山东大学“社会科学青年成长基金”、山东大学出版基金、山东大学“985工程”学科建设基金资助项目.

Yang Guorong advocates a postmetaphysical metaphysics marked as concrete metaphysics that goes beyond traditional metaphysics and reflects a critique of the negative results of the critique of traditional metaphysics. In discovering the original unity of being and the manifestations of being in the dimensions of knowledge, values, and meaning, Yang's concrete metaphysics aims at authentic being and, consequently, makes the following three claims: the pursuit of "thoroughgoingness" is the nature of philosophy; there is a unity of ethics and ontology; there (...) is a historical process of achieving the maturation of the self and the refinement of things. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has imperatively shaken the behavior of the global financial markets. This study estimated the impact of COVID-19 on the behavior of the financial markets of Europe and the US. The results revealed that the returns of the S&P 500 index have been greatly affected by a lockdown in the US owing to COVID-19. However, the health crisis generated due to the novel coronavirus significantly decreased the stock returns of the Nasdaq Composite index. The results also showed (...) that the economic crisis generated from the pandemic in Spain has had more impact on the IBEX 35 as compared to the health crisis itself. On the other hand, in the long-run, Italy’s stock markets are more affected by the health crisis as contrasted with the economic crisis, while, in the short-run, both lockdown conditions and economic instability lower the stock returns of FTSE MIB. The UK stock markets witnessed that in the short-run, deficiency of health management systems imperatively damaged the stock returns of the London Stock Exchange. The investigation revealed that deficiency of health systems and lockdown conditions have imperatively damaged the structure of financial markets, inferring that sustainable development of these nations is at risk due to COVID-19. The study suggested that governments should allocate more of their budget to the health sector to overcome a health crisis in the future. (shrink)

Recent studies have revealed that the temporal lobe, a cortical region thought to be in charge of episodic and semantic memory, is involved in creative insight. This work examines the contributions of discrete temporal regions to insight. Activity in the medial temporal regions is indicative of novelty recognition and detection, which is necessary for the formation of novel associations and the “Aha!” experience. The fusiform gyrus mainly affects the formation of gestalt-like representation and perspective taking. The anterior and posterior middle (...) temporal gyri are individually associated with extensive semantic processing and inhibiting salient or routine word associations, which are necessary to form non-salient, novel and remote associations. The anterior and posterior superior temporal gyri are individually responsible for integrating/binding and accessing various types of available conceptual representations. Based on the current knowledge, an integrated model of the temporal lobe's role in insight and some future directions are proposed. (shrink)

The product market competition has become a global challenge for business organizations in the challenging and competitive market environment in the influx of the COVID-19 outbreak. The influence of products competition on organizational performance in developed economies has gained scholars’ attention, and numerous studies explored its impacts on business profitability. The existing studies designate mixed findings between the linkage of CSR practices and Chinese business firms’ healthier performance in emerging economies; however, the current global crisis due to the coronavirus has (...) made product market completion fierce, which ultimately affects business firms’ performance. This study focuses on this logical global challenge, investigates the rationale, and examines product-market completion impact on firms’ performance operating in the Chinese markets. The study collected data from the annual reports of Chinese business organizations with A-share listing and registered with the database of China Stock Markets and Accounting Research. The study employed a Generalized Method of Moment technique and investigated the connection between product market competition and Chinese firm performance. The empirical analysis of this study highlights the conclusion that market competition positively and significantly affected business firms’ performance. This study specified that product market competition play a dynamic and indispensable role in achieving healthier firm performance in the Chinese markets. This study provides valuable insights on practical implications and future research directions for the scholars to draw interesting results with new study models. (shrink)

