It is often thought that, although Spinoza develops a bold and distinctive conception of God (the unique substance, or Natura Naturans, in which all else inheres and which possesses infinitely many attributes, including extension), the arguments that he offers which purport to prove God’s existence contribute nothing new to natural theology. Rather, he is seen as just another participant in the seventeenth century revival of the ontological argument initiated by Descartes and taken up by Malebranche and Leibniz among others. That (...) this is the case is both puzzling and unfortunate. It is puzzling because although Spinoza does offer an ontological proof for the existence of God, he also offers three other non‐ontological proofs. It is unfortunate because these other non‐ontological proofs are both more convincing and more interesting than his ontological proof. In this paper, I offer reconstructions and assessments of all of Spinoza’s arguments and argue that Spinoza’s metaphysical rationalism and his commitment to something like a Principle of Sufficient Reason are the driving force behind Spinoza’s non‐ontological arguments. (shrink)

The different sorts of virtuous people who display various virtues to a remarkable degree have brought the issue of individualisation of moral character to the forefront. It signals a more personal dimension of character development which is notoriously ignored in the current discourse on character education. The case is made that since in practice, the individualisation of moral character must, by necessity, advance side by side with the cultivation of virtues, a full account of character education needs to give consideration (...) to both concerns. After analysing the specific ways which temperament, social roles, and occupations respectively contribute to the individualisation of moral character, some practical implications are drawn to shed new light on the common practice of the inculcation of virtues. Firstly, since the varieties of moral personality is the norm, it is appropriate to encourage the educated to become virtuous people of different sorts. Secondly, given the influence that temperament may exert on virtue, having good knowledge of each child’s temperament, identifying the specific difficulties possibly confronting him/her accordingly, and then providing more opportunities to strengthen the cultivation of the related virtues are crucial. Thirdly, since children with different temperaments are inclined to identify with different sorts of moral exemplars, it is valuable to present them a great variety of moral models, from which they can choose the kind of virtuous people they would want to emulate. Lastly, since assuming different occupations and social roles is liable to result in various moral characters, character formation cannot be confined to the family or school. Among others, workplaces and communities are also important variables. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Rise of Nanomedicine Diagnostics and Medical Records Treatment Moving Forward.

In this article, we contribute to sociological literatures on morality, professional and institutional contexts, and morally stigmatized ‘dirty work’ by emphasizing and exploring how they mutually inform one another in lawyers’ work activities. Drawing on interview data with 58 practitioners in the commercial legal industry in Singapore, we analyze how they experience professional and institutional constraints on the expressions of morality in their work. Our findings illustrate how a dominant managerial and economic focus maintains and reproduces a constrained form of (...) morality, limited to instrumental, utilitarian and commercial ends, and subordinated to lucrative client and firm interests. We discuss our findings in terms of the need to research and reform professions in ways that support more rounded and unconstrained moral reflexivity and autonomy in how work is undertaken and valued. This in turn has implications for how organizations and professions might achieve alternative moral institutional orders, and for legal work to avoid the moral and social taints of dirty work. (shrink)

The minimal weakening \ of Belnap-Dunn logic under the polarity semantics for negation as a modal operator is formulated as a sequent system which is characterized by the class of all birelational frames. Some extensions of \ with additional sequents as axioms are introduced. In particular, all three modal negation logics characterized by a frame with a single state are formalized as extensions of \. These logics have the finite model property and they are decidable.

This article provides a new mechanism in understanding how partner heterogeneity moderates an alliance's ability to advance corporate social responsibility goals. I identified the antecedents for firms to select a more diverse set of partners and explored whether more diverse alliances (especially cross-sector alliances) may facilitate partners to achieve more proactive environmental outcomes. I employ 146 environmental alliances formed in the U.S. between 1990 and 2009 to test the assertions. Results suggest that firms with innovative orientation and alliance experiences tend (...) to choose a more diverse set of partners (especially cross-sector partners); and such partner heterogeneity in turn moderates an alliance's environmental outcomes—compared to inter-firm alliances, cross-sector alliances are more likely to facilitate partners to pursue more proactive environmental strategies. (shrink)

This work proposes a hybrid heuristic algorithm to solve the bus rapid transit intelligent scheduling problem, which is a combination of the genetic algorithm, simulated annealing algorithm, and fitness scaling method. The simulated annealing algorithm can increase the local search ability of the genetic algorithm, so as to accelerate its convergence speed. Fitness scaling can reduce the differences between individuals in the early stage of the algorithm, to prevent the genetic algorithm from falling into a local optimum through increasing the (...) diversity of the population. It can also increase the selection probability of outstanding individuals, and speed up the convergence at the late stage of the algorithm, by increasing the differences between individuals. Using real operational data of BRT Line 1 in a city of Zhejiang province, the new scheduling scheme can be obtained through algorithm simulation. The passengers’ total waiting time in a single way will be reduced by 40 h on average under the same operating cost compared with the original schedule scheme in a day. (shrink)

