Macau, as a society, is a crossroads where East–West encounters have been taking place for centuries. This paper examines some of the contemporary issues and implications for moral education. After a brief introduction to the social background of Macau, the paper describes the characteristics of Macau's education in general and the development of its moral education in particular. This has taken place in the context of the strong influences on morality of both Catholicism and Confucianism. An outline of the current (...) curriculum of moral and civic education is followed by a critical appraisal of its implementation over the last few years. By means of this case study of Macau, the paper argues that a communitarian‐oriented morality in Macau is justified, and it also suggests how, by turning attention to its history, a minimal set of values can be constructed for Macau's particular social setting. Finally, some further educational challenges for Macau's future moral and civic education are reviewed. (shrink)

The 85 Lao Zi bamboo slips from around 300 B. C. E. are the earliest texts of what later became known as the Tao Te King. They also contain the-until now-unknown Taoist narrative of Creation 'Great One gave Birth to Water.' These texts are very original and not yet intermingled with Confucian philosophy, governance, or ethics.This English translation presents the Tao Bamboo Slips in modern simplified Chinese characters, with commentaries and a comparison of the modern Chinese version to the old (...) characters. This bilingual Chinese-English publication is a contribution to the crosscultural visions and values of the New SiIk Road of the 21st century. (Series: Practical Ethics-Documentation / Ethik in der Praxis-Materialien, Vol. 16) [Subject: Confucianism, Chinese Studies, Philosophy]. (shrink)

The "thing-in-itself" theory occupies a pivotal position in the whole of Kantian philosophy, and scholars have expressed varying views on the intricate content of the theory. In the realm of epistemology, the theory implies at least three things: the origin of sensation, the limits of knowledge, and the rational idea. The last implication leads directly to moral reality in the realm of ethics. Interwoven and mutually comprehended, these implications are dipped in the general meaning of agnosticism. The first and third (...) implications are the opposites of a "thing-in-itself," and the second is a transition from the first to the third. (shrink)

Yen Fu was one of the four representatives who looked to the West for truth before the birth of the Chinese Communist Party. Our research on his life and work is still insufficient. Needless to say, both Yen Fu and Lin Shu were known as famous translators in pre-Liberation days. But Lin Shu cannot be equated with Yen Fu, insofar as their ideological and academic achievements and their contributions to modern China are concerned. From the post-Liberation days to the eve (...) of the Great Cultural Revolution, research works on Yen Fu remained scanty and he was seldom mentioned in articles on the advanced models among modern Chinese thinkers. More articles on Yen Fu appeared during the Criticize-Lin, Criticize-Confucius Campaign because Yen Fu had been mentioned by Chairman Mao. But the "Gang of Four" openly defied Chairman Mao's explicit direction by tampering with modern Chinese history, fabricating the struggle between the Confucians and the Legalists and describing Yen Fu as a Legalist. Chairman Mao pointed out: "Before the May Fourth movement, the struggle on the Chinese cultural front was one between the new bourgeois culture and the old feudal culture, and the antagonisms between modern schools and imperial examinations, between the new learning and the old learning and between Western thought and Chinese thought were all of the same nature." But, in the articles by Liang Hsiao and Lo Ssu-ting, all this has been described as the struggle between Legalists and Confucians and between Legalism and Confucianism. Thus, Chang Tai-yen, not Sun Yat-sen, is regarded as a bourgeois revolutionary and "Legalist." Yen Fu, not the "Confucian" K'ang Yu-wei, is treated as a representative of the bourgeois Reformists. This attitude has caused serious theoretical, ideological and academic chaos. We should do away with the chaos, conduct a thorough criticism of the "Gang of Four" and push forward our academic research work in accordance with the principle of "letting a hundred schools of thought contend.". (shrink)

