Love is often seen as the most intimate aspect of our lives, but it is increasingly engineered by a few programmers with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Nowadays, numerous dating platforms are deploying so-called smart algorithms to identify a greater number of potential matches for a user. These AI-enabled matchmaking systems, driven by a rich trove of data, can not only predict what a user might prefer but also deeply shape how people choose their partners. This paper draws on Jürgen Habermas’s “colonization (...) of the lifeworld” thesis to critically explore the insidious influence of delegating romantic decision-making to an algorithm. The love lifeworld is colonized inasmuch as online dating algorithms encroach into our romantic relations to the extent that communicative action within romance is replaced by the technocratic rules of an algorithm. (shrink)

on how to justify the rationality of sciences.

The Community of Shared Future for Mankind (CSFM) concept is a comprehensive Chinese proposal for a better future of mankind. In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis of this concept by focusing on its origin, evolution and philosophical foundation. This article deals with the origin and evolution of the CSFM concept. We show that the concept originated during the presidency of Hu Jintao, who initially used it for the domestic affairs of China. However, the usage of the concept was (...) later extended from domestic to international affairs. Though Hu Jintao conceived the CSFM concept, it is president Xi Jinping who became its greatest advocate. We explore the CSFM concept’s development and evolution into one of the most influential, diverse and dominant concepts of international relations under president Xi. Furthermore, the article explores the philosophical foundation of the CSFM concept. We argue that although CSFM concept is seen as a 21st century Chinese idea, the roots of the concept can be traced back to much earlier time in history. The concept is based on three major philosophical thoughts: Marxism, Confucianism and the philosophy of Mencius. We show that the CSFM concept is greatly influenced by Marx’s ideas such as the transformation of the world, the free association of producers, historical materialism and dialectics. We also point to a number of Confucian principles that are adopted by the CSFM concept. The CSFM concept not only adopts Confucian principles but also extends their scope from the individual level to international relations. Similarly, we also highlight that the CSFM concept is influenced by Mencius’ concepts such as universal brotherhood, responsibility towards the betterment of the world, humane governance, free trade, equal sharing of wealth and the conservation of natural resources. (shrink)

On the basis of PM2.5 data of the national air quality monitoring sites, local population data, and baseline all-cause mortality rate, PM2.5-related health economic benefits of the Air Improvement Action Plan implemented in Wuhan in 2013–2017 were investigated using health-impact and valuation functions. Annual avoided premature deaths driven by the average concentration of PM2.5 decrease were evaluated, and the economic benefits were computed by using the value of statistical life (VSL) method. Results showed that the number of avoided premature deaths (...) in Wuhan are 21,384 (95% confidence interval (CI): 15,004 to 27,255) during 2013–2017, due to the implementation of the Air Improvement Action Plan. According to the VSL method, the obtained economic benefits of Huangpi, Wuchang, Hongshan, Xinzhou, Jiang’an, Hanyang, Jiangxia, Qiaokou, Jianghan, Qingshan, Caidian, Dongxihu, and Hannan District were 8.55, 8.19, 8.04, 7.39, 5.78, 4.84, 4.37, 4.04, 3.90, 3.30, 2.87, 2.42, and 0.66 billion RMB (1 RMB = 0.1417 USD On 14 October 2019), respectively. These economic benefits added up to 64.35 billion RMB (95% CI: 45.15 to 82.02 billion RMB), accounting for 4.80% (95% CI: 3.37% to 6.12%) of the total GDP of Wuhan in 2017. Therefore, in the process of formulating a regional air quality improvement scheme, apart from establishing hierarchical emission-reduction standards and policies, policy makers should give integrated consideration to the relationship between regional economic development, environmental protection and residents’ health benefits. Furthermore, for improving air quality, air quality compensation mechanisms can be established on the basis of the status quo and trends of air quality, population distribution, and economic development factors. (shrink)

Aiming at the problems of college students’ lack of in-depth understanding of the connotation of Chinese excellent traditional culture and the urgent need for improvement, this paper takes the construction of the Chinese Excellent Cultural Inheritance and Development Project of Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies as an example, proposes the construction path of the cultural education project in universities, and summarizes the actual effect and experience.

By rethinking the meaning of a central idiom in the Great Learning, this essay intends to open up a new horizon for the hermeneutics of early Confucian thinking, which has little to do with metaphysics. Through a careful etymological study of ge wu and a dialogue between the Great Learning and Heidegger's phenomenology of human affection, I demonstrate the critical position of the human heart in early Chinese thinking. This new interpretation of early Confucian moral teachings also recovers an invigorating (...) possibility for contemporary discourse on the question of ethics. (shrink)

