Today, business corporations across the globe are moving beyond the short-term myopic goal of profit maximization to long-term sustainability goals involving environmental, social and corporate governance goals. This is due to the growing realization that ESG factors constitute a significant source of risk for the business and can affect their financial returns. Academic research has shown that improved ESG performance has lowered risk and enhanced financial performance but results seemed to vary widely across countries. Regrettably, this subject remains largely un-researched (...) in the context of emerging economies, including India. This paper attempts to fill this much needed gap in sustainability literature in one of the largest emerging market economies, India. It empirically examines the impact of environmental, social and corporate governance performance of companies on their financial performance, in India, using panel regression models. The findings of the study indicate that good corporate ESG performance enhances financial performance. The findings of this study have important implications for investors, corporate management as well as policymakers and regulators. (shrink)

Articulates an imaginationist solution to the question of how purely instrumental music can be perceived by a listener as having emotional content. Both musicians and laypersons can perceive purely instrumental music without words or an associated story or program as expressing emotions such as happiness and sadness. But how? In this book, Saam Trivedi discusses and critiques the leading philosophical approaches to this question, including formalism, metaphorism, expression theories, arousalism, resemblance theories, and persona theories. Finding these to be inadequate, (...) he advocates an “imaginationist” solution, by which absolute music is not really or literally sad but is only imagined to be so in a variety of ways. In particular, he argues that we as listeners animate the music ourselves, imaginatively projecting life and mental states onto it. Bolstering his argument with empirical data from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, Trivedi also addresses and explores larger philosophical questions such as the nature of emotions, metaphors, and imagination. Saam Trivedi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. (shrink)

It is often taken for granted that people who are predominantly unlettered inevitably have a low cultural level. The frequently used word “illiterate” does not merely signify inability to read and write but also implies a general lack of knowledge and culture. Indeed, some of the standard dictionaries mention “ignorant” as one of the meanings of the word illiterate. It is common for people belonging to modern industrial societies to look down upon the unlettered folk as uncivilized and incapable of (...) finer intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities. (shrink)

On the works and philosophy of Gaṇeśa Muni Śāstrī, b. 1931, Jaina saint and author.

Abstrak: Kekerasan dalam Alkitab boleh dikatakan merupakan sebuah topik alkitabiah yang unik dan abadi, baik dari sudut pandang akademis maupun spiritual. Orang tidak hanya perlu memahaminya untuk orang lain, tetapi juga untuk diri sendiri. Sejak Marcion di abad pertama sampai saat ini, meskipun sudah amat banyak tulisan dihasilkan, tidak pernah ada suatu solusi yang memuaskan semua pihak. Tulisan ini menawarkan sudut pandang yang jarang disentuh, yaitu sudut pandang Gereja Katolik. Membaca Alkitab sebagai orang Katolik berarti membaca dengan memperhatikan juga ajaran-ajaran (...) Gereja tentang (pokok-pokok tertentu dari) Alkitab sebagaimana terungkap dalam dokumen-dokumen resmi Gereja. Ajaran Gereja khususnya Dei Verbum artikel 11 dan 12 memuat paling tidak pemahaman akan tiga hal yang dapat membuka kemungkinan untuk memahami persoalan ini secara lebih utuh. Pokok-pokok yang dimaksud adalah soal inspirasi, paham tentang Alkitab, dan kesatuan seluruh Alkitab sebagai kunci penafsiran Alkitab dalam Gereja. Pembacaan Alkitab secara menyeluruh menunjukkan bahwa klim kekerasan dalam Alkitab adalah sebuah klim sepihak yang tidak memperhatikan keseluruhan Alkitab sebagaimana dipahami dan di terima Gereja sebagai buku iman. Kata-kata Kunci: Kekerasan dalam Alkitab, Ajaran Gereja, Dei Verbum, inspirasi, paham tentang Alkitab, kesatuan seluruh Alkitab, jenis sastra. Abstract: Violence in the Bible could be considered a unique eternal theme in the Bible, be it from academic or spiritual perspective. One needs to understand it not only for helping others, but also for himself. Since Marcion in the first century up to our time, there has been no solution which is acceptable and could satisfy everybody, notwithstanding the abundance literature on this topic. To read the Bible as Catholic means to read it employing the Church’s teachings on the Bible which are found in the official Church documents as the hermeneutical key. The teaching of the Church especially Dei Verbum 11 and 12 offers an understanding on three important points that could be useful for comprehending the topic in a more comprehensive way. Those three points are the notion of biblical inspiration, the Catholic understanding of the Bible and the unity of the Bible. They could be the key to a correct interpretation of the Bible within the Church. The holistic reading of the Bible shows that the claim of biblical violence is actually a one-sided claim that does not pay fair attention to the unity of the Bible as a whole as it is understood and accepted by the Church as the book of faith. Keywords: Violence in the Bible, Church’s official teaching, Dei Verbum, divine inspiration, notion of the Bible, the unity of the Bible, literary genre. (shrink)

