We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

Medical missionaries made a breakthrough in Korean history in healing and caring for many Hansen and tuberculosis patients. There was a missionary who had no less good influence than medical missionaries at this time. The person is missionary Sarah Barry, who inspired and developed one of the most influential student movements in South Korea. The aim of the present study is to examine life of Sarah Barry and her ministry, focusing upon her positive influences on Korean intellectuals. The relevance of (...) the study is conditioned by the fact that there is no professional academic research on her ministry except for one short paper, which discusses the importance of her role in formulating campus evangelism. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the method of analysis and synthesis of biographical and historical data was used. As a result of the study, Sarah Barry’s biography was researched and systematized. It gave ground to a conclusion that her role in South Korea’s gradual resurgence after the Civil War was seminal. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

This paper endeavors to understand the research landscape of finance research in Vietnam during the period 2008 to 2020 and predict the key defining future research directions. Using the comprehensive database of Vietnam’s international publications in social sciences and humanities, we extract a dataset of 314 papers on finance topics in Vietnam from 2008 to 2020. Then, we apply a systematic approach to analyze four important themes: Structural issues, Banking system, Firm issues, and Financial psychology and behavior. Overall, there have (...) been three noticeable trends within finance research in Vietnam: (1) assessment of financial policies or financial regulation, (2) deciphering the correlates of firms’ financial performances, and (3) opportunities and challenges in adopting innovations and ideas from foreign financial market systems. Our analysis identifies several fertile areas for future research, including financial market analysis in the post-COVID-19 eras, fintech, and green finance. (shrink)

Gesellschaftliche Veränderungen in grossem Massstab, von der Pluralisierung der Gesellschaft, der Digitalisierung, die als Vierte Kulturtechnik bezeichnet wird, bis hin zur Widerfahrnis von Kontingenzen wie Armut und Flüchtlingsströmen oder Umweltkatastrophen, stellen die Verantwortungsfähigkeit des Menschen vor neue Herausforderungen. Es wird dabei deutlich: Humanität und Vernunft, Würde und Freiheit verdanken ihren Gehalt und ihre Gestalt einem die Vernunft selbst übersteigenden Transzendenten, in dem die Vernunft je und je ihres eigenen Grundes ansichtig werden kann. Dass dieses Verhältnis zwischen Vernunft und ihrem transzendenten (...) Grund alle Wissens- und Lebensbereiche durchdringt, zeigen die interdisziplinären Beiträge dieses Bandes, die Fragen der Weltentstehung und Anthropologie, der Logik und Mystik, des Glaubens und des Gottesbildes, des Sinns und der Religion, der Gottesdienstpraxis und der Architektur behandeln. (shrink)

The growing emphasis on the importance of publishing scientific findings in the academic world has led to increasing prevalence of potentially significant publications in which scientific and ethical rigour may be questioned. This has not only hindered research progress, but also eroded public trust in all scientific advances. In view of the increasing concern and the complexity of research misconduct, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was established in 1997 to manage cases with ethical implications. In order to review the (...) outcomes of cases investigated by COPE, a total of 408 cases that had been managed by COPE were successfully extracted and analysed with respect to 7 distinct criteria. The results obtained indicate that the number of ethical implications per case has not changed significantly (p > 0.01) since the year COPE was instigated. Interestingly, the number of ethical cases, and to some extent, research misconduct, is not diminishing. Therefore, journal editors and publishers need to work closely together with COPE to inculcate adoption of appropriate research ethics and values in younger researchers while discouraging others from lowering standards. It is hoped that with a more concerted effort from the academic community and better public awareness, there will be fewer incidences of ethically and scientifically challenged publications. The ultimate aim being to enhance the quality of published works with concomittant public trust in the results. (shrink)

Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic method is connected to the so-called Aristotelian model of science and has to be interpreted in a (broad) directional sense. With the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments the critical Kant did introduced a new way of using the terms 'analytic'-'synthetic', but one that still lies in line with their directional sense. A careful comparison of the conceptions of the critical Kant with ideas of the precritical Kant as expressed in _Ãœber die Deutlichkeit, leads (...) to the interpretation defended here of Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments within his philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

