Background: In 2019, an outbreak of COVID-19 broke out in Hubei, China. Medical workers from all over the country rushed to Hubei and participated in the treatment and care of COVID-19 patients. These nurses, dedicated to their professional practice, volunteered to provide compassion and expert clinical care during the pandemic. As with other acts of heroism, the ethical dilemmas associated with working on the front line must be considered for future practice. Purpose: To explore the ethical dilemmas of frontline nurses (...) of Jiangsu Province in China during deployment to Wuhan to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia, and to provide a basis for developing strategies to help nursing staff address personal and practice concerns in order to work more effectively during this pandemic and other disasters in the future. Research design and method: Using the phenomenological research method and the purpose sampling method, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 nurses, post-deployment to Wuhan, who had worked on the front line to fight the novel coronavirus. Ethical considerations: The research proposal was approved by the Research Ethic Committee of Yangzhou University, China. Findings: From the analysis of the interviews of the 10 participants, three main themes were identified: ethical dilemmas in clinical nursing, ethical dilemmas in interpersonal relationships, and ethical dilemmas in nursing management. Conclusion: During a quick response to public health emergencies, where nurses are deployed immediately as a call to action, the issues surrounding ethical dilemmas from several perspectives must be considered. This research suggests that a team approach to proactive planning and open communication during the emergency is an efficient and productive strategy to improve the nurses’ experience and sense of well-being. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, this study measures the contribution of banks and non-bank financial institutions toward the systemic risk of China. Second, the present study investigates the relationship between CEO power, CEO overconfidence, and systemic risk. This study uses the Delta Conditional Value-at-Risk method to measure the systemic risk contribution of firms listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges over a period of 2006–2018. The results show that non-bank financial institutions are systemically more important compared (...) to banks. We employed fixed-effect regression analysis to show that banks with overconfident CEOs increase the firm’s systemic risk. The results also confirm that powerful CEOs enhance the contribution of non-bank financial institutions to systemic risk, whereas CEO power’s impact was significant only for non-state-owned banks. The findings were further validated by the robustness test results obtained using the two-stage least squares approach. These findings are important for constructing regulations to reduce the contribution of firms to systemic risk. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe six basic emotions have long been considered discrete categories that serve as the primary units of the emotion system. Yet recent evidence indicated underlying connections among them. Here we tested the underlying relationships among the six basic emotions using a perceptual learning procedure. This technique has the potential of causally changing participants’ emotion detection ability. We found that training on detecting a facial expression improved the performance not only on the trained expression but also on other expressions. Such a (...) transfer effect was consistently demonstrated between disgust and anger detection as well as between fear and surprise detection in two experiments. Notably, training on any of the six emotions could improve happiness detection, while sadness detection could only be improved by training on sadness itself, suggesting the uniqueness of happiness and sadness.... (shrink)

Previous study suggests that gratitude intervention evokes indebtedness among people from an interdependent society. This study furtherly hypothesized that perceived social distance moderates the effect of gratitude intervention on felt indebtedness. A total of 275 adolescents were randomly assigned to three gratitude intervention conditions, namely, writing gratitude to significant others, the health of one’s own, or nothing. After completing the writing task, they rated their experienced emotions on ten dimensions, including gratitude and indebtedness. They also reported perceived social distance from (...) surrounding people and other demographical information. Results indicated that participants in the condition of writing about gratitude to significant others felt indebted regardless of perceived social distance, while those in the condition of writing about gratitude to his/her own health and those in the control condition experienced lesser indebtedness as the perceived social distance with others becomes closer. Gratitude increases as perceived social connectedness increases across all conditions. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed. (shrink)

Research shows that entrepreneurial activities significantly promote economic development, which enhances the importance of the innovative entrepreneurial potential of college students. This study analyzes the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention from the perspective of planned behavior theory. By examining the significant role of entrepreneurship education at colleges and universities on economic and social development, we established a conceptual model. To understand the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention, the hypotheses propose the intermediary role of entrepreneurial ability, and (...) the study provides evidence from China the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention. Improving entrepreneurial intention and encouraging college students to establish businesses through entrepreneurship education in universities is crucial. This study proposes a hypothetical model of the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial intention in entrepreneurship education at universities. Using a questionnaire survey of college students with practical experience in the Yangtze River Delta of China, the bootstrap method in the SPSS macro program process software verifies the hypotheses. The results show that entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, and entrepreneurial practice support positively affect entrepreneurial competence. In addition, entrepreneurial competence plays an intermediary role in the relationship between entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, entrepreneurship practice support, and entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurship education improves the ability to establish a business in the present and in entrepreneurial activities in the future. Entrepreneurial competence obtained through entrepreneurship education continuously affects entrepreneurial intention. (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)

