This study explores why and how firms respond to social demands through philanthropic giving in the context of a severe natural disaster. Drawing on Marquis and Qian's organizational response model to government signals, we integrate resource dependence theory and institutional theory to build a two-step model of organizational response to social needs, in situations of disaster relief. We argue that firms depending more on the government for support are more likely to donate in disaster relief, while firms who receive more (...) scrutiny from the government and the general public and firms having more slack resources are likely to donate more. Evidence from Chinese listed companies' donations to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake largely supports our predictions. This study provides a more precise understanding of the corporate philanthropic decision process, decoupling the drivers of philanthropic giving, and those determining the amount given. Theoretical and practical implications are suggested. (shrink)

Protective measurement is a new measuring method introduced by Aharonov, Vaidman, and Anandan, with the aim of measuring the expectation value of an observable on a single quantum system, even if the system is initially not in an eigenstate of the measured observable. According to these authors, this feature of protective measurements favors a realistic interpretation of the wave function. These claims were challenged by Uffink. He argued that only observables that commute with the system's Hamiltonian can be protectively measured, (...) and that an allegedly protective measurement of an observable that does not commute with the system's Hamiltonian does not actually measure this observable, but rather another related one that commutes with the system's Hamiltonian. In this paper we identify a number of unresolved issues in Uffink's proofs and argue that his alternative interpretation of what happens in a protective measurement has not been justified. (shrink)

This study draws upon cultural capital theory and exploits 25 individual cases of students in a middle-size city in China in order to understand the patterns of college planning process of students with different socio-economic status. This study will enrich cultural capital theory by applying it to the transitional period of China in which the transformation of classes is complex and distinctive and also contribute to the understandings of the impacts of class-based cultural capital on student college-going behavior in China.

Green finance plays a crucial bridge as an intermediary between finance and the environment, facilitating resource allocation. The disclosure of environmental information (EID) is vital for promoting sustainable economic development. This study utilizes panel data covering the period from 2012 to 2019, focusing on Chinese companies listed in high-polluting industries. The findings demonstrate that green finance policies have a significant positive impact on EID, while increased managerial power has a detrimental effect. However, green finance policies can mitigate the negative consequences (...) arising from moral hazard and adverse selection resulting from managerial power. They enhance the quality of EID by restricting long-term loan resources for polluting entities. The heterogeneity test reveals that the effectiveness of green finance policies in promoting EID varies across different regions of China. In non-state-owned companies, green finance policies are more effective in constraining managerial power. The moderating effect of green finance on managerial power is weakened by improvements in internal control. Green financing can offset the adverse impact of managerial power on EID when debt levels are high. Our research plays a crucial role in advancing micro-academic studies in the field of green finance. By strengthening internal controls for corporate managers and promoting EID policies, we provide essential support and guidance to decision-makers. (shrink)

Laozi zhe xue -- Zhuangzi zhe xue za lun -- Xian Qin zhu zi yan jiu wen xian mu lu.

According to doxastic pragmatism, certain perceived practical factors, such as high stakes and urgency, have systematic effects on normal subjects’ outright beliefs. Upholders of doxastic pragmatism have so far endorsed a particular version of this view, which we may call threshold pragmatism. This view holds that the sensitivity of belief to the relevant practical factors is due to a corresponding sensitivity of the threshold on the degree of credence necessary for outright belief. According to an alternative but yet unrecognised version (...) of doxastic pragmatism, practical factors affect credence rather than the threshold on credence. Let’s call this alternative view credal pragmatism. In this paper, I argue that credal pragmatism is more plausible than threshold pragmatism. I show that the former view better accommodates a cluster of intuitive and empirical data. I conclude by considering the issue of whether our doxastic attitudes’ sensitivity to practical factors can be considered rational, and if yes, in what sense. (shrink)

The meaning of the wave function has been a hot topic of debate since the early days of quantum mechanics. Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in this long-standing question. Is the wave function ontic, directly representing a state of reality, or epistemic, merely representing a state of knowledge, or something else? If the wave function is not ontic, then what, if any, is the underlying state of reality? If the wave function is indeed ontic, then exactly what physical (...) state does it represent? In this book, I aim to make sense of the wave function in quantum mechanics and find the ontological content of the theory. The book can be divided into three parts. The first part addresses the question of the nature of the wave function. After giving a comprehensive and critical review of the competing views of the wave function, I present a new argument for the ontic view in terms of protective measurements. In addition, I also analyze the origin of the wave function by deriving the free Schroedinger equation. The second part analyzes the ontological meaning of the wave function. I propose a new ontological interpretation of the wave function in terms of random discontinuous motion of particles, and give two main arguments supporting this interpretation. The third part investigates whether the suggested quantum ontology is complete in accounting for our definite experience and whether it needs to be revised in the relativistic domain. (shrink)

