This paper provides an ethical analysis of the controversy that arose from the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing research involving human embryos that was conducted by a research team in Guangzhou, China, in 2015. It is argued that the researchers involved did not overstep ethical boundaries. This was confirmed to be the case in an international meeting of experts that was convened following the controversy. It is further argued that the controversy highlights the tension between two fundamentally different policies on developing genome (...) editing technology – one proactionary and the other precautionary. This paper argues for a third approach, based on the policy of “crossing the river by probing stones”. Such an approach is consistent with current international recommendations to prioritise basic and pre-clinical research, and to allow the application of genome editing technology to somatic human cells. However, the application of the technology in germline genetic modification for human reproduction or enhancement for medical purposes should not be allowed at present. This is because the attending risks are not well understood and could be excessive or extraordinary, with little or no prospect of benefit. In addition, this paper calls for norms and regulations to be developed for genetically modifying non-human living things. [End Page 307] Finally, the paper concludes with a letter that was sent by the author to the New York Times, setting out China’s fundamental stance on genetic modification involving humans and human derivatives. (shrink)

The authors argue that in preventing and controlling the pandemic of Covid‐19, we should have taken an offensive or proactive strategy rather than a defensive or reactionary one because the former type of approach can bring about more health benefits and fewer harms than can the latter. The offensive or proactive approach consists of two parts: The first part is to preemptively establish a barrier between a novel virus and humans in order to prevent the spillover of the virus into (...) humans, and the second part is that, when a spillover fails to be prevented, we should take public interventions, such as contact tracing, social distancing, and quarantine and isolation, as early as when there are several dozens or one hundred or more cases that manifest symptoms with an unknown etiology in order to prevent an epidemic that is still limited to relatively small groups from developing into an outbreak. (shrink)

This article consists of four parts. In the first part it briefly describes the history of body‐to‐head transplantation (BHT) and the surgical plan proposed by Drs. Sergio Canavero and Ren Xiaoping on a human subject. In the second part it argues that the BHT procedure that they propose is scientifically invalid and technically infeasible so therefore would end in failure. In the third part it argues that the present conceivable procedure of BHT cannot be ethically justified because it would bring (...) great harm to the human subject, it is uncertain who would be the possible beneficiary, and valid informed consent cannot be obtained. In the fourth part it argues that the action of performing the procedure of BHT might violate China’s current criminal and civil laws. The conclusion that follows from the arguments above is that BHT should be prohibited now and also in the near future. However, this conclusion does not preclude scientists, neurosurgeons and bioethicists doing research into scientific, technical, surgical and ethical issues raised by BHT. (shrink)

This is a review of the literature in the philosophy of medicine published in China from 1930 to 1980. The topics dealt with include the relationship between medicine and philosophy, the basic concepts of medicine, etiology and causality, the bearing of psychology on physiology and pathology, epistemology in diagnostics, methodology of medical sciences, philosophical and methological problems in traditional Chinese medicine, philosophical problems in health policy, and medical ethics.

本书共收录了丘汉平在《法学杂志》和《东方杂志》等刊物公开发表的法学论文36篇,涉及领域有法理学、法史学、宪法学、民商法学、罗马法、华侨问题等。.

We examine the link between a firm’s environmental and social disclosures and measures of its risk including total, systematic, and idiosyncratic risk. While we do not find any link between a firm’s E and S disclosures and its systematic risk, we find a negative and significant association between these disclosures and a firm’s total and idiosyncratic risk. These are novel findings and are consistent with the predictions of the stakeholder theory and the resource-based view of the firm suggesting that firms (...) which make extensive and objective E and S disclosures promote corporate transparency that can help them build a positive reputation and trust with their stakeholders. This in turn can help mitigate the firms' idiosyncratic/operational risk. These findings are important for all corporate stakeholders including managers, employees, and suppliers who have a significant economic interest in the survival and success of the firm. (shrink)

This study focuses on mindfulness programs in the corporate world, which are receiving increasing attention from business practitioners and organizational scholars. The workplace mindfulness literature is rapidly evolving, but most studies are oriented toward demonstrating the positive impacts of mindfulness as a state of mind. This study adopts a critical perspective to evaluate workplace mindfulness practice as a developmental process, with a focus on its potential risks that have ethical implications and are currently neglected by both researchers and practitioners. We (...) draw from a Buddhist perspective that understands mindfulness training as an ethics-based, longitudinal, and holistic path. To this end, we develop a four-stage model to illustrate a potential developmental process for participants in workplace mindfulness programs. This model comprises four stages of preliminary concentration, deep concentration, self-transcendence, and reengagement, each of which has its own underlying characteristics and impacts on individual participants and organizations. (shrink)