Objective: Cognitive impairment is a common neurological complication in patients with end-stage renal disease undergoing maintenance hemodialysis. Brain network analysis based on graph theory is a promising tool for studying CI. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the changes of functional brain networks in patients on MHD with and without CI by using graph theory and further explore the underlying neuropathological mechanism of CI in these patients.Methods: A total of 39 patients on MHD and 25 healthy controls (...) matched for age, sex, and years of education were enrolled in the study. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and T1-weighted high-resolution anatomical data were obtained, and functional brain networks for each subject were constructed. The brain network parameters at the global and regional levels were calculated, and a one-way analysis of covariance was used to compare the differences across the three groups. The associations between the changed graph-theory parameters and cognitive function scores in patients on MHD were evaluated using Spearman correlation analysis.Results: Compared with HCs, the global parameters [sigma, gamma, and local efficiency ] in both patient groups decreased significantly. The clustering coefficient in patients with CI was significantly lower than that in the other two groups. The regional parameters were significantly lower in the right superior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral and gyrus rectus of patients with CI than those of patients without CI; however the nodal local efficiency in the left amygdala was significantly increased. The global Cp and regional parameters in the three brain regions were significantly correlated with the cognitive function scores.Conclusion: This study confirmed that the topology of the functional brain network was disrupted in patients on MHD with and without CI and the disruption of brain network was more severe in patients with CI. The abnormal brain network parameters are closely related to cognitive function in patients on MHD. (shrink)

The dynamic models are proposed to investigate the influence node activity has on rumor spreading process in both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. Different from previous studies, we believe that the activity of nodes in complex networks affects the process of rumor spreading. An active node can have contact with all the nodes it directly links to, while an inactive node could only interact with its active neighbors. We explore the joint effort of activity rate, spreading rate and network topology on (...) rumor spreading process by mean-field equations and numerical simulations, which reveals that there exists a critical curve consisting of critical activity rate and spreading rate; meanwhile, activity rate and spreading rate both have influence on the final rumor spreading scale. (shrink)