Urban streetscapes are outdoor areas in which the general public can appreciate green landscapes and engage in outdoor activities along the street. This study tested the extent to which the degree of awareness of urban street trees impacts attention restoration and perceived restorativeness. We manipulated the degree of awareness of street trees. Participants were placed into four groups and shown different images: (a) streetscapes with absolutely no trees; (b) streetscapes with flashes of trees in which participants had minimal awareness of (...) the content; (c) streetscapes with trees; and (d) streetscapes with trees to which participants were told to pay attention. We compared the performance of 138 individuals on measures of attention and their evaluations of perceived restorativeness. Two main findings emerged. First, streetscapes with trees improved the performance of participants on attentional tests even without their awareness of the trees. Second, participants who had raised awareness of street trees performed best on the attentional test and rated the streetscapes as being more restorative. These findings enhance our knowledge about the role of an individual's awareness of restorative elements and have implications for designers and individuals who are at risk of attentional fatigue. (shrink)

The main objective of this article is to provide a formal semantics of comparative correlatives of the form ‘ yuè …, yuè … ’ in Mandarin Chinese. A new analysis is proposed which treats the comparative correlatives as one which involves a quantificational tripartite structure and which derives all the meanings of the ‘ yuè …, yuè … ’ constructions through a comparison of degrees which relate to different or same individuals. The comparison of the same or different degrees of (...) a given property is shown to be the consequences of the general processing strategy for noun phrase interpretations suggested by Partee, as well as of the constituent structure of the sentence. It is also shown that the same semantics for Chinese yuè can be extended to the - er in English comparative conditionals, as well as to similar constructions in other languages. At the same time a superficial cross-linguistic variation from independent factors can also be derived. (shrink)

Sharing and helping are important issues in ethical research. This study proposes a model based on flow theory by postulating key antecedents as the critical drivers of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. Flow is the holistic sensation that employees feel when they act with total immersion and engagement, facilitating individuals' reciprocal activities such as knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. In the proposed model, knowledge sharing is influenced by flow experience directly and also indirectly via the mediation of interemployee helping. Accordingly, (...) the flow experience is influenced simultaneously by four exogenous factors related to individuals' perception about their work: work skills, self-fulfillment in challenges, perceived control, and vividness. This study contributes to the knowledge management literature by extending flow theory to the area of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping, by validating idiosyncratic antecedent drivers of the flow theory, and by performing a practical operationalization of the flow experience. This research also provides managerial implications for business leaders to boost their employees' ethical behavior in terms of sharing and helping. (shrink)

This study proposes a multimodal fusion model to account for the cognitive mechanisms involving 56 political cartoons with regard to U.S. beef import issues as reported in two dominant Taiwanese newspapers, the Liberty Times and United Daily News. Specifically, this study claims that multimodal fusion model evolves from two metonymic-metaphoric networks, i.e., related metonymic network and diversified metaphoric network, and combines the conceptual, visual, and verbal modes. Our analysis demonstrates that multimodal fusion is a significant and recurrent representation technique in (...) the genre of political cartoon and has the cognitive function of encapsulating the abstract complex political debates efficiently with irony and humorous effect. Furthermore, our analysis shows the important role of metonymy and demonstrates how metonymies and metaphors are interwoven in the process of multimodal fusion, which underlies the metaphorical mappings of conceptual scenarios related to “POLITICS IS.. (shrink)

The conception of epistemic injustice as a campaign tool has generated considerable debate. The challenge lies in identifying instances of testimonial injustice within complex real-world situations. Miranda Fricker suggests that credibility deficits and identity prejudice serve as necessary conditions for recognizing testimonial injustice. However, this approach faces conceptual generalisation: certain cases that intuitively seem to fit the definition fail to meet the criteria, while some cases that meet the criteria appear counterintuitive. Addressing this issue by introducing additional conditions alongside the (...) original ones seems ineffective and redundant. Simply reverting to Fricker’s original definition is not a straightforward solution either. Identity prejudice plays a decisive role in Fricker’s establishment of testimonial injustice, but it is itself a broad and vague concept. The blurry boundary between heuristics and prejudices has led to many difficulties. An examination of the nature of prejudice indicates that the initial prejudice condition should be modified. It is epistemic inertia, rooted in our thought processes, that serves as the catalyst rendering heuristics unreliable and triggering various epistemic vices, including identity prejudice. Therefore, the prejudice condition is too narrow, while the superordinate concept of epistemic vice is more fundamental as a necessary condition for testimonial injustice. (shrink)

