This study aims to propose a framework considering both economic issues and environmental effects in technology evaluation in order to provide firms' decision makers a useful reference in adopting technologies that will enable them to fulfill corporate social responsibilities and get competitive advantages at the same time. Recently, the demands for technology evaluation have increased with the flourishing development of technology licensing, technology transaction or joint venture on the one hand and with the pressing needs of environmental protection for human (...) beings' sustainable development on the other hand. Under such conditions, it thus goes without saying that firms' decision makers are propelled to take into account both economic benefits and environmental effects in evaluating technologies by choosing low or nonpolluting technologies for manufacturing products. Although technology evaluation is not a new and emerging subject currently besetting scholars in the field of management, previous research on this topic has unwittingly left behind the pressing issue of environmental effects. Based on this observation, this study purports to develop a new framework for technology evaluation by taking both economic benefits and environmental perspectives into consideration. In it, we seek to demonstrate that our proposed framework will not only be a workable model but also can serve as a useful point of reference for technology appraisers and firms' decision makers. (shrink)

This research explores why a metallic basketball hoop is referred to as sacred within the secular realm of sports, drawing on Phil Jackson’s insights alongside the ideas of Mircea Eliade and Dōgen Zenji. Phil Jackson, known as the “Zen Master,” holds the most NBA championship rings as a coach. In Sacred Hoops, he explores a basketball world entangled with commercialism, violence, and scandals, while presenting a vision of the sport as “sacred.” Jackson’s Western religious background and his exploration of concepts (...) like “enlightened mind,” “no-mind,” and “action without intention” align closely with Eastern Zen principles. This article also examines Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane, where he explores the coexistence of the sacred and profane throughout history, and Dōgen Zenji’s philosophy of “casting off body and mind.” Using creative hermeneutics as its methodology, this study attempts to reinterpret the idea of sacredness in sports. The key findings are: (1) sacredness can emerge from the mundane/everyday world, with sports providing a space for such awareness; (2) Eliade views sacredness externally through the Western concept of hierophany; (3) Dōgen Zenji’s Eastern view focuses on internal transformation through casting off body and mind; (4) this study emphasizes the difference between Eastern and Western views of the sacred, proposing an Eastern interpretation; and (5) through mindful practice, basketball players can unify with the game, transcend individual limits, and achieve tranquility and sacredness. (shrink)

The question whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives can be transferred to firm performance to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) prompted this study to investigate how CSR strategies influence both SDGs and financial performance. A mediated moderating model based on the organizational alignment theory was developed to examine the mediating and moderating roles of organizational structure and corporate governance, respectively. By analyzing the three-year panel data of 1,480 firm-year observations from publicly listed companies in Taiwan, we find that organizational structure (...) mediates the relationship between a firm’s CSR strategy and firm performance consisting of SDG disclosures, sales revenue, net profit, and return on equity. Corporate governance plays a moderating role in the relationship between organizational structure and firm performance. Our objective financial data provide evidence supporting “doing well by doing good.” The proposed organizational alignment model and empirical results enhance the theoretical understanding of the CSR research field. The research findings have several practical implications for business executives to improve a firm’s social and financial performance. (shrink)

This study explored the effect of learning strategies in a student organization on cake art creativity. The participants were 27 student members of a cake decorating art club from one central university in Taiwan. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was adopted, with 90 h of experimental teaching over 16 weeks. The results, which included the use of a questionnaire, classroom observation, and in-depth interviews, suggest that in terms of creativity, the group participating in flipped classroom learning significantly outperformed the group using (...) traditional learning strategies. Furthermore, flipped classroom learning promoted learner motivation and satisfaction. (shrink)

Learning general concepts in imperfect environments is difficult since training instances often include noisy data, inconclusive data, incomplete data, unknown attributes, unknown attribute values and other barriers to effective learning. It is well known that people can learn effectively in imperfect environments, and can manage to process very large amounts of data. Imitating human learning behavior therefore provides a useful model for machine learning in real-world applications. This paper proposes a new, more effective way to represent imperfect training instances and (...) rules, and based on the new representation, a Human-Like Learning (HULL) algorithm for incrementally learning concepts well in imperfect training environments. Several examples are given to make the algorithm clearer. Finally, experimental results are presented that show the proposed learning algorithm works well in imperfect learning environments. (shrink)

