Ortadoğu bölgesindeki çatışma ve istikrarsızlık ortamının ardında İran - Suudi Arabistan rekabeti bulunmaktadır. Bununla birlikte bu rekabetin politik doğası, çoğunlukla ana akım medya tarafından aşırı derecede basitleştirilmiştir. Benzer biçimde İran – Suudi Arabistan rekabetinin içindeki kimlik politikaları üzerine yazılmış literatürün büyük bir kısmı bölgesel istikrarsızlıkların kökeni ve kaynağını ağırlıklı olarak tarihlerinin genel ve betimleyici bir hesabını sunmuş veya oyuncuların iktidar mücadeleleri içerisinde Sünni ve Şii İslam’ın politikleşmesine ve manipülasyonuna odaklanmıştır. Halen mevcut olan kimlik politikaları üzerine teorileri sentezleyen, yani Primordializm, araçsallık, (...) ve sosyal inşacılık, bu araştırmanın teorik modelini oluşturmaktadır. Bu modelde, mezhepsel kimlik – Ortadoğu toplumlarının ve yanı sıra bölgesel tarihin bir gerçeği olarak – sadece politik süreçler üzerine muazzam etkileri ölçülmedi, ayrıca politik uygulamalarda her düzeydeki politik aktörlerin kullanımıyla karşılaştırılmıştır. (shrink)

This paper summarizes the evolution of analytic philosophy in Taiwan, examines its impact within and beyond academia, and discusses the future of the discipline. The roots of modern philosophy in Taiwan can be traced back to the Japanese colonial era, and analytic philosophy was introduced to the country in the late 1940s when many intellectuals in China moved to Taiwan. However, massive curbs were imposed on philosophy during Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship, and the discipline began to thrive again only after Taiwan’s (...) democratization in the late 1980s. Nonetheless, since its introduction in the colonial era, modern philosophy has made significant contributions in Taiwan, encouraging interdisciplinary engagements, advancing civic education, and promoting the spirit of democracy and political liberation. Philosophy has played a key role in Taiwan’s remarkable transformation from an island colonized for hundreds of years to a country that recognizes democracy, freedom, and human rights. The themes of anti-colonialism and anti-domination seen in the works of modern Taiwanese philosophers not only reflect the discipline’s political and historical underpinnings but also signal how Taiwanese philosophy can acquire a distinct identity despite being influenced by many other philosophical traditions. While still at a nascent stage, Taiwanese philosophy has the potential to join forces with other philosophical traditions in advancing the vision of decolonizing philosophy. (shrink)

L’intervention que reprend cet article porte sur un cadre-dispositif singulier de thérapie familiale basé sur l’épistémologie psychanalytique groupale. Ce cadre est singulier dans la mesure où il a été tenté d’articuler un travail entre groupe de thérapeutes et néo-groupe. La réflexion développée ici s’origine dans la clinique des auteurs : lorsqu’ils parlent en groupe d’une famille, la règle d’association libre les amène fréquemment à évoquer une autre famille rencontrée précédemment en séance. Quelle est la nature et la fonction de cette (...) résonance? L’article pose l’hypothèse d’un nouveau contre-transfert : le contre-transfert transfamilial. Une vignette clinique permet d’illustrer le cheminement qui a conduit les auteurs à y aboutir. (shrink)

© 2015 Elsevier Inc.Postnatal organogenesis occurs in an immune competent environment and is tightly controlled by interplay between positive and negative regulators. Innate immune cells have beneficial roles in postnatal tissue remodeling, but roles for the adaptive immune system are currently unexplored. Here we show that adaptive immune responses participate in the normal postnatal development of a non-lymphoid epithelial tissue. Since the mammary gland is the only organ developing predominantly after birth, we utilized it as a powerful system to study (...) adaptive immune regulation of organogenesis. We found that antigen-mediated interactions between mammary antigen-presenting cells and interferon-γ -producing CD4+ T helper 1 cells participate in MG postnatal organogenesis as negative regulators, locally orchestrating epithelial rearrangement. IFNγ then affects luminal lineage differentiation. This function of adaptive immune responses, regulating normal development, changes the paradigm for studying players of postnatal organogenesis and provides insights into immune surveillance and cancer transformation. Plaks et al. (shrink)

