Researchers have long been interested in how owners affect firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. However, owners face diverging ethical preferences between funding and potentially benefiting from their firms’ CSR performance. To better understand owners’ influence on firms’ CSR performance, we focus on ultimate controlling owners with the highest control rights over their firms. We theorize that ultimate controlling owners with more control rights have stronger motivations and greater decision-making power to promote firms’ CSR performance to demonstrate that they are (...) responsible owners and gain legitimacy and goodwill from their stakeholders. Moreover, we explore how this positive relationship is strengthened when ultimate controlling owners and their firms share similar corporate names and receive increased financial analyst coverage, as these conditions increase the likelihood of gaining legitimacy and goodwill through their firms’ improved CSR performance. We test our theory using a sample of 852 publicly listed Chinese firms from 2008 to 2017. Our findings support our theoretical predictions and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how differences in ownership structure and owner type associated with ultimate controlling owners shape their motives and power to affect CSR performance in their firms. (shrink)

Resumo: Paul Lengrand escreveu extensivamente sobre a filosofia da educação física, ao longo de sua vida. Esses trabalhos foram meticulosamente coletados, categorizados e sintetizados. De acordo com um estudo perceptivo, a postura vitalícia de Paul Lengrand sobre a filosofia da educação física foi significativamente influenciada por seu histórico singular, demandas sociais e interações interpessoais. Além disso, foi revelado que sua visão sobre a filosofia da educação física era uma extensão de seu profundo compromisso com a filosofia da educação, no decorrer (...) da vida, ao mesmo tempo que a aprimorava e refinava. A educação física e o esporte são conteúdos importantes da educação física, ao longo da vida. O esporte não deve ser visto como uma atividade muscular, mas deve ser combinado com a situação atual, moral e arte, e o período deve ser integrado com a educação, durante a vida. Centrada inequivocamente em torno de abraçar o exercício físico em todos os momentos da existência humana, a educação física foi considerada como uma dimensão indispensável da vida que exemplifica a durabilidade, a progressão gradual e a abrangência da filosofia da educação física, ao longo da vida. (shrink)

Based on conversations between 10 Chinese children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and five therapists in the context of Naturalistic Intervention, this study investigated the therapists’ agreement expressions in this typical setting. The study found that the therapists mainly used four agreement strategies: acknowledgment, positive evaluation, repetition and blending. These four strategies could be used individually or in combination. The first three strategies and their combinations were used frequently during the therapeutic conversation. With the major occurrences in the post-expansion position, the (...) agreement expressions in the therapeutic conversation mainly performed three functions, namely, creating a supportive therapeutic relationship, serving as positive reinforcers and implementing interventions pertinent to communication skills. This study proposed that the therapists’ preferred use of agreement expressions in the intervention process could be explained by the features of Naturalistic Intervention. (shrink)

Parallel attribute reduction is one of the most important topics in current research on rough set theory. Although some parallel algorithms were well documented, most of them are still faced with some challenges for effectively dealing with the complex heterogeneous data including categorical and numerical attributes. Aiming at this problem, a novel attribute reduction algorithm based on neighborhood multigranulation rough sets was developed to process the massive heterogeneous data in the parallel way. The MapReduce-based parallelization method for attribute reduction was (...) proposed in the framework of neighborhood multigranulation rough sets. To improve the reduction efficiency, the hashing Map/Reduce functions were designed to speed up the positive region calculation. Thereafter, a quick parallel attribute reduction algorithm using MapReduce was developed. The effectiveness and superiority of this parallel algorithm were demonstrated by theoretical analysis and comparison experiments. (shrink)

We describe Peirce’s 1903 system of modal gamma graphs, its transformation rules of inference, and the interpretation of the broken-cut modal operator. We show that Peirce proposed the normality rule in his gamma system. We then show how various normal modal logics arise from Peirce’s assumptions concerning the broken-cut notation. By developing an algebraic semantics we establish the completeness of fifteen modal logics of gamma graphs. We show that, besides logical necessity and possibility, Peirce proposed an epistemic interpretation of the (...) broken-cut modality, and that he was led to analyze constructions of knowledge in the style of epistemic logic. (shrink)

