Background:The understanding of factors that shape risk perception is crucial to modulate the perceived threat and, in turn, to promote optimal engagement in preventive actions.Methods:An on-line, cross-sectional, survey was conducted in Italy between May and July 2020 to investigate risk perception for COVID-19 and the adoption of preventive measures. A total of 964 volunteers participated in the study. Possible predictors of risk perception were identified through a hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis, including sociodemographic, epidemiological and, most of all, psychological (...) factors. A path analysis was adopted to probe the possible mediating role of risk perception on the relationship between the independent variables considered and the adoption of preventive measures.Results:Focusing on the psychological predictors of risk perception, high levels of anxiety, an anxious attachment, and an external locus of control predicted higher perceived risk. Conversely, high levels of openness personality and of avoidant attachment predicted a lower perception of risk. In turn, the higher was the perceived risk the higher was the adoption of precautionary measures. Furthermore, psychological factors influenced the adoption of preventive behaviors both directly and indirectly through their effect on risk perception.Conclusions:Our findings might be taken into high consideration by stakeholders, who are responsible for promoting a truthful perception of risk and proper compliance with precautionary measures. (shrink)

This article concentrates on a couple of semiotic approaches working out, on the one hand, the mediated character of reducing interpretative trajectories to the actual translation into the language of narratives (A. J. Greimas) or the language of textuality (F. Rastier), and, on the other, the direct, apparently unmediated passage to the visceral physicality of the verbal signifying system, which make semantic and syntactic components perfunctory to interpretation in a way (J. Kristeva). Greimassian universal narrative grammar dismantles signifying units, navigating (...) in the network of narrative utterances. Rastier's approach structures textual artifacts by unearthing semantic constituents crucial for semiotic analysis. Kristeva examines what is behind the curtain instead of sorting out the significance of the text's content as a special category and the possibility of procedure allowing its interpretation. These three authors are compared in the context of two approaches that come to grips with the author/reader pair. (shrink)

In 2003, biophysicist and Nobel Laureate Maurice Wilkins published his autobiography entitled The Third Man. In the preface, he diffidently points out that the title was chosen by his publisher, as a reference to the famous 1949 movie no doubt, featuring Orson Welles in his classical role as penicillin racketeer Harry Lime. In this paper I intend to show that there is much more to this title than merely its familiar ring. If subjected to a comparative analysis, multiple (...) correspondences between movie and memoirs can be brought to the fore. Taken together, these documents shed an intriguing light on the vicissitudes of budding life sciences research during the post-war era. I will focus my comparative analysis on issues still relevant today, such as dual use, the handling of sensitive scientific information and, finally, on the interwovenness of science and warfare. Thus, I will explain how science autobiographies on the one hand and genres of the imagination on the other may deepen our comprehension of tensions and dilemmas of life sciences research then and now. For that reason, science autobiographies can provide valuable input for teaching philosophy and history of science to science students. (shrink)

In this report we focus on the definition of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). We provide a comparative analysis of existing official definitions of AWS as provided by States and international organisations, like ICRC and NATO. The analysis highlights that the definitions draw focus on different aspects of AWS and hence lead to different approaches to address the ethical and legal problems of these weapons systems. This approach is detrimental both in terms of fostering an understanding of AWS (...) and in facilitating agreement around conditions of deployment and regulations of their use and, indeed, whether AWS are to be used at all. We draw from the comparative analysis to identify essential aspects of AWS and then offer a definition that provides a value-neutral ground to address the relevant ethical and legal problems. In particular, we identify four key aspects—autonomy; adapting capabilities of AWS; human control; and purpose of use—as the essential factors to define AWS and which are key when considering the related ethical and legal implications. (shrink)

The article deals with the issues of comparing the teachings of Tolstoy and Lao-zi according to the criterion of palingenesis, which is the basis for the construction of the entire ideological corpus of the most important treatise of Taoism “Tao de jing”. Lao-zi formulated the lapidary formula of palingenesis in the fortieth zhang of this treatise, recreating a picture of the harmonization of the Middle Kingdom, arguing that return is the movement of the Tao, and weakening is the action of (...) the Tao. The principle of palingenesis is one of the fundamental principles for which Tolstoy uses Christological vocabulary, and Lao-zi uses embryological vocabulary. The choice of the palingenesis criterion for comparative analysis of the teachings is due to the fact that the latter works as an immutable law when setting the task of recreating harmony in social chaos. Based on the assessments of the content of the zhangs of the “Tao de jing” canon, a representative line of palingenesis elements is built: the category of knowledge/truth; the category of ignorance; the category of simplicity; the category of naturalness; the category of “baby”; the category of non-action; the category of nonviolence. The principles of Taoism are not expressed by Tolstoy with a research sequence in logical definitions, but appear as categories and trends, working in the worldview of the Yasnaya Polyana sage. In the works “What is my faith?”, “Sayings of the Chinese sage Lao-Tse”, “Non-doing”, Tolstoy's teaching is presented in its entirety and is therefore convenient for comparison with the Taoist classics. It is noted that Tolstoy's conceptual idea is based on the desire to convert people to the good - unity with all people. This orientation towards the good is nothing else than the return to man of his original nature, on the way to which the principle of palingenesis associated with the boycott of the civilization of violence is realized. The conducted research has shown that in the teachings of Lao-zi and Tolstoy, which record the experience of theoretical exploration of the world, the categories of palingenesis are common to the Russian and Chinese spirit. (shrink)

