According to conceptual metaphor theory, individuals are thought to understand or express abstract concepts by using referents in the physical world—right and left for moral and immoral, for example. In this research, we used a modified Stroop paradigm to explore how abstract moral concepts are metaphorically translated onto physical referents in Chinese culture using the Chinese language. We presented Chinese characters related to moral and immoral abstract concepts in either non-distorted or distorted positions or rotated to the right or to (...) the left. When we asked participants to identify the Chinese characters, they more quickly and accurately identified morally positive characters if they were oriented upright or turned to the right and more quickly and accurately identified immoral characters when the characters were distorted or rotated left. These results support the idea that physical cues are used in metaphorically encoding social abstractions and moral norms and provided cross-cultural validation for conceptual metaphor theory, which would predict our results. (shrink)

BackgroundResearchers worry that patients in early-phase research experience unrealistic optimism about benefits and risks of participation. The standard measure of unrealistic optimism is the Comparative Risk/Benefit Assessment questionnaire, which asks people to estimate their chances of an outcome relative to others in similar situations. Such a comparative framework may not be a natural way for research participants to think about their chances.ObjectiveTo examine how people interpret questions measuring unrealistic optimism and how their interpretations are associated with their responses.MethodsUsing an early-phase (...) cancer trial vignette, we administered the CRBA to 297 adults from the general public. They estimated their comparative chances of risk and benefit, then provided rationales for their estimates.ResultsFor both CRBA benefit and risk questions, about 50% of respondents chose 0, and 50% chose a non-0 response. Respondents’ rationales for their estimates showed that overall only about 40%–44% gave comparative rationales, indicating that they interpreted the CRBA as intended. 68.7% of respondents who gave the ‘correct’ 0 rating gave comparative rationales, whereas only 11.6% of respondents who gave non-0 ratings did so. A similar trend was seen for chances of risk.ConclusionResearch participants may not understand comparative benefit and risk questions as intended; attributions of unrealistic optimism may require additional evidence that the respondents’ estimates are intended to be comparative. (shrink)

Inspired by the debate about character between situationism and virtue ethics, I argue that John Doris's idea, ‘local trait’, offers a fresh insight into contemporary character education. Its positive variant, ‘local virtue’, signals an inescapable relay station of the gradual development of virtue, and serves as a promising point of departure for advanced growth. The idea of converting local virtues to more global ones is accordingly proposed to represent an empirically more realistic way of conceiving how to approach the ethical (...) ideal of global virtues. It helps to direct our gaze to the great intermediate developmental stages of virtue, which mark out a whole spectrum of virtues of varying degrees that fall short of full virtue. This new notion works together with the traditional Aristotelian account to provide a full account of how to effectively undertake the age-old educational business of the inculcation of virtues. (shrink)

In this paper, the tragedy of Hegel's works on索佛克里斯 is interpreted as the object of analysis, to clarify the "Phenomenology of Mind" chapter of the first link: ethical implied the dialectical development of relations. Hegel Antigongnie and Craig Wong as the conflict between the play to express the central theme, the duo behind it as the ethical forces of the two entities split out the two sets of rules of self-symbol, through the wave Li Naike burial period of confrontation with (...) the two sides is not only a Antigongnie ─ ─ Weng personal conflict with Craig, but also family and country, God, law and human law, obligations and civic responsibilities of genetic conflict between, or Sex between women and men conflict. In the ethical stage, the individual and the unity of ethics has a direct relationship between the entities, and directly by its intrinsic norms of behavior, but to achieve out of the ethical nature of the dialectical development of the end point then, replaced by another type. (shrink)

Animal welfare in livestock farming is a general concept that involves many concrete ethical issues for which solutions need to be developed. To avoid disturbing the internal market, the European Union encourages market players to develop harmonized solutions to such issues. One issue is the castration of piglets without pain relief, the practice of which causes pain to piglets. Although scientists have found alternatives to replace castration without pain relief, the process of solving the castration issue has stagnated. Questions remain (...) as to why this painful castration practice has still not been addressed after three decades, how it is likely to develop in the near future, and whether it will lead to a single harmonized solution for the EU. To answer these questions, this study examines the development of the castration issue using in-depth interviews and desk research. The results show that different countries have developed different solutions at different stages of the issue’s development. For a long period, the developments did not set a course toward a single solution; most EU pork producers waited for a castration ban in Germany. Such a situation was turbulent in solving the issue because the heterogeneous EU was unlikely to agree upon on a single alternative. With the EU now taking a market-based orientation, however, solving the issue now seems more likely. More attention is needed to understand market opportunities and chain integration in this area. (shrink)