Friendly persuasion, in contrast to deterrent measures like tax audits and penalties on underreported taxes, is a positive and possibly a cost effective method of increasing taxpayer compliance. However, prior studies have failed to show that friendly persuasion has a significant impact on compliance (Blumenthal et al., 2001; McGraw and Scholz, 1991). In our study, in contrast to prior studies, we examine the impact of generating and reading reasons supporting compliance as friendly persuasion on individuals' income reporting behavior as well (...) as control for gender effects. Specifically, we predict an interaction effect between friendly persuasion and gender on compliance behavior. We carried out a 2 (friendly persuasion and control) × 2 (men and women) full factorial experiment, where participants earned $30 by completing two questionnaires. Participants in the friendly persuasion group were required first to generate and second to read a list of reasons why they should comply fully. Afterwards, participants in both groups were asked to report the income they earned and pay tax on the reported income. The results show a significant main effect for gender as well as a significant interaction effect between gender and friendly persuasion on income reported. Women in the friendly persuasion group reported significantly higher income compared to men in that group. Other comparisons were not significant. Policy implications for increasing taxpayers' ethics and compliance are highlighted. (shrink)

The consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) for human rights protection are poorly understood. We propose that the impact of FDI varies across industries. In particular, extractive firms in the oil and mining industries go where the resources are located and are bound to such investment, which creates a status quo bias among them when it comes to supporting repressive rulers (“location-bound effect”). The same is not true for nonextractive multinational corporations (MNCs) in manufacturing or services, which can, in comparison, (...) exit problematic countries more easily. We also propose that strong democratic institutions can alleviate negative impacts of extractive FDI on human rights (“democratic safeguard effect”). Using U.S. FDI broken up into extractive and nonextractive industries in 157 host countries (1999–2015), we find support for these propositions.1 Extractive FDI is associated with more human rights abuse, but nonextractive FDI is associated with less abuse, after controlling for other factors, including concerns about endogeneity. We find also that the negative human rights impact of extractive FDI vanishes in countries where democratic institutions are stronger. Our results are robust to a range of alternative estimation techniques. (shrink)

On the problems of epistemology as depicted in the Jaina canonical literature; a study.

Service-Robotic—mainly defined as “non-industrial robotics”—is identified as the next economical success story to be expected after robots have been ubiquitously implemented into industrial production lines. Under the heading of service-robotic, we found a widespread area of applications reaching from robotics in agriculture and in the public transportation system to service robots applied in private homes. We propose for our interdisciplinary perspective of technology assessment to take the human user/worker as common focus. In some cases, the user/worker is the effective subject (...) acting by means of and in cooperation with a service robot; in other cases, the user/worker might become a pure object of the respective robotic system, for example, as a patient in a hospital. In this paper, we present a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework, which allows us to scrutinize some of the most relevant applications of service robotics; we propose to combine technical, economical, legal, philosophical/ethical, and psychological perspectives in order to design a thorough and comprehensive expert-based technology assessment. This allows us to understand the potentials as well as the limits and even the threats connected with the ongoing and the planned implementation of service robots into human lifeworld—particularly of those technical systems displaying increasing grades of autonomy. (shrink)

