Medical informed consent stands as an ethical and legal requisite preceding any medical intervention. Hospitalized patients face functional health literacy (FHL) challenges when dealing with informed consent forms (ICFs). The legitimacy of ICFs and informed consent procedures in China remains substantially undisclosed. The study’s aim was to investigate if Chinese patients have adequate FHL to be truly informed before providing medical consent. In this cross-sectional, structured interview-based study, FHL was assessed within the context of the informed consent scenarios in two (...) teaching hospitals (a 1500-bed general tertiary hospital and a 700-bed cancer hospital) affiliated with Shantou University Medical College. Twenty-seven patients admitted across clinical departments, along with their relatives (n = 59), were enrolled in the study after obtaining informed consent. The participants underwent a three-step assessment with two selected ICFs —teach-back skills, perceived understanding (perception), and informed knowledge (cognizance), with each component carrying a maximum score of 10. Data were analyzed with SPSS (version 22.0) for descriptive and inferential statistics, with consideration of significant P values as < 0.05. The median age (IQR and range) of participants was 35.5 (28 – 49 and 13 – 74) years. Most participants had only high school education (24.4%, 21/86) or below high school education (47.7%, 41/86). The median score (IQR) of FHL assessments—teach-back, perception, and cognizance—was 4.0 (2.5, 5.8), 8.0 (6.8, 8.8), and 6.5 (5.5, 8.0) out of 10, respectively. A moderate correlation was observed between the scores of cognizance and teach-back (r = 0.359, P = 0.002) or perception (r = 0.437, P < 0.001). Multivariate linear regression analysis predicted being a patient and having lower education levels as independent risk factors of inadequate FHL (Ps = 0.001). Lack of patient-centeredness in ICFs, time constraints, and poor clinical communication were identified as barriers impeding informed consent. This study demonstrates inadequacy in personal FHL and impaired organizational HL, resulting in compromised informed consent in Chinese teaching hospitals. As a remedy, we propose improving the quality of ICFs and institutionally mandated outcome-focused training on informed consent for all concerned clinicians to enhance medical ethics, ensure quality health care, address patient values, and mitigate potential medical conflicts. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that regular exercise modulates motor cortical plasticity and cognitive function, but the influence of short-term high-intensity interval training remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of short-term HIIT on neuroplasticity and executive function was assessed in 32 sedentary females. Half of the participants undertook 2 weeks of HIIT. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to measure motor cortical plasticity via short intracortical inhibition and intracortical facilitation. We further adapted the Stroop task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (...) to evaluate executive function in the participants. The results indicated that, compared with the control group, the HIIT group exhibited decreased ICF. In the Stroop task, the HIIT group displayed greater activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left orbitofrontal cortex even though no significant difference in task performance was observed. These findings indicate that short-term HIIT may modulate motor cortical plasticity and executive function at the neural level. (shrink)

This paper presents an active fault-tolerant control strategy for quadrotor helicopters to simultaneously accommodate sensor faults and external disturbances. Unlike most of the existing fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control schemes for quadrotor helicopters, the proposed fault diagnosis scheme is able to estimate sensor faults while eliminating the effect of external disturbances. Moreover, the proposed fault-tolerant control scheme is capable to eliminate the adverse effect of external disturbances as well by designing a disturbance observer to effectively estimate the unknown external disturbances (...) and integrating with the designed integral sliding-mode controller. In this case, the continuous operation of the quadrotor helicopter is ensured while avoiding the unexpected control chattering. In addition, the stability of the closed-loop system is theoretically proved. Finally, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed scheme are validated and demonstrated through comparative numerical simulations of the quadrotor helicopter under different faulty and uncertain scenarios. (shrink)

The mechanism of how the COVID-19 global pandemic has affected the entrepreneurial intentions of college students remains unknown. To investigate the impact of the entrepreneurial environment on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions in the post-pandemic era, 913 college students were invited to complete a questionnaire. The data were analyzed with structural equation models. The conclusions revealed by the questionnaire are as followed: college students have retained some entrepreneurial intention in the post-pandemic era; the factors influencing the entrepreneurial intention include sex, (...) family entrepreneurial history, major, and education background; and entrepreneurial self-efficacy can play a major role to mediate the impact caused by the post-pandemic entrepreneurial environment on entrepreneurial intentions. The research conclusions provide important insights to improve college students’ entrepreneurial intentions in the post-pandemic environment. (shrink)

