We argue that ‘locality’, perhaps the most mundane term in ecology, holds a basic ambiguity: two concepts of space—nomothetic and idiographic—which are both necessary for a rigorous resurvey to “the same” locality in the field, are committed to different practices with no common measurement. A case study unfolds the failure of the standard assumption that an exogenous grid of longitude and latitude, as fine‐grained as one wishes, suffices for revisiting a species locality. We briefly suggest a scale‐dependent “resolution” for this (...) replication problem, since it has no general, rational solution. *Received January 2008; revised April 2009. †To contact the authors, please write to: Ayelet Shavit, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Tel‐Hai Academic College, Upper Galilee, 12210 Israel; e‐mail: ashavit@telhai.ac.il . James Griesemer, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616; e‐mail: jrgriesemer@ucdavis.edu . Biodiversity is largely a matter of real estate. And, as with other real estate, location is everything. (Kiester at el. 1996 ). (shrink)

The paper focuses on the complex relations between aesthetics and phenomenology as they show themselves within the core locus of their interplay—the realm of the visible and the invisible. To do so, the paper examines a specific case study, a Rembrandt painting—A Woman Bathing in a Stream (1654)—through which the discussion illuminates the interconnected and inseparable relationship between aesthetics and phenomenology in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the visible and the invisible. The reading addresses both dimensions of the visible: the (...) essential intersubjective aspect of life and its complex visual representation in art. To achieve this, the paper first explores Merleau-Ponty’s late aesthetic ontology—a phenomenology that perceives the aesthetic realm, particularly the visible domain, as originating from human corporeal existence, thereby redefining the act of seeing and the concepts of the visible and the invisible; I show the manner in which invisible elements permeate our visual experience in the Rembrandt painting and in seeing as such. The paper also reveals the unique ontological role of painting and the painter in unveiling the aesthetic world, and in guiding the philosopher toward a vision that true philosophy—phenomenology—must embrace. The paper concludes by rethinking the significance of aesthetics, and especially, the arts, to phenomenological thought, and the necessity of phenomenology to aesthetic thought. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online education has become an important approach to learning in the information era and an important research topic in the field of educational technology as well as that of education in general. Teacher–student interaction in online education is an important factor affecting students’ learning performance. This study employed a questionnaire survey to explore the influence of teacher–student interaction on learning effects in online education as well as the mediating role of psychological atmosphere and learning engagement. The (...) study involved 398 college students studying at Chinese universities as the research object. Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire. The study found that the level of teacher–student interaction positively affected students’ learning effects. The psychological atmosphere mediated the positive effect of the level of teacher–student interaction on learning effects with mediating effect value of 0.1248. Learning engagement mediated the positive effect of teacher–student interaction on learning effects with a mediating effect value of 0.1539. The psychological atmosphere and learning engagement play a chain-mediating role in the mechanism of teacher–student interaction affecting students’ learning effects; that is, teacher–student interaction promotes students’ learning engagement by creating a good psychological atmosphere, which, in turn, influences learning effects. The mediating effect value was 0.0403. The results indicate that teacher–student interaction not only directly affects students’ learning effects but also influences students’ learning effects through the mediating effect of the psychological atmosphere and learning engagement. (shrink)

IntroductionDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, many citizens were asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, which can pose a significant challenge with respect to remaining physically active and maintaining mental health. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of inadequate physical activity, anxiety, and depression and to explore the relationship of physical activity with anxiety and depression symptoms among Chinese college students during quarantine.MethodUsing a web-based cross-sectional survey, we collected data from 1,396 Chinese college students. Anxiety and depression were (...) assessed with the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Self-Rating Depression Scale, respectively. The data on physical activity were collected by types of physical activity and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.ResultsDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, about 52.3% of Chinese college students had inadequate physical activity. The rates of anxiety and depression symptoms were 31.0 and 41.8%, respectively. A high level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with low anxiety, while a moderate, or high level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with reduced depression after adjusting confounding demographic factors. Moreover, specific types of physical activity, such as stretching and resistance training, were negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression; doing household chores was negatively correlated with depression.ConclusionOur findings highlight specific levels and types of home-based physical activities that need to be taken into consideration to protect the mental health of college students during the COVID-19 epidemic. (shrink)

