Historically, scientific and engineering expertise has been key in shaping research and innovation policies, with benefits presumed to accrue to society more broadly over time. But there is persistent and growing concern about whether and how ethical and societal values are integrated into R&I policies and governance, as we confront public disbelief in science and political suspicion toward evidence-based policy-making. Erosion of such a social contract with science limits the ability of democratic societies to deal with challenges presented by new, (...) disruptive technologies, such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, automation and robotics, and artificial intelligence. Many policy efforts have emerged in response to such concerns, one prominent example being Europe's Eighth Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, whose focus on “Responsible Research and Innovation” provides a case study for the translation of such normative perspectives into concrete policy action and implementation. Our analysis of this H2020 RRI approach suggests a lack of consistent integration of elements such as ethics, open access, open innovation, and public engagement. On the basis of our evaluation, we suggest possible pathways for strengthening efforts to deliver R&I policies that deepen mutually beneficial science and society relationships. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the Societal Readiness Thinking Tool to aid researchers and innovators in developing research projects with greater responsiveness to societal values, needs, and expectations. The need for societally-focused approaches to research and innovation—complementary to Technology Readiness frameworks—is presented. Insights from responsible research and innovation concepts and practice, organized across critical stages of project-life cycles are discussed with reference to the development of the SR Thinking Tool. The tool is designed to complement not only shortfalls in TR (...) approaches, but also improve upon other efforts to integrate RRI, sustainability, and design thinking in research and innovation cycles. Operationalization and early-stage user tests of the Tool are reported, along with discussion of potential future iterations and applications. (shrink)

The authors aim to explore a better fitting leadership style that is designed for the sustainable era in believing and committing to work for cherishing resources and developing the organization toward a new sustainable direction. This study developed the questionnaire items of the Resource-Dilemma-Handling-Leadership scale, representing a new sustainable era's new leadership style, and then to compare it with the transformational leadership style in order to highlight the importance of RHDL for sustainable development. This study took companies, which have more (...) than 100 employees in Taiwan as research samples. Those companies were selected because they were socially tagged as being operating continuously for more than 20 years and identifying themselves with the operational orientation of social responsibility as their business philosophy and core values for management. A total of 532 valid questionnaires were collected, with a 90.6% valid return rate, and tested with the SEM method. Consistent with the authors' inferences from the literature, the test results suggest that CSR plays the role of full mediator between RDHL and OC. CSR itself is like a sense of responsibility, giving employees a sense of mission, to complete meaningful sustainability-relevant tasks in the organization. RDHL, compared with TL, has a better prediction power on CSR and OC. Theoretically, this study implies that the impact of leadership of the organization on OC in the aspects of sustainable development should be going through the influence of the ELB system in the form of CSR to promote the organization's internal and external organizational CSR performance, with added internal strengthening power from OC. Practically, the new RDHL concepts brought up by this study include the training and enhancement of leadership skills based on the content of the scale items being explored. The new RDHL scale contains a comprehensive description of the spirit of the new sustainable era's leadership style. Also, the future applications of RDHL ideas in the form of human resource development should help the realization of the ideally sustainability behavioral patterns of leaders and employees in the organizations. (shrink)

This book examines, through a multi-disciplinary lens, the possibilities offered by relationships and family forms that challenge the nuclear family ideal, and some of the arguments that recommend or disqualify these as legitimate units in our societies. That children should be conceived naturally, born to and raised by their two young, heterosexual, married to each other, genetic parents; that this relationship between parents is also the ideal relationship between romantic or sexual partners; and that romance and sexual intimacy ought to (...) be at the core of our closest personal relationships - all these elements converge towards the ideal of the nuclear family. The authors consider a range of relationship and family structures that depart from this ideal: polyamory and polygamy, single and polyparenting, parenting by gay and lesbian couples, as well as families created through current and prospective modes of assisted human reproduction such as surrogate motherhood, donor insemination, and reproductive cloning. (shrink)

The exponential growth of social data both in volume and complexity has increasingly exposed many of the shortcomings of the conventional frequentist approach to statistics. The scientific community has called for careful usage of the approach and its inference. Meanwhile, the alternative method, Bayesian statistics, still faces considerable barriers toward a more widespread application. The bayesvl R package is an open program, designed for implementing Bayesian modeling and analysis using the Stan language’s no-U-turn (NUTS) sampler. The package combines the ability (...) to construct Bayesian network models using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation technique, and the graphic capability of the ggplot2 package. As a result, it can improve the user experience and intuitive understanding when constructing and analyzing Bayesian network models. A case example is offered to illustrate the usefulness of the package for Big Data analytics and cognitive computing. (shrink)

