The surface grammar of reports such as ‘I have a pain in my leg’ suggests that pains are objects which are spatially located in parts of the body. We show that the parallel construction is not available in Mandarin. Further, four philosophically important grammatical features of such reports cannot be reproduced. This suggests that arguments and puzzles surrounding such reports may be tracking artefacts of English, rather than philosophically significant features of the world.

Williams puts forward and develops his theory of integrity on the basis of criticizing utilitarianism and Kantian ethics as too demanding to make enough room for personal projects. Instead, his integrity theory advocates that we should act out of commitments with which we deeply identify ourselves. In doing so, we express who we really are and make our life meaningful. If not so, our integrity would be violated and we may lose ourselves. Such a description of the self in moral (...) life is criticized as solipsism for that it makes the relationship between one’s projects and himself only be regulated by himself. This paper aims to point out that such criticism is inappropriate. To show the inaccuracy of the criticism, the author will analyze the relationship between the self and others in two aspects. The first aspect is about the structure of formation of desires and others, and the second one is about the action responsibility and others. After analysis, in the first aspect of desires, the self needs others to form and stabilize desires, beliefs and motivations to cooperate with others. Others help the self to sustain the sense of reality to prevent the self from forming wishful thinking. As to action, others’ need for response is an important element in ascribing the self’s action responsibility. The self acquires self-conception, self-cognition and self-identity through the interaction with others. Thus, others play an essential role in Williams’ theory of integrity. Although there are some flaws in Williams’ integrity theory, to reexamine his theory is conducive to our understanding of moral life. (shrink)

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always (...) includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable. (shrink)

This Review paper is about the security of bio metric templates in cloud databases. Biometrics is proved to be the best authentication method. However, the main concern is the security of the biometric template, the process to extract and stored in the database within the same database along with many other. Many techniques and methods have already been proposed to secure templates, but everything comes with its pros and cons, this paper provides a critical overview of these issues and solutions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly expected to disrupt the ordinary functioning of society. From how we fight wars or govern society, to how we work and play, and from how we create to how we teach and learn, there is almost no field of human activity which is believed to be entirely immune from the impact of this emerging technology. This poses a multifaceted problem when it comes to designing and understanding regulatory responses to AI. This article aims to: (i) (...) defend the need for a novel conceptual model for understanding the systemic legal disruption caused by new technologies such as AI; (ii) to situate this model in relation to preceding debates about the interaction of regulation with new technologies (particularly the ‘cyberlaw’ and ‘robolaw’ debates); and (iii) to set out a detailed model for understanding the legal disruption precipitated by AI, examining both pathways stemming from new affordances that can give rise to a regulatory ‘disruptive moment’, as well as the Legal Development, Displacement or Destruction that can ensue. The article proposes that this model of legal disruption can be broadly generalisable to understanding the legal effects and challenges of other emerging technologies. (shrink)

Causalists and Evidentialists can agree about the right course of action in an (apparent) Newcomb problem, if the causal facts are not as initially they seem. If declining $1,000 causes the Predictor to have placed $1m in the opaque box, CDT agrees with EDT that one-boxing is rational. This creates a difficulty for Causalists. We explain the problem with reference to Dummett's work on backward causation and Lewis's on chance and crystal balls. We show that the possibility that the causal (...) facts might be properly judged to be non-standard in Newcomb problems leads to a dilemma for Causalism. One horn embraces a subjectivist understanding of causation, in a sense analogous to Lewis's own subjectivist conception of objective chance. In this case the analogy with chance reveals a terminological choice point, such that either (i) CDT is completely reconciled with EDT, or (ii) EDT takes precedence in the cases in which the two theories give different recommendations. The other horn of the dilemma rejects subjectivism, but now the analogy with chance suggests that it is simply mysterious why causation so construed should constrain rational action. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) is designed as a formal and principled Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry ontology for proteins. The components of PRO extend from a classification of proteins on the basis of evolutionary relationships at the homeomorphic level to the representation of the multiple protein forms of a gene, including those resulting from alternative splicing, cleavage and/or posttranslational modifications. Focusing specifically on the TGF-beta signaling proteins, we describe the building, curation, usage and dissemination of PRO. PRO provides a framework (...) for the formal representation of protein classes and protein forms in the OBO Foundry. It is designed to enable data retrieval and integration and machine reasoning at the molecular level of proteins, thereby facilitating cross-species comparisons, pathway analysis, disease modeling and the generation of new hypotheses. (shrink)