Background: The Taiwan Nursing Accreditation Council has proposed eight core professional nursing qualities including ethical literacy. Consequently, nursing ethics education is a required course for student nurses. These courses are intended to improve the ethical literacy. Moral sensitivity is the cornerstone of ethical literacy, and learning moral sensitivity is the initial step towards developing ethical literacy. Objectives: To explore the effect of nursing ethics educational interventions based on multiple teaching strategies on student nurses moral sensitivity. Based on the visual, auditory (...) and kinaesthetic model, three strategies were developed for determining the programme components and corresponding learning styles. Research design: This was a quasi-experimental study. Participants: A total of 234 junior-college student nurses participated in this study. All participants were aged 18–19 years. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital. Only the participants who signed an informed consent form took part in the study. The participants were permitted to withdraw from the study at any point if they wished to do so without affecting their academic score. Results: The scores of Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses were significantly improved after the intervention of integrating multiple teaching strategies ( p =.042). Significant relationships were observed between the satisfaction scores of two teaching strategies and moral sensitivity. The results indicated that using multiple teaching strategies is effective for promoting nursing ethics learning. Conclusion: This strategy was consistent with the student nurses’ preferred learning style and was used to correct their erroneous ethical conceptions, assisting in developing their ethical knowledge. (shrink)

Prior research on workplace ostracism and helping behavior has yielded mixed results. This study integrates social learning theory and social role theory by constructing a multilevel model to examine the relationship between supervisor ostracism and helping behavior that focuses on the mediating role of coworker ostracism and the moderating role of subordinate gender. Using a two-wave, multisource approach, data were collected from 382 employees and 43 immediate team leaders in four business corporations in Guangxi Province, China. The results of path (...) analysis reveal that supervisor ostracism has a cross-level effect on helping behavior through the mediating role of coworker ostracism. Furthermore, the positive direct effect of supervisor ostracism on coworker ostracism and the negative cross-level indirect effect of supervisor ostracism on helping behavior via coworker ostracism was stronger for men than women. These findings expand and deepen our understanding of the ostracism field. (shrink)

Understanding the influencing factors of cyberbullying is key to effectively curbing cyberbullying. Among the various factors, this study focused on the personal level of individual students and categorized the influencing factors of cyberbullying among college students into five sublevels, i.e., background, Internet use and social network habits, personality, emotion, and literacy related to digital citizenship. Then a questionnaire survey was applied to 947 Chinese college students. The results show that cyberbullying among Chinese college students are generally at a low level. (...) There are many factors influence cyberbullying. Specifically, at the personal background level, gender has a significant impact on cyberbullying and being cyberbullied. In terms of personal Internet use and social network habits, students’ average daily online time has no significant correlation with cyberbullying and being cyberbullied; however, the proportion of online non-learning time has a significantly positive correlation with cyberbullying, and the proportion of online learning/work time has a significant impact on being cyberbullied. At the personality level, the Big Five personality traits have varying degrees of correlation with and influence on cyberbullying and being cyberbullied. At the personal emotions level, students’ life satisfaction has a significantly negative correlation with cyberbullying and being cyberbullied while it only has a significant impact on being cyberbullied; the personal stress and empathetic concern aspects of empathy have a significantly positive correlation with cyberbullying and being cyberbullied among female students. At the literacy related to digital citizenship level, students’ understanding of and compliance with Internet etiquette have significantly negative impacts on cyberbullying; the ability to communicate and collaborate online and Internet addiction have significantly positive impacts on cyberbullying and being cyberbullied; the understanding of and compliance with relevant digital laws and regulations have significantly negative correlations with cyberbullying and being cyberbullied. Overall, college students’ digital citizenship level has a significantly negative correlation with cyberbullying but no significant correlation with being cyberbullied. Finally, analysis and suggestions were provided according to these statistical results and the effects of these factors on cyberbullying and being cyberbullied among college students, so as to help solve this problem and provide a new perspective for research in this field. (shrink)