This event-related potential (ERP) study examined the impact of phonological variation resulting from a vowel merger on phoneme perception. The perception of the /e/–/ε/ contrast which does not exist in Southern French-speaking regions, and which is in the process of merging in Northern French-speaking regions, was compared to the /ø/–/y/ contrast, which is stable in all French-speaking regions. French-speaking participants from Switzerland for whom the /e/–/ε/ contrast is preserved, but who are exposed to different regional variants, had to perform a (...) same-different task. They first heard four phonemically identical but acoustically different syllables (e.g., /be/–/be/–/be/–/be/), and then heard the test syllable which was either phonemically identical to (/be/) or phonemically different from (/bε/) the preceding context stimuli. The results showed that the unstable /e/–/ε/ contrast only induced a mismatch negativity (MMN), whereas the /ø/–/y/ contrast elicited both a MMN and electrophysiological differences on the P200. These findings were in line with the behavioral results in which responses were slower and more error-prone in the /e/–/ε/ deviant condition than in the /ø/–/y/ deviant condition. Together these findings suggest that the regional variability in the speech input to which listeners are exposed affects the perception of speech sounds in their own accent. (shrink)

The phrase ‘chết phải toàn thây’, which has no direct English translation, can be roughly interpreted as ‘one must die with an intact body’. This belief, deeply rooted in Vietnamese culture, significantly influences how the body is treated after death. It is often linked to the idea that the body must remain whole for the soul to rest peacefully or transition smoothly into the afterlife. While many societies, particularly in the Western world, view the donation of organs after death as (...) a noble act, the belief in ‘chết phải toàn thây’ poses a significant barrier to promoting organ donation in Vietnam. This essay highlights the cultural origins of this belief and explores a broader interpretation of ‘toàn thây’ or ‘intact body’ in the modern era. The phrase ‘chết phải toàn thây’, firmly ingrained in Vietnamese culture for thousands of years, reflects the influence of religious and philosophical traditions, particularly Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.1 Confucianism emphasises filial piety (xiao), which includes preserving bodily integrity after death as a sign of respect for one’s parents and ancestors.2 Taoism, with its focus on the soul’s immortality and harmony with nature, regards the body as a sacred vessel crucial for maintaining a balance between the physical and spiritual realms.2 Together, these traditions form a cultural framework that assigns profound spiritual and emotional significance to the body, making its preservation a deeply held …. (shrink)

Cảm xúc là yếu tố cơ bản thúc đẩy con người đưa ra quyết định và xử lý thông tin. Sợ hãi là một trong những cảm xúc phổ biến nhất ảnh hưởng đến hành vi của nhà đầu tư cá nhân trên thị trường chứng khoán. Mặc dù nhiều nghiên cứu đã được thực hiện để khám phá tác động của nỗi sợ hãi đối với hiệu quả đầu tư và hành vi giao dịch của nhà đầu tư cá (...) nhân, nhưng vẫn còn rất ít thông tin về các yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến nỗi sợ hãi của nhà đầu tư cá nhân trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm (hoặc những giai đoạn cực kỳ biến động). Vì thế, nghiên cứu này được thực hiện để tìm hiểu liệu các nguồn thông tin ảnh hưởng đến quyết định đầu tư của nhà đầu tư có ảnh hưởng đến sự sợ hãi của họ khi khủng hoảng xảy ra hay không. Nghiên cứu đã sử dụng phương pháp phân tích Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) trên bộ dữ liệu từ 1526 nhà đầu tư Trung Quốc và Việt Nam. Kết quả nghiên cứu chỉ ra rằng các nhà đầu tư tiếp cận các loại thông tin khác nhau khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư sẽ ảnh hưởng đến tần suất phản ứng sợ hãi khác nhau. Cụ thể, các nhà đầu tư tham khảo thông tin từ chuyên gia hoặc tự phân tích khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư ít bị đóng băng (biểu hiện của tâm lý sợ hãi) hơn trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm. Ngược lại, những người đưa ra quyết định đầu tư dựa trên thông tin từ người quen hay bạn bè và trực giác sẽ bị đóng băng thường xuyên hơn. Kết quả nghiên cứu này giúp gợi ý nhà đầu tư cá nhân nên trang bị cho mình các kiến thức về tài chính cũng như tham khảo các ý kiến chuyên gia trên thị trường, hoặc những nguồn thông tin đáng tin cậy, khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư. Bên cạnh đó, cơ quan quản lý thị trường cần có hoạt động phổ cập kiến thức về thị trường chứng khoán, hạn chế ảnh hưởng của các kênh thông tin không chính thống, và khuyến khích nhà đầu tư ít kinh nghiệm mua chứng chỉ quỹ của các quỹ đầu tư. (shrink)

