Planning ability is important in everyday functioning, and a key measure to assess the preparation and execution of plans is the Tower of London task. Previous studies indicate that older adults are often less accurate than the young on the ToL and that there may be cultural differences in performance on the task. However, potential interactions between age and culture have not previously been explored. In the current study we examined the effects of age on ToL performance in an Asian (...) culture and a Western culture. We also explored whether working memory, age, education, and socioeconomic status explained variance in ToL performance across these two cultures. Results indicated that age effects on ToL performance were greater in the Malaysian sample. Subsequent moderated mediation analysis revealed differences between the two cultures, in that the age-related variance in ToL accuracy was accounted for by WM capacity at low and medium education levels only in the Malaysian sample. Demographic variables could not explain additional variance in ToL speed or accuracy. These results may reflect cultural differences in the familiarity and cognitive load of carrying out complex planning tasks. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship among ethical philosophy, thinking style, and managerial ethical decision-making. Based on the premise that business ethics is a function of culture and time, we attempt to explore two important questions as to whether the national differences in managerial ethical philosophies remain over time and whether the relationship between thinking style and ethical decision-making is consistent across different national contexts. We conducted a survey on Korean managers’ ethical decision-making and thinking style and made a cross-cultural, cross-temporal (...) comparison with the results presented by previous studies that surveyed Korean and US managers with the same questionnaire at different points in time. Our analysis revealed that Korean managers have become more reliant on rule utilitarianism for ethical decision-making over the last two decades, which is dominantly used by US managers, corroborating our convergence hypothesis built on social contracts theory. However, as opposed to previous research, we found that managers with a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style do not necessarily make more ethical decisions compared to those with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. This study contributes to international business ethics literature by presenting a theoretical framework that may explain the convergence of ethical philosophies employed by managers in different national contexts over time, and that the relationship between thinking style and managerial ethical decision-making may not be universal, but contingent on contextual factors. (shrink)

Previous studies on the Structural Alignment Model suggest that people compare the alignable attributes and nonalignable attributes during the decision-making process and preference formation process. Alignable attributes are easier to process and more effective in clue extracting. Thus, it is believed that people rely more on alignable than nonalignable attributes when comparing alternatives. This article supposes that consumers’ product experience and personal characteristics also play a significant role in regulating consumers’ reliance on attribute alignability. The authors conducted three experiments to (...) examine the moderating role of consumers’ product familiarity and self-construal in the impact of attribute alignability on consumer product purchase. The results show the following: When making a purchase decision, consumers with a high level of product familiarity will rely more on nonalignable attributes, while those with a low level of product familiarity will rely more on alignable attributes. The difference in consumer dependency on attribute alignability is driven by their perceived diagnosticity of attributes. The dependency of consumers with different levels of familiarity on attribute alignability will be further influenced by consumers’ self-construal. Individuals with interdependent self-construal rely more on alignable attributes when unfamiliar with the product, while relying more on nonalignable attributes when familiar with the product. Individuals with independent self-construal, however, rely more on nonalignable attributes regardless of the degree of product familiarity. The conclusions of this paper can be used as references for enterprises to establish product positioning and communication strategies. (shrink)

