Adam Ferguson’s imperial thought casts new light on the age-old republican dilemma of the tension between empire and liberty. Generations of republican writers had been haunted by this issue as the decline of Rome proved that imperial expansion would eventually ruin the liberty of a state. Many eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers regarded this as an insoluble conundrum and thus became critics of empire. Ferguson shared their basic views but, paradoxically, was still able to defend the British Empire in the debates over (...) the American Revolution. His argument effectively offered a viable solution to the republican dilemma, which distinguished him from his contemporaries. In light of this, I argue that political representation was the pivotal conception for Ferguson to make empire and liberty compatible. It was on this ground that he could advocate the union with Ireland, which he believed would lead to a lasting balance of power in Europe. -/- ; British Empire; liberty; balance of power; political representation; American Revolution; Anglo-Irish Union. (shrink)

Truth pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property. The strong version of it (i.e. strong pluralism) further contends that no truth property is shared by all true propositions. In this paper, I help strong pluralism solve two pressing problems concerning mixed discourse: the problem of mixed inferences (PI) and the problem of mixed compounds (PC). According to PI, strong pluralism is incompatible with the truth- preservation notion of validity; according to PC, strong pluralists cannot find (...) any appropriate truth property for mixed compound propositions, whose atomic constituents are from different domains of discourse (e.g., <sky is blue and chocolate is tasty>). I argue that the strong pluralist is motivated to take the truth predicate in truth-involving universal statements to be deflationary to avoid the two pressing problems. Such a move entails that the truth predicate in the platitude of validity (V) for any argument, it is valid if and only if necessarily its conclusion is true when its premises are all true does not denote any substantive truth property. Instead, it is merely an expressive device to help people generalize instances of (V) to (V). Analogous stories hold for the truth predicate in the platitudes of compound (e.g., conjunction). The upshot is that, the strong pluralist can solve PI and PC by further conceding that mixed compounds are true/false in a deflationary way. (shrink)

In little more than 30 years, China has recovered from the intellectual stagnation brought about by the Cultural Revolution to become a global leader in science and technology. Like other leading countries in science and technology, China has encountered some ethical problems related to the conduct of research. China 's leaders have taken some steps to respond to these problems, such as developing ethics policies and establishing oversight committees. To keep moving forward, China needs to continue to take effective action (...) to promote research integrity. Some of the challenges China faces include additional policy development, promoting education in responsible conduct of research, protecting whistle-blowers, and cultivating an ethical research environment. (shrink)

Based on the institutional theory, this article attempts to examine two consecutive questions regarding the impact of various factors on corporate decision in environmental information disclosure (EID): (1) whether or not to disclose; and (2) the level of disclosure. The relevance of these factors is empirically tested using data collected from publicly listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in China. Some interesting findings appear. We find that firms that are state-owned, those that operate in environmentally sensitive industries, those having (...) more industrial peers engaged in EID, and those with better reputation are more likely to disclose environmental information. When it comes to the content of EID, variables that attempt to capture external institutional pressures exhibit either no or weak explanatory power. Only the variable of organizational image and reputation is demonstrated to have a significant impact on both the act and the content of EID. This study provides a snapshot of the dialogues between constituencies in the organizational field and EID development. (shrink)

本书讲述了王阳明的一生,首先记叙他的生活经历和社会实践,分析他所处的时代以及这一时代对他的影响,然后才是分析他的思想。.

本书辑录了国务院领导同志在历次国务院反腐败工作会议和廉政工作会议上的重要讲话及有关部门负责同志的发言;国务院领导关于依法行政、从严治政、转变政府职能等方面的重要讲话等内容。.

ABSTRACTMobilizing Foucault’s genealogy, this article investigates how an “ethics event”—the involvement by some sell-side financial analysts in the United States and United Kingdom across the past two decades in corporate governance—emerged. It is found that the complex relations formed between specific historical precedents, normative discourses, and fields of power rendered certain issues in financial markets morally problematic and constructed analysts’ corporate governance work as a potential solution. Contributing to research in finance ethics, this article develops a novel perspective to conceptualize (...) the rise of ethically relevant practices in financial markets, focusing on how ethical problems and their solutions are outcomes of discursive construction and power relations. This article also revises our understanding of the boundary between technical norms and moral norms in financial markets. When ethical crises occur, it is argued, transforming technical practices and revising the technical norms adopted by financial professionals has the potential to tackle ethical concerns. (shrink)

