O objetivo deste artigo é descrever o grau de parentesco existente entre várias famílias de origem chinesa que se estabeleceram em Nicoya e analisar como isso influenciou suas contribuições para o desenvolvimento socioeconômico da cidade e seus padrões de mobilidade em todo o Pacífico da Costa Rica desde final do século XIX até meados do século XX. Os participantes do estudo são descendentes de imigrantes que se enraizaram em Nicoya entre 1880 e 1950, que possuíam duas peculiaridades: pertenciam aos mesmos (...) clãs familiares, apesar dos diferentes sobrenomes com os quais estavam registrados ou eram da mesma área geográfica e, às vezes, até da mesma aldeia, que desenvolveu laços de afinidade tão fortes quanto laços consanguíneos. Isso lhes permitiu apoiar-se mutuamente para alcançar o desenvolvimento coletivo do grupo de imigrantes chineses em Nicoya. (shrink)

This article investigates the structure of trust in China and compares it with the U.S., using the 2000 and 2005 waves of the World Value Survey (WVS). We analyze two dimensions of trust - trust in people and trust in major companies. It is found that the level of trust has remained stable in China within the 5-year period. On the other hand, trust in major companies has declined dramatically in U.S. while trust in people has increased slightly. The structure (...) of trust in companies is different from trust in people. For both countries, individuals with higher education tend to have a higher level of trust. Individuals who are divorced tend to have lower trust in people. Individuals who think that other people are fair are more likely to trust in people. Preference for competition has a positive effect on trust in major companies. On the other hand, some differences between the two countries are observed. Perception of fairness does not affect trust in major companies in China, while it has a positive effect in U.S. in year 2006. Preference for equality has a negative effect on trust in major companies in U.S. but no significant effect in China. The pattern of trust and its changes over time may reflect differences in market conditions in the two economies. (shrink)

Education is so strongly emphasized in the Chinese culture that academic success is widely regarded as the only indicator of success, while too much physical activity is often discouraged because it drains energy and affects academic concentration. This study investigated the relations among academic achievement, self?esteem, school conduct and physical activity level. The participants were 333 Chinese pre?adolescents (aged 8?12) in Hong Kong. Examination results and conduct grades were obtained from the school records. Global self?esteem was measured with the Physical (...) self?description questionnaire (PSDQ), while physical activity patterns of the children were assessed with the Physical activity questionnaire for children (PAQ?C). Results showed that high academic achievers consistently attained better school conduct marks. However, physical activity level was quite an independent entity that was related neither to academic achievement nor school conduct. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that only academically high?achieving boys and physically active boys had higher self?esteem. (shrink)

This book is a collection of articles on different aspects of university education in China since the late nineteenth century, addressing how far the ideal of modern university education, which has gradually been developed in the West since the age of European Enlightenment, was adopted or transformed by Chinese universities.

This article brings together two different conceptions of culture—a shared meaning system on one hand and a repertoire of strategies on the other—to understand the emergence of a market. Based on ethnographic data, it examines how a Chinese life insurance market is emerging in the presence of incompatible shared values and ideas acting as cultural barriers, and how these cultural barriers shape the formation of the market. The findings reveal a burgeoning Chinese life insurance market despite local cultural logics incompatible (...) with the profit-oriented institutional logic of life insurance. This Chinese market, however, has developed along a different trajectory from what might be expected. It first emerged as a money management, rather than a risk management, market. I argue that the very cultural barriers that compose the local resistance to a new economic practice also necessitate the mobilization of the cultural tool-kit to circumvent this resistance. These dual processes, shared ideas composing the resistance and the cultural tool-kit circumventing the resistance, shape the trajectory and characteristics of an emergent market. I propose a theoretical model specifying the mechanisms through which the two forms of culture interplay to influence the development of the life insurance. I apply this model to extend Zelizer’s (1979) insights and discuss how culture matters in forging a new market in the global diffusion of capitalism. (shrink)