The language of Belnap–Dunn modal logic \ expands the language of Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic with the modal operator \. We introduce the polarity semantics for \ and its two expansions \ and \ with value operators. The local finitary consequence relation \ in the language \ with respect to the class of all frames is axiomatized by a sequent system \ where \. We prove by using translations between sequents and formulas that these languages under the polarity semantics have the (...) same expressive power on the level of frames with the language \ under the relational semantics for classical modal logic. (shrink)

Consider the problem of learning, from non-experimental data, the causal (Markov equivalence) structure of the true, unknown causal Bayesian network (CBN) on a given, fixed set of (categorical) variables. This learning problem is known to be very hard, so much so that there is no learning algorithm that converges to the truth for all possible CBNs (on the given set of variables). So the convergence property has to be sacrificed for some CBNs—but for which? In response, the standard practice has (...) been to design and employ learning algorithms that secure the convergence property for at least all the CBNs that satisfy the famous faithfulness condition, which implies sacrificing the convergence property for some CBNs that violate the faithfulness condition (Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines, 2000). This standard design practice can be justified by assuming—that is, accepting on faith—that the true, unknown CBN satisfies the faithfulness condition. But the real question is this: Is it possible to explain, without assuming the faithfulness condition or any of its weaker variants, why it is mandatory rather than optional to follow the standard design practice? This paper aims to answer the above question in the affirmative. We first define an array of modes of convergence to the truth as desiderata that might or might not be achieved by a causal learning algorithm. Those modes of convergence concern (i) how pervasive the domain of convergence is on the space of all possible CBNs and (ii) how uniformly the convergence happens. Then we prove a result to the following effect: for any learning algorithm that tackles the causal learning problem in question, if it achieves the best achievable mode of convergence (considered in this paper), then it must follow the standard design practice of converging to the truth for at least all CBNs that satisfy the faithfulness condition—it is a requirement, not an option. (shrink)

The distinction between the first-person perspective (1PP) and the third-person perspective (3PP) has been widely regarded as fundamental and rigid, and many researchers hold that genuine bodily illusions can only be experienced from the 1PP. We applied VR technology to investigate whether this mainstream view is correct. In our experiments, the participants were immersed in a VR environment in which they saw a life-sized virtual body either from the 1PP or from the 3PP. They either passively received tactile stimulations and/or (...) actively interacted with a virtual soccer ball. Our VR system created novel visuo-motor-tactile correlations between the real and the virtual world: when the participant interacted with a real plastic soccer ball, he/she would feel corresponding tactile sensations and see the avatar performing the exact same movements. We found that a clear sense of ownership over the avatar was induced not only in the 1PP condition but also in the Passive-3PP and the Active-3PP conditions. We also observed evidence suggesting that it is possible to experience one’s body-location, 1PP-location, as well as self-location, both from the 1PP and from the 3PP. Together, we demonstrate that there is in fact no fundamental gap between embodied 1PP and embodied 3PP in the virtual world. (shrink)

Despite chatbots’ increasing popularity, firms often fail to fully achieve their benefits because of their underutilization. We argue that ethical concerns dealing with chatbot-related privacy and security may prevent firms from developing a culture of embracing chatbot use and fully integrating chatbots into their workflows. Our research draws upon the stimulus-organism-response theory (SOR) and a study by Floridi et al. (Minds and Machines, 28:689–707, 2018 ) on the ethical artificial intelligence framework to investigate how chatbot affordances can foster employees’ positive (...) perceptions of privacy protection and security, which may increase perceived ethics in beneficence and ultimately support recommendation intentions. To validate our proposed research model and provide a robust understanding of chatbot-related ethics, we conducted two studies following a mixed-methods design. We used Study 1 as the quantitative phase to collect survey data from full-time marketing employees, and the results provided strong support for our research model based on the relevant theory and literature. We used Study 2 as the qualitative phase to collect interview data to further validate our research model, and the results confirmed Study 1’s quantitative findings and provided complementary insights into the phenomenon of interest. Our studies contribute to the literature by providing initial insights into chatbot-related ethics through the exploration of chatbot affordances, security, and privacy protection as the antecedents and through depictions of how these variables foster employees’ perceived ethics in beneficence and recommendation intention. Our results can inform practitioners how to develop ethics involving chatbots and promote a chatbot-friendly culture such that firms can fully achieve chatbots’ benefits and can thus increase their competitive advantages in emerging chatbot marketing. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) in the development of epistemic learner identity. MUVEs might help educators create the types of tasks and intellectual open spaces helping students with learner identity development in the information age. MUVEs can create new possibilities for dissemination and sharing of critical information (e.g. nonhierarchical, non-linear), opening up spaces of (safe) rebellion against top-down, teacher directed educational processes, helping students become more autonomous thinkers, ready to question information, and search for multiple (...) sources in problem-solving. The experiment reported here follow two General Education classes for pre-service teachers (58 students) that integrated the MUVE Second Life as a major part of their curriculum. The experimental MUVE condition was compared to two classes (59 students) using the same curricula approach and the same instructor but without using a MUVE. Individual student blog posts (weekly assignments) were extracted for both groups (experimental, active control) from three different time points over the semester. The posts were coded for levels of complexity/uncertainty, critical perspective and source of information. It was expected that students in the experimental (MUVE integrated) group would show increases over the semester as compared to the active control group. Growth curve analyses suggests students in the experimental (MUVE-integrated) condition did indeed increase in modes of thinking that question authority through increased complexity/uncertainty and critical thinking in their assigned academic/intellectual tasks, suggesting possibilities for epistemological shifts. (shrink)