Folklore has a critical role as a cultural transmitter, all the while being a socially accepted medium for the expressions of culturally contradicting wishes and conducts. In this study of Vietnamese folktales, through the use of Bayesian multilevel modeling and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, we offer empirical evidence for how the interplay between religious teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and deviant behaviors (lying and violence) could affect a folktale’s outcome. The findings indicate that characters who lie and/or commit (...) violent acts tend to have bad endings, as intuition would dictate, but when they are associated with any of the above Three Teachings, the final endings may vary. Positive outcomes are seen in cases where characters associated with Confucianism lie and characters associated with Buddhism act violently. The results supplement the worldwide literature on discrepancies between folklore and real-life conduct, as well as on the contradictory human behaviors vis-à-vis religious teachings. Overall, the study highlights the complexity of human decision-making, especially beyond the folklore realm. (shrink)

This study explores entrepreneurship research in Vietnam, a lower-middle-income country in Southeast Asia that has witnessed rapid economic growth since the 1990s but has nonetheless been absent in the relevant Western-centric literature. Using an exclusively developed software, the study presents a structured dataset on entrepreneurship research in Vietnam from 2008 to 2018, highlighting: low research output, low creativity level, inattention to entrepreneurship theories, and instead, a focus on practical business matters. The scholarship remains limited due to the detachment between the (...) academic and entrepreneur communities. More important are the findings that Vietnamese research on entrepreneurship, still in its infancy, diverges significantly from those in developed and emerging economies in terms of their content and methods. These studies are contextualized to a large extent to reflect the concerns of a developing economy still burdened by the high financial and nonfinancial costs. (shrink)

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

There is controversy as to whether children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and those with high-functioning autism plus language impairment (HFA-LI) share similar language profiles. This study investigated the similarities and differences in the production of Chinese negative sentences by children with DLD and children with HFA-LI to provide evidence relevant to this controversy. The results reflect a general resemblance between the two groups in their lower-than-TDA (typically developing age-matched) performance. Both groups encountered difficulties in using negative markers, which suggests (...) that they might be impaired in feature agreement. Slight differences were detected between the two groups. Specifically, children with DLD experienced difficulties with the agreement on the feature [+telic] and that on the feature [+dynamic], while children with HFA-LI had difficulties with the agreement on the feature [+dynamic] and that on the feature [−dynamic]. This study supports the idea of a common symptomatology for the two disorders. More importantly, it suggests that these two disorders, DLD and HFA-LI, are not altogether the same in terms of language impairment. This paper concludes that general labels should not be simply attached to any children with language disorders. Instead, atypical language is very worthy of further analysis in the categorization of language disorders. (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.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the extent of personal privacy concerns expressed by university students in Vietnam while using TikTok, the influence of peer interactions and social norms on privacy attitudes and behaviors and the strategies used by university students in Vietnam to mitigate privacy risks on TikTok. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews was used to gather data on the following: the degree to which Vietnamese university students express concerns about their personal privacy while using TikTok; how (...) peer interactions and social norms influence privacy attitudes and behaviors; and the strategies these students use to mitigate privacy risks on the platform. Findings Findings indicate that although university students exhibit a relatively low level of concern regarding their personal privacy on TikTok, peer influences and societal norms significantly shape their attitudes and behaviors on the platform. Moreover, students use several strategies to mitigate privacy risks, such as selective content sharing and refraining from engaging with unknown links. Practical implications These insights provide valuable implications for the development of targeted interventions and educational initiatives aimed at fostering a more privacy-conscious TikTok user community among university students in Vietnam. Originality/value This research fills a critical gap in the existing literature by focusing on the influence of social norms and peer influences on privacy attitudes and behaviors on social media platforms. While prior studies have explored various factors impacting privacy concerns on social media, the role of social dynamics has been understudied. Moreover, the research specifically addresses the lack of investigation into privacy concerns on TikTok, a platform rapidly gaining popularity among younger demographics. (shrink)

BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

The interventionist theory of causation has been advertised as an empirically informed and more nuanced approach to causality than the competing theories. However, previous literature has not yet analyzed the regression discontinuity (hereafter, RD) and the difference-in-differences (hereafter, DD) within an interventionist framework. In this paper, I point out several drawbacks of using the interventionist methodology for justifying the DD and RD designs. However, I argue that the first step towards enhancing our understanding of the DD and RD designs from (...) an interventionist perspective is to take advantage of the assumptions of common trend and continuity. (shrink)

