This research proposes a modified metaheuristic optimization algorithm, named as improved stochastic fractal search, which is formed based on the integration of the quasiopposition-based learning and chaotic local search schemes into the original SFS algorithm for solving the optimal capacitor placement in radial distribution networks. The test problem involves the determination of the optimal number, location, and size of fixed and switched capacitors at different loading conditions so that the network total yearly cost is minimized with simultaneous fulfillment of operating (...) constraints. Also, the hourly on/off scheduling plans of switched shunt capacitors considering a modified cost objective function are obtained. The proposed ISFS algorithm has been tested on two IEEE 69-bus and 119-bus RDNs and a practical 152-bus RDN. For clarifying the effectiveness and validation of the ISFS, the simulated results have been compared with those of other previously utilized solution approaches in the literature as well as the original SFS. From result comparison, the proposed ISFS outperforms other previous approaches regarding solution quality and statistical performance for the compared cases, especially in the complex and large-scale networks. Notably, compared with the original SFS, the proposed ISFS shows a significantly better performance in all the tested cases. (shrink)

The digital era brings various benefits to adolescents. However, operating on the digital environment without sufficient knowledge and skills will expose them to multiple types of risks, especially in the country with low digital safety education rate like Vietnam. The current study examines factors that can contribute to cultivating adolescents’ digital resilience using the information-processing reasoning of the Mindsponge Theory. A UNESCO dataset of 1061 Vietnamese high school students was analyzed using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics. It is found that (...) adolescents’ daily Internet usage frequency, parents’ Internet safety guidance, and teachers’ safety guidance are positively associated with digital resilience. However, the effects of parents’ and teachers’ Internet safety guidance on digital resilience are conditional on the daily Internet usage frequency. Parents’ guidance only enhances adolescents’ digital resilience if they use the Internet less than four hours per day. In contrast, the positive effect of teachers’ guidance on adolescents’ digital resilience becomes stronger when the students spend more time on the Internet (more than 1 hour). Based on these findings, we suggest that adolescents can learn to minimize risks and protect themselves by exposing more to the digital environment. Parents’ and teachers’ supports are important in enhancing adolescents’ capability to deal with digital threats, but types of supports need to be carefully considered to avoid reverse impacts on adolescents’ resilience. (shrink)

With advances in medical technology, the potential uses for human blood have proliferated, and in turn, so has the demand for blood. Blood and blood products circulate in a medical marketplace as a `good' that can be bought and sold to meet various health and commercial demands. Nevertheless, its point of origin — or `production' — remains the individual human body, and reliance on voluntary blood donation remains a cornerstone for meeting this growing market demand. This article examines the contradictions (...) surrounding blood donation in the ethnographic context of contemporary urban China. Specifically, it focuses on both how the circulation of blood outside the individual body interfaces with its circulation in the Chinese social body, and how individual Chinese conceptualize their acts of donation in this process. In ethnographic interviews for this project, many urbanites describe donation as both voluntary and as meeting a social obligation. Yet their donation practices remain structured by meeting work unit quotas and are compensated with monetary and food donations and paid time off. Their descriptions of the mechanisms for motivating and compensating donors echo the socialist calls for contributing to society's greater good typical of the Maoist era propaganda. These descriptions highlight the complexities of sociocultural change in what has come to be described in much of the literature as a `postsocialist' Chinese society characterized by a burgeoning consumer culture and increasing emergence of individual autonomy. Our interviews suggest that the socialist workplace remains a critical social and economic structure in China through which workers' production is transformed into a social `good'. This transformation originates within the individual bodies of workers (not on the factory floor) and is extracted through exhortations to contribute to better society via the work unit and one's obligations to the work unit. Rather than a shift to individual autonomy and self-improvement, or a re-emergence of traditional values — both of which have been described as hallmarks of the postsocialist era — this process highlights the role that the socialist work unit plays in defining Chinese citizenship, consumer culture and embodied desires. (shrink)

