In order to improve the iris classification rate, a novel biogeography-based optimization algorithm based on local search and nonuniform variation was proposed in this paper. Firstly, the linear migration model was replaced by a hyperbolic cotangent model which was closer to the natural law. And, the local search strategy was added to traditional BBO algorithm migration operation to enhance the global search ability of the algorithm. Then, the nonuniform variation was introduced to enhance the algorithm in the later iteration. The (...) algorithm could achieve a stronger iris classifier by lifting weaker similarity classifiers during the training stage. On this base, the convergence condition of NBBO was proposed by using the Markov chain strategy. Finally, simulation results were given to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed iris classification method. (shrink)

This is a linguistic study of two primary metaphors with the same target-domain concept, “IMPORTANCE IS SIZE” and “IMPORTANCE IS WEIGHT,” in English and Chinese. It is suggested that these two primary metaphors are derived from the OBJECT image schema, abstracted from our embodied, sensorimotor experience, especially our visual and tactile perception, in dealing with physical objects in everyday life. The study focuses on size and weight adjectives in both languages and on linguistic evidence in two areas: their lexicalizations of (...) the importance senses as found in the dictionaries, and their roles in the instantiation of the two primary metaphors in natural discourse as found in the corpora. Our further analysis also shows that the primary metaphors can be manifested without explicit use of size and weight words when relevant conceptual frames in the source, evoked by other words or images, are mapped onto the target domain, thus activating the relevant region of our encyclopedic knowledge and triggering off the primary metaphors in our conceptual system. We also construct a hypothetical mapping scheme for primary metaphors based on the OBJECT image schema, in which OBJECT is mapped onto its target via three of its fundamental dimensions: SIZE, WEIGHT, and SOLIDITY. It is hoped that this mapping scheme will benefit future comparative studies of primary metaphors across languages and cultures in a more systematic way. (shrink)

In this study, we sorted out the research hotspots in sports science by bibliometric method and also used social network analysis to explore the relationship between knowledge networks and their scientific performance. We found 38 high-frequency keywords with obvious curricular nature or classical direction of sports science research and 4 high-frequency research groups. The topics of hotspots covered the secondary disciplines of sports science: physical education and training, national traditional sports, sports human science, and sports humanities and sociology. However, sports (...) human science research is less; therefore, accelerating the research of sports human science is the focus of future research. Meanwhile, we use social network structure analysis to study the relationship between knowledge elements in knowledge networks and their scientific performance. In addition to betweenness centrality, the closeness centrality, clustering coefficient, and structural holes of knowledge elements are significantly and positively related to their influence. In the relationship between knowledge elements and productivity, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality show significant positive correlations, and clustering coefficient and structural hole show significant negative correlations. Therefore, knowledge networks can be used to predict the scientific performance of knowledge elements. (shrink)

Objectives: The corona virus disease-2019 pandemic spread globally, and we aimed to investigate the psychosocial impact on healthcare workers in China during the pandemic.Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched seven electronic databases for cross-sectional studies on psychosocial impact on HWs in relation to COVID-19 from January 1, 2020 to October 7, 2020. We included primary studies involving Chinese HWs during the pandemic, and data were extracted from the published articles. Our primary outcome was prevalence of anxiety, depression, (...) and stress disorders. We pooled prevalence value with their 95% confidence interval using random effect models and assessed study quality on the basis of an 11-item checklist recommended by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO.Results: We identified 25 articles comprising a total of 30,841 completed questionnaires and 22 studies for meta-analysis. The prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress disorders was 34.4%, 31.1%, and 29.1% for HWs. The pooled prevalence of anxiety disorders for HWs from late January to early February was 46.4%, significantly higher than those in mid-term February and after late February. The pooled prevalence of depression disorders for HWs from late January to early February was 46.5%, significantly higher than those in mid-term February and after late February. HWs working in Hubei Province had a higher prevalence of anxiety and a lower prevalence of depression than those working in other regions. Nurses had a higher prevalence of anxiety and depression than other HWs.Conclusions: About one-third of HWs in China suffered anxiety, depression, and stress at the early epidemic of COVID-19. HWs in Hubei Province, especially nurses, had a higher prevalence of psychological disorders. During the pandemic, a negative psychological state may persist in a proportion of Chinese HWs, fluctuating with the control of the pandemic. The long-term impact should continue to be observed. Attention should be paid to HWs for their psychological impact due to the pandemic.Systematic Review Registration: The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO. (shrink)

