This paper presents an adaptive fuzzy sliding-mode controller for multiple Euler–Lagrange systems communicated with directed topology. Based on the graph theory and Lyapunov–Krasovskii functions, a delay-dependent sufficient condition for the existence of sliding surfaces is given in terms of linear matrix inequalities. The asymptotic stability is analyzed by using the Lyapunov method in the presence of unknown parametric dynamics, actuator faults, and time-varying delays. The usage of adaptive techniques is to adapt the unknown parameters so that the objective of globally (...) asymptotic stability is achieved. Finally, simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. (shrink)

This paper proposes an experiment-based methodology for both classical genetics and molecular biology by integrating Lindley Darden’s mechanism-centered approach and C. Kenneth Waters’s phenomenon-centered approach. We argue that the methodology basing on experiments offers a satisfactory account of the development of the two biological disciplines. The methodology considers discovery of new mechanisms, investigation of new phenomena, and construction of new theories together, in which experiments play a central role. Experimentation connects the three type of conduct, which work as both ends (...) and means, occurring in a circular way and constituting an overall process of scientific practice from classical genetics to molecular biology. (shrink)

This paper explores multiple experimental interventions in molecular biology. By “multiple,” we mean that molecular biologists often use different modes of experimental interventions in a series of experiments for one and the same subject. In performing such a series of experiment, scientists may use different modes of interventions to realize plural goals such as testing given hypotheses and exploring novel phenomena. In order to illustrate this claim, we develop a framework of multiple modes of experimental interventions to analyze a series (...) of experiments for a single subject. Our argument begins with a brief characterization of Craver and Darden’s taxonomy of experiments, because the taxonomy they have made implies various modes of interventions. We propose to extract two interventional directions and two interventional effects from their taxonomy as the basis of classification. The vertical or inter-level direction means that an intervention is performed between different levels of organization and the horizontal or inter-stage direction means that an intervention is performed between different stages of a mechanism. Interventions may produce an excitatory or an inhibitory effect. As a consequence, we can classify modes of interventions according to different directions and effects. We illustrate our claims by doing a case study of the PaJaMo experiment, which is a series of experiments for a single subject. The final goal in this paper is to provide a taxonomy of characteristics of experimentation in which the PaJaMo experiment is adequately located. (shrink)