We study whether changes in analyst recommendation ratings systems encouraged by the implementation of NASD 2711 in 2002 are associated with improved objectivity and independence in analyst recommendations. Using recommendations issued during windows surrounding major investment banking events, we show that reductions in analyst optimism following the reforms concentrate in the recommendations of analysts whose employer adopted a three-tier rating system at the time of the reforms, and that this effect is generally stronger for analysts whom the underlying incentives to (...) engage in unethical behaviour is greatest. We also find evidence that adoption of the three-tier system improved the market’s perception of the objectivity of analyst recommendations issued after SEOs, and that for hold and sell-type recommendations this effect was stronger for analysts subject to the greatest potential ethical conflicts. While we find some evidence of a general post-reform increase in the profitability of recommendations issued following equity transactions, this improvement was only conditioned by changes to the rating system in our IPO sample. (shrink)

Confucius is conventionally regarded as the founder of secular humanism and as a philosopher concerned about humans and culture. I would add to this that Confucius should also be read as an environmental philosopher. One reason is the pedagogical dimension in Confucianism, which points to Confucius as an environmental educator ? not the least of which since much of environmental education relies on common sense and an enlightened collective self-interest. Another reason is an aspect I call ?ecological intelligence?, which is (...) a key feature of ancient Confucianism and a signpost for the civil evolution that the mitigation of climate change demands from global civilization today. (shrink)

As Paulo Freire’s education theory for social change and emancipation is being continually studied and disseminated in East Asia, it has faced skepticism as some educators are unfamiliar with its critical pedagogy or education for freedom concepts. In light of this, scholars have attempted to compare Freirean philosophies with concepts in Chinese philosophy of education as a way of bridging East and West. Diverging from previous studies that use popular Chinese philosophies (such as Confucianism) to connect with Freirean theory, this (...) paper introduces an understudied but compatible Chinese philosophical thought, Mohism, for comparison with Freirean theory. Mohism is a political philosophy for the working class that expanded into grassroots movements for people’s welfare in ancient China. The Mohist bottom-up approach echoes the grassroots emancipatory pedagogy that underlies Freirean philosophy. A comparative analysis of education concepts in both philosophies reveals that despite differences in the educational content of Freirean theory and Mohism, there are similarities in their conceptualization of education for anti-oppression and praxis for social change. Implications for utilizing Mohist philosophy to contemplate Freirean philosophy within the East Asian educational context are also explored. Ultimately this paper revives educational concepts of Mohism that aligns with Freirean philosophy to a broader audience of scholars and educators. (shrink)

Scholars of critical algorithmic studies, including those from geography, anthropology, Science and Technology Studies and communication studies, have begun to consider how algorithmic devices and platforms facilitate democratic practices. In this article, I draw on a comparative ethnography of two alternative open-source algorithmic platforms – Decide Madrid and vTaiwan – to consider how they are dynamically constituted by differing algorithmic–human relationships. I compare how different algorithmic–human relationships empower citizens to influence political decision-making through proposing, commenting, and voting on the urban (...) issues that should receive political resources in Taipei and Madrid. I argue that algorithmic empowerment is an emerging process in which algorithmic–human relationships orient away from limitations and towards conditions of plurality, actionality, and power decentralisation. This argument frames algorithmic empowerment as bringing about empowering conditions that allow (underrepresented) individuals to shape policy-making and consider plural perspectives for political change and action, not as an outcome-driven, binary assessment (i.e. yes/no). This article contributes a novel, situated, and comparative conceptualisation of algorithmic empowerment that moves beyond technological determinism and universalism. (shrink)

Where a person is unable to make medical decisions for themselves, law and practice allows others to make decisions on their behalf. This is common at the end of a person’s life where decision-making capacity is often lost. A further, and separate, decision that is often considered at the time of death (and often preceding death) is whether the person wanted to act as an organ or tissue donor. However, in some jurisdictions, the lawful decision-maker for the donation decision (the (...) ‘donation decision-maker’) is different from the person who was granted decision-making authority for medical decisions during the person’s life. To date, little attention has been given in the literature to the ethical concerns and practical problems that arise where this shift in legal authority occurs. Such a change in decision-making authority is particularly problematic where premortem measures are suggested to maximise the chances of a successful organ donation. This paper examines this shift in decision-making authority and discusses the legal, ethical and practical implications of such frameworks. (shrink)

This study investigates the cognitive-pragmatic motivations for the emergence of a genre of health communication called Patient Decision Aid. It elucidates genre as struggle, i.e. how the emerging genre exemplifies various struggles on three strata: the difficulties facing patients, doctors, and health providers at practice level; the changes anticipated to take place at discourse level; and the tensions in the pragmatics-cognition-society nexus. Particularly illustrated here are five struggles that characterize changes or breakthroughs that PDAs are anticipated to make. It suggests (...) that the five struggles roughly correspond to five principles for genre theory proposed by Berkenkotter and Huckin, with some modification of the latter. It also illustrates that genre intervenes in the complexity between social issues and social cognition and that PDAs as a new genre involve restructuring, reshaping and redesigning the key discourse facets. Based on examples of Chinese-language PDAs officially released in Taiwan and on information from health professionals, policy makers, and PDA developers, this study contributes empirical evidence toward a better understanding of an emerging genre. (shrink)