Grit, as an important positive psychological quality, has rarely been studied for its role involved in the mechanism between stress and psychological security. This article explores the moderating and mediating role of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security of freshmen through two studies. In study 1, freshmen from several Chinese universities were recruited to complete a battery of questionnaire, including assessments about interpersonal stress, grit, and psychological security. The moderating effect analysis showed that grit moderated the (...) relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. Specifically, grit buffered the negative effects of interpersonal stress on freshmen’s psychological security, but this effect was obvious only when the level of interpersonal stress was relatively low, and decreased when the level of interpersonal stress was high. In study 2, college freshmen from another university apart from above ones were recruited, and we verified the results of study 1 and further explored the mediating role of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and security. The moderating effect analysis of study 2 also verified that of study 1. The mediating effect analysis showed that interpersonal stress not only negatively predicted psychological security, but also affected psychological security through the mediation of grit. In general, grit played a mediating and moderating role in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. This study provides first-hand evidence to explain the multiple roles of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. (shrink)

In order to improve the efficiency of teaching and learning in Colleges and Universities, this work combines the Browser/Server framework with Model View Presenter technology to build a college student–oriented micro-video teaching system based on Deep Learning and Human–Computer Interaction technology. Firstly, it makes an in-depth analysis of the problems in the classroom teaching of Chinese CAUs. Three functional modules are designed for the micro-video online teaching platform: video management, user learning, and system management. Then, it uses MVP technology (...) to analyze the use-cases of these three functional modules in detail. Based on this, the micro-video online teaching platform is designed using the B/S framework. The teaching platform interface layer realizes the HCI between the platform and users. The business logic layer responds to the user requests submitted and returns the processing results to the interface layer. Finally, the function test and stress test of each module of the micro-video online teaching platform is carried out. The test results show that the response time of the proposed micro-video teaching platform increases with the number of users. Under the peak concurrent users, the system response time is 6 s, without abnormalities. Meanwhile, the proposed teaching platform has improved students' satisfaction with classroom teaching by nearly 15% and improved the compactness of the college classroom by nearly 12%. When the number of virtual users increases and the number of services increases linearly, the Random Access Memory and Central Processing Unit growth rate is significantly lower than that of the number of services. These outcomes indicate that many system resources are reused, and the system has good scalability, which can meet users' needs for the network video teaching system. The proposed teaching platform provides a new idea for applying DL and HCI technology in researching college students' micro-video teaching mode. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida prononça au Collège International de Philosophie, le 14 mars 1987, une conférence consacrée à l’esprit, et plus précisé- ment encore au Geist, dont il s’efforce de montrer qu’il habite de part en part la pensée de Heidegger, qu’il en abrite la méditation philoso- phique à tel point que celle-ci, pour finir, paraît totalement située en ce foyer spirituel. Le titre de l’ouvrage reproduisant le texte de cette conférence – en lui intégrant d’assez longues notes – indique immédiate...

Auto : le moi. Bio : la vie. Graphie : l'écriture. Tels sont en effet les trois axes autour desquels s'organise la matière de l'autobiographie? genre littéraire protéiforme, aussi infiniment varié que l'est son inépuisable sujet, l'homme. Telles sont les pistes qu'explore Georges Gusdorf dans ce deuxième volet des lignes de vie, après l'enquête plus historique des Ecritures du moi. Ecrire sur soi, c'est parier sur sa propre survie et la survie de l'espèce, c'est tenter de préserver de la mort (...) la part essentielle de son être. Mais de quel être s'agit-il? Le moi insaisissable, tantôt glorifié, tantôt haï, le moi sous-tend toute vocation d'écrivain, sans jamais se révéler en entier dans l'écrit ; C'est qu'il appartient aux incertitudes de la vie, dans ses continuités et ses ruptures, ses fidélités et ses palinodies. Comme il est difficile de lui trouver une unité, et plus encore une raison d'être! La vaste érudition de l'auteur est un guide sûr dans l'immense corpus de la littérature européenne ; sa curiosité, son mordant, son art du questionnement philosophique en font le compagnon hors pair de nos lectures. Amiel et Paul Valéry, Roland Barthes et saint Augustin, Goethe et Michel Leiris, pour n'en cite que quelques-uns, mêlent ici leurs traces, révélant la motivation profonde de toute entreprise autobiographique, la plus modeste comme la plus ambitieuse, la plus secrète comme la plus somptueuse : écrire sa vie, c'est lui donner un sens. (shrink)