The demand for organ transplants, both globally and in South Korea, substantially exceeds the supply, a situation that might have been aggravated by the enactment of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act (LSTDA) in February 2018. This legislation may influence emergency medical procedures and the availability of organs from brain-dead donors. This study aimed to assess LSTDA’s impact, introduced in February 2018, on organ donation status in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients in a metropolitan city and identified related factors. We conducted (...) a retrospective analysis of a regional cardiac arrest registry. This study included patients aged 16 or older with cardiac arrest and a cerebral performance category (CPC) score of 5 from January 2015 to December 2022. The exclusion criteria were CPC scores of 1–4, patients under 16 years, and patients declared dead or transferred from emergency departments. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse factors affecting organ donation. Of the 751 patients included in this study, 47 were organ donors, with a median age of 47 years. Before the LSTDA, there were 30 organ donations, which declined to 17 after its implementation. In the organ donation group, the causes of cardiac arrest included medical (34%), hanging (46.8%), and trauma (19.2%). The adjusted odds ratio for organ donation before the LSTDA implementation was 6.12 (95% CI 3.09–12.12), with non-medical aetiology as associated factors. The enactment of the LSTDA in 2018 in South Korea may be linked to reduced organ donations among patients with OHCA, underscoring the need to re-evaluate the medical and legal aspects of organ donation, especially considering end-of-life care decisions. (shrink)

Vietnam has seen fast-rising debts, both domestic and external, in recent years. This paperreviews the literature on credit market in Vietnam, providing an up-to-date take on the domesticlending and borrowing landscape. The study highlights the strong demand for credit in both therural and urban areas, the ubiquity of informal lenders, the recent popularity of consumer financecompanies, as well as the government’s attempts to rein in its swelling public debt. Given thehigh level of borrowing, which is fueled by consumerism and geopolitics, (...) it is inevitable that theamount of debt will soon be higher than the saving of the borrowers. Unlike the conventional wisdom that creditors have more bargaining power over the borrowers, we suggest that—albeitlacking a quantitative estimation—when the debts pile up so high that the borrowers could not repay, the power dynamics may reverse. In this new politics of debt, the lenders fear to lose the money's worth and continue to lend and feed the insolvent debtors. The result is a toxic lending/borrowing market and profound lessons, from which the developing world could learn. (shrink)

For academic research outcomes, there is an increasing emphasis on the bibliometric scorings like the journal impact factor and citations when the assessment of the scientific merits of research or researchers is required. Currently, no known study has been conducted to explore the bibliographical trends of the subject category of multidisciplinary sciences as indexed by the annual Journal Citation Reports of the Thomson Scientific. The effect of journal self-citations and intra-citing within a discipline to the bibliometric data computation can be (...) confounding. In this study, six journals were selected from the multidisciplinary sciences subject category where the trend of self-citations and intra-citing were analysed. These journals were chosen as they published more than 450 citable articles in the year 2007 and had available bibliometric data for a 10-year period. The results showed that self-citations rose as much as +23.98% while intra-citing declined up to −5.80% over the observed period. The retrospective impacts and influences of these observations were also discussed in this study. (shrink)

There is an increasing trend towards assessing the scientific performance of researchers and institutions of higher learning in the form of journal publications and the associated citations. Currently, the journal impact factor (JIF) value is the most widely used measure for any academic contents. However, there are growing concerns for the unethical practices adopted by journal editors to manipulate the JIF computations. Recently, a Swiss journal, Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica which has a JIF value of 0.655 in the year 2006 (...) registers a remarkable JIF increment (of 119%) to 1.439 in the year 2007. It is believed that the journal can achieve such a prominent JIF improvement by publishing a single editorial article that self-cited 66 of its own articles published either in the year 2005 or 2006. The journal has been revoked of any JIF value in the following year of 2008. Thus, it is interesting to review the possible alternative bibliographical trend for the journal should the self-cite event has been avoided, the circumstances leading to the decision by the editor to publish such an article and the possible ethical implications or lessons that can be derived from this incident. (shrink)

Medical devices have been long used for odiagnostic, therapeutic or rehabilitation purposes. Currently, they can range from a low-cost portable device that is often used for personal health monitoring to high-end sophisticated equipment that can only be operated by trained professionals. Depending on the functional purposes, there are different certification or compliance markings on the device when it is sold. One common certification marking is the Conformité Européenne affixation but this has a range of certification mark numbering for a variety (...) of functional purposes. While the regulators and medical device manufacturers understand the associated significance and clinical implications, these may not be apparent to the professionals and the general public. With portable healthcare devices and mobile applications gaining popularity, better awareness of certification marking will be needed. Particularly, there are differences in the allowed functional purposes and the associated cost derivations of devices with a seemingly similar nature. A preferred approach such as an easy-to-understand notation next to any certification marking on a device can aid in differentiation without the need to digest mountainous regulatory details. (shrink)

