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.

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)

Ontologies, as the term is used in informatics, are structured vocabularies comprised of human- and computer-interpretable terms and relations that represent entities and relationships. Within informatics fields, ontologies play an important role in knowledge and data standardization, representation, integra- tion, sharing and analysis. They have also become a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In what follows, we outline the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), which covers multiple areas in the domain of coronavirus diseases, including etiology, transmission, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, (...) prevention, and treatment. We emphasize CIDO development relevant to COVID-19. (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)

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)

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)

Translating Chinese Classics in a Colonial Context: James Legge and His Two Versions of the Zhongyong, by Hui Wang, Peter Lang Content Type Journal Article Pages 166-167 Authors Paul Boshears, Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien/The European Graduate School Journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy Online ISSN 1757-0646 Print ISSN 1757-0638 Journal Volume Volume 4 Journal Issue Volume 4, Number 1 / 2012.

This paper explores the elusive dialectic between concentration and forgetfulness, consciousness and unconsciousness in spontaneous artistic creation favoured by artists and advocated by critics in Chinese art history, by examining texts on painting and tracing back to ancient Daoist philosophical ideas, in a comparison with Kantian and post-Kantian aesthetics. Although artistic spontaneity in classical Chinese aesthetics seems to share similarities with Kant’s account of spontaneity in the art of genius, the emphasis on unconsciousness is valued by classical Chinese artists and (...) critics inspired by the Daoist idea of ‘Wu Wei’ (acting without conscious intention or effort). As the Qing painter Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) claimed when admitting his failure to copy the Yuan master Ni Zan (1301–1374), Ni Zan’s success in natural and untrammelled expression lies ‘in between having an intention and not having one’. A similar idea about the dialectic of consciousness and unconsciousness in artistic spontaneity was suggested by Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theatre (1880), which demonstrated that while self-consciousness might disturb and hinder the naturalness of artistic expression and thus encourage affectation, it does not mean that there is no role for consciousness. Although the views on unconsciousness in art and the co-play of consciousness and unconscious in artistic creation by Schelling, Schiller, Goethe, and even Nietzsche might get inspirations from Kant’s hidden view of the unconscious, Kant’s emphasis on the harmonious cooperation between imagination and understanding disguises his inexplicit idea of the unconscious. This paper will demonstrate that while in both Classical Chinese and European cultural contexts, artists