After reading the essays of Mr. Ts'ai and Mr. Chu, I have a few immature opinions. Generally speaking, I feel that in dealing with the errors of their opponents, both Ts'ai I in his criticism of Huang Yüeh-mien and Chu Kuang-ch'ien in his criticism of Ts'ai I are quite accurate and convincing. However, in presenting their own arguments of what is right, both of them are on shaky ground and in error. That is because in one way or another, consciously (...) or unconsciously, they either deny the objective aspect of the existence of beauty or deny the social aspect of the existence of beauty . All of them consider the objective and the social aspects of beauty as being either this or that, as mutually exclusive and irreconcilable opposites. They think that if we acknowledge the social aspect of beauty, we then have to deny the objective aspect, the fact that the existence of beauty does not depend on the subjective conditions of a person ; or if we acknowledge the objective aspect, we have to deny the social aspect, the fact that the existence of beauty depends on the social life of human beings. But in fact it is not like that. On the one hand, beauty cannot be separated from human society; on the other hand, it can have an objective existence which is independent of man's subjective consciousness. It is this question that I shall discuss. (shrink)

The Daoist religion is an ancient religion that took root and flourished in China's soil. It was created in the time of Emperor Shundi of the Eastern Han dynasty and today claims a history of over 1,800 years. Its philosophical thought—which is a theory of moral and behavioral discipline whose core is a belief in immortals or supernatural beings —derived its origins from what is called "the teachings of Huang [Huangdi, or the Yellow Emperor] and Lao [Lao Zi]." Consequently, it (...) has always made its claim to being the "successor to the cultural influences of Huang and Lao" , and as such is considered to be one of the principle entities of China's traditional culture. In fact, Mr. Lu Xun went as far as to say: "All of China's roots are in the Daoist religion"1 What, however, are the real contents of the Daoist religion? And what are its cultural functions? (shrink)

Short-term traffic flow prediction is an effective means for intelligent transportation system to mitigate traffic congestion. However, traffic flow data with temporal features and periodic characteristics are vulnerable to weather effects, making short-term traffic flow prediction a challenging issue. However, the existing models do not consider the influence of weather changes on traffic flow, leading to poor performance under some extreme conditions. In view of the rich features of traffic data and the characteristic of being vulnerable to external weather conditions, (...) the prediction model based on traffic data has certain limitations, so it is necessary to conduct research studies on traffic flow prediction driven by both the traffic data and weather data. This paper proposes a combined framework of stacked autoencoder and radial basis function neural network to predict traffic flow, which can effectively capture the temporal correlation and periodicity of traffic flow data and disturbance of weather factors. Firstly, SAE is used to process the traffic flow data in multiple time slices to acquire a preliminary prediction. Then, RBF is used to capture the relation between weather disturbance and periodicity of traffic flow so as to gain another prediction. Finally, another RBF is used for the fusion of the above two predictions on decision level, obtaining a reconstructed prediction with higher accuracy. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed model are verified by experiments. (shrink)

Quarantine and isolation at extended length, although considered as highly effective countermeasures for the novel coronavirus which started at the end of 2019, can have great impact on individual's mental health, especially emotional state. The present research recruited 5,115 participants from the general public across 32 provinces and autonomous regions in China in an online survey study, about 20 days after the lockdown of the epicenter, to investigate the relationship between the length of the quarantine and negative affect, as well (...) as the mediating roles of negative cognition, and the moderating roles of dispositional optimism, tolerance of uncertainty, social support, and healthy behavior. The results showed that: Worry and anticipation mediated the relationship between quarantine length and depression and anxiety; Dispositional optimism moderated the path coefficients of quarantine length to worry, worry to anxiety, and anticipation to depression; Tolerance of uncertainty moderated the path coefficient of worry to anxiety; Social support moderated the path coefficient of anticipation to anxiety. In conclusion, during quarantine, dispositional optimism, uncertainty tolerance, and social support can buffer the direct or indirect effects of quarantine length on depression and anxiety. These findings could have profound implications on the societal responses to COVID-19 and future pandemics. (shrink)

本书介绍了从孔夫子到王夫之的31位中国古代哲学家的生平事迹、坎坷命运、轶闻趣事等。.