There has been a movement aiming to teach agents about their privilege by making the information about their privilege as costless as possible. However, some argue that in risk-sensitive frameworks, such as Lara Buchak’s (2013), it can be rational for privileged agents to shield themselves from learning about their privilege, even if the information is costless and relevant. This threatens the efficacy of these information-access efforts in alleviating the problem of elite-group ignorance. In response, I show that even within the (...) same framework, in this case David Kinney and Liam Kofi Bright’s (2021), the rationality of this information avoidance rests on shaky ground in practice. In this framework, whether an agent should avoid information depends on the precise details of (1) how relevant they expect the information to be, (2) their priors about the value of various options, and (3) their risk attitudes. The model suggests that the rationality of elite-group ignorance is a function of structural factors that are pervasive but nonetheless not insurmountable, thus offering a way out of pessimism about elite group education. (shrink)

In his classic book “the Foundations of Statistics” Savage developed a formal system of rational decision making. The system is based on (i) a set of possible states of the world, (ii) a set of consequences, (iii) a set of acts, which are functions from states to consequences, and (iv) a preference relation over the acts, which represents the preferences of an idealized rational agent. The goal and the culmination of the enterprise is a representation theorem: Any preference relation that (...) satisfies certain arguably acceptable postulates determines a (finitely additive) probability distribution over the states and a utility assignment to the consequences, such that the preferences among acts are determined by their expected utilities. Additional problematic assumptions are however required in Savage's proofs. First, there is a Boolean algebra of events (sets of states) which determines the richness of the set of acts. The probabilities are assigned to members of this algebra. Savage's proof requires that this be a σ-algebra (i.e., closed under infinite countable unions and intersections), which makes for an extremely rich preference relation. On Savage's view we should not require subjective probabilities to be σ-additive. He therefore finds the insistence on a σ-algebra peculiar and is unhappy with it. But he sees no way of avoiding it. Second, the assignment of utilities requires the constant act assumption: for every consequence there is a constant act, which produces that consequence in every state. This assumption is known to be highly counterintuitive. The present work contains two mathematical results. The first, and the more difficult one, shows that the σ-algebra assumption can be dropped. The second states that, as long as utilities are assigned to finite gambles only, the constant act assumption can be replaced by the more plausible and much weaker assumption that there are at least two non-equivalent constant acts. The second result also employs a novel way of deriving utilities in Savage-style systems -- without appealing to von Neumann-Morgenstern lotteries. The paper discusses the notion of “idealized agent" that underlies Savage's approach, and argues that the simplified system, which is adequate for all the actual purposes for which the system is designed, involves a more realistic notion of an idealized agent. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the development of global mindset, which is rarely addressed in a Korean international business journal. We investigate whether the global mindset is a static state that is difficult to change or a dynamically changeable competence. Based on the global mindset literature, we categorize the global mindset into three dimensions - cognition, skills and attitudes - and analyze the nature (static or dynamic) of each dimension. We collect survey questions from 269 undergraduate students. We use paired (...) sample t-tests to analyze whether the undergraduates have changed their global mindsets in terms of cognition, skills and attitudes after taking the international business class during a semester. Results reveal that the levels of cognition and skills have increased after the class, but the attitude level shows no significant difference before and after the class. The results also show that overall global mindsets after the class become higher than before the class. We also find the positive moderating effects of global motivation and international experience on the relationship between the international business class and the global mindset. It means that the effectiveness of international business class on the global mindset is strengthened with the high levels of global motivation and international experience. After the conclusion, we suggest future research topics related to the global mindset which have been rarely addressed in the field of the Korean international business academy. (shrink)

