In order to improve the iris classification rate, a novel biogeography-based optimization algorithm based on local search and nonuniform variation was proposed in this paper. Firstly, the linear migration model was replaced by a hyperbolic cotangent model which was closer to the natural law. And, the local search strategy was added to traditional BBO algorithm migration operation to enhance the global search ability of the algorithm. Then, the nonuniform variation was introduced to enhance the algorithm in the later iteration. The (...) algorithm could achieve a stronger iris classifier by lifting weaker similarity classifiers during the training stage. On this base, the convergence condition of NBBO was proposed by using the Markov chain strategy. Finally, simulation results were given to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed iris classification method. (shrink)

Wang Yangming’s discussions concerning evil mainly appear in two sets of texts, i.e., Chuanxilu 传习录 (Instructions for Practical Living) and gongyi 公移 (documents transferred to vertically unrelated departments). The former addresses evil in metaphysical terms, and the latter in social terms. These subtly different approaches show the nuance between self-cultivation and governance of others.

本书采取“心身互渗”的立场,从仁与乐两个角度阐发万物一体观,在追溯王阳明一体之仁的思想谱系基础上,揭示出一体之仁的六个基本面向,并对王阳明的万物一体论的言说方式进行了反思。.

Wang Yi’s article deals with the role of house churches, that is, unregistered churches. In his evaluation of the different branches of house churches Wang Yi touches upon issues of identity and the future of China, and he also harshly criticizes the Chinese party-state, claiming that “China is becoming a tumor in the world.”.

A fundamental entity is an entity that is ‘ontologically independent’; it does not depend on anything else for its existence or essence. It seems to follow that a fundamental entity is ‘modally free’ in some sense. This assumption, that fundamentality entails modal freedom (or ‘FEMF’ as I shall label the thesis), is used in the service of other arguments in metaphysics. But as I will argue, the road from fundamentality to modal freedom is not so straightforward. The defender of FEMF (...) should provide positive reasons for believing it, especially in light of recent views that are incompatible with it. I examine both direct and indirect routes to FEMF. (shrink)