The vision and mission statements of 24 environmental organisations were analysed under the premise that the language used in these statements reflects and influences the priorities of their operation. A dominant perspective, hinging on the concept of 'sustainable development', merged the profile of government agencies and non-governmental groups. The language reflected an utilitarian ethics: the environment was more generally portrayed as resources than as nature. Aesthetic remarks were exceptional, even among groups focusing on wildlife. Despite a broadly claimed link between (...) human welfare and habitat viability, environmental issues were not broadly referred to by humanitarian organisations, while conservation groups comply with societal priorities and needs. Organisational statements seem more concerned about political legitimation by audiences with specific expectations than about articulating purposes with internal structural consequences or goals that advocate change or reflect organisational uniqueness. (shrink)

The European project European and Latin American Systems of Ethics Regulation of Biomedical Research Project (EULABOR) has carried out the first comparative analysis of ethics regulation systems for biomedical research in seven countries in Europe and Latin America, evaluating their roles in the protection of human subjects. We developed a conceptual and methodological framework defining ‘ethics regulation system for biomedical research’ as a set of actors, institutions, codes and laws involved in overseeing the ethics of biomedical research on (...) humans. This framework allowed us to develop comprehensive national reports by conducting semi-structured interviews to key informants. These reports were summarised and analysed in a comparative analysis. The study showed that the regulatory framework for clinical research in these countries differ in scope. It showed that despite the different political contexts, actors involved and motivations for creating the regulation, in most of the studied countries it was the government who took the lead in setting up the system. The study also showed that Europe and Latin America are similar regarding national bodies and research ethics committees, but the Brazilian system has strong and noteworthy specificities. (shrink)

Theofan Prokopovych and Georgiy Konyskyi are the most prominent professors of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in the 18th century. Their courses (1707-09 and 1749/51) are well regarded among the researchers and translated into Ukrainian in 1980 and 1990 respectively. Both texts generally have been considered as original. However, after a careful examination, it possible to notice a strong influence of Prokopovych on Konyskyi. This publication provides a comparative critical edition of a section from both courses on the same topic, on the (...) infinity. The section is published together with the available Ukrainian translations. The four text are synchronized, so it is easy to track the same passage in all the texts. Since the texts of both authors are based on several manuscripts, the publication is accompanied with the apparatus criticus. Because there is no tradition of publishing critical editions of Latin texts in Ukraine, a detailed explanation of the rules of apparatus criticus is provided here. -/- At this stage, it is too early to give a full account of the connection between Konyskyi’s and Prokopovych’ courses; nevertheless, based on the published section, it possible to say that Konyskyi used Prokopovych text mostly verbatim. He made some structural rearrangements, added some comments and clarifications. His text sounds more logical and more easily to apprehend. Considering the main goal of teaching activity – to pass a common knowledge, clarity of explanation is a higher value, than originality. (shrink)

Blockchain is one of the technologies that can support digital transformation in industries in many aspects. This sophisticated technology can provide a decentralized, transparent, and secure environment for organizations and businesses. This review article discusses the adoption of blockchain in the ports and shipping industry to support digital transformation. It also explores the integration of this technology into the current ports and shipping ecosystem. Besides, the study highlighted the situation of the supply chains management in ports and shipping domain as (...) a case study in this field. The investigated studies show that blockchain can be integrated into processes such as financial and document workflow. This review contributes to research by focusing on the adoption of blockchain in the ports and shipping industry to support digital transformation. It also aims to understand the existing port practice and map it with current tendencies based on blockchain. This study gives insight analysis to incorporate blockchain technology into ports and shipping processes globally. (shrink)