Le livre d’O. Le Cour Grandmaison est un bel exemple, comme le dit E. Balibar dans sa préface, d’un ouvrage de « philosophie populaire » éclairant et suggestif. Pourquoi un ouvrage de philosophie populaire ? Parce qu’il s’agit, à partir de la pensée spinoziste, d’analyser la nature et les effets d’un affect particulier – la haine – dans le champ des relations interhumaines ; et il s’agit de le faire philosophiquement, c’est-à-dire non pas en évaluant normativement tel ou tel comportement (...) hai.. (shrink)

Les divers visages du mouvement. Questions phénoménologiques et ontologiques sur le rapport entre la perception, l’expression et le mouvement dans le cours de Merleau-PontyLe monde sensible et le monde de l’expressionLe cours professé par Merleau-Ponty dans l’année 1952-53 est encore inédit, mais grâce au travail de Emmanuel de Saint Aubert et Stefan Kristensen il est possible de le lire en transcription en vue de sa publication. Ce cours, inaugurant les leçons au Collège de France, contient des analyses détaillées concernant la (...) relation entre monde sensible perceptif et monde de l’expression (non seulement linguistique). Il s’agit d’analyses importantes, possédant un caractère programmatique en vue des recherches effectuées ensuite par Merleau-Ponty jusqu’à l’époque de Le visible et l’invisible. Au sein de cette analyse une place importante est réservée au thème du mouvement, d’abord étudié en tant que médiateur entre perception et pensée, mais vite devenu question centrale du cours.Merleau-Ponty aborde le problème du mouvement par rapport à sa manifestation, considérée comme originale et non pas réductible à des éléments plus fondamentaux qu’elle, tels que l’espace et du temps. Il étudie ensuite le sujet du mouvement, en le liant avec le concept de schéma corporel, ce qui est amplement illustré et contient des développements intéressants à l’égard de la Phénoménologie de la perception. Enfin il étudie la question de la représentation du mouvement dans la peinture et le cinéma.Toutes ces approches au problème du mouvement esquissent, sans le dire ouvertement, la question de sa signification ontologique. Dans cet essai, j’ai essayé d’articuler cette question, en essayant d’en extraire les différentes valeurs: celle relative au statut du mouvement, celle portant sur la relation entre le mouvement et la manifestation, à savoir la manifestation comme mouvement, et enfin celle de la pluralité de sens ontologique inhérente à la conception de Merleau-Ponty, avec une attention particulière aux concepts d’altération, métamorphose, trace de l’être.De la discussion des ses remarques tout aussi pénétrantes que réticentes on est amené à conclure que Merleau-Ponty a vu la possibilité d’une ontologie «cinétique», c’est à dire d’une signification ontologique radicale du mouvement, mais sans arriver à une formulation explicite de cette perspective. Perspective qui semble refaire surface dans les oeuvres et dans les leçons suivantes, sans jamais recevoir une définition accomplie.I molti volti del movimento. Problemi fenomenologici e ontologici relativi alla relazione tra percezione, espressione e movimento nel corso su Il mondo sensibile e il mondo dell’espressione di M. Merleau-PontyIl corso tenuto da Merleau-Ponty nell’anno accademico 1952-53 è ancora inedito ma grazie al lavoro di Emmanuel de Saint Aubert e Stefan Kristensen è ora divenuto possibile leggerne la trascrizione in vista della sua pubblicazione. Questo corso, inaugurale delle lezioni al Collège de France, contiene analisi dettagliate relative al problema del rapporto tra mondo sensibile percettivo e mondo dell’espressione (anche ma non soltanto linguistica). Si tratta di analisi importanti anche per il carattere programmatico che esse posseggono in riferimento alle successive indagini condotte da Merleau-Ponty fino all’epoca della redazione di Il visibile e l’invisibile. All’interno di tali analisi un posto importante è riservato al tema del movimento, inizialmente indagato nella sua valenza di mediazione tra percezione e pensiero, ma presto assurto a tema centrale della riflessione.Merleau-Ponty discute il problema del movimento in relazione alla sua manifestazione, ritenuta originaria e non riconducibile, o peggio riducibile, a elementi più fondamentali come lo spazio e il tempo. Indaga poi il soggetto del movimento, articolandolo in connessione alla nozione di schema corporeo, che viene illustrata ampiamente e contiene interessanti sviluppi rispetto a Fenomenologia della percezione. Infine studia la questione della rappresentazione del movimento in pittura e nel cinema.Tutti questi approcci al movimento delineano, senza esplicitarla apertamente, la questione della valenza ontologica del movimento. In questo saggio ho provato ad articolare tale questione cercando di estrarne le diverse valenze: quella relativa allo statuto del movimento, quella concernente il nesso tra movimento e manifestazione, ossia la manifestazione come movimento; infi ne quella della pluralità di sensi ontologici intrinseca alla trattazione di Merleau-Ponty, con un’attenzione particolare per le nozioni di alterazione, metamorfosi, traccia d’essere.Dall’analisi di queste osservazioni insieme penetranti e reticenti mi pare di poter concludere che Merleau-Ponty abbia intravisto la possibilità di una ontologia “cinetica”, cioè di un significato ontologico radicale del movimento, senza però arrivare ad una formulazione esplicita di tale prospettiva. Prospettiva che sembra a tratti riaffiorare nelle opere e nelle lezioni successive, senza mai ricevere una compiuta definizione. (shrink)