Until recently, the notions of function and multiple realization were supposed to save the autonomy of psychological explanations. Furthermore, the concept of supervenience presumably allows both dependence of mind on brain and non-reducibility of mind to brain, reconciling materialism with an independent explanatory role for mental and functional concepts and explanations. Eliminativism is often seen as the main or only alternative to such autonomy. It gladly accepts abandoning or thoroughly reconstructing the psychological level, and considers reduction if successful as equivalent (...) with elimination. In comparison with the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of biology has developed more subtle and complex ideas about functions, laws, and reductive explanation than the stark dichotomy of autonomy or elimination. It has been argued that biology is a patchwork of local laws, each with different explanatory interests and more or less limited scope. This points to a pluralistic, domain-specific and multi-level view of explanations in biology. Explanatory pluralism has been proposed as an alternative to eliminativism on the one hand and methodological dualism on the other hand. It holds that theories at different levels of description, like psychology and neuroscience, can co-evolve, and mutually influence each other, without the higher-level theory being replaced by, or reduced to, the lower-level one. Such ideas seem to tally with the pluralistic character of biological explanation. In biological psychology, explanatory pluralism would lead us to expect many local and non-reductive interactions between biological, neurophysiological, psychological and evolutionary explanations of mind and behavior. This idea is illustrated by an example from behavioral genetics, where genetics, physiology and psychology constitute distinct but interrelated levels of explanation. Accounting for such a complex patchwork of related explanations seems to require a more sophisticated and precise way of looking at levels than the existing ideas on (reductive and non-reductive) explanation in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Throughout more than two millennia philosophers adhered massively to ideal standards of scientific rationality going back ultimately to Aristotle’s Analytica posteriora. These standards got progressively shaped by and adapted to new scientific needs and tendencies. Nevertheless, a core of conditions capturing the fundamentals of what a proper science should look like remained remarkably constant all along. Call this cluster of conditions the Classical Model of Science. In this paper we will do two things. First of all, we will propose a (...) general and systematized account of the Classical Model of Science. Secondly, we will offer an analysis of the philosophical significance of this model at different historical junctures by giving an overview of the connections it has had with a number of important topics. The latter include the analytic-synthetic distinction, the axiomatic method, the hierarchical order of sciences and the status of logic as a science. Our claim is that particularly fruitful insights are gained by seeing themes such as these against the background of the Classical Model of Science. In an appendix we deal with the historiographical background of this model by considering the systematizations of Aristotle’s theory of science offered by Heinrich Scholz, and in his footsteps by Evert W. Beth. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to show that under globalization many traditional concepts are no longer acceptable, and may be preconceived. In Vietnam, the system of values Jriend-enemy, success-failure, chance-risk, endogenous-exotic has somehow changed in globalization. Globalization in se marks a new trend, a new change for humankind. A considerable difference in the consumption of goods exists between population strata. The "world of things" owned by the poor has become distant from that owned by the rich to such (...) an extent that no dialogue is possible. But the difference in the consumption of cultural values has to merit concern. This paper displays these value changes in Vietnam in the process of globalization: (a) the value of studiousness and the emphasis on education does not decline, but deviates; (b) the value of "diligence" tends to increase; (c) The value of family and community" tends to diminish. The process of globalization can only be understood in the context of the search for new values, and a critique of globalization is possible if one investigates the very root of the human search for new values: values are values only when they still generate their contributions to solving human problems. (shrink)

While disability has emerged as a major theme in academic and political discourses, a perusal of many bioethics textbooks reveals that most editors and philosophers still do not consider disability to be central to developing either critical perspective or social conscience in addressing the core questions in bioethics. This essay explores how disability issues are typically portrayed in bioethics textbooks by looking at the examples of genetic testing and medically assisted death. It explains how incorporation of disability perspectives helps to (...) provide students with opportunities for a fuller understanding of many concepts that are central to moral and political philosophy, such as equality, justice, the good life, moral agency, and autonomy. (shrink)

Paternalism has attracted new defenders in recent years. Such defenders typically either downplay the normative significance of autonomy or deny that we are sufficiently rational for paternalistic interventions to be objectionable.1 Both of these argumentative strategies constitute challenges to John Stuart Mill’s influential anti-paternalistic ‘harm principle’, which states that coercive interference with the liberty of competent adults is justifiable only if such interference prevents harm to non-consenting third parties (Mill, p. 23).2 In this journal, Wilkinson has provided a novel, provocative (...) defence of paternalism in the medical context—one that (provisionally) accepts rather than challenges Mill’s harm principle.3 Wilkinson’s argument is complex. But he begins with Parfit’s influential account of personal identity.4 According to Parfit, Alice at T1 can be the same person as Alice at T2, but the extent to which Alice at T1 and Alice at T2 are similar depends on the extent to which there are ‘chains’ of strong psychological connections between Alice at T1 and Alice at T2. Strong psychological connections, in turn, are mental states such as intentions or beliefs, or psychological traits. For example, if Alice at T2 remembers very little about herself the day before, and the day before that, all the way to Alice at T1, Alice at T2 has completely different psychological traits than Alice at T1—for example, Alice at T1 was courageous, whereas Alice at T2 is cowardly—then Alice at T1 and Alice at T2 are distinct persons. If the harm principle is correct and Alice is autonomous, it is permissible to interfere with Alice’s liberty only if it prevents harm to some non-consenting third party. But if we accept Parfit’s view on personal identity, then a novel defence of paternalistic intervention emerges: Alice at T2 may well be a distinct person from Alice at T1. So, …. (shrink)