Developments in the provision of care and support services for disabled and older people across developed welfare states have led to the expansion of personalisation (sometimes called cash-for-care, direct payments, care payments, etc.) schemes, whereby cash is paid in substitute for care services and support. Although these schemes vary considerably in their scope and operation (sometimes paying carers directly, sometimes enabling disabled and older people to act as direct employers, sometimes mixing paid and unpaid care), they share the characteristics of (...) commodifying care and support services and will have a potentially profound impact on the relationship between individuals, families, communities and the welfare state. Although the schemes have been evaluated within their own national contexts, little work has been done so far to explore the theoretical implications of their development and extension, particularly from an ethics of care perspective. This paper intends to fill that theoretical gap by drawing on comparative evidence from several schemes across different national contexts to develop an analysis which draws on feminist theory and an ethics of care approach to examine (a) the gendered policy outcomes and impact of such schemes; (b) a feminist analysis of the governance implications of personalisation; (c) the implications for the gendered division of work, particularly between paid and unpaid care work and between different groups of paid and unpaid carers; (d) an ethics of care analysis of the impact of personalisation over the lifecourse of disabled and older people, and carers; and (e) a discussion of the relationship between commodification, empowerment, citizenship and choice drawing on the work of care ethicists. It will draw conclusions about the outcomes of a range of types of personalisation schemes and thus have implications for theory, policy and practice. (shrink)

Moving from a behavioral definition of intelligence, which describes it as the ability to adapt to the surrounding environment and deal effectively with new situations (Anastasi, 1986), this paper explains to what extent the performance obtained by ChatGPT in the linguistic domain can be considered as intelligent behavior and to what extent they cannot. It also explains in what sense the hypothesis of decoupling between cognitive and problem-solving abilities, proposed by Floridi (2017) and Floridi and Chiriatti (2020) should be interpreted. (...) The problem of symbolic grounding (Harnad, 1990) is then addressed to show the problematic relationship between ChatGPT and the natural environment, and thus the impossibility for it to understand the symbols it manipulates. To explain the reasons why ChatGPT does not succeed in this task, an investigation is carried out and a possible solution to the problem in the artificial domain is proposed by making a comparison with the natural ability of living beings to ground their own meanings from some basic cognitive-sensory aspects, which, it is explained, are directly related to the emergence of self-awareness in humans. Thus, the question is raised whether a possible and concrete solution to the Symbol Grounding Problem would involve in the artificial domain the development of cognitive abilities fully comparable to those of humans. Finally, I explain the difficulties that would have to be overcome before such a level could be reached, since human cognitive capacities are intimately linked to intersubjectivity and intercorporeality. (shrink)

The article compares selected chapters devoted the problems of mind (anima) from two philosophical courses by Georgii Konyskyi, taught at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 1747-1749 and 1749-1751 academic years. As Konyskyi taught his first course using verbatim Teofan Prokopovych’s philosophical course of 1706-08 academic years, the article compares the doctrines on mind by these two Mohylian authors. It also shows the evolution of Konyskyi’s views. -/- There are common elements between the philosophy of mind of Prokopovych and Konyskyi: their interpretations of (...) Aristotle’s definition of the soul; the scholastic concept of the man as an integral mind-body entity; the problem of the unity and multiplicity of forms. It is shown that Prokopovych and Konsyskyi understood the three-level structure of a human soul in the same way as Francisco Suarez and Rodrigo de Arriaga. -/- However, there are some differences between these two Mohylian professors. They interpreted differently sensitive and intellectual cognition. Prokopovych upholds the scholastic doctrine of species. Konyskyi, in his second course, abandons this doctrine and defends the doctrine of impressiones. They are developed by the phantasmata – not received from objects. The impressions are modifications of animal spirits by direct or indirect impact of objects on senses of a human being or any other animated being. In the doctrine on intellectual powers, Prokopovych upholds the scholastic distinction between active and passive intellect. Konyskyirejects this common for scholastic tradition distinction and considers that passive intellect can do full-scale intellectual activity. The influence of Early Modern philosophy, especially Cartesianism, was the reason why Konyskyi changed his position. (shrink)

Constitutional and judicial law-making is increasingly beginning to find its reflection not only in the Anglo-Saxon, but also in the Romano-Germanic legal family. However, the prerequisites for the use of this legal instrument are different, which determines the relevance of conducting a comparative analysis regarding the provision of such a mechanism in the USA and Kazakhstan. The purpose of the research is to identify common and distinctive features in the process of implementation of constitutional and judicial law-making in (...) countries belonging to different legal systems. The article uses the methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison, deduction and generalization. As a result, the specificity of ensuring the mechanism of constitutional law-making in the USA was expressed, taking into account various forms of law-making activity. It has been established that the development of constitutional provisions in the United States takes place with the help of the constitutional doctrines of the Supreme Court of the United States, which provide for the introduction of amendments to constitutional provisions without a formal procedure. As a result of the study of the experience of Kazakhstan, it was established that special priority was given to the role of precedent, in particular, the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This is explained by the integrative nature of the Romano-Germanic legal system, which allows effective development of national legislation as a whole and its provisions. The obtained results can be used during the professional training of judges in the Republic of Kazakhstan. (shrink)