Prior to Kripke’s seminal work on the semantics of modal logic, McKinsey offered an alternative interpretation of the necessity operator, inspired by the Bolzano–Tarski notion of logical truth. According to this interpretation, ‘it is necessary that A’ is true just in case every sentence with the same logical form as A is true. In our paper, we investigate this interpretation of the modal operator, resolving some technical questions, and relating it to the logical interpretation of modality and some views in (...) modal metaphysics. In particular, we present an hitherto unpublished solution to problems 41 and 42 from Friedman’s 102 problems, which uses a different method of proof from the solution presented in the paper of Tadeusz Prucnal. (shrink)

Statistical learning enables humans to involuntarily process and utilize different kinds of patterns from the environment. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the simultaneous acquisition of multiple regularities from different perceptual modalities remain unclear. A novel multidimensional serial reaction time task was developed to test 40 participants’ ability to learn simple first‐order and complex second‐order relations between uni‐modal visual and cross‐modal audio‐visual stimuli. Using the difference in reaction times between sequenced and random stimuli as the index of domain‐general statistical learning, a (...) significant difference and dissociation of learning occurred between the initial and final learning phases. Furthermore, we used a negative and positive occurrence‐frequency‐and‐reaction‐time correlation to indicate implicit and explicit learning, respectively, and found that learning simple uni‐modal patterns involved an implicit‐to‐explicit segue, while acquiring complex cross‐modal patterns required an explicit‐to‐implicit segue, resulting in a X‐shape crossing of regularity learning. Thus, we propose an X‐way hypothesis to elucidate the dynamic interplay between the implicit and explicit systems at two distinct stages when acquiring various regularities in a multidimensional probability space. (shrink)

While environmental claims are increasingly used by companies to appeal consumers, they also attract greater scrutiny from independent parties interested in consumer protection. Consumers are now able to compare corporate environmental claims against external, often disconfirming, information to form their brand attitudes and purchase intentions. What remains unclear is how the level of information specificity of both the environmental claims and external disconfirming information interact to influence consumer reactions. Two experiments address this gap in the CSR communication literature. When specific (...) claims are countered by specific external information, consumers report more negative brand attitudes and lower purchase intentions. The effect is serially mediated by skepticism toward the claims and lack of corporate credibility. We conclude by discussing strategies that firms can utilize to avoid information dilution and ensure that external disconfirming information percolates to consumers as specific. (shrink)

COVID-19 deeply affects many spheres of life. Lockdown measures implemented worldwide have accentuated mental wellbeing changes in the population from the perspectives of space and social relations. These changes leave lasting imprints on individuals and communities. This article draws upon solidarity and care ethics in exploring their role in rebuilding mental wellbeing in the light of constraints arising from lockdown. The diversity of responses to physical and social isolation during the pandemic illuminates the distinctly relational nature of human beings, offering (...) the opportunity for care and solidarity to respond to mental wellbeing challenges in an inclusive and context-sensitive way. (shrink)

Emergency online education has been adopted worldwide due to coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Prior research regarding online learning predominantly focused on the perception of parents, teachers, and students in tertiary education, while younger children’s perspectives have rarely been examined. This study investigated how family, school, and individual factors would be associated with primary school students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preference in online learning during COVID-19. A convenient sample of 781 Hong Kong students completed an anonymous online survey from June to (...) October 2020. Logistic regression was conducted for 13 potential factors. Results indicated that only 57% of students were satisfied with their schools’ online learning arrangement and 49.6% regarded the online learning as an effective learning mode. Only 12.8% of students preferred online learning, while 67.2% of students preferred in-person schooling. Multiple analyses suggested that teacher–student interaction during online classes was positively associated with students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preferences in online learning. Compared to grades 1–2 students, grades 3–6 students perceived more effectiveness and would prefer online learning. Happier schools were more likely to deliver satisfying and effective online education. Students who reported less happiness at school would prefer online learning, and students who reported less happiness at home would be less satisfied with online learning and reflected lower effectiveness. Teachers are encouraged to deliver more meaningful interactions to students and offer extra support to younger children during online classes. Primary schools and parents are encouraged to create a healthy and pleasant learning environment for children. The government may consider building up happy schools in the long run. The study findings are instrumental for policymakers, institutions, educators, and researchers in designing online education mechanisms. (shrink)