This article examines the impact of the prevailing state ownership in the Chinese stock market on corporate governance and the financial regulatory system, respectively, as the internal and external monitoring mechanisms to deter corporate fraud and protect investors. In line with the literature that state ownership exaggerates the agency problem, we find that the retained state ownership in privatised firms increases the incidence of regulatory enforcements against fraud. For the state-owned enterprises (SOEs), however, larger state ownership is associated with a (...) lower incidence of enforcement actions. This is attributed to the mutual political affiliation of the fraudulent SOEs and the regulatory commission. A new regulation "Solutions for Listed Firm Checks" promulgated in March 2001 has mitigated this effect by empowering the regulatory commission to increase the severity of regulatory conditions. Our evidence confirms the improvement in the regulatory environment and investor protection in the Chinese stock market brought about by the regulatory reform and development. (shrink)

The relationship between professional ethical reflection and corresponding moral behavior is an important theme of moral psychology in recent years. Following Schönegger and Wagner’s research in German-speaking countries, through a replication-extension of the original US-based research carried out by Schwitzgebel and Rust, we aim at examining their results in the Chinese context. The previous researchers have shown that ethical reflection generally has no positive effect on moral behavior. A cross validation of this result was conducted in Chinese mainland, and three (...) issues concerning Confucian virtues were added. Through reaching out to 4482 professors and collecting 368 responses altogether, we attempted to explore whether professional ethical reflection can influence normative attitude and the moral attitude-behavior consistency. Unfortunately, the results failed to show a statistically significant difference between ethicists and other professors on most of the moral issues, with the exception of paying academic membership fees and vegetarianism, wherein ethicists do express more stringent normative attitudes, and their moral attitude and self-reported behavior are statistically consistent. Notably, Chinese professors mainly expressed morally neutral attitudes toward the issue of eating meat, and they tended to believe that ethical reflection contributes to more and better moral behaviors. (shrink)

Objective: Stand-to-sit task is an important daily function, but there is a lack of research evidence on whether knee osteoarthritis affects the postural balance during the task. This study aimed to compare individuals with knee OA and asymptomatic controls in postural balance and identify kinematic and lower extremity muscle activity characteristics in individuals with knee OA during the stand-to-sit task.Methods: In total, 30 individuals with knee OA and 30 age-matched asymptomatic controls performed the 30-s Chair Stand Test at self-selected speeds. (...) Motion analysis data and surface electromyography were collected while participants performed the 30sCST. To quantify postural balance, the displacement of the center of mass and the peak instantaneous velocity of the CoM were calculated. The kinematic data included forward lean angles of the trunk and pelvic, range of motion of the hip, knee, and ankle joints in the sagittal plane. The averaged activation levels of gluteus maximus, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, rectus femoris, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, and medial head of gastrocnemius muscles were indicated by the normalized root mean square amplitudes.Results: Compared with the asymptomatic control group, the knee OA group prolonged the duration of the stand-to-sit task, demonstrated significantly larger CoM displacement and peak instantaneous CoM velocity in the anterior-posterior direction, reduced ankle dorsiflexion RoM, greater anterior pelvic tilt RoM, and lower quadriceps femoris and muscles activation level coupled with higher BF muscle activation level during the stand-to-sit task.Conclusion: This study indicates that individuals with knee OA adopt greater pelvic forward lean RoM and higher BF muscle activation level during the stand-to-sit task. However, these individuals exist greater CoM excursion in the anterior-posterior direction and take more time to complete the task. This daily functional activity should be added to the rehabilitation goals for individuals with knee OA. The knee OA group performs reduced ankle dorsiflexion RoM, quadriceps femoris, and TA activation deficit. In the future, the rehabilitation programs targeting these impairments could be beneficial for restoring the functional transfer in individuals with knee OA. (shrink)

Energy poverty is a problem that affects developed and developing economies, and its mitigation is of great significance to social welfare. EP affects Latin American countries, and policymakers have recently attempted to address this issue, particularly in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis. It is essential to measure and evaluate EP to implement strategies and policies effectively. Using a panel quantile regression approach, we investigate the heterogeneous impact of green finance, renewable energy, and energy efficiency on EP for 33 (...) Latin American countries from 2000 to 2018. Furthermore, certain associated control variables are incorporated into our model to avoid an omitted variable bias. According to empirical results, the impact of independent variables on EP is heterogeneous. Specifically, green finance is an essential source of alleviating EP, and it has a significant positive effect across all quantiles, but it is especially strong in the middle quantiles. RE and EE significantly mitigate EP, with the strongest effects occurring at higher quantiles. By including green finance, RE, and EE as the main explanatory determinants of EP, the findings urge policymakers in Latin American countries to design a comprehensive energy conservation policy to minimize the effects of massive EP. (shrink)