Internet addiction is a growing social problem with negative mental and social outcomes; the present study examined whether rejection sensitivity mediates the relationship between interparental conflict and adolescent IA and the moderating role of school connectedness. One thousand and seven adolescents anonymously completed questionnaires to assess interparental conflict, school connectedness, rejection sensitivity, IA, and demographic information. The model results showed that: the positive association between interparental conflict and adolescent IA was partially mediated by rejection sensitivity; this indirect link was moderated (...) by the school connectedness and was stronger for adolescents with high school connectedness. The results provide support for the attachment theory that high interparental conflict could increase adolescents’ rejection sensitivity, and high school connectedness plays a double-edged role that adolescents show more rejection sensitivity while reporting high interparental conflict and high school connectedness. (shrink)

Modern science developed in the interflow of culture between west and east. Combing of pratice technology with philosophic thoughts formed experimental method. Holistic views contacting atomism produced system theory. System thoughts are applicated in the science and engineering of biosystems, and the cencepts of system biomedicine (Kamada T.1992), systems biology (Zieglgansberger W, Tolle TR.1993), system bioengineering and system genetics (Zeng BJ. 1994) were established. From positive to synthetic thoughts, philosophy have been developed ontology, cosmology, organism theories. Structurity is structure (...) logic system founded on entity, develop, exist axioms, tolerance, adaptation, fluctuate, interweave, transform theorems and integrate, adaptation, construct laws. Structurity be discussed on the cosmos, life, culture system, creation, hologram theories of structure ontology, construct mutation, simi-structure organism and entity emergence, symbol implication. From the relation of structure, function and development, the structurity put forward the cycle, spiral, triangle structure stability patterns of self-organization in structure complement each other and stratification, functional couple and interflow bounds growth, coordinativetransformation and holographic symmetry. (shrink)

How should insecure leaders deal with labor rights in the face of an economic downturn? Economic theory suggests that suppressing labor rights boosts the economy and that economic growth also dampens violent political opposition. As a result, the suppression of labor rights should contribute to more job security for leaders. However, some other scholars maintain that more repression actually increases the probability of opposition. As a result, the policy implication of this argument is that leaders would be better off if (...) they choose to improve the protection of labor rights. Our simple formal model demonstrates that the second argument is more likely to be the case. The probit analysis of 146 countries from 1984 to 2004 bears out this prediction. We also find that this relationship is stronger in non-democracies than in democracies. Our study appears to provide some support to Bueno de Mesquita et al.’s statement that policies that are good for political survival may not necessarily be good for the economy. (shrink)

The impetus of this study is to gauge the nexus between economic policy uncertainty and financial innovation in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa nations for the period from 2004M1 to 2018M12. This study utilizes both the linear and non-linear autoregressive distributed lag models to evaluate the long-run and the short-run association between EPU and financial innovation; furthermore, the causal effects are investigated by following the non-Granger casualty framework. The results of long-run cointegration, i.e., the test statistics of modified (...) F-test, standard Wald test, and tBDM, reject the null hypothesis and establish the presence of the long-run association between EPU and financial innovation. Conversely, long-run asymmetry cointegration revealed the test statistics of FPSS, WPSS, and tBDM in non-linear estimation. Furthermore, both in the long run and short run, the Wald test results disclose asymmetric effects running from EPU to financial innovation. In regards to the asymmetric impact of EPU on financial innovation, this study documents that the positive and negative shocks in EPU are negatively linked with financial innovation in the long run but are insignificant for short-run effects. Besides, financial innovation measured by R&D investment exhibits a positive linkage with shocks in EPU, implying that uncertainty induces innovation in the economy. Referring to causality effects, this study divulges the feedback hypothesis, i.e., bidirectional causality prevails between EPU and financial innovation in all sample countries. (shrink)

This study investigates the determinants of the ratification of International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). To do so, it proposes an explanation that postulates that states employ treaty ratification as a device to signal their resolve to implement polices required by the treaty at issue in order to appease demanding domestic constituencies, predicting that states with lower compliance capacity tend to commit faster than states with higher compliance capacity. Applying this explanation to the ICESCR leads to two (...) expectations. First, the larger government spending a proxy of high compliance capacity is hypothesized to delay the ratification process. Second, states with the unitary system are expected to ratify the ICESCR more promptly because the centralized power structure in unitary states significantly restricts the pursuit of the policy autonomy by minorities at local level that the right to self-determination entails. The Cox proportional hazard analysis lends support to both hypotheses. (shrink)