Understanding the neural basis of schizophrenia (SZ) is important for shedding light on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this mental disorder. Structural and functional alterations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) have been implicated in the neurobiology of SZ. However, the effective connectivity among them in SZ remains unclear. The current study investigated how neuronal pathways involving these regions were affected in first-episode SZ using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Forty-nine patients (...) with a first-episode of psychosis and diagnosis of SZ—according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision—were studied. Fifty healthy controls (HCs) were included for comparison. All subjects underwent resting state fMRI. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to estimate directed connections among the bilateral ACC, DLPFC, hippocampus, and MPFC. We characterized the differences using Bayesian parameter averaging (BPA) in addition to classical inference (t-test). In addition to common effective connectivity in these two groups, HCs displayed widespread significant connections predominantly involved in ACC not detected in SZ patients, but SZ showed few connections. Based on BPA results, SZ patients exhibited anterior cingulate cortico-prefrontal-hippocampal hyperconnectivity, as well as ACC-related and hippocampal-dorsolateral prefrontal-medial prefrontal hypoconnectivity. In summary, spectral DCM revealed the pattern of effective connectivity involving ACC in patients with first-episode SZ. This study provides a potential link between SZ and dysfunction of ACC, creating an ideal situation to associate mechanisms behind SZ with aberrant connectivity among these cognition and emotion-related regions. (shrink)

Introduction: 1980s “New Enlightenment” and 1990s Deconstruction Jacques Derrida's Writing and Difference, a collection of essays originally published in the 1960s, was translated into Chinese and introduced to the Chinese-speaking intellectual world in 2001. That year, Derrida visited China for the first and last time before he passed away in 2004. He never had a chance to review his trip to China. However, prior to his trip, during an interview with Zhang Ning, the Chinese translator of Writing and Difference, (...) Derrida expressed that imaginative reference to China had always “occupied an extremely important place” in his…. (shrink)

This collection of essays on the social history of disciplinary practices in education in North America, Northern Europe, and Colonial Bengal coverage upon an understanding that schools regulate the behavior of beliefs of students, teachers, and parents by enforcing certain disciplinary social norms.

Decision making in any brain is imperfect and costly in terms of time and energy. Operating under such constraints, an organism could be in a position to improve performance if an opportunity arose to exploit informative patterns in the environment being searched. Such an improvement of performance could entail both faster and more accurate (i.e., reward-maximizing) decisions. The present study investigated the extent to which human participants could learn to take advantage of immediate patterns in the spatial arrangement of serially (...) presented foods such that a region of space would consistently be associated with greater subjective value. Eye movements leading up to choices demonstrated rapidly induced biases in the selective allocation of visual fixation and attention that were accompanied by both faster and more accurate choices of desired goods as implicit learning occurred. However, for the control condition with its spatially balanced reward environment, these subjects exhibited preexisting lateralized biases for eye and hand movements (i.e., leftward and rightward, respectively) that could act in opposition not only to each other but also to the orienting biases elicited by the experimental manipulation, producing an asymmetry between the left and right hemifields with respect to performance. Potentially owing at least in part to learned cultural conventions (e.g., reading from left to right), the findings herein particularly revealed an intrinsic leftward bias underlying initial saccades in the midst of more immediate feedback-directed processes for which spatial biases can be learned flexibly to optimize oculomotor and manual control in value-based decision making. The present study thus replicates general findings of learned attentional biases in a novel context with inherently rewarding stimuli and goes on to further elucidate the interactions between endogenous and exogenous biases. (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)