The research expects to explore the psychological mobilization of innovative teaching methods of Music Majors under the new curriculum reform. The relevant theories of college students’ innovative teaching methods are analyzed under deep learning together with the innovation and construction of music courses. Thereupon, college students’ psychological mobilization is studied. Firstly, the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship teaching and deep learning is obtained through a literature review. Secondly, the music classroom model is designed based on the deep learning theory, and (...) the four dimensions of the music curriculum are defined to innovate and optimize the music teaching model. Finally, the Questionnaire Survey is used to analyze the design classroom model. Only 15% of the 180 respondents understand the concept of deep learning, 32% like interactive music learning, and 36% like competitive comparative music classroom learning. And the students who study instrumental music have higher significant differences in learning motivation than those who study vocal music. In addition to classroom learning, 16% of people improve their music skills through music equipment. College students like interactive music classes and competitive comparison classes that can give more play to their subjective initiative. After the new curriculum reform, the music curriculum based on deep learning can stimulate students’ interest in learning and participate in the mobilization of students’ learning psychology. Therefore, in the future of music education and teaching, there is a need to pay more attention to students’ psychological status. The research results can provide references and practical significance for the innovative teaching activities of music classrooms after the new curriculum reform. (shrink)

It has been a growing trend in Chinese universities to shift from English for general purposes to English for specific purposes teaching. Against this background, large groups of teachers previously engaged in teaching EGP have become or are becoming ESP teachers, which means a complex process of learning for subject-specific information, transforming teaching practices and constructing new identities. Despite this, very little has been written about the ESP teacher cognition of language teaching or the factors influencing this shift in teaching. (...) This study involved English for Medical Purposes teachers in Chinese universities as participants, and a scale of EMP TC with 31 items was developed on the basis of questionnaire results. Data from exploratory factor analysis revealed six dimensions of the scale, namely, teacher attitude, teacher belief, teacher learning, teacher support, role identification, and teacher practice—that combine to constitute and influence EMP TC. While the identity factor has attracted wide attention in ESP teacher research, other factors have largely been neglected. Thus, this research highlights the importance of more factors in shaping and changing the language teaching cognition of EMP or ESP teachers in large, especially the teacher belief factor. In addition, results of independent samples t-tests indicated significant difference in EMP teacher learning in terms of gender, differences in EMP teacher attitude and teacher support in terms of EMP teaching experience. Suggestions for enhancing EMP TC are offered on the basis of the conclusions of this research. (shrink)

Entering the challenging and promising knowledge era, it is clear that enterprises should leverage knowledge management activities in improving innovation performance to maintain competitive advantages. This study sheds light on the improvement path of innovation ambidexterity from the perspectives of knowledge redundancy and typical leadership style. It is noted that we determined the research theme through quantitative analysis and conducted qualitative analysis through 209 questionnaire data collected from respondents in different regions and industries in China. The empirical results indicated that (...) knowledge redundancy significantly improves exploratory and exploitative innovation, and transactional leadership negatively moderates the above relationships. This study is of managerial implications to encourage employees to fully master and apply the existing knowledge to strengthen their innovation abilities in value creation. We also contribute to the theories pertaining to knowledge management, innovation, and ambidexterity by providing a deeper understanding of the influencing mechanism of knowledge redundancy in innovation ambidexterity while elaborating on the indirect effects of transactional leadership. (shrink)

