In this work we consider the problem of the approximate hedging of a contingent claim in the minimum mean square deviation criterion. A theorem on martingale representation in case of discrete time and an application of the result for semi-continuous market model are also given.

Central limit theorem for the functional of jump Markov process. Nguyễn Văn Hữu, Vương Quân Hoàng và Trần Minh Ngọc. Báo cáo: Hội nghị toàn quốc lần thứ III “Xác suất - Thống kê: Nghiên cứu, ứng dụng và giảng dạy” (tr. 34). Ba Vì, Hà Tây, ngày 12-14 tháng 05 năm 2005. Viện Toán học / Trường Đại học Khoa học tự nhiên / Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội.

Some conditions are given to ensure that for a jump homogeneous Markov process $\{X(t),t\ge 0\}$ the law of the integral functional of the process $T^{-1/2} \int^T_0\varphi(X(t))dt$ converges to the normal law $N(0,\sigma^2)$ as $T\to \infty$, where $\varphi$ is a mapping from the state space $E$ into $\bbfR$.

The annotated dataset is an essential requirement to develop an artificial intelligence system effectively and expect the generalization of the predictive models and to avoid overfitting. Lack of the training data is a big barrier so that AI systems can broaden in several domains which have no or missing training data. Building these datasets is a tedious and expensive task and depends on the domains and languages. This is especially a big challenge for low-resource languages. In this paper, we experiment (...) and evaluate many various approaches on sentiment analysis problems so that they can still obtain high performances under limited training data. This paper uses the preprocessing techniques to clean and normalize the data and generate the new samples from the limited training dataset based on many text augmentation techniques such as lexicon substitution, sentence shuffling, back translation, syntax-tree transformation, and embedding mixup. Several experiments have been performed for both well-known machine learning-based classifiers and deep learning models. We compare, analyze, and evaluate the results to indicate the advantage and disadvantage points of the techniques for each approach. The experimental results show that the data augmentation techniques enhance the accuracy of the predictive models; this promises that smart systems can be applied widely in several domains under limited training data. (shrink)

Growing numbers of women in militaries worldwide, coupled with vast segments of women within war-affected populations globally, raise questions about gender as it structures trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder, and other mental health consequences of war. In this study, we investigate the gendered associations between early-life wartime stress exposures and PTSD symptoms in older adulthood using data from the 2018 Vietnam Health and Aging Study, a unique data set documenting multiple dimensions of health and wartime stress exposures within a sample (...) of older adults who occupied diverse roles during the American war in Vietnam. Our results indicate that the severity of recent PTSD symptoms is significantly and positively associated with the severity of wartime stress exposure among both men and women. Vietnamese men’s social positions, particularly their predominance in combat, exposed them to more numerous war-related stressors. However, Vietnamese women experience a greater PTSD penalty associated with some wartime stress exposures, likely due to the burden of protecting family in wartime and incorporation into military and paramilitary roles with lesser preparation, training, and support than men. We conclude that women who survive major wars, both as soldiers and civilians, bear a significant burden of armed conflict’s lasting toll upon mental health. (shrink)

We consider a fishery model with two sites: (1) a marine protected area (MPA) where fishing is prohibited and (2) an area where the fish population is harvested. We assume that fish can migrate from MPA to fishing area at a very fast time scale and fish spatial organisation can change from small to large clusters of school at a fast time scale. The growth of the fish population and the catch are assumed to occur at a slow time scale. (...) The complete model is a system of five ordinary differential equations with three time scales. We take advantage of the time scales using aggregation of variables methods to derive a reduced model governing the total fish density and fishing effort at the slow time scale. We analyze this aggregated model and show that under some conditions, there exists an equilibrium corresponding to a sustainable fishery. Our results suggest that in small pelagic fisheries the yield is maximum for a fish population distributed among both small and large clusters of school. (shrink)