Assume [Formula: see text]. Let [Formula: see text] be a [Formula: see text] equivalence relation coded in [Formula: see text]. [Formula: see text] has an ordinal definable equivalence class without any ordinal definable elements if and only if [Formula: see text] is unpinned. [Formula: see text] proves [Formula: see text]-class section uniformization when [Formula: see text] is a [Formula: see text] equivalence relation on [Formula: see text] which is pinned in every transitive model of [Formula: see text] containing the real (...) which codes [Formula: see text]: Suppose [Formula: see text] is a relation on [Formula: see text] such that each section [Formula: see text] is an [Formula: see text]-class, then there is a function [Formula: see text] such that for all [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]. [Formula: see text] proves that [Formula: see text] is Jónsson whenever [Formula: see text] is an ordinal: For every function [Formula: see text], there is an [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text] in bijection with [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

Over recent years, the issue of corruption in the public construction sector has attracted increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers worldwide. However, limited efforts are available for investigating the underlying factors of corruption in this sector. Thus, this study attempted to bridge this knowledge gap by exploring the underlying factors of corruption in the public construction sector of China. To achieve this goal, a total of 14 structured interviews were first carried out, and a questionnaire survey was then administered (...) to 188 professionals in China. Two iterations of multivariate analysis approaches, namely, stepwise multiple regression analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were successively utilized to analyze the collected data. In addition, a case study was also conducted to triangulate the findings obtained from the statistical analysis. The results generated from these three research methods achieve the same conclusion: the most influential underlying factor leading to corruption was immorality, followed by opacity, unfairness, procedural violation, and contractual violation. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge by exploring the properties of corruption in the public construction sector. The findings from this study are also valuable to the construction authorities as they can assist in developing more effective anti-corruption strategies. (shrink)

Fabiano argues that virtue theory offers the best “safety framework” for mitigating the risks of moral enhancement (1). He advances five desiderata for an ideal safety framework and then explains how virtue theory satisfies each. Among these desiderata is the “preservation of identity” (1). Fabiano argues that moral enhancement can safely preserve personal identity when carried out within the framework of virtue theory. We suggest Fabiano's argument for this conclusion falls short, since contra Fabiano’s claim, enhancing virtues may not preserve—and (...) could even damage—personal identity. We draw on three sources of evidence: 1) virtue theory scholarship that argues for the importance of habituation for virtue formation, 2) Focquaert and Schermer’s (2015) distinction between active and passive enhancement and attendant endorsement of more active paths to virtue enhancement, and 3) empirical research suggesting that technologies which support moral enhancements may have damaging effects on personal identity. (shrink)

Influential or frequently cited business ethics research does not appear in a vacuum; our study reveals its predominant sources and contributors by discipline. By examining citations from articles published in three top business ethics journals (Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly and Business Ethics: A European Review) over the period 2004–2008, we document that the preponderance of influential business ethics research comes primarily from the management faculty. In addition, management journals and management books are the predominant sources for influential (...) business ethics research. Further, among the management fields, organizational behavior and organizational structure predominate leadership and strategy as the major subject areas for influential business ethics research, suggesting that this influential body of research is focused on a micro rather than on a macro context. These empirical results lend credence to the perception that there is a silo effect in influential business ethics research and suggest that business ethics research in a micro context might have permeated to the teaching of business ethics. (shrink)

This volume is the first comprehensive and in-depth discussion written in English of the Confucian tradition in the context of the intellectual history of Korea. It deals with the historical, social, political, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Korean Confucianism, arguably the most influential intellectual tradition, ethical and religious practice, and political-ideological system in Korea. This volume analyzes the unique aspects of the Korean development of the Confucian tradition by examining the role of Confucianism as the ruling ideology of the Choson (...) Dynasty. It investigates Confucianism’s social and cultural construction, and intellectual foundation in highlighting the Korean achievement of the Neo-Confucian discussion on "human nature and its principle" in light of the Chinese Neo-Confucian development. The volume also surveys the most influential Korean Confucian scholars discussing their philosophical significance in relation to one of the most fundamental Neo-Confucian discourses, namely the li and qi debates, to elucidate how metaphysical theories shaped the socio-political factions of the Choson Dynasty. Furthermore, issues concerning the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism and other native traditional belief systems are also included in this volume. The volume explores the Confucian confrontation with modernity, encounter with the "Western Learning" including Western science and Catholicism, and the Confucian struggle with modernity in dealing with issues such as democracy, human rights, and gender in modern Korea. Individual contributors of this volume are either well established senior scholars or promising young scholars in the field. (shrink)