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

To become more useful and efficient in sustaining the Earth's health, economics must undergo a paradigm shift in its thinking. From a humanistic perspective, humans should be the center of everything. However, from the standpoint of physics and the universe, this is not the case. As a species, having a planet among the millions in the universe where humans can survive and thrive is already a great fortune. Through this book, we also try to answer one of our long-standing questions: (...) why has economics learned so little from physics, the oldest and most rigorous academic discipline that studies nature? -/- Learning from the quantum and information theories, we also provide a new definition of value, which is expected to help economists relax assumptions and loosen established economic principles in order to change and evolve. The new definition is also expected to enable social scientists to address newly arising phenomena or events that are not accounted for by existing value systems, such as environmental crises, artificial intelligence (AI), and interdisciplinary information, more proactively and productively. (shrink)

A recent study suggests that value and quantum states seem to be governed by the same underlying mechanisms. In our recent book titled "Better economics for the Earth: A lesson from quantum and information theories," specifically Chapter 5, we have proposed an informational entropy-based notion of value, grounded in Granular Interaction Thinking Theory (GITT), which integrates granular worldview and primary features of quantum mechanics, Shannon’s information theory, and the mindsponge theory. Specifically, the notion suggests that values are created through the (...) interactions of information. But how do information and its interactions lead to values? This research note aims to contribute to the answer to this question. (shrink)

Rejection is an essential part of the scholarly publishing process, acting as a filter to distinguish between robust and less credible scientific works. While rejection helps reduce entropy and increase the likelihood of disseminating useful knowledge, the process is not devoid of subjectivity. Providing more informative rejection letters and encouraging humility among editors and reviewers are essential to enhance the efficiency of knowledge production as they help ensure that valuable scientific contributions are not overlooked.

The military-industrial complex, military operations, and wars are major contributors to exacerbating both climate change and biodiversity crises. However, their environmental impacts are often shadowed due to national security reasons. The current paper aims to go through the devastating impacts of military operations and wars on climate change and biodiversity loss and challenges that hinder the inclusion of military-related activities into environmental crisis mitigation efforts. The information blind spot induced by concerns about national security reasons jeopardizes the efforts to involve (...) the military-industrial complex and military operations in the global climate and biodiversity agendas. Besides that, many military-related challenges, such as specificity of operational requirements and lifecycles, dependence on fossil fuels, complex supply change, inadequate civilian technologies and innovations, and requirements of structural changes, can hinder emission reduction. Meanwhile, wars and conflicts not only threaten to drain all human and material resources available to tackle environmental problems but also inflict long-lasting destructions, pains, and trauma that can lead to hatred and distrust among nations and parties. With the rising hatred and distrust, global agreement and commitment to address climate change and biodiversity will hardly be achieved. Thus, promoting peace is the humanistic and planetary conscience. (shrink)