This study seeks to explicate the philosophical foundations and theoretical outlines of grey systems theory by focusing on human perception, cognition, and understanding processes and by considering their functions in the process of producing knowledge. Primarily, the study investigates the processes of perception, cognition, and understanding, as well as their dynamicity. Then, it is explained how knowledge is produced through the interpretation/understanding of information and data and through the dynamicity governing this process. The findings reveal that human perception, cognition, and (...) understanding perpetually remain grey and imperfect, while lost sensatory data mark the very first aspect of greyness in such human capabilities. Furthermore, any piece of data, as a discrete and single entity, represents a determinate fact, symbol or signal from the world, while any set of data, no matter how large, remains incomplete and imperfect, and human beings always interpret inadequate sets of data in the world. Therefore, information and knowledge always remain grey and uncertain because they deeply rely on subjective understandings/interpretations and work with imperfect inputs and sets of data. The impact of knowledge on action and interaction and their effects on the world are some factors adding to the dynamicity of the world. Constant change in world data, outdated knowledge, defects in datasets, and human biases in understanding all confirm the infinitely grey nature of human knowledge of the world. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between positive psychological quality and college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship from the perspective of positive psychology, explore the cultivation model that can effectively improve college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship, and promote their success in entrepreneurship. In this study, a total of 1,500 college students were selected for questionnaire survey. ANOVA was used to analyze the differences of innovation and entrepreneurship responsibilities in demographic (...) variables; factor analysis models were used to explore the factors that influence college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship; and Spearsman correlation and linear regression were used to analyze the relationship between college students’ positive quality and innovation and entrepreneurship. The results showed that the average scores of individual responsibility, team responsibility and social responsibility were 3.290, 3.624 and 3.720, respectively; individual responsibility differed significantly at the grade level; group responsibilities and social responsibilities were significantly different at the grade and gender levels; the linear fitting between benevolence, super-excellence, bravery, restraint, and wisdom with team responsibilities all reached significant levels, among which the wisdom coefficient was the highest; the linear fitting between syngroup, excellence, bravery, modesty and wisdom with social responsibility reached a significant level, among which the wisdom coefficient was the highest; the linear fitting between syngroup, excellence, bravery, modesty and wisdom with personal responsibility reached a significant level, among which the coefficient of excellence was the highest. This indicated that positive psychological qualities such as syngroup, excellence, modesty, benevolence, super-excellence, bravery, restraint, and wisdom were the influencing factors of college students’ sense of responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship. Among them, the role of wisdom is the most noteworthy in predicting social and group responsibilities, and super-excellent is the most significant predictor for individual responsibility. (shrink)

This academic paper critically examines the incentive measures established by China to foster scientific innovation. The study explores China’s five key incentive measures, namely the pilot tenure-track system, monetary rewards for scientific publications, research awards for scientific achievements, "hat-talent" selection, and research funding system. The analysis also addresses the challenges associated with these measures, such as heightened work stress due to intense competition and occurrences of academic misconduct. In conclusion, two recommendations are proposed to enhance China’s incentive system: the establishment (...) of a responsible peer review system and the reduction of administrative power’s influence on scientists’ career trajectories. (shrink)

This paper first extracted 11 indicators from four aspects of infrastructure, educational equity, teaching quality, and scientific research level and established a multidimensional higher education evaluation system. After that, according to TOPSIS and the entropy method, a comprehensive score of the development of higher education was obtained, and a comprehensive index of higher education was proposed. According to the level of the score, we divide the development status into 5 categories, and use discrete Hopfield neural network for verification. In addition, (...) we applied the model to many countries and chose Vietnam to conduct an in-depth analysis of the model, including reforming policies and evaluating policy effects based on cobweb model. Finally, we found that the application of the model is very universal, but in reality the reform is very difficult. (shrink)

This paper has two main parts. In the first part, we motivate a kind of indeterminate, suppositional credences by discussing the prospect for a subjective interpretation of a causal Bayesian network, an important tool for causal reasoning in artificial intelligence. A CBN consists of a causal graph and a collection of interventional probabilities. The subjective interpretation in question would take the causal graph in a CBN to represent the causal structure that is believed by an agent, and interventional probabilities in (...) a CBN to represent suppositional credences. We review a difficulty noted in the literature with such an interpretation, and suggest that a natural way to address the challenge is to go for a generalization of CBN that allows indeterminate credences. In the second part, we develop a decision-theoretic foundation for such indeterminate suppositional credences, by generalizing a theory of coherent choice functions to accommodate some form of act-state dependence. The upshot is a decision-theoretic framework that is not only rich enough to, so to speak, ground the probabilities in a subjectively interpreted causal network, but also interesting in its own right, in that it accommodates both act-state dependence and imprecise probabilities. (shrink)