: Here a moral principle called the "Copper Rule" is developed and defended as an alternative to the Golden Rule. First, the article focuses on two problems with the Golden Rule's traditional formulation of "Do (or don't do) unto others what you would (or would not) have them do unto you": it assumes (1) the uniformity of human needs and preferences and (2) that whatever is universally desired is good. Second, it examines three attempts to reformulate the Golden Rule—Marcus Singer's (...) general interpretation, Allan Gewirth's rationalization, and R. M. Hare's imaginative role reversal— to show why they all fail to save the Golden Rule from difficulty.Third, the rich resources of the Chinese Confucian-Daoist philosophical traditions are appropriated to develop a "Copper Rule" as an alternative moral principle: "Do (or don't do) unto others as they would (or would not) have us do unto them." This moral principle not only avoids the two problems, but also has additional advantages.Finally, the "Copper Rule" is defended against three objections or counterarguments: what if people ask you (forexample) (1) to kill someone else, (2) to kill them, or (3) to kill yourself? The appropriate response is merely to trace the implications of the "Copper Rule" rather than add any ad hoc arguments. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a clarification of the long debate on whether enhancement will or will not diminish authenticity. It focuses particularly on accounts provided by Carl Elliott and David DeGrazia. Three clarifications will be presented here. First, most discussants only criticise Elliott’s identity argument and neglect that his conservative position in the use of enhancement can be understood as a concern over social coercion. Second, Elliott’s and DeGrazia’s views can, not only co-exist, but even converge together as an (...) autonomy based theory of authenticity. Third, the current account of autonomy provided by DeGrazia fails to address the importance of rationality and the ability of self-correction, which, as a result impedes the theory to provide a fully developed account for authenticity. In conclusion, a satisfactory account of authenticity cannot focus only on identity or subjective preference. (shrink)

One of the major divergences between dynamical systems theory and symbolism lies in their views on the role of representation in cognition. From the perspective of development, the cognitive development could be divided into three levels: sensorimotor, imagery representation and linguistic representation. It is claimed that representation is not a sufficient condition though it is necessary for cognition. However, it does not mean that the authors agree with the notion of strong coupling in dynamicism that completely rejects representation.

As a key constituent of China's approach to fighting COVID-19, Health Code apps (HCAs) not only serve the pandemic control imperatives but also exercise the agency of digital surveillance. As such, HCAs pave a new avenue for ongoing discussions on contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. This article attends to the perceived privacy protection among HCA users via the lens of the contextual integrity theory. Drawing on an online survey of adult HCA users in Wuhan and Hangzhou (...) (N = 1551), we find users’ perceived convenience, attention towards privacy policy, trust in government, and acceptance of government purposes regarding HCA data management are significant contributors to users’ perceived privacy protection in using the apps. By contrast, users’ frequency of mobile privacy protection behaviors has limited influence, and their degrees of perceived protection do not vary by sociodemographic status. These findings shed new light on China's distinctive approach to pandemic control with respect to the state's expansion of big data-driven surveillance capacity. Also, the findings foreground the heuristic value of contextual integrity theory to examine controversial digital surveillance in non-Western contexts. Put tougher, our findings contribute to the thriving scholarly conversations around digital privacy and surveillance in China, as well as contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. (shrink)

In longitudinal cohort studies involving large populations over extended periods, informed consent entails numerous urgent challenges. This paper explores challenges regarding informed consent in long‐term, large‐scale longitudinal cohort studies based on the longitudinal and dynamic nature of such research. It analyzes and evaluates widely recognized broad consent and dynamic consent methods, highlighting limitations concerning their ability to adapt to evolving research objectives and participant perspectives. This paper discusses trust‐based informed consent and emphasizes the needs to establish and maintain trust with (...) research participants and to balance information disclosure with respect for participants' autonomy. Informed consent in long‐term studies is an evolving process that must adapt to changing research environments. Based on participant trust, researchers should observe and assess potential research risks. Finally, the paper recommends enhancing institutional credibility, implementing reconsent procedures, and ensuring robust ethical oversight to safeguard participants' rights despite the complexity of modern biomedical research. (shrink)

The article discusses the conservative tendency of state Confucianism, particularly its celebration of political leaders and of the uniqueness of Chinese culture as an excuse to oppose Western values and reject political reform.