Humans experience a profound and indescribable emotion when they unearth artifacts from ancient times. Scientific disciplines like paleontology and archaeology reflect our curiosity and desire to understand the natural world’s past and evolutionary history. Physics also invests significant effort in exploring the origin and evolution of the universe. In social life, the study field of humanities also has journals about art history, such as the Art History or Journal of Art History. Through our shared thoughts and efforts to restore humanities (...) for the cause of ecological and biological conservation, we have discovered a picture of a kingfisher taken nearly a century ago by A. F. Skutch in The Condor. Obtaining such a vivid, genuine, and emotionally evocative image was no easy task. This image has the power to stir the thoughts and awaken the conscience of the viewer, emphasizing the importance of a vibrant environment. (shrink)

As the world’s population grows and urbanization continues, the global waste crisis is becoming more severe, especially in developing countries. Without proper waste management, they may encounter various environmental and health risks. Biological technologies are regarded as promising waste management and recycling approaches in developing countries due to their cost-effectiveness and capability to handle diverse waste categories. One prominent technology in this aspect is the vermicomposting of organic waste utilizing the black soldier fly larvae. Nevertheless, significant financial resources are still (...) necessary to advance and expand biological waste treatment, which requires the participation of businesses. By examining waste management companies listed on the Vietnamese stock market, we highlight two challenges that hinder the adoption and scaling of the waste treatment system using black soldier flies and potentially other biological technologies in Vietnam. Specifically, the business regards the environmental services they offer primarily as a means to generate profit rather than as a genuine commitment to environmental preservation, and the values of companies operating in the environmental sector, particularly in waste management, have been significantly undervalued by the Vietnamese investing public. Therefore, we advocate for societal shifts toward the eco-surplus culture and apply the semiconducting principle of monetary and environmental values exchange to address the problem. (shrink)

Environmental activism is crucial for raising public awareness and support toward addressing the climate crisis. However, using climate change mitigation as the cause for blockage, vandalism, and harassment activities might be counterproductive and risk causing negative repercussions and declining public support. The paper describes a dataset of metadata of 89 blockage, vandalism, and harassment events happening in recent years. The dataset comprises three main categories: 1) Events, 2) Activists, and 3) Consequences. For researchers interested in environmental activism, climate change, and (...) sustainability, the dataset is helpful in studying the effectiveness and appropriateness of strategies to raise public awareness and support. For researchers in the field of security studies and green criminology, the dataset offers resources to study features and impacts of blockage, vandalism, and harassment events. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed to validate the dataset. Consequently, the estimated result aligns with the Mindsponge Theory’s theoretical reasoning. (shrink)

Tropical cyclones and their pertinent natural hazards can cause destructive damage to people and properties. Vietnam, located in the Northwest Pacific basin, is highly vulnerable to tropical cyclones due to its geography (i.e., a long coastline and narrow width). In this paper, we discuss how the negative consequences of tropical cyclones on Vietnam can be exacerbated by climate change and how forests, either in the mountainous or in the coastal regions, play crucial roles in safeguarding the country from tropical cyclones (...) and their pertinent hazards (e.g., landslides and flood). Despite the importance of forests, their protection values are undermined, leading to continuous deforestation of natural forests for socio-economic development. We suggest the social transitions towards eco-surplus culture through more proactive and transparent communication of the destructive outcomes of tropical cyclones and the protection roles of forests in the current climate change era. (shrink)

Environmental activism is crucial in increasing awareness of environmental degradation and preventing actions that harm the environment. A radical environmentalist movement has emerged within the community of activists. They advocate using illegal measures to attain their goals. This paper discusses these radical environmentalist groups’ motivations, their actions and their consequences. Activities that many consider unacceptable, such as art vandalism and road blockades, may result in adverse outcomes and diminish public support for environmental endeavors. We propose an alternative solidarity approach whereby (...) activists focus their efforts on disseminating information to the general public on climate change and other environmental issues, advocating for the adoption of eco-surplus culture, and fostering cooperation among governments, businesses, and individuals to develop effective solutions. (shrink)