Qu'ont en commun Cioran, Simone Weil, Curzio Malaparte, Denis de Rougemont et les autres intellectuels et écrivains dont l'oeuvre et la vie sont évoquées dans ces pages? Il apparaît que, pour la plupart, ce sont des témoins d'une époque à bien des égards exceptionnelle, ne serait-ce que par la profondeur et l'intensité des malheurs qui y ont connu les hommes et les femmes. Mais alors pourquoi avoir choisi parmi tous les témoins possibles ceux qui, sans être inconnus dans les cercles (...) savants, ne le sont pas moins aujourd'hui du grand public? Peut-être s'agit-il de faire oeuvre d'éducation en permettant aux lecteurs d'accéder à la connaissance de ces témoins peu connus? Peut-être s'agit-il plutôt, à terme, de simplement rappeler ces existences marquées, au milieu de la tourmente, par la lucidité et le courage? Une telle entreprise peut paraître suspecte à une époque qui se targue d'avoir aboli toutes les idoles. Que vaut, en somme, ce type de célébration posthume dès lors que chaque existence, même la plus noble, porte en elle une part d'obscurité si déterminante? A cela s'ajoute que l'histoire, du moins celle que nourrit la recherche et que l'on enseigne dans les universités et les collèges, n'offre plus de modèles de vie, mais bien des faits, des explications et des interprétations que l'on souhaite les plus objectifs possible. Et pourtant, à cette époque que l'on dit de toutes les fins, de l'Art, de l'Histoire, de l'Homme, il a semblé nécessaire de renouer avec l'esprit de la tradition humaniste. Un jardin en soi, aurait pu écrire Montaigne, qu'on ne peut cultiver pour le mieux, car c'est là un art incertain, qu'en ayant à l'esprit un certain idéal. Or, renouer ainsi le fil rompu de la transmission de l'Idéal, tel était, et tel demeure encore aujourd'hui, notre volonté en publiant ces figures de pensée. (shrink)