Previous studies on the effects of emotional context on memory for centrally presented neutral items have obtained inconsistent results. And in most of those studies subjects were asked to either make a connection between the item and the context at study or retrieve both the item and the context. When no response for the contexts is required, how emotional contexts influence memory for neutral items is still unclear. Thus, the present study attempted to investigate the influences of four types of (...) emotional picture contexts on recognition memory of neutral words using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measurements. During study, words were superimposed centrally onto emotional contexts, and subjects were asked to just remember the words. During test, both studied and new words were presented without the emotional contexts and subjects had to make “old/new” judgments for those words. The results revealed that, compared with the neutral context, the negative contexts and positive high-arousing context impaired recognition of words. ERP results at encoding demonstrated that, compared with items presented in the neutral context, items in the positive and negative high-arousing contexts elicited more positive ERPs, which probably reflects an automatic process of attention capturing of high-arousing context as well as a conscious and effortful process of overcoming the interference of high-arousing context. During retrieval, significant FN400 old/new effects occurred in conditions of the negative low-arousing, positive, and neutral contexts but not in the negative high-arousing condition. Significant LPC old/new effects occurred in all conditions of context. However, the LPC old/new effect in the negative high-arousing condition was smaller than that in the positive high-arousing and low-arousing conditions. These results suggest that emotional context might influence both the familiarity and recollection processes. (shrink)

The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) is a self-report instrument assessing pleasure experience. The present study aimed to confirm the factor model of the Chinese version of TEPS and test measurement invariance of the scale across gender in Chinese university students. Participants were 2977 (51% female) undergraduates aged from 16 to 27 years (Mean age = 18.9 years). Results indicated that the revised four-factor structure of the TEPS had acceptable fit in the total sample and in gender groups. Furthermore, (...) configural, metric and partial scalar invariance across gender were established. Two of the items (item 4 and 8) demonstrated different intercepts and women scored higher than men on both items. With partial scalar invariance demonstrated, test of differences in latent means indicated that men had lower levels of pleasure when compared with women. To our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to test the measurement invariance of the TEPS across gender, which provides support for future research that involves examining hedonic capacity in Chinese men and women. (shrink)

In Kingdom and Glory, Agamben analyzed the dual perspective of the void, through the metaphor of the empty throne, in the governmental machine in the West. I engage with the ambiguous question of the void with regard to the concept of sovereignty through my reading of two Chinese intellectuals in the late Qing period, Liang Qichao (1872–1929) and Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936). This paper therefore addresses the question of sovereignty and the void in the discourse of nation in early modern China, (...) an issue that is related to the problem of the political economy or the politics of life. I argue that the rhetorical move in Liang Qichao’s argument for the birth of a new nation and new people was to move from the not-having (無) to the there is (有) in support of the formation of a new nation-state and a restricted logic of sovereignty, while Zhan Taiyan’s position was to affirm the dynamitic re-composition of the void by constantly negating the given fixated state, and thus proposing a different and radical vision of nation and full sovereignty of the lives of each and every one of the people who are co-inhabiting in the polis. (shrink)

1. Recent findings in neuropsychology are forcing us to revise this notion of the relation between perception and conscious awareness. Brain-damaged people may manifest considerable knowledge of stimuli, or of particular properties of stimuli, of which they deny any conscious perceptual experience.

Teachers’ teaching psychological behavior and classroom development are the current research hotspots in the field of educational psychology. How to realize the data analysis of teachers’ teaching psychological behavior and classroom development is a problem that researchers urgently need to solve. Based on the theory of data correlation analysis, this paper uses modern Internet technology and big data analysis teacher teaching system to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the potential of students, and build a corresponding model. Through rule correlation technology, the (...) article studies various internal correlations between teachers’ teaching psychological behavior, extracts valuable information from various daily data of students through big data analysis technology, and the WEB teacher’s teaching psychological behavior analysis system based on B/S structure solves the problem that the traditional model cannot measure. In the simulation process, the system is implemented by MVC three-tier architecture, the database uses MYSQL 5.0, the prediction questionnaire is formulated on the basis of the literature method and interviews, and the scale is compiled and tested after repeated revisions. Project analysis and factor analysis are performed on the data obtained from the table test to construct and screen indicators. The experimental results show that the teacher’s classroom teaching behavior index system adopted by the system is practical and feasible, including three first-level indicators, 10 s-level indicators, and 21 third-level indicators. The system has 87.1% completeness, which effectively improves teachers’ teaching psychology. (shrink)