Inspired by early Confucian texts such as the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi, defenders of Confucian role ethics argue that persons are constituted by their social roles and relationships. However, this has the puzzling implication that persons cannot survive changes in social roles and relationships. This paper proposes ways to understand this claim by appealing to the notions of essence, material constitution, and four-dimensionalism. In particular, it will be suggested that role ethicists should distinguish biological humans from persons and should say (...) either that (i) persons are materially constituted by biological humans, or that (ii) persons are four-dimensional objects that merely overlap with biological humans. There has thus far not been much contact between early Chinese philosophy and contemporary metaphysics in this vein. A secondary goal of this paper is to demonstrate that views in early Chinese philosophy can be examined within frameworks from contemporary metaphysics, and furthermore, that the results include novel theses not yet recognized in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Monoidal t-norm based logic $\mathbf {MTL}$ is the weakest t-norm based residuated fuzzy logic, which is a $[0,1]$ -valued propositional logical system having a t-norm and its residuum as truth function for conjunction and implication. Monadic fuzzy predicate logic $\mathbf {mMTL\forall }$ that consists of the formulas with unary predicates and just one object variable, is the monadic fragment of fuzzy predicate logic $\mathbf {MTL\forall }$, which is indeed the predicate version of monoidal t-norm based logic $\mathbf {MTL}$. The main (...) aim of this paper is to give an algebraic proof of the completeness theorem for monadic fuzzy predicate logic $\mathbf {mMTL\forall }$ and some of its axiomatic extensions. Firstly, we survey the axiomatic system of monadic algebras for t-norm based residuated fuzzy logic and amend some of them, thus showing that the relationships for these monadic algebras completely inherit those for corresponding algebras. Subsequently, using the equivalence between monadic fuzzy predicate logic $\mathbf {mMTL\forall }$ and S5-like fuzzy modal logic $\mathbf {S5(MTL)}$, we prove that the variety of monadic MTL-algebras is actually the equivalent algebraic semantics of the logic $\mathbf {mMTL\forall }$, giving an algebraic proof of the completeness theorem for this logic via functional monadic MTL-algebras. Finally, we further obtain the completeness theorem of some axiomatic extensions for the logic $\mathbf {mMTL\forall }$, and thus give a major application, namely, proving the strong completeness theorem for monadic fuzzy predicate logic based on involutive monoidal t-norm logic $\mathbf {mIMTL\forall }$ via functional representation of finitely subdirectly irreducible monadic IMTL-algebras. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:476 Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Wang Zheng Detention of the Feminist Five in China On March 6 this year, just before International Women’s Day, the Chinese police in Beijing arrested five young women who had engaged in activism to protest sexual harassment on public transportation. The month-long detention of these five young feminists has changed the landscape of Chinese feminism. The (...) global feminist mobilization that emerged to appeal for their release also presents a fascinating example of a successful feminist response to authoritarianism. In this short piece, I open with a few personal snapshots to briefly illustrate the history of Chinese feminist engagement with sexist sexual norms. Next, I will situate the five young feminists’ actions within this historical context in order to illustrate significant changes in Chinese feminist practices as well as in Chinese society. Finally, I will discuss the political implications of the detention of the so-called Feminist Five as well as the global mobilization for their release. In 1985 I came from Shanghai to study US history at the University of California, Davis. I made quite a few American friends in the graduate program. They were very curious about my life in China, and I was very proud of being a liberated woman from socialist China. I acted like an ambassador, talking to different groups about the great accomplishments of women’s liberation under socialism in China. As a young, urban woman I enjoyed equal education, equal employment, equal pay, and equal opportunity for promotion. I had never experienced gender News and Views 477 inequality, I thought. One day I was telling my friends about how I once confronted a thief who had just snatched my wallet on a crowded bus in Shanghai and how I forced him to drop my wallet. My friends were very impressed: “Wow! You were so brave,” they said. A few days later, I happened to mention that on the same crowded Shanghai buses, men would frequently grope women, and my friend asked instantly, “How did you respond to them?” I replied without thinking, “What could I do? I just tried my best to move to another spot to avoid such rascals.” My friend then raised a question that shattered my self-perception as a brave and liberated woman: “Why did you dare to confront a thief but not a sexual harasser?” I answered, “Oh, I would be so ashamed if people around me noticed.” Immediately, I realized that my reply was highly problematic. That conversation set in motion a process of soul searching. Why would a liberated woman still continue to observe the patriarchal value of chastity? Why would women of my generation—the liberated Chinese women in socialist China—have no consciousness of the serious problems contained within these sexual norms? It was not only a personal reflection. From this point, I embarked on a long review and contemplation of women’s liberation in socialist China. I realized that in the realm of sexuality, while state feminists were able to transform the sexual double standard to a single standard for the general public (although some top male leaders continue double standards and engage in extramarital sexual relationships without being punished), puritanical sexual morality did not shake deeply entrenched masculinist cultural values of women’s chastity and virginity. As a result, a liberated woman such as myself could internalize such sexist values with no consciousness, let alone action, focused on changing such sexist culture. In 1992, I attended a conference by the Shanghai Women’s Federation. When a US feminist scholar asked if there were any cases of sexual harassment in China, the Chinese women participants all replied, “No, no, we don’t have sexual harassment.” I stood up and named things that happened to women every day on Shanghai buses as sexual harassment. By then I had long been empowered by my study of feminist history and theories. In 1995, at the NGO forum at the Fourth UN Conference on Women held in Beijing, feminists from inside and outside China openly challenged pervasive sexist sexual norms. Sexual violence and sexual harassment were clearly defined as violations of women’s human rights... (shrink)