Despite numerous published writings on China's regional role, the world still knows very little about Beijing's perception and strategy. This article seeks to make an intellectual contribution in understanding China's foreign policy and its efforts to participate in East Asian integration. This article argues that under the rhetoric of peaceful development and community building, China's foreign policy is pragmatic and changes with the tide of events in international relations. China's participation in regional integration serves as a good case for examining (...) changes in Beijing's strategy. In the past two decades, China has moved from a reluctant participant of regional affairs to an active participant and potential future leader. China's adjusting role is a consequence of Beijing's pragmatism in policy and its growing economic confidence. Pragmatism has led China to and wait for the proper timing to step onto the world stage. (shrink)

Since the very beginning, Confucianism has been troubled by a serious gap between its political ideals and the reality of societal circumstances. Contemporary Confucians must develop a viable method of governance that can retain the spirit of the Confucian ideal while tackling problems arising from nonideal modern situations. The best way to meet this challenge, Joseph Chan argues, is to adopt liberal democratic institutions that are shaped by the Confucian conception of the good rather than the liberal conception of (...) the right.Confucian Perfectionism examines and reconstructs both Confucian political thought and liberal democratic institutions, blending them to form a new Confucian political philosophy. Chan decouples liberal democratic institutions from their popular liberal philosophical foundations in fundamental moral rights, such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and individual sovereignty. Instead, he grounds them on Confucian principles and redefines their roles and functions, thus mixing Confucianism with liberal democratic institutions in a way that strengthens both. Then he explores the implications of this new yet traditional political philosophy for fundamental issues in modern politics, including authority, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice.Confucian Perfectionism critically reconfigures the Confucian political philosophy of the classical period for the contemporary era. (shrink)

More impetus needs to be placed on cord blood donationIn July, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists released a report on the uses and the potential perils of umbilical cord blood collection.1 This report has had the positive effect of drawing attention to what has hitherto been an under addressed topic of medical research and ethics. However, the focus and recommendations of the report say little about one important aspect of cord blood usage—research. Such an omission, although understandable from (...) an organisation primarily concerned with maternal and neonatal health, may nevertheless have implications for the broader applicability of the report’s recommendations, outside the immediate arena of patient care.The RCOG report deals with various aspects of cord blood collection and use—the harvesting procedure itself; cord blood transplantation treatment, either as an autologous cell transplant or as a donation for community use; and whether cord blood banking for personal use should be permitted or encouraged as a privately funded commercial enterprise. It also makes note of some of the legal and ethical issues surrounding cord blood and tissue banking more generally, concerns that will be of increasing importance as more biobanks are established worldwide. A large part of the report deals with concerns on neonatal and maternal safety and whether cord blood collection may pose a risk. These concerns may be valid and certainly, the health of mothers and children should not be compromised. The guidance provided by this report in relation to the collection procedure will undoubtedly assist maternity health professionals in this area.The main relevance of the RCOG …. (shrink)

The emergency department (ED) is a fast-paced, highly stressful environment where clinicians function with little or suboptimal information and where time is measured in minutes and hours. In addition, death and dying are phenomena that are often experienced in the ED. Current end-of-life care models, based on chronic illness trajectories, may be difficult to apply in the ED. A philosophical approach examining end-of-life care may help us understand how core medical and nursing values are embodied as care practices and as (...) ethical comportment. The integration of Aristotle's notions of phronesis and praxis with Merleau-Ponty's ontological notions of intentional arc and maximum grip in the context of the culture and practices of the ED offers a unique view of clinical and ethical practice at the end-of-life in the emergency setting. Caring for people at the end-of-life calls us to act virtuously based on previous experience, meanings and local practices. The maximum grip of the ultimate particulars of the situation combined with one's experiential and theoretical knowledge opens up situated possibilities for the expert clinician. (shrink)

We give necessary conditions for a set to be definable by a formula with a universal quantifier and an existential quantifier over algebraic integer rings or algebraic number fields. From these necessary conditions we obtain some undefinability results. For example, N is not definable by such a formula over Z. This extends a previous result of R. M. Robinson.