Corresponding Author, Health Policy & Ethics Fellow, Chronic Disease Prevention & Control Research Center, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, 1709 Dryden, Suite 1025, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Tel.: 713.798.5482; Fax: 713 798 3990; Email: danielg{at}bcm.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract This article defends a broad model of public health, one that specifically addresses the social epidemiologic research suggesting that social conditions are primary determinants of health. The article proceeds by critiquing (...) one of the strongest arguments in favor of a narrow model, advanced by Mark Rothstein. The critique sets up the argument that a model of public health that does not address what actually causes health and disease is unlikely to improve public health. Assessing the substantial evidence regarding the social determinants of health, the article engages the policy paradox that precludes utopian prescriptions but demands more than mere expedience. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In April this year a Conference on Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human Resource Management was held at the Management School, Imperial College, London, and jointly sponsored by the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA) and the UK Chapter of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN‐UK). We are indebted to the organisers of the Conference, Dr Diana Winstanley, Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Imperial College Management School, Dr Jean Woodall, Reader in Human Resource Management at Kingston Business School, (...) and Professor Edmund Heery, Professor of Human Resource Management at Cardiff Business School, for the following overview of the ethics agenda emerging for modern HRM as this figured in contributions to the Imperial College Conference. All the papers delivered at the Conference are obtainable from Dr Diana Winstanley, Imperial College Management School, 53 Prince's Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG, tel: (44)(0) 171‐594‐9114. (shrink)

Matthew Rimmer, ACIPA, The Australian National University, College of Law, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia. Tel.: (02) 61254164; Email: matthew.rimmer{at}anu.edu.au ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract This article considers the significance of the first export of essential medicines under the WTO General Council Decision 2003. In July 2007, Rwanda became the first country to provide a notification under the WTO General Council Decision 2003 of its intent to import a fixed-dose, triple combination HIV/AIDS drug manufactured (...) by the Canadian generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Apotex, Inc. In September 2007, Apotex was granted the first compulsory licence application under Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. This article considers the convoluted and protracted negotiations between the Government of Rwanda, Apotex and three patent holders, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingleheim Canada and Shire BioChemical, Inc. It questions the efficiency of this process. This article considers the review of the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa Act 2004 (Canada). It is critical of the refusal of the Conservative Government of Canada to make any amendments to the legislation to improve the cost-effective delivery of essential medicines. This article queries the proposed Hong Kong Amendment to the TRIPS Agreement 1994, given the concerns of the Africa Group. It is submitted that it is undesirable to codify the WTO General Council Decision 2003, given its failure to provide a speedy, efficient and cost-effective delivery of essential medicines. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Fifteen years into a successful career as a college professor, Ilana Blumberg encounters a crisis in the classroom that sends her back to the most basic questions about education and prompts a life-changing journey that ultimately takes her from East Lansing to Tel Aviv. As she explores how civic and religious commitments shape the culture of her humanities classrooms, Blumberg argues that there is no education without ethics. When we know what sort of society we seek to build, our (...) teaching practices follow. In vivid classroom scenes from kindergarten through middle school to the university level, Blumberg conveys the drama of intellectual discovery as she offers novice and experienced teachers a pedagogy of writing, speaking, reading, and thinking that she links clearly to the moral and personal development of her students. Writing as an observant Jew and as an American, Blumberg does not shy away from the difficult challenge of balancing identities in the twenty-first century: how to remain true to a community of origin while being a national and global citizen. As she negotiates questions of faith and citizenship in the wide range of classrooms she traverses, Blumberg reminds us that teaching - and learning - are nothing short of a moral art, and that the future of our society depends on it. (shrink)

ExcerptThere might have been no need to theorize “October 7” in southern Israel and its ghoulish afterlife, far away, on the American college campus, but for the bitter irony that receptions of the Hamas pogrom were already laden, from the start, with what academics these days are calling “critical theory.” It ought to have been sufficient unto the day (דיה לצרה בשעתה, as the rabbis say) that such horrors be rendered straightforwardly in journalistic accounts, scientifically in forensic studies, colloquially (...) in survivors’ testimonies, defiantly in all that graffiti all over Tel Aviv protesting “7/10,” mournfully in all those obituaries all over Israeli media, heartbreakingly at public gatherings week after week in Hostages Square (כיכר החטופים) and obscenely in the murderers’ own self-made GoPro videos. (shrink)