Di 1 juan. Zhe xue di chuang xin -- di 2 juan. Zhe xue di ao mi -- di 3 juan. Zhe xue si wei fang shi bian ge -- di 4 juan. Chuan tong zhe xue dao xian dai zhe xue -- di 5 juan. Zhe xue ti xi gai ge -- di 6 juan. Zhe xue zai zou xiang wei lai.

Personnage central de la littérature mondiale, prix Nobel 2000, Gao Xingjian est également peintre, dramaturge, chorégraphe, cinéaste et photographe. En quête de l'art total, tel Leonardo, il développe avec une infinie rigueur la théorie de l'engagement du créateur dans le réel au delà de toute ingérence politique. Avec quelques-unes des grandes figures de la culture internationale il engage le débat sur l'éthique et l'esthétique au cours d'un mémorable colloque organisé à Marseille dans le cadre surréel d'une incroyable Année Gao. Tous (...) les textes de cet ouvrage de référence sont des jalons précieux pour qui veut discerner les grandes alternatives de l'histoire de l'art au croisement des siècles et des millénaires de l'histoire des hommes. (shrink)

The relation between quantum collapse, consciousness and superluminal communication is analyzed. As we know, quantum collapse, if exists, can result in the appearance of quantum nonlocality, and requires the existence of a pre- ferred Lorentz frame. This may permit the realization of quantum superluminal communication (QSC), which will no longer result in the usual causal loop in case of the existence of a preferred Lorentz frame. The possibility of the existence of QSC is further analyzed under the assumption that quantum (...) collapse is a real process. We demonstrate that the combination of quantum collapse and the consciousness of the observer will permit the observer to distinguish nonorthogonal states in principle. This provides a possible way to realize QSC. Some implications of the existence of QSC are briefy discussed. (shrink)

This study explores whether or not a firm’s ownership status, as state-owned enterprise or private-owned enterprise, will influence its likelihood of engaging in illegality in China. We build our arguments on the institution-based view, positing that firms rationally pursue their interests in the distinct institutional context of China. Compared to SOEs, POEs have limited access to institutional resources, the lack of which threatens their development or even survival, forcing them to “break rules” to overcome institutional barriers. We thus suggest that (...) POEs demonstrate a higher propensity to engage in illegal actions than SOEs do. However, if POEs could gain access to more institutional resources, their motivation to engage in illegal actions is likely to decrease. Following this logic, we suggest that political connections and market development will mitigate the likelihood that POEs will engage in illegal actions. We find support for our predictions using evidence from Chinese listed manufacturers. Our research contributes to the literature by revealing the institutional aspects of corporate illegality in transitional economies. (shrink)

This study investigates how social capital affects managers’ use of corporate resources. We find that for firms located in U.S. counties with a high level of social capital, (i) corporate cash holdings have higher marginal value, (ii) the contribution of capital expenditures to shareholder value is higher, and (iii) acquirers experience higher announcement-period abnormal stock returns. We further find that social capital decreases both over- and under-investment, and thus improves ex post corporate investment efficiency. Our evidence suggests that in communities (...) with a high level of social capital, strong social norms and dense social networks constrain unethical corporate behavior, which induces more efficient use of corporate resources. (shrink)

The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decision theory. KBDT seems to have several advantages over competing theories of rationality. It is commonly argued that this theory would naturally fit with the intuitive idea that being rational is doing what we take to be best given what we know, an idea often supported by appeal to ordinary folk appraisals. Moreover, KBDT seems to strike a perfect balance between the problematic extremes of subjectivist and (...) objectivist decision theory. We argue that these alleged advantages do not stand up to a closer scrutiny: KBDT inherits the same kinds of problems as alternative decision theoretic frameworks but doesn’t retain any of the respective advantages. Moreover, differently from other knowledge-action principles advanced in the literature, KBDT cannot fully explain the intuitive connections between knowledge and rational action. We conclude that the most serious challenge for knowledge-based decision theorists is to provide a substantive rationale for the adoption of such a view. (shrink)