Fingerprint recognition is the most widely used identification method at present. However, it still falls short in terms of cross-platform and algorithmic complexity, which exerts a certain effect on the migration of fingerprint data and the development of the system. The conventional image recognition methods require offline standard databases constructed in advance for image access efficiency. The database can provide a pre-processed image via a specific method that probably is compatible merely with the specific recognition algorithm. Then, the specific recognition (...) algorithm starts the process of retrieving these specific pre-proessing images for recognition and inevitably will be blocked from other datasets. The proposed method in this research designed an embedded image processing algorithm based on a Siamese neural network in the recognition method that allows the proposed method to recognize images from any source without constructing a database for image storage in advance. In this research, the proposed method was applied to fingerprint recognition and evaluation of the proposed method was evaluated. The results showed that the accuracy of the proposed algorithm was up to 92%, and its F1 score was up to 0.87. Compared with the conventional fingerprint matching methods, its significant advantage in the FRR, FAR, and CR jointly indicated the remarkable correct recognition rate of the proposed method. (shrink)

Flight delay is one of the most challenging threats to operation of air transportation network system. Complex network was introduced into research studies on flight delays due to its low complexity, high flexibility in model building, and accurate explanation about real world. We surveyed recent progress about flight delay which makes extensive use of complex network theory in this paper. We scanned analyses on static network and temporal evolution, together with identification about topologically important nodes/edges. And, we made a clarification (...) about relations among robustness, vulnerability, and resilience in air transportation networks. Then, we investigated studies on causal relations, propagation modellings, and best spreaders identifications in flight delay. Ultimately, future improvements are summarized in fourfold. Under Complex Network, flight operation relevant subsystems or sublayers are discarded by the majority of available network models. Hierarchical modelling approaches may be able to improve this and provide more capable network models for flight delay. Traffic information is the key to narrow the gap between topology and functionality in current situations. Flight schedule and flight plan could be employed to detect flight delay causalities and model flight delay propagations more accurately. Real flight data may be utilized to validate and revise the detection and prediction models. It is of great importance to explore how to predict flight delay propagations and identify best spreaders at a low cost of calculation complexity. This may be achieved by analyzing flight delay in frequency domain instead of time domain. Summation of most critical nodes/edges may not be the most crucial group to network resilience or flight delay propagations. Effective algorithm for most influential sequence is to be developed. (shrink)

Language is central to the interactional nature of the social life within which it is situated. To react or respond in a particular situation, we must be able to recognize the social situation. Growing evidence has demonstrated the negative impact of perceived loneliness on late-life executive functions. Yet little is known about how social factors impact language processing for older people. The current study aims to fill this gap, first by assessing age-related changes in lexical processing during Chinese word reading, (...) second, by examining whether older adults’ individual differences, such as processing speed and verbal abilities, modulate meaning retrieval and, third, by investigating whether perceived loneliness can hinder word reading. The use of compound words in Chinese enables significant sublexical ambiguity, requiring varying executive load during word recognition: when a word’s constituent characters carry multiple meanings, readers must consider the meaning contributions of both constituent characters and use top-down word information to determine the most accurate meaning of the ambiguous character, a process termed “sublexical ambiguity resolution.” In this study, adults read real Chinese words and pseudowords, and they were asked to make lexical decisions. Older adults exhibited greater lexicality effects and similar sublexical ambiguity effects compared with young adults. Among older participants, processing speed could account for their ability to differentiate between words and pseudowords. In contrast, the level of perceived loneliness modulated the efficacy of sublexical ambiguity resolution: the participants with higher perceived loneliness displayed a greater sublexical ambiguity disadvantage effect. These results indicate that perceived loneliness may affect the use of contextual information in meaning retrieval during reading. The findings provide an important link between social connections and language processing. (shrink)