Customers are increasingly talking positively about brands that are socially responsible and authentic. However, little empirical research has related corporate social responsibility (CSR) to brand authenticity and brand authenticity to customers’ positive word-of-mouth. Moreover, although highly attractive alternative brands are increasingly appearing in the marketplace, there is a lack of research examining the role of alternative attractiveness in the relationship between CSR and brand authenticity. We address these shortcomings in the literature drawing on data from 1,101 customers of insurance services (...) brands and analyze them using structural equation modeling. The findings show that CSR is positively related to customers’ positive word-of-mouth, both directly and indirectly, through brand authenticity. Moreover, alternative attractiveness positively moderates the effect of CSR on brand authenticity. This implies that CSR can act as a differentiation mechanism to further enhance the focal brand’s authenticity, when an alternative brand is perceived as highly attractive. (shrink)

The need for sustainable corporate governance has gained the interests of researchers for a while now and it has been found as a very significant component of successful organizational operations. The current paper has examined the role of sustainable corporate governance in achieving sustainable economic space along with measuring the indirect impact of technological innovation and IT governance on the whole process. This paper has followed the quantitative-positivism approach to measure the hypotheses developed in the study. The population considered in (...) this study are the managers currently employed in the corporate sector in China. The data is analyzed using the Smart-PLS 3.3.3 software for checking the data for preliminary screening and the measurement of hypotheses. The findings of the study show that the three components of sustainable corporate governance, i.e., concern for employees, sustainable corporate governance awareness, and the environmental aspects have a significant as well as a positive effect on technological innovation and hence on the sustainable economic space. Similarly, the study has recorded a significant moderating effect of IT governance on the relationship of technological innovation and the sustainable economic space. Overall, it can be seen that corporate governance, innovative technology, and a sustainable digital economy share a reciprocal relationship. Where corporate governance helps as a supporting force to keep both innovation and sustainability in action. Whereas IT governance provides enhanced communication and delivery of public services, business, and advanced human capital. The study will be of high advantage for the corporate sector in China for devising and modifying their policies that consider the employee’s concerns for the governance mechanisms prevailing at priority in the organizations. Further, it will be interesting for the organizations to incorporate the IT governance mechanism in their technological innovations for achieving a sustainable economic space. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a probabilistic-based method to predict malaria disease at an early stage. Malaria is a very dangerous disease that creates a lot of health problems. Therefore, there is a need for a system that helps us to recognize this disease at early stages through the visual symptoms and from the environmental data. In this paper, we proposed a Bayesian network model to predict the occurrences of malaria disease. The proposed BN model is built on different attributes (...) of the patient’s symptoms and environmental data which are divided into training and testing parts. Our proposed BN model when evaluated on the collected dataset found promising results with an accuracy of 81%. One the other hand, F1 score is also a good evaluation of these probabilistic models because there is a huge variation in class data. The complexity of these models is very high due to the increase of parent nodes in the given influence diagram, and the conditional probability table also becomes more complex. (shrink)

Chinese medicine has a history of at least 2,000 years. The first explicit literature on medical ethics did not appear until the seventh century when a physician named Sun Simiao wrote a famous treatise titled “On the Absolute Sincerity of Great Physicians” in his work The Important Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold. In this treatise, later called The Chinese Hippocratic Oath, Sun Simiao required the physician to develop first a sense of compassion and piety, and then to make (...) a commitment to try to save every living creature, to treat every patient on equal grounds, and to avoid seeking wealth because of his expertise. (shrink)

In this paper, we draw on insights from theories in the management and corporate governance literature to develop a theoretical model that makes explicit the links between a firm’s corporate social responsibility related board attributes, its board CSR strategy, and its environmental and social performance. We then test the model using structural equation modeling approach. We find that the greater the CSR orientation of the board, the more proactive and comprehensive the firm’s CSR strategy, and the higher its environmental and (...) social performance. Moreover, we find this link to be endogenous and self-reinforcing, with superior CSR performers tending to further strengthen their board CSR orientation. This result while positive is also suggestive of the widening of the gap between the leads and laggards in CSR. Therefore, the question arises as to how ‘leaders’ are using their superior CSR competencies seen by many scholars as a source of corporate competitive advantage. Stakeholders of corporations therefore need to be cognizant of this aspect of CSR when evaluating a firm’s CSR activities. Policy makers also need to be cognizant of these concerns when designing regulation in this field. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that Du Châtelet’s account of motion is an important contribution to the history of the absolute versus relative motion debate. The arguments we lay out have two main strands. First, we clarify Du Châtelet’s threefold taxonomy of motion, using Musschenbroek as a useful Newtonian foil and showing that the terminological affinity between the two is only apparent. Then, we assess Du Châtelet’s account in light of the conceptual, epistemological, and ontological challenges posed by Newton to (...) any relational theory of motion. What we find is that, although Du Châtelet does not meet all the challenges to their full extent, her account of motion is adequate for the goal of the Principia: determining the true motions in our planetary system. (shrink)