A self-designed questionnaire was given to 634 health professionals in a large teaching hospital in Hubei Province in mainland China, to clarify the participants’ attitude towards information disclosure to cancer patients. Statistic description was used to analyze the data. The item ‘inappropriate information about cancer easily leads to medical disputes’ scored highest at 3.86, while the scores of such items as ‘advantages of fully informing patients outweigh disadvantages’, ‘if their family members demand nondisclosure, you will find it difficult to cooperate (...) in good faith with patients’, and ‘telling white lies to patients disturbs you a lot’ were less than 3. The health care staff placed a high value on both the desire and priority of patients to know the truth, though most of them did not think that patients had received enough information about their disease. In order to improve cancer patients’ current state of knowledge, health professionals should learn more about informed consent, and special methods and guidelines compatible with Chinese culture are urgently required in China. (shrink)

Wang Xuanlan criticized the view of time defined by Xin (心) through the way of Chongxuan xue (Twofold Mystery) in Xuanzhulu, and advocated a view of time from the perspective of Dao (道). The core proposition of the time of Xin is expressed as “in the pure Xin, all of the past and the present are included”. The whole content of the time of Xin is the “three periods” constituted by the past, present and future. Wang's criticism of the time (...) of Xin is consistent with that of worldly law such as Xin, words and knowledge. However, the criticism cannot be completed in one step. The result of criticism is not clinging to no-Xin, no-words and non-knowledge, but completely denying all worldly law. In this way, the Dao in the basic position could manifest itself. The view of the time of Dao is expressed as ”the Dao has no birth and death, and the time in it is infinite“. (shrink)

本套文集是作者一生学术成果的总结,共14卷500余万字,收录了他的15部重要美学著作.

Short-term traffic flow prediction is an effective means for intelligent transportation system to mitigate traffic congestion. However, traffic flow data with temporal features and periodic characteristics are vulnerable to weather effects, making short-term traffic flow prediction a challenging issue. However, the existing models do not consider the influence of weather changes on traffic flow, leading to poor performance under some extreme conditions. In view of the rich features of traffic data and the characteristic of being vulnerable to external weather conditions, (...) the prediction model based on traffic data has certain limitations, so it is necessary to conduct research studies on traffic flow prediction driven by both the traffic data and weather data. This paper proposes a combined framework of stacked autoencoder and radial basis function neural network to predict traffic flow, which can effectively capture the temporal correlation and periodicity of traffic flow data and disturbance of weather factors. Firstly, SAE is used to process the traffic flow data in multiple time slices to acquire a preliminary prediction. Then, RBF is used to capture the relation between weather disturbance and periodicity of traffic flow so as to gain another prediction. Finally, another RBF is used for the fusion of the above two predictions on decision level, obtaining a reconstructed prediction with higher accuracy. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed model are verified by experiments. (shrink)

秉春秋之筆 明善惡之辨 ——西漢．董仲舒 本書之成書為研究董仲舒哲學思想之論文集，其研究所據之資料為史漢之〈董仲舒傳〉，董氏之《春秋繁露》。其內容涵蓋董仲舒天人合一之思想、知識論、董氏春秋倫理判斷，以及道德論等。作者在研究中盡力指出董氏所以錯 謬之邏輯推論，以「證偽」，亦襯托其古「董」之精美之處。在中國古代聖賢中所倡言的天人相合的理論裡，不乏有精闢之論，然而其中有其系統而最為專精者，在古代哲人中，則莫過於董仲舒之「天人合一」之論，是以作者對 是事關心而研究焉。.

In the past few years, many students have begun to lose interest in science and information and engineering technology courses because they find them too boring and hard to learn. To strengthen this field of education and stimulate students? motivation and interest in learning, this study introduces a theoretical pedagogical framework based on cooperative learning theory and tailored to the realities of the university education system in China. In the framework, a group in a class is treated as a system (...) that goes through different stages and is subject to different input instructions and output outcomes. Based on this structure, teachers? interventions serve as feedback for controlling inputs to promote the correct operation of the system. This study aims to promote the development of a cooperative learning model for university students. A case study of the application of the framework shows that it has positive and active effects on student learning. (shrink)