BackgroundSubjective cognitive decline, non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and amnestic mild cognitive impairment are regarded to be at high risk of converting to Alzheimer’s disease. Amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations can reflect functional deterioration while diffusion tensor imaging is capable of detecting white matter integrity. Our study aimed to investigate the structural and functional alterations to further reveal convergence and divergence among SCD, naMCI, and aMCI and how these contribute to cognitive deterioration.MethodsWe analyzed ALFF under slow-4 and slow-5 bands and white matter (...) fiber integrity among normal controls, SCD, naMCI, and aMCI groups. Correlation analyses were further utilized among paired DTI alteration, ALFF deterioration, and cognitive decline.ResultsFor ALFF calculation, ascended ALFF values were detected in the lingual gyrus and superior frontal gyrus within SCD and naMCI patients, respectively. Descended ALFF values were presented mainly in the LING, SFG, middle frontal gyrus, and precuneus in aMCI patients compared to CN, SCD, and naMCI groups. For DTI analyses, white matter alterations were detected within the uncinate fasciculus in aMCI patients and within the superior longitudinal fasciculus in naMCI patients. SCD patients presented alterations in both fasciculi. Correlation analyses revealed that the majority of these structural and functional alterations were associated with complicated cognitive decline. Besides, UF alterations were correlated with ALFF deterioration in the SFG within aMCI patients.ConclusionsSCD shares structurally and functionally deteriorative characteristics with aMCI and naMCI, and tends to convert to either of them. Furthermore, abnormalities in white matter fibers may be the structural basis of abnormal brain activation in preclinical AD stages. Combined together, it suggests that structural and functional integration may characterize the preclinical AD progression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Found in Translation: “New People” in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction by Jing JiangYingying HuangJing Jiang. Found in Translation: “New People” in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. 144 pp. Paperback, ISBN 9780924304941.One of the Association of Asian Studies’ Asia Shorts series, Jing Jiang’s monograph is a delightful 130-page read including notes and a bibliography. It contributes new and cross-cultural perspectives to the Chinese SF (...) scholarship that has recently been invigorated by a plethora of translations into English, animated discussions at conference panels and themed lectures, and book-length studies such as Nathaniel Isaacson’s Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction (2017), which focuses on China’s early twentieth century, and Hua Li’s Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw (2021), which deals with works published between 1978 and 1981, to name just a couple. Jiang’s book covers both periods and the time in between with a purpose to investigate “how Chinese science fiction participates and intervenes in Chinese conceptualizations of the modern at critical junctures over the last century” (1), which Jiang achieves through comparative readings of texts brought into dialogue via translation. A shared theme of the texts studied is, as the book title suggests, the creation of a “new people,” either through edification or high-tech means such as bioengineering. Therefore, the interventions by science fiction that this study is concerned with are chiefly in debates about modern citizenry, subjectivity, and humanity in China’s twentieth century, when science fiction enjoyed its first two “booms.”This book has an introduction, four chapters, and an epilogue. The introduction offers a brief history of Chinese science fiction and announces the author’s intention to “situate Chinese science fiction within a dynamic model of world literature” (2). Jiang makes two crucial points: first, Chinese science fiction is a product of translation and transculturation, which [End Page 591] requires an intertextual and comparative study; second, contrary to its designation as a popular genre in the West, science fiction in China has been a form of elite literature and even a part of statist thinking. While this introduction may seem a bit long for a short book with “conciseness” as one of its marketing guidelines—the account of Lu Xun’s early life and turn to literature, for example, may be a little too elaborate for its purpose (10–12)—it lays a solid foundation for discussions about science fiction’s translingual dimensions and role in China’s nation-building discourse to develop through the chapters.The expansive first chapter, “Medicine for the Mind, Panacea for the Nation: How Did the Stories of Science and Fiction Become One?” is yet another historical survey, occasionally repeating points from the introduction, but this time of the background, genesis, and early growth of science fiction in China from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century (i.e., the late Qing dynasty [1644–1911] and early Republican era [1912–49]). Jiang gives a detailed account of occurrences deemed important to the rise and confluence of fiction and science within China’s nation-building discourse, including literati intellectuals’ promotion of “new fiction” and the dissemination of scientific knowledge, highlighting the roles played by central figures like Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, and John Fryer. Jiang makes the illuminating observation that Fryer’s stipulation of a “new novel” for a fiction contest he organized in Shanghai in 1895 foreshadowed China’s literary realism and the vernacular movement (30), and her remarks about translation, Chinese science fiction’s inherent hybridity, and its mission to cure the nation well echo the book’s central argument about the genre’s interventions.A shorter chapter follows, entitled “Scientifically Formed or Reformed: Bioengineering and Other Fantasies about a New Species of National Subjects,” which examines early science fiction stories about manufacturing humanity and argues that these texts “gave rise to a literary vision that believed literally in the malleability or programmability of the soul” (39). During the first boom of Chinese science fiction in the 1900s, translations of and sequels to Western stories showcase the debate about science’s power of shaping the soul... (shrink)

Design ethics has been offered as a course in undergraduate design programs in Taiwan for over a decade, but research on teaching design ethics and the results of teaching these courses is scant. We conducted two tests to examine the effect of an ethics course, and the differences among the effects of design department, gender, and study year on student opinions regarding ethical design standards at the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan. The participants comprised 934 undergraduates (...) from the five design departments at YunTech’s College of Design from Years 1–4. The results confirmed the effect of an ethics course on student EDS opinions. In addition, we observed significant variations among students according to design departments, suggesting that the characteristics of the design departments also affected students’ EDS opinions. The results indicated that gender did not significantly affect design students’ EDS opinions; however, students in their early years of study produced higher scores than those in their advanced years of study did, based on the six EDS opinions. The implications of these results for teaching design ethics and future research are discussed in this paper. (shrink)