This essay aims to explore the meaning of freedom from a comparative perspective, focusing on critical comparisons between the discourses of liberalism and Neo-Confucianism. In so doing, my specific purpose is to characterize one of the possible, and perhaps the most plausible, presentations of Confucian liberalism as a perfectionist form of Hegelian liberalism. The contents are organized into three major sections.To begin with, thanks largely to Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” and Chang Fo-ch’üan’s Tzu-yu yü jen-ch’üan, an asymmetry (...) emerged in conceptualizing negative and positive freedom in the Chinese context; this development suggests that whereas negative.. (shrink)

Problematic smartphone use is an expanded public health heed that requires more study to clarify the influence elements of different populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between smartphone use, and sleep quality, self-perceived health, and exercise participation in university students. A total of 1,575 Taiwanese undergraduate students from 7 universities participated in the study. Three questionnaires were completed by the study individuals. The results show the overall PSU rate was 11.8%. Average smartphone users were more (...) likely to feel in good health, better sleep quality and less unsatisfactory exercise participation than those who were problematic smartphone users. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that PSU, low weekly exercise frequency, and poor sleep quality were significant indicators of poor self-perceived health. We concluded that both low physical activity and PSU did have negative impacts on self-perceived health and sleep quality for undergraduate students. (shrink)

Twenty years ago our great teacher and leader Chairman Mao published "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," an epoch-making piece of Marxist literature. In this brilliant piece, Chairman Mao applied the fundamental law of the universe, the law of the unity of opposites, to sum up comprehensively the historical experience of China's socialist revolution and construction and the international Communist movement and to analyze profoundly the nature, peculiarities and laws of socialist society. He was the first in (...) the history of the development of Marxism to point out clearly that the fundamental contradictions of socialist society are still the contradiction between the productive forces and production relations and the contradiction between the superstructure and the economic base. He was the first to demonstrate clearly that even after the system of ownership of the means of production has been transformed into that of a socialist country there still exist classes, class struggle, and the danger of capitalist restoration. He was the first to indicate clearly that there exist two different kinds of contradictions in socialist society which must be rigorously distinguished and correctly handled, for which he established the great theory of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the basis of the unity of theory and practice, he resolved the issue of preventing and combating revisionism, consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat, and stymied the threat of capitalist restoration. It was an important essay for our time concerning carrying the cause of socialist revolution through to the end, a great enrichment and development of Marxism-Leninism. To study this brilliant essay by Chairman Mao is of the greatest significance for China's current investigation and criticism of the Wang-Chang-Chiang-Yao "gang of four" anti-Party clique. (shrink)

This article advances the thesis that our values and beliefs about engineering critically impact the teaching of engineering ethics, and our representations and assumptions about engineering are, accordingly, ethical questions we must consider. To illustrate how in broader sociohistorical contexts, different understandings of engineering have shaped expectations of ethics, we provide a historical and contemporary review of the literature. Examining the significance of our thesis for teaching practice, we discuss three case studies of our teaching and critically reflect on how (...) our representation of engineering limited the breadth and depth of ethics. Considering that instruction seemingly unrelated to ethics, in fact, influences how engineering ethics is understood and taught, our conclusion calls for critical examination of our beliefs about engineering. This entails, among others, up-to-date knowledge about the changing values of our rapidly-developing engineering fields and how they raise social, ethical questions of engineering relevant specifically to our teaching situation. (shrink)

Since the late 1990s, the dynamics of welfare reform in Taiwan have gradually shifted to tackling new social risks emerging from economic globalization and labor market changes. This article analyzes these structural changes and the relevant institutional features of the labor market. The rise of atypical work has generated wide concern regarding its low wage income and insufficient social protection, triggering debates about which policy measures can effectively tackle the problem of the working poor. Drawing on the quantitative data from (...) a social quality survey conducted by the Social Policy Research Center in National Taiwan University (NTUSPRC) in 2009, our analysis explores the social exclusion differences between regular and atypical workers for their objective and subjective experiences. The objective experiences include current financial situations, negative events, living conditions and political activities of the workers, whereas the subjective experiences refer to their feelings in family position, welfare assessment, discrimination, and autonomy. Our analysis helps explain the effects of work status on the degrees of social exclusion, both in the private and public spheres. The social exclusion experiences of working conditions shed light on social quality in Asia. (shrink)