The rediscovery of the silver-backed chevrotain, an endemic species to Vietnam, in 2019, after almost 30 years of being lost to science, is a remarkable outcome for the global conservation agenda. However, along with the happiness, there is a tremendous concern for the conservation of the species as eating wildmeat, including chevrotain, is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural values of Vietnamese. Meanwhile, conservation plans face multiple obstacles since the species has not been listed in the list of endangered, precious, and (...) rare wildlife prioritized for protection and is still classified by the IUCN as lacking data. Given the limited effectiveness of conservation measures, this essay discusses the determining roles of local actions, community cooperation, and humanistic values oriented toward eco-surplus culture in addressing the global biodiversity conservation agenda, specifically the conservation of the silver-backed chevrotain. Local actions and community cooperation for conservation can be actualized to achieve conservation goals through citizen and community sciences, integration of modern technologies (e.g., Internet, crowdfunding platforms, social media, AI, etc.), and the bonding capability of humanistic values that prioritize environmental healing. Communicating conservation information to the community, especially the children, has to stimulate their thinking and imagination about nature, develop their curiosity and desire to protect wildlife, and eventually build eco-surplus core values in their mindsets. To successfully awaken the humanistic values within the community and incorporate them into conservation endeavors, the conservation message with the name “mouse-deer”, “chevrotain”, or scientific name (Tragulus versicolor) is largely insufficient as they show an unfamiliar feeling. Therefore, we suggest calling the mouse-deer “cheo cheo”, a local name that can create familiarity and closeness, awaken the environmental conscience and humanistic values, and stimulate thinking and imagination. All these factors are essential for conservationists, scientists, and the government to support the community in building the eco-surplus culture. (shrink)

Background: The school meals program has multiple objectives of education, nutrition, and value transfer. To ensure achieving the goal, total quality management (TQM) is implemented in the school meals program. Supply chain issues pose significant challenges to TQM implementation in the program execution. Aim: This study aims to examine national and international capacities in supply chain management by analyzing the variety of food items delivered through the school meals program. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge (...) Theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that the method of obtaining supplies, whether through in-kind donations from local, regional, national sources, or national food reserves and purchasing from neighboring or distant countries, had a significant positive association with the variety of food items included in school meals or snacks. Conversely, obtaining supplies in-kind from neighboring or distant countries had a significant negative association with the food variety. Additionally, purchasing supplies from local, regional, or national food reserves had an unclear association with the food variety. Conclusions: Findings underscore the importance of supporting the World Bank and World Food Programme’s recommendation to rely more on local resources and capacities. Enhancing supply chain management at the national level is crucial for developing a long-term and sustainable school meals program. (shrink)

Language, one of humanity’s major transformative innovations, is foundational for many cultural, artistic, scientific, and economic advancements, including the creation of artificial intelligence (AI). However, in the fight against climate change, the power of such innovation is constrained due to the boring language of climate science and science communication. In this essay, we encapsulated the situation and risks of boring language in communicating climate information to the public and countering climate denialism and disinformation. Based on the Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D knowledge management framework, (...) we recommend several strategies for climate scientists and science communicators to be more creative and make their communication more interesting, including collaboration with other cultural sectors (e.g., stand-up comedians, climate fiction, etc.) and AI. (shrink)

Rejection is an essential part of the scholarly publishing process, acting as a filter to distinguish between robust and less credible scientific works. This study examines the advantages and limitations of the rejection mechanism through the lens of Shannon’s information theory and the theory of granular interactions thinking. We argue that while rejection helps reduce entropy and increase the likelihood of disseminating useful knowledge, the process is not devoid of subjectivity. We propose two recommendations to improve the rejection mechanism: providing (...) more informative rejection letters to guide authors and encouraging humility among editors and reviewers to minimize bias against novel ideas. These steps could enhance the efficiency of knowledge production by ensuring that valuable scientific contributions are not overlooked. (shrink)