In speaker recognition systems, feature extraction is a challenging task under environment noise conditions. To improve the robustness of the feature, we proposed a multiscale chaotic feature for speaker recognition. We use a multiresolution analysis technique to capture more finer information on different speakers in the frequency domain. Then, we extracted the speech chaotic characteristics based on the nonlinear dynamic model, which helps to improve the discrimination of features. Finally, we use a GMM-UBM model to develop a speaker recognition system. (...) Our experimental results verified its good performance. Under clean speech and noise speech conditions, the ERR value of our method is reduced by 13.94% and 26.5% compared with the state-of-the-art method, respectively. (shrink)

The importance of data literacy and the need of raising and improving it through formal educational channel or public engagement has repeatedly been flagged up in each of the past Economic and Social Research Council-funded Data-Psst! Seminar I attended in 2014–2016. There is a real demand for action taking. I took advantage of the knowledge I learned from the Data-Psst seminars and devised a module teaching Level 5 undergraduate media students about critical issues in today’s data-centric digital society, including privacy (...) and surveillance. In this article, I share how the class activities were devised and carried out, and how guided engagement with the current debate in privacy and surveillance were realised. I also draw on relevant pedagogical theories to discuss my educational approaches, student performance, the challenges of the project, and evaluate and reflect upon the outcomes. This report from the field provides fresh first-hand information about the data ethics of the younger public who are practising media arts and their behaviours and attitudes towards privacy and surveillance. This article shall open up the discussion about the role educators play in enriching public engagement with critical thinking about Big Data. The lessons learned can also contextualise the pedagogical implication of the recent scholarly research on Big Data and privacy, and provide a framework for constructing future collaborative or creative projects. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the topic of older people in the world from the perspective of the Social Teaching of the Church. As explained in Christifideles Laici , the Catholic Church believes that the laity is summoned to pave the way for the arrival of God’s Kingdom, and people who are at an advanced age should still respond to God’s calling through their own unique way of contribution. In Familiaris Consortio it is emphasized that the Church (...) should help older people manifest their roles both in families and religious groups. Although it is mentioned in these two apostolic exhortations that older people are blessed with wisdom, it is not explained as they actually acquire such a blessing. In order to address this issue and elaborate on the meaning of older people’s wisdom, Grün’s theory on the nature of older people’s wisdom and where such a blessing comes from is made reference to in this study. Moreover, it is emphasized in the apostolic exhortation of Familiaris Consortio that older people are often marginalized in today’s industrialized and urbanized society and neglected in their families, while also enduring psychological and/or physical pain. Addressing this issue, the value of older people’s work and their unshirkable missions and duties are explained in the present study by examining the nature and value of man’s work as mentioned in Laborem Exercens . Sen’s “capability approach” is also utilized in the present study as a way to examine older people’s values and the deprivation of their capability, allowing an in-depth analysis of this topic. The findings of this study reveal that Grün’s theory of older people’s wisdom being shaped by their life-experiences is significantly complementary to the messages on older people in Christifideles Laici and Familiaris Consortio . While Sen’s capability approach does not offer a complete set of values or cultural system that solves this problem, the approach of “civilization of love” proposed in the Social Teaching of the Church is very useful in helping one contemplate on the problems faced by older people around the world. (shrink)