Many studies have revealed the top-down modulation on unconscious processing. However, there is little research about how category-selective attention could modulate the unconscious processing. In the present study, using functional magnetic resonance imaging , the results showed that category-selective attention modulated unconscious face/tool processing in the middle occipital gyrus . Interestingly, MOG effects were of opposed direction for face and tool processes. During unconscious face processing, activation in MOG decreased under the face-selective attention compared with tool-selective attention. This result was (...) in line with the predictive coding theory. During unconscious tool processing, however, activation in MOG increased under the tool-selective attention compared with face-selective attention. The different effects might be ascribed to an interaction between top-down category-selective processes and bottom-up processes in the partial awareness level as proposed by Kouider, De Gardelle, Sackur, and Dupoux . Specifically, we suppose an “excessive activation” hypothesis. (shrink)

The application of digital technology in teaching has triggered the evolution of traditional teaching. Students have different corresponding relationships under digital behavior. The interactive technology of artificial intelligence and virtual reality provides a new driving force for the development of art education and psychology. Firstly, this thesis analyzes the limitations and existing problems of traditional art education. Especially, the influence of the teaching mode of art education on the teaching of other disciplines develops a targeted student-centered digital education program. Secondly, (...) the author used VR equipment and technology to let students experience the virtual world freely, and then, the relevant data model was established on the basis of analyzing the reasons affecting students’ creativity and concentration. Thirdly, the data model was applied to art education in order to improve students’ concentration and creativity. Then, the author compared and analyzed the data of the students under different teaching models through questionnaires. The results show that introducing VR and AI technology into art education and encouraging students to carry out deep learning can significantly improve student concentration and creativity. Finally, the influence reasons are analyzed from the perspective of psychology. VR interaction and Artificial Intelligence can be introduced into middle school fine art education which is to the benefit of students’ deep learning, thus students’ concentration and creativity can be improved. (shrink)

This paper investigates how social trust affects stock price synchronicity using a large sample of listed firms in China. We propose and provide evidence that social trust has a significantly positive impact on the amount of firm-specific information capitalized into stock prices. Further analyses indicate that firms located in regions of high social trust tend to have a smaller stock price crash risk and are less likely to engage in opportunistic behaviors than those in low-trust regions. Moreover, the positive role (...) of trust in increasing firm-specific return variations and discouraging corporate misbehaviors is more pronounced for SOEs than Non-SOEs. Evidence from 2SLS regressions supports a causal impact of social trust on stock price synchronicity. (shrink)

Background An increasing number of studies on physicians’ professionalism have been done since the 2002 publication of Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter. The Charter proposed three fundamental principles and ten responsibilities. However, most studies were done in developed countries, and few have been done in China. Additionally, few studies have examined the effect of patient-centered hospital culture (PCHC) on physicians’ professionalism. We aimed to investigate physicians’ medical professionalism in public hospitals in China, and to assess mediating (...) effect of professional attitudes in the relationship of PCHC with professional behaviours. Methods Self-administered questionnaires including professional attitudes (20 items) and behaviours (10 items) survey and PCHC scale (22 items) were given to clinical physicians in five public hospitals, China. The mediating effect of professional attitudes in the relationship of PCHC with professional behaviours was tested. Result 232 valid questionnaires were collected. More than 90% (208) respondents agreed with 15 of 20 specific statements on medical professionalism. As for the responsibility of improving quality of care, 54 (23%) respondents disagreed with reporting of incompetent colleagues and as for the responsibility of maintaining professional competence, 49 (21%) disagreed with recertification. More than 185 (83%) respondents reported that they sometimes, usually, or always showed the four positive behaviours on the questionnaire, and 173 (77%) reported that they never showed the six negative behaviours. Mediating effect analysis revealed that two dimensions of PCHC (i.e. value/institution culture and behaviour/material culture) had a significant positive impact on physicians’ professional behaviour, and professional attitude played a complete mediation role between them, but another dimension of PCHC (i.e. negative evaluation of hospital) directly affected professional behaviour without influencing professional attitude. Conclusion Chinese physicians showed positive professional attitudes and behaviours. Different dimensions of PCHC affected physicians’ attitudes and behaviours in different ways. (shrink)

Without the active participation of enterprises and front-line workers, it is difficult for the government to perform effective supervision to ensure behavioral safety among front-line workers. To overcome inadequate government supervision and information attenuation caused by vertical management mode and limited resources, and to change passive supervision into active control with the proactive participation of enterprises and workers, this paper combines the entity responsibility mechanism and the third-party participation mechanism based on government supervision to analyze the decision-making process of government (...) and enterprises on safety behavior supervision. An evolutionary game model was established to describe the decision-making interactions between the government and construction enterprises under the two mechanisms, and a simulation was performed to illustrate the factors influencing the implementation of the mechanisms. The results show that both mechanisms have a positive effect on government supervision, and the third-party participation mechanism was found to be working better. The implementation of the two mechanisms is influenced by punishment, subsidy, and cost, and it has different sensitivities to the three influencing factors. This study provides a theoretical framework for enhancing the government supervision mechanism, and the decision-making between the government and construction enterprises enhances the management form and guides their actual supervision practices. (shrink)