The digital era brings various benefits to adolescents. However, operating on the digital environment without sufficient knowledge and skills will expose them to multiple types of risks, especially in the country with low digital safety education rate like Vietnam. The current study examines factors that can contribute to cultivating adolescents’ digital resilience using the information-processing reasoning of the Mindsponge Theory. A UNESCO dataset of 1061 Vietnamese high school students was analyzed using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics. It is found that (...) adolescents’ daily Internet usage frequency, parents’ Internet safety guidance, and teachers’ safety guidance are positively associated with digital resilience. However, the effects of parents’ and teachers’ Internet safety guidance on digital resilience are conditional on the daily Internet usage frequency. Parents’ guidance only enhances adolescents’ digital resilience if they use the Internet less than four hours per day. In contrast, the positive effect of teachers’ guidance on adolescents’ digital resilience becomes stronger when the students spend more time on the Internet (more than 1 hour). Based on these findings, we suggest that adolescents can learn to minimize risks and protect themselves by exposing more to the digital environment. Parents’ and teachers’ supports are important in enhancing adolescents’ capability to deal with digital threats, but types of supports need to be carefully considered to avoid reverse impacts on adolescents’ resilience. (shrink)

Forests play fundamental roles in the Earth’s ecosystems. With the great capability of carbon sequestration, tropical forests are expected to contribute substantially to reducing the CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. However, global tropical forest areas have declined drastically over the last few decades due to pressures from socio-economic development pursuit. The current essay aims to demonstrate the ongoing global deforestation crisis and its underlying drivers and discuss the vital roles of tropical forests in the socio-economic development in the face of climate (...) change when developed countries start to tighten the carbon emission control regulations (e.g., European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). It suggests why developing countries in tropical regions, particularly Vietnam, should not sacrifice forests for short- and medium-term socio-economic goals but capitalize on them to leverage long-term development. Moreover, evidence of Vietnamese political leaders’ commitment to forest protection and sustainable development is also provided. (shrink)

Environmental activism plays a vital role in raising awareness of environmental degradation and halting environmentally destructive activities, which is expected to contribute to safeguarding the Earth’s system against climate and biodiversity loss crises. Although the passion and commitment of environmental activists should be acknowledged, several groups of environmental activists are embracing the radical environmentalist movement. They support using illegal actions to achieve their primary goal of environmental protection. The actions perpetrated by radical environmentalist groups are not impulsive but rather part (...) of a deliberately planned and organized following a long-term strategy. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to provide an in-depth discussion of nickel's crucial position in the manufacturing sector in the context of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent growing environmental imperatives. These SDGs have gained unprecedented urgency due to looming concerns of incompletion. It should be emphasized that the information compiled herein is derived from authoritative sources and is limited in its ability to give comprehensive coverage within the scope of this article. The raised issues are of (...) broad interest in terms of environmental dynamics in the global nickel mining, extraction, and refining arenas. As a result, the content given below may not precisely comply with the local situations dictated by geographical, geological, and socio-economic characteristics. The fundamental goal of this discussion is to clarify the economic-environmental interaction and the pragmatic meanings of the term "sustainable" in the context of the nickel industry. (shrink)

Can green growth policies help protect the environment while keeping the industry growing and infrastructure expanding? The City of Kitakyushu, Japan has actively implemented eco-friendly policies since 1967 and recently inspired the pursuit of sustainable development around the world, especially in the Global South region. However, empirical studies on the effects of green growth policies are still lacking. This study explores the relationship between road infrastructure development and average industrial firm size with air pollution in the city through the Environmental (...) Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non-linear Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) methods were applied on nearly 50-years’ time series data, from 1967 to 2015. The results show that the shape of the EKC of industrial growth, measured by average firm size, depends on the type of air pollution: inverted N-shaped relationships with NO2 and CO, and the U-shaped relationships with falling dust particle and Ox. Regarding infrastructure development, on the one hand, our analysis shows a positive effect of road construction on alleviating the amount of falling dust and CO concentration. On the other hand, the emissions of NO2 and Ox are shown to rise when plotted against road construction. The decline of CO emission, when plotted against both industrial growth and road development, indicates that the ruthlessness of the local government in pursuing green growth policies has been effective in this case. However, the story is not straightforward when it comes to other air pollutants, which hints at the limits of the current policies. The case of Kitakyushu illustrates the complex dynamics of the interaction among policy, industry, infrastructure, and air pollution. It can serve as an important reference point for other cities in the Global South when policies are formed, and progress is measured in the pursuit of a green economy. Finally, as an OECD SDGs pilot city and the leading Asian green-growth city, policymakers in Kitakyushu city are recommended to revise the data policy to enhance the findability and interoperability of data, as well as to invest in the application of big data. (shrink)