The formation mechanism of innovation networks is one of the core issues in the current research of innovation networks, and proximity plays an important role in the formation and development of innovation networks; however, which proximity is more important and how different proximities interact remain to be further researched. This study conducts a social network analysis and adopts a spatial interaction model to examine innovation networks among 290 Chinese cities. The results reveal that, first, the hierarchical characteristics of Chinese cities’ (...) innovation networks reflect a core periphery structure and the spatial patterns of large dispersion and small agglomeration. Further, bound by the Hu line, the hierarchy is high in the east and low in the west. Second, geographical, institutional, and cognitive proximities positively affect Chinese cities’ innovation networking. Cognitive proximity, particularly, has the highest impact. Geographical proximity reinforces the effect of institutional proximity, and thus, their interactions are complementary. (shrink)

Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in polluting industries for the period of 2008–2010, we empirically investigate whether and how Buddhism, China’s most influential religion, affects corporate environmental responsibility (CER). In this study, we measure Buddhist variables as the number of Buddhist monasteries within a certain radius around Chinese listed firms’ registered addresses. In addition, we hand-collect corporate environmental disclosure scores based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines. Using hand-collected Buddhism data and corporate environmental disclosure scores, (...) we provide strong and robust evidence that Buddhism is significantly positively associated with CER. This finding is consistent with the following view: Buddhism can serve as social norms to evoke the consciousness of social responsibility, and thereof strengthen CER. Our findings also reveal that the positive association between Buddhism and CER is attenuated for firms with higher law enforcement index. The results are robust to various measures of Buddhism and a variety of sensitivity tests. (shrink)

The kin selection hypothesis posits that male androphilia (male sexual attraction to adult males) evolved because androphilic males invest more in kin, thereby enhancing inclusive fitness. Increased kin-directed altruism has been repeatedly documented among a population of transgendered androphilic males, but never among androphilic males in other cultures who adopt gender identities as men. Thus, the kin selection hypothesis may be viable if male androphilia was expressed in the transgendered form in the ancestral past. Using the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS), (...) we examined 46 societies in which male androphilia was expressed in the transgendered form (transgendered societies) and 146 comparison societies (non-transgendered societies). We analyzed SCCS variables pertaining to ancestral sociocultural conditions, access to kin, and societal reactions to homosexuality. Our results show that ancestral sociocultural conditions and bilateral and double descent systems were more common in transgendered than in non-transgendered societies. Across the entire sample, descent systems and residence patterns that would presumably facilitate increased access to kin were associated with the presence of ancestral sociocultural conditions. Among transgendered societies, negative societal attitudes toward homosexuality were unlikely. We conclude that the ancestral human sociocultural environment was likely conducive to the expression of the transgendered form of male androphilia. Descent systems, residence patterns, and societal reactions to homosexuality likely facilitated investments in kin by transgendered males. Given that contemporary transgendered male androphiles appear to exhibit elevated kin-directed altruism, these findings further indicate the viability of the kin selection hypothesis. (shrink)

Group events that occurred in China show a trend of increasing in the number, rising in the scale and range extension. With environment and society changing, the media have reported the group events these years. However, facing to the challenge of mobile phones and the Internet and other new media, the final reported results of the media are not satisfied. This paper points out that there are some questions about the media such as the slow reflection of the earlier reports, (...) abrupt end of the later reports; being lack of objective, fair quality, or even false information and so on. It also analyzes the constraint factors from three aspects of the rise of group events, the risk of group events, the game between the government, the media and the public, as well as the legal system.. This paper points out that the emergence of group events presently in China has profound social reasons, which has not only a negative function, but also has positive features. The media need to act as a “social safety valve”. Correspondingly China needs to expand the coverage of group events in the media and to increase the amount and degree of the media reports of social issues and social contradictions. (shrink)

In 2003, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) determine those network development years and released a policy document. This indicates that management is aware of the importance of pay TV and digital TV and hoping to promote the development of network services and system integration, and change the business model of the radio and television industry has long rely solely on advertising. As of July 2009, approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television to set (...) up a pay TV channel has 142 units, divided into two categories broadcast on nationwide broadcast and province. In 7 years, the national digital pay TV channels from scratch, from small to large, from more than 20 of the initial development to the current level of 142, the number increased by 7 times. Judging from the number of digital pay channels have begun to take shape, the categories covered very rich. But from the overall development situation of Chinese digital TV, pay-TV channels, the number of users is far less than the (wired) digital TV subscribers, the development is very optimistic. 2010 cable industry revenues constitute the revenue of the premium channels is also very small. At present, China has a number of pay-TV channels integrated operating agencies, the premium channels transmission operators institutions user access and pay channels, operations, CCTV and local TV stations to form a pay channels. (shrink)