This article investigates Charles Peirce’s development of logical calculi for classical propositional logic in 1880–1896. Peirce’s 1880 work on the algebra of logic resulted in a successful calculus for Boolean algebra. This calculus, denoted byPC, is here presented as a sequent calculus and not as a natural deduction system. It is shown that Peirce’s aim was to presentPCas a sequent calculus. The law of distributivity, which Peirce states in 1880, is proved using Peirce’s Rule, which is a residuation, inPC. The (...) transitional systems of the algebra of the copula that Peirce develops since 1880 paved the way to the 1896 graphical system of the alpha graphs. It is shown how the rules of the alpha system reinterpret Boolean algebras, answering Peirce’s statement that logical graphs supply a new system of fundamental assumptions to logical algebra. A proof-theoretic analysis is given for the connection betweenPCand the alpha system. (shrink)

We present a dynamic approach to Peirce’s original construal of abductive logic as a logic of conjecture making, and provide a new decidable, contraction-free and cut-free proof system for the dynamic logic of abductive inferences with neighborhood semantics. Our formulation of the dynamic logic of abduction follows the philosophical and scientific track that led Peirce to his late, post-1903 characterization of abductive conclusions as investigands, namely invitations to investigate propositions conjectured at the level of pre-beliefs.

This study explores the research paradigms of contemporary business ethics research in 2001–2008. With citation data from the top two business ethics journals included in the Social Sciences Citation Index, this study conducts citation and co-citation analysis to identify the most important publications, scholars, and research themes in the business ethics area and then maps the intellectual structure of business ethics studies between 2001 and 2008. The results show that current business ethics studies cluster around four major research themes, including (...) morality and social contract theory, ethical decision making, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder theory. This study helps profile the invisible network of knowledge production in business ethics and provides important insights on current research paradigms of business ethics studies. (shrink)

This paper carries out an intensive study of Heidegger's famous reflection on the word dao and of his citations from the Daodejing, with the purpose of elucidating his complex relation with Daoist thinking. First I examine whether dao could be said to be a guideword for Heidegger's path of thinking. Then I discuss Heidegger's citations, in six places of his writings, from five chapters of the Daodejing, by situating them in the immediate textual context as well as against the broad (...) background of the fundamental presuppositions and orientations of Heidegger and Laozi's thinking. My examination of Heidegger's citations from the Daodejing has for the first time gathered together all the relevant materials discovered so far. (shrink)

Every Berman’s variety \ which is the subvariety of Ockham algebras defined by the equation \ and \) determines a finitary substitution invariant consequence relation \. A sequent system \ is introduced as an axiomatization of the consequence relation \. The system \ is characterized by a single finite frame \ under the frame semantics given for the formal language. By the duality between frames and algebras, \ can be viewed as a \-valued logic as it is characterized by a (...) distributive lattice of \ elements with a unary operator. Moreover, a structural-rule-free, cut-free and terminating sequent system \ is established for \. The Craig interpolation property of \ is shown proof-theoretically utilizing \. (shrink)

This study provides a general overview of contemporary business ethics research of the last 10 years (1997-2006) and discusses potential future research directions in business ethics based on the overview. Using citation and co-citation analysis, this study examined the citation data of journal articles, books, and other publications collected in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), wherein key research themes in business ethics studies in 1997—2006 and correlations between these themes were explored. The results show that major research themes in (...) business ethics have shifted in the last decade from research on ethical decision making and on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate performance to research on stakeholder theory in business ethics and on the relationship between consumer behavior and corporate social responsibility. The results of this study help map the invisible network of knowledge production in business ethics research and provide important insights on future business ethics research. (shrink)