In the middle of the last century, it was common to explain the notion of necessity in linguistic terms. A necessary truth, it was said, is a sentence whose truth is guaranteed by linguistic rules. Quine famously argued that, on this view, de re modal claims do not make sense. “Porcupettes are porcupines” is necessarily true, but it would be a mistake to say of a particular porcupette that it is necessarily a porcupine, or that it is possibly purple. Linguistic (...) theories of necessity fell out of favour with the publication of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, and Quine’s arguments were put aside. In her recent book, Norms and Necessity, Amie Thomasson presents her modal normativism, which is an updated version of the mid-century theories just described. Quine’s arguments are thus relevant once again. We recapitulate Quine’s central argument, in the context of modal normativism. We then criticise Amie Thomasson’s discussion of de re modality. We finish by briefly presenting an alternative account of de re modal statements, which is compatible with modal normativism. (shrink)

Numerous societal issues, from climate change to pandemics, require public engagement with scientific research. Such engagement reveals challenges that can arise when experts communicate with laypeople. One of the most common frameworks for framing these communicative interactions is the deficit model of science communication, which holds that laypeople lack scientific knowledge and/or positive attitudes towards science, and that imparting knowledge will fill knowledge gaps, lead to desirable attitude/behavior changes, and increase trust in science. §1 introduces the deficit model in more (...) detail and shows that adhering to this model often fails to achieve its aims, which motivates the main question of this chapter: how can Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thinking collectives address the persistent problem of deficit approaches in science communication? I suggest that it can do so by exposing the deficit model’s implicit assumption of an expert-lay divide. Accordingly, §2 lays out Fleck’s theory and §3 contrasts it with contemporary debates about science communication. Following this descriptive work, §4 draws on Fleck’s ideas to make four concrete suggestions for further questioning the expert-lay divide. (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)

In the first Critique, Kant famously holds a novel practical notion of Belief (Glauben) as assent justified not by evidence but by practical considerations. This paper examines the early development of Kant’s practical notion of Belief prior to the first Critique. It aims to make clear what prompted Kant to develop this notion in the first place, and how this notion came to assume its crucial role in Kant’s critical system. This development, I argue, has two main steps. The first (...) is his introduction of a practical notion of Belief in mid-to-late 1760s. I argue that he did so because he regards this notion as a useful tool to get ordinary people to justifiably commit to the existence of God and an after-life. The second step is Kant’s abandonment of the objective validity of his logical proof of God around 1772. This step elevated Belief from a merely useful means to the only justified way to commit to the existence of God and an after-life. This second step, I argue, is closely connected to Kant’s pivot to the view that the objective validity of concepts requires sensibly given objects, and it is motivated by Kant’s concern with subject-cancelling real repugnance. (shrink)

Gruber et al. (2022) and Buonomano and Rovelli (Forthcoming) aim to render Q18 consistent the picture of time delivered to us by physics, with the way time seems to us in experience. Their general approach is similar; they take the picture of our world given to us in physics, a picture on which there is no global “moving” present and hence no robust temporal flow, and attempt to explain why things nevertheless seem to us as they do, given that our (...) world is that way. In this, they follow in the footsteps of Hartle (2005), Callender (2017), and Ismael (2017), who argue that any information gathering system (an IGUS) will, in learning to navigate our world, represent the distinctions between past, present, and future, and represent their own changing trajectory through spacetime. While we are generally very sympathetic to this approach, there are several places where we disagree. (shrink)

Chinese international students who studied in the United States received “double stigmatization” from American and Chinese authorities because of the “political othering” tactic during COVID-19. The research used a phenomenological approach to examine why and how specifically the transnational identity of Chinese international students in the United States shifted during the double stigmatization. The researcher conducted a total of three rounds of interviews with 15 Chinese international students who studied in the United States and returned to China between 2018 and (...) 2020, which culminated in 45 interviews through a longitudinal study to probe the transnational identities of this population before and during the double stigmatization; the study also examined how the mindsponge mechanism worked during the identity shifts and the interplay among stigmatization, transnational identity shifts, and the mindsponge mechanism. The study concluded that before COVID-19, Chinese international students had been stigmatized in both China and the United States. (shrink)

A scarcity mindset is considered to impact consumer behaviors. Our research aimed to examine the moderating effect of the scarcity mindset on the relationship between mental accounting and hedonic (vs. utilitarian) consumption. We conducted an online experimental design (mental accounting: windfall gains vs. hard-earning gains; consumption: hedonic products vs. utilitarian products) and verified our hypotheses in two distinct samples: a student sample and an adult sample. Our results showed that consumers who received windfall gains tended to use it for hedonic (...) consumption rather than utilitarian consumption. Intriguingly, such an effect was insignificant under a high level of a scarcity mindset but significant under a low level of the scarcity mindset. Moreover, consumers who received hard-earning gains tended to spend the money on utilitarian (vs. hedonic) consumption. However, we did not detect the impact of the scarcity mindset on such effects. Our research suggested an asymmetric effect of the scarcity mindset on hedonic (vs. utilitarian) consumption under two different mental accounts. It highlights the important role of the scarcity mindset in consumer behaviors, which leaves avenues for future research to understand marketing promotion strategies for distinct products. (shrink)