Compared with traditional statistics, only a few social scientists employ Bayesian analyses. The existing software programs for implementing Bayesian analyses such as OpenBUGS, WinBUGS, JAGS, and rstanarm can be daunting given that their complex computer codes involve a steep learning curve. In contrast, this paper introduces a new open software for implementing Bayesian network modelling and analysis: the bayesvl R package. The package aims at providing an intuitive gateway for beginners of Bayesian statistics to construct and analyse mathematical models in (...) social sciences... (shrink)

This fourteenth volume of Collected Papers is an eclectic tome of 87 papers in Neutrosophics and other fields, such as mathematics, fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets, information fusion, robotics, statistics, or extenics, comprising 936 pages, published between 2008-2022 in different scientific journals or currently in press, by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 99 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Adesina Abdul Akeem Agboola, Akbar Rezaei, Shariful Alam, Marina Alonso, Fran Andujar, (...) Toshinori Asai, Assia Bakali, Azmat Hussain, Daniela Baran, Bijan Davvaz, Bilal Hadjadji, Carlos Díaz Bohorquez, Robert N. Boyd, M. Caldas, Cenap Özel, Pankaj Chauhan, Victor Christianto, Salvador Coll, Shyamal Dalapati, Irfan Deli, Balasubramanian Elavarasan, Fahad Alsharari, Yonfei Feng, Daniela Gîfu, Rafael Rojas Gualdrón, Haipeng Wang, Hemant Kumar Gianey, Noel Batista Hernández, Abdel-Nasser Hussein, Ibrahim M. Hezam, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Muthusamy Karthika, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Kifayat Ullah, Valeri Kroumov, Tapan Kumar Roy, Deepesh Kunwar, Le Thi Nhung, Pedro López, Mai Mohamed, Manh Van Vu, Miguel A. Quiroz-Martínez, Marcel Migdalovici, Kritika Mishra, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohammed Alshumrani, Mohamed Loey, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Shabir, Mumtaz Ali, Nassim Abbas, Munazza Naz, Ngan Thi Roan, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Rishwanth Mani Parimala, Ion Pătrașcu, Surapati Pramanik, Quek Shio Gai, Qiang Guo, Rajab Ali Borzooei, Nimitha Rajesh, Jesús Estupiñan Ricardo, Juan Miguel Martínez Rubio, Saeed Mirvakili, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Saeid Jafari, Said Broumi, Ahmed A. Salama, Nirmala Sawan, Gheorghe Săvoiu, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seok-Zun Song, Shahzaib Ashraf, Jayant Singh, Rajesh Singh, Son Hoang Le, Tahir Mahmood, Kenta Takaya, Mirela Teodorescu, Ramalingam Udhayakumar, Maikel Y. Leyva Vázquez, V. Venkateswara Rao, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Gabriela Vlădeanu, Michael Voskoglou, Yaser Saber, Yong Deng, You He, Youcef Chibani, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Hongbo Wang, Zayen Azzouz Omar. (shrink)