Resumen: como la moral más importante del pueblo chino, la piedad filial es una parte importante de la cultura tradicional china y ocupa una posición importante en la historia china. El concepto de piedad filial se originó en la dinastía pre - qin, se desarrolló en las dinastías Xia y Shang y prevaleció en la dinastía Zhou Occidental. Confucio primero propuso el concepto de “piedad filial” en el confucianismo. Combinó la “piedad filial” con la “benevolencia” y enumeró el contenido específico (...) de la “piedad filial”. El pensamiento de piedad filial de Mencio también es una herencia del pensamiento de sus predecesores, que combina la piedad filial con ideas como la “teoría de la bondad sexual” y la “política del rey”. También propuso el estándar de “piedad filial”, que es un mayor desarrollo de la “piedad filial” en la dinastía pre - qin. Este artículo intenta comenzar con el pensamiento de piedad filial de algunos representantes del confucianismo pre - qin, analizar el contenido, el desarrollo y la influencia del pensamiento de piedad filial, y analizar el papel y la importancia de la “piedad filial” en la sociedad actual. (shrink)

This study validated the school psychological capital scale in the Chinese context and examined the predictive effect of PsyCap resources on academic engagement and achievement emotions. Self-report data for PsyCap resources, student engagement, enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom toward English learning were collected from 1,000 sophomores. Item-level analyses and confirmatory factor analysis were used to verify the validity of the school PsyCap scale, and structural equation modeling was applied to reveal the predictive effect of school PsyCap resources on academic engagement and (...) achievement emotions. Results showed that the school PsyCap scale retained superior psychometric properties. Besides, PsyCap resources were demonstrated to have a positive relationship to academic engagement and enjoyment, and a negative relationship to anxiety and boredom. The effectiveness of the school PsyCap scale was verified among Chinese college students, and besides the traditional predictors, school PsyCap is also critically important for students’ academic engagement and achievement emotions. Limitations and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Binarizing belief aggregation tackles the problem of aggregating individuals’ probabilistic beliefs on logically connected propositions into the group’s binary beliefs. One common approach to associating probabilistic beliefs with binary beliefs would be applying thresholds to probabilities. This paper aims to introduce and classify a range of threshold-based binarizing belief aggregation rules while characterizing them based on different forms of monotonicity and other properties.

In this paper, we propose a decidable single-agent modal logic for reasoning about goal-directed “knowing how”, based on ideas from linguistics, philosophy, modal logic, and automated planning in AI. We first define a modal language to express “I know how to guarantee \ given \” with a semantics based not on standard epistemic models but on labeled transition systems that represent the agent’s knowledge of his own abilities. The semantics is inspired by conformant planning in AI. A sound and complete (...) proof system is given to capture valid reasoning patterns, which highlights the compositional nature of “knowing how”. The logical language is further extended to handle knowing how to achieve a goal while maintaining other conditions. (shrink)

This study investigated the impact of transformational leadership on affective organizational commitment and job performance with the mediating role of employee engagement. This study gathered data from 845 hotel employees in China and the structural equation modeling technique was used to verify the results. The findings indicated that transformational leadership has a positive effect on affective organizational commitment and job performance. Meanwhile, results showed that employee engagement partially mediates in the relationship between transformational leadership, affective organizational commitment, and job performance. (...) This study contributes to the research on transformational leadership in the Chinese hospitality sector and analyzes its effects on work performance metrics. Furthermore, theoretical and practical implications were also discussed in this article. (shrink)

Love is often seen as the most intimate aspect of our lives, but it is increasingly engineered by a few programmers with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Nowadays, numerous dating platforms are deploying so-called smart algorithms to identify a greater number of potential matches for a user. These AI-enabled matchmaking systems, driven by a rich trove of data, can not only predict what a user might prefer but also deeply shape how people choose their partners. This paper draws on Jürgen Habermas’s “colonization (...) of the lifeworld” thesis to critically explore the insidious influence of delegating romantic decision-making to an algorithm. The love lifeworld is colonized inasmuch as online dating algorithms encroach into our romantic relations to the extent that communicative action within romance is replaced by the technocratic rules of an algorithm. (shrink)

This paper reconciles an inconsistency between the benefits of mind wandering and a prominent conception of attention in philosophy and cognitive psychology, namely, the prioritization view. Since we prioritize the information in a task less if we are doing it while mind wandering compared to solely concentrating on it, why does our performance in the task sometimes improve when we are mind wandering? To explain this, we offer a conception of diffuse attention that generalizes from external to internal forms of (...) attention and captures deep commonalities between the two (Chun et al. 2011). We conceptualize mind wandering as an instance of internal diffuse attention that also induces diffuse attention in other concurrent tasks. Moreover, pace the prioritization view, certain tasks are in fact better performed with diffuse attention, which prioritizes information less than focused attention. Our account of mind wandering as an instance of the more general category of diffuse attention improves upon current leading philosophical views of mind wandering (such as Irving 2016) by better explaining the interaction between mind wandering and other tasks. (shrink)