In this article, we explicate evidence-based nursing (EBN), critically appraise its framework and respond to nurses’ concern that EBN sidelines the caring elements of nursing practice. We use resources from care ethics, especially Vrinda Dalmiya’s work that considers care as crucial for both epistemology and ethics, to show how EBN is compatible with, and indeed can be enhanced by, the caring aspects of nursing practice. We demonstrate that caring can act as a bridge between ‘external’ evidence and the other pillars (...) of the EBN framework: clinical expertise; patient preferences and values. Drawing on an influential EBN handbook, section 1 presents the aims and features of EBN, including the normative principle that EBN should take place within a ‘context of caring’. We aim to understand this context and whether it can be neatly detached from the EBN framework, as the handbook seems to suggest. In section 2, we highlight the grounds for resistance to EBN from the nursing community, before mounting the argument that nursing practices can be understood fruitfully through feminist care ethics and/or virtue ethics lenses. In section 3, we deepen that analysis using Dalmiya’s concepts of care-knowing and care as a hybrid ethico-epistemic virtue, which are ideally suited to the complex practices of nursing. In section 4, we bring this rich understanding of care into conversation with EBN, showing that its framework cannot be adequately theorised without paying proper attention to care. Caring can be neither an innocuous background assumption of nor an afterthought to the EBN framework. (shrink)

Conclusion: Needle-free vaccination is a promising technology for the next generation of vaccines, but we found that intramuscular injection was still the most acceptable immunization route in this survey. One major reason might be that most people lack knowledge about needle-free vaccination. We should strengthen the publicity of needle-free vaccination technology, and thus improve the acceptance and coverage of vaccination in different populations.

This paper explores Kant’s account of propositional content and its implications for the relationship between his notions of knowledge (Wissen) and cognition (Erkenntnis). While previous commentators commonly read Kant as holding a Fregean theory of propositional content, in this paper I argue that Kant’s theory of propositional content aligns more closely with Peter Hanks’ recent account. According to my reading, Kant holds that individual acts of judging are both ontologically and explanatorily prior to propositions or Kantian judgments (Urteil). Furthermore, on (...) my reading, acts of judging for Kant are acts of assertively predicating a property of an object rather than merely acts of neutral predication. This reading challenges the lately popular view that Kant’s notions of knowledge and cognition are not only distinct but also disjunct. I instead suggest that we should regard Kantian knowledge that requires cognitions as its grounds as a species of Kantian cognitions. (shrink)

Host-microbiome interactions (HMIs) are critical for the modulation of biological processes and are associated with several diseases, and extensive HMI studies have generated large amounts of data. We propose that the logical representation of the knowledge derived from these data and the standardized representation of experimental variables and processes can foster integration of data and reproducibility of experiments and thereby further HMI knowledge discovery. A community-based Ontology of Host-Microbiome Interactions (OHMI) was developed following the OBO Foundry principles. OHMI leverages established (...) ontologies to create logically structured representations of microbiomes, microbial taxonomy, host species, host anatomical entities, and HMIs under different conditions and associated study protocols and types of data analysis and experimental results. (shrink)

Weakly Aggregative Modal Logic (WAML) is a collection of disguised polyadic modal logics with n-ary modalities whose arguments are all the same. WAML has some interesting applications on epistemic logic and logic of games, so we study some basic model theoretical aspects of WAML in this paper. Specifically, we give a van Benthem-Rosen characterization theorem of WAML based on an intuitive notion of bisimulation and show that each basic WAML system Kn lacks Craig Interpolation.

Myocardial disarray is the screening tool for HCM (hypertrophy cardiomyopathy). It is also found in hypertension, congenital heart disease, corpulmonale, etc. Many patients died from heart failure due to myocardial disarray. The risk of premature death may be determined by the degree of myocyte disarray. This article reviews the anatomical explanation of myocardial disarray. It also discusses the pathogenesis of the myocardial disorganization that causes heart failure. How to measure myocardial disarray has also been assessed. Therefore, early detection of myocardial (...) disarray is advised to prevent heart failure. (shrink)

Di er ci Qimeng (The second Enlightenment), by Wang Zhihe and Fan Meijun, is a timely book in Chinese about constructing a philosophical and practical way to contend with China's postmodernization. It combines Whitehead's process philosophy with a focus on Chinese modernity in order to map out a desirable postmodern society. It addresses the problem on several dimensions from policy making to basic value systems. The range of themes can be seen from the topics of the book's twelve chapters: (...) (1) Reverence for Land—Toward a Constructive Postmodern Agriculture; (2) Becoming Fully Human—Toward a Postmodern Organic Education; (3) Survival of the Harmonious-Toward a Constructive Postmodern Harmonious Culture; (4) Beauty .. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to clarify the notion of semantic presupposition and to refute Böer and Lycan's critique of that notion. The author presents a feasible and coherent formal definition of semantic presupposition after examining several popular definitions of the notion. In terms of this definition, two central arguments against semantic presupposition presented by Böer and Lycan are analyzed and responded to with care. It is concluded that the notion of semantic presupposition is not empty but rather is philosophically (...) interesting and fruitful. (shrink)