We investigate how firms adjust corporate pension plans in response to economic policy uncertainty (EPU). Using a sample of US-listed firms, we find that firms increase pension underfunding levels when facing higher EPU. The result is robust to controlling for pension portfolio returns, discount rates, plan sizes, pension liability, numbers of employees, other macroeconomic factors, difference-in-differences and instrumental variable estimation, and additional evidence of pension risk-shifting. Further analysis reveals that financial distress and information asymmetry induced through EPU are the potential (...) channels. The effect is stronger for firms having CEOs being excessively paid, using cash flow as a performance metric in CEO compensation, paying high dividends, and having short-term institutional investors, whereas the presence of unions, positive corporate culture, and social capital alleviate the effect. Notably, managers, not shareholders, appear to be the party reaping the benefits. Our findings suggest that firms may shift risk to employees in response to heightened uncertainty and institutional characteristics play a moderating role in this crucial business ethics issue. (shrink)

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between posttraumatic growth, resilience, positive coping style, and self-efficacy among the primary caregivers of children with developmental disorders in Chongqing, China. A total of 198 primary caregivers aged from 22 to 66 years old, including 155 females and 43 males, were enrolled. The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, and General Self-Efficacy Scale were used for data collection. The results found that PTG could be positively predicted by resilience. (...) Positive coping style and self-efficacy mediated the relationship between resilience and PTG. The different levels of PTG were determined by the resident location, monthly income and education of the primary caregivers. The results suggest that it is critical to improve the mental health of the primary caregivers of children with developmental disabilities. Our results also provide a scientific basis for future research. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on analyzing the manifestation and significance of respect. I first illustrate the two meanings of jing 敬 and their connection in Confucian classical texts, which is helpful to understand the Confucian phenomenology of respect. The two meanings are seriousness as a mind-state and respect as an intentional feeling. After clarifying this point, I undertake a phenomenological analysis of respect, in order to show that respect helps one to achieve moral pursuit. This analysis takes the Kantian (...) notion of respect as a starting point but further is accomplished by the phenomenology of value and feeling. The respect for duties and affairs, the respect for personhood and dignity, and the respect for the worthy with merit motivate one to take moral actions. For example, respect contributes in taking one’s duties seriously, appreciating human beings’ spiritual values and good tendencies even when they have not been actualized, supporting the worthy to play a role, and emulating the worthy to make a contribution and serve others. In Subsequently, I clarify how respect helps one to achieve religious pursuit in one form of Christianity, in light of Max Scheler’s discussion on humility and reverence. Through revering God one respects others; through serving God and participating in God’s humble spirit one serves others. I elucidate the Confucian classics’ discussions on religious experience, in order to show how respect helps one to achieve religious pursuit in one form of Confucianism, and how it is similar and different from Max Scheler’s clarification. The concrete relation between respect and li 禮 in the Confucian tradition will be treated in another work. (shrink)

This article is an extension of my previous article, which describes pure knowing as the ability and criteria for making moral judgment.1 Due to apparent contradictions among Wang Yangming's statements, there are controversies over the evaluation and interpretation of Wang's idea of the relation between moral knowledge 2 and moral action. Generally, on the one hand, Wang admits that there are people who commit wrong actions even though they recognize that these actions are wrong. He claims not only that sages (...) possess pure knowing, but also that robbers feel ashamed to be called "robbers" through the working of pure knowing.3 On the other hand, he explicitly states that "There have never... (shrink)

This paper will investigate the phenomenology of shame with referring to Max Scheler’s description of the phenomenon and to the tradition of Confucianism. Section I explores the conflict between spirit, life and pleasure in the experience of shame. Shame implies a hierarchy of value, and it is felt when there is a conflict among different values and when the agent intends to sacrifice a higher value for a lower one. Shame also takes place when one is treated by others as (...) a mere object or merely as a sensuous being rather than a spiritual being possessing personal dignity. Section II clarifies the problem of destructive shame and humiliation. While genuine shame is indispensable for a person as such, wrongly felt shame is destructive to the cultivation of virtue. Differences between shame and humiliation and how one should treat humiliation will also be reexamined. (shrink)

In the Western studies of the texts of Mozi, three distinctive views have surfaced in the past few decades: (1) Mozi is inconsistent because he seems to have been committed to both a Utilitarian standard and a divine command theory; (2) Mozi is a divine command theorist who argues that it is right to benefit the world because it is the will of heaven; and (3) Mozi is a utilitarian thinker who has based morality on the criterion of whether actions (...) benefit the world. In this paper, I will argue that the whole debate about whether Mozi is a divine command theorist or a utilitarian is misguided, because it is based on an incorrect understanding of the fundamental cultural perspective associated with the notion of Tian. An adequate understanding of the notion of Tian will reveal its fundamental difference from the Western notion of heaven. Such an understanding will enable us to put Mozi's moral philosophy in the ancient Chinese perspective in which a tension and potential conflict between 'the will of heaven' and 'the benefit of the world' simply cannot arise. (shrink)