Debates around sound corporate governance propose board diversity as a key attribute to sufficiently challenge executive management for stakeholder engagement. This study contributes to this debate by empirically investigating the effect of board diversity on corporate social disclosure of Vietnamese listed firms. The study finds a significantly positive effect of diversity-in-boards on CSD while diversity-of-boards has no effect on CSD. The results contribute by showing that a single theoretical approach can provide an adequate explanation for board diversity. The study contributes (...) methodologically by demonstrating the design and measurement of board diversity indices, and a three-dimensional stakeholder-relevant CSD index. The findings benefit regulators and corporate executives in better understanding firms’ CSD practices and stakeholders’ expectations. (shrink)

Study of impermanence based on the philosophy of Theravāda Buddhism.

The emergent use of service robots in more and more areas of social life raises a number of legal issues which have to be addressed in order to apply and adapt the existing legal framework to this new technology. The article provides an overview of law as a means to regulate and govern technology and discusses fundamental issues of the relationship between law and technology. It then goes on to address a number of relevant problems in the field of service (...) robotics. In particular, these issues include the organization of administrative control and the legal liability regime which applies to service robots. Also, the issue of autonomy of service robots is discussed, which cannot easily be answered under the existing, human-centered legal regime. (shrink)

Millions of memes are created and shared every day on social media platforms. Memes are a great tool to spread humour. However, some people use it to target an individual or a group generating offensive content in a polite and sarcastic way. Lack of moderation of such memes spreads hatred and can lead to depression like psychological conditions. Many successful studies related to analysis of language such as sentiment analysis and analysis of images such as image classification have been performed. (...) However, most of these studies rely only upon either one of these components. As classifying meme is one problem which cannot be solved by relying upon only any one of these aspects, the present work identifies, addresses, and ensembles both the aspects for analyzing such data. In this research, we propose a solution to the problems in which the classification depends on more than one model. This paper proposes two different approaches to solve the problem of identifying hate memes. The first approach uses sentiment analysis based on image captioning and text written on the meme. The second approach is to combine features from different modalities. These approaches utilize a combination of glove, encoder-decoder, and OCR with Adamax optimizer deep learning algorithms. Facebook Challenge Hateful Meme Dataset is utilized which contains approximately 8500 meme images. Both the approaches are implemented on the live challenge competition by Facebook and predicted quite acceptable results. Both approaches are tested on the validation dataset, and results are found to be promising for both models. (shrink)

Account of teachers' experiences in developing the competency and professionalism in Indonesia; collection of articles.

On the life and exploits of Mahavira, 24th Jaina tirthankar.

With improvement in medical services in the last few years, there has been a constant rise in the geriatric population throughout the world, more so in the developing countries. The elderly are highly prone to develop psychiatric disorders, probably because of age related changes in the brain, concomitant physical disorders, as well as increased stress in later life. Psychiatric disorders in this population may have a different presentation than in other groups and some of psychopathologies might be mistaken for normal (...) age related changes by an unwary clinician. Therefore the need of the day is to train psychiatrists and physicians to better recognize and manage mental disorders in this age group. (shrink)