This book is devoted to the study of human thought, its systemic structure, and the historical development of mathematics both as a product of thought and as a fascinating case analysis. After demonstrating that systems research constitutes the second dimension of modern science, the monograph discusses the yoyo model, a recent ground-breaking development of systems research, which has brought forward revolutionary applications of systems research in various areas of the traditional disciplines, the first dimension of science. After the systemic structure (...) of thought is factually revealed, mathematics, as a product of thought, is analyzed by using the age-old concepts of actual and potential infinities. In an attempt to rebuild the system of mathematics, this volume first provides a new look at some of the most important paradoxes, which have played a crucial role in the development of mathematics, in proving what these paradoxes really entail. Attention is then turned to constructing the logical foundation of two different systems of mathematics, one assuming that actual infinity is different than potential infinity, and the other that these infinities are the same. This volume will be of interest to academic researchers, students and professionals in the areas of systems science, mathematics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Ethical theories in the Kantian tradition tend to centre heavily on rational agency, so it may appear challenging for such theories to account for the wrongness of bodily violence, especially the wrongness of bodily violence to animals who lack rationality. This article develops a Kantian explanation for the pro tanto wrongness of killing or injuring animals who have agency and lack rationality, based on a Kantian explanation for the pro tanto wrongness of killing or injuring people. Even though morality is (...) grounded in the will of rational agents or the value of rational agency, one does not have to be a rational agent to be morally considerable. (shrink)

本书包括:导言:家园或“精神家园”的历史寻踪、重新发现蔚蓝色家园、人与家园的悖论本性、现代性和兽性:大众消费时代和家园的危机、天使也疯狂:现代人无家可归等6章。.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes in core self-evaluation scores among Chinese employees during 2010–2019. We conducted a cross-temporal meta-analysis including 50 studies to evaluate the relationship between the year of data collection and levels of CSE. We found that correlations between levels of CSE and year of data collection were strong and positive. Regression results showed that the year of data collection could predict the CSE score when the mean sample age and sex ratio were (...) controlled. In addition, CSE scores were positively related to GDP per capita and negatively related to the unemployment rate. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the connection between Craig's theorem and scientific instrumentalism. The main question to be answered is whether the former can be used to support the latter. A negative answer to this question is defended in the dissertation. ;The first two chapters present a detailed expository account of the proof of Craig's theorem and also of the process by which theoretical terms are to be eliminated from scientific theories according to the method developed by Craig. Emphasis is placed on (...) those points which are relevant to later discussions. ;There have been several arguments against using the Craigian method of eliminating theoretical terms and against replacing a scientific theory by its Craigian revised theory . The third chapter is devoted to two of those arguments. The first is meant to show that the distinction between observational and theoretical terms is untenable and hence that the Craigian method cannot be used to eliminate theoretical terms. The second is intended to show that a Craigian revised theory does not always preserve the whole inductive power of its original theory and hence that it cannot replace the original theory. Both arguments are analyzed in detail and rejected. ;The fourth chapter argues that Craig's theorem cannot be used to support scientific instrumentalism: it is argued that a Craigian revised theory may lack the explanatory power of its original theory. In the course of arguing the above point, ten outstanding theories of explanation are considered. It is argued that no matter which account of explanation is adopted, a Craigian revised theory cannot always preserve the whole explanatory power of its original theory. ;In the fifth chapter, the "theoretician's dilemma" of Carl G. Hempel's is examined. It is argued that, in virtue of the explanatory shortcoming of the Craigian method, the theoretician's dilemma cannot be used to support scientific instrumentalism. (shrink)

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved.Cell walls of grasses, including cereal crops and biofuel grasses, comprise the majority of plant biomass and intimately influence plant growth, development and physiology. However, the functions of many cell wall synthesis genes, and the relationships among and the functions of cell wall components remain obscure. To better understand the patterns of cell wall accumulation and identify genes that act in grass (...) cell wall biosynthesis, we characterized 30 samples from aerial organs of rice at 10 developmental time points, 3-100 d post-germination. Within these samples, we measured 15 cell wall chemical components, enzymatic digestibility and 18 cell wall polysaccharide epitopes/ligands. We also used quantitative reverse transcription-PCR to measure expression of 50 glycosyltransferases, 15 acyltransferases and eight phenylpropanoid genes, many of which had previously been identified as being highly expressed in rice. Most cell wall components vary significantly during development, and correlations among them support current understanding of cell walls. We identified 92 significant correlations between cell wall components and gene expression and establish nine strong hypotheses for genes that synthesize xylans, mixed linkage glucan and pectin components. This work provides an extensive analysis of cell wall composition throughout rice development, identifies genes likely to synthesize grass cell walls, and provides a framework for development of genetically improved grasses for use in lignocellulosic biofuel production and agriculture. (shrink)