When a major engineering product failed, a failure investigation is often conducted to prevent similar failures in the future. In this dissertation, I propose an account of the epistemology and methodology of engineering failure investigations, based on a close examination of the documentations on five major plane crash investigations conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). -/- The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part consists of the five case studies arranged in chronological order: the American Airlines (...) Flight 191 accident in 1979; the United Flight 232 accident in 1989; the United Flight 585 accident in 1991; the USAir Flight 427 accident in 1994; and the TWA Flight 800 accident in 1996. In each case study, I summarize the entire investigation process, focusing on articulating the questions that arise and the evidential reasoning that helped resolve each question. -/- The second part of the dissertation examines how the investigators infer causes of failure events. The type of causal inference used in failure investigations typically proceeds from effects to causes, hence it is called reverse causal inference. This is in contrast with forward causal inference, where researchers start with an intervention and infer the effects of that intervention. I identify three types of reverse causal inference in engineering failure investigations: feature dependence, additional outcomes, and process tracing. -/- The third part of the dissertation examines how the investigators construct narratives of failure events. At the end of each failure investigation, the investigators come up with a narrative detailing the sequence of events leading to the outcome. This part of the dissertation examines how the investigators construct such narratives and support them with evidence. I argue that both the construction and the justification of a narrative of a failure event depend on the question-and-answer process in the investigation, which I call the question dynamics of the investigation. I examine three main components of the question dynamics: the resolution of questions, the significance of questions, and the arising of questions. I conclude the dissertation with an account of the coherence of narratives, which is a measure of the evidential status of narratives. My account of coherence relies on the question dynamics, and it captures the intuitive idea that the pieces of a coherent narrative “fit together” very well. (shrink)

The diabetic foot is a global threat to public health because it can result in infection and amputation, as well as cause the patient to experience considerable pain and incur financial costs. The condition of patients with diabetic foot in North China is distinguished by more severe local ulcers, a worse prognosis, and a longer duration of disease than that of patients with diabetic foot in the south. Through appropriate preventive measures, the diabetic foot can be effectively avoided. This study (...) assesses the existing knowledge, attitudes and practices associated with diabetic foot prevention among adults with diabetes living in rural areas of North China. (shrink)

People inhabit a vast and intricate social network nowadays. In addition to our own decisions and actions, we confront those of various groups every day. Collective decisions and actions are more complex and bewildering compared to those made by individuals. As members of a collective, we contribute to its decisions, but our contributions may not always align with the outcome. We may also find ourselves excluded from certain groups and passively subjected to their influences without being aware of the source. (...) We are used to being in overlapping groups and may switch identities, supporting or opposing the claims of particular groups. But rarely do we pause to think: What do we talk about when we talk about groups and their decisions? At the heart of this dissertation is the question of collective agency, i.e., in what sense can we treat a group as a rational agent capable of its action. There are two perspectives we take: a philosophical and logical one. The philosophical perspective mainly discusses the ontological and epistemological issues related to collective agency, sorts out the relevant philosophical history, and argues that the combination of a relational view of collective agency and a dispositional view of collective intentionality provides a rational and realistic account. The logical perspective is associated with formal theories of groups, it disregards the psychological content involved in the philosophical perspective, establishes a logical system that is sufficiently formal and objective, and axiomatizes the nature of a collective. The first topic that is addressed is the ontology of collective agency, i.e., the question what exactly is collective agency. The philosophical discussion of collective agency centres around the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long influenced orthodox theories and made them face the choice between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories such as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as also realized on the level of a collective. To adequately explain social phenomena that are essentially relational in nature, we propose a relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. While acknowledging the irreducibility of the concept of a collective, we find that there is a deep incompatibility between the concept of a collective and the concept of intentionality as the mark of the mental. To explain how collective intentionality nevertheless is possible and why we tend to use it analogously to how we use the concept of individual intentionality, we explore a dispositional account of intentionality which enables us to give an account of the concept of intentionality at both the individual and collective level. Specifically, we subdivide the dispositional account into three aspects: behavioral, purely mental, and cognitive. We then argue that collective intentionality is real by analyzing different forms of attributive judgments of intentionality and by introducing the perspective of indispensable collective responsibility. We also analyze how philosophical theories about collective agency relate to central features of formal theories about collective decisions, such as game theory. Although the two fields are both concerned with collectives, there are also differences that need to be addressed. For example, game theory is clearly anti-psychologistic since its aim is a formal and objective analysis. However, from the relational and dispositional perspective, intentionality at the individual level and collective intentionality as we analyze it, inevitably involve mental content. In order to explain this difference and identify where the boundary is, we analyze the relationships between the three basic concepts involved, namely intentionality, preference, and dependency, so as to provide a unified picture of collective theory across philosophical and formal theories. After paving the nexus between philosophical and formal perspectives, the logical perspective becomes the theme of our discussion. To be able to express game theoretical concepts and to connect them to our philosophical perspective, We present a logic of preference and functional dependence and its hybrid extension, and provide an axiomatization which is sound and strongly complete. The decidability of this logic is also proved. Its application to modeling non-cooperative and cooperative games in strategic form is explored. The resulting framework provides a unified view of Nash equilibrium, Pareto optimality, and the core. The philosophical relevance of these game-theoretical notions to discussions of collective agency is made explicit. Finally, we conclude and clarify the position of our theory in the broader field of research on the topics addressed in the thesis. Also, we point out many new questions and directions suggested by our analysis, including philosophical and logical open problems. (shrink)