We construct a causal-modeling semantics for both indicative and counterfactual conditionals. As regards counterfactuals, we adopt the orthodox view that a counterfactual conditional is true in a causal model M just in case its consequent is true in the submodel M∗, generated by intervening in M, in which its antecedent is true. We supplement the orthodox semantics by introducing a new manipulation called extrapolation. We argue that an indicative conditional is true in a causal model M just in case its (...) con- sequent is true in certain submodels M∗, generated by extrapolating M, in which its antecedent is true. We show that the proposed semantics can account for some important minimal pairs nicely and naturally. We also prove a theorem showing under what conditions intervention and extrapolation will yield the same result, and thus explain how counterfactual and indicative conditionals would behave in a causal-modeling semantics. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundPatient-centred care and patient autonomy is one of the key factors to better quality of service provision, hence patient outcomes. It enables the development of patients’ trusts which is an important element to a better doctor-patient relationship. Given the increasing number of patient disputes and conflicts between patients and doctors in Chinese public hospital, it is timely to ensure patient-centred care is fully and successfully implemented. However, limited studies have examined the views and practice in different aspects of patient-centred care (...) among doctors in the Chinese public hospitals.MethodsA quantitative approach was adopted by distributing paper-based questionnaires to doctors and patients in two hospitals (Level III and Level II) in Jinan, Shandong province, China.ResultsIn total, 614 doctors from the surgical and internal medicine units of the two hospitals participated in the survey yielding 90% response rates. The study confirmed the inconsistent views among doctors in terms of their perception and practice in various aspects patient-centred care and patient autonomy regardless of the hospital where they work (category II or category III), their unit speciality (surgical or non-surgical), their gender or seniority. The high proportion of doctors (more than 20%) who did not perceive the importance of patient consultation prior to determining diagnostic and treatment procedure is alarming. This in in part due to the belief held by more than half of the doctors that patients were unable to make rational decisions and their involvement in treatment planning process did not necessarily lead to better treatment outcomes.ConclusionThe study calls for the development of system level policy and organisation wide strategies in encouraging and enabling the practice of patient-centred care and patient autonomy with the purposes of improving the quality of the service provided to patients by Chinese hospitals. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare landscape drastically. Stricken by sharp surges in morbidity and mortality with resource and manpower shortages confounding their efforts, the medical community has witnessed high rates of burnout and post-traumatic stress amongst themselves. Whilst the prevailing literature has offered glimpses into their professional war, no review thus far has collated the deeply personal reflections of physicians and ascertained how their self-concept, self-esteem and perceived self-worth has altered during this crisis. Without adequate intervention, this may (...) have profound effects on their mental and physical health, personal relationships and professional efficacy.MethodsWith mentions of the coronavirus pervading social media by the millions, this paper set out to collate and thematically analyse social media posts containing first-person physician reflections on how COVID-19 affected their lives and their coping mechanisms. A consistent search strategy was employed and a PRISMA flowchart was used to map out the inclusion/exclusion criteria.ResultsA total of 590 social media posts were screened, 511 evaluated, and 108 included for analysis. Salient themes identified include Disruptions to Personal Psycho-Emotional State, Disruptions to Professional Care Delivery, Concern for Family, Response from Institution, Response from Society and Coping Mechanisms.ConclusionIt is evident that the distress experienced by physicians during this time has been manifold, multi-faceted and dominantly negative. Self-concepts were distorted with weakened self-esteem and perceived self-worth observed. The Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) was adopted to explain COVID-19’s impact on physician personhood as it considers existential, individual, relational and social concepts of the self. These entwined self-concepts serve as ‘compensatory’ to one another, with coping mechanisms buffering and fortifying the physician’s overall personhood. With healthcare institutions playing a vital role in providing timely and targeted support, it was further proposed that a comprehensive assessment tool based on the RToP could be developed to detect at-risk physicians and evaluate the presence and effectiveness of established support structures. (shrink)

The structure and “metabolism” (movement and conversion of goods and energy) of urban areas has caused cities to be identified as “super‐organisms”, placed between ecosystems and the biosphere, in the hierarchy of living systems. Yet most such analogies are weak, and render the super‐organism model ineffective for sustainable development of cities. Via a cluster analysis of 15 shared traits of the hierarchical living system, we found that industrialized cities are more similar to eukaryotic cells than to multicellular organisms; enclosed systems, (...) such as factories and greenhouses, paralleling organelles in eukaryotic cells. We further developed a “super‐cell” industrialized city model: a “eukarcity” with citynucleus (urban area) as a regulating centre, and organaras (enclosed systems, which provide the majority of goods and services) as the functional components, and cityplasm (natural ecosystems and farmlands) as the matrix. This model may improve the vitality and sustainability of cities through planning and management. (shrink)

Di 1 ce. Cang shan ji, zi cang ji shi, "Xin zi xue" gou xiang -- di 2 ce. Zhi yan lu -- di 3 ce. Shang lin ji -- di 4 ce. Cun ya tang yi gao jiao bu -- di 5 ce. Nan Song yi min shi ren qun ti yan jiu, Zhuangzi shi ri tan -- di 6 ce. Zhuangzi shu mu ti yao -- di 7 ce. Zhuangzi xue shi (yi) -- di 8 ce. Zhuangzi xue (...) shi (er) -- di 9 ce. Zhuangzi xue shi (san) -- di 10 ce. Zhuangzi xue shi (si) -- di 11 ce. Zhuangzi xue shi (wu) -- di 12 ce. Zhuangzi xue shi (lu) -- di 13 ce. Zhuang xue shi lüe -- di 14 ce. Zhuangzi quan ping (shang) -- di 15 ce. Zhuangzi quan ping (xia) -- di 16 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (yi) -- di 17 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (er) -- di 18 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (san) -- di 19 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (si) -- di 20 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (wu) -- di 21 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (lu) -- di 22 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (qi) -- di 23 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (ba) -- di 24 ce. Zhuangzi zuan yao (jiu) -- di 25 ce. Zhuangzi jin gu (shang) -- di 26 ce. Zhuangzi jin gu (xia) -- di 27 ce. Mengzi jin gu -- di 28 ce. Mozi jin gu -- di 29 ce. -- Xunzi jin gu -- di 30 ce. Zhou Han wen chao -- di 31 ce. Shu jing lüe ying. (shrink)