How did human vocalizations come to acquire meaning in the evolution of our species? Charles Darwin proposed that language and music originated from a common emotional signal system based on the imitation and modification of sounds in nature. This protolanguage is thought to have diverged into two separate systems, with speech prioritizing referential functionality and music prioritizing emotional functionality. However, there has never been an attempt to empirically evaluate the hypothesis that a single communication system can split into two functionally (...) distinct systems that are characterized by music- and languagelike properties. Here, we demonstrate that when referential and emotional functions are introduced into an artificial communication system, that system will diverge into vocalization forms with speech- and music-like properties, respectively. Participants heard novel vocalizations as part of a learning task. Half referred to physical entities and half functioned to communicate emotional states. Participants then reproduced each sound with the defined communicative intention in mind. Each recorded vocalization was used as the input for another participant in a serial reproduction paradigm, and this procedure was iterated to create 15 chains of five participants each. Referential vocalizations were rated as more speech-like, whereas emotional vocalizations were rated as more music-like, and this association was observed cross-culturally. In addition, a stable separation of the acoustic profiles of referential and emotional vocalizations emerged, with some attributes diverging immediately and others diverging gradually across iterations. The findings align with Darwin’s hypothesis and provide insight into the roles of biological and cultural evolution in the divergence of language and music. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas are inescapable components of business negotiations. It is thus important for negotiators to understand the differences in what is ethically appropriate and what is not. This study explores the cross-cultural differences in business ethics between Canada and China by examining the perceived appropriateness of five categories of ethically questionable strategies often used in business negotiations. The results show that the Chinese are more likely to consider it appropriate to use ethically inappropriate negotiation strategies, but the impact of cultural (...) values on ethically inappropriate negotiation strategies is much stronger in Canada than in China when negotiators choose to use these strategies. In addition, there are more gender differences in Canada, where men are more likely to consider it appropriate to use ethically questionable strategies in all five categories than women; while in China no gender differences are found in the perceived appropriateness of using these strategies in all but one category. Implications are also discussed along with potential future research directions. (shrink)

Finance ethics have drawn increasing attention from both government regulators and academic researchers. This paper addresses the issue of insider trading ethics. Previous studies on insider trading ethics have failed to provide convincing arguments and consistent results. In particular, the arguments against insider trading are based primarily on moral and philosophical grounds and lack empirical rigor. This study intends to establish and examine the relationship between the ethical issue and economic issue of insider trading. We argue that the ethics of (...) insider trading is in essence an economic rather than a moral issue. It is so far not clear to what extent insider trading may increase or decrease shareholders wealth. Until then, we must take care to avoid over-regulating insider trading. (shrink)

Since learners’ academic achievement is the ultimate goal of any system of education, multitudes of studies have been conducted on this variable and its determinants. That is, several scholars have explored the effects of student-related and teacher-related factors on learners’ academic achievement. Notwithstanding, a few researchers have investigated the effects of teachers’ self-efficacy and creativity on learners’ academic achievement. Furthermore, no study has reviewed the role of these teacher-related factors in learners’ achievement. Therefore, the present study seeks to bridge the (...) lacunas by delving into the influence of teachers’ self-efficacy and creativity on English as a Foreign Language learners’ academic achievement. The beneficial effects of self-efficacy beliefs and creative teaching were outlined through the existing evidence. This seems to be illuminative for EFL teachers. Given the positive consequences of teachers’ self-efficacy for students’ achievement, EFL teachers should believe in themselves and their abilities to lead their students to academic success. Additionally, with regard to the positive impact of teachers’ creativity on learners’ achievement, EFL teachers are expected to teach the course content creatively. (shrink)

School administrators are mandated to take the instructional leadership roles. On this premise, a study assessed the extent of instructional leadership practices of public elementary school administrators in El Salvador City Division, Philippines. Also, it explored their actual practices, challenges encountered, and the ways they overcome the challenges in practicing instructional leadership. It employed a mixed-method research design. It administered the adopted assessment tool on instructional leadership to 15 school administrators and 12 of them were involved in the individual interviews. (...) This was conducted between the last quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the extent of instructional leadership practices. Also, it analyzed the actual practices, the challenges encountered, and the ways of overcoming these challenges using thematic narrative analysis. Results revealed that public school administrators have always practiced the four domains or strands of instructional leadership to a very high extent. Providing the technical assistance, conducting clinical supervision, and innovating teaching and learning emerged as themes of their actual practices. These administrators had encountered challenges in dealing with teachers’ attitudes, conflicting schedules and activities, and teachers’ resistance to changes. They overcome the challenges by trying to meet the competency standards, adapting and modifying the existing programs, contextualizing teaching and learning, and inculcating the value and benefits of class observation. Looking at the findings from the lens of deliberate practice theory, it was concluded that school administrators have indicated they have acquired knowledge and a high level of understanding of their instructional leadership roles. But despite of this, they still met challenges and have tried their best to manage them. This study presented some doable and practical recommendations to the Department of Education (DepEd) and concerned offices which may benefit both the internal and external stakeholders of the schools. (shrink)