The accurate measurement of university students’ motivation to participate in physical activity is a prerequisite to developing better physical fitness programs. However, motivation driven by government policies, i.e., physical education policies, are often excluded from many existing scales. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a psychometric instrument based on self-determination theory that exclusively measures the motivation of Chinese university students to participate in PA. A total of 1,215 university students who regularly participated in PA at five (...) universities in China constituted the final valid sample. Sample 1 was used to determine the underlying factor structure of the initial Chinese University Students’ Physical Activity Motivation Scale through exploratory factor analysis. Sample 2 was used to test the model fit of the EFA-derived factor structure and data through confirmatory factor analysis and to test the internal consistency of each factor and of the whole scale. Sample 3 was used to confirm the model stability and criterion validity. Finally, 177 individuals were randomly selected from Sample 3 to perform test–retest reliability. Preliminary evidence showed that the nine-factor CUSPAMS, consisting of 32 items, yielded good psychometric characteristics. The development of the CUSPAMS provides an opportunity to improve current theories and practices regarding the assessment of PA motivation. The CUSPAMS is recommended for examining factors that influence motives as well as the impact of motives on PA among Chinese university students. (shrink)

I propose a new definition of identification in the limit, also called convergence to the truth, as a new success criterion that is meant to complement, but not replace, the classic definition due to Putnam (1963) and Gold (1967). The new definition is designed to explain how it is possible to have successful learning in a kind of scenario that the classic account ignores—the kind of scenario in which the entire infinite data stream to be presented incrementally to the learner (...) is not presupposed to completely determine the correct learning target. For example, suppose that a scientists is interested in whether all ravens are black, and that she will never observe a counterexample in her entire life. This still leaves open whether all ravens (in the universe) are black. From a purely mathematical point of view, the proposed definition of convergence to the truth employs a convergence concept that generalizes net convergence and sits in between pointwise convergence and uniform convergence. Two results are proved to suggest that the proposed definition provides a success criterion that is by no means weak: (i) Between the proposed identification in the limit and the classic one, neither implies the other. (ii) If a learning method identifies the correct target in the limit in the proposed sense, any U-shaped learning involved therein has to be essentially redundant. I conclude that we should have (at least) two success criteria that correspond to two senses of identification in the limit: the classic one and the one proposed here. They are complementary: meeting any one of the two is good; meeting both at the same time, if possible, is even better. (shrink)

BackgroundDepression and anxiety create a large health burden and increase the risk of premature mortality. Mental health screening is vital, but more sophisticated screening and monitoring methods are needed. The Ellipsis Health App addresses this need by using semantic information from recorded speech to screen for depression and anxiety.ObjectivesThe primary aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of collecting weekly voice samples for mental health screening. Additionally, we aim to demonstrate portability and improved performance of Ellipsis’ machine learning (...) models for patients of various ages.MethodsStudy participants were current patients at Desert Oasis Healthcare, mean age 63 years. Two non-randomized cohorts participated: one with a documented history of depression within 24 months prior to the study, and the other without depression. Participants recorded 5-min voice samples weekly for 6 weeks via the Ellipsis Health App. They also completed PHQ-8 and GAD-7 questionnaires to assess for depression and anxiety, respectively.ResultsProtocol completion rate was 61% for both groups. Use beyond protocol was 27% for Group Positive and 9% for Group Negative. The Ellipsis Health App showed an AUC of 0.82 for the combined groups when compared to the PHQ-8 and GAD-7 with a threshold score of 10. Performance was high for senior participants as well as younger age ranges. Additionally, many participants spoke longer than the required 5 min.ConclusionThe Ellipsis Health App demonstrated feasibility in using voice recordings to screen for depression and anxiety among various age groups and the machine learning models using Transformer methodology maintain performance and improve over LSTM methodology when applied to the study population. (shrink)