We present a mathematical bioeconomic model of a fishery with a variable price. The model describes the time evolution of the resource, the fishing effort and the price which is assumed to vary with respect to supply and demand. The supply is the instantaneous catch while the demand function is assumed to be a monotone decreasing function of price. We show that a generic market price equation (MPE) can be derived and has to be solved to calculate non trivial equilibria (...) of the model. This MPE can have 1, 2 or 3 equilibria. We perform the analysis of local and global stability of equilibria. The MPE is extended to two cases: an age-structured fish population and a fishery with storage of the resource. (shrink)

Transformer is a neural machine translation model which revolutionizes machine translation. Compared with traditional statistical machine translation models and other neural machine translation models, the recently proposed transformer model radically and fundamentally changes machine translation with its self-attention and cross-attention mechanisms. These mechanisms effectively model token alignments between source and target sentences. It has been reported that the transformer model provides accurate posterior alignments. In this work, we empirically prove the reverse effect, showing that prior alignments help transformer models produce (...) better translations. Experiment results on Vietnamese-English news translation task show not only the positive effect of manually annotated alignments on transformer models but also the surprising outperformance of statistically constructed alignments reinforced with the flexibility of token-type selection over manual alignments in improving transformer models. Statistically constructed word-to-lemma alignments are used to train a word-to-word transformer model. The novel hybrid transformer model improves the baseline transformer model and transformer model trained with manual alignments by 2.53 and 0.79 BLEU, respectively. In addition to BLEU score, we make limited human judgment on translation results. Strong correlation between human and machine judgment confirms our findings. (shrink)

Background: This study examined the cyberbullying experience and coping manners of adolescents in urban Vietnam and explored the mediating effect of different support to the associations between cyberbullying and mental health issues.Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 484 students at four secondary schools. Cyberbullying experience, coping strategies, psychological problems, and family, peer, and teacher support were obtained. Structural equation modeling was utilized to determine the mediating effects of different support on associations between cyberbullying and psychological problems.Results: There were 11.6 (...) and 28.3% of students who reported that they experienced and observed at least one cyberbullying act in the last 3 months, respectively. Among the victims, only 48.2% tried to stop the perpetrators. Meanwhile, the majority of observers belonged to the “Intervene” group who tried to report cyberbullying acts or help victims. Family support was found to partially mediate associations between cyberbullying experience and observation with levels of psychological problems among adolescents.Conclusion: The 3-month rate of cyberbullying experience and observation among urban adolescents aged 11–14 was low. However, current coping strategies against cyberbullying were not sufficient. Family support is an important factor that should be considered for designing interventions to mitigating the impacts of cyberbullying on the mental health of adolescents. (shrink)

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

The book examines the psycho-religious mechanism behind the violent extremism of suicide attacks in the post-9/11 world. It employs the mindsponge concept, an original dataset, and original research results obtained from the authors' statistical investigations using the Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo technique. It provides insights and implications for policymakers and strategists in their efforts to engage in peace talks and reduce violent conflicts worldwide.

Environmental activism is crucial for raising public awareness and support toward addressing the climate crisis. However, using climate change mitigation as the cause for blockage, vandalism, and harassment activities might be counterproductive and risk causing negative repercussions and declining public support. The paper describes a dataset of metadata of 89 blockage, vandalism, and harassment events happening in recent years. The dataset comprises three main categories: 1) Events, 2) Activists, and 3) Consequences. For researchers interested in environmental activism, climate change, and (...) sustainability, the dataset is helpful in studying the effectiveness and appropriateness of strategies to raise public awareness and support. For researchers in the field of security studies and green criminology, the dataset offers resources to study features and impacts of blockage, vandalism, and harassment events. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed to validate the dataset. Consequently, the estimated result aligns with the Mindsponge Theory’s theoretical reasoning. (shrink)