Confronter un scientifique et un philosophe sur les neurosciences, leurs résultats, leurs projets, leur capacité à soutenir un débat sur la morale, sur les normes, sur la paix, tel est l'objet de ce livre. Le débat d'idées est trop rare en France. Affirmations péremptoires, critiques unilatérales, discussions incompréhensibles, dérisions faciles ne cessent d'encombrer le terrain sans souci pour des arguments qui, avant d'être convaincants,aspirent à être tenus pour plausibles, c'est-à -dire dignes d'être plaidés. Vivre un dialogue totalement libre et ouvert (...) entre un scientifique et un philosophe constitue une expérience exceptionnelle pour l'un comme pour l'autre. " (P. R. et J. -P. C. ). Paul Ricoeur est professeur honoraire à l'université Paris-X et professeur émérite à l'université de Chicago. Il est l'auteur de très nombreux ouvrages, notamment "La métaphore vive", "Temps et Récit", "Soi-même comme un autre". Jean-Pierre Changeux est professeur au Collége de France et à l'Institut Pasteur, membre de l'Académie des sciences. Il est notammentl'auteur de "L'Homme neuronal", "Matiére à pensée" (avec Alain Connes), et "Raison et Plaisir". ". (shrink)

In A Question of Time, Joel Pearl offers a new reading of the foundations of psychoanalytic thought, indicating the presence of an essential lacuna that has been integral to psychoanalysis since its inception. Pearl returns to the moment in which psychoanalysis was born, demonstrating how Freud had overlooked one of the most principal issues pertinent to his method: the question of time. The book shows that it is no coincidence that Freud had never methodically and thoroughly discussed time and that (...) the metaphysical assumption of linear time lies at the very heart of Freudian psychoanalysis. Pearl¿s critical reading of Freud develops through an original dialogue that he creates with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and, specifically, with the German philosopher¿s notion of temporality. Pearl traces the encounter between Freud and Heidegger by observing the common inspiration shaping their thinking: philosopher Franz Brentano, who taught both Freud and Edmund Husserl, Heidegger¿s mentor. The book travels down an alternate path, one overlooked by Freudian thought ¿ a path leading from Brentano, through Husserl and onto Heidegger¿s notion of time, which is founded on the ecstatic¿ interrelation of past, present and future. Dr. Joel Pearl specializes in phenomenology and psychoanalysis on which he has published several articles. He teaches philosophy at the Academic College of Communication, Rishon LeZion, Israel. In addition, Pearl is a dynamic psychotherapist and a member of The Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Ali Benmakhlouf est actuellement maître de conférences à l’Université de Paris-X Nanterre. Spécialiste de logique et des œuvres de Frege, Russel et Whitehead, il est par ailleurs depuis dix ans la cheville ouvrière de la convention passée entre la Fondation du Roi Abdul Aziz pour les études islamiques et les sciences humaines (Casablanca) et le Collège international de Philosophie (Paris). Cinq volumes, publiés par les éditions Le Fennec en français et en arabe, témoignent de cet échange : La Raison et (...) la question des limites (1997), Routes et déroutes de l’universel (1998), Le voyage des théories (2000), Tout est-il relatif ? (2001) et Droit et participation politique (2002). L’entretien qu’il a accordé à Asterion met en évidence les enjeux d’un tel travail commun pour la philosophie et sa pratique. (shrink)

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been widely criticized for being too delayed and indecisive. As a result, the precautionary principle has been endorsed, applauded, and proposed to guide future responses to global public health emergencies. Drawing from controversial issues in response to COVID-19, especially in Vietnam, this paper critically discusses some key ethical and legal issues of employing the precautionary principle in public health emergencies. Engaging with discussions concerning this principle, especially in environmental law where the precautionary principle first (...) appeared as a guiding principle with objective content(s), this paper formulates the precautionary principle as ‘in dubio pro salus’, which is about advising, justifying and demanding states to proactively prepare for scenarios arising out of any public health emergency. It distinguishes the precautionary principle into moderate and hard versions. A moderate version largely takes a holistic approach and fulfils a series of criteria specified in this paper, while a hard version either permits restrictive measures to be deployed primarily on a hypothetic basis or expresses an instrumental mentality. The hard version should be rejected because of the ethical and legal problems it raises, including risk-risk tradeoffs, internal paradoxes, unjustified causing of fear and unreasonable presupposition. Ultimately, this paper defends the moderate version. (shrink)