The simulation hypothesis is a view of the nature of reality, suggesting that our world is likely a computer simulation created by an advanced civilization. In contrast, illusionism is a theory about the nature of phenomenal consciousness, arguing that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion and can be fully explained in physical terms. I argue that if our world is a simulated construct, illusionism could be incorrect. Specifically, even if our phenomenal experiences can be explained as illusionism suggests, advanced civilizations could (...) still create subjectively indistinguishable experiences by constructing a psychological system external to our world. Since we cannot determine which scenario we belong to, the illusionist explanation is not universally valid. Furthermore, I argue that even if the simulation hypothesis is impossible, illusionism remains flawed. Consequently, while the simulation hypothesis may function as a mere assumption, it exposes the inherent limitations of both illusionism and physicalism. (shrink)

In the modern business environment, characterized by rapid technological advancements and globalization, abetted by IoT and Industry 5.0 phenomenon, innovation is indispensable for competitive advantage and economic growth. However, many organizations are facing problems in its true implementation due to the absence of a practical innovation management framework, which has made the implementation of the concept elusive instead of persuasive. The present study has proposed a new innovation management framework labeled as “Absolute Innovation Management (AIM)” to make innovation more understandable, (...) implementable, and part of the organization’s everyday routine by synergizing the innovation ecosystem, design thinking, and corporate strategy to achieve competitive advantage and economic growth. The current study used an integrative literature review methodology to develop the “Absolute Innovation Management” framework. The absolute innovation management framework links the innovation ecosystem with the corporate strategy of the firm by adopting innovation management as a strategy through design thinking. Thus, making innovation more user/human-centered that is desirable by the customer, viable for business and technically feasible, creating both entrepreneurial and customer value, and boosting corporate venturing and corporate entrepreneurship to achieve competitive advantage and economic growth while addressing the needs of IoT and Industry 5.0 era. In sum, it synergizes innovation, design thinking, and strategy to make businesses future-ready for IoT and the industry 5.0 revolution. The present study is significant, as it not only makes considerable contributions to the existing literature on innovation management by developing a new framework but also makes the concept more practical, implementable and part of an organization’s everyday routine. (shrink)

Introduction: Online eye-tracking has been used in this study to assess the impacts of different cultural backgrounds on information discernment. An online platform called RealEye allowed participants to engage in the eye-tracking study from their personal computer webcams, allowing for higher ecological validity and a closer replication of social media interaction. -/- Methods: The study consisted of two parts with a total of five visuals of social media posts mimicking news posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Participants were asked to (...) view examples of real and fake news taken from a news fact-checking website, Snopes, and their eye movements were recorded during the process. Participants were recruited through Prolific and SONA; the total sample size for study 1.1 was 29 participants, and the total for study 1.2 was 25 participants, after removing poor eye-tracking data. A total of five visual images comprising true and false news were shown to the participant, study 1.1 had three examples and study 1.2 had two examples. There were two main cultural backgrounds in focus: participants born in China or the United Kingdom. -/- Results: Results suggested that participants follow a similar visual pattern of attention to Areas of Interest (AOIs) on the posts, which leads us to believe that due to the global standardisation of popular social media platforms, a bias might have occurred during information discernment. -/- Discussion: It is suggested that regardless of country background, users may have similar eye-tracking results while viewing a social media post because social media platform formats are standardised globally. Further research would recommend looking at language and linguistic traits when seeking differences between country backgrounds during online information discernment. (shrink)

In July 2017, China’s State Council released the country’s strategy for developing artificial intelligence, entitled ‘New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan’. This strategy outlined China’s aims to become the world leader in AI by 2030, to monetise AI into a trillion-yuan industry, and to emerge as the driving force in defining ethical norms and standards for AI. Several reports have analysed specific aspects of China’s AI policies or have assessed the country’s technical capabilities. Instead, in this article, we focus on (...) the socio-political background and policy debates that are shaping China’s AI strategy. In particular, we analyse the main strategic areas in which China is investing in AI and the concurrent ethical debates that are delimiting its use. By focusing on the policy backdrop, we seek to provide a more comprehensive and critical understanding of China’s AI policy by bringing together debates and analyses of a wide array of policy documents. (shrink)