어떤 만남은 운명이다! 조선시대 전방위 지식인 다산 정약용, 그의 가르침을 따라 평생을 산 단 한 사람, 황상 "부지런하고 부지런하고 부지런하라" "학생은 있지만 제자는 없다"는 탄식의 소리가 높아지고 있다. 존경과 사랑이라는 단어가 무색하게 진정한 스승도 진정한 제자도 드문 요즈음이다. 정민 교수에 의해 200년 전 다산 정약용과 그의 제자 황상 사이에 이어진 도탑고 신실한 사제 간의 정리가 울림이 커다란 의미로 되살아난다.

This paper focuses on the change of the meaning of “gospel” in Chinese context since the 17th Century. In the late Ming dynasty, Catholic missionaries were the first to translate “gospel” into Chinese with their writings about the Bible. Then the term became intermingled with traditional Chinese belief of seeking blessings. After the ban on Christianity imposed by the Emperor Yong Zheng, Chinese Catholics hid their faith and disguised it as Buddhism, Taoism and folk religions. At the end of (...) the 19th century, “gospel” was connected to colonialism and became a trigger for Sino-Western conflict. The critique of and hostility toward the term abruptly arose. In the 20th century, “gospel” turned into a new concept, which went beyond its religious connotation and gradually referred to all kinds of “good news”. (shrink)

Airway mucin secretion is important pathophysiologically and as a model of polarized epithelial regulated exocytosis. We find the trafficking protein, SNAP23, selectively expressed in secretory cells compared with ciliated and basal cells of airway epithelium by immunohistochemistry and FACS, suggesting that SNAP23 functions in regulated but not constitutive epithelial secretion. Heterozygous SNAP23 deletant mutant mice show spontaneous accumulation of intracellular mucin, indicating a defect in baseline secretion. However mucins are released from perfused tracheas of mutant and wild-type mice at the (...) same rate, suggesting that increased intracellular stores balance reduced release efficiency to yield a fully compensated baseline steady state. In contrast, acute stimulated release of intracellular mucin from mutant mice is impaired whether measured by a static imaging assay 5 min after exposure to the secretagogue ATP or by kinetic analysis of mucins released from perfused tracheas during the first 10 min of ATP exposure. Together, these data indicate that increased intracellular stores cannot fully compensate for the defect in release efficiency during intense stimulation. The lungs of mutant mice develop normally and clear bacteria and instilled polystyrene beads comparable to WT mice, consistent with these functions depending on baseline secretion that is fully compensated. (shrink)

The purpose is to improve the teaching quality of Russian spatial prepositions in colleges. This work takes teaching Russian spatial prepositions as an example to study the key technologies in 3D Virtual Simulation teaching. 3D VS situational teaching is a high-end visual teaching technology. VS situation construction focuses on Human-Computer Interaction to explore and present a realistic language teaching scene. Here, the Steady State Visual Evoked Potential is used to control Brain-Computer Interface. An SSVEP-BCI system is constructed through the Hybrid (...) Frequency-Phase Modulation. The acquisition system can obtain the current SSVEP from the user's brain to know which module the user is watching to complete instructions encoded by the module. Experiments show that the recognition accuracy of the proposed SSVEP-BCI system based on HFPM increases with data length. When the data length is 0.6-s, the Information Transfer Rate reaches the highest: 242.21 ± 46.88 bits/min. Therefore, a high-speed BCI character input system based on SSVEP is designed using HFPM. The main contribution of this work is to build a SSVEP-BCI system based on joint frequency phase modulation. It is better than the currently-known brain computer interface character input system, and is of great value to optimize the performance of the virtual simulation situation system for Russian spatial preposition teaching. (shrink)