Both glycemic control and handgrip strength affect microvascular function. Multiscale entropy of photoplethysmographic pulse amplitudes may differ by diabetes status and hand activity. Of a middle-to-old aged and right-handed cohort without clinical cardiovascular disease, we controlled age, sex, and weight to select the unaffected,the well-controlled diabetes, and the poorly controlled diabetes groups. MSEs were calculated from consecutive 1,500 PPG pulse amplitudes of bilateral index fingertips. Thesmall-, medium-,and large-scale MSEs were defined as the average of scale 1, scales 2–4, and scales (...) 5–10, respectively. Intra- and intergroups were compared by one- and two-samplet-tests, respectively. The dominant handMSE5–10was lower in the poorly controlled diabetes group than the well-controlled diabetes and the unaffected groups, whereas the nondominant handMSE5–10was lower in the well- and poorly controlled diabetes groups than the unaffected group. TheMSE1of dominant hand was higher than that of nondominant hand in the well-controlled diabetes. In conclusion, diabetes status and hand dominance may affect the MSE of PPG pulse amplitudes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art as a Political Act:Expression of Cultural Identity, Self-Identity, and Gender by Suk Nam Yun and Yong Soon MinHwa Young Choi Caruso (bio)IntroductionA number of artists of color, including Asian American women, are creating art from the basis of their lived experiences. Within minority groups searching for their cultural identity, establishing self-identity is an important process. For various psychological and sociological reasons, artists seem inspired to seek deeper meaning (...) and a broader participation in cultural work.1 Asian American women artists, in particular, are currently making art as a means of exploring self-identity, cultural identity, and gender issues. Korean/Korean American minority women artists are creating art as a reaction to their cultural upbringing, which questions issues of identity, gender, ethnicity, politics, cultural, and socioeconomic status. These contemporary artists are breaking away from traditional cultural expectations and overcoming social barriers as artists, women, and Koreans/Korean Americans. With the growing public awareness of women's consciousness and sense of self as women in Korea and as an ethnic minority in America, these artists are redefining their identity. Despite the traditional patriarchal Confucian hierarchy; lack of social, institutional, and political support; and stereotypic gender, cultural, and socioeconomic status expectations for women, a few have stepped out of their traditional roles as women and have become successful artists in Korea and America.The artworks of these artists are worthy of investigation because they appear to be a culturally, socially, and politically motivated artistic expression of the complex multifaceted Korean/Korean American life experiences as women and as Korean immigrant members of a cultural (ethnic) minority in American society. Therefore, two main research questions can be posed: [End Page 71]• Given that art can be constructed out of layers of different experiences and influences, to what extent do the dimensions of cultural identity, self-identity, and gender interweave and contribute to the function of art as a political act for Korean/Korean American women artists?• How do Korean/Korean American cultural, social, and female experiences influence the artistic expression of Korean/Korean American women artists?In order to answer these questions, I selected case study methodology2 and adapted elements of interpretive biography,3 and narrative approaches as developed by Wallace and Gruber.4 According to Denzin,5 interpretive biography involves the collection and analysis of personal experiences, life documents, stories, accounts, and narratives that describe turning-point moments in individuals' lives. Denzin argues that personal experiences and personal stories are derived from a larger cultural, ideological, and historical context. The intent of the biographical project is to problematize the social, economic, cultural, structural, and historical forces that shape, distort, and otherwise alter lived experiences.By using narrative case study methods, I explore elements of self-identity formation, cultural identity, gender issues, personal thoughts, artistic expression, meaning of artworks, professional achievement, and life circumstances. I examine each participant's life in the Korean and American historical, cultural, social, and political environments. I interpret participants' outer lives (what they do) and inner lives (feelings, thoughts, inner self) to capture their deep, profound life experiences. I examine salient themes of their art expression and how the role of art and artistic activity is a part of political, cultural, social, and feminist activism. I further investigate their professional activities in order to identify the multiple roles that contribute to personal and professional identity formation.For the purpose of this study, I selected the contemporary Korean woman artist Suk Nam Yun and the contemporary Korean American woman artist Yong Soon Min as primary participants. These two women artists, despite many social and cultural barriers, chose to become artists; feminists; and social, cultural, and political activists; in addition to fulfilling traditional Korean family and domestic roles. Yun and Min are regarded as the leading contemporary Korean/Korean American women artists whose artworks deal with issues of cultural, social, feminist, political, and hybrid identity and art as political activism.Lippard acknowledges that visual images play an increasingly important role in society.6 Art that connects everyday experience with social critique and creative expression becomes a vital means of reflecting upon the nature of society and social existence.7 Artworks can function as... (shrink)

Modern Western medical individualism has had a significant impact on health care in China. This essay demonstrates the ways in which such Western-style individualism has been explicitly endorsed in China’s 2010 directive: The Basic Norms of the Documentation of the Medical Record. The Norms require that the patient himself, rather than a member of his family, sign each informed consent form. This change in clinical practice indicates a shift toward medical individualism in Chinese healthcare legislation. Such individualism, however, is incompatible (...) with the character of Chinese familism that is deeply rooted in the Chinese ethical tradition. It also contradicts family-based patterns of health care in China. Moreover, the requirement for individual informed consent is incompatible with numerous medical regulations promulgated in the past two decades. This essay argues that while Chinese medical legislation should learn from relevant Western ideas, it should not simply copy such practices by importing medical individualism into Chinese health care. Chinese healthcare policy is properly based on Chinese medical familist resources. (shrink)

This book analyses and defends the deflationist claim that there is nothing deep about our notion of truth. According to this view, truth is a 'light' and innocent concept, devoid of any essence which could be revealed by scientific inquiry. Cezary Cieśliński considers this claim in light of recent formal results on axiomatic truth theories, which are crucial for understanding and evaluating the philosophical thesis of the innocence of truth. Providing an up-to-date discussion and original perspectives on this central and (...) controversial issue, his book will be important for those with a background in logic who are interested in formal truth theories and in current philosophical debates about the deflationary conception of truth. (shrink)

This essay draws on classical Confucian intellectual resources to argue that the person who emerges from a head transplant would be neither the person who provided the head, nor the person who provided the body, but a new, different person. We construct two types of argument to support this conclusion: one is based on the classical Confucian metaphysics of human life as qi activity; the other is grounded in the Confucian view of personal identity as being inseparable from one’s familial (...) relations. These Confucian ideas provide a reasonable alternative to the currently dominant view that one’s personal identity “follows” one’s head. Together, these arguments imply that head transplantation is ethically inappropriate. (shrink)