One task of historians is to construct causal ascription of singular historicals between eminent historical events. For instance, the controversy resulting from the confusing butterfly ballot of Florida’s year 2000 presidential election cost Gore his presidency. However, to research into these matters is inevitably to appeal to counterfactual deliberation in an epistemic fashion because the past is fixed. One standard idea is Max Weber’s, Weber causation: “f was a cause of φ” is assertable iff “¬f □→ ¬φ” is assertable. Reiss (...) gives an exceptionally good analysis of this topic and outlines historians’ reasoning, claiming that backtracking analyses of counterfactual conditionals employed in historical thought experiments is the signature of historical study of causal ascription of singular historicals. Nevertheless, he concludes that it is very difficult to reach an uncontroversial ascription for this sort in most cases. For this reason, he proposes to find difference-making relations that will suffice. The objective of this paper is to provide a more fine-grained, intervention-based, backtracking analysis of counterfactual conditionals upon which a more satisfactory account of causal ascription of singular historicals can be given. Reiss’ account of difference-making relation will be shown to be unsatisfactory. Moreover, a formal ground of the epistemology of historical thought experiments can be given, along with the constraints of this account resultant from the semantic features of non-transitivity and strong centering of counterfactual conditionals. Finally, some epistemological points of causal ascription of singular historicals and historical thought experiments will be given. (shrink)

The rapid worldwide spread of COVID-19 forced many countries to enforce complete lockdown and strict quarantine policies. The strict lockdown and quarantine affect the psychological state of people toward cryptocurrency. The current research aims to examine the effect of COVID-19 on Bitcoin prices concerning cumulative deaths and confirmed cases. The research comprises daily data from January 20, 2020, to April 30, 2020, during the initial worldwide breakout of COVID-19. This research employed the augmented Dickey-Fuller test to check the stationarity of (...) data, the co-integration test for the interdependency of variables, and the vector error correction model for identifying the direction and long or short-run relationship between Bitcoin prices and COVID-19. The research results show that Bitcoin prices are negatively significant and related to COVID-19 in the short-run. A unidirectional relationship between Bitcoin prices and cumulative deaths is also observed. Investors and the public’s psychological state were positively significant to Bitcoin prices in the long-term because of cashless transactions, unbanked, and less risky virus traveling. The second reason behind the positive psychological relation is un-centralization and easy-to-make payments by Bitcoin. This study’s finding provides timely evidence to decision-makers on Bitcoin price volatility and its impacts on the public’s psychological states regarding COVID-19. (shrink)

With the global society aging, it is necessary to investigate suitable font size based on reading time/speed, readability and legibility for older adults. This study used a systematic review of previous and existing relevant research on font size for older adults and research on the psychophysics of reading and analyzed the outcomes based on reading time/speed, readability, legibility and the usability evaluation methods employed. Studies were selected from databases GOOGLE SCHOLAR, WEB OF SCIENCE, PUBMED, and SCIENCE DIRECT. An inclusion criterion (...) was used to remove duplicates and avoid inconsistencies. Results suggest that older adults preferred larger font sizes. However, there exists a critical size at which readability declines. Inconsistencies in evaluation methods and experimental procedures were observed in the selected articles. This study suggested a reusable catalog of usability evaluation methods, eye tracking for user testing and a questionnaire for inquiry as suitable usability evaluation methods, a uniform metrics to measure font size in arcminutes and parameters to consider when investigating font size for older adults to ensure consistency in future studies. (shrink)

The advent of the intelligence age has injected new elements into the development of literature. The synergic modification of Anglo-American traumatic narrative literature by artificial intelligence technology and interactive design psychology will produce new possibilities in literary creation. First, by studying natural language processing technology, this study proposes a modification language model based on the double-layered recurrent neural network algorithm and constructs an intelligent language modification system based on the improved LM model. The results show that the performance of the (...) proposed model is excellent; only about 30% of the respondents like AAL literature; the lack of common cultural background, appreciation difficulties, and language barriers have become the main reasons for the decline of reading willingness of AAL literature. Finally, AI technology and ID psychology are used to modify a famous TN work respectively and synergically, and the modified work is appreciated by respondents to collect their comments. The results corroborate that 62% of the respondents like original articles, but their likability scores have decreased for individually modified work by AI or ID psychology. In comparison, under the synergic modification efforts of AI and ID psychology, the popularity of the modified work has increased slightly, with 65% of the respondents showing a likability to read. Therefore, it is concluded that literary modification by single ID psychology or AI technology will reduce the reading threshold by trading off the literary value of the original work. The core of literary creation depends on human intelligence, and AI might still not be able to generate high-standard literary works independently because human minds and thoughts cannot be controlled and predicted by machines. The research results provide new ideas and improvement directions for the field of AI-assisted writing. (shrink)