Although researchers agree on the importance of validity, they have not yet reached a consensus on what validity consists of. This article traces the historic trajectories of validity theory development in three research traditions: psychometrics, experiment in social settings, and animal models of psychiatric disorders, showing that the multiplicity in the concept of validity is shaped by its multiple historic trajectories and reflects the diversity of practices and concerns in different research traditions. I argue that specifying validity of what target (...) practice and for what purpose in discussions helps to connect validity to its rich context that gives rise to its specific meaning and relevance. (shrink)

Single-sided deafness (SSD) or profound unilateral hearing loss obligates the only serviceable ear to capture all acoustic information. This loss of binaural function taxes cognitive resources for accurate listening performance, especially under adverse environments or challenging tasks. We hypothesized that adults with SSD would manifest both functional and structural brain plasticity compared to controls with normal binaural hearing. We evaluated functional alterations using magnetoencephalographic imaging (MEGI) of brain activation during performance of a moderately difficult auditory syllable sequence reproduction task and (...) assessed structural integrity using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI). MEGI showed the SSD cohort to have increased induced oscillations in the theta band over the left superior temporal cortex and decreased induced gamma band oscillations over the frontal and parietal cortices between 175-475 ms following stimulus onset. DTI showed the SSD cohort to have extensive fractional anisotropy reduction in both auditory and non-auditory tracts and regions. Overlaying functional and structural changes revealed by the two imaging techniques demonstrated close registration of cortical areas and white matter tracts that expressed brain plasticity. Hence, complete loss of input from one ear in adulthood triggers both functional and structural alterations to dorsal temporal and frontal-parietal areas. (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

Currently, the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic experienced by the international community has increased the usage frequency of borderless, highly personalized social media platforms of all age groups. Analyzing and modeling texts sent through social media online can reveal the characteristics of the psychological dynamic state and living conditions of social media users during the pandemic more extensively and comprehensively. This study selects the Sina Weibo platform, which is highly popular in China and analyzes the subjective well-being of Weibo users during (...) the COVID-19 pandemic in combination with the machine learning classification algorithm. The study first invokes the SWB classification model to classify the SWB level of original texts released by 1,322 Weibo active users during the COVID-19 pandemic and then combines the latent growth curve model and the latent growth mixture model to investigate the developmental trend and heterogeneity characteristics of the SWB of Weibo users after the COVID-19 outbreak. The results present a downward trend and then an upward trend of the SWB of Weibo users during the pandemic as a whole. There was a significant correlation between the initial state and the development rate of the SWB after the COVID-19 outbreak. LGMM results show that there were two heterogeneous classes of the SWB after the COVID-19 outbreak, and the development rate of the SWB of the two classes was significantly different. The larger class showed a slow growth, while the smaller class showed a rapid growth. Furthermore, the slope means across the two classes were significantly different. Therefore, the individuals with a higher growth rate of SWB exhibited stronger adaptability to the changes in their living environments. These results could help to formulate effective interventions on the mental health level of the public after the public health emergency outbreak. (shrink)

A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), "it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.” Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in a world like ours. In this paper, I show that it can be achieved in a simple way and (...) discuss its implications for metaphysics and philosophy of science, including natural properties, free will, explanation, and modality. First, I propose a precise definition of strong determinism. Next, I discuss its philosophical ramifications and a toy example. Finally, I provide a realistic example of a strongly deterministic (and simple) physical theory---the Everettian Wentaculus. A surprising consequence is that whether or not our world is strongly deterministic may be empirically underdetermined. (shrink)

Two of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics are (1) what gives rise to the arrow of time and (2) what the ontology of quantum mechanics is. They are difficult because the fundamental dynamical laws of physics do not privilege an arrow of time, and the quantum-mechanical wave function describes a high-dimensional reality that is radically different from our ordinary experiences. -/- In this paper, I characterize and elaborate on the ``Wentaculus” theory, a new approach to time’s (...) arrow in a quantum universe that offers a unified solution to both problems. Central to the Wentaculus are (i) Density Matrix Realism, the idea that the quantum state of the universe is objective but can be impure, and (ii) the Initial Projection Hypothesis, a new law of nature that selects a unique initial quantum state. On the Wentaculus, the quantum state of the universe is sufficiently simple to be a law, and the arrow of time can be traced back to an exact boundary condition. It removes the intrinsic vagueness of the Past Hypothesis, eliminates the Statistical Postulate, provides a higher degree of theoretical unity, and contains a natural realization of “strong determinism." I end by responding to four recent objections. In a companion paper, I elaborate on Density Matrix Realism. (shrink)