As the world’s population grows and urbanization continues, the global waste crisis is becoming more severe, especially in developing countries. Without proper waste management, they may encounter various environmental and health risks. Biological technologies are regarded as promising waste management and recycling approaches in developing countries due to their cost-effectiveness and capability to handle diverse waste categories. One prominent technology in this aspect is the vermicomposting of organic waste utilizing the black soldier fly larvae. Nevertheless, significant financial resources are still (...) necessary to advance and expand biological waste treatment, which requires the participation of businesses. By examining waste management companies listed on the Vietnamese stock market, we highlight two challenges that hinder the adoption and scaling of the waste treatment system using black soldier flies and potentially other biological technologies in Vietnam. Specifically, the business regards the environmental services they offer primarily as a means to generate profit rather than as a genuine commitment to environmental preservation, and the values of companies operating in the environmental sector, particularly in waste management, have been significantly undervalued by the Vietnamese investing public. Therefore, we advocate for societal shifts toward the eco-surplus culture and apply the semiconducting principle of monetary and environmental values exchange to address the problem. (shrink)

The military-industrial complex, military operations, and wars are major contributors to exacerbating both climate change and biodiversity crises. However, their environmental impacts are often shadowed due to national security reasons. The current paper aims to go through the devastating impacts of military operations and wars on climate change and biodiversity loss and challenges that hinder the inclusion of military-related activities into environmental crisis mitigation efforts. The information blind spot induced by concerns about national security reasons jeopardizes the efforts to involve (...) the military-industrial complex and military operations in the global climate and biodiversity agendas. Besides that, many military-related challenges, such as specificity of operational requirements and lifecycles, dependence on fossil fuels, complex supply change, inadequate civilian technologies and innovations, and requirements of structural changes, can hinder emission reduction. Meanwhile, wars and conflicts not only threaten to drain all human and material resources available to tackle environmental problems but also inflict long-lasting destructions, pains, and trauma that can lead to hatred and distrust among nations and parties. With the rising hatred and distrust, global agreement and commitment to address climate change and biodiversity will hardly be achieved. Thus, promoting peace is the humanistic and planetary conscience. (shrink)

Die alternativ-spirituelle Gruppe Terra Sagrada, die sich den afro-brasilianischen Traditionen des Candomblés und der Umbanda zuschreibt, wird hauptsächlich von Frauen mit einem psycho-sozialen beruflichen Hintergrund besucht und kultiviert. Dieser gegenderten Attraktion der Geisterinkorporation wird sich auf Grundlage von Interviews und Ritualteilnahmen genähert, um den besonderen Reiz dieses Rituals für Frauen zu beleuchten. Neben der Betonung von Körper und Erleben, der Möglichkeit, Selbstwirksamkeit, Kontrolle und Macht zu erleben sowie dem Gemeinschaftssinn ist es vor allem die Vorstellung von Person und Selbst – (...) das sogenannte „innere Team“ –, die die Frauen aus ihren sozialpädagogischen und psychologischen Ausbildungshintergründen kennen und welche nun in diesem religiösen Kontext aktiviert wird. Die Verknüpfung dieser zwei Kontexte ermöglicht die Akzeptanz des Ritualgeschehens und verstärkt die Identifikation mit den spirituellen Vorstellungen der Terra Sagrada. (shrink)

The current debate over aesthetic testimony typically focuses on cases of doxastic repetition — where, when an agent, on receiving aesthetic testimony that p, acquires the belief that p without qualification. I suggest that we broaden the set of cases under consideration. I consider a number of cases of action from testimony, including reconsidering a disliked album based on testimony, and choosing an artistic educational institution from testimony. But this cannot simply be explained by supposing that testimony is usable for (...) action, but unusable for doxastic repetition. I consider a new asymmetry in the usability aesthetic testimony. Consider the following cases: we seem unwilling to accept somebody hanging a painting in their bedroom based merely on testimony, but entirely willing to accept hanging a painting in a museum based merely on testimony. The switch in intuitive acceptability seems to track, in some complicated way, the line between public life and private life. These new cases weigh against a number of standing theories of aesthetic testimony. I suggest that we look further afield, and that something like a sensibility theory, in the style of John McDowell and David Wiggins, will prove to be the best fit for our intuitions for the usability of aesthetic testimony. I propose the following explanation for the new asymmetry: we are willing to accept testimony about whether a work merits being found beautiful; but we are unwilling to accept testimony about whether something actually is beautiful. (shrink)