A computer-based age estimation is a technique that predicts an individual's age based on visual traits derived by analyzing a 2D picture of the individual's face. Age estimation is critical for access control, e-government, and effective human–computer interaction. The other-race effect has the potential to cause techniques designed for white faces to underperform when used in a region with black faces. The outcome is the consequence of intermittent training with faces of the same race and the encoding structure of the (...) trained face images, which is based on the feature extraction technique used. This study contributes to a constructive comparison of three feature-extraction techniques, namely, local binary pattern, Gabor Wavelet, and wavelet transformation, used in the development of a genetic algorithm -artificial neural network -based age estimation system. The feature extraction techniques used are proven to produce a wealth of shape and textural information. The GA-ANN constitutes the age classifier module. The correct classification rate was chosen as the performance metrics in this study. The results demonstrated that the LBP is a more robust representation of the black face than the GW and Wavelet transformations, as evidenced by its accuracy rate of 91.76 compared to 89.41 and 84.71 achieved with the GW and Wavelet transformation age estimation systems, respectively. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed at analyzing in a comparative way the philosophical conceptions of the human, proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger as the main representatives of the analytic and continental tradition of philosophizing in the XXth century. The theoretical basis of the study is determined by Wittgenstein’s legacy in the field of logical and linguistic analysis, as well as Heidegger’s existential, hermeneutical, and phenomenological ideas. Originality. Based on the analysis of the philosophical works of (...) Wittgenstein and Heidegger, the initial principles of their anthropological concepts in the unity of transcendental preconditions, essential foundations, and correlations to the world in the technosphere are reconstructed. It is demonstrated that, despite the difference in the explanation of the peculiarities in the interpretation of the realm of the transcendental and basic characteristic of the inner world of human, both philosophers emphasized the understanding of the human being through the prism of language and the need for anthropologization of science and technology. Conclusions. Wittgenstein and Heidegger developed their own original considerations on the nature of human being, which fully conform to the basic theoretico-methodological principles of their philosophical conceptions. The former focused on how language reflects a human’s world and serves as a means of expressing their knowledge and aspirations. The latter, on the contrary, interpreted the world as a reflection of language that expresses itself through human. As a supporter of analytic methodology and, accordingly, of accuracy in formulations, Wittgenstein came to the concept of the unspeakable in the process of reflection on the being of human over the language. But in Heidegger’s existential discourse, which is full of metaphors and neologisms, being of human is limited by the concept of Nothing. As a consequence, it is noted that the ontological status of values is transcendental to the world according to Wittgenstein, but it is immanent to the world, according to Heidegger. It is argued that the Austrian thinker developed a linguo-psychological approach to the study of human through the prism of the mental, but the German philosopher comprehended the human on the basis of the concept of self in the ontological sphere. It has been demonstrated that both thinkers have pointed to the challenges faced by humans in the development of science and technology while emphasizing the importance of substantiating their anthropological foundations. (shrink)

This article provides a comparative and interpretative analysis of the emerging projects in Latin America after the crisis of the neoliberal modernity project. It offers a critical interpretation of the current tendencies in Latin American politics at the national level, while suggesting some hints to understand the current neoliberal crisis in Western countries after Trump’s electoral triumph. The purpose is to figure out the collective meanings behind the new national projects in Latin America (postcolonial indigeneity, confrontational populism, defective (...) neoliberalism, and social liberalism) that are constructing a new regional order. The work examines how the neoliberal modernity project came to be dominant in the late 1980s, only to enter into a period of crisis in the current century. That crisis, in turn, provides the basis for exploring four different alternative projects of modernity, based on the kind of rationality and agency promoted by them. (shrink)