Based on the properties and mechanism of serendipity presented in former chapters, this chapter discusses how to create an environment for higher serendipity encounters and attainment possibilities. We examine four types of environments with different navigational and useful information concentration combinations. Building a pro-serendipity culture will help create environments that value and supports serendipity across fields. Additionally, we also address the notion that serendipity is a skill. Thus, it can produce either good or bad impacts on a collective level, depending (...) on the ultimate purposes behind it. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is based on the comprehension of the anthropological tendencies of the metamodernism, which presupposes the consistent solution of the following tasks: a) explication of the content of post-postmodernism in modern philosophical literature; b) identification of the ideological basis of metamodernism anthropology; c) characteristics of the problem field of metamodernism anthropology and the state of man in the modern era. Theoretical basis. Anthropology of the metamodernism for the first time defines socio-cultural context through the hesitative state between the (...) values of modernism and their rejection by the postmodernism, which makes it possible to formulate the peculiarity of the time as a desire to reconstruct a Holistic Man, impartial to the dominant worldview attitudes of a social nature. Anthropology of the metamodernism is presented as the individualization of the socio-cultural space in the form of human self-reconstruction at all anthropological levels. An era without an unambiguously expressed moral guideline is based on the ethics of all-acceptance, the only justification of which is the existence of a universal right to beingness. Digitalization as a process of digital transformation of society creates conditions for the value realization of the free choice of metamodernism man, through which a Holistic Man is accomplished. Originality. It is substantiated that metamodernism as a descriptive position of the modern cultural dominant of the digitalized era is characterized by a state of hesitation between the values of modernism and postmodernism. The anthropology of the metamodernism manifests itself in the form of the reconstruction of the holistic man and the self-reconstruction of the inner man. The peculiarities of the human metamodernism are recognized as the mutual complete determinability of the individual and the mass. Conclusions. Metamodernism is the formulation of the problem of a man in a new perspective: what to be and how to survive between the extremes of semantic poles, without losing dignity and unique intrinsic value. Proceeding from this, the fate of a metamodernism man is determined in pursuit of the endlessly receding horizons of the anthropology of incompleteness, which is carried out through post-irony, naive sincerity, optimistic openness to the world. (shrink)

In the face of the climate crisis, countries around the globe have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and achieving carbon neutrality. While the effects of such commitments remain ambiguous, some risks and obstacles could potentially hinder nations, even leading to failure in fulfilling their climate commitments. The paper presents four major challenges that can impede the global progress towards emission reduction targets as pledged: 1) energy security and global socio-economic development demands, 2) political conflicts, geopolitical instability, and warfare, (...) 3) challenges in developing and scaling emission reduction technologies, and 4) public perceptions toward climate change. Without addressing these challenges, humanity and the Earth's ecosystems will face the dangers of venturing into “uncharted waters” full of uncertainties and disorder. A potential solution to these issues is for the world to transition from an eco-deficit culture to an eco-surplus culture, where the lasting values of Earth's ecosystems are recognized as the conscience of our time. (shrink)

The author argues that to explore what is distinctly Christian about Christian bioethics requires clarity about what is Christian. He distinguishes between the Christian (that which can be identified as authentically Christian), Christianity (the sum of that which is authentically Christian), and ecclesiastical traditions (the historic communities of faith and practice that are predicated upon both Christian and extra-Christian tradition) to critically assess what is to be declared Christian. In addition to exploring the role of New Testament scripture in identifying (...) the Christian, the author emphasizes the need to recognize the extent to which the content of Christianity is Hebraic and Jewish. (shrink)

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015. When reasoning about knowledge of procedures under imperfect information, the explicit representation of epistemic possibilities blows up the S5like models of standard epistemic logic. To overcome this drawback, in this paper, we propose a new logical framework based on compact models without epistemic accessibility relations for reasoning about knowledge of procedures. Inspired by the 3-valued abstraction method in model checking, we introduce hyper models which encode the imperfect procedural information. We give a highly non-trivial 2-valued (...) semantics of epistemic dynamic logic on such models while validating all the usual S5 axioms. Our approach is suitable for applications where procedural information is ‘learned’ incrementally, as demonstrated by various examples. (shrink)