abstract: This article compares and contrasts the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause with the Zen Buddhist concept of satori. The aim is to underscore a unique but not commonly recognized characteristic of Ignatian contemplation and promote interreligious understanding. I argue that Ignatian prayer methods, though primarily kataphatic in their approach, share common features with apophatic spirituality and Zen meditation, even though Zen does not make any reference to God. This article consists of three main parts: In the first (...) part, I delve into Ignatius's own religious experience, particularly the experiences he had during eleven months in Manresa, and interpret these experiences from the lens of the Ignatian consolation without previous cause. In the second part, I explore the overall goal of Zen, focusing on the discussion of Zen sunyata and satori. In the final part, I draw out points of contact and differences between the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause and Zen satori with an aim toward better appropriating the Ignatian consolation without previous cause from Zen satori. In doing so, I hope to make Ignatian spirituality more appealing and available to spiritual seekers across religious traditions. (shrink)

What is the primary intellectual aim of philosophy? The standard view is that philosophy aims to provide true answers to philosophical questions. But if our aim is to settle controversy by answering such questions, our discipline is an embarrassing failure. Moreover, taking philosophy to aim at providing true answers to these questions leads to a variety of puzzles: How do we account for philosophical expertise? How is philosophical progress possible? Why do job search committees not care about the truth or (...) falsity of a candidate’s philosophical views? We argue that philosophy does not aim at discovering true answers to philosophical questions. Instead, its primary intellectual aim is understanding. We argue that many familiar aspects of philosophy become intelligible once we accept this hypothesis. (shrink)

Community and stakeholder support for marine and coastal ecosystem conservation policies is crucial. However, extant multinational studies on climate change-related factors that constrain stakeholders’ willingness to protect the ocean are limited. Therefore, the dataset from 709 marine stakeholders across 42 countries, part of the MaCoBioS project funded by the European Commission, was analyzed using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) method to fill the knowledge gap. The findings reveal that for individuals who think society is doing too much to address climate (...) change, new technologies can solve climate change. Responses to climate change can damage the country’s economy and might not be productive in supporting actions protecting the ocean. Based on the study results, we recommend policymakers raise awareness among individuals engaged in marine and coastal ecosystems about the crucial role of marine protection in combating climate change, taking into account the limitations of technology in solving climate change problems and the inadequacy of current efforts. The findings also provide insights for enhancing the effectiveness of awareness and knowledge-raising campaigns, conservation programs, and eco-surplus culture-building agenda. (shrink)

Climate change has become one of the most pressing problems that can threaten the existence and development of humans around the globe. Almost all climate scientists have agreed that climate change is happening and is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions induced by anthropogenic activities. However, some groups still deny this fact or do not believe that climate change results from human activities. This essay discusses the causes, significance, and skeptical arguments of climate change denialism, as well as the roles (...) of scientists and science communication in addressing the issues. Through this essay, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the opening of new science communication sectors specified for climate change, and more attention to social sciences and humanities in addressing climate change issues. (shrink)

Pacific Conservation Biology has officially published the manuscript. The article can be accessed using the following DOI:10.1071/PC23044.

Solidarity is a valuable tradition of Vietnam Communist Party and Vietnamese people and Ho Chi Minh is the personification of the great national Solidarity. Ho Chi Minh Solidarity is reflected by tolerant, which is not tight in national matter but also extends to the contemporary world. This is the foundation of national Solidarity as well as international Solidarity to the liberating, building and developing carier of a country. It is difficult to reach a common point between 54 minority ethnics in (...) all around Vietnam with different culture, custom, religious beliefs. However, Ho Chi Minh, by his thinking and action, he was successful in establishing a great united bloc of all the minority ethnics in Vietnam. It leads to a happy, comfortable and peaceful life. That is the reason why people said that: “In the past, there were few men could be a part of legend when he was still alive, but Ho Chi Minh extremely did it”. (shrink)

We present an argument-based formalism of contract dispute resolution following a modern view that the court would resolve a contract dispute by enforcing an interpretation of contract that reasonably represents the mutual intention of contract parties. Legal doctrines provide principles, rules and guidelines for the court to objectively arrive at such an interpretation. In this paper, we establish the appropriateness of the formalism by applying it to resolve disputes about performance relief with the legal doctrines of impossibility and frustration of (...) purpose in common laws of contract. The formalism is based on modular argumentation, a recently proposed extension of assumption-based argumentation for modelling contract dispute resolution. (shrink)