Properties seem to play an important role in causal relations. But philosophers disagree over whether or not properties play their causal or nomic roles essentially. Causal essentialists say that they do, while quidditists deny it. This article surveys these two views, as well as views that try to find a middle ground.

In this article, we explicate evidence-based nursing (EBN), critically appraise its framework and respond to nurses’ concern that EBN sidelines the caring elements of nursing practice. We use resources from care ethics, especially Vrinda Dalmiya’s work that considers care as crucial for both epistemology and ethics, to show how EBN is compatible with, and indeed can be enhanced by, the caring aspects of nursing practice. We demonstrate that caring can act as a bridge between ‘external’ evidence and the other pillars (...) of the EBN framework: clinical expertise; patient preferences and values. Drawing on an influential EBN handbook, section 1 presents the aims and features of EBN, including the normative principle that EBN should take place within a ‘context of caring’. We aim to understand this context and whether it can be neatly detached from the EBN framework, as the handbook seems to suggest. In section 2, we highlight the grounds for resistance to EBN from the nursing community, before mounting the argument that nursing practices can be understood fruitfully through feminist care ethics and/or virtue ethics lenses. In section 3, we deepen that analysis using Dalmiya’s concepts of care-knowing and care as a hybrid ethico-epistemic virtue, which are ideally suited to the complex practices of nursing. In section 4, we bring this rich understanding of care into conversation with EBN, showing that its framework cannot be adequately theorised without paying proper attention to care. Caring can be neither an innocuous background assumption of nor an afterthought to the EBN framework. (shrink)

Cet article retrace les changements intervenus au sein du militantisme féministe chinois dans un climat de détérioration politique deux décennies après la Quatrième Conférence mondiale sur les femmes (QCMF) en 1995. Il met en lumière les actions novatrices menées par les jeunes féministes, de même que l’intense surveillance qu’exerce, sur le militantisme organisé, un État totalitaire qui craint de perdre son pouvoir. Bien que la sphère publique et le cyber espace ne laissent guère beaucoup de place à l’activisme, les féministes (...) chinoises se sont mobilisées pour continuer d’expérimenter de nouvelles façons d’exiger l’égalité de genre et de poursuivre des transformations sociales et culturelles. (shrink)

This paper explores Kant’s account of propositional content and its implications for the relationship between his notions of knowledge (Wissen) and cognition (Erkenntnis). While previous commentators commonly read Kant as holding a Fregean theory of propositional content, in this paper I argue that Kant’s theory of propositional content aligns more closely with Peter Hanks’ recent account. According to my reading, Kant holds that individual acts of judging are both ontologically and explanatorily prior to propositions or Kantian judgments (Urteil). Furthermore, on (...) my reading, acts of judging for Kant are acts of assertively predicating a property of an object rather than merely acts of neutral predication. This reading challenges the lately popular view that Kant’s notions of knowledge and cognition are not only distinct but also disjunct. I instead suggest that we should regard Kantian knowledge that requires cognitions as its grounds as a species of Kantian cognitions. (shrink)

This paper endeavors to appraise scholarly works from the 1940s to the contemporary era, examining the scientific quest to transpose human cognition and consciousness into a digital surrogate, while contemplating the potential ramifications should humanity attain such an abstract level of intellect. The discourse commences with an explication of theories concerning consciousness, progressing to the Turing Test apparatus, and intersecting with Damasio’s research on the human cerebrum, particularly in relation to consciousness, thereby establishing congruence between the Turing Test and Damasio’s (...) notions of consciousness. Subsequently, the narrative traverses the evolutionary chronology of transmuting human cognition into machine sapience, and delves into the fervent endeavors to metamorphose human minds into synthetic counterparts. Additionally, theoretical perspectives from the domains of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience provide insight into the constraints intrinsic to AI implementations, contentious hypotheses, the perils concealed within artificial networks, and the ethical considerations necessitated by AI frameworks. Furthermore, contemplation of prospective repercussions facilitates the refinement of strategic approaches to safeguard our future Augmented Age Realities within AI, circumventing the prospect of inhabiting an intimidating technopolis where a mere 30% monopolize the intellect and ingenuity of the remaining 70% of human minds. (shrink)