Current COVID-19 pandemic and previous SARS/MERS outbreaks have caused a series of major crises to global public health. We must integrate the large and exponentially growing amount of heterogeneous coronavirus data to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechanisms, in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs. Ontologies have emerged to play an important role in standard knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. We have initiated the development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). (...) As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is an open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. In this article, the general architecture and the design patterns of the CIDO are introduced, CIDO representation of coronaviruses, phenotypes, anti-coronavirus drugs and medical devices (e.g. ventilators) are illustrated, and an application of CIDO implemented to identify repurposable drug candidates for effective and safe COVID-19 treatment is presented. (shrink)

Modern advocators of personal autonomy are eager to stress the distance between their belief in personal autonomy and moral autonomy. I hold a very different view that there is no need drawing a strict boundary between moral autonomy and personal autonomy. I introduce into this article two phrases—contextual autonomy and global autonomy, with the help of which we blend successfully moral autonomy with personal autonomy. Finally come to such a conclusion that contextual autonomyn+1 compromises global autonomy which in this sense (...) is in an additive fashion; and moral autonomy is one variety of personal autonomy. I hope this would inspire a new angle to understand personal autonomy and moral autonomy, or even, autonomy and morality. (shrink)

A fundamental entity is an entity that is ‘ontologically independent’; it does not depend on anything else for its existence or essence. It seems to follow that a fundamental entity is ‘modally free’ in some sense. This assumption, that fundamentality entails modal freedom (or ‘FEMF’ as I shall label the thesis), is used in the service of other arguments in metaphysics. But as I will argue, the road from fundamentality to modal freedom is not so straightforward. The defender of FEMF (...) should provide positive reasons for believing it, especially in light of recent views that are incompatible with it. I examine both direct and indirect routes to FEMF. (shrink)

Abstract: Hydrates are an enormous energy resource with global circulation in the permafrost and in the oceans. Even if conventional estimates are deliberated and only a small fraction is recoverable, the pure size of the resource is so huge that it demands assessment as a potential energy source. In this research work, we discuss the hydrate production prediction with Computer Modeling Group STARS (CMG STARS). In this paper different literatures reviews have been visited concerning hydrate production prediction with CMG STARS (...) and this have been done through consulting internet search in which secondary data were extracted. It was observed that most literatures does not quantify the knowledge on how hydrates production prediction with CMG STARS can be done. It was recommended that in the future, the research work on hydrate production prediction with CMG needs to be done by performing sensitivity analysis of different reservoir parameters which affect production process and commences the simulation model for the production prediction. (shrink)

Abstract: Good governance practices is a cornerstone for a country’s sustainable development whether socially, economically, culturally, morally or spiritually and in both national and international astute. Mostly, the significance of good governance practices is objective for an individual country in respect of economic efficiency and growth. Good governance is conducive to macroeconomic stability, external viability and sustainable development [1]. While the concepts of “governance” and “good governance” are not “new” in development literatures, is still receiving a mounting attention in recent (...) years especially in developing countries including Tanzania. Since independence of Tanganyika by then, and after the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania made many attempts to improve her governance system. It is in this line therefore, this paper aiming to analyze government initiatives in achieving good governance practices in Zanzibar. Using descriptive approach, government institutions in Zanzibar found to implement an outdated good governance policy. However, the initiatives taken so far in adopting good governance practices are stronger and the society has changed as a result of their realization which is due to those initiatives taken by the government in achieving good governance practices. This study was conducted in selected departments under President’s Office, Justice, Constitutional Affairs, Public Service and Good Governance since they have overall mandate of implementing good governance in Zanzibar [2]. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative method was used in the form of interviews while quantitative method was used in the form of questionnaires. Findings revealed that, the people of Zanzibar appreciates and have positive attitudes and perceptions towards the initiatives taken by their Government in adopting good governance practices although impediments like availability of an outdated good governance policy, inadequate public awareness on good governance, inadequate good governance budget from central government, poor technology and office politics were mentioned to hindering these initiatives. However, to a great extent the government of Zanzibar succeed in adopting good governance practices in a way that society observes it and practically executes good governance principles. Based on the findings, this study recommends government of Zanzibar to review and updates her good governance policy, allocate enough budget that enables responsible institutions to efficiently and effective implement good governance practices programs and activities which including provision of awareness creation and civic education curricula especially in remote area of the country which will facilitates and speedup the elimination of factors hindering adoption of good governance practices in Zanzibar and Tanzania at large. (shrink)

Various theorists have endorsed the “communication argument”: communicative capacities are necessary for morally responsible agency because blame aims at a distinctive kind of moral communication. I contend that existing versions of the argument, including those defended by Gary Watson and Coleen Macnamara, face a pluralist challenge: they do not seem to sit well with the plausible view that blame has multiple aims. I then examine three possible rejoinders to the challenge, suggesting that a context-specific, function-based approach constitutes the most promising (...) modification of the communication argument. (shrink)