The wave function in quantum mechanics presents an interesting challenge to our understanding of the physical world. In this paper, I show that the wave function can be understood as four intrinsic relations on physical space. My account has three desirable features that the standard account lacks: it does not refer to any abstract mathematical objects, it is free from the usual arbitrary conventions, and it explains why the wave function has its gauge degrees of freedom, something that are usually (...) put into the theory by hand. Hence, this account has implications for debates in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. First, by removing references to mathematical objects, it provides a framework for nominalizing quantum mechanics. Second, by excising superfluous structure such as overall phase, it reveals the intrinsic structure postulated by quantum mechanics. Moreover, it also removes a major obstacle to ``wave function realism.''. (shrink)

The opponents of egalitarianism insist that distributional equality can never have intrinsic value, because it is hard to find how equal distribution could benefit people intrinsically. In this paper, we attempt to demystify the intrinsic value of distributional equality and suggest a possible direction of vindicating egalitarianism. First, we propose the principle that it is (epistemically) reasonable to regard x as an intrinsic value for a person S if S rationally desires x for its own sake. Second, we argue by (...) thought experiment that people can rationally desire equal distribution of certain goods for its own sake in certain circumstances. (shrink)

Although the sufficientarian approach to distributive justice is increasingly popular in contemporary political philosophy, it is not easy to give an appropriate formulation of sufficientarianism. In this article, I aim to show that a proper formulation of sufficientarianism should satisfy three conditions: the Distinctiveness condition, the Intermediacy condition, and the Universality condition. However, I argue that it is very difficult to propose a substantial account of sufficiency that can satisfy the three conditions altogether. After examining several influential sufficientarian accounts, I (...) contend that none of them can satisfy the three conditions on sufficientarianism. (shrink)

It has long been suggested that emotion, especially threatening emotion, facilitates early visual perception to promote adaptive responses to potential threats in the environment. Here, we tested whether and how fearful emotion affects the basic visual ability of visual acuity. An adapted Posner’s spatial cueing task was employed, with fearful and neutral faces as cues and a Vernier discrimination task as the probe. The time course of the emotional attention effect was examined by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony of the (...) cue and probe. Two independent experiments consistently demonstrated that the brief presentation of a fearful face increased visual acuity at its location. The facilitation of perceptual sensitivity was detected at an SOA around 300 ms when the face cues were presented for both 250 ms and 150 ms. This effect cannot be explained by physical differences between the fearful and neutral faces because no improvement was found when the faces were presented inverted. In the last experiment, the face cues were flashed very briefly, and we did not find any improvement induced by the fearful face. Overall, we provide evidence that emotion interacts with attention to affect basic visual functions. (shrink)

Can the difference among people’s contributions to the society serve as a desert-based reason for unequal distributions? John Rawls contends that it cannot, though contribution may provide an efficiency-based reason for distribution. Contrary to Rawls, luck egalitarians contend that difference in contribution that is not a result of luck may provide a desert-based reason for unequal distributions. My view contrasts with both of these views. By appealing to a fundamental moral principle, the principle of reciprocity, this paper argues that the (...) difference among people’s contributions can serve as a desert-based reason for unequal distributions, even when it is a result of luck. (shrink)

Recent research has suggested that young children may have primitive knowledge of ratio and proportions. However, it is unclear how precisely young children represent ratio magnitudes and how well...

During the outbreak of COVID-19, information on the epidemic inundated people’s lives and led to negative emotions in many people. This study aims to explore the effect of various emotions on prosocial tendencies during the COVID-19 outbreak and the moderating effect of the severity of the epidemic. We explore these effects by conducting a text analysis of the content of posts by 387,730 Weibo users. The results show that the severity of the epidemic promotes prosocial tendencies; anger motivates prosocial tendencies (...) significantly; and the severity of the epidemic moderates the effects of three emotions—anger, sadness, and surprise—on prosocial tendencies. These findings provide a reference for exploring the positive significance of major disasters. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between firms' corporate philanthropic giving and their performance in three other social domains - employee relations, environmental issues, and product safety. Based on a sample of 384 U.S. companies and using data pooled from 1998 through 2000, we find that worse performers in the other social areas are both more likely to make charitable contributions and that the extent of their giving is larger than for better performers. Analyses of each separate area of social performance, (...) however, indicate that the relation between giving and negative social performance only holds for the environmental issues and product safety areas. We find no significant association between corporate philanthropy and employee relations concerns. In general, these findings suggest that corporate philanthropy may be more a tool of legitimization than a measure of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

本书是一本关于陈冲体验人生感悟人生的书法集子。内容包括:悟道篇;明理篇;做人篇;处世篇等。.