This paper addresses the field of economic measurements of the value of assets, carried out by the methods of independent expert evaluation. The mathematical principles of application, within a comparative methodical approach, of additive and multiplicative models for correcting the cost of single indicator of compared objects have been considered. The differences of mathematical basis of the compared models were analyzed. It has been shown that the ambiguity in the methodology of correction procedure requires studying the advantages and disadvantages (...) of known models, as well as the justification and elaboration of recommendations for their application. Possible forms of correction representation using several alternative units of measurement have been defined; formulas for their interconnection have been built. Analytic expressions have been derived that mathematically describe the algorithms for performing the evaluation correction procedure using various forms of correction representation. The influence of the correction execution model on the characteristics of uncertainty in the independent evaluation result has been analyzed. The scope of two possible types of correction introduction models has been determined. A specific numerical example was used to demonstrate the methodological advantages of using a multiplicative model when summarizing percentage corrections. The independence of the correction result on the sequence of correction introduction has been confirmed. It is proposed to use the selected measure of partial corrections as a criterion for the adequacy of the correction introduction model. It is proved that the result of the independent expert evaluation depends on the chosen model and does not depend on the sequence of correction introduction. The reported study results are important in terms of theory and practice since they make it possible to improve the accuracy and reliability of the result of independent expert evaluation. (shrink)

The author of the article analyzes the markedness of gender vocabulary in Russian and Chinese in relation to its form, semantics, and distribution. As one of the main groups of the gender word, kinship terms play an important role in expressing gender opposition. In both Russian and Chinese, there are groups of words that serve to denote the kindred relations between people. These are the so-called terms of kinship. Most units of the words denoting the terms of kinship form semantic (...) pairs: husband-wife, father-mother, grandfather-grandmother in Russian, 姑姑 -姑父, 舅舅 - 舅妈, 祖父 - 祖母 in Chinese. From the article, it is obvious that the Russian and Chinese terms of kinship have common properties and a few differences. On the part of the form, the terms of blood relationship along the direct and lateral lines are marked with the help of the prefix. In Russian: pra-, prapra-, in Chinese: - 堂, 表, 外. On the part of the distribution, the terms of kinship in Russian and Chinese denoting the male gender can be phrases, and the terms denoting the female gender usually do not have this ability. Distributive marking is still expressed in the fact that the words denoting the male gender, when used in word combinations, are placed in front of words denoting the female gender. The formal marking of the terms of the properties in the Russian language is expressed by suffixes. In Chinese, such terms are expressed not by suffix, but with the help of the element 女. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of local community protection mechanisms in Kosovo and North Macedonia. The intention is to comparatively analyze the community protection mechanism’s differences and similarities and their establishment in both countries. Requirements on community protection mechanisms as tools for ensuring community rights will be elaborated with two institutional settings and succinct legal infrastructure. The establishment of the community-led mechanisms debate has been increasingly conductive to Kosovo and North Macedonia since (...) the inter-ethnic conflicts that these two states were involved in. For that particular reason, Kosovo and North Macedonia have initiated the design of community protection mechanisms to foster inter-community communication, tension easing, and serving as a means and tool for communities’ inclusiveness in local and central institutional affairs. In doing this analysis, two primary legal documents in Kosovo and North Macedonia, the proposed plan settlement of the former United Nations special envoy Martii Ahtisaari in Kosovo and the Ohrid Framework Agreement in North Macedonia, will lead to conclusive comparative findings. Further, the comparative analysis will extend to elaborating Kosovo’s and North Macedonia’s legislative framework, such as their constitutions, community protection laws, and local governance legislation. The importance of the paper also extends to comparing the community protection mechanisms between two countries in finding potential differences and parities between the community protection mechanisms in Kosovo and North Macedonia. Finally, the analysis will provide a theoretical understanding of the local community protection mechanisms framework, focusing on establishing community protection mechanisms, legal requirements, and successes these mechanisms have brought to both countries’ institutional settings. (shrink)

The approach to analysing population ageing and its impacts on the economy has evolved in recent years. There is increasing interest in the development and use of products and services related to gerontechnology as well as other social innovations that may be considered as central parts of the "silver economy." However, the concept of silver economy is still being formed and requires detailed research. This article proposes a typology of models of the silver economy in the European Union at the (...) national and regional levels. This typology was created by comparing the Active Ageing Index to the typology of varieties and cultures of capitalism and typology of the welfare states. Practical recommendations for institutions of the EU and directions for further research are discussed. (shrink)