The main goals of this paper are two. First, it articulates what kinds of knowing pure knowing is in its narrow sense pure knowing as the capacity of moral judgment; pure knowing as moral knowledge and standard. Besides, it analyses pure knowing’s different features through a phenomenological description. All these aspects of pure knowing are tied by moral feeling. Second, this paper addresses two sets of theoretical problems that have been raised in Confucian discourse with respect to pure knowing and (...) Heavenly principle, primarily those that render Wang’s notion of pure knowing to be static recognition toward particular moral issues, or immediate response, which reading cannot really admit the possibilities of extension, reflection, moral cultivation, and reform of institution; and those that understand pure knowing to be merely abstract without concrete content, such as merely being a metaphysical substance. When properly understood, that is, from the perspective of moral emotions, Wang Yangming’s account of pure knowing provides for the possibilities of enhancement and cultivation, while insisting that the content of pure knowing is always accessible to us. (shrink)

A fair amount of recent Xunzi scholarship has focused on the problem of moral transformation. The problem being addressed supposedly arises this way. According to Xunzi, human nature is innately or inherently evil; individuals, nevertheless, can become moral agents capable to embracing and loving moral principles. Unfortunately, Xunzi does not provide any account of how individuals whose characters are inherently evil can transformed into full moral agents. Several scholars have proposed various ways in which Xunzi could address the problems, but (...) all are unsatisfactory for various reasons. In this paper, I will develop my own reading of Xunzi’s moral philosophy. My approach is to put Xunzi in the context of classical Confucianism, a tradition that shaped Xunzi’s thinking on his metaphysical assumption about the world, his reverence for the wisdom of sage kings, and his emphasis on education as the necessary condition for virtue development. (shrink)

This paper investigates the integrity of financial analysts by examining their recommendation responses to large quarterly earnings surprises. Although there is no significant difference in recommendation changes between affiliated and unaffiliated analysts in response to positive earnings surprises, affiliated analysts are more reluctant than unaffiliated analysts to downgrade stock recommendations in response to negative earnings surprises. The evidence implies that conflicts of interest undermine the integrity of financial analysts. We further examine the effects of reputation concern and the Global Research (...) Analyst Settlement as informal and formal mechanisms, on restoring analysts’ integrity. The results show that the positive bias in recommendations remains prevalent for affiliated analysts from reputable investment banks and for the postreform period. Finally, evidence from market reactions suggests that investors fail to notice that analysts’ integrity is compromised by conflicts of interest and are misled by affiliated analysts. (shrink)

Several commentators have noted that “justice has not fared well in the revival of virtue ethics”; it “has become damagingly marginalized” and “no longer has a starring role.” Given its traditional place among the four cardinal virtues this is a remarkable state of affairs and yet exactly this has occurred has not been adequately explored or explained. In this paper, I argue that the particular moral virtue of justice has been largely disregarded by the contemporary virtue theorists primarily because their (...) conception of justice is so different from Aristotle’s. Accordingly, they do not need the virtue of justice to do the kind of explanatory work in their systems that it does in Aristotle’s. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the question of when human life begins from a neo-Aristotelian perspective. In my view, the basic principles of Aristotle’s metaphysics inform an account of human life (and the human person) that offers the best available explanation of the available phenomena. This account – the substance account of the human person – can fully incorporate the contemporary findings of empirical embryology, while also recognizing the essential uniqueness of rational human nature.