This study addressed the questions of perceived importance of social responsibility information (SRI) characteristics in a decision context, as well as the attitudes of institutional investors toward social responsibility involvement. The results showed that SRI presently disclosed in company annual reports did not have any significant impact on institutional investors' decisions. However, if SRI were presented in quantified, financial form, and were focused on product improvement and fair business practices, such information would be perceived as more important for investment decisions. (...) Attitudes toward corporate social responsibility also suggested that institutional investors were not totally opposed to company involvement in social activities. (shrink)

The topics of serious leisure and subjective well-being have been discussed extensively in previous research. It is generally acknowledged that people prefer to experience deeper satisfaction and happiness through serious participation in leisure-time physical activities. However, it is essential to examine the relationship between serious leisure and subjective well-being in an urban setting as well as the mediating effect of leisure satisfaction. Data were collected from 447 recreational runners at the 2018 Wuxi International Marathon event in China. The study results (...) showed that serious leisure was positively associated with leisure satisfaction and subjective well-being, that leisure satisfaction was positively associated with subjective well-being, and that leisure satisfaction completely mediated the relationship between serious leisure and subjective well-being. Running group membership significantly affected the path from serious leisure to leisure satisfaction, while other demographic variables (e.g., gender and education) did not moderate any paths. These results help explain the intricate relationship between serious leisure and subjective well-being and offer theoretical and managerial implications for serious leisure. (shrink)

In Nothing To It, Brother Phap Hai brings his characteristic warmth and humor to explore the many different gates to transformation offered by Buddhism. A gate is a teaching, practice, or way of looking at things. Each gate is an invitation to consider a new frame of reference through which we can consider our situation, an opportunity to look at things differently. Readers who enjoyed Bhante Gunaratana's Mindfulness in Plain English will delight in this new explanation from the Australian-born monk, (...) who lives at Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California. There are fifty-eight gates explored in Nothing To It, arranged in ten traditional groups, with one chapter exploring each gate. Based on a series of talks given by Phap Hai in 2013, the book is designed to be equally valuable when read through at leisure or used as the text for a ten week self-guided course. Each chapter includes questions for reflection, additional reading suggestions on the topic, and writing exercises. The gates can be explored in order or investigated at random. Phap Hai offers a charming blend of ancient wisdom, Dharma scholarship, and contemporary applications. (shrink)

Human rights constitute a universal concern in different countries’ responses to COVID-19. Vietnam is internationally praised for its success in containing the pandemic; nevertheless, human rights issues are a key area that needs to be assessed and improved. Little legal and ethical research is available on human rights in Vietnam, particularly in its response to COVID-19, however. In Vietnam, decentralization took place during the pandemic: higher authorities delegated power to lower ones to make and implement public health measures. Unfortunately, many (...) measures made and implemented decentrally caused human rights concerns or breaches. This article aims to study what makes such measures cause human rights concerns or breaches. It argues that several social, legal, and political factors, including an inadequate understanding of human rights, the undefined breadth of discretion, and lack of supervision, are underlying factors for such problematic decentralized measures. Accordingly, this paper proposes two solutions (i) improving the supervision of the decentralization process, and (ii) improving the understanding of human rights. While Vietnam should learn from the international community to improve its measures, lessons and experience from Vietnam can also contribute to a richer dialogue and better protection of human rights globally. (shrink)

The first section provides the standard understanding of the concept of ‘đồng bào’ (hereinafter ‘đồng bào’). This understanding is widely shared by the Vietnamese populace for it to stand robustly and independently from any controversies. Then, implications of ‘đồng bào’ for two areas of bioethics—transplantation and ethics in crises—are provided. Finally, ‘đồng bào’ shall be developed for the purpose of global health. In English, ‘fellow citizens’ or ‘compatriots’ are the terms used to describe people of the same ‘community’. ‘Compatriots’ defines (...) the ‘community’ by virtue of soil (its etymology has the Latin term ‘patria’—‘fatherland’). ‘Fellow citizens’ defines the ‘community’ in terms of citizenship and links to the concepts of ‘polis’ or ‘state’. ‘Đồng bào’ is a Vietnamese word conveying the notion of ‘people of the same ‘community’ which occupies a decent position in the Vietnamese public-politic life.1 Though ‘đồng bào’ in Vietnamese is generally considered comparable to, translatable into and has been translated into ‘compatriots’ and ‘fellow citizens’, ‘đồng bào’ neither delineates the ‘community’ in terms of ‘soil’ or ‘citizenship’. ‘Đồng bào’ literally means ‘from the same fetus’ (‘bào’ is ‘bào thai’—fetus). ‘Đồng bào’s’ original metaphorical meaning derives from the Âu Cơ creation myth. The Vietnamese Âu Cơ myth stands out from certain other creation myths because, according to it, people are considered not only to have the same mother but to ‘have been conceived and born simultaneously from one fetus’ as opposed to ‘were born from the same womb’ as in certain other creation myths. People are not only siblings of each other. Rather, people share bones, flesh, blood and a bond forged in the common destiny …. (shrink)