Job shop scheduling problem is one of the most difficult optimization problems in manufacturing industry, and flexible job shop scheduling problem is an extension of the classical JSP, which further challenges the algorithm performance. In FJSP, a machine should be selected for each process from a given set, which introduces another decision element within the job path, making FJSP be more difficult than traditional JSP. In this paper, a variant of grasshopper optimization algorithm named dynamic opposite learning assisted GOA is (...) proposed to solve FJSP. The recently proposed dynamic opposite learning strategy adopts the asymmetric search space to improve the exploitation ability of the algorithm and increase the possibility of finding the global optimum. Various popular benchmarks from CEC 2014 and FJSP are used to evaluate the performance of DOLGOA. Numerical results with comparisons of other classic algorithms show that DOLGOA gets obvious improvement for solving global optimization problems and is well-performed when solving FJSP. (shrink)

The present study aimed to examine whether the applied practice of cameras in courtrooms plays a positive role in public confidence in legal authorities and how such impact may occur from the perspectives of the Group Value Model and the surrogacy effect. A convenience sample of 170 college students participated in this experiment. The control group read the written judgment of a civil case published online while the experimental group read the same judgment and watched the court trial video of (...) that case. The overarching mediation model confirmed that there was a significant and indirect influence of video watching on confidence in justice in general. The key underlying mechanisms of this impact were the positive perception of the interpersonal treatment by the judge as well as the perceived fairness of the procedure. This study contributes to the currently limited research examining whether and, if so, how courtroom broadcasting promotes public trust through obtaining empirical evidence. It also expands the application of the Group Value Model to a vicarious interaction setting and provides evidence of the surrogacy effect in a civil legal context. (shrink)

Because of the impact of close partner's touch on psychological and physical well-being by alleviating stress, it is important to explore the influence factors that underlie the stress-alleviating effect of close partner's touch. Previous studies suggested that the stress-alleviating effect was different when individuals were touched by different persons. Specifically, the stress was reduced significantly when the individual was touched by the close partner compared with the acquaintance and the stranger. However, whether the stress-alleviating effect of touch was modulated by (...) the close relationship quality is unknown. To examine this question, the participants performed a 3 × 2 within-subjects experiment. The results revealed that the stress of the participants alleviated significantly while close partners present with touch compared with without touch during facing a threat. We also found that the relationship quality of couple-members modulated touch-induced stress alleviation. Participants perceiving the low quality of alternatives and the high partners' commitment level showed stronger touch-induced stress-alleviating effect than participants perceiving the high quality of alternatives and the low partners' commitment level. The explained variance was around 16.8% jointly for actor and partner effects. These findings provide evidence for explaining the reasons for touch-induced alleviating stress and have important implications for predicting the future effect of interactive behaviors. (shrink)

Philanthropic giving among leaders is often assumed to be an expression of ethical leadership in both academic and media discourses; however, this assumption can overlook the ways in which philanthropy produces and is underpinned by inequality. In order to extend current understandings of ethical leadership, this study employs a critical discourse analytic approach to examine how the link between philanthropy and ethical forms of leadership is verbally and visually constructed in the media. Based on the analysis, the article demonstrates how (...) the construction of Australian philanthropists as ethical leaders is achieved through their representation via three paradoxical identities: Aristocratic Battlers; Caring Controllers; and Publicity-Shy Celebrities. These discourses are mediated by Australian cultural norms and serve to conceal yet ultimately reinforce social and economic inequality. The article proposes that a critical discursive approach to understanding leadership ethics can help to explore the hidden or adverse effects of ostensibly ethical practices. (shrink)