This article argues for an alternative interpretation of the happy fish scene in The Zhuangzi: the fish are not happy. The fish undergo an unpleasant experience while the philosophers debate animatedly over the joy of the fish. The dramatization of the fish scene compels us to contemplate anthropocentrism and species communication. Moreover, the contrast between the fish-bird becoming and the subsequent human narrations reinforces the anthropocentric usurpation of nonhuman agency. To get away from anthropocentrism, Zhuangzi proposes a posthumanist approach to (...) deal with species communication in three interconnected stages: to acknowledge the limits of human cognition, to forget anthropocentric prejudice, and to de-obscure childlike innocence. (shrink)

Action video game (AVG) has attracted increasing attention from both the public and from researchers. More and more studies found video game training improved a variety of cognitive functions. However, it remains controversial whether healthy adults can benefit from AVG training, and whether young and older adults benefit similarly from AVG training. In the present study, we aimed to quantitatively assess the AVG training effect on the cognitive ability of adults and to compare the training effects on young and older (...) adults by conducting a meta-analysis on previous findings. We systematically searched video game training studies published between January 1986 and July 2015. Twenty studies were included in the present meta-analysis, for a total of 313 participants included in the training group and 323 participants in the control group. The results demonstrate that healthy adults achieve moderate benefit from AVG training in overall cognitive ability and moderate to small benefit in specific cognitive domains. In contrast, young adults gain more benefits from AVG training than older adults in both overall cognition and specific cognitive domains. Age, education, and some methodological factors, such as the session duration, session number, total training duration, and control group type, modulated the training effects. These meta-analytic findings provide evidence that AVG training may serve as an efficient way to improve the cognitive performance of healthy adults. We also discussed several directions for future AVG training studies. (shrink)

This paper has two main objectives. The first is to revitalize the notion of postmodern Confucianism after an interval of two decades by reviewing the early encounters between postmodern philosophy...

By rethinking the meaning of a central idiom in the Great Learning, this essay intends to open up a new horizon for the hermeneutics of early Confucian thinking, which has little to do with metaphysics. Through a careful etymological study of ge wu and a dialogue between the Great Learning and Heidegger's phenomenology of human affection, I demonstrate the critical position of the human heart in early Chinese thinking. This new interpretation of early Confucian moral teachings also recovers an invigorating (...) possibility for contemporary discourse on the question of ethics. (shrink)

The increasing importance of computational techniques in post-genomic life science research calls for new forms and combinations of expertise that cut across established disciplinary boundaries between computing and biology. These are most marked in large scale gene sequencing facilities. Here new ways of organising knowledge production, drawing on industrial models, have been perceived as pursuing efficiency and control to the potential detriment of academic autonomy and scientific quality. We explore how these issues are played out in the case of BGI (...) (Beijing Genomics Institute prior to 2008). BGI (in Pinyin, Hua Da Jiyin– Big China Genome) is today the world’s largest centre for gene sequencing research. Semi-detached from traditional academic institutions, BGI has developed distinctive models for organising research and for developing expertise, informed by practices in US Information Technology and Life Science Laboratories, that differ from existing models of interdisciplinary research in academic institutions. (shrink)

The problem of ‘transcendence’/‘transcendental’/ ‘transcendent’ runs throughout Heidegger’s Being and Time, and it is central to many of its core concerns. The confusion about the different meanings of using the same words in the history of philosophy from Kant to Heidegger causes not only problems in understanding but also problems in the translation of the philosophical classics, especially in a non-Indo-European language such as Chinese. Through examination of Kant’s conception of the ‘transcendental’ and a critical textual analysis of Heidegger’s reinterpretation (...) of ‘transcendence’ as a temporal ecstatic Dasein’s existence, this essay attempts to show that the problem of transcendence, along with the debates over the Chinese translation of the relevant terms, is not merely a problem in a traditional theory of knowledge or epistemology. Rather, it belongs primarily and essentially to fundamental ontology and thus to Heidegger’s question of Being. (shrink)