Smart homes create a beneficial environment for the lives of elderly people and enhance the quality of their home lives. This study aims to explore the design of age-friendly interfaces that can meet the emotional needs of self-care elderly people from the perspective of functional realization of the operating interface. Sixteen elderly users aged fifty-five and above were selected as subjects with healthy eyes and no excessive drooping eyelids to obscure them. Four representative age-friendly applications with different interface designs were (...) selected from the Android application market as the stimulus material for the experiment, and a total of fifteen pages were browsed independently. During the experiment, the ErgoLAB human-computer environment synchronization cloud platform was used to monitor and record the subjects' multidimensional physiological indicators of eye movements, skin electricity, and heart rate variability when using different styles of mobile application interfaces. Combined with the post-experimental PAD emotion scale data, the preferences of emotional interface design elements of the self-care elderly were analyzed to guide the subsequent design practice. The results show that: on the layout characteristics of the home page, a simple and intuitive multi-column layout or card layout combined with a bottom navigation bar type main navigation is used; on the choice of the main color, a single color with low saturation is used as the main color, with high saturation color accents to play a role in highlighting key information; on the information density of the home page, a moderate proportion of graphics and text is adopted, with low information density; on the arrangement of the page content, they try to give priority to information content with high user relevance. (shrink)

This study seeks to shed light on the effect of star CEOs on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of Chinese firms. Relying on the theoretical perspective of role identity and role constraints, we analyze data from 1222 Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2006 to 2019. The results analyzed using the ordinary least squares estimate method reveal a positive effect of star CEOs' extreme confidence and legitimacy pressure mechanisms on ESG performance. We also (...) find that this positive relationship is negatively moderated by higher organizational slack but strengthened by a lower level of regional marketization, as the degree of firms' dependence on external stakeholders' resources differs significantly. Additionally, this study finds that ESG activities are less likely to be associated with firm performance if star CEOs pursue them to satisfy their need for star status. These findings supplement the early tests of the influence mechanism of star CEOs on organization-level results and expand the context discussion of role identity and role constraints theory in the Chinese institutional environment. (shrink)

The philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi 公孫龍子 has been a hot topic since the 20th century, but there is still controversy about what point Gongsun Long 公孫龍 is making. This article reviews representative studies of the philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi in Sinophone academia since 2000. Some studies (especially in journal articles) conceive that one or two of the discourses are on the philosophy of language, while the other discourses concern ontology, epistemology, semiotics, or logic. In (...) contrast, certain scholars read the whole book as being about the philosophy of language. The divergence lies in whether the common thread is linguistic meaning or concept, and whether Gongsun Long’s doctrine is unveiled by one or several theories. These differences lead to a wide variation in their interpretation of the key terms and claims in the Gongsun Longzi. It is found that there is no theoretical framework that can perfectly interpret the book without incurring any criticism, and more efforts are needed to elucidate the philosophy of language in the Gongsun Longzi. (shrink)

Prediction is one of the major challenges in complex systems. The prediction methods have shown to be effective predictors of the evolution of networks. These methods can help policy makers to solve practical problems successfully and make better strategy for the future. In this work, we focus on exporting countries’ data of the International Trade Network. A recommendation system is then used to identify the products that correspond to the production capacity of each individual country but are somehow overlooked by (...) the country. Then, we simulate the evolution of the country’s fitness if it would have followed the recommendations. The result of this work is the combination of these two methods to provide insights to countries on how to enhance the diversification of their exported products in a scientific way and improve national competitiveness significantly, especially for developing countries. (shrink)