Recent studies show that returning global health trainees often report having felt inadequately prepared to deal with ethical dilemmas they encountered during outreach clinical work. While global health training guidelines emphasize the importance of developing ethical and cultural competencies before embarking on fieldwork, their practical implementation is often lacking and consists mainly of recommendations regarding professional behavior and discussions of case studies. Evidence suggests that one of the most effective ways to teach certain skills in global health, including ethical and (...) cultural competencies, is through service learning. This approach combines community service with experiential learning. Unfortunately, this approach to global health ethics training is often unattainable due to a lack of supervision and resources available at host locations. This often means that trainees enter global health initiatives unprepared to deal with ethical dilemmas, which has the potential for adverse consequences for patients and host institutions, thus contributing to growing concerns about exploitation and “medical tourism.” From an educational perspective, exposure alone to such ethical dilemmas does not contribute to learning, due to lack of proper guidance. We propose that the tension between the benefits of service learning on the one hand and the respect for patients’ rights and well-being on the other could be resolved by the application of a simulation-based approach to global health ethics education. (shrink)

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

A sequel to Levinas's Totality and Infinity, this work is generally considered Levinas's most important contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding the closure of metaphysical discourse, much commented upon by Jacques Derrida. This work contains a fundamentally original theory of the ethical relationship and describes the face-to-face relationship, sensibility, responsibility and speech. Renowned Levinas scholar Richard A. Cohen has contributed a new foreword to this edition of Otherwise than Being, which is also the first time the work is available in (...) an affordable paperback edition. This foreword, along with Alphonso Lingis's extensive introduction to the work, is a valuable tool for researchers and students of Levinas's philosophy. (shrink)

"To be a philosopher and to be a feminist are one and the same thing. A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place."-from _Hipparchia's Choice_ A work of rare insight and irreverence, _Hipparchia's Choice_ boldly recasts the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the post-Derrideans as one of masculine texts and male problems. The position of women, therefore, is less the result of a hypothetical "femininity" and more the fault of exclusion by (...) men. Nevertheless, women have been and continue to be drawn to "the exercise of thought." So how does a female philosopher become a conceptually adventurous woman? Focusing on the work of Sartre and Beauvoir (specifically, his sexism and her relation to it), Michèle Le Doeuff shows how women philosophers can reclaim a place for feminist concerns. Is _The Second Sex_ a work of philosophy, and, if so, what can it teach us about the relation of philosophy to experience? Now with a new epilogue, _Hipparchia's Choice_ points the way toward a discipline that is accountable to history, feminism, and society. (shrink)

Arguing for Atheism introduces a wide range of topics in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. Robin Le Poidevin does not simply defend a denial of God's existence; he presents instead a way of intepreting religious discourse which allows us to make sense of the role of religion in our spiritual and moral lives. Ideal as a textbook for university courses in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, Arguing for Atheism is also designed to be accessible, in its style and (...) its numerous explanations, to the general reader. (shrink)

A classic source for understanding the connections between information theory and physics, this text was written by one of the giants of 20th-century physics and is appropriate for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. Topics include the principles of coding, coding problems and solutions, the analysis of signals, a summary of thermodynamics, thermal agitation and Brownian motion, and thermal noise in an electric circuit. A discussion of the negentropy principle of information introduces the author's renowned examination of Maxwell's demon. Concluding chapters (...) explore the associations between information theory, the uncertainty principle, and physical limits of observation, in addition to problems related to computing, organizing information, and inevitable errors. 1962 ed. 81 figures. 14 tables. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas is one of the most original philosophers in the twentieth century. In this book, continuing his thought on obligation, he investigates the possibility that the word God can be understood now, at the end of the twentieth century, in a meaningful way. The thirteen essays collected in this volume offer an introduction to the wide range of Levinas's thought, addresses philosophical questions concerning politics, language and religion and the philosophies of, amongst others, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Marx and Derrida. The (...) essays also touch on the Marxist concept of ideology, death, hermeneutics, the concept of evil, the philosophy of dialogue, the relation of language to the Other, and the acts of communication and mutual understanding. Nine of the essays appear in English for the first time. (shrink)

Combining elements from Heidegger’s philosophy of “being-in-the-world” and the tradition of Jewish theology, Levinas has evolved a new type of ethics based on a concept of “the Other” in two different but complementary aspects. He describes his encounters with those philosophers and literary authors (most of them his contemporaries) whose writings have most significantly contributed to the construction of his own philosophy of “Otherness”: Agnon, Buber, Celan, Delhomme, Derrida, Jabès, Kierkegaard, Lacroix, Laporte, Picard, Proust, Van Breda, Wahl, and, most notably, (...) Blanchot. At the same time, Levinas’s own texts are inscriptions and documents of those encounters with “Others” around which his philosophy is turning. Thus the texts simultaneously convey an immediate experience of how his intellectual position emerged and how it is put into practice. A third potential function of the book is that it unfolds the network of references and persons in philosophical debates since Kierkegaard. (shrink)