Several studies have focused on the effects of corporate social responsibility fit on external stakeholders’ evaluations of CSR activities, attitudes towards companies or brands, and behaviors. The results so far have been contradictory. A possible reason may be that the concept of CSR fit is more complicated than previously assumed. Researchers suggest that there may be different types of CSR fit, but so far no empirical research has focused on a typology of CSR fit. This study fills this gap, describing (...) a qualitative content analysis of the congruence between six organizations and their various CSR activities. Ten annual reports and CSR reports were analyzed, and 102 specific CSR activities were identified. The results show that two levels of fit must be distinguished: based on the means for and the intended ends of the CSR activity. Furthermore, six different types of fit were found, focusing on products and services, production processes, environmental impact, employees, suppliers, and geographical location. Considering the above variety of fit possibilities, the findings emphasize the role of CSR communication as a means of creating fit perceptions. (shrink)

Throughout more than two millennia philosophers adhered massively to ideal standards of scientific rationality going back ultimately to Aristotle’s Analytica posteriora . These standards got progressively shaped by and adapted to new scientific needs and tendencies. Nevertheless, a core of conditions capturing the fundamentals of what a proper science should look like remained remarkably constant all along. Call this cluster of conditions the Classical Model of Science . In this paper we will do two things. First of all, we will (...) propose a general and systematized account of the Classical Model of Science. Secondly, we will offer an analysis of the philosophical significance of this model at different historical junctures by giving an overview of the connections it has had with a number of important topics. The latter include the analytic-synthetic distinction, the axiomatic method, the hierarchical order of sciences and the status of logic as a science. Our claim is that particularly fruitful insights are gained by seeing themes such as these against the background of the Classical Model of Science. In an appendix we deal with the historiographical background of this model by considering the systematizations of Aristotle’s theory of science offered by Heinrich Scholz, and in his footsteps by Evert W. Beth. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 22 This paper investigates the limits and meaning of historical inquiry in light of inferential contextualism that holds as its central tenet that the epistemic status of a proposition depends on the context of the subject. Historical inquiry, the discussion will show, is an epistemic practice that operates under the reliabilist presupposition that beliefs formed through the processes, whose pragmatic utility has been already proven in problem solving situations, may be taken to be rationally justified.As for (...) the limits of historical inquiry, it will be pointed out that the practice is unable to achieve independent criteria for determining if the belief it produces correctly reflects the thing in reality it purports to be about and thus correspondence between the former and the latter cannot be established. Furthermore, beliefs formed by historical inquiry cannot be rendered verifiable even through a future-oriented pragmatic theory of truth because it inquires into what happened in the past, not what is to happen in the future.Despite the fact that we cannot tell the truth about the past in any certain and direct way, it is, the paper will conclude, still epistemically meaningful to distinguish justified from unjustified beliefs in history because historical inquiry is so closely connected with everyday epistemic practice through sharing pragmatically sustained processes that the former cannot be discarded without giving up the principles of the latter. There lies the meaning of historical inquiry. (shrink)

The capacity of contemporary forensic genetics has rendered “race” into an interesting tool to produce clues about the identity of an unknown suspect. Whereas the conventional use of DNA profiling was primarily aimed at the individual suspect, more recently a shift of interest in forensic genetics has taken place, in which the population and the family to whom an unknown suspect allegedly belongs, has moved center stage. Making inferences about the phenotype or the family relations of this unknown suspect produces (...) suspect populations and families. We discuss the criminal investigation following the Marianne Vaatstra murder case in the Netherlands and the use of forensic technologies therein. It is in many ways an interesting case, but in this paper, we focus on how race surfaced in science and society. We show that race materializes neither in the technologies used nor in the bodies at stake. Rather, race emerges through a material semiotic relation that surfaces in the translation that occurs as humans and things move across sites. We argue that race is enacted, firstly, in the context of legislation as biology reduced to bodily characteristics; secondly, in the forensic analyses as patterns of absent presence; and, thirdly, in society as a process of phenotypic othering. (shrink)

This essay has two purposes. One is to present a detailed analysis of a historical example to defend the validity of the idea of universal rationality. Although diverse arguments have been offered...