This article contributes to normative debates about residential segregation and its relationship to inequality. It defends a position often disregarded in literature: that there is merit to advancing residential integration through some scenarios where advantaged individuals move to disadvantaged areas. It develops this case in dialogue with three other views. In relation to advocates of addressing the inequalities of residential segregation through redistribution, it defends integration as a means of tackling social and political factors that sustain injustice. It challenges those (...) who defend relocating disadvantaged individuals to advantaged areas by highlighting the burdens and demand for cultural assimilation this imposes on the disadvantaged. It considers the worry that advantaged individuals relocating to disadvantaged areas harbours the problematic features of gentrification. It responds that these concerns, while important in some cases, do not arise in all scenarios of this kind. (shrink)

The moral right to keep and bear arms is entailed by the moral right of self-defense. We argue that the ownership and use of firearms is a reasonable means of exercising these rights. Given their defensive value, there is a strong presumption in favor of enacting civil rights to keep and bear arms ranging from handguns to ‘assault rifles.’ Thus, states are morally obliged as a matter of justice to recognize basic liberties for firearm ownership and usage. Throughout this paper (...) we build upon the relevant criminological and social science research in addition to the work of other philosophers who have in recent years argued in favor of gun rights. Although we believe the statistical evidence supports our case, our argument is primarily non-consequentialist. We do, however, address consequentialist objections in the last section of this paper. (shrink)

As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social (...) media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team’s experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as... (shrink)

Offers the first focused study of the shifei debates of the Warring States period in ancient China and challenges the imposition of Western conceptual categories onto these debates. In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their (...) method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi’s stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and feican be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi’s idea of “walking-two-roads” as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi’s positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life. (shrink)

Python language has become the most popular computer language. Python is widely adopted in computer courses. However, Python language’s effects on the college and university students’ learning performance, motivations, computer programming self-efficacy, and maladaptive cognition have still not been widely examined. The main objective of this study is to explore the effects of learning Python on students’ programming learning. The junior students of two classes in a college are the research participants. One class was taught Java language and the other (...) class was taught Python language. The learning performance, motivations, and maladaptive cognition in the two classes were compared to evaluate the differences. The results showed that the motivations, computer programming self-efficacy, and maladaptive cognition on the learning performance were significant in the Python class. The results and findings of this study can be used in Python course arrangement and development. (shrink)

Too often Confucian women’s voices and experiences are neglected as insignificant. This paper provides a wide and diverse set of examples of traditional Chinese and Korean women who knew and practiced Confucian ritual. Though representing only a small percentage of traditional women, these examples provide clear evidence and compelling arguments that support the following three conclusions. First, that the Confucian tradition did not deny women’s ability to know and perform rituals; second, that Confucian women read, learned, evaluated, decided, and contributed (...) to re/create the conception and practice of ritual; and third, that this led at least some women and the men around them to recognize and admire not only their moral agency but also their ability to become sages. (shrink)

This paper discusses how the theory of evolutionary Asiacentrism and the Peking Man findings at the Zhoukoudian site stimulated Chinese intellectuals to construct Sinocentric ethno-nationalism during the period from the late 1920s to the early 1940s. It shows that the theory was first popularized by foreign scientists in Beijing, and the Peking man discoveries further provided strong evidence for the idea that Central Asia, or to be more specific, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, was the original cradle of humans. Chinese scholars (...) in the late 1930s and 1940s appropriated the findings to construct the monogenesis theory of the Chinese, which designated that all the diverse ethnic groups within the territory of China shared a common ancestor back to antiquity. (shrink)

This article investigates the views of Song Siyeol 宋時烈 (1607–1689), a Confucian scholar-official in Joseon Korea, on marriage ritual, with a special focus on the issue of women’s remarriage. Song opposed the legal ban on women’s remarriage that was enforced in his age, despite the danger this invited of being accused of promoting licentious deeds as well as generating suspicion about his loyalty as a subject. He clearly understood women’s remarriage as an ethical and not a legal issue. The ethical (...) principle of his conception of spousal loyalty, or ui 義, however, reveals its gendered aspect through his discussion with a fellow Confucian scholar. Moreover, his private behavior exemplifies the gendered aspects of his view on spousal fidelity. In addition, the unequal application of ui was supported by beliefs about the asymmetrical relation between Heaven and Earth, that were widely held and deployed by Confucians of Joseon Korea. (shrink)