En tant qu’acteur important dans la gouvernance rurale, les organisations économiques collectives jouent un rôle primordial dans le processus d’urbanisation rurale et constituent un point de vue important pour comprendre l’évolution des relations entre zones urbaines et zones rurales en Chine. En même temps, ces organisations constituent le noyau de la communauté locale, qui représente les individus sur la base d’une même appartenance ethnique, par proximité locale ou par proximité de valeurs communes, voire par proximité économique. Ainsi, les individus partagent (...) une forme de cohésion solidaire, fondée affectivement. Toutefois, au fur et à mesure du développement économique et social, le système, la notion et la nature de l’économique s’évoluent et les valeurs des individus changent, tandis que ces organisations s’adaptent mal au changement économique et social, ce qui provoque la controverse de la société chinoise rurale au cours de la modernisation de la Chine. S’appuyant sur une recherche de terrain et l’analyse des données du village de Liede à Guangzhou, cet article porte sur le processus d’intégration urbaine-rurale du village urbain et explore l’intégration du village urbain dans la ville à travers l’organisation économique collective de Liede, notamment Liede Economic Development Co., Ltd. Dans ce processus, il existe des contradictions entre le rôle du village et le rôle des organisations économiques collectives. Les organisations collectives ont des fonctions économiques, mais elles assument toujours aussi des coûts importants concernant des fonctions publiques telles que la sécurité sociale. On verra que la réforme de la « séparation politique et économique » après la période de l’économie planifiée des années 1980 n’a pas eu d’effet au niveau local. L’évolution du rôle des organisations économiques reflète la mutation de l’économie chinoise, c’est-à-dire, le passage de l’économie communiste à l’économie de marché. Toutefois, l’engagement solidaire existe toujours dans l’économie collective et celle-ci essaie de limiter la cupidité et soutenir l’intérêt commun au lieu de le marginaliser, ce qui constitue un caractère spécifique de l’économie collective en Chine. Classification JEL : A23, B25, H32. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Prior Analytics is probably the earliest existing systematic philosophical writing on a syllogistic system and theory of logic. In this work, Aristotle introduces the categorical syllogistic, consisting of three figures and fourteen valid moods. This paper proposes that Aristotle distinguishes a general notion of syllogisms from a more technical notion of syllogisms. Syllogisms that belong to the categorical syllogistic fall under Aristotle’s technical notion of syllogisms that must satisfy two conditions: (1) a conclusion follows necessarily from the premises, and (...) (2) the premises derive a conclusion that necessarily follows from them in regard to attributing the major extreme to the minor. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship may be taught, and entrepreneurship education is flourishing at colleges and universities. However, previous documents show that entrepreneurship education is inconsistent with the research conclusions of entrepreneurial intention, which is a lack of discussion on the mediating effect of government subsidies from external resources. Based on the cognitive behavior theory, a mediating effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial strategy and entrepreneurial intention is built. By collecting the data of 334 questionnaires of college students in Pearl River Delta in China, (...) a structural equation is used for empirical analysis. The result indicates that entrepreneurship education does not have a significant influence on entrepreneurial intention; exploration innovation and exploitation innovation have a positive influence on entrepreneurial intention, and exploration innovation and exploitation innovation have a mediating effect on entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention; government subsidies have a positive regulating effect on exploration innovation, exploitation innovation, and entrepreneurial intention. In this article, the application of the cognitive behavior theory in the field of entrepreneurship research is expanded to provide the theoretical basis for building the entrepreneurship education ecosystem, which is conductive to innovation and entrepreneurship to promote regional economic development. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study aimed to elucidate the influence of dementia etiologies on the degree of caregiver burden and determine which factors predict a high caregiving burden.MethodsThis 18-month retrospective cohort study enrolled 630 patients and their caregivers from the Dementia Center of Changhua Christian Hospital. The care team performed face-to-face interviews every 6 months, for 18 months from when a diagnosis of dementia was made. The primary outcome was the change in Zarit Burden Interview scores. Generalized estimating equations were used for the (...) longitudinal data analysis.ResultsParticipants with Lewy body disease had a significantly higher caregiving burden compared with those with Alzheimer's disease after adjusting for patient and caregiver features. Caregivers of mixed-type dementia and frontotemporal dementia experienced a greater burden than caregivers of AD, at 6- and 18-month follow-up. Patients with more severe dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms, being cared for by more than two caregivers, or utilizing social resources were associated with higher ZBI scores; the depressive mood of caregiver also predicted higher ZBI scores.ConclusionThis longitudinal study demonstrated that caregiver burden was influenced by the underlying dementia etiology of patients. The dementia care team should provide personalized education and transfer patients and caregivers to appropriate resources, especially for high-risk populations. (shrink)

This article presents an economic analysis of information good pricing and consumer welfare, and discusses the implications of price discrimination in the information economy. It argues that network externalities, coupled with information asymmetry, enable a dominant marketer to price unequally, extracting late adopters surplus to compensate for the loss from early adopters. In the short term, the minority early adopters benefit by paying less, but in the long term, the majority late adopters suffer by paying more. Considering that late adopters (...) are likely to be at a disadvantage in resources, this discriminatory pricing amounts to the poor subsidizing the rich. Based on this analysis, implications for consumer welfare are discussed. (shrink)