This paper examines how professionals (N = 32) working on artificial intelligence (AI) view structural AI ethics challenges like injustices and inequalities beyond individual agents' direct intention and control. This paper answers the research question: What are professionals’ perceptions of the structural challenges of AI (in the agri-food sector)? This empirical paper shows that it is essential to broaden the scope of ethics of AI beyond micro- and meso-levels. While ethics guidelines and AI ethics often focus on the responsibility of (...) designers and the competencies and skills of designers to take this responsibility, our results show that many structural challenges are beyond their reach. This result means that while ethics guidelines and AI ethics frameworks are helpful, there is a risk that they overlook more complicated, nuanced, and intersected structural challenges. In addition, it highlights the need to include diverse stakeholders, such as quadruple helix (QH) participants, in discussions around AI ethics rather than solely focusing on the obligations of AI developers and companies. Overall, this paper demonstrates that addressing structural challenges in AI is challenging and requires an approach that considers four requirements: (1) multi-level, (2) multi-faceted, (3) interdisciplinary, and (4) polycentric governance. (shrink)

When agents know a protocol, this leads them to have expectations about future observations. Agents can update their knowledge by matching their actual observations with the expected ones. They eliminate states where they do not match. In this paper, we study how agents perceive protocols that are not commonly known, and propose a semantics-driven logical framework to reason about knowledge in such scenarios. In particular, we introduce the notion of epistemic expectation models and a propositional dynamic logic-style epistemic logic for (...) reasoning about knowledge via matching agentsÊ expectations to their observations. It is shown how epistemic expectation models can be obtained from epistemic protocols. Furthermore, a characterization is presented of the effective equivalence of epistemic protocols. We introduce a new logic that incorporates updates of protocols and that can model reasoning about knowledge and observations. Finally, the framework is extended to incorporate fact-changing actions, and a worked-out example is given. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. (shrink)

In a gradually more interlinked world, the formation of collaborations with partners is increasingly regarded as an important driver for generating innovation. Although multidimensional proximities are important factors influencing interorganizational coinnovation performance, relevant empirical studies have not reached consistent conclusions. By focusing on organizational dyad and including intraorganizational collaboration network inefficiency as a moderating variable, we explore the effects of multidimensional proximities on interorganizational coinnovation performance. By reference to 5G patent data collected in China between 2011 and 2020, the research (...) results based on the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) model show that geographical proximity, cognitive proximity, and institutional proximity all improve interorganizational coinnovation performance. (shrink)

The development of artificial perception technologies has surpassed the limitations of human natural senses, expanding humanity's perspectives on the world and self-awareness. However, it has simultaneously introduced new ethical challenges. These emerging challenges necessitate a philosophical reexamination of concepts such as 'nature,' 'artificial,' and ' invasiveness ' to better address associated issues. The advancement of artificial perception technologies not only involves scientific and practical applications but also profoundly influences human values, social ethics, and the future trajectory of human civilization. Amidst (...) the current transformation and transition in modes of cognition, reevaluating the relationship between technology and humanity becomes a crucial task. (shrink)

This paper reconciles an inconsistency between the benefits of mind wandering and a prominent conception of attention in philosophy and cognitive psychology, namely, the prioritization view. Since we prioritize the information in a task less if we are doing it while mind wandering compared to solely concentrating on it, why does our performance in the task sometimes improve when we are mind wandering? To explain this, we offer a conception of diffuse attention that generalizes from external to internal forms of (...) attention and captures deep commonalities between the two (Chun et al. 2011). We conceptualize mind wandering as an instance of internal diffuse attention that also induces diffuse attention in other concurrent tasks. Moreover, pace the prioritization view, certain tasks are in fact better performed with diffuse attention, which prioritizes information less than focused attention. Our account of mind wandering as an instance of the more general category of diffuse attention improves upon current leading philosophical views of mind wandering (such as Irving 2016) by better explaining the interaction between mind wandering and other tasks. (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)

It is widely agreed that reactive attitudes play a central role in our practices concerned with holding people responsible. However, it remains controversial which emotional attitudes count as reactive attitudes such that they are eligible for this central role. Specifically, though theorists near universally agree that guilt is a reactive attitude, they are much more hesitant on whether to also include shame. This paper presents novel arguments for the view that shame is a reactive attitude. The arguments also support the (...) view that shame is a reactive attitude in the sense that concerns moral accountability. The discussion thereby challenges both the view that shame is not a reactive attitude at all, suggested by philosophers such as R. Jay Wallace and Stephen Darwall, and the view that shame is a reactive attitude but does not concern moral accountability, recently defended by Andreas Carlsson and Douglas Portmore. (shrink)

Comparative philosophy between two disparate cultural-philosophic traditions, such as Western and Chinese philosophy, has become a new trend of philosophical fashion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Having learned from the past, contemporary comparative philosophers cautiously safeguard their comparative studies against two potential pitfalls, namely cultural universalism and cultural relativism. The Orientalism that assumed the superiority of the Occidental has become a memory of the past. The historical pendulum has apparently swung to the other extreme. The more recent (...) "reverse Orientalism" has started to reclaim the superiority of the Oriental. We have even been told that the twenty-first... (shrink)