The article presents an interpretation of Plotinius’ concept of eternity, which is defined in his treatise On Eternity and Time III.7 [45] as the “life of being.” The textual and philosophical analysis of a number of related passages from Plotinus’ Enneads concludes that the description of eternity as the life of being is neither metaphorical nor analogical. It should be understood in a technical philosophical sense, which contains direct metaphysical and phenomenological implications. Life is not an effect of intelligible (...) reality but an ontological condition, the limit, source of activity, background for the identity of Intellect. The life of being is not identical with partial aspects of the intelligible universe, but is implied and covered by them. In the context of the Plotinian noetics, the notion of life expresses the wholeness of being in its totality—this is applicable not only to the life of intelligible being, but also true for the life of Soul, which assumes the totality of Soul’s time. Life is recognizable and experienced by living and existing beings on the basis of common liveliness and their common ontological status, so life establishes, develops and intensifies the connection of our own being with eternity via eternal in us. There are notable functional similarities between the Plotinian concept of eternity as the life of being and the image of Aion as reconstructed from fragments of Chaldean oracles—a mystical philosophical text widely read by later Neoplatonic philosophers, albeit never openly referred to by Plotinus. The comparative analysis and philosophical interpretation of the Plotinian and Chaldean concepts and images related to eternity suggest that both the sources maintain similar metaphysical roles of mediation, the transfer of unifying and animating light, causing the motion of reality. It is also significant that the Plotinian parallelism of eternity and “eternal in us” is comparable to the Chaldean image of “flower of the mind,” which is described both as a metaphysical attribute of Aion and as a specific power of Soul, which could be used by a person to acquire knowledge of divine reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Comparative Analysis of Shinran's Shinjin and Calvin's FaithKenneth D. LeeAlthough in Shinran: An Introduction to His Thought, Ueda and Hirota prefer the translation of the term "Shinjin" as "entrusting" over the meaning"faith," the concept of Shinjin in Shinran still seems to echo some similar concepts that are reflected in the Christian notion of faith. In both traditions, the concept of Shinjin and faith is central in the (...) salvific and redemptive process of Amida and Jesus Christ, respectively. By advancing the teaching of the Absolute Reliance on Other-power (tariki) for salvation, Shinran brings to focus the importance of the practitioner's realization of Shinjin in order attain birth into the Pure Land. However, as we will discover from our comparative analysis, we will see that Shinran's Shinjin, though it may share some similar ideas with the Christian faith, particularly in the idea of the utter futility of beings to become saved by self-power (jiriki), is a concept that remains faithful to the Mahāyāna teaching of emptiness and the transcendence of duality. But interestingly, Shinran seems to de-emphasize the notion of emptiness in order to emphasize the necessity of dichotomous mental activity to bring the practitioner to realize his incapacity of attaining enlightenment by self-power and dependence on Other-power.Understanding the underlying process of Shinjin and faith involves understanding the tension between being and becoming vis-à-vis the state between the realization and the actualization of Shinjin or faith. For Shinran, the realization of Shinjin is just the beginning of one's birth into the Pure Land where one's evil karma becomes absorbed and purified in the ocean of Amida's purity. But the actualization of Shinjin, which begins upon the realization of Shinjin, involves a continual purification process of the practitioner's karmic evil until the practitioner reaches enlightenment. That is, through the realization of shinjin, the practitioner attains birth in the Pure Land, which begins the actualization process toward guaranteed enlightenment, but that realization of shinjin is not to be equated with enlightenment itself. Hence, throughout the whole process of realization and actualization, it seems important that the relationship between the practitioner and Amida Buddha be maintained by shinjin on the basis that the practitioner is totally dependent on the Other-power for the actualization of enlightenment since this is impossible through self-power by relying on Amida's compassion and fulfillment of the Vow. Hence, shinjin serves as the practitioner's vehicle for attaining "complete" enlightenment, since enlightenment [End Page 171] involves not an instantaneous but rather a continual process in which the process of purification of the practitioner's karmic residue is made complete as Amida's Vow becomes actualized.Similarly, faith also involves the simultaneous process of being and becoming. In Christian terms, this process can be explained in the notion of justification and sanctification. Justification is the act of divine forgiveness whereby, because of the sacrifice of Christ, an unworthy being no longer has his guilt reckoned against him. Accepting that pardon by faith, the sinner is renewed in his heart and reckoned as righteously justified. Whereas justification by faith is at once made complete at the very moment of the individual's realization, sanctification is a continual process in which the Holy Spirit imparts new life to the believer and he is released from the compulsive power of sin and guilt and is enabled to love God and to serve his neighbor. Furthermore, sanctification ("to make holy";cf. "to purify") is made complete at the Parousia, the second coming of Christ.The reason why this salvific process is at once complete and yet not complete is due to inherent sin or "evil karma" in humans. By the fact that one possesses a human body, not yet transformed in the Buddha body nor yet received an imperishable heavenly body, indicates that there remains an inherent "residue" of evil karma or original sin that needs to be accounted for. Consequently, this purification process is activated solely by the Other-power, which begins at the realization of shinjin or faith after the practitioner or believer surrenders his self-effort and relies upon the Other... (shrink)