This essay attempts to provide a systematic reconstruction of Nāgārjuna's philosophical thought by understanding it as a critique of the attachment to linguistic expressions and their referents. We first present an outline of Nāgārjuna's philosophy, centering on such notions as 'dependent origination', 'emptiness' and 'self-nature'. Then we discuss Nāgārjuna's dismissal of a metaphysical use of language, particularly his contention that language can function well without assuming the reality of its referents. We also consider his statement that he has no assertion (...) and explain his provisional use of language. Towards the end of the essay, we direct our attention to a paradoxical formula in a Buddhist sutra that should help in evaluating the contemporary significance of Nāgārjuna's linguistic critique. (shrink)

Blackburn has outlined a formal account for moral expressivism, and we argued that the moral Frege-Geach problem can be solved formally by appending two rules for the boo-operator which are missing from his account. We then extended Blackburn’s formal account to generate a similar solution to the problem in modal context and showed that the validity of the modal argument can be preserved too in modal expressivism. However, the higher-order element endorsed by Blackburn does not seem necessary for solving the (...) Frege-Geach problem. Nor is his extension from moral expressivism to modal expressivism tenable, since the latter violates its own ontological constraint. A general moral is drawn on the basis on three observations made in evaluating Blackburn’s expressivism. (shrink)

The term “evolution” is often used in the administrative sciences to designate dynamic processes of change in general. In biology, evolution has a very specific meaning, namely the application of a generative variation-selective retention scheme to change. Applying this to the administrative sciences is more exacting: describing what the variation consists of, how replication of the generated variation occurs and delineating the population from which the selection is made are far from easy. While it is the intention of this special (...) issue as a whole to provide some empirical examples of evolutionary change in the public and private sectors, this introduction will lay out the main lines of thought in what is often referred to as universal Darwinism and what this means in the administrative sciences. Key concepts here are generative variation, selective retention, and selective institutional environment. According to the authors, the Darwinian scheme of evolutionary theory focuses on how new ideas or concepts arise, how they propagate and influence wider actor thinking and on how the institutional environment in which they operate affects their differential survival. This evolutionary process is an interplay between actors and replicators (sounds, images, and in this context mostly words) in which it cannot be said in advance which one is fooling the other. (shrink)

This article distinguishes between three projects in Ernest Becker's later work: his psychology of “religion,” his psychology of religion, and his psychology of Religion . The first is an analysis of culture and civilization as immortality projects, means by which to deny death. The second, which overlaps with the first, is a characterization of religion-as-practiced as a particularly effective immortality project vis-à-vis death anxiety. The third is less social scientific and more theological; Becker argues for a view of God that (...) is in the tradition of Søren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich . Focusing on the second of these projects—as much has already been written on the first, and little can be said about the third—this article evaluates Becker's claims about religion-as-practiced in light of recent developments in social cognitive psychology. (shrink)

This paper concentrates on some aspects of the history of the analytic-synthetic distinction from Kant to Bolzano and Frege. This history evinces considerable continuity but also some important discontinuities. The analytic-synthetic distinction has to be seen in the first place in relation to a science, i.e. an ordered system of cognition. Looking especially to the place and role of logic it will be argued that Kant, Bolzano and Frege each developed the analytic-synthetic distinction within the same conception of scientific rationality, (...) that is, within the Classical Model of Science: scientific knowledge as cognitio ex principiis . But as we will see, the way the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments or propositions functions within this model turns out to differ considerably between them. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we will first give a historic overview of the concept of benefit sharing and its appearance in official agreements, particularly with respect to crop genetic resources. It will become clear that, at present, benefit sharing is primarily considered as an instrument of compensation or exchange, and thus refers to commutative justice. However, we believe that such a narrow interpretation of benefit sharing disregards, and even undermines, much of its (historical) content and potency, especially where crop genetic (...) resources are concerned. We argue that benefit sharing should not be based merely on commutative justice but rather on a broader model that is also grounded in the concept of distributive justice. This has repercussions for the application of benefit sharing, which we try to clarify by distinguishing between downstream and upstream benefit sharing. Upstream benefit sharing is not so much inspired by compensation for actions done, or the distribution downstream of benefits developed, but by the idea of shared decision‐making on the research and development of resources fundamental to human welfare. Going upstream in the research process of crop genetic resources, and determining research agendas and improving crops according to the needs of the poor, benefit sharing may well be a tool to contribute to world food security and global justice. We concretize our ideas on upstream benefit sharing by introducing a set of criteria that determine the success of consultations on agricultural research agenda setting. (shrink)