As physical exercise benefits both physical and psychological health of college students, it is important to promote the habit of physical exercise among them. This study adopted the Health Action Process Approach model to understand the exercise intention–action link and determine the moderating role of self-efficacy. We recruited 242 students from a university in China and asked them to complete a six-wave survey. The survey results indicated that exercise intention was positively related to both coping planning and action planning, which (...) pave the way to performing the action of exercise. However, such mediation effects varied under conditions of self-efficacy. Participants with high self-efficacy exhibited stronger relationships between intention and planning, and between planning and action. The study results suggest that planning has a time-lagged mediation effect in the relationship between intention and action. Additionally, the findings shed light on the moderating role of self-efficacy, which can be useful in developing health-promotion strategies for college students. (shrink)

本书是一本研究马克思主义发展理论的书籍. 主要内容包括: 新时期马克思主义中国化理论创新的前提和基础, 新时期马克思主义中国化理论创新的根据和立足点, 新时代马克思主义中国化理论创新的基础轨迹等.

This paper uses Wmatrix to generate semantic tagging to compare corpora of media representations between the American Dream and the Chinese Dream. The USAS tagger is used to assign the semantic field tags to the America Dream Corpus and the Chinese Dream Corpus. The motivation of this study is to replicate the studies using an automated and inclusive method based on semantic tagging. 295–324), and more importantly, to conduct a broad semantic categorization on both national dreams so as to uncover (...) the cultural, social and historical similarities and/or differences. It is found that the cultural difference of the individualistic home and work association of the American Dream versus the collectivistic nation and world attributions of the Chinese Dream. The different historical stage and social-economic contexts are disclosed from the different temporal positions from time category, and the contrastive tags associated with negative representation of the American Dream and positive representation of the Chinese Dream. (shrink)

Usage-based linguistics postulates that multi-word expressions constitute a substantial part of language structure and use, and are formed through repeated chunking and stored as exemplar wholes. They are also re-used to produce new sequences by means of schematization. While there is extensive research on multi-word expressions in many spoken languages, little is known about the status of multi-word expressions in the mainstream U.S. variety of American Sign Language. This paper investigates recurring multi-word expressions, or sequences of multiple signs, that involve (...) a high-frequency sign of visual perception glossed as look and the family of ‘look’ signs. The look sign exhibits two broad functions: look/‘vision’ references literal or metaphorical vision and look/‘reaction’ signals a person’s reaction to a visual stimulus. Data analysis reveals that there are recurring sequences in distinct syntactic environments associated with the two functions of look, suggesting that look is in the process of grammaticalization from a verb of visual perception to a stance verb. The sequences demonstrate the emergence of linguistic structure from repeated use through the domain-general cognitive process of chunking in ASL. (shrink)

Prior research has demonstrated that the adverse consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic may go beyond its economic hardships and physical health concerns, having a significant influence on psychological distress for individuals under quarantine. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to exploring the risk and protective factors in the link between COVID-19 infection risk and psychological distress among young adults. Following a socioecological framework, the current study examines the moderating role of grit and social support in the association (...) between COVID-19 infection risk and depressive symptoms. A sample of 1,251 young adults under home quarantine was involved in this study, and they were asked to complete a set of self-reported questionnaires online. Results of a linear regression analysis exhibited that COVID-19 infection risk was positively associated with depressive symptoms in young adults in quarantine. Moreover, moderation analyses showed that this association was moderated by perseverance and social support. To be specific, for those reporting higher levels of social support, this linkage was not significantly positive; in contrast, for those reporting lower levels of social support, perseverance was a significant protective factor for depressive symptoms when young adults were exposed to a high infection risk of COVID-19. The current study suggests that greater social support is essential to helping young adults deal with possible negative emotions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, university-based counseling services should pay specific attention to those young adults with relatively insufficient social support resources and low levels of perseverance. (shrink)