This exploratory research compares the interactive metadiscourse use by native English-speaking English for academic purposes writing teachers in the United Kingdom and their non-native counterparts in the Chinese contexts. The analysis is based on a self-compiled corpus, including two sub-corpora, which were composed of instructor contributions to classroom discourse: eight sessions of EAP lessons from the Chinese context and eight sessions of EAP lessons from the British context. Adopting an interpersonal model of metadiscourse, the two sub-corpora were compared to (...) examine the similarities and differences in their use of interactive metadiscourse. Findings of the comparative analysis reveal that EAP teachers from both contexts rely heavily on transition markers and frame markers to organize their teaching but differ in particular linguistic realizations. This may indicate the impact of a range of factors such as logical preferences, development order of acquisition, discourse community, and speech community on teachers’ interactive metadiscourse strategies. The article concludes with a few implications for metadiscourse research in spoken academic genres. (shrink)

The article explores the unique character of international commercial arbitration as a globalized phenomenon, where universalizing and harmonizing effects have largely been achieved by private means and spontaneous expansion, outside the States’ direct intervention and control. The evolution of arbitration in recent decades from an alternative to the core mechanism of deciding cross-border commercial controversies is considered. Privatization of this area of dispute resolution is examined in the context of its growing autonomization, marked—as observed by Emmanuel Gaillard—by notable changes in (...) its theoretical representations and narratives. This specific conceptual, institutional, and procedural framework of commercial arbitration reflects the demands of decision-making exercised in a legally, linguistically, and culturally diversified environment. Interpretation and application of law in arbitral cases requires skillful navigation between the rules of domestic, international and transnational origin, performed not only on the level of substantive norms, but also on those involving conflict of laws and procedure. As a consequence, comparative analysis plays a critical and complex role in arbitral decision-making, reaching beyond the mere demands of rendition of relevant provisions, and has been defined sensu largo as a ‘comparative mindset’, characteristic to international commercial arbitration. The article examines this phenomenon and its mechanics, challenges for legal professions and the effect of transnationalization of relevant domestic rules. It also explains the role of comparative analysis as an important instrument, used strategically in the processes of autonomization of commercial arbitration. (shrink)

This study used structural equation modeling to verify the performance of the ethical decision-making models developed by Jones and by Kelley and Elm. A comparison showed that the Kelley and Elm decision model yielded the optimal degree of fit. The investigations conducted in this study indicated that moral intensities are not an objective, existing concept but rather the product of subjective perception influenced by organizational factors. In addition to directly influencing ethical decisions, organizational factors indirectly influence ethical decisions through moral (...) intensities. (shrink)

Comparing the degree of openness of the economy of Poland and the Netherlands, we can say the following. The Netherlands is more dependent on foreign trade than Poland. The Netherlands export quota reaches almost 50%, unlike 41,37% in Poland in 2016. However, Poland has become more import-dependent. Poland, in contrast to the Netherlands, is continuing to increase the indicators of "economic globalization". To date, the Netherlands has been pursuing more moderate foreign trade policy and trying to protect itself from external (...) risks by focusing on an internal market with high purchasing power. On the contrary, Polish politics tries to focus on the new markets for its products in order to increase the prosperity and well-being of its citizens. Poland as a country and an economic entity has made a qualitative leap in its development. The economy of this country has become more open and integrated into the world economy. (shrink)

This study compares the coverage of coping strategies and emotions portrayed in news regarding COVID-19 by The New York Times in the U.S. and People’s Daily of China via social media. By employing corpus assisted discourse analysis to scrutinize the text corpora, our study uncovered prominent keywords and themes. Findings indicate that a comprehensive range of themes relating to coping strategies was more common in People’s Daily while a relatively smaller number of themes was apparent in The New York (...) Times. In terms of emotions exhibited in the news coverage, positive emotions such as cheer, gratitude, and good wishes predominated in People’s Daily whereas in The New York Times, negative emotions in the form of fears and anxiety were salient. The differences are explained with reference to the political context intertwined with the news environment and prior experiences in handling epidemics, with practical implications. (shrink)