Is actively planning one?s learning route through a learning domain beneficial for learning? Moreover, can learners accurately judge the extent to which planning has been beneficial for them? This study examined the effects of active planning on learning. Participants received a tool in which they created a learning route themselves before accessing learning material and, for comparison, also worked with a tool in which the route was planned automatically. Eighty-three participants participated in learning sessions with both tools over two topics (...) in statistics. Both tools were found to influence the learning process. However, results indicate inconsistency between participants? judgement of the relative effectiveness of the two types of tools and their actual learning outcomes. Although participants thought they had learned more when they actively created a plan themselves, knowledge tests showed no differences on performance between actively planning a learning route or receiving it ready-made. (shrink)

In this article I shall argue for an interpretation of Odyssey 19.393–466 as a flash-back taking place in the mind of Eurykleia at the moment she recognises Odysseus' scar. That Eurykleia somehow forms the connection between main story and digression has been suggested before, but so far other interpretations have been defended with more fervour. Most famous of these interpretations is the one given by E. Auerbach in the first chapter of his Mimesis. He had chosen 19.393–466 to illustrate his (...) thesis that in Homer everything is ‘fully externalized’ and that there is no background, only a ‘uniformly illuminated’ foreground. According to Auerbach the digression on the scar stands in complete isolation to its context. It is meant to ‘relax the tension’, to make the hearer/reader ‘forget what had just taken place during the footwashing’, and although it might have been presented as a recollection of Odysseus , this ‘subjectivisticperspectivistic procedure, creating a foreground and background’ was not chosen, being ‘entirely foreign to the Homeric style’. Some twenty years later this interpretation was challenged by A. Köhnken, who, however, stuck to the idea that the digression is not told from the restricted perspective of one of the characters but from the perspective of the omniscient narrator; he claims that foreground and background are marked as such through a difference in narrative style: ‘berichtende Erzählung’ for the digression itself and ‘szenische Darstellung’ for the context. I disagree with both points. (shrink)

There is an increasing call for preventive state interventions in so-called families at risk—that is, interventions before any overt harm has been done by parents to their children or by the children to a third party, in families that are statistically known to be liable to harm children. One of the basic principles of liberal morality, however, is the citizen's right to be free from state intervention so long as no demonstrable harm has been done. On the other hand, Joel (...) Feinberg interprets the harm principle as a harm prevention principle, so that the risk of harm also might be a reason for interference. The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is whether enforced preventive intervention in the cases where families are judged to be at risk can be justified within the limits of liberalism. (shrink)

Education has significant and far-reaching effects not only on individuals, but also on the societies in which they live and to which they contribute. The education level of a population affects how a country supports itself and others and the degree to which it can participate in the global field. While everyone from politicians to policymakers to celebrities has stressed the importance of education, there has not been-until now-a vigorous yet comprehensible examination of data to support what has long been (...) common knowledge: education matters. In Education Matters: Global Gains from the 19th to the 21st Century, renowned economists Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee present a revolutionary new data set on education in 146 countries since 1870 and projected through 2040. With case studies from the United States, China, and Korea, Barro and Lee evaluate schooling both quantitatively and qualitatively, and assess the role of education in economic and political development. In this comprehensive study, the authors establish the critical role that education plays - particularly for women and girls - in economic growth, fertility, and democracy. The book also addresses sensitive and controversial topics, such as international disparities in education, and the role of education in modernization and development. Both challenging and enlightening, Education Matters has exciting implications for the future of education and promises to be a ground-breaking work in the fields of economics and educational attainment. Engaging and informative, Education Matters is a compelling read for students, scholars, and anyone with a passion for education. (shrink)

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists’ self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities who (...) have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management. (shrink)

On aesthetics intelligence of Hanoi people in Vietnam.