The discussion of collective agency involves the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long restricted orthodox theories and made them face the tension between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as realized on the level of a collective. In order to adequately explain social phenomena that have relations as their essence, in this paper we propose a (...) relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. (shrink)

In this position paper, we describe a number of methodological and philosophical challenges that arose within our interdisciplinary Digital Humanities project CatVis, which is a collaboration between applied geometric algorithms and visualization researchers, data scientists working at OCLC, and philosophers who have a strong interest in the methodological foundations of visualization research. The challenges we describe concern aspects of one single epistemic need: that of methodologically securing (an increase in) trust in visualizations. We discuss the lack of ground truths in (...) the (digital) humanities and argue that trust in visualizations requires that we evaluate visualizations on the basis of ground truths that humanities scholars themselves create. We further argue that trust in visualizations requires that a visualization provides provable guarantees on the faithfulness of the visual representation and that we must clearly communicate to the users which part of the visualization can be trusted and how much. Finally, we discuss transparency and accessibility in visualization research and provide measures for securing transparency and accessibility. (shrink)

Some of our beliefs are institutional; that is, beliefs whose content is to a large extent shaped by institutions, such as beliefs about intellectual property, trade policy, or traffic rules. In this chapter, we propose a novel account of institutional beliefs, as we call them. In particular, we argue that institutional beliefs are primarily attributable to social entities, such as groups or collectives, and only secondarily to individual agents. This is because institutional beliefs respond to specific problems that, in principle, (...) only collectives face. However, existing methodology in behavioural science primarily relies on eliciting beliefs through individual choice data, which presents challenges for empirically modelling our proposed concept of institutional beliefs. To address this challenge, we propose to speak of institutional beliefs attributable to individual agents as ‘qua beliefs’. That is, institutional beliefs attributable to individual agents acting qua members of certain institutionally shaped groups. Within this framework, individuals’ qua actions occur in a shared realm of problems that can only be addressed through collective efforts. The relationship between individuals and their groups can be rendered tractable under formalised conditions. Under these conditions, choice data collected from individuals need not obstruct the elicitation of institutional beliefs for empirical study at both the collective and the individual level. We refer to these conditions as “IS conditions”, which are developed based on the synthesis between an interpretationist understanding of mental states and standard models of revealed preference theory as used in experimental economics. For an illustration of how this approach can be operationalised experimentally, we direct our readers to chapter 10 of this volume, where an experimental study applied our account of institutional beliefs. (shrink)

The model of language can relatively concretely reveal the mechanism of the epistemology, which is extended by the ontology that takes “person” as the unit. It unveils an intuitable dimension to represent the epistemolog’s paradigm and limitations. Deriving from the inherent relation between epistemology and ontology, the retrospection of the epistemology’s ontological origin can be actualized by locating or grasping the epistemological first person’s ontological essence. Hence, the illusional and frail essence of the ontology behind this epistemology would be uncovered. (...) “Person” is not a stable unit in the ontological world, since the application of this unit stimulates the development of the operating style of the epistemology which relies on the supplement of paradox. After this study that intends to get the epistemological and ontological truth of the current using nominative, the new era of one or more unknown but solid epistemology and its ontology will be gradually recognized. Furthermore, the circumstance of past and current philosophical study is going to be changed. (shrink)

Kuhn's alleged taxonomic interpretation of incommensurability is grounded on an ill defined notion of untranslatability and is hence radically incomplete. To supplement it, I reconstruct Kuhn's taxonomic interpretation on the basis of a logical-semantic theory of taxonomy, a semantic theory of truth-value, and a truth-value conditional theory of cross-language communication. According to the reconstruction, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values when considered within (...) the context of the other due to the unmatchable taxonomic structures underlying them. So constructed, Kuhn's mature interpretation of incommensurability does not depend upon the notion of truth-preserving translatability, but rather depends on the notion of truth-value-status-preserving cross-language communication. The reconstruction makes Kuhn's notion of incommensurability a well grounded, tenable and integrated notion.Author Keywords: Incommensurability; Thomas Kuhn; Taxonomic structures; Lexicons; Truth-value; Untranslatability; Cross-language communication. (shrink)

Through a comparative study of the meanings and origins of justice symbolized in the Greek word dikē and the Chinese word yi 毅, this essay explores an alternative understanding of justice exemplified in Mencius' teaching and illuminates a possibility of social and political justice that originates in the human heart instead of reason. On the basis of a genealogical study of yi that identifies its root meanings as "the dignity of the self" and "amity and affinity," this study recovers and (...) revives a way of justice that may preserve and promote the dignity of the individual and the solidarity of political community at once without succumbing to the violence and rigidity of traditional Western metaphysics. In so doing, it highlights a long overlooked dimension of early Confucian moral practice and establishes its unique relevancy for the contemporary debates on justice. (shrink)