Savage's framework of subjective preference among acts provides a paradigmatic derivation of rational subjective probabilities within a more general theory of rational decisions. The system is based on a set of possible states of the world, and on acts, which are functions that assign to each state a consequence€. The representation theorem states that the given preference between acts is determined by their expected utilities, based on uniquely determined probabilities (assigned to sets of states), and numeric utilities assigned to consequences. (...) Savage's derivation, however, is based on a highly problematic well-known assumption not included among his postulates: for any consequence of an act in some state, there is a "constant act" which has that consequence in all states. This ability to transfer consequences from state to state is, in many cases, miraculous -- including simple scenarios suggested by Savage as natural cases for applying his theory. We propose a simplification of the system, which yields the representation theorem without the constant act assumption. We need only postulates P1-P6. This is done at the cost of reducing the set of acts included in the setup. The reduction excludes certain theoretical infinitary scenarios, but includes the scenarios that should be handled by a system that models human decisions. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

Constitutional democracies unilaterally enact the laws that regulate immigration to their territories. When are would-be migrants to a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? Receiving states also typically enact laws that require their existing citizens to participate in the implementation of immigration restrictions. When are the individual citizens of a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? In this article, I take up these questions concerning the justifiability of noncompliance with immigration law, focusing on the case of (...) nonviolent – or mere – noncompliance. Dissenting from Javier Hidalgo’s view, I argue that the injustice of an immigration law is insufficient to make mere noncompliance justified. Instead, I contend that only if an immigration law lacks legitimate authority are individuals justified in breaching it, since the subjects of an institution with legitimate authority are under a content-independent moral duty to comply with its rules. I further argue that a constitutional democracy’s regimes of law regulating immigration and requiring its citizens’ participation in implementing these regulations have legitimate authority. Nevertheless, when a particular immigration law is egregiously unjust, its legitimacy is defeated. (shrink)

Since its emergence in the 1950s, analytic aesthetics has become the mainstream approach to aesthetics in the English-speaking world, and it has subsequently spread throughout most of the world, including mainland China. Although it was introduced into the Chinese academic world at an early time, around the late 1950s, and has been disseminated and researched in China over the past three decades, analytic aesthetics remains underdeveloped in China. Chinese academics tend to have little familiarity with, and exposure to, analytic approaches (...) to aesthetics. Unsurprisingly, given this situation, Chinese contributions to analytic aesthetics have had a marginal impact on the international academic discussion. This paper aims at providing a picture of the development of analytic aesthetics in China. In section 1, I clarify the scope of the paper. Section 2 briefly introduces aesthetics in China so as to outline the context for our discussion about analytic aesthetics. In section 3, I first offer a brief historical narrative of the dissemination and reception of analytic aesthetics in China, and then explore how analytic aesthetics has been researched and taught in China. -/- . (shrink)

I provide an alternative to the two prevailing accounts of justice in immigration policy, the free migration view and the state discretion view. Against the background of an internationalist conception of domestic and global justice that grounds special duties of justice between co-citizens in their shared participation in a distinctive scheme of social cooperation, I defend three principles of justice to guide labor immigration policy: the Difference Principle, the Duty of Beneficence, and the Duty of Assistance. I suggest how these (...) principles are to be applied in both ideal and nonideal circumstances. Finally, I argue that the potential conflict between these principles has often been overstated, and propose priority rules for genuine cases of conflict. (shrink)

While investigating the value of achievements, Dunkle claims that lucky achievements are possible. For instance, if a person does great works, then it is possible that the works have the status of achievements, even if luck plays a crucial role in doing the great works. Rather than examining Dunkle’s claim, this paper proceeds discussion under the assumption that lucky achievements are possible. In particular, based on this assumption, this paper suggests a new approach to the nature of achievement named the (...) Comparative Value Approach. According to the comparative value approach, a product can have the status of an achievement if the product is valuable in an achievement-relevant domain, and in that domain the product is valuable more than most other items which either have been achieved or can be achieved by others. This paper shows that the comparative value approach successfully explains the cases of achievements, including the cases of lucky achievements. Besides this reason, this paper provides three more reasons to show that the comparative value approach is a feasible view of achievements. The comparative value approach can accommodate the fact that there are various kinds of achievements; the approach can explain the relation between the nature of achievement and the achievement-value of a product; and the approach can show why in determining the status of a product it matters that for average people achieving a similar kind of product is sufficiently difficult. Based on these four reasons, this paper concludes that the comparative value approach is a plausible understanding of achievements. (shrink)