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

This book debates the values and ideals of Confucian politics—harmony, virtue, freedom, justice, order—and what these ideals mean for Confucian political philosophy today. The authors deliberate these eminent topics in five debates centering on recent innovative and influential publications in the field. Challenging and building on those works, the dialogues consider the roles of benevolence, family determination, public reason, distributive justice, and social stability in Confucian political philosophy. In response, the authors defend their views and evaluate their critics in turn. (...) Taking up a broad range of crucial issues—autonomy, liberty, democracy, political legitimacy, human welfare—these author-meets-critic debates will appeal to scholars interested in political, comparative, and East Asian philosophy. Their interlaced themes weave a portrait of what is at stake in discussing Confucian values and theory. Most importantly, they engage and develop the state of the field of Confucian political philosophy today. (shrink)

While investigating the value of achievements, Dunkle claims that lucky achievements are possible. For instance, if a person does great works, then it is possible that the works have the status of achievements, even if luck plays a crucial role in doing the great works. Rather than examining Dunkle’s claim, this paper proceeds discussion under the assumption that lucky achievements are possible. In particular, based on this assumption, this paper suggests a new approach to the nature of achievement named the (...) Comparative Value Approach. According to the comparative value approach, a product can have the status of an achievement if the product is valuable in an achievement-relevant domain, and in that domain the product is valuable more than most other items which either have been achieved or can be achieved by others. This paper shows that the comparative value approach successfully explains the cases of achievements, including the cases of lucky achievements. Besides this reason, this paper provides three more reasons to show that the comparative value approach is a feasible view of achievements. The comparative value approach can accommodate the fact that there are various kinds of achievements; the approach can explain the relation between the nature of achievement and the achievement-value of a product; and the approach can show why in determining the status of a product it matters that for average people achieving a similar kind of product is sufficiently difficult. Based on these four reasons, this paper concludes that the comparative value approach is a plausible understanding of achievements. (shrink)

Previous research has shed light on the detrimental effects of abusive supervision. To extend this area of research, we draw upon conservation of resources theory to propose a causal relationship between abusive supervision and psychological distress, a mediating role of psychological distress on the relationship between abusive supervision and employee silence, and a moderating effect of the supervisor–subordinate relational context on the mediating effect of abusive supervision on silence. Through an experimental study, we found the causal path linking abusive supervision (...) and psychological distress. Results of both the experimental study and a field study provided evidence that psychological distress mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and silence. Lastly, we found support that this mediation effect was contingent upon the relational context in Study 2 but not in Study 1. We discuss implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

Ben shu wei "Song Ming shi qi Chang Jiang zhong you de ru xue yan jiu" cong shu zhi yi: ben cong shu shi ren wen she hui ke xue chong dian yan jiu ji di-Wuhan da xue Zhongguo chuan tong wen hua yan jiu zhong xin tou biao, jing jiao yu bu zu zhi zhuan jia ping shen tong guo, zheng shi pi zhun de jiao yu bu ren wen she hui ke xue 2001 nian du zhong da yan (...) jiu xiang mu, xiang mu pi zhun hao shi 01JAZJD720008, ding yu 2004 nian qian hou wan cheng. ke ti zu zhu chi ren wei Guo Qiyong jiao shou, "Jiangxi zhi xue"shi Zhu Xi ti chu de yi ge gai nian, zhu yao zhi chu zi yu Jiangxi Jinxi Lu shi jia zu yi men de xue shuo, qi nei he shi Lu Jiuyuan de xin xue; di 2 quan ze shi you "Song Yuan xue an" suo zai zhi Xiangshan xiong Zhangfu, Suoshan de xue shuo; di 3 quan wei Xiangshan xiong di de di zi men de si xiang. Ben shu quan mian kao cha Jiangxi zhi xue zai Song dai Chang Jiang zhong you xing qi de xue mo yuan yuan, zhu yao xue shuo, yu Luo xue Min xue Zhejiang zhu xue zhe (Lü Zuqian, Yong Shangsi xian sheng deng) zhi jian de guan xi, yi ji qi dui Wang (Yangming) xue xing qi de nei zai guan lian xing, bing yan ji dui xian dai xin ru xue de tan tao. ben shu de xie zuo jiang zhu zhong si xiang kao gu de fang fa, zai quan mian yan jiu you guan dian ji de ji chu shang, dui you guan ren wu de chu sheng di, huo dong de di qu (ru jia zu suo zai cun luo, xue zhe shu xin wang lai, jiang xue, hui jiang, shu yuan deng) jin xing shi di de kao cha, guang fan di yun yong fang zhi, nian pu, shu yuan zhi, jia pu deng cai liao, ba si xiang jia huan yuan yu ju ti huan jing zhi zhong, zai ju ti she hui de li shi de jia zu de bei jing xia kao cha qi si xiang de nei han, jie shi qi jing shen suo zai, bing jin er yin shen chu qi yi yi yu jia zhi. (shrink)