Moral licensing theory suggests that observers may liberate actors to behave in morally questionable ways due to the actors’ history of moral behaviors. Drawing on this view, a scenario experiment with a 2 (high vs. low ethical)×2 (internal vs. external motivation) between-subject design (N = 455) was conducted in the current study. We examined whether prior ethical leader behaviors cause subordinates to license subsequent abusive supervision, as well as the moderating role of behavior motivation on such effects. The results showed (...) that when supervisors demonstrated prior ethical behaviors, subordinates, as victims, liberated them to act in abusive ways. Specifically, subordinates showed high levels of tolerance and low levels of condemnation towards abusive supervision and seldom experienced emotional responses to supervisors’ abusive behaviors. Moreover, subordinates tended to attribute abusive supervision, viewed as a kind of mistreatment without an immediate intent to cause harm, to characteristics of the victims and of the organization rather than of the supervisors per se. When supervisors behaved morally out of internal rather than external motivations, the aforementioned licensing effects were stronger. (shrink)

This article examines the different avenues to protect animals globally under (a zoological perspective on) international law. A first approach is to use existing organizations, which are limited in scope but through which it is easier to find common ground. The second approach is to use a global existing and overarching organization. The Organization for Animal Health has the advantage of having quasi-universal membership and of issuing science-based and objective reports. However, its powers are currently quite weak. This article suggests (...) that the best avenue would be a third approach: the establishment of a new international organization, preferably under the U.N. umbrella. (shrink)

The original version of this article was corrected: Figures 5 and 6 were updated.

The study of emotional intelligence and its relationship with the dark triad has emerged as a popular research area. However, the complex nature of the dark triad and EI, including multiple me...

In Chinese orthography, the most common character structure consists of a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right ; the minority, opposite arrangement also exists. Recent studies showed that SP character processing is more left hemisphere lateralized than PS character processing. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether this is due to phonetic radical position or character type frequency. Through computational modeling with artificial lexicons, in which we implement a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception but do (...) not assume phonological processing being LH lateralized, we show that the difference in character type frequency alone is sufficient to exhibit the effect that the dominant type has a stronger LH lateralization than the minority type. This effect is due to higher visual similarity among characters in the dominant type than the minority type, demonstrating the modulation of visual similarity of words on hemispheric lateralization. (shrink)

A long and scholarly piece by Eva Kitt WahMan covers the history of Chinese conventionsgoverning female “beauty” from Confuciusthrough Maoism to the present day. Classicalmanuals provide highly specific requirements forcourtesans and concubines. The shrunken, pulpyappendages produced by foot-binding practiceswere regarded as the most sexually stimulatingfeatures of the female body. In 1949, following theinauguration of the Communist regime, womenwere expected to shun ornament and make-up, tohave short hair, wear party uniforms, and to lookas much like men as possible. The ideal for (...) thecontemporary Chinese woman is quite a lot likethe ideal for the courtesan of tradition, but the de-tails are drawn from western fashion magazines.Wah believes that such liberation, although it hasits advantages, is mainly nominal and fosters con-fusion. She writes: “Although Chinese womentoday are developing new self-confidence, they donot seem to be aware of the fact that one can be-come a slave of the fashion industry, which merelyrepeats the bodily constraints of past times in anew form” (p. 194). [review by Mary Mothersill, 2001 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59 (2):211-214.]. (shrink)