Research into logical syntax provides us the knowledge of the structure of sentences, while logical semantics provides a window into uncovering the truth of sentences. Therefore, it is natural to make sentences and truth the central concern when one deals with the theory of meaning logically. Although their theories of meaning differ greatly, both Michael Dummett’s theory and Donald Davidson’s theory are concerned with sentences and truth and developed in terms of truth. Logical theories and methods first introduced by G. (...) Frege underwent great developments during the past century and have played an important role in expanding these two scholars’ theories of meaning. (shrink)

Many researchers want to unify probability and logic by defining logical probability or probabilistic logic reasonably. This paper tries to unify statistics and logic so that we can use both statistical probability and logical probability at the same time. For this purpose, this paper proposes the P–T probability framework, which is assembled with Shannon’s statistical probability framework for communication, Kolmogorov’s probability axioms for logical probability, and Zadeh’s membership functions used as truth functions. Two kinds of probabilities are connected by an (...) extended Bayes’ theorem, with which we can convert a likelihood function and a truth function from one to another. Hence, we can train truth functions (in logic) by sampling distributions (in statistics). This probability framework was developed in the author’s long-term studies on semantic information, statistical learning, and color vision. This paper first proposes the P–T probability framework and explains different probabilities in it by its applications to semantic information theory. Then, this framework and the semantic information methods are applied to statistical learning, statistical mechanics, hypothesis evaluation (including falsification), confirmation, and Bayesian reasoning. Theoretical applications illustrate the reasonability and practicability of this framework. This framework is helpful for interpretable AI. To interpret neural networks, we need further study. (shrink)

Countering the claims that competition contradicts and undermines ethical thought processes and actions, Christoph Lütge successfully argues that competition and ethics do not necessarily have to oppose one another. He highlights how intensified competition can in fact work in favour of ethical goals, and that many criticisms of competition stem from an out-dated understanding of how modern societies and economies function. Illustrating this view with examples from ecology, healthcare and education, the author calls for a more entrepreneurial spirit in analysing (...) the relationship between competition and ethics. This book delivers important arguments for the ethics of innovation, using a combination of theoretical and practical evidence to support it. Researchers and scholars of economics, business, philosophy and politics will greatly benefit from the fresh interdisciplinary perspectives and thorough exploration of the complex relationship between modern competition and ethics. (shrink)

Multiple accounts of how theories of human psychology and of image-making influenced each other in a decisive period in the history of philosophy and art.

The concepts of Minben 民本, Minbensixiang 民本思想, and Minbenzhuyi 民本主义 are rather popular in current Chinese discourse. However, “Minben” was hardly found in Chinese ancient literature as a noun. Around the year of 1916, “Minbenzhuyi” became widely accepted in Japanese intellectual circles, interpreted as one of the Japanese versions of democracy. In 1917, “Minbenzhuyi” was transferred to China as a loanword by Li Dazhao and developed into one of the Chinese definitions of democracy. Nevertheless, Chen Duxiu questioned the meaning of (...) the term in 1919. It was not until 1922 did Liang Qichao bring Minbenzhuyi back into Chinese context and conduct a systematic analysis, which had a lasting impact on Chinese intellectual community. In the following 20 years, Minbenzhuyi was largely accepted in two different senses : 1) interpreted as Chinese definition of democracy; 2) specifically refers to the Confucian idea of “Minshiminting and Minguijunqing”. Gradually, it became evident that Minbenzhuyi in China had grown distant from the meaning of democracy and returned to its traditional Confucian values. (shrink)

This article investigates and compares Max Scheler’s and Wang Yangming’s analyses of the disorder of the heart as the inversion of values. Both Scheler and Wang affirm an objective hierarchy of val...

With the rapid development of urbanization, the urban expansion morphology has been changing with complex driving mechanisms behind the urban evolution process. This article simulates the results of urban land development contingent upon decision-makers’ risk preferences and reveals the inherent law of the effect of risk preferences on urban expansion morphology. Results show that cautious decision-makers lead to the urban expansion morphology being relatively compact, and the reckless decision-makers lead the urban expansion to sprawl. Moreover, there are obvious differences in (...) strengths of planning constraints on the decision-makers with different risk preferences. The reckless decision-makers, driven by the economic interests, are more likely to break through the planning, especially when the planning is not reasonable. It is also found that enhancing executive ability of planning for the reckless decision-makers can promote compactness of the urban expansion morphology. However, the effect of enhancing executive ability of planning on the cautious decision-makers is limited. Thus, in the case of unreasonable planning, the executive ability of planning to the reckless decision-makers should be enhanced so as to avoid urban sprawl. (shrink)