Although the proliferation of empirical research has documented the association between parental control and school adjustment, findings of this linkage are still inconclusive. Moreover, fewer efforts have been made to address this association in middle school students. Guided by an ecological framework, the current study aimed to integrate the conflicting findings into a coherent body of knowledge, paying particular attention to two research purposes: (a) to examine the association between parental control and three objective indicators of school adjustment (social competence, (...) academic grades, and peer acceptance) and (b) to explore whether this association was moderated by individual characteristics of social identity and grit. A total of 120 Chinese middle school students (42.5% females) aged between 13 and 15 years old were recruited for this study, and research data were gathered from multiple sources. To be specific, students were asked to complete a set of self-report questionnaires concerning parental control, social identity, and grit. Meanwhile, school-related social competence was rated by head teachers; academic grades were obtained from school records; and peer acceptance was assessed by sociometric nominations. The results from hierarchical regression analyses showed that parental control was negatively associated with academic grades. Moreover, when reporting higher levels of social identity, parental control was negatively related to social competence and peer acceptance for those students with lower levels of grit. Our findings suggest that parental control can dampen middle school students’ academic performance, and low levels of grit can magnify the detrimental effect of parental control on social competence and peer acceptance in middle school students who regard themselves as closely connected to social groups. (shrink)

In this study, we propose and test the relationship between CSR and firm financial performance, how this relationship differs between firms led by CEOs with political connections and those led by CEOs without political connections, and how this relationship differs between state-owned firms and nonstate-owned firms. Based on a sample of 1645 Chinese listed firms during the period 2011 and 2020 (inclusive), we find that CSR has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm financial performance. As the level of CSR increases (...) from slight to moderate, CSR is positively related to firm performance; as the level of CSR increases from moderate to great, CSR is negatively related to firm financial performance. Additionally, we find that this inverted U-shaped relationship differs between firms led by CEOs with political connections and those led by CEOs without political connections and differs between state-owned firms and nonstate-owned firms. That is, both the synergic effect (positive effect) of CSR on firm financial performance when the level of CSR is low and the competitive effect (negative effect) of CSR on firm financial performance when the CSR is high are more pronounced for firms led by CEOs without political connections and nonstate-owned firms than for firms led by CEOs with political connections and state-owned firms. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

A finitely alternative normal tense logic \ is a normal tense logic characterized by frames in which every point has at most n future alternatives and m past alternatives. The structure of the lattice \\) is described. There are \ logics in \\) without the finite model property, and only one pretabular logic in \\). There are \ logics in \\) which are not finitely axiomatizable. For \, there are \ logics in \\) without the FMP, and infinitely many pretabular (...) extensions of \. (shrink)

From the tape-recording of naturally occurring Chinese psychotherapy sessions, this article explores how repeated occurrences of resistance are managed in the course of interactional sequences and the participants’ actions within these sequences. By employing the methods of conversation analysis, we discuss the main discursive strategies employed by the clients to express their resistance and investigate how the therapist manages this. We find that clients show their resistance to the therapist’s questions in four ways: keeping silence, providing minimal response, making non-answer (...) responses, and being over-talkative. Persistent asking is the main technique we identify in the data for the therapist to manage the resistance; in the meantime, asking questions in a stepwise way, making requests after facing resistance to questions, active retreating and reformulating of the client’s words are employed as subsidiary techniques. The successful management of resistance leads to a smooth sequential development of the psychotherapy, while inappropriate strategies might result in a halt or even breakdown of the therapeutic work. In psychotherapy, resistance is a result of the shared interaction between client and therapist. It is such a complex issue that, in order to understand and manage it, we also take into consideration the broader social and cultural context in which it occurs. (shrink)