This paper provides an explanation for Gadamer’s inconsistent ideas of the symbol in his works, arguing that his concept of the symbol has evolved from a less-authentic experience to an authentic experience. In Truth and Method, the symbol is defined as having an instituted meaning and substitution function, and is devalued as a pure appearance of the real, which is less authentic than the artistic presentation that occasions the coming-into-existence events of the real. Later, in “The Relevance of the Beautiful”, (...) Gadamer elevates the symbol to the same status as the work of art, and uses it to defend the work of art’s inexhaustibility and irreplaceability in communicating meanings and revealing truth. Gadamer’s changed concept of the symbol also serves to justify the universality of philosophical hermeneutics in addressing modern art-related issues, particularly those involving the speechlessness, definition, and technological reproductions of art. (shrink)

Battery energy storage is the pivotal project of renewable energy systems reform and an effective regulator of energy flow. Parallel battery packs can effectively increase the capacity of battery modules. However, the power loss caused by the uncertainty of parallel battery branch current poses severe challenge to the economy and safety of electric vehicles. Accuracy of battery branch current prediction is needed to improve the parallel connection. This paper proposes a radial basis function neural network model based on the pigeon-inspired (...) optimization method and successfully applies the algorithm to predict the parallel branch current of the battery pack. Numerical results demonstrate the high accuracy of the proposed pigeon-inspired optimized RBF model for parallel battery branch forecasting and provide a useful tool for the prediction of parallel branch currents of battery packs. (shrink)

Multiobjective evolutionary algorithms have witnessed prosperity in solving many-objective optimization problems over the past three decades. Unfortunately, no one single MOEA equipped with given parameter settings, mating-variation operator, and environmental selection mechanism is suitable for obtaining a set of solutions with excellent convergence and diversity for various types of MaOPs. The reality is that different MOEAs show great differences in handling certain types of MaOPs. Aiming at these characteristics, this paper proposes a flexible ensemble framework, namely, ASES, which is highly (...) scalable for embedding any number of MOEAs to promote their advantages. To alleviate the undesirable phenomenon that some promising solutions are discarded during the evolution process, a big archive that number of contained solutions be far larger than population size is integrated into this ensemble framework to record large-scale nondominated solutions, and also an efficient maintenance strategy is developed to update the archive. Furthermore, the knowledge coming from updating archive is exploited to guide the evolutionary process for different MOEAs, allocating limited computational resources for efficient algorithms. A large number of numerical experimental studies demonstrated superior performance of the proposed ASES. Among 52 test instances, the ASES performs better than all the six baseline algorithms on at least half of the test instances with respect to both metrics hypervolume and inverted generational distance. (shrink)

En distinguant trois types de substance, à savoir, Dieu, le Christ et les créatures, et en considérant les substances créées comme individuelles, Conway estime que chaque individu possède une sorte de corporéité. En abordant les concepts de « corps » et d’« individu » constitués par Anne Conway, cet article cherche à mettre en lumière la relation implicite entre ces deux notions. Dans le cadre métaphysique élaboré par Conway, le corps participe non seulement de manière particulière au processus d’individuation des (...) substances créées, mais il constitue également l’expression de leur individualité. Cependant, la conception de l’esprit et du corps chez Conway, ainsi que sa théorie de la transmutation, rendent problématique le principe de l’individualité en question. (shrink)