This study investigates the social and environmental disclosure practices of socially responsible Chinese listed firms as displayed in their annual reports and corporate social responsibility reports from the perspective of stakeholders. A stakeholder-driven, three-dimensional social and environmental disclosure index that integrates the quantity and two aspects of the quality of disclosure perceived by stakeholders is constructed to assess the social and environmental disclosures in firm annual reports and CSR reports. The study results indicate that stakeholders perceive different disclosure types and (...) disclosure items as important to differing degrees. CSR reports provide more stakeholder-relevant social and environmental disclosure than annual reports. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 108-112 [Access article in PDF] Themes in the Philosophy of Music, by Stephen Davies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 283 pp., hardcover. Over the last few decades, there has been a remarkable output of several books and articles on the philosophy of music. Stephen Davies is one of the leading contributors to this growing literature in the Philosophy of Music. This (...) important and thought-provoking volume collects fifteen of Davies's essays on various philosophical issues pertaining to music such as ontology, performance, expression, and appreciation. With the exception of two, all of the essays have been published before. There is not enough space here to do justice to all fifteen essays, and thus I focus on those that strike me as most important and where I disagree with Davies.First a word about the book's relevance to aesthetic education and itspotential for use in aesthetic education. Davies's book strikes me as having immense potential for aesthetic education. I can easily see the various essays as being of great value in educating performers, composers, musicologists, and music lovers about various aspects of performance and appreciation especially. Here is a brief list of questions pertinent to aesthetic education that Davies's work raises and addresses: Why is performance on authentic instruments important? What is involved in understanding musical works? Is technical training necessary to appreciate musical works fully? To what degree can the performer create her own interpretation of a work, and how much does the score constrain her?Now on to the essays themselves. The first part of Davies's volume concerns ontology, and the first essay "John Cage's 4'33": Is it Music?" addresses this very famous musical work. Davies argues that 4'33" is not music but rather a theatrical piece about music because it does not exclude anysounds as being ambient noise, as Davies thinks musical works should do. Davies does not deny, however, that this work is an artwork. He thinks instead that the work is not organized sound, as all music must be, for it does not exclude any sonic events during performance as ambient; even sounds made by the performer of this work, claims Davies, are mistakes and not ambient. Thus neither Cage nor the performer organize (select, appropriate) sounds. Davies also suggests that while Cage wants us to have an aesthetic interest in the sonic properties of 4'33," he failed in his intention for we hear the work instead in musico-historical terms.Contrary to Davies's view, one mustwonder if 4'33" just is a theatrical piece about music, not a musical work as such. Unlike theater and theatrical works which are meant to be both seen and heard, Cage's work is only meant to be heard. Davies's view would seem to neglect this important auditory aspect in claiming that the work is just theater not music. Besides, why must all musical works exclude some soundsas ambient, and why might Cage's [End Page 108] work not be an exception to this? Why couldn't 4'33" be a limiting case of music, at one extreme of a range of musical works? As for Davies's claim that any sounds made by the performer who is supposed to be silent are mistakes not ambient noise, one must wonder if Cage intended instead that sounds made by the performer (such as musical tones or coughs) be bracketed by listeners as not part of the work while sounds made by the audience are part of the work, thus undermining the audience-performer distinction. Moreover, against Davies's claim that Cage intended us to have an aesthetic interest in sonic properties, I submit that Cage was Zen-influenced and not committed to such dualisticaesthetic concepts (such as beautiful vs. ugly) or any concepts for that matter, whether musico-historical or not. Instead, Cage intended us to simplylisten, with an open mind and openears, without adhering rigidly to concepts or hearing 4'33" in musico-historical terms, difficult as that may be. Finally, there... (shrink)

The authors argue that the chain of events which they describe is the end-product of a century's effort to convert Hindus into a 'proper' modern nation and a conventional ethnic majority. Simultaneously, the effort is equally to turn the followers of other Indian faiths into well-behaved ethnic minorities and nationalities. The American model of a 'melting pot' is being imposed with the expectation that it will dissolve India's primordial identities. A society which has for centuries been a salad bowl of (...) diverse communities, each identifiably different but constituting parts of a whole, is being forced to conform to the pattern of a 'proper' nation-state. (shrink)

I criticize Julian Dodd's Platonist conception of musical works as discovered eternal types, and defend and elaborate upon Jerrold Levinson's conception of musical works as creatable indicated types. I raise broadly three sorts of worries for Dodd. First, I argue that Dodd conflates types with Platonist universals in claiming that types are eternal and discovered. Secondly, I raise worries for Dodd's Platonist claim that musical works are discovered not created. Here I argue that Dodd's claim goes against our current musical (...) practice. I then argue that Dodd's view leads to a false divide across the arts, and defend this claim from Dodd's criticisms. I also defend the claim that Dodd's view robs artists of the special status we give to them as creators, not merely creative discoverers. I suggest also that musical works can not only be created but can also plausibly cease to exist, which Dodd's Platonism would seem to deny. Thirdly and finally, I defend the conception of musical works as indicated types from Dodd's criticisms. Here I argue that Dodd's view is ontologically profligate. I also submit that Dodd is mistaken in thinking that indicated types have times as their constituents and thus must be events. (shrink)