Biometric technologies are becoming more pervasive in the workplace, augmenting managerial processes such as hiring, monitoring and terminating employees. Until recently, these devices consisted mainly of GPS tools that track location, software that scrutinizes browser activity and keyboard strokes, and heat/motion sensors that monitor workstation presence. Today, however, a new generation of biometric devices has emerged that can sense, read, monitor and evaluate the affective state of a worker. More popularly known by its commercial moniker, Emotional AI, the technology stems (...) from advancements in affective computing. But whereas previous generations of biometric monitoring targeted the exterior physical body of the worker, concurrent with the writings of Foucault and Hardt, we argue that emotion-recognition tools signal a far more invasive disciplinary gaze that exposes and makes vulnerable the inner regions of the worker-self. Our paper explores attitudes towards empathic surveillance by analyzing a survey of 1015 responses of future job-seekers from 48 countries with Bayesian statistics. Our findings reveal affect tools, left unregulated in the workplace, may lead to heightened stress and anxiety among disadvantaged ethnicities, gender and income class. We also discuss a stark cross-cultural discrepancy whereby East Asians, compared to Western subjects, are more likely to profess a trusting attitude toward EAI-enabled automated management. While this emerging technology is driven by neoliberal incentives to optimize the worksite and increase productivity, ultimately, empathic surveillance may create more problems in terms of algorithmic bias, opaque decisionism, and the erosion of employment relations. Thus, this paper nuances and extends emerging literature on emotion-sensing technologies in the workplace, particularly through its highly original cross-cultural study. (shrink)

Several studies have focused on the effects of corporate social responsibility fit on external stakeholders’ evaluations of CSR activities, attitudes towards companies or brands, and behaviors. The results so far have been contradictory. A possible reason may be that the concept of CSR fit is more complicated than previously assumed. Researchers suggest that there may be different types of CSR fit, but so far no empirical research has focused on a typology of CSR fit. This study fills this gap, describing (...) a qualitative content analysis of the congruence between six organizations and their various CSR activities. Ten annual reports and CSR reports were analyzed, and 102 specific CSR activities were identified. The results show that two levels of fit must be distinguished: based on the means for and the intended ends of the CSR activity. Furthermore, six different types of fit were found, focusing on products and services, production processes, environmental impact, employees, suppliers, and geographical location. Considering the above variety of fit possibilities, the findings emphasize the role of CSR communication as a means of creating fit perceptions. (shrink)

Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought is one of several recent works that have highlighted purported differences in thinking patterns between East Asians and Westerners on the basis of empirical research. This has implications for teaching and for other issues such as cultural integration. Based on a framework consisting of three distinct notions of rationality, this paper argues that some of the differences alleged by Nisbett are either not real or exaggerated, and that his geography of thought fails to provide (...) an adequate account of thinking styles across cultures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for teaching and learning critical thinking that can be drawn from the framework developed. (shrink)

The therapeutic misconception has been seen as presenting an ethical problem because failure to distinguish the aims of research participation from those receiving ordinary treatment may seriously undermine the informed consent of research subjects. Hence, most theoretical and empirical work on the problems of the therapeutic misconception has been directed to evaluate whether, and to what degree, this confusion invalidates the consent of subjects. We argue here that this focus on the understanding component of informed consent, while important, might be (...) too narrow to capture the ethical complexity of the therapeutic misconception. We show that concerns about misplaced trust and exploitation of such trust are also relevant, and ought to be taken into account, when considering why the therapeutic misconception matters ethically. (shrink)

"The fact that religions show internal variation and develop over time is not only a problem for believers, but has also long engaged scholars. This is especially true for the religions of the ancient world, where the mere idea of innovation in religious matters evoked notions of revolution and destruction. The present volume brings together articles that study this transformation, ranging from broad overviews to detailed case-studies."--BOOK JACKET.