The transnational agrarian movement La Via Campesina (LVC) seeks to reestablish food sovereignty authority within national borders by removing agriculture from the WTO system. The WTO is a membership organization of participating nation-states that have agreed to abide by the rules of the WTO governance regime. Nominally, at least, changes in these governance rules must be approved by the nation-state members. This paper examines the extent to which South Korean affiliate organizations of LVC, the Korean Peasant League and the Korean (...) Women Peasants Association, have been successful in placing food sovereignty issues on the national agri-food policy agenda in South Korea that challenge the WTO’s neoliberal global governance regime for agriculture. In effect, the success of transnational movements like LVC in challenging global institutions may rest on how well their member affiliates are able to play domestic agri-food politics. (shrink)

Extant research concludes that family firms are less likely to bribe due to reputation concerns. However, such conclusions are, to a certain extent, inconsistent with the intuition and observation that some family firms can be aggressive bribers. This study employs a restricted-extended framework of socioemotional wealth model to reconcile this inconsistency. We propose family management, on the one hand, results in reputation preservation willingness; while on the other hand, results in an abuse of trust between family members and superior ability (...) to hide bribery secrets. Integrating the willingness and ability mechanisms leads to an inverted U-shaped relationship between family management and bribery. Further, family firm political connection and province-level anti-corruption investigation play moderation role on the inverted U-shaped main effect. An empirical analysis of Chinese listed firms from 2006 to 2017 supports our hypotheses. (shrink)

The redemption thesis assumes that how events in a person’s life are related to one another is important in evaluating the person’s welfare throughout life. In particular, according to this thesis of welfare, the fact that a person’s previous hardships contribute to bringing out the same person’s later successes, and the person would regard the hardships as having been worthwhile in light of the successes makes the person’s life better for the person herself. Recently, Ian D. Dunkle provided four objections (...) to the redemption thesis: the intuition concern, the different redemptions argument, the downplaying hardships argument, and the reconciled irreconcilables argument. This paper examines these four objections. In particular, this paper dismisses all the objections showing that the redemption thesis bases on an appealing idea, does not consider the degree of hardship significant in itself, has plausible reasons to evaluate hardships not as serious as people think, and can successfully reconcile its synchronic and diachronic evaluations. (shrink)

Some goals have special significance to agents. For instance, an agent could find her life worth living because she is pursuing her current goal, and the agent could also think that her previous life has no value because she did not pursue the current goal. If an agent’s current goal has special importance to the agent, then in terms of prudence the agent’s decision to obtain her current goal could be permissible even in the case where achieving her previous goal (...) brings out larger advantages. A widely endorsed thesis of prudence (i.e. the temporal neutrality thesis) does not successfully explain this phenomenon of goal achievement. Furthermore, the present-aim thesis and the harmony thesis also fail in explaining why an agent has prudential reason to prioritize her current goal. This paper introduces a new thesis of prudence, according to which an agent’s caring is significant in deciding whether the agent’s actions are prudentially permissible. In particular, after introducing this thesis named the care thesis, I argue that the care thesis can explain why an agent has reason to prioritize her current goal if the agent finds her life worth living due to her current goal. It is permissible that an agent obtains her current goal rather than previous goal because achieving her current goal benefits the agent’s cared one (i.e. the self who pursues her current goal). (shrink)

The contribution of this present paper is to propose a method that combines a chemical Brusselator reaction-diffusion system with a biological cell system via gap junction for controlling and visualizing the frequency and magnitude of chaotic intracellular calcium oscillations in two cell types, including nonexcitable cells and the glial cells. This produces a wide variety of oscillatory behaviors similar to those reported in numerous biological experiments. We particularly show that in the majority of chaos cases, the reactor to cell coupling (...) can induce the generation of regular calcium oscillations as the coupling strength is varied. Together with the proposed method of coupled models, the regularity of these chaotic oscillations enables us to gain better understanding and extensive insights into the overall coupling dynamics. (shrink)