Toleration has been almost universally regarded as an indispensable virtue one ought to have when encountering people of races, religions, languages, cultures, genders, and sexual orientations different from one’s own. This is unfortunate, however, because toleration includes objection as one of its necessary components: to tolerate an object means to have objection to it though without interfering with it. However, it is wrong to think we have, and it is wrong for us to have, objection to people simply because of (...) their races, religions, languages, cultures, genders, and sextual orientations different from us. The proper virtue we ought to cultivate in this context is respect as advocated in the Zhuangzi, which is fundamentally different from respect that has sometimes been associated with the very conception of toleration. (shrink)

Analects 13.18 continues to be the central focus of a prolonged debate among contemporary scholars in the mainland China. The newest stage of this debate is initiated by Liao Mingchun of Tsinghua University and Liang Tao of Renmin University of China, respectively, and responded to by Guo Qiyong and his students. There are three main issues involved in this new round of debate: whether the Chinese character yin in this passage means nondisclosure, as has been traditionally interpreted, or rectification; what (...) the precise meanings of the Chinese character zhi appearing three times in the passage are; and whether it is legitimate to supplement this passage, in light of the recently unearthed ancient Chinese texts, with something to the effect that sons take responsibility for the wrongdoings committed by their parents. (shrink)

The linguistic relativist thesis maintains that there is no neutral ground for different scientific traditions with different theoretic frameworks to communicate rationally, due to the fact that linguistic structure crucially decides the way people think about reality. For quite a long time, historical studies of scientific exchange between East and West have been guided by this thesis. The challenge to this thesis comes from recent studies by Peter Galison, who argues that scientists from different research traditions can communicate rationally in (...) a way similar to the trading exchanges between two countries, in which a local coordination can be reached even if there is a global disagreement about the corresponding word usage in two natural languages. In this paper, I try to show that the concept of trading zone communication provides an interesting and useful theoretical tool to examine how, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, Chinese scientists communicated with and learned Western knowledge from Jesuit scientists by building local coordination among them. In the first section I introduce the basic ideas of Galison's trading zone theory. In the second section I study the metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological differences between Chinese science and Western science. If the linguistic relativist thesis is taken for granted, these differences are likely to lead many historical studies on Jesuit science in China to reach the relativist conclusion. The third section deals with some of the basic concepts of the trading zone theory to explain how local rational communication among Chinese and Jesuit scientists was built and developed. In the last section I argue that Galison's trading zone theory can help us understand how Chinese scientists learned new knowledge from the Jesuits, especially astronomical and mathematical knowledge, despite the global differences between these two research traditions. (shrink)

Vagueness in event times pertains to the observation that one usually finds it difficult to slice the continuous flux of space-time into a series of events with clear-cut temporal boundaries. I argue that such vagueness originates from our ignorance of discrete changing points wherein states of affairs begin or cease to obtain. Applying the epistemic view on vagueness (Williamson 1994) to vagueness in event times, I contend that the lagging nature of knowledge prevents one from knowing the abrupt changes taking (...) place between contiguous minimal time intervals. In turn, vagueness in the conception of event times is construed in terms of epistemic modality (Jaszczolt 2009), viz. a gradation of a thinker’s epistemic certainty towards the occurrence of a physical change. (shrink)

Mononuclear phagocytes (MPs), which consist of dendritic cells, monocytes, and macrophages, are distributed throughout the body and actively eliminate invading microorganisms and abnormal cells. Depending on the local microenvironment, MPs manifest considerably various lifespans and phenotypes to maintain tissue homeostasis. Vascular‐associated mononuclear phagocytes (VaMPs) are the special subsets of MPs that are localized either within the lumen side or on the apical surface of vessels, acting as the critical sentinels to recognize and defend against disseminated tumor cells. In this review, (...) we introduce three major types of VaMPs, patrolling monocytes, Kupffer cells, and perivascular macrophages, and discuss their emerging roles in immunosurveillance during incipient metastasis. We also explore the roles of lineage‐determining transcription factors and cell surface receptors that endow VaMPs with potent anti‐tumor activity. Finally, we highlight the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive the phenotypic plasticity of VaMPs and summarize combinatory strategies for targeting VaMPs in overt metastasis. (shrink)