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Contemporary philosophers are increasingly turning to the work of Emmanuel Levinas to bring a consideration of ethics into their own thinking. As an exponent of the phenomenological tradition, Levinas ranks with Heidegger and Sartre; as a disciple of Husserl, he was one of the most independent and original interpreters, testifying to the fruitfulness of Husserl's phenomenology. In collecting almost all of Levinas's articles on Husserlian phenomenology, this volume gathers together a wealth of thoughtful exposition and interpretation by one of the (...) most important European philosophers of the twentieth century. Levinas's thought is relevant to a broad variety of disciplines and concerns. This volume serves as a reliable introduction for the beginning student, as well as satisfying the expert's more demanding and critical desire for insight into the complexities of Levinas's thought. (shrink)

In this brillant meditation on conceptions of history, Le Goff traces the evolution of the historian's craft. Examining real and imagined oppositions between past and present, ancient and modern, oral and written history, _History and Memory_ reveals the strands of continuity that have characterized historiography from ancient Mesopotamia to modern Europe.

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

This book brings together new essays on a major focus of debate in contemporary metaphysics: does time really pass, or is our ordinary experience of time as consisting of past, present, and future an illusion? The international contributors broaden this debate by demonstrating the importance of questions about the nature of time for philosophical issues in ethics, aesthetics, psychology, science, religion, and language.

In this brillant meditation on conceptions of history, Le Goff traces the evolution of the historian's craft. Examining real and imagined oppositions between past and present, ancient and modern, oral and written history, _History and Memory_ reveals the strands of continuity that have characterized historiography from ancient Mesopotamia to modern Europe.

The present study emphasizes Chapter Six of Huai-nan Tzu in expounding the theory of kan-ying STIMULUS-RESPONSE; RESONANCE, which postulates that all things in the universe are interrelated and influence each other according to pre-set patterns.

In this article, I argue that Merleau-Ponty underpins an idea of differentiation without ultimate unification through intertwining. I trace this idea of intertwining to Phenomenology of Perception. I argue that what perception marks is already differentiation prior to any identification. For this purpose, firstly, I will introduce Merleau-Ponty’s depiction of intertwining; secondly, I will elaborate perception in Phenomenology of Perception; finally, I will discuss flesh as intertwining in The Visible and The Invisible.

Studies linking religion to CSR have produced conflicting findings due to a failure to draw distinctions among religious influences and different CSR practices, and to theorize their connection. Drawing on social identity theory and the theory of planned behavior, we first argue that religion will influence CSR when ethical values from a CEO’s religious social identification resonate with an aspect of CSR. Second, CEO attitudes congruent with those values and forms of CSR—interpersonal empathy and proactiveness—will strengthen that relationship. Third, the (...) relationship between religious social identification and CSR will be strengthened by a CEO’s ability to enact CSR policies, a function of personal and firm market power. Our research on 270 CEOs from 242 publicly traded US firms from 2007 to 2020 supports these relationships. (shrink)

Etude du phénomène du kitsch à travers les littératures et cultures d'Europe, d'Amérique du Nord et du Sud et du Japon.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 1-3.

Bijdragen over de visie van de Frans-joodse filosoof (1906-1995) op het kwaad.

Genre has been a critical issue in discourse analysis as well as in other disciplines. Based on a literature review of the concept of genre and taking judgments as one type of genre in legal settings, the present study provides a corpus-based insight into the nature of genre. The literature review per se reveals that genre has one typical feature of a sign, that is, being subject to multiple and alternative interpretations; in other words, genre as a sign may have (...) various interpretants. The present study unravels the actual generic structures, distinguishes different types of generic structures within the given genre, and then defines the dominant generic structure of judgments in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. This study also examines and contrasts the generic structure potential of judgments in each jurisdiction. In addition, the variation of Mainland China's judgments over time is briefly discussed. Comparing the generic structures of judgments among the three jurisdictions, as well as the structures of judgments in Mainland China over time, the paper argues that genre also has the essential features of a sign, that is, the characteristics of temporality and spatiality. (shrink)