Participation in service-learning courses has always been considered a part of the informal education in tertiary education worldwide. Originating from the assumption that service-learning courses increase students’ civic engagement and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, service-learning courses have gradually acquired the status of compulsory courses at universities. This being as it may be, it would seem that the nature of such courses would benefit from further analysis and discussion regarding their function in knowledge reproduction, and their role in (...) teaching and education. The aim of this article is to examine and analyze a university service-learning course—the National Taiwan University Star-Rain course with a commitment to serving children with autism—from a Foucaultian perspective, and reflect on how the process of putting knowledge during a service-learning course into practice comes to constitute the subjectivity of students who work with children who are autistic. We argue that the course under investigation has, in effect, become wholly entangled in the medical system’s treatment of autism in Taiwan. The service-learning process involves knowledge acquisition as well as long-term, detailed, concrete hands-on experience, and shapes, in a very complete way, students’ construction of their subject knowledge of autism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Did Hobbes Have a Semantic Theory of Truth? WILLEM R. DEJONG 1. INTRODUCTION THE qUESTIONRAISEDin the title of this article may strike the reader as a bit anachronistic. A phrase like 'semantic theory of truth' evokes associations with rather recent developments in logic, especially the work of Alfred Tarski. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that Hobbes made important observations of a semantical nature. Moreover, in an interesting article still (...) frequently referred to, R. M. Martin has argued that Hobbes "has in mind a clear-cut semantical concept of truth."' Examining Hobbes's semantical ideas somewhat more closely than Martin did, T6rnebohm has given a more precise characterization of Hobbes's view on truth and falsity; he speaks of Hobbes's comprehension theory of truth. ~One of the main purposes of this article is to investigate whether such a theory is correctly attributed to Hobbes. For Tarski 'true' and 'false' are predicates of (declarative) sentences) But this is not enough to speak of a semantic theory of truth: The leading idea behind Tarski's fundamental work in the field of semantics is (a restricted version of) the principle of compositionality. This principle, also known as Frege's principle, says that the semantic value of a (complex) expression is a function of the semantic values of the syntactic (and categorematic) parts it is ' R. M. Martin, "On the Semantics of Hobbes," Philosophyand PhenomenologicalResearch 14 095314): 2o5-11, esp. ~o7, 211. Cf. I. C. Hungerland and G. R. Vick, "Hobbes's Theory of Language, Speech and Reasoning," in ThomasHobbes:Computatwsire Logica--Logic, translated and commentary by A. Martinich, ed. and introduced by I. C. Hungerland and G. R. Vick (New York: 1981), 15--167, esp. 17, 121-22. 9 H. T6rnebohm, "A Study in Hobbes' Theory of Denotation and Truth," Theor~a26 (196o): 53-7o; see p. 66. 3 A. Tarski, "The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics," Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch4 (1944): 341-375; see p. 342. [63] 64 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:1 JANUARY 199o composed of. Moreover, in the case of linguistic expressions which are (deciarative ) sentences this semantic value should be its truth-value. 4 As we shall see, Hobbes's theory of propositions is basically a theory of subject-predicate propositions. It is therefore reasonable to qualify his theory of truth as a semantic one only if it satisfies Frege's principle to a certain extent. Ideally, this means that the truth-value of subject-predicate propositions should be conceived as a function of the semantic interpretations of its subject and predicate. In the next three sections I will concentrate principally on the logicosyntactical aspects of language. I will then discuss successively the general structure of propositions, the various sorts of names, and the syntax of Hobbes's theory of propositions. Section 5 is devoted to Hobbes's theory of truth as interpreted by Martin and T0rnebohm. The outcome of this examination makes it necessary to break away from Martin's restricted conception of semantics. Martin, like Tarski, takes semantics as "semantics in the narrower sense," i.e., as the discipline Quine refers to as the theory of reference. 5 However, sometimes this term is used in a broader sense; the field of semantics is taken then to include the theory of meaning too. Although the wording differs frequently, the distinction between meaning and reference is almost a constant in the history of thinking about language. On the side of meaning one finds terms like connotation, intension, conception, signification and analyticity, while terms like naming, denoting, extension (and sometimes again signification) are ]inked to the notion of reference. In the Computatio sive Logica, the first part of De Corpore, containing Hobbes's most mature work on the philosophy of language, this opposition is displayed by way of a distinction between, on the one side, nominare, denotare and appellare and, on the other side, significare. Hobbes's view of the significative, as opposed to the denotative, role of linguistic expressions is treated in sections 6, 7, and 8. There it will be shown that Hobbes's radical nominalism is decisive for his doctrine of signification; moreover, this nominalism raises serious problems for the relation... (shrink)

This article is aimed to compare the efficacy and acceptability of exercise intervention with other nonpharmacological therapies in improving attention in ADHD patients and then rank those therapies. Methods. Relevant RCT studies from the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Psycinfo, and PubMed were systematically searched from January 2011 to January 2020. The literature was screened, and the researchers extracted and used Stata16 and WinBugs1.4 independently to analyze the data. Results. The improvement of “attention deficit” in ADHD patients was measured in (...) 83 independent studies with 4,998 participants and 14 nonpharmacological therapies. Therapies were ranked as follows, according to the efficacy and acceptability of the cumulative probability area under the curve : meditation and cognitive; sport intervention therapy; vitamin and mineral; cognitive behavioral therapy; computer training; psychological education; working memory training; neurofeedback therapy; polyunsaturated fatty acids; mineral supplements; meditation; vitamin; biofeedback therapy; and school-based training. However, because the effect size of meditation and cognitive therapy was at a marginally significant level ), the robustness of the results was far lower than that of sport intervention therapy. Therefore, careful interpretation is needed in practice. Conclusion. Considering the efficacy and acceptability of various nonpharmacological therapies, sport intervention has a more stable effect on the improvement of attention deficit. Secondly, meditation and cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and computer training can also be effective complementary tools. (shrink)