Objective: To investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment, psychological capital, job involvement, and the retention intention of kindergarten teachers in mainland China and the internal mechanism of action.Methods: A total of 554 kindergarten teachers were investigated by scales for psychological empowerment, psychological capital, job involvement, and retention intention.Results: Psychological empowerment was positively correlated with psychological capital and job involvement. Psychological capital was positively correlated with job involvement. Psychological empowerment, psychological capital, and job involvement were significantly and positively correlated with retention (...) intention. Psychological empowerment influences kindergarten teachers' retention intention mainly through three indirect effects: the single intermediary effects of psychological capital and job involvement and the chain intermediary effect of psychological capital → job involvement.Conclusion: Psychological empowerment can not only indirectly predict the retention intention of kindergarten teachers through the single intermediary effects of psychological capital and job involvement, but also indirectly predict the retention intention of kindergarten teachers through the chain intermediary effect of psychological capital and job involvement. (shrink)

In this paper I have two main aims. My first aim is to introduce the notion of bounded emotionality. This notion is the analogue of that of bounded rationality in behavioural economics. Bounded rationality says, roughly, that human beings are cognitively limited with respect to their processing and memory capacities. Bounded emotionality says that we are limited in our emotional capabilities, notably in the intensity, duration, and possible combinations of our emotional states. Bounded rationality is a foundational notion in behavioural (...) economics and has played an important role in various fields of philosophy as well. In particular, in epistemology bounded rationality has been thought to have implications with respect to our doxastic norms. My second aim in this paper is to suggest that bounded emotionality also has an important role to play in philosophy. As a case in point, I discuss the implications that bounded emotionality has for our doxastic norms. In particular, I argue that one is not obligated to believe something or to stop holding a belief if one could not believe/fail to believe it without having an emotional response that exceeds one's bounded emotional capacities. (shrink)

This study tests the hypothesis that the perception of philosophy as a male-oriented discipline contributes to the pronounced gender disparity within the field. To assess the hypothesis, we determined the extent to which individuals view philosophy as masculine, and whether individual differences in this correspond with greater identification with philosophy. We also tested whether identification with philosophy correlated to interest in it. We discovered, first, that the more women view philosophy as masculine, the less they identify with it, and second, (...) that the less women identify with philosophy, the less they want to major in it. Interestingly, this result does not hold for men—their viewing philosophy as masculine does not correspond to their identification with it, nor does it correlate with their likelihood of majoring in it. We also discovered that the typical student does not have a preconceived notion of philosophy as masculine; this suggests that they come to view philosophy as masculine the more they do it, which in turn supports the possibility that teaching the discipline differently may prevent students from conceiving of philosophy as masculine, thus allowing a path to reducing the gender disparity. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence -powered products have started to permeate various spheres of our lives. One of the most controversial of such products is the sex robot, an application of the AI-integrated robotic technology in the domain of human sexual gratification. The aim of this research is to understand the general public’s receptiveness towards this controversial new invention. Drawing upon the social intuitionist model, we find that the fear of AI, emblematic of the broader anxiety of technology’s encroachment on the human sphere, (...) shapes the public’s receptiveness to sex robots. Perceived substitutability of sex robots for human-to-human sexual interactions mediates this relationship. Religiosity is found to moderate this mediated relationship. Our findings are first established with a cross-sectional study. A “big data” field study further validates them. The present research is one of the first empirical studies to examine the underlying psychology of the public’s receptiveness to sex robots. By doing so, we aim to provide relevant government and industry bodies with a better understanding of this important topic for more informed policy making, and to raise awareness of the significant social and ethical implications should sex robots become widely accepted and adopted. (shrink)

Peirce wrote in late 1901 a text on formal logic using a special Dragon-Head and Dragon-Tail notation in order to express the relation of logical consequence and its properties. These texts have not been referred to in the literature before. We provide a complete reconstruction and transcription of these previously unpublished sets of manuscript sheets and analyse their main content. In the reconstructed text, Peirce is seen to outline both a general theory of deduction and a general theory of consequence (...) relation. The two are the cornerstones of modern logic and have played a crucial role in its development. From the wider perspective, Peirce is led to these theories by three important generalizations: propositions to all signs, truth to scriptibility, and derivation to transformability. We provide an exposition of such proposed semiotic foundation for logical constants and point out a couple of further innovations in this rare text, including the sheet of assertion, correction as a dual of deduction and the nature of conditionals as variably strict conditionals. (shrink)