Resumen: La variación lingüística es un fenómeno presente en casi todos los idiomas. Su interés para los estudios traductológicos es incuestionable. En el presente trabajo pretendemos investigar cómo se resuelven los problemas que plantea la variación lingüística para la traducción literaria chino-español. Con tal objetivo, hemos elegido la obra La casa de té y sus dos versiones de español como corpus de análisis. Partiendo de la hipótesis de que en la traducción de los elementos de la variación lingüística de esta (...) obra se recurre a la estandarización como solución traductora preferente, hemos analizado el corpus para obtener datos tanto cualitativos como cuantitativos. Los resultados nos permiten confirmar la hipótesis general, así como identificar las características específicas y problemas que presenta la traducción de la variación lingüística del chino al español. Abstract: Linguistic variation is a phenomenon present in almost all languages. Its importance for translation studies is unquestionable. In this paper, we intend to investigate how the problems posed by linguistic variation are solved for Chinese-Spanish literary translation. To this end, we have chosen the work Teahouse and its two Spanish versions as the corpus of analysis. Based on the hypothesis that in the translation of the elements of linguistic variation in this work, standardization is used as the preferred translation solution, we analyzed the corpus to obtain both qualitative and quantitative data. The results allow us to confirm the general hypothesis, as well as to identify the specific characteristics and problems presented by the translation of linguistic variation from Chinese into Spanish. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, I shall briefly examine the basic characteristics of Confucian familial morality, especially of the concept of filial piety, and argue that ancient Confucians tend to be conservative on allowing breach of filial obligations although they may not entirely exclude particular considerations to exceptional situations to a certain degree. I shall then argue that this conservative aspect of the Confucian idea of filial piety accurately captures some distinctive features of familial relationships and may thus shed light on our (...) understanding of the ethical nature of human family life and our philosophical investigation of familial ethics. (shrink)

The art of traditional painting and ceramic painting in China has a long tradition, in particular in understanding the role of color in the compositional and semantic structure. The principles of creating a color image have long been associated with national peculiarities of perception of shades and their combinations, as well as philosophical ideas. Technological features and properties of glazes imposed certain restrictions on the use of expressive possibilities of color by Chinese ceramic artists. The object of this research is (...) the works of Chinese painting and ceramics, the subject is the principles of color formation in these arts. Particular attention is paid to identifying similarities in approaches to color transfer in paintings and ceramics. The author's special contribution to the study of the problem is an attempt to characterize and compare the role of color in the art of Chinese painting and ceramic painting. The article defines a number of general principles of correlation and harmonization of colors in the two arts. The traditions of the color formation of works of various epochs are traced, the peculiarities of their evolution are established, the colors characteristic of painting and painting ceramics of different historical periods are revealed. The article examines the essence and symbolism of different colors, which are based on national philosophical and cultural ideas. The conclusion is made about the significance of the color image and color formation for the works of ceramics and painting in China. (shrink)

Le mot 社群 ( she qun, communauté, au sens de la Gemeinschaft allemande) n’était certes pas une problématique traditionnellement confucéenne. La compréhension éthique générale de la Chine antique reposait sur 三纲五常 ( san gang wu chang ; les trois disciplines et les cinq justes relations interpersonnelles). Les religions, associations et académies non dominantes étaient plus proches du concept de communauté. Les concepts occidentaux modernes de la sociologie ont été introduits pour la première fois en Chine à la fin du xix (...) e siècle, mais les intellectuels les comprenaient certes différemment, en fonction des valeurs traditionnelles locales, et en réponse à la nécessité de renforcer l’État chinois. L’idée moderne de communauté et le concept de société avec lequel on la contrastait n’ont été popularisés en Chine qu’à l’époque de l’industrialisation, à partir de la fin des années 1970. (shrink)