In this study, we sorted out the research hotspots in sports science by bibliometric method and also used social network analysis to explore the relationship between knowledge networks and their scientific performance. We found 38 high-frequency keywords with obvious curricular nature or classical direction of sports science research and 4 high-frequency research groups. The topics of hotspots covered the secondary disciplines of sports science: physical education and training, national traditional sports, sports human science, and sports humanities and sociology. However, sports (...) human science research is less; therefore, accelerating the research of sports human science is the focus of future research. Meanwhile, we use social network structure analysis to study the relationship between knowledge elements in knowledge networks and their scientific performance. In addition to betweenness centrality, the closeness centrality, clustering coefficient, and structural holes of knowledge elements are significantly and positively related to their influence. In the relationship between knowledge elements and productivity, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality show significant positive correlations, and clustering coefficient and structural hole show significant negative correlations. Therefore, knowledge networks can be used to predict the scientific performance of knowledge elements. (shrink)

This chapter gives an outline of the development of the human organ transplant system in Hong Kong, whose key features are a soft opt-in system and strict prohibitions on commercial dealings in human organs for transplant. It is argued that under such a system, there is a lack of incentives for either cadaveric or living organ donations and for family members to endorse deceased donation. This argument is followed by an investigation of the shortage of organ donations in Hong Kong, (...) the limited success of the government promotion to improve the number of donations, and a discussion of new alternatives for improvement that have been initiated or proposed. It is argued that the feasibility and effectiveness of these alternatives are limited and uncertain. More radical reform of the existing system in terms of honorary, compensationalist, and familist incentives is needed and they all need to be taken into consideration. (shrink)

Given a set of objects characterized by a number of attributes, hidden patterns can be discovered in them for the grouping of similar objects into clusters. If each of these clusters can be considered as exemplifying a certain concept, then the problem concerned can be referred to as a concept discovery problem. This concept discovery problem can be solved to some extent by existing data clustering techniques. However, they may not be applicable when the concept involved is vague in nature (...) or when the attributes characterizing the objects can be qualitative, quantitative, and fuzzy at the same time. To discover such concepts from objects with such characteristics, we propose a Genetic-Algorithm-based technique. By encoding a specific object grouping in a chromosome and a fitness measure to evaluate the cluster quality, the proposed technique is able to discover meaningful fuzzy clusters and assign membership degrees to objects that do not fully exemplify a certain concept. For evaluation, we tested the proposed technique with simulated and real data and the results are found to be very promising. (shrink)

Duties to future persons contribute critically to many important contemporaneous ethical dilemmas, such as environmental protection, contraception, abortion, and population policy. Yet this area of ethics is mired in paradoxes. It appeared that any principle for dealing with future persons encountered Kavka's paradox of future individuals, Parfit's repugnant conclusion, or an indefensible asymmetry. In 1976, Singer proposed a utilitarian solution that seemed to avoid the above trio of obstacles, but Parfit so successfully demonstrated the unacceptability of this position that Singer (...) abandoned it. Indeed, the apparently intransitivity of Singer's solution contributed to Temkin's argument that the notion of "all things considered better than" may be intransitive. In this paper, I demonstrate that a time-extended view of Singer's solution avoids the intransitivity that allows Parfit's mere addition paradox to lead to the repugnant conclusion. However, the heart of the mere addition paradox remains: the time-extended view still yields intransitive judgments. I discuss a general theory for dealing with intransitivity that was inspired by Temkin's sports analogy, and demonstrate that such a solution is more palatable than Temkin suspected. When a pair-wise comparison also requires consideration of a small number of relevant external alternatives, we can avoid intransitivity and the mere addition paradox without infinite comparisons or rejecting the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Principle. (shrink)

Rainey et al. (forthcoming) discuss the complications that arise with assigning responsibility for brain computer interface (BCI)-mediated actions. Because BCI-mediated actions can differ from non-BCI-mediated actions in terms of control and foreseeability, the authors suggest that our ethical and legal evaluation of these actions may differ in important ways. While we take no issue with the authors’ discussion or conclusion, we also recognize the difficulty of grappling with the relationship between control, foreseeability, and moral responsibility practices, even without the additional (...) complications introduced by BCI-mediation. In this commentary, we therefore consider BCI-mediated action against the backdrop of a different--perhaps less murky--normative framework: blame. (shrink)