We argue that all general concepts are family resemblance concepts. These include concepts introduced by ostension, such as colour. Concepts of colour and of each of the specific colours are family resemblance concepts because similarities concerning an open-ended range of colour or of appearance features crop up and disappear. After discussing the notion of “same colour” and Wittgenstein's use of the phrase “our colours”, we suggest family resemblance concepts in one tradition can often be extended to family resemblance concepts in (...) another tradition, illustrated by Wittgenstein's use of the words Spiel and “game”. (shrink)

The tendency of customers’ preference to their local brands over the foreign ones is known as the consumer ethnocentrism, and it is one of the important issues in international marketing. This study aims at identifying the behavioral and neural correlates of Consumer Ethnocentrism in the field of brand preference by using Event-Related Potential (ERP). We sampled subjects from two ethnic groups, the Chinese ethnic group and the sub-Sahara black Africans group from the Zhejiang University. The subjects faced two sequential stimuli, (...) S1 followed by S2. The S1 consisted of 40 pictures of 20 Chinese and 20 Africans black peoples wearing traditional clothes, and S2 consisted of 40 fake brand-logos which were divided randomly into two groups of 20 each. The subjects were informed that the people in the S1 purchased and recommended the products with the brand-logos presented in S2, and the subjects were asked to rate their preference degree toward these logos. The brand-logos were called the “in-group recommended logos” if the recommender in S1 were the same race as the subjects, otherwise, the “out-group recommended logos”.The results revealed that the race of the brand-logo recommender highly impacted the Chinese subjects’ preference for the brand-logos. The N200 component elicited by in-group recommended logos were significantly lower than those elicited by out-group recommended logos. Besides, there was evidence that being familiar with foreign cultures reduces consumer ethnocentrism. The African subjects were familiar with Chinese people and adopted Chinese culture, as a result, they did not differ in showing preferences between in-group and out-group recommended logos. (shrink)

Peirce introduced Existential Graphs in late 1896, and they were systematically investigated in his 1903 Lowell Lectures. Alpha graphs for classical propositional logic constitute the first part of EGs. The second and the third parts are the beta graphs for first-order logic and the gamma graphs for modal and higher-order logics, among others. As a logical syntax, EGs are two-dimensional graphs, or diagrams, in contrast to the linear algebraic notations. Peirce's theory of EGs is not only a theory of logical (...) syntax but also a proof theory for many logics. A set of transformation rules of graphs defines a proof system for a graphical logic. In this... (shrink)

Because they are key components of aircraft, improving the safety, reliability and economy of engines is crucial. To ensure flight safety and reduce the cost of maintenance during aircraft engine operation, a prognostics and health management system that focuses on fault diagnosis, health assessment, and life prediction is introduced to solve the problems. Predicting the remaining useful life is the most important information for making decisions about aircraft engine operation and maintenance, and it relies largely on the selection of performance (...) degradation features. The choice of such features is highly significant, but there are some weaknesses in the current algorithm for RUL prediction, notably, the inability to obtain tendencies from the data. Especially with aircraft engines, extracting useful degradation features from multisensor data with complex correlations is a key technical problem that has hindered the implementation of degradation assessment. To solve these problems, deep learning has been proposed in recent years to exploit multiple layers of nonlinear information processing for unsupervised self-learning of features. This paper presents a deep learning approach to predict the RUL of an aircraft engine based on a stacked sparse autoencoder and logistic regression. The stacked sparse autoencoder is used to automatically extract performance degradation features from multiple sensors on the aircraft engine and to fuse multiple features through multilayer self-learning. Logistic regression is used to predict the remaining useful life. However, the hyperparameters of the deep learning, which significantly impact the feature extraction and prediction performance, are determined based on expert experience in most cases. The grid search method is introduced in this paper to optimize the hyperparameters of the proposed aircraft engine RUL prediction model. An application of this method of predicting the RUL of an aircraft engine with a benchmark dataset is employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (shrink)

In this article, I address the intricacies of Heidegger's existential notion of Mitsein, and expound a different way of understanding the relevant issue in light of a reinterpretation of Zhuangzi's fish story. I show that Heidegger's account of Mitsein is ultimately situated within the limit of Dasein's structural components. What is more problematic is his conception of the connection between Dasein and others as disengaged. Then I explicate a Zhuangzian idea of what I call Mitzutun, literally meaning doing something with. (...) I argue that the “with” of the Zhuangzian Mitzutun is lived out by human beings and non-human beings in the variegated forms of life. (shrink)