This study aims at putting characterology to the test of the epistemology presented in J.C. Pariente's work, Language and the Individual. This epistemology requires certain conditions for a knowledge of the individual to be valid, i.e., to be at the same time conceptual and adapted to its individual object. By following characterologists in their work, the study concludes that the characterological processes have met the conditions demanded by Pariente's epistemology. So, one cannot say that characterology, like history, "is not a (...) conceptual knowledge of its object". (shrink)

Extant literature suggests a positive correlation between social trust (also called generalized trust) and life satisfaction. However, the psychological pathways underlying this relationship can be complex. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we examined the influence of social trust in a high-violence environment. Employing Bayesian analysis on a sample of 1237 adults in Cali, Colombia, we found that in a linear relationship, generalized trust is positively associated with life satisfaction. However, in a model including the interactions between trust and education (...) level as well as between trust and socioeconomic status, generalized trust is found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. In this non-linear relationship, both education level and socioeconomic status have moderating effects against the negative association between generalized trust and life satisfaction. In other words, less educated people living in worse socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have lower life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. In contrast, highly educated people living in better socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have higher life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. Due to the facilitating function of trust in information processing, lowering the rigor of the filtering system in a high-violence social environment will likely put an individual at risk. Based on our findings, we suggest that policymakers should consider the impacts of social contexts when advocating for increasing social trust. We also recommend that researchers carefully examine the psychological mechanism underlying an observed association before making suggestions for policymaking. (shrink)

The issue of climate change poses an important problem that requires immediate collaboration from everyone, including individuals, governments, and businesses. While consumption culture constitutes a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, most of these emissions are caused by the consumption of the wealthiest. In this article, we will explore the challenges that consumer culture has exacerbated regarding climate change and propose that transitioning to a simpler and more sustainable lifestyle could be an effective solution in the fight against climate change. (...) Such transitions can be leveraged through the inspiration of celebrities (e.g., Keanu Reeves, Chow Yun-fat, Kristen Bell, Leonardo DiCaprio) that pursue simple, non-glamorous lifestyles that do not promote excessive consumerism. (shrink)

This monograph offers a critical introduction to current theories of how scientific models represent their target systems. Representation is important because it allows scientists to study a model to discover features of reality. The authors provide a map of the conceptual landscape surrounding the issue of scientific representation, arguing that it consists of multiple intertwined problems. They provide an encyclopaedic overview of existing attempts to answer these questions, and they assess their strengths and weaknesses. The book also presents a comprehensive (...) statement of their alternative proposal, the DEKI account of representation, which they have developed over the last few years. They show how the account works in the case of material as well as non-material models; how it accommodates the use of mathematics in scientific modelling; and how it sheds light on the relation between representation in science and art. The issue of representation has generated a sizeable literature, which has been growing fast in particular over the last decade. This makes it hard for novices to get a handle on the topic because so far there is no book-length introduction that would guide them through the discussion. Likewise, researchers may require a comprehensive review that they can refer to for critical evaluations. This book meets the needs of both groups. (shrink)

Humans experience a profound and indescribable emotion when they unearth artifacts from ancient times. Scientific disciplines like paleontology and archaeology reflect our curiosity and desire to understand the natural world’s past and evolutionary history. Physics also invests significant effort in exploring the origin and evolution of the universe. In social life, the study field of humanities also has journals about art history, such as the Art History or Journal of Art History. Through our shared thoughts and efforts to restore humanities (...) for the cause of ecological and biological conservation, we have discovered a picture of a kingfisher taken nearly a century ago by A. F. Skutch in The Condor. Obtaining such a vivid, genuine, and emotionally evocative image was no easy task. This image has the power to stir the thoughts and awaken the conscience of the viewer, emphasizing the importance of a vibrant environment. (shrink)