This study mainly focuses on the emotion analysis method in the application of psychoanalysis based on sentiment recognition. The method is applied to the sentiment recognition module in the server, and the sentiment recognition function is effectively realized through the improved convolutional neural network and bidirectional long short-term memory model. First, the implementation difficulties of the C-BiL model and specific sentiment classification design are described. Then, the specific design process of the C-BiL model is introduced, and the innovation of the (...) C-BiL model is indicated. Finally, the experimental results of the models are compared and analyzed. Among the deep learning models, the accuracy of the C-BiL model designed in this study is relatively high irrespective of the binary classification, the three classification, or the five classification, with an average improvement of 2.47% in Diary data set, 2.16% in Weibo data set, and 2.08% in Fudan data set. Therefore, the C-BiL model designed in this study can not only successfully classify texts but also effectively improve the accuracy of text sentiment recognition. (shrink)

Although narcissism is an important factor influencing entrepreneurial activity and outcomes, not much research has been conducted on the relationship between narcissism and entrepreneurship. To summarize the current literature on this relationship and provide an agenda for further in-depth research, a systematic review was conducted based on the PRISMA guidelines using Web of Science, Elsevier ScienceDirect, and EBSCO host databases. Accordingly, 33 articles have been identified as being eligible for the final synthesis. The findings of the present study showed, in (...) general, that (1) life history theory, person-environment fit theory (P-E theory), and career choice theory were mostly used to explore the topic of narcissism and entrepreneurial intention, social exchange theory was used to analyze narcissistic entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial motives and attitudes, and upper echelons theory (UET) was applied to research on the relationship between narcissism and entrepreneurial outcomes, (2) Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and narcissistic sub-dimension of the Dark Triad were frequently used self-report scales among 23 identified empirical studies, and (3) narcissism has both bright and dark sides to entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. While narcissism makes potential entrepreneurs have higher entrepreneurial intentions and greater willingness to take risks, it also prevents entrepreneurs from discovering opportunities, acquiring resources, and learning from failure. Besides, results also showed that relations between narcissism and entrepreneurial intentions and performance are more complex. For a deeper understanding of this complex relations and advancing research on narcissism and entrepreneurship, more research is necessary to explore the relations between narcissism and entrepreneurship-related variables from a temporal perspective and at the team level, examine the relationship between narcissism and entrepreneurship ethics, and investigate the interaction effects of narcissism and other personalities. (shrink)

Consensus of fractional-order multiagent systems with single integral has been wildly studied. However, the dynamics with multiple integral also exist in FOMASs, and they are rarely studied at present. In this paper, consensus problems for multi-integral fractional-order multiagent systems with nonuniform time-delays are addressed. The consensus conditions for MIFOMASs are obtained by a novel frequency-domain method which properly eliminates consensus problems of the systems associated with nonuniform time-delays. Besides, the method revealed in this paper is applicable to classical high-order multiagent (...) systems which is a special case of MIFOMASs. Finally, several numerical simulations with different parameters are performed to validate the correctness of the results. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate whether independent directors’ attendance at board meetings enhances investor protection using a difference-in-difference approach. We find that independent directors’ attendance alleviates tunneling. This effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises than in state-owned enterprises. The reinforcement of external supervision substitutes for the role of independent directors’ attendance and this substitution effect is more significant in non-SOEs. Together, these results imply that independent directors’ attendance at board meetings can play an important role in protecting investors, especially (...) in non-SOEs and when external supervision is weak. This paper sheds new light on independent directors’ function in corporate governance, and has implications for institutional improvements. (shrink)

This paper critically surveys Adorno's dialectical-philosophical perspective of communication, which addresses a question and a quest for humanity: "How is communication possible?" In my view, any discussion of Adorno's view on communication should start with his distinction of two concepts: mediation and communication. Mediation involves the ideological critique of illusory relations of objectivity. Communication, defined by Adorno as the never-ending confrontation and reconciliation between subjectivity and objectivity, comes after the epistemological critique of objective mediation. Therefore, the quest for communication always (...) involves a never-ending wrestling between subject and object, particular and universal, experience and information. As Adorno would argue, true communication is "a result not an illusion o f (non-) identity of self and others. If any authentic mediated communication is humanly possible, it is because such communication is inscribed in a dialectical-dialogical process and it can only be accomplished momentarily. (shrink)