BackgroundThe therapeutic effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson's disease (PD) is related to the modulation of pathological neural activities, particularly the synchronization in the β band (13–35 Hz). However, whether the local β activity in the STN region can directly predict the stimulation outcome remains unclear.ObjectiveWe tested the hypothesis that low-β (13–20 Hz) and/or high-β (20–35 Hz) band activities recorded from the STN region can predict DBS efficacy.MethodsLocal field potentials (LFPs) were recorded in (...) 26 patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery in the subthalamic nucleus area. Recordings were made after the implantation of the DBS electrode prior to its connection to a stimulator. The maximum normalized powers in the theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (7–13 Hz), low-β (13–20 Hz), high-β (20–35 Hz), and low-γ (40–55 Hz) subbands in the postoperatively recorded LFP were correlated with the stimulation-induced improvement in contralateral tremor or bradykinesia–rigidity. The distance between the contact selected for stimulation and the contact with the maximum subband power was correlated with the stimulation efficacy. Following the identification of the potential predictors by the significant correlations, a multiple regression analysis was performed to evaluate their effect on the outcome.ResultsThe maximum high-β power was positively correlated with bradykinesia–rigidity improvement (rs = 0.549, p < 0.0001). The distance to the contact with maximum high-β power was negatively correlated with bradykinesia–rigidity improvement (rs = −0.452, p < 0.001). No significant correlation was observed with low-β power. The maximum high-β power and the distance to the contact with maximum high-β power were both significant predictors for bradykinesia–rigidity improvement in the multiple regression analysis, explaining 37.4% of the variance altogether. Tremor improvement was not significantly correlated with any frequency.ConclusionHigh-β oscillations, but not low-β oscillations, recorded from the STN region with the DBS lead can inform stimulation-induced improvement in contralateral bradykinesia–rigidity in patients with PD. High-β oscillations can help refine electrode targeting and inform contact selection for DBS therapy. (shrink)

Whether team task conflict is beneficial or harmful to team innovation has long been controversial, and empirical studies on the team task conflict–team innovation relationship were inconsistent. Drawing on the contingency model of team innovation, the current study examined how team task conflict interacts with two types of team supportive climates, namely team support for innovation (TSFI) and team psychological safety (TPS), in predicting team innovation via team information elaboration. We tested our hypotheses using multi-source and lagged data collected from (...) 361 employees working in 98 research and development teams. As expected, team information elaboration mediated the interaction effects between team task conflict and team supportive climates on team innovation. In particular, team task conflict had a positive indirect effect on team innovation via team information elaboration when TSFI or TPS was high. However, such indirect effect was negative when TSFI was low and was not significant when TPS was low. Residualized relative weight analysis comparing the moderation effects further suggests that TFSI and TPS are equally important team climates in activating the beneficial effect of team task conflict. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Although previous studies have acknowledged that leaders’ such environmental behaviors and environmental issues are becoming critical for long-term development, little research has focused on why, how and when perceived environmentally specific servant leadership contributes to employees’ workplace environmentally friendly behavior in the hotel industry. This paper aims to fill this research gap by using social identity theory to test employees’ green role identity as a mediator and their perceived corporate environmental responsibility and perceived coworkers’ work group green advocacy as moderators (...) in the relationship between perceived environmentally-specific servant leadership and workplace environmentally friendly behavior. Using a sample of 527 leader-follower dyads from six hotels in mainland China at two points in time, we found that employees’ green role identity mediates the positive relationship between perceived environmentally specific servant leadership and employees’ workplace environmentally friendly behavior. Moreover, employees’ perceived corporate environmental responsibility and perceived coworkers’ work group green advocacy were found to positively moderate the relationship between perceived environmentally-specific servant leadership and green role identity and between green role identity and workplace environmentally friendly behavior, respectively. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

How is a scientific theory, especial a classical physical theory, tested? This problem has a long history. In this paper I’ll propose a theory of testing based on but differentiated from Giere’s studies on the structure of scientific theories. I will show, from both theoretical and historical perspectives, that a scientific theory can always be understood as one contains a classified model population, including both higher-level models and realizable models, and that scientists always test a theory through its realizable models. (...) To transmit the consequences of testing realizable models to a higher-level model is a very complicated mechanism. Therefore, it is unlikely that a whole theory could ever be completely confirmed or falsified, even if some of its realizable models havebeen conclusively confirmed or falsified. Finally, I’ll illustrate such a theory of testing can give an adequate account of the testing history of a scientific theory, for example, the Newtonian theory. This theory of testing is a rational reconstruction, in Lakatosian sense, of the process of scientific testing. (shrink)