The desire-satisfaction theory of welfare says that what is basically good for a subject is the satisfaction of his desires. One challenge to this view is the existence of quirky desires, such as a desire to count blades of grass. It is hard to see why anyone would desire such things, and thus hard to believe that the satisfaction of such desires could be basically good for anyone. This suggests that only some desires are basically good when satisfied, and that (...) desire satisfactionists owe us an account of which desires these are, and why. In "Quirky Desires and Well-Being," Donald Bruckner proposes such an account: a desire is welfare-relevant (i.e., such that its satisfaction would be basically good for its subject) if and only if and because its subject could describe its object in a way that makes it comprehensible what about the object attracts him or appeals to him. We are inclined to view quirky desires as welfare-irrelevant because we assume that their objects cannot be described in such a way. But if there were a quirky desire whose object could be so described by the subject whose desire it is, then this desire would be relevant to that subject's welfare. I will argue that while Bruckner's view delivers plausible verdicts about the cases to which it is meant to apply, its account of what makes a desire welfare-relevant is unmotivated and implausible. Desire satisfactionists can retain what is plausible about his view while endorsing a better explanation of why welfare-relevant desires have that status if they accept the following account instead: a desire is welfare-relevant if and only if and because something about its object attracts, or appeals to, the subject who has the desire. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, with the development of Western scientific imperialism, Asia, South America, and Africa became sites for Western scientific exploration. Many paleontological specimens, including dinosaur bones, were discovered in China by foreign scientists and explorers and exported to museums in France, Sweden, and the United States. After the establishment of the Nationalist Government in Nanjing in 1927, anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals attempted to prevent foreigners from exporting specimens unearthed on Chinese territory. In the summer of 1928, the fossils (...) discovered in the Gobi Desert by the Central Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History were detained in China. A series of negotiations ensued between Chinese and American diplomats and scientists over the issues of the ownership of fossils and the format of international scientific collaborations. By studying the interests and stakes for players in the different social worlds involved in the dispute, this essay explores the relations among science, diplomacy, and the politics of deep time. (shrink)

This essay offers an analysis of the writing and practices of Song Siyŏl as a way to explore the philosophical concepts and philosophizing process of Confucian ritual in relation to women. As a symbolic and influential figure in Korean philosophy and politics, his views contributed to shaping the orthodox interpretation of the theory and practice of Neo-Confucian ritual regarding women. By demonstrating and analyzing what kinds of issues were discussed in terms of women in four family rituals, I delineate the (...) ways in which Song Siyŏl positioned women in his ritualist metaphysics and to examine his philosophizing process. (shrink)

In the main body of colleges and universities, the effect of college teaching psychology management is an important standard to test the quality of college teaching psychology management and its effects on the development of college teaching psychology management. However, the psychology management system used by traditional colleges and universities is challenging to meet the needs of the innovation of the new talent training model of higher vocational education. The construction of the new micro-level teaching organization inevitably requires the psychology (...) management practice, structure, process, and technology at the medium and macro-levels to adapt to it. However, there are many mismatches in Higher Vocational Colleges’ internal and external administrative systems in China, such as low administrative efficiency, generalization of administrative power, low degree of specialization in administrative psychology management, and unreasonable administrative and organizational structure. This paper innovates the psychology management of colleges and universities reforms in combination with the characteristics of the digital age. Based on the collaborative innovation theory of colleges and universities, this paper puts forward the collaborative psychology management innovation network model of colleges and universities. The model combines the psychology management theory with the practical research of collaborative innovation in colleges and universities, expands the application and research field of innovation network theory, constructs the evaluation index system of students’ satisfaction in teaching psychology management in colleges and universities, and discusses it through reading and consulting materials and communication with teachers and students. A questionnaire of college teaching psychology management based on student satisfaction is formed. The experiment shows that teaching satisfaction is improved by nearly 31% compared with before innovation and reform. It can initially get the effect of innovation and reform, meet students’ needs, and promote the improvement of teaching psychology management quality. (shrink)

Using Hofstede's culture theory (1980, 2001 Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviours, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nation. Sage, NewYork), the current study incorporates the moral development (e.g. Thorne, 2000; Thorne and Magnan, 2000; Thorne et al., 2003) and multidimensional ethics scale (e.g. Cohen et al., 1993; Cohen et al., 1996b; Cohen et al., 2001; Flory et al., 1992) approaches to compare the ethical reasoning and decisions of Canadian and Mainland Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students. The results indicate that Canadian accounting (...) students' formulation of an intention to act on a particular ethical dilemma (deliberative reasoning) as measured by the moral development approach (Thorne, 2000) was higher than Mainland Chinese accounting students. The current study proposes that the five factors identified by the multidimensional ethics scale (MES), as being relevant to ethical decision making can be placed into the three levels of ethical reasoning identified by Kohlberg's (1958, The Development of Modes of Moral Thinking and Choice in the Years Ten to Sixteen. University of Chicago, Doctoral dissertation) theory of cognitive moral development. Canadian accounting students used post-conventional MES factors (moral equity, contractualism, and utilitarianism) more frequently and made more ethical audit decisions than Chinese accounting students. (shrink)