Climate change, primarily driven by human activities, is becoming one of the most urgent global challenges of our time. Despite lingering doubts about climate change in some research documents, strong consensus within the scientific community still affirms that global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. Over the past decade, significant efforts have been made by humans to address the climate change crisis, resulting in certain impacts in combating climate change and raising awareness about its consequences. However, the question remains: (...) Are we heading in the right direction to effectively address this crisis, or do we need to reconsider our approach? This essay will examine some of major achievements in the fight against climate change, the increasing awareness of its impacts, the escalating severity of the climate crisis, and whether our actions are on the right track or require reevaluation. (shrink)

Scientific discourse is rife with passages that appear to be ordinary descriptions of systems of interest in a particular discipline. Equally, the pages of textbooks and journals are filled with discussions of the properties and the behavior of those systems. Students of mechanics investigate at length the dynamical properties of a system consisting of two or three spinning spheres with homogenous mass distributions gravitationally interacting only with each other. Population biologists study the evolution of one species procreating at a constant (...) rate in an isolated ecosystem. And when studying the exchange of goods, economists consider a situation in which there are only two goods, two perfectly rational agents, no restrictions on available information, no transaction costs, no money, and dealings are done immediately. Their surface structure notwithstanding, no competent scientist would mistake descriptions of such systems as descriptions of an actual system: we know very well that there are no such systems. These descriptions are descriptions of a model-system, and scientists use model-systems to represent parts or aspects of the world they are interested in. Following common practice, I refer to those parts or aspects as target-systems. What are we to make of this? Is discourse about such models merely a picturesque and ultimately dispensable façon de parler? This was the view of some early twentieth century philosophers. Duhem (1906) famously guarded against confusing model building with scientific theorizing and argued that model building has no real place in science, beyond a minor heuristic role. The aim of science was, instead, to construct theories, with theories understood as classificatory or representative structures systematically presented and formulated in precise symbolic.. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the constraints that our preferred account of scientific representation places on the ontology of scientific models. Pace the Direct Representation view associated with Arnon Levy and Adam Toon we argue that scientific models should be thought of as imagined systems, and clarify the relationship between imagination and representation.

Extant literature suggests a positive correlation between social trust (also called generalized trust) and life satisfaction. However, the psychological pathways underlying this relationship can be complex. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we examined the influence of social trust in a high-violence environment. Employing Bayesian analysis on a sample of 1237 adults in Cali, Colombia, we found that in a linear relationship, generalized trust is positively associated with life satisfaction. However, in a model including the interactions between trust and education (...) level as well as between trust and socioeconomic status, generalized trust is found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. In this non-linear relationship, both education level and socioeconomic status have moderating effects against the negative association between generalized trust and life satisfaction. In other words, less educated people living in worse socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have lower life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. In contrast, highly educated people living in better socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have higher life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. Due to the facilitating function of trust in information processing, lowering the rigor of the filtering system in a high-violence social environment will likely put an individual at risk. Based on our findings, we suggest that policymakers should consider the impacts of social contexts when advocating for increasing social trust. We also recommend that researchers carefully examine the psychological mechanism underlying an observed association before making suggestions for policymaking. (shrink)

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in a way that epistemic (...) bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

Marine and coastal ecosystems are crucial in maintaining human livelihood, facilitating social development, and reducing climate change impacts. Studies have examined how the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and emotion about climate change affect peoples’ support for marine protection. However, their interaction effects remain understudied. The current study explores the intricate interaction effect of the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset (...) of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The statistical analysis shows that the impacts of benefit perception of ocean ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support vary due to their interactions. Specifically, when stakeholders perceive ocean ecosystems to have little utility in mitigating climate change, greater climate change knowledge and concern are associated with a higher level of marine protection support. Nevertheless, in the scenarios where stakeholders perceive the benefits of ocean ecosystems, the effect of climate change knowledge becomes conditional on the worry level. If stakeholders are concerned about climate change, those with a greater level of climate change knowledge will associate with a higher level of marine protection support. Otherwise, greater climate change knowledge will result in lower support. These findings highlight emotion’s importance in directing climate change knowledge’s effect on marine protection support. Linking people’s “objects of care” to the consequences of climate change can help improve climate change communication effectiveness. (shrink)