Chan has been one of the most prominent sects of Chinese Buddhism since the mid and late Tang Dynasty and it has been particularly well-known around the world. The Platform Sutra purports to convey the teachings of Huineng, one of the most revered figures in the Chan tradition, and the text has been regarded as the most reliable source for the study of Chan. This canonical Buddhist text is generally categorized into four different versions: 1) Dunhuang ; 2) Huixin ; (...) 3) Qisong ; and, 4) Zongbao. The Dunhuang version is further divided into two manuscripts: the Old Dunghuang text and New Dunghuang text (also known as... (shrink)

This paper explores Lévinas’s philosophical reflection upon the feminine and attempts to bring it into communication with the importance ascribed to the feminine embodied in the Daodejing. According to Lévinas, the feminine is the very quality of difference that cannot be subsumed into the totality of the same. He emphasizes the importance of considering women in their own right. This is a forceful opposition against androcentrism. Daoist philosophy has often been characterized as “feminine” in terms of its orientation. This paper (...) shows the inadequacy of three readings of the references to femininity in the Daodejing, namely, quasi-feminist historical reading, correlative reading and political reading, and argues that the feminine occupies a central place in this scripture, which is manifest most effectively in the principle of abiding by the female. (shrink)

Background: Stigma is considered a major barrier to accessing healthcare services by female sex workers. Current knowledge of nurses’ attitudes appears to imply a stigma toward female sex workers. But in-depth understanding of their perceptions is scarce. Furthermore, factors that inform a conceptual understanding of how this occurs are lacking. Objectives: The study aimed to explore nurses’ attitudes toward female sex workers and factors affecting caring for female sex workers. Research design: This was a qualitative study. A content analysis approach (...) was adopted in analyzing the data. Participants and research context: Thirty-three practicing nurses participated in seven semi-structured focus group interviews and three key informants participated in three individual interviews in Hong Kong. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of one university in Hong Kong. Findings: The findings revealed three themes: (1) accept, stigmatize, or against sex work; (2) reluctance, hesitation, or willingness to care for female sex workers; and (3) factors affecting the care of female sex workers. Discussion and conclusion: This study found that nurses held different attitudes toward female sex workers, and they experienced feelings of reluctance, hesitation, or willingness to care for female sex workers. Multi-level factors could affect their level of comfort of caring for female sex workers. Intervention should be developed to encourage health professionals to examine their personal views toward female sex workers introspectively, how their attitude may have affected the provision of quality services, and to enhance the provision of sensitive non-discriminative services to female sex workers. (shrink)

With the advancement of human microbiome research, it is inevitable that a growing number of biobanks will include a collection of microbiota specimens to characterize the microbial communities that inhabit the human body and explore the relationships between the microbiota and their human hosts. Biobanks of human microbiota and their associated genetic information may become a valuable health resource. But, this area of research also presents ethical and social problems, some of which are distinct from those faced by biobanks that (...) store human tissue samples. This paper examines four core issues which are considered highly relevant to microbiome biobanking: the nature of human microbiome samples and how different understandings have an impact on benefit/risk evaluation, privacy, informed consent, and returning the result to participants. We argue that these issues should be addressed early on in microbiome research projects and also call for adjusting or developing new governance mechanism to better accommodate these changes. (shrink)

One fundamental assumption often made in the literature on unawareness is that risk preferences are invariant to changes of awareness. We study how exposure to unawareness affects choices under risk. Participants in our experiment choose repeatedly between varying sure outcomes and a lottery in three phases. All treatments are exactly identical in phase 1 and phase 3, but differ in phase 2. There are five different treatments pertaining to the lottery faced in phase 2: The control treatment, the treatment with (...) awareness of unawareness of lottery outcomes but known number of outcomes, the treatment with awareness of unawareness of outcomes but with unknown number of outcomes, the treatment with unawareness of unawareness of some outcomes, and the treatment with an ambiguous lottery. We study both whether behavior differs in phase 3 across treatments and whether differences of subjects’ behavior between phases 1 and phase 3 differ across treatments. We observe no significant treatment effects. (shrink)