En publiant les Principes de la philosophie du droit, Hegel ambitionnait de constituer la Science de l'Etat, et cela a l'encontre aussi bien de toute conception utopique que de toute interpretation partisane. Il disposait a cet effet des ressources theoriques presentees quelques annees auparavant dans la Science de la logique. Ce commentaire privilegie incontestablement l'aspect logique et processuel du propos hegelien. Il s'agit donc non seulement de reperer la presence de ces schemes logiques mais d'en eprouver la validite et d'en (...) verifier l'efficacite. Ce parcours logique ne fait appel qu'a l'energie et au dynamisme du pur penser - sans apport etranger, exterieur ou empirique - et a sa seule fecondite interne susceptible d'engendrer par elle-meme, de maniere immanente, la richesse et la totalite du sens. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

Texte écrit sous la Ve dynastie chinoise, celle des Han (202 av. J.-C.-220 apr. J.-C.), qui présente sous un angle nouveau des connaissances déjà anciennes, montre que tout savoir se place sous le signe du tao et que l'interrogation sur le tao est préalable à tout autre. Les différents savoirs sont donc utilisés dans le cadre de cette démonstration, et non comme une fin en soi.

" Pour moi, la figure humaine, le corps humain n'ont pas plus d'importance que des clés ou des vélos. C'est vrai. Ce sont pour moi des objets valables plastiquement et à disposer suivant mon choix. On doit reconnaître que les traditions picturales qui nous précèdent - la figure et le paysage - sont lourdes d'influences. [...] Il a fallu, pour y voir clair, que l'artiste moderne se détache de cette emprise sentimentale. Nous avons franchi cet obstacle : l'objet a remplacé (...) le sujet, l'art abstrait est venu comme une libération totale, et on a pu alors considérer la figure humaine non comme une valeur sentimentale mais uniquement comme une valeur plastique. Voilà pourquoi dans l'évolution de mon œuvre, de 1905 à maintenant, la figure humaine reste volontairement inexpressive. ". (shrink)

Le regain progressif d'intérêt dont a bénéficié depuis 1990 la pensée de Gilbert Simondon s'est encore renforcé, depuis 2006, par la publication de textes inédits du philosophe français, ainsi que par celle, enfin unifiée, du grand œuvre de Simondon, jusque-là publié en deux parties : sa thèse principale pour le doctorat d'État, intitulée L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information. La présente étude se propose de revenir sur ce texte fondateur, origine de L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (...) comme ensuite de L'individuation psychique et collective, pour en dégager à la fois l'originalité et l'actualité, mais aussi pour mieux comprendre finalement le classique de l'auteur, sa thèse complémentaire : Du mode d'existence des objets techniques. On découvrira la portée du " nouvel encyclopédisme " dont Simondon se voulait l'initiateur. Il apparaîtra alors que dans le sillage de son directeur de thèse, Georges Canguilhem, avec d'autres modalités et insistances que lui, Simondon ne rejette le " facile humanisme " que par exigence d'un humanisme difficile qui sache d'une part faire dériver l'homme du vivant, d'autre part intégrer la technique à la culture. [Source : d'après la 4e de couverture]. (shrink)

Offers an exploration of what it means to be a Jew, rooted in the Talmudic tradition of argument and conflict.

Reproduit quatre conférences faites en 1946 et 1947 sous ce titre au Collège de philosophie, et interroge la notion de temps comme limitation même de l'être fini ou comme relation de l'être fini à Dieu (Electre).

Die Hauptthese des Buches besteht darin, "die Zeit nicht als eine Abwertung der Ewigkeit zu denken, sondern als Verhältnis zu demjenigen, was, als von sich aus Unangleichbares, absolut Anderes, sich nicht durch die Erfahrung angleichen läßt, oder als Verhältnis zu dem, was, als von sich aus Unendliches, sich nicht begreifen läßt". Der Andere steht zum Ich im Verhältnis der Nicht-Gleichzeitigkeit (Diachronie), der "Distanz, die Nähe ist". Paradigmen solcher uneinholbaren Anderheit sind der Tod und das Weibliche. Levinas zeigt jedoch in "Le (...) temps et l'autre", wie es im Verhältnis zur Anderheit ein Durchbrechen der in sich verschlossenen Einsamkeit, ein wirkliches Transzendieren gibt, das nicht mehr Rückkehr des Selben zu sich ist. Die deutsche Übersetzung erschien 1984 erstmals im Felix Meiner Verlag und wurde von Ludwig Wenzler für die Neuausgabe (nun in der Philosophischen Bibliothek) korrigiert. (shrink)