Education is presently required to create inclusive, supportive, and validating environments for education and experiences, while educational organizations continue to maintain students from many different kinds of cultural and socially diverse backgrounds. This research investigates how students engage and collaborate with diverse cultures and social environments to identify the key features influencing their social relationships and learning outcomes. To determine the possibilities and difficulties that students experience in a varied educational environment and make suggestions for the enhancements and assessment techniques (...) for fostering a multicultural and diverse classroom. In this research, the details gathered from 350 students, and utilize 15 questionnaires related to cultural and social diversity in education that were developed, based on five variables, such as students attitudes towards diversity (SATD), impact on the learning environment (ILE), cultural awareness (CA), perception of cultural and social diversity (PCSD), and social interactions (SI). The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test and inferential statistics analysis methods are evaluated through the SPSS software. From both analyses, the variable PCSD performance is higher than other four variables in the field of student perception of social and cultural diversity in education. (shrink)

It has been noted in recent literature (e.g., Ross & Spurrett 2004, Kim 2006, McLaughlin 2006 and Cohen 2005) that functionalism can be separated into two varieties: one that emphasizes the role state, the other that emphasizes the realizer state. The former is called “role functionalism” while the latter has been called “realizer functionalism” (Ross & Spurrett 2004, Kim 2006, Cohen 2005) or “filler functionalism” (McLaughlin 2006). The separation between role functionalism and realizer functionalism mars the distinction traditionally made between (...) functionalism and the identity theory, because realizer functionalism can be seen as the synthesis of functionalism and the identity theory. In this paper, I begin with an analysis of the distinction between role and realizer functionalism. I shall further develop realizer functionalism as a viable, or arguably the best, explanatory model for the mind-brain relation. Finally, I will argue that under realizer functionalism, we can give an account of how mind is placed in the material world without at the same time giving up on the autonomy of psychology. The autonomy of psychology is tantamount to the thesis that mental properties are not type-identical with, nor type-reducible to, physical properties of the brain. In the philosophical debate on reductive and nonreductive physicalism, reductivism seems to be gaining the upper hand these days. In the final section of this paper, Ishall sketch my defense of nonreductive physicalism. I believe that the current enthusiasm for reductionism is misguided, and I shall show that under realizer functionalism, reductionism in the sense of reductive explanation, i.e., providing explanation of the psychological in terms of the underlying physical properties, is not a feasible project. (shrink)

This article examines the interplay between homophobia and nationalism by analyzing online comments on the ruling of legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Drawing on methods from critical discourse analysis, I focus on the framing of this ruling by members from a Chinese antigay community online. I show that they frame this ruling as (1) in opposition to public opinion, (2) promoting ‘Westernization’ and ‘Independence’, (3) seeking immorality and self-destruction. I find that within these frames, they evoke nationalist discourses that represent (...) supporters of this ruling as the ‘Other’ who attempt to split with China, thereby associating LGBT equality movements in China with this political threat. I argue that these nationalist discourses are used in a way that reinforces and legitimizes discourses of homophobia. (shrink)

In this paper, we revisit a host–parasite system with multiple parasite strains and superinfection proposed by Nowak and May :81–89, 1994), and study its global dynamics when we relax the two strict conditions assumed therein. As for system with two parasite strains, we derive that the basic reproduction number $$R_0$$ is the threshold condition for parasite extinction and the invasion reproduction number $$R_i^j\ $$ is the subthreshold condition for coexistence of two parasite strains. As for system with three parasite strains, (...) we are surprised to discover the global stability of parasite-free and coexistence equilibrium, which is distinct from the previous result. Furthermore, for system with n strains, we obtain the global asymptotical stability of the parasite-free equilibrium, conjecture a general result on the global stability of coexistence equilibrium and provide two numerical examples to testify our conjecture. (shrink)