With the rapid development of the Internet and the normalization of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control, Online health communities have gradually become one of the important ways for people to obtain health information, and users have to go through a series of information processing when facing the massive amount of data. Understanding the factors influencing user information processing is necessary to promote users’ health literacy, health knowledge popularization and health behavior shaping. Based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model, Information Ecology Theory, Privacy (...) Trade-Off and Self-Efficacy Theory, we constructed a model of factors influencing user information processing in online health communities. We found that information quality and emotional support had indirect effects on heuristic and systematic information processing, and these effects were mediated by privacy concerns and self-efficacy. In our research model, systematic information processing was most positively influenced directly by self-efficacy. Privacy concerns had a direct negative correlation with both dual information processing pathways. Therefore, OHCs managers should develop relevant regulations to ensure the information quality in OHCs and improve privacy protection services to promote user information processing by improving users’ self-efficacy and reducing their privacy concerns. Providing a user-friendly and interactive environment for users is also recommended to create more emotional support, thus facilitating more systematic information processing. (shrink)

A recent issue of Topics in Cognitive Science featured 11 thoughtful commentaries responding to our article “What happened to cognitive science?” (Núñez et al., 2019). Here, we identify several themes that arose in those commentaries and respond to each. Crucial to understanding our original article is the fundamental distinction between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary endeavors: Cognitive science began (and has stayed) as multidisciplinary but has failed to move on to form a cohesive interdisciplinary field. We clarify and elaborate our original argument (...) and reiterate the importance of a data‐driven evaluation of the current status of the field, which exhibits a marked disciplinary imbalance, a lack of a coherent conceptual core, and a striking absence of a consistent curriculum in the institutions that grant degrees in this domain. Half a century after the creation of cognitive science, it may now be a good time to revisit goals and visions for how to best approach the ever‐fascinating scientific study of the mind(s). (shrink)

Estas páginas reúnen una serie de escritos personales, testimoniales o autobiográficos del filósofo, traductor, escritor y profesor José Gaos, uno de los pensadores de la lengua española más importantes e influyentes del siglo xx. Nace el presente libro de la necesidad práctica de tener un conjunto de textos suyos que contribuyan a dibujar su enérgico y rico perfil intelectual, filosófico y literario; y a la de explicar en cierto modo la fecundidad de la reflexión crítica diseminada en el orbe de (...) la lengua española, de la cual él mismo es en parte responsable, gracias a su misión y vocación intelectuales. El libro se abre con una introducción de Adolfo Castañón, académico de número de la Real Academia Mexicana de la Lengua, poeta, ensayista, editor, crítico literario y bibliófilo. En 2009 fue ganador del Premio Xavier Villaurrutia de 2008, máximo galardón para las letras mexicanas, por Viaje a México. Ensayos, crónicas y retratos, publicado por Iberoamericana Vervuert. El colofón corre a cargo de Ángeles Gaos de Camacho, quien evoca la imagen de su padre, en un emotivo monólogo. (shrink)

One challenge for moderate invariantists is to explain why we tend to deny knowledge to subjects in high stakes when the target propositions seem to be inappropriate premises for practical reasoning. According to an account suggested by Williamson, our intuitive judgments are erroneous due to an alleged failure to acknowledge the distinction between first-order and higher-order knowledge: the high-stakes subject lacks the latter but possesses the former. In this paper, I provide three objections to Williamson’s account: i) his account delivers (...) counterintuitive verdicts about what it is appropriate for a high-stakes subject to do; ii) the high-stakes subject doesn’t need iterated knowledge in order to be regarded as appropriately relying on the relevant proposition in practical reasoning; iii) Williamson’s account doesn’t provide a good explanation of why the high-stakes subject would be blameworthy if she were relying on the relevant proposition in her practical reasoning. (shrink)