One of the biggest challenges of the study and practice of ethics is that of the moral dilemma, e.g. how should a compassionate person deal with injustice? This paper attempts to resolve this thorny issue from the perspective of Buddhist philosophy. I firstly introduce the 14th Dalai Lama’s distinction between act and actor and suggest a way to denounce wrongful acts without harboring hatred towards the perpetrator. Secondly, I argue that the philosophical grounds of this distinction can be traced back (...) to ancient Buddhist texts on Non-Self and Emptiness, which take all things as being in a constant state of change. Thirdly, I point out that a unique feature of the ‘empty ethics’ of Buddhism is that it inspires a middle way approach which allows for congruity between justice and compassion, between the realistic and the idealistic, and between rationality and sentimentality. Based on this, I suggest that it has much to contribute to contemporary ethics. (shrink)

This volume presents political phenomenology as a new specialty in western philosophical and political thought that is post-classical, post-Machiavellian, and post-behavioral. It draws on history and sets the agenda for future explorations of political issues. It discloses crossroads between ethics and politics and explores border-crossing issues. All the essays in this volume challenge existing ideas of politics significantly. As such they open new ways for further explorations BY future generations of phenomenologists and non-phenomenologists alike. Moreover, the comprehensive chronological bibliography is (...) unprecedented and provides not only an excellent picture of what phenomenologists have already done but also a guide for the future. (shrink)

Das Problem des Seinsglaubens in der Phänomenologie Husserls läßt sich zweifelsohne zu deren zentralen Themen wie Wahmehmung, Phantasie und Zeitbewußtsein zählen und steht auch in engem Zusammenhang mit diesen. Das Buch Seinsglaube in der Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls versucht dieses Problem zu klaren und zu zeigen, wie weit Husserl bei der Lösung dieses Problems gekommen ist und welche Fragen dabei offen blieben, die weiterer Lösungen bedürfen. Zudem werden die Gründe für das Gelingen bzw. Mißlingen bei Husserls Bemühungen herausgearbeitet. Die Einleitung erörtert (...) die verschiedenen Bedeutungen des Begriffs 'Seinsglauben' und zeichnet den Ort des Seinsglaubens im phänomenologischen System Husserls vor. Der erste Teil des Buches stellt sich als Hauptaufgabe die Strukturanalyse des Seinsglaubens aus verschiedenen Aspekten. In den ersten vier Kapiteln wird Husserls Exposition der verschiedenen Richtungen des Seinsglaubens, der Modalitäten, Modifikationen sowie der Eigentlichkeit und der Uneigentlichkeit des Seinsglaubens stufenweise behandelt. Das V. Kapitel, das den zweiten Teil einleitet, bildet den Wendepunkt der Arbeit, da es sich einerseits weiter mit Husserls Darstellung des Seinsglaubens, und zwar hier der verschiedenen Glaubensweisen, beschäftigt, andererseits schon Bezug auf die verschiedenen Weisen der Ausschaltung des Seinsglaubens nimmt, welche im VI. VII. und VIII. Kapitel das Hauptthema bilden: die eidetische Reduktion, Neutralitätsmodifikation und die transzendentale Reduktion. Der Schwerpunkt der vorliegenden Arbeit liegt auf den in der Forschungsliteratur bisher wenig beachteten Husserlschen Analysen zur Neutralitätsmodifikation (Kapitel VII) im Zusammenhang mit dem Problem des Seinsglaubens in der Vergegenwärtigung. Da die transzendentale Reduktion, eine andere wichtige Methode der Ausschaltung des Seinsglaubens im Sinne der Neutralitätsmodifikation, in der phänomenologischen Literatur bereits gründlich behandelt ist, wird sie hier nur in dem Maß in Betracht gezogen, insofern sie sich von der Neutralitätsmodifikation deutlich abhebt. Eine rückblickende Zusammenfassung der ganzen Untersuchung beschließt die Arbeit. (shrink)