We investigate the association between controlling shareholders' ownership (CS_Own) and firms' leverage decisions in the Singaporean context. We examine whether the impact of ownership concentration on leverage differs across excess and lower control. We report that shareholders with excess control prefer leverage financing for an optimal capital structure and focus on value maximisation rather using leverage as a tool of minority shareholders' expropriation. Our analysis shows that firms capital structure significantly influences by the coalition of shareholders particularly decisions about leverage (...) financing in addition to the firms' specific characteristics and institutional arrangements. Our empirical evidence shows that controlling shareholders with a lower fraction of equity are more concerned about limited holding thus prefer leverage over equity financing to inflate their equity stake to protect them from the potential takeovers and mergers. We report that capital structure decisions in Singapore are linked with the trade-off between the controlling shareholders' target of mitigating firm risk and their non-dilution entrenchment needs. Further, we found an inverted U-shaped association between control ownership and leverage financing. In terms of moderating effect of family-controlled ownership, our findings exhibit that leverage financing is less pronounced for family firms in Singapore due to the under-diversified investment portfolio. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has imperatively shaken the behavior of the global financial markets. This study estimated the impact of COVID-19 on the behavior of the financial markets of Europe and the US. The results revealed that the returns of the S&P 500 index have been greatly affected by a lockdown in the US owing to COVID-19. However, the health crisis generated due to the novel coronavirus significantly decreased the stock returns of the Nasdaq Composite index. The results also showed (...) that the economic crisis generated from the pandemic in Spain has had more impact on the IBEX 35 as compared to the health crisis itself. On the other hand, in the long-run, Italy’s stock markets are more affected by the health crisis as contrasted with the economic crisis, while, in the short-run, both lockdown conditions and economic instability lower the stock returns of FTSE MIB. The UK stock markets witnessed that in the short-run, deficiency of health management systems imperatively damaged the stock returns of the London Stock Exchange. The investigation revealed that deficiency of health systems and lockdown conditions have imperatively damaged the structure of financial markets, inferring that sustainable development of these nations is at risk due to COVID-19. The study suggested that governments should allocate more of their budget to the health sector to overcome a health crisis in the future. (shrink)

The redemption thesis assumes that how events in a person’s life are related to one another is important in evaluating the person’s welfare throughout life. In particular, according to this thesis of welfare, the fact that a person’s previous hardships contribute to bringing out the same person’s later successes, and the person would regard the hardships as having been worthwhile in light of the successes makes the person’s life better for the person herself. Recently, Ian D. Dunkle provided four objections (...) to the redemption thesis: the intuition concern, the different redemptions argument, the downplaying hardships argument, and the reconciled irreconcilables argument. This paper examines these four objections. In particular, this paper dismisses all the objections showing that the redemption thesis bases on an appealing idea, does not consider the degree of hardship significant in itself, has plausible reasons to evaluate hardships not as serious as people think, and can successfully reconcile its synchronic and diachronic evaluations. (shrink)

Some goals have special significance to agents. For instance, an agent could find her life worth living because she is pursuing her current goal, and the agent could also think that her previous life has no value because she did not pursue the current goal. If an agent’s current goal has special importance to the agent, then in terms of prudence the agent’s decision to obtain her current goal could be permissible even in the case where achieving her previous goal (...) brings out larger advantages. A widely endorsed thesis of prudence (i.e. the temporal neutrality thesis) does not successfully explain this phenomenon of goal achievement. Furthermore, the present-aim thesis and the harmony thesis also fail in explaining why an agent has prudential reason to prioritize her current goal. This paper introduces a new thesis of prudence, according to which an agent’s caring is significant in deciding whether the agent’s actions are prudentially permissible. In particular, after introducing this thesis named the care thesis, I argue that the care thesis can explain why an agent has reason to prioritize her current goal if the agent finds her life worth living due to her current goal. It is permissible that an agent obtains her current goal rather than previous goal because achieving her current goal benefits the agent’s cared one (i.e. the self who pursues her current goal). (shrink)