How to automatically detect intracranial aneurysms from Three-Dimension Time of Flight Magnetic Resonance Angiography images is a typical 3D image classification problem. Currently, the commonly used method is the Maximum Intensity Projection- based way. It transfers 3D classification into 2D case by projecting the 3D patch into 2D planes along different directions on the basis of voxel’s intensity. After then, the 2D Convolutional Neural Network is established to do classification. It has been shown that the MIP-based method can reduce the (...) demands for the samples and increase the computation efficiency. Meanwhile, the accuracy is comparable with that of 3D image classification. Inspired by the strategy of MIP, we want to further reduce the demands for samples and accelerate the training by transferring the 2D image classification into 1D case, i.e., we want to generate the 1D vectors from the MIP images and then establish a 1D CNN to do intracranial aneurysm detection and classification for 3D TOF MRA image. Specifically, our method first extracts a series of patches as the Region of Interests along the blood vessels from the original 3D TOF MRA 3D image. The corresponding MIP images of each ROI will be obtained through maximum intensity projecting. Then, we generate a series of 1D vectors by accumulating each MIP image along different directions. Meanwhile, a 1D CNN is established to detect aneurysms, in which, the input is the obtained 1D vectors and the output is the binary classification result denoting whether there are intracranial aneurysms in the considered patch. Generally, compared with 2D- and 3D-CNN, the 1D CNN-based way greatly accelerates the training and shows stronger robustness in the case of fewer samples. The efficiency of the proposed method outperforms the 2D CNN about 10 times in CPU training. Yet, their accuracies are close. (shrink)

In this paper, we reconstruct the debate between Zhuangzi 莊子 and Hui Shi 惠施 that took place on the bridge over the Hao River 濠水 as a substantive debate concerning the epistemic other‐mind skepticism according to which no one mind knows the mental states of the other. We demonstrate how this reconstruction leads to substantive conclusions of the viability of Hui Shi’s position in particular and of the other‐mind skepticism in general. This demonstration is accomplished by means of the contemporary (...) philosophical development regarding, for example, whether asserting a proposition implies that the asserter knows the proposition, whether the closure principle of epistemic logic should be held, and whether knowing something is a mental state. We hold that this debate’s resolution is substantively entangled with contemporary philosophical concerns. (shrink)

Although most existing studies have considered entrepreneurial bricolage as a means to overcome resource constraints in new ventures, few have explored the direct effects of entrepreneurial bricolage on employee creativity, particularly in the context of entrepreneurial internet firms. Drawing from multiple theories, this study proposes a cross-level mediation model for the trickle-down effects of entrepreneurial bricolage and business model innovation on employee creativity. By using a 2-wave longitudinal design, survey data were collected from multiple sources, including 49 leaders and 336 (...) employees from entrepreneurial internet firms in China. Multilevel structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the cross-level mediation model. The results show that both entrepreneurial bricolage and business model innovation failed to significantly and positively direct employee creativity. Furthermore, entrepreneurial bricolage exerted a cross-level influence on employee creativity that was sequentially transmitted through between-level business model innovation and within-level creative self-efficacy. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)

We examine whether analyst coverage influences corporate fraud in China. The fraud triangle specifies three main factors, i.e. opportunity, incentive, and rationalization. On the one hand, analysts may reduce the fraud opportunity factor through external monitoring aimed at discouraging managerial misconduct, which can moderate agency problems. On the other hand, analysts may increase the fraud incentive factor by pressurizing managers to achieve short-term performance targets, which can exacerbate agency problem. In either case, the potential influence of analysts on the fraud (...) rationalization factor may be more pronounced among firms that are more dependent on the capital market for corporate finance. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we show a negative association between corporate fraud propensity and analyst coverage, and that this effect is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises, which are more reliant on the stock market for external funding. These findings suggest that analyst coverage contributes to corporate fraud deterrence in emerging economies characterized by weak investor protection. The main policy implication is that further development of the analyst profession in emerging economies may benefit investors and strengthen business ethics. (shrink)