This thesis is an attempt to reconstruct the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. First, we argue that the wave function in quantum mechanics is a description of random discontinuous motion of particles, and the modulus square of the wave function gives the probability density of the particles being in certain locations in space. Next, we show that the linear non-relativistic evolution of the wave function of an isolated system obeys the free Schrödinger equation due to the requirements of spacetime translation (...) invariance and relativistic invariance. Thirdly, we argue that the random discontinuous motion of particles may lead to a stochastic, nonlinear collapse evolution of the wave function. A discrete model of energy-conserved wavefunction collapse is proposed and shown to be consistent with existing experiments and our macroscopic experience. In addition, we also give a critical analysis of the de Broglie-Bohm theory, the many-worlds interpretation and other dynamical collapse theories, and briefly discuss the issue of unifying quantum mechanics and special relativity. (shrink)

Based on a contest analysis of the official websites of top 100 companies in China in 2007, the paper reports the social performance of large Chinese companies. We try to focus on and answer the following three questions about CSP of large companies in China: (1) how is their overall social performance?; (2) what are the social issues they addressed?; and (3) what are the stakeholders they addressed? The results are also compared among different ownership companies and among different industrial (...) companies. The findings indicate that CSR/CSP in China is still in the beginning stage, and␣CSR/CSP is different among different industrial companies. (shrink)

Human vision supports social perception by efficiently detecting agents and extracting rich information about their actions, goals, and intentions. Here, we explore the cognitive architecture of perceived animacy by constructing Bayesian models that integrate domain‐specific hypotheses of social agency with domain‐general cognitive constraints on sensory, memory, and attentional processing. Our model posits that perceived animacy combines a bottom–up, feature‐based, parallel search for goal‐directed movements with a top–down selection process for intent inference. The interaction of these architecturally distinct processes makes perceived (...) animacy fast, flexible, and yet cognitively efficient. In the context of chasing, in which a predator (the “wolf”) pursues a prey (the “sheep”), our model addresses the computational challenge of identifying target agents among varying numbers of distractor objects, despite a quadratic increase in the number of possible interactions as more objects appear in a scene. By comparing modeling results with human psychophysics in several studies, we show that the effectiveness and efficiency of human perceived animacy can be explained by a Bayesian ideal observer model with realistic cognitive constraints. These results provide an understanding of perceived animacy at the algorithmic level—how it is achieved by cognitive mechanisms such as attention and working memory, and how it can be integrated with higher‐level reasoning about social agency. (shrink)

Institutional and resource dependence theories point at the roles of government and peers’ behavior as determinants of firms’ social behavior. This is tested in this research, with important implications for both theory and practice. Using data from a national survey of Chinese private small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2008, this paper examines the role of government intervention in corporate philanthropy, as well as the moderation effect of peers’ giving. Results show that government intervention, when using a Marketization Index as a (...) measure, increases CP. In addition, the community peers’ giving enhances the positive effect of government intervention on SMEs’ giving. But the moderation effect of industry peers’ giving is generally not supported except when CP is measured as giving-to-sales. In general, community peers appear to be a clear reference for SMEs and, in relation to government intervention, exert a dominant isomorphic influence. The findings provide strong support to the neo-institutional theory perspective on philanthropy. Important theoretical and practical implications are suggested. (shrink)

We define some variations of the Scott rank for countable models and obtain some inequalities involving the ranks. For mono-unary algebras we prove that the game rank of any subtree does not exceed the game rank of the whole model. However, similar questions about linear orders remain unresolved.

We examine whether sex discrimination contributes to the underrepresentation of female executives in large corporations. China’s strong cultural preference for sons has made newborn boys greatly outnumber newborn girls. Using the male-to-female sex ratio at birth as the proxy for discrimination against women, we find that firms headquartered in more discriminatory areas hire fewer female executives. Even conditional on a woman reaching an executive position, she faces a higher likelihood of dismissal and receives lower compensation than her male counterparts. Overall, (...) our findings suggest that sex discrimination plays an important role in preventing women from climbing the corporate ladder. (shrink)

It has been debated whether protective measurement implies the reality of the wave function. In this article, I present a new analysis of the relationship between protective measurements and the reality of the wave function. First, I briefly introduce protective measurements and the ontological models framework for them. Second, I give a simple proof of Hardy’s theorem in terms of protective measurements. Third, I analyse two suggested ψ -epistemic models of a protective measurement. It is shown that although these models (...) can explain the appearance of expectation values of observables in a single measurement, their predictions about the variance of the result of a non-ideal protective measurement are different from those of quantum mechanics. Finally, I argue that under an auxiliary finiteness assumption about the dynamics of the ontic state, protective measurement implies the reality of the wave function in the ontological models framework. (shrink)