consent for hospice (...) care and DNR orders. These included 21 patients (17.9%) who signed the consent by themselves, and 96 (82.1%) whose consent sheet was signed only by family members. The reasons why patients were not involved in the discussions toward the consent (n = 82) included poor physical or psychological condition (44.9%), concerns of the consultant hospice team (37.2%), and the family’s refusal (28.2%). On a multivariate analysis, patients’ awareness of their poor prognosis (odds ratio = 4.07, 95% confidence interval = 2.05 to 8.07) and their understanding of hospice care (2.27, 1.33 to 3.89) were two independent factors (p<0.01) that influenced their participation in the discussions or their personal signature in the informed consent. Conclusion: The family-oriented culture in Asian countries may violate the principles of the Patient Self-Determination Act and the requirements of the Hospice Care Law in Taiwan, which inevitably poses an ethical dilemma. Earlier truth-telling and continuing education of the public by hospice care workers will be helpful in solving such ethical dilemmas. (shrink)