The structure of communication networks can be more or less “democratic”: networks are less democratic if (a) communication is more limited in terms of characteristic degree and (b) is more tightly channeled to a few specifc nodes. Together those measures give us a two-dimensional landscape of more and less democratic networks. We track opinion volatility across that landscape: the extent to which random changes in a small percentage of binary opinions at network nodes result in wide changes across the network (...) as a whole. If wide and frequent swings of popular opinion are taken as a mark of instability, democratic communication networks prove far more stable than anti-democratic ones. In a fnal section, we consider the democratic or anti-democratic character of networks that respond to volatility by rewiring at random, in a search for community, or in a search for a leader. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently proposed several alleged cases of “knowledge from falsehood,” i.e., cases of inferential knowledge epistemised by an inference with a false crucial premise. This paper examines such cases and argues against interpreting them as cases of knowledge from falsehood. Specifically, I argue that the inferences in play in such cases are in no position to epistemise their conclusions.

Simion and Kelp explain the trustworthiness of an AI based on that AI’s disposition to meet its obligations. Roughly speaking, according to Simion and Kelp, an AI is trustworthy regarding its task if and only if that AI is obliged to complete the task and its disposition to complete the task is strong enough. Furthermore, an AI is obliged to complete a task in the case where the task is the AI’s etiological function or design function. This account has a (...) strength in that it can provide a unificatory rationale for the trustworthy-making properties of AIs. According to this account, being explainable, being safe, and being transparent are the trustworthy-making properties of an AI because an AI can fulfill its etiological or design functions in the case where it is explainable, safe, and transparent. This paper shows that though Simion and Kelp’s account has a strength, this account is not satisfactory for two reasons. The first reason is that an AI’s trustworthiness is not determined just by the AI’s disposition to meet obligations, and the second reason is that it is difficult to explain how an AI’s etiological function and design function have to do with that AI’s obligations. To provide a full-fledged account, Simion and Kelp should dismiss these concerns. (shrink)

Several authors have recently argued against intellectualism, the view that one’s epistemic position with respect to p depends exclusively on one’s truth-relevant factors with respect to p. In this paper, I first examine two prominent arguments for the anti-intellectualist position and find both of them wanting. More precisely, I argue that these arguments, by themselves, are underdetermined between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. I then manifest the intuitive plausibility of intellectualism by examining the ordinary conversational pattern of challenging a claim.

Imperatives occur ubiquitously in natural languages. They produce forces which change the addressee’s cognitive state and regulate her actions accordingly. In real life we often receive conflicting orders, typically, issued by various authorities with different ranks. A new update semantics is proposed in this paper to formalize this idea. The general properties of this semantics, as well as its background ideas are discussed extensively. In addition, we compare our framework with other approaches of deontic logics in the context of normative (...) conflicts. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This paper explores the essence of the World and the essence of Life/Consciousness. Then derives from they the highest principles of value judgment and a series of ethics, providing a theoretical basis for guiding our future actions. The essence of the World consists of three aspects: 1. Existence, 2. Not nothingness, 3.Difference/Change. The essence of Life/Consciousness includes four aspects: 1.Has the distinction of "self" and "non-self".2. Has the change of the "new self" and the "old self".3. Pursues to maintain "self".4. (...) Pursue turning "non-self" into "self". Life and consciousness are completely identical. The pursuit of "Difference/Change" is the principle of the World. Beauty and art originate from the essence of the World and Life/Consciousness. The highest principle of value judgment for Life/Consciousness actions is that they should contribute to the growth of "Difference/Change". Ethics are inherent in Life /Consciousness. Low-level Life/Consciousness species have inherent rights. In the end, I argue that all of Life/Consciousness is a whole, which is also the consciousness or will of the World. Through the cognition of Life/Consciousness, the World achieves self-cognition and finally self-expansion. (shrink)