User intent classification is a vital component of a question-answering system or a task-based dialogue system. In order to understand the goals of users’ questions or discourses, the system categorizes user text into a set of pre-defined user intent categories. User questions or discourses are usually short in length and lack sufficient context; thus, it is difficult to extract deep semantic information from these types of text and the accuracy of user intent classification may be affected. To better identify user (...) intents, this paper proposes a BERT-Cap hybrid neural network model with focal loss for user intent classification to capture user intents in dialogue. The model uses multiple transformer encoder blocks to encode user utterances and initializes encoder parameters with a pre-trained BERT. Then, it extracts essential features using a capsule network with dynamic routing after utterances encoding. Experiment results on four publicly available datasets show that our model BERT-Cap achieves a F1 score of 0.967 and an accuracy of 0.967, outperforming a number of baseline methods, indicating its effectiveness in user intent classification. (shrink)

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There has long been theoretical confusion caused by the "gang of four" and the counterrevolutionary clique led by Lin Piao. They are responsible for the rampancy of metaphysics and idealism in handling the question of the criterion of truth. The "gang of four" gave the pragmatist outlook on truth wide publicity, spoke up for the usefulness of truth, negated the criterion of practice in the test of truth, and repudiated the absoluteness of the criterion of practice. The group also carried (...) out absolutism, denied the development of human knowledge to the accompaniment of the development of practice, and negated the absoluteness of the criterion of practice. Therefore, a correct elucidation of the relativity and absoluteness of the criterion of practice is necessary for the elimination of the theoretical confusion caused by the "gang of four" and of its baneful effects. (shrink)

Trajectories along which phase-space points of the Wigner distribution function move are computed for a Gaussian wave packet moving under the influence of a weak perturbative potential. The potentials considered are a potential step, a potential barrier, and a periodic potential. Trajectories computed exhibit the complex, nonlocal nature of quantum dynamics. It is seen that quantum interference, which takes place in the time development of the wave packet, is taken care of in a simple way by the Wigner trajectory method (...) presented here. (shrink)

Bloch is the most original of Germany after World War II, Marxist philosopher and Marxist tradition to make innovative character. His understanding of materialism, his interpretation of Hegel, his religious philosophy, his views on heritage, his theory of socialism is the Marxist tradition he made ​​a major innovation. Ernst Bloch is a Marxist philosopher, who is most rich in originality and a person of figures, who makes innovation in tradition of Marxism after the Second World War in Germany. His understanding (...) of materialism, his interpretation of Hegel, his viewpoint of legacy, his theory of socialism, etc. all are great innovation, that are engaged he in tradition of Marxism. (shrink)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated Wigner distribution function. Many advances made in various areas of science during the 50 year period can be attributed to the physical insights that the Wigner distribution function provides when applied to specific problems. In this paper the usefulness of the Wigner distribution function in collision theory is described.

How do we theorize the Chinese state, a state both transforming itself rapidly through economic rationalism and yet standing firmly through governmental authoritarianism? Where and how is the figure of the middle class situated in this Chinese state? How does a critical understanding of the Chinese situation offer insights into problems of risks associated with the middle class in the current global economic crisis/recession? To address these questions, I look at both the politics of the Chinese state and its transformative (...) relations to the people, the subject of the Chinese nation. More specifically, I examine the evolving relationship between the…. (shrink)