Reductionism about testimony has become less popular as philosophers have uncovered our epistemic dependence on others. Meanwhile, both non-reductionism and the interpersonal view face a challenge from gullibility. Surprisingly, the concept of gullibility has not been sustainedly examined. The primary goal in this paper is to propose an analysis of gullibility. After some introductory remarks, we begin this paper by discussing an account of gullibility in terms of insensitivity to defeaters. We argue that this account cannot accommodate cases where agents (...) are gullible. We, therefore, offer a dispositional account of gullibility. In so doing, we show how gullibility differs from other epistemic vices vis-à-vis its interpersonal features. We also discuss how treating gullibility as an intellectual vice has salient implications for the debate between reductionists and non-reductionists about gullibility. (shrink)

Recently there is heated discussion on the puzzle of imaginative resistance, i.e. the puzzle of why it is difficult to imagine certain counterfactual scenarios. After examining Brian Weatherson’s “In-Virtue-Of Hypothesis”, I put forward an alternative hypothesis that all and only conceptual impossibilities are unimaginable. I argue that my account has some theoretical advantages over the In-Virtue-Of hypothesis. I consider some challenges to my hypothesis and then attempt to show that those objections are unsuccessful.

In this chapter, we aim to argue that 1) the idea of autonomy fails to justify the neutrality principle, according to which the state should be neutral between particular, disputed conceptions of the good life; and 2) autonomy raises a serious challenge to perfectionism, which is the view that it is permissible for the state to use any means, even coercion, to promote the good. By analyzing two aspects of autonomy: autonomy as coherence and autonomy as independence, we attempt to (...) demonstrate that a person’s living a way of life is manifestly valuable only if she is pursuing it autonomously. While some methods of advancing particular conceptions of the good life may violate the citizens’ autonomy, we argue, other methods are compatible with the value of autonomy. (shrink)

In Western aesthetics, there is a consensus that imagination is significant in art appreciation. But the significance of imagination in appreciating nature is still a matter of debate; this is especially true within contemporary analytic environmental aesthetics. While some aestheticians passionately embrace the significance of imagination in appreciating nature, other aestheticians hold that imagination is not just unnecessary, but even inappropriate, for the aesthetic appreciation of nature.Emily Brady famously contends that imagination can help to discover certain aesthetic truths about natural (...) objects. She uses the following examples to illustrate how aesthetic truths about natural objects... (shrink)

According to prioritarianism, an influential theory of distributive justice, we have a stronger reason to benefit people the worse off these people are. Many authors have adopted a consequentialist version of prioritarianism. On this account, we have a consequentialist reason to benefit the worse off because the state of affairs where the worse off gains a given amount of utility is more valuable than the state of affairs where the better off gains roughly the same amount of utility. In this (...) paper, we argue that the consequentialist approach to prioritarianism is problematic. However, it doesn't follow that the prioritarian doctrine per se is groundless. We then suggest that we can make sense of prioritarianism by appeal to a contractualist approach. (shrink)

Human behavior depends on the ability to effectively introspect about our performance. For simple perceptual decisions, this introspective or metacognitive ability varies substantially across individuals and is correlated with the structure of focal areas in prefrontal cortex. This raises the possibility that the ability to introspect about different perceptual decisions might be mediated by a common cognitive process. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether inter-individual differences in metacognitive ability were correlated across two different perceptual tasks where individuals made judgments (...) about different and unrelated visual stimulus properties. We found that inter-individual differences were strongly correlated between the two tasks for metacognitive ability but not objective performance. Such stability of an individual’s metacognitive ability across different perceptual tasks indicates a general mechanism supporting metacognition independent of the specific task. (shrink)

本书分为三个部分。第一部分是自序,包括前言、序、代序、序言等;第二部分是他序,即为他人所撰之序;第三部分是自跋。.