In the trust-health relationship, how trusting other people in society may promote good health is a topic often examined. However, the other direction of influence – how health may affect trust – has not been well explored. In order to investigate this possible effect, we employed Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics to go deeper into the information processing mechanisms underlying the expressions of trust. Conducting Bayesian analysis on a dataset of 1237 residents from Cali, Colombia, we found that general health (...) status is positively associated with generalized trust, but recent experiences of illnesses/injuries have a negative moderating effect. Personalized trust is largely unchanged across different general health conditions, but the trust level becomes higher with recent experiences of illnesses/injuries. Psychophysiological mechanisms of increasing information filtering intensity toward unfamiliar sources during a vulnerable state of health is a plausible explanation of found patterns in generalized trust. Because established personal relationships are reinforced information channels, personalized trust is not affected as much. Rather, the results suggest that people may rely even more on loved ones when they are in bad health conditions. This exploratory study shows that the trust-health relationship can be examined from a different angle that may provide new insights. (shrink)

Science provides us with representations of atoms, elementary particles, polymers, populations, genetic trees, economies, rational decisions, aeroplanes, earthquakes, forest fires, irrigation systems, and the world’s climate. It's through these representations that we learn about the world. This entry explores various different accounts of scientific representation, with a particular focus on how scientific models represent their target systems. As philosophers of science are increasingly acknowledging the importance, if not the primacy, of scientific models as representational units of science, it's important to (...) stress that how they represent plays a fundamental role in how we are to answer other questions in the philosophy of science. This entry begins by disentangling ‘the’ problem of scientific representation, before critically evaluating the current options available in the literature. (shrink)

In this paper examines the roles and influence of China in the world and, mainly, in European Union. For a decade, Chinese investors have been looking for opportunities to buy european assets. Especially since the beginning of the 2008 crisis we observed an increase of investment activities of Chinese companies. During the crisis, cash troubled european companies due to loss of liquidity were forced to sell their shares at significant discount. Over time, with stabilizing the economic situation in Europe, European (...) companies asset prices seemingly ceased to be cheap, nevertheless a volume of Chinese FDI to Europe continued to grow. Our goal will be detailed insight into these investments and try to identify the benefits and risks of these investments. Moreover, this paper not only provide insight into economic development of Chinese FDI but also take into account political issues and background of these investment. As far as a methodology is concerned, the basis of our work will be comparing an impact of Chinese investments in European countries and their impact on economic development in selected countries. In particular, we are interested in the behavior of Chinese investors and their motivation to buy in Europe. At the same time it will also be interested in the motives of European companies that have decided to sell shares to new owners. Finally, we will also examine ways in which Chinese investors proceed with acquisitions in the EU. Data comes from Eurostat, the national statistical offices and stock market prices. We will also be examining the political influence on these countries individually and globally, therefore as part of the EU. Based on the gained information we will try to assess the current situation of China’s influence in the euro area and at the same time try to estimate its future impact. Finally, based on the detected information to analyze the results of our research. (shrink)

The rapidly declining biosphere integrity, representing one of the core planetary boundaries, is alarming. One of the most widely accepted measures to halt the rate of biodiversity loss is to maintain and expand protected areas that are effectively managed. However, it requires substantial finance derived from nature-based tourism, specifically visitors from urban areas. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on 535 Vietnamese urban residents, the current study examined how their biodiversity loss perceptions can affect their willingness to pay for the (...) entrance fee and conservation in protected areas. We found that perceived environmental degradation, loss of economic growth, loss of nature-based recreation opportunity, and loss of knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss has indirect effects on paying willingness through the mediation of the attitude towards conservation. Especially, the perceived knowledge loss also has a direct positive influence on the willingness to pay for the entrance fee and conservation. In contrast, perceived loss of health is negatively associated with the attitude towards conservation. Based on these findings, we suggest that building an eco-surplus culture among urban residents can be a promising way to generate more finance from nature-based tourism for conservation in protected areas and ease the domestic government's and international organizations' funding allocations problems. (shrink)