To resolve the lottery paradox, the “no-justification account” proposes that one is not justified in believing that one's lottery ticket is a loser. The no-justification account commits to what I call “the Harman-style skepticism”. In reply, proponents of the no-justification account typically downplay the Harman-style skepticism. In this paper, I argue that the no-justification reply to the Harman-style skepticism is untenable. Moreover, I argue that the no-justification account is epistemically ad hoc. My arguments are based on a rather surprising finding (...) that the no-justification account implies that people living in Taiwan typically suffer from the Harman-style skepticism. (shrink)

Vulval development in the Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodite represents a simple, genetically tractable system for studying how cell signaling events control cell fata decisions. Current models suggest that proper specification of vulval cell fates relies on the integration of multiple signaling systems, including one that involves a receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)→Ras→mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade and one that involves a LIN‐12/Notch family receptor. In this review, we first discuss how genetic strategies are being used to identify and analyze components that (...) control vulval cell fate decisions. We then describe the different signaling systems that have been elucidated and how they relate to one another. Finally, we highlight several recently characterized genes that encode positive regulators, negative regulators or potential targets of the RTK→Ras→MAPK cascade involved in vulval induction. (shrink)

Customers are skeptical about shopping online because e-commerce environments are typically considered impersonal. To assure product quality and to enhance customer proclivity in such environments, post-sale services may be considered to alleviate customers’ skepticism. Therefore, this study’s objective is to investigate the role of an online retailer’s post-sale services on customers’ attitudinal and behavioral aspects. Structural equation modeling is applied to data collected through an online survey answered by 409 online customers of jd.com. Research findings show that product return, exchange, (...) and maintenance services are strongly predictive of online customer satisfaction, and satisfaction significantly impacts customer trust. Both customer satisfaction and trust, as indicators of relationship quality, further mediate the links between product return, exchange, and maintenance services and online customer repurchase intention. In addition, differences between male and female customers were found in various aspects of online retailers’ product return, exchange, and maintenance services. This is the first empirical study that not only examines the influence of all three dimensions of online retailers’ post-sale services on customers’ online shopping perceptions and decisions, but also considers differences between male and female customers. Finally, this research provides theoretical and managerial implications based on conceptual and empirical evidence. (shrink)

Environmental governance has emerged as a recent perspective to explain the link between corporate governance mechanisms and environmental performance such as pollution reduction. We extend current models by incorporating the crucial role of the underlying institutional logics in terms of an a priori focus on either shareholder rights or stakeholder inclusion, which, in turn, can be traced back to the legal origin of a specific country. Using data on a sample of common and civil law countries, we find support for (...) our predictions that a shareholder-focused common law legal origin is associated with significantly higher emissions of CO2, and also that international environmental agreements like the Kyoto protocol seem to have a more pronounced effect in shareholder-centric economies than thus far assumed. (shrink)

Inspired by the application of CycleGAN networks to the image style conversion problem Zhu et al., this paper proposes an end-to-end network, DefogNet, for solving the single-image dehazing problem, treating the image dehazing problem as a style conversion problem from a fogged image to a nonfogged image, without the need to estimate a priori information from an atmospheric scattering model. DefogNet improves on CycleGAN by adding a cross-layer connection structure in the generator to enhance the network’s multiscale feature extraction capability. (...) The loss function was redesigned to add detail perception loss and color perception loss to improve the quality of texture information recovery and produce better fog-free images. In this paper, the novel Defog-SN algorithm is presented. This algorithm adds a spectral normalization layer to the discriminator’s convolution layer to make the discriminant network conform to a 1-Lipschitz continuum and further improve the model’s stability. In this study, the experimental process is completed based on the O-HAZE, I-HAZE, and RESIDE datasets. The dehazing results show that the method outperforms traditional methods in terms of PSNR and SSIM on synthetic datasets and Avegrad and Entropy on naturalistic images. (shrink)

In this article, we attempt to describe how ordinary people in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan view democracy and its authoritarian alternatives and how they experience institutional practices of their democracies to determine the extent of cultural and institutional democratization. The analysis of the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey data shows that although the citizens of East Asian democracies unequivocally reject military authoritarian rule, they are ambivalent toward civilian authoritarian rule, and are not yet fully committed to democracy. The analysis also shows (...) that they are not satisfied with the provision of civil rights and institutions of horizontal accountability, but remain highly satisfied with voting rights, which suggests that East Asian democracies are not adequately liberal, though unmistakably electoral, in the eyes of ordinary people. On the basis of this finding, we conclude that East Asian democracies fail to achieve a high-level equilibrium between the popular demand for democracy and the institutional supply of democracy. (shrink)