Till now, comprehensive and quantitatively meaningful analyses of stock market participation outcomes of retail investors have been limited by data sources in developing countries. This article devised a special questionnaire related to stock investment to measure the financial literacy and stock investment return for the subjects with stockownership in China and to theoretically and empirically study the effects of objective FL, self-assessed FL, and their composite FL on SIR. The results of the comparative analysis showed that self-assessed FL (...) has a greater effect on SIR than objective FL, and the effect is mediated by risk preference. In addition, we found that competent and overconfident respondents have higher SIR, while under confident respondents cannot gain from the stock market. We also found that risk preference has a positive mediating effect in the relationship between competence and overconfidence and SIR, and a negative mediating effect in the relationship between under confidence and SIR. We thus concluded that confident investors can gain more stockholding returns via taking more risks regardless of the level of their actual financial knowledge. Our findings would be a meaningful complement to the studies of stock market participation. (shrink)

An appealing to original texts, a comparing linguistic variations in the forms of their offsprings (translations), a research of processes of branching of meanings, a reconstruction of the first-sense of texts, and especially those that were created centuries ago in ancient languages, that is enabling to improve translation or understanding of the history of the mentality of native and modern na- tive speakers — will always be relevant for any philological, linguistic and philosophical studies. This article is an attempt to (...) analyze and show how different the form and meaning of the same text can be in different languages and what can be common between different translations. For the first time, the comparison of the original fragments of Plato’s “The Republic” in Ancient Greek with their translations into Japanese and Korean translations has been done. Also, some fragments of Lithuanian, Latin, Latin and English translations are included. For the analysis, I propose the following two fragments of the text of the seventh book, namely the replica numbered 514a-514b of the dialogue of Socrates with Glaucon and the replica numbered 517b-517c. After all, in my opinion, there is the greatest concentration of philosophical terms associated with the myth of the cave, which interests me. (shrink)

The removal of water from mines was one of the key issues that former miners had to deal with. Roman colonists brought new technology to the Iberian Peninsula that addressed this problem. However, they did not invent this technology because it had already been applied to the growth of other endeavours in the Hellenistic society throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. In the mine, the Archimedes screw, waterwheels, bucket pulleys, and Ctesibius pumps were the primary drainage systems. In this essay, the primary (...) characteristics, and modes of operation of machines are examined. Without leaving out the most significant finds made in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, one of the regions with the longest history of mining exploitation. To serve as a foundation for future research in this field, this work compares the primary mining mechanisms in ancient Huelva on a qualitative and quantitative level by the implementation of a TOPSIS methodology, a multi-criteria decision analysis method. (shrink)

This paper contains a new semantic analysis for the verbal expression resemble. It is argued that resemble is best conceived as a degree predicate, very much in analogy to (transparent) gradable adjectives like close to (see Mador-Haim & Winter 2007). This move can explain why resemble happily combines with the traditional positive, comparative and superlative operators, degree intensifiers and the like, and it meets the philosophical tradition that resemblance is a 4-place comparative relation (Lewis 1986; Williamson 1988). (...) Nevertheless, resemble is an intentional idiom (i.e., not transparent): it is well known that.. (shrink)

Prediction is one of the major challenges in complex systems. The prediction methods have shown to be effective predictors of the evolution of networks. These methods can help policy makers to solve practical problems successfully and make better strategy for the future. In this work, we focus on exporting countries’ data of the International Trade Network. A recommendation system is then used to identify the products that correspond to the production capacity of each individual country but are somehow overlooked by (...) the country. Then, we simulate the evolution of the country’s fitness if it would have followed the recommendations. The result of this work is the combination of these two methods to provide insights to countries on how to enhance the diversification of their exported products in a scientific way and improve national competitiveness significantly, especially for developing countries. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore the representation of Pashtuns in Pashtu classic (before 1985) and modern (after 2000) movies and what is the difference of the portrayal of these movies and Pashtun literature. In particular, this study investigated in which time frame the depiction of Pashtun is positive and similar to their academic descriptions. A mixed methods approach consisting of qualitative case study, content analysis and comparative semiotic analysis was used to examine the content (...) of the movies. Eighty positive leading characters were purposely selected from the sample (ten classic and ten modern Pashtu movies) to compare with academic literature on Pashtun culture. (shrink)

The harmful consequences of fossil fuels use has resulted in the promotion of clean and renewable energies. During the past decades, green technologies have experienced a strong development, paying especial attention to wind energy, that covers a significant share of the electric energy demand. In this context, the main efforts are focused on the optimization of wind generator facilities, not only in the mechanic design but also in the energy management. Then, the present work deals with the prediction of the (...) energy generated in a small wind turbine placed in a bioclimatic house located on the north west region of Spain. This includes an analysis of the characteristics of the atmospheric variables registered during the turbine operation for a period of one year and an exploratory examination of a range of regression techniques in order to assess the suitability of using the registered information to predict the installation’s power generation levels on the short term. The study detailed in this work proves that this objective is an attainable one with a good degree of accuracy. (shrink)