To resolve the lottery paradox, the “no-justification account” proposes that one is not justified in believing that one's lottery ticket is a loser. The no-justification account commits to what I call “the Harman-style skepticism”. In reply, proponents of the no-justification account typically downplay the Harman-style skepticism. In this paper, I argue that the no-justification reply to the Harman-style skepticism is untenable. Moreover, I argue that the no-justification account is epistemically ad hoc. My arguments are based on a rather surprising finding (...) that the no-justification account implies that people living in Taiwan typically suffer from the Harman-style skepticism. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that our initial intuitions regarding knowledge attributions in stakes-shifting cases (e.g., Cohen’s Airport) are best explained by standards variantism, the view that the standards for knowledge may vary with contexts in an epistemically interesting way. Against standards variantism, I argue that no prominent account of the standards for knowledge can explain our intuitions regarding stakes-shifting cases. I argue that the only way to preserve our initial intuitions regarding such cases is to endorse position variantism, the view (...) that one’s epistemic position may vary with contexts in an epistemically interesting way. Some had argued that epistemic position is incompatible with intellectualism. In reply, I point out that position variantism and intellectualism are compatible, if one’s truth-relevant factors with respect to p can vary with contexts in an epistemically interesting way. (shrink)

A question arising from the COVID-19 crisis is whether the merits of cases for climate policies have been affected. This article focuses on carbon pricing, in the form of either carbon taxes or emissions trading. It discusses the extent to which relative costs and benefits of introducing carbon pricing may have changed in the context of COVID-19, during both the crisis and the recovery period to follow. In several ways, the case for introducing a carbon price is stronger during the (...) COVID-19 crisis than under normal conditions. Oil costs are lower than normal, so we would expect less harm to consumers compared to normal conditions. Governments have immediate need for diversified new revenue streams in light of both decreased tax receipts and greater use of social safety nets. Finally, supply and demand shocks have led to already destabilized supply-side activities, and carbon pricing would allow this destabilization to equilibrate around greener production for the long-term. The strengthening of the case for introducing carbon pricing now is highly relevant to discussions about recovery measures, especially in the context of policy announcements from the European Union and United States House of Representatives. Key Policy Insights: • Persistently low oil prices mean that consumers will face lower pain from carbon pricing than under normal conditions. • Many consumers are more price-sensitive during the COVID-19 context, which suggests that a greater relative burden from carbon prices would fall upon producers as opposed to consumers than under normal conditions. • Carbon prices in the COVID-19 context can introduce new revenue streams, assisting with fiscal holes or with other green priorities. • Carbon pricing would contribute to a more sustainable COVID-19 recovery period, since many of the costs of revamping supply chains are already being felt while idled labor capacity can be incorporated into firms with lower carbon-intensity. (shrink)

Some cases show that counterfactual conditionals (‘counterfactuals’ for short) are inherently ambiguous, equivocating between forward-tracking and backtracking counterfactu- als. Elsewhere, I have proposed a causal modeling semantics, which takes this phenomenon to be generated by two kinds of causal manipulations. (Lee 2015; Lee 2016) In an important paper (Hiddleston 2005), Eric Hiddleston offers a different causal modeling semantics, which he claims to be able to explain away the inherent ambiguity of counterfactuals. In this paper, I discuss these two semantic treatments (...) and argue that my (bifurcated) semantics is theoretically more promising than Hiddleston’s (unified) semantics. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree about what the folk concept of pain is. This paper criticises existing theories of the folk concept of pain, i.e. the mental view, the bodily view, and the recently proposed polyeidic view. It puts forward an alternative proposal – the polysemy view – according to which pain terms like “sore,” “ache” and “hurt” are polysemous, where one sense refers to a mental state and another a bodily state, and the type of polysemy at issue reflects two distinct but (...) related concepts of pain. Implications with respect to issues in philosophy of pain are also drawn. (shrink)

To obtain effective fusion results of multi source evidences with different importance, an evidence fusion method with importance discounting factors based on neutrosopic probability analysis in DSmT framework is proposed. First, the reasonable evidence sources are selected out based on the statistical analysis of the pignistic probability functions of single focal elements. Secondly, the neutrosophic probability analysis is conducted based on the similarities of the pignistic probability functions from the prior evidence knowledge of the reasonable evidence sources. Thirdly, the importance (...) discounting factors of the reasonable evidence sources are obtained based on the neutrosophic probability analysis and the reliability discounting factors of the real-time evidences are calculated based on probabilistic-based distances. Fourthly, the real-time evidences are discounted by the importance discounting factors and then the evidences with the mass assignments of neutrosophic empty sets are discounted by the reliability discounting factors. Finally, DSmT+PCR5 of importance discounted evidences is applied. Experimental examples show that the decision results based on the proposed fusion method are different from the results based on the existed fusion methods. Simulation experiments of recognition fusion are performed and the superiority of proposed method is testified well by the simulation results. (shrink)