We say φ is an ∀∃ sentence if and only if φ is logically equivalent to a sentence of the form ∀ x∃ y ψ(x,y), where ψ(x,y) is a quantifier-free formula containing no variables except x and y. In this paper we show that there are algorithms to decide whether or not a given ∀∃ sentence is true in (1) an algebraic number field K, (2) a purely transcendental extension of an algebraic number field K, (3) every field with characteristic (...) 0, (4) every algebraic number field, (5) every cyclic (abelian, radical) extension field over Q, and (6) every field. (shrink)

Modelling data in applied areas particularly in reliability engineering is a prominent research topic. Statistical models play a vital role in modelling reliability data and are useful for further decision-making policies. In this paper, we study a new class of distributions with one additional shape parameter, called a new generalized exponential-X family. Some of its properties are taken into account. The maximum likelihood approach is adopted to obtain the estimates of the model parameters. For assessing the performance of these estimators, (...) a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation study is carried out. The usefulness of the proposed family is demonstrated by means of a real-life application representing the failure times of electronic components. The fitted results show that the new generalized exponential-X family provides a close fit to data. Finally, considering the failure times data, the Bayesian analysis and performance of Gibbs sampling are discussed. The diagnostics measures such as the Raftery–Lewis, Geweke, and Gelman–Rubin are applied to check the convergence of the algorithm. (shrink)

Biometric technologies are becoming more pervasive in the workplace, augmenting managerial processes such as hiring, monitoring and terminating employees. Until recently, these devices consisted mainly of GPS tools that track location, software that scrutinizes browser activity and keyboard strokes, and heat/motion sensors that monitor workstation presence. Today, however, a new generation of biometric devices has emerged that can sense, read, monitor and evaluate the affective state of a worker. More popularly known by its commercial moniker, Emotional AI, the technology stems (...) from advancements in affective computing. But whereas previous generations of biometric monitoring targeted the exterior physical body of the worker, concurrent with the writings of Foucault and Hardt, we argue that emotion-recognition tools signal a far more invasive disciplinary gaze that exposes and makes vulnerable the inner regions of the worker-self. Our paper explores attitudes towards empathic surveillance by analyzing a survey of 1015 responses of future job-seekers from 48 countries with Bayesian statistics. Our findings reveal affect tools, left unregulated in the workplace, may lead to heightened stress and anxiety among disadvantaged ethnicities, gender and income class. We also discuss a stark cross-cultural discrepancy whereby East Asians, compared to Western subjects, are more likely to profess a trusting attitude toward EAI-enabled automated management. While this emerging technology is driven by neoliberal incentives to optimize the worksite and increase productivity, ultimately, empathic surveillance may create more problems in terms of algorithmic bias, opaque decisionism, and the erosion of employment relations. Thus, this paper nuances and extends emerging literature on emotion-sensing technologies in the workplace, particularly through its highly original cross-cultural study. (shrink)

Jun Otsuka, in his recent work Thinking About Statistics (2023), undertakes a philosophical investigation of fundamental statistical methodologies, with a particular emphasis on causal inference. In his ontological analysis of causal inference, Otsuka posits that causal analysis, within a given causal model, requires the modification of the underlying probabilistic distribution. This modification, he argues, effectively constitutes a transition between possible worlds. Consequently, Otsuka identifies the objective of causal inference as the discovery of inter-world laws that govern the relationships between these (...) distinct probabilistic models (Otsuka 2023, p.168). Granting Otsuka’s ontological commitments regarding causal and probabilistic models, his interpretation of certain causal analyses as inherently inter-worldly is indeed compelling. This perspective merits particular attention given the prevailing tendency to view such analyses to mere rules for estimating causal effects. While this review does not directly challenge Otsuka’s position, it aims to further explore and contribute to this stimulating concept. (shrink)

Autobiography of Burmese Buddhist philosopher.

The practice of mathematical word problem is ubiquitous and thought to impact academic achievement. However, the underlying neural mechanisms are still poorly understood. In this study, we investigate how lexical consistency of word problem description is modulated in adults' brain responses during word problem solution. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging methods, we examined compare word problems that included relational statements, such as “A dumpling costs 9 dollars. A wonton is 2 dollars less than a dumpling. How much does a wonton (...) cost?” and manipulated lexical consistency and problem operation. We found a consistency by operation interaction in the widespread fronto-insular-parietal activations, including the anterior insula, dorsoanterior cingulate cortex, middle frontal gyrus, and intraparietal sulcus, such that inconsistent problems engaged stronger activations than consistent problems for addition, whereas the consistency effect was inverse for subtraction. Critically, these results were more salient in the less successful problem solvers than their more successful peers. Our study is the first to demonstrate that lexical consistency effects on arithmetic neural networks are modulated during reading word problem that required distinct arithmetic operations. More broadly, our study has strong potentials to add linkage between neuroscience and education by remediating deficits and enhance instruction design in the school curriculum. (shrink)