This study used a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives to test the impact of three personal factors (moral reasoning, value orientation and risk preference), and three situational factors (the presence/absence of audits, tax inequity, and peer reporting behavior), while controlling for the impact of other demographic characteristics, on tax compliance. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) reveals that all the main effects analyzed are statistically significant and robustly influence tax compliance behavior. These results highlight the importance of obtaining a proper understanding of (...) these factors for developing effective policies for increasing the level of compliance, and indicate that standard enforcement polices based on punishment alone should be supplemented by an information system that would acquaint tax payers with the compliance level of other tax payers; reinforce the concept of fairness of the tax system among tax payers; and develop programs that enhance and appeal to a taxpayer's moral conscience and reinforce social cohesion. (shrink)

Over the last several years, there has been a growing controversy about whether Yogacara Buddhism can be said to be idealist in some sense, as used to be commonly thought by earlier scholars. In this paper, I first clarify the different senses of idealism that might be pertinent to the debate. I then focus on some of the works of Vasubandhu, limiting myself to his Vimsatika, Trimsika, and Trisvabhavanirdesa. I argue that classical Yogacara Buddhism, at least as found in these (...) works of Vasubandhu, is closer to epistemic rather than metaphysical idealism or absolute idealism, as I understand these. However, there are undoubtedly some important differences between Vasubandhu's Yogacara and Western epistemic idealism that cast doubt on the idea that Yogacara is simply to be lumped together with Western epistemic idealism. (shrink)

Chronic pain is of significant global concern. There is growing evidence that body–mind therapies and psychological approaches can contribute toward changing chronic pain perceptions. This is the first model described in the literature that combines a mindfulness-based approach with dance movement therapy and explores the potential psychological and pain-related changes for this client population. In this paper, the results from the pilot study are presented involving patients with chronic headache recruited in an outpatient rehabilitation setting.Methods: In this pilot study, 29 (...) patients with chronic headache were randomized to either the Mindful-Based Dance Movement Therapy group or the waiting list control group. The MBDMT group was offered 10 sessions in a clinical outpatient rehabilitation setting for 5 weeks. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention and 16 weeks after the intervention was finished. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire−9, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, and Numeric Rating Scale were used as outcome measures.Results: The working model of MBDMT identifies nine therapeutic mechanisms. Per-protocol analysis reveals statistically significant reduction of pain intensity and depression scores in favor of the MBDMT group, and these improvements were maintained in the follow-up assessment.Conclusions: The results suggest that MBDMT is a feasible and promising therapy approach for chronic pain patients. The pilot study offered sufficient information and preliminary results in the desirable direction to enable the researchers to move to a randomized controlled trial stage in order to establish the efficacy of the intervention.Clinical Trial Registration: The study was registered in the www.researchregistry.com, registry. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to describe a type of law governing involuntary treatment that is based on decision-making capability and not on risk of harm to self or others. It is consistent with the legal and ethical principles followed in general medicine, and non-discriminatory against people with a mental illness. The rationale behind the proposal is outlined, as well as its principles and main features. It is argued that this type of law could be adapted to the needs (...) of low and middle-income countries without sacrificing its underlying principles, and that it lends itself to such adaptation much better than traditional mental health legislation. (shrink)

In this article, I assume that musical works are abstract types, and I raise and address a new question concerning musical ontology that may take the types view at least a step further: When do musical works cease to exist? I then propound my view about musical works as types, which is somewhat like the Aristotelian Realist position concerning universals. Next, I address some objections to that view. Finally, I provide some grounds for rejecting alternative views that see Western classical (...) musical works before 1950 (the sorts of musical works the discussion here is restricted to) either as classes or else as kinds. (shrink)

Study of Bhakti (devotion) in Bhagavadgītā, Hindu philosophical classic.

Study of Bhakti (devotion) in Bhagavadgītā, Hindu philosophical classic.