Recent literature has seen a surging interest in the modal principle involved in the Gettier-style thought experiments. According to the necessitation thesis, the modal principle underlying the Gettier-style thought experiments takes the form of a principle of necessitation. It is widely agreed that the necessitation thesis is seriously threatened by the problem of deviant realizations. Based on the Gricean pragmatic theory of communication, I defend the necessitation thesis against the problem of deviant realizations. The present account bears some significant similarities (...) to Pierre Saint-Germier’s account. After comparing and contrasting these two accounts, I argue that the differences between them actually speak in favor of the present account over Saint-Germier’s one. (shrink)

Reasons evidentialism is the view that normative reasons can be analyzed in terms of evidence about oughts (i.e., propositions concerning whether or not S ought to phi). In this paper, I defend a new reason-evidentialist account according to which normative reasons are evidence against propositions of the form S ought not to phi. The arguments for my view have two strands. First of all, I argue that my view can account for three difficulty cases, cases where (i) a fact is (...) both a reason for S to phi and a reason for S not to phi, (ii) a fact is both evidence for the proposition that S ought to phi and evidence for the proposition that S ought not to phi, and (iii) the subject is genuinely torn, as far as reasons are concerned, between phi-ing and not phi-ing. Second, I argue that my view can account for what a reason against S phi-ing is. (shrink)

With the rapid development of information technology, the electricity consumption of Internet Data Centers (IDCs) increases drastically, resulting in considerable carbon emissions that need to be reduced urgently. In addition to the introduction of Renewable Energy Sources (RES), the joint use of the spatial migration capacity of IDC workload and the temporal flexibility of the demand of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCSs) provides an important means to change the carbon footprint of the IDC. In this paper, a sustainability improvement strategy (...) for the IDC carbon emission reduction was developed by coordinating the spatial-temporal dispatch flexibilities of the IDC workload and the EVCS demand. Based on the Minkowski sum algorithm, a generalized flexible load model of the EVCSs, considering traffic flow and Road Impedance (RI) was formulated. The case studies show that the proposed method can effectively increase the renewable energy consumption, reduce the overall carbon emissions of multi-IDCs, reduce the energy cost of the DCO, and utilize the EV dispatching potential. Discussions are also provided on the relationship between workload processing time delay and the renewable energy consumption rate. (shrink)

Improvements of the happiness of the rural population are an essential sign of the effectiveness of relative poverty governance. In the context of today’s digital economy, assessing the relationship between digital literacy and the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups is of great practicality. Based on data from China Family Panel Studies, the effect of digital literacy on the subjective well-being of rural low-income groups was empirically tested. A significant happiness effect of digital literacy on rural low-income groups was found. (...) Digital literacy promotes the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups through income increase and consumption growth effects. The observed happiness effect is heterogeneous among different characteristic groups, and digital literacy significantly positively impacts the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups. Decomposition of subjective happiness into life satisfaction and job satisfaction shows that digital literacy significantly positively affects the job and life satisfaction of rural low-income groups. This paper demonstrates that digital literacy induces a practical happiness effect. To further strengthen the subjective welfare effect of digital literacy in the construction of digital villages, the government should focus on cultivating digital literacy among low-income groups from the demand side. The construction of digital infrastructure should be actively promoted from the supply side. (shrink)

The stakes-shifting cases suggest that pragmatic factors such as stakes play an important role in determining our intuitive judgments of whether or not S knows that p. This seems to be in conflict with intellectualism, according to which pragmatic factors in general should not be taken into account, when considering whether or not S knows that p. This paper develops a theory of judgments of knowledge status that reconciles intellectualism with our intuitive judgments regarding the stakes-shifting cases. I argue that (...) pragmatic factors affect only our epistemic perspectives, i.e., the ways in which we evaluate S’s epistemic position. Therefore, pragmatic factors only have an indirect impact on our judgments of knowledge status. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the thesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion. I first examine three prominent “counterexamples”: false assertion, selfless assertion, and assertion based on mere justified true belief. I argue that they all fail to square well with our ordinary intuitions. However, the contemporary debate over the norm of assertion depends heavily on the method of counterexamples, whose crux is to prompt our intuitions regarding the appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of a certain kind of assertions. This method (...) has its limits as sometimes the debate simply boils down to a clash of intuitions. I think we can do better. In the second part of the paper, I construct a positive argument for the knowledge norm, showing that the knowledge norm can be derived from the general account of the conversational role of assertion. I argue that in order for assertion to play the role it plays in conversation, the knowledge norm must hold. (shrink)