该书通过对宋明时代有代表性的二十余位理学思想家的介绍,叙述了宋明理学产生、发展、演变的过程,展示了宋明理学的基本人物、学术派别、概念命题与思想特色等内容。.

Chinese traditional bioethics is based on the life origin theory of “Qi (vital force) permeates everything under heaven”, the attitude towards life theory of “loving people” and “loving things”, and the life transcendence theory of “eternity” and “immortality”. The life origin theory answers the question of how life comes into being, which is the basis for exploring the mystery of life. The attitude towards life theory gives answers to the question of how to treat life properly and establishes the basic (...) requirements and criteria for treating life. The life transcendence theory responds to the question of how to make life more meaningful. Those three thoughts support each other and explain each other with the inner logical band between these three basic thoughts, and tentatively offers a reasonable way for the reconstruction of traditional Chinese bioethics, which can be a special theoretical resource for today's bioethical research. (shrink)

Chinese traditional bioethics is based on the life origin theory of “Qi (vital force) permeates everything under heaven”, the attitude towards life theory of “loving people” and “loving things”, and the life transcendence theory of “eternity” and “immortality”. The life origin theory answers the question of how life comes into being, which is the basis for exploring the mystery of life. The attitude towards life theory gives answers to the question of how to treat life properly and establishes the basic (...) requirements and criteria for treating life. The life transcendence theory responds to the question of how to make life more meaningful. Those three thoughts support each other and explain each other with the inner logical band between these three basic thoughts, and tentatively offers a reasonable way for the reconstruction of traditional Chinese bioethics, which can be a special theoretical resource for today's bioethical research. (shrink)

With the rapid development of the economy, the land use/cover change in the Greater Bay Area has undergone tremendous changes, which have had directly negative effects on ecosystem functions and services. The development of sustainable land use strategies to quantitatively evaluate ecosystem services is required. Based on multitemporal land use data, the equivalent coefficients table method was used to assess the ecosystem service values, and the impact of LUCC on ecosystem services was analyzed. A future land use simulation model and (...) multiscenario simulations were employed to predict land use change in 2030. Our results indicated that the loss of ESVs decreased by 14.29 billion yuan from 2005 to 2020. The spatial distribution of the high-value ecosystem services was concentrated around the peripheral area of the northern regions in the GBA, and those areas had less land use development and human activity. Compared with those in 2020, the total ESVs of the business-as-usual scenario, socioeconomic development scenario, and cultivated protection priority scenario in 2030 decreased, while they increased in the ecological protection priority scenario. In the CPP scenario, regulating, supporting, provisioning, and cultural services increased slightly, but they decreased in the other scenarios. The patterns of LUCC were the main reasons for the decrease in ESVs, such as the loss of land with high ecological value. Additionally, a four-quadrant analysis is introduced to determine which land use simulation will be expected to be adopted by the government. The findings of this study provide valuable information for decision-making and policy development in the coastal zones and for the sustainable management of ecosystems. (shrink)

本书收录了作者22篇文章。全书共分三部分,第一部分七篇,是基本的概念分析工作;第二部分八篇,是对文化、艺术等方面的思考;第三部分六篇,是对西方哲学的研究。.

Intelligent personal assistants own anthropomorphic features which enable users’ perception of anthropomorphism. Adopting the perspective of mind-based anthropomorphism, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how mind-based anthropomorphism influences users’ exploratory usage of IPAs. Based on the notion that anthropomorphism can satisfy people’s sociality and effectance motivation, we hypothesize that mind-based anthropomorphism can enhance people’s social connection with IPAs and IPA self-efficacy, which can in turn influence their exploratory usage of IPAs. Questionnaires were developed and distributed to users who (...) had experience in smart speaker-based IPAs on Wenjuanxing and 551 valid questionnaires were collected to test the research model. The results revealed that cognitive and affective anthropomorphism exerted common and differential impacts on IPA self-efficacy and social connection. Cognitive anthropomorphism versus affective anthropomorphism had stronger influences on IPA self-efficacy, while affective anthropomorphism had stronger impacts on social connection. Both IPA self-efficacy and social connection enhanced users’ intentions to explore IPAs. This study enriches previous studies on IPA adoption or post-adoption by investigating exploratory usage which captures how users are deeply engaged with IPAs. (shrink)