Biomedical ontologies are emerging as critical tools in genomic and proteomic research where complex data in disparate resources need to be integrated. A number of ontologies exist that describe the properties that can be attributed to proteins; for example, protein functions are described by Gene Ontology, while human diseases are described by Disease Ontology. There is, however, a gap in the current set of ontologies—one that describes the protein entities themselves and their relationships. We have designed a PRotein Ontology (PRO) (...) to facilitate protein annotation and to guide new experiments. The components of PRO extend from the classification of proteins on the basis of evolutionary relationships to the representation of the multiple protein forms of a gene (products generated by genetic variation, alternative splicing, proteolytic cleavage, and other post-translational modification). PRO will allow the specification of relationships between PRO, GO and other OBO Foundry ontologies. Here we describe the initial development of PRO, illustrated using human proteins from the TGF-beta signaling pathway. (shrink)

The paradox of pain refers to the idea that the folk concept of pain is paradoxical, treating pains as simultaneously mental states and bodily states. By taking a close look at our pain terms, this paper argues that there is no paradox of pain. The air of paradox dissolves once we recognize that pain terms are polysemous and that there are two separate but related concepts of pain rather than one.

Recent research in psycholinguistics suggests that language processing frequently involves mental imagery. This paper focuses on visual imagery and discusses two issues regarding the processing of polysemous words (i.e. words with multiple related meanings or senses) – co-predication and sense-relatedness. It aims to show how mental imagery can illuminate these two issues.

Empirical evidence suggests that perceptual‐motor simulations are often constitutively involved in language comprehension. Call this “the simulation view of language comprehension”. This article applies the simulation view to illuminate the much‐discussed phenomenon of copredication, where a noun permits multiple predications which seem to select different senses of the noun simultaneously. On the proposed account, the (in)felicitousness of a copredicational sentence is closely associated with the perceptual simulations that the language user deploys in comprehending the sentence.

Poetry evokes mental imagery in its readers. But how is mental imagery precisely related to poetry? This article provides a systematic treatment. It clarifies two roles of mental imagery in relation to poetry—as an effect generated by poetry and as an efficient means for understanding and appreciating poetry. The article also relates mental imagery to the discussion on the ‘heresy of paraphrase’. It argues against the orthodox view that the imagistic effects of poetry cannot be captured by prosaic paraphrase, but (...) points to features of poetry that can shape aspects of mental imagery that are liable to be lost in paraphrase. (shrink)

Can an agent deliberating about an action A hold a meaningful credence that she will do A? 'No', say some authors, for 'Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction' (DCOP). Others disagree, but we argue here that such disagreements are often terminological. We explain why DCOP holds in a Ramseyian operationalist model of credence, but show that it is trivial to extend this model so that DCOP fails. We then discuss a model due to Joyce, and show that Joyce's rejection of DCOP rests (...) on terminological choices about terms such as 'intention', 'prediction', and 'belief'. Once these choices are in view, they reveal underlying agreement between Joyce and the DCOP-favouring tradition that descends from Ramsey. Joyce's Evidential Autonomy Thesis (EAT) is effectively DCOP, in different terminological clothing. Both principles rest on the so-called 'transparency' of first-person present-tensed reflection on one's own mental states. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

There is a long-standing disagreement in the philosophy of probability and Bayesian decision theory about whether an agent can hold a meaningful credence about an upcoming action, while she deliberates about what to do. Can she believe that it is, say, 70% probable that she will do A, while she chooses whether to do A? No, say some philosophers, for Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction (DCOP), but others disagree. In this paper, we propose a valid core for DCOP, and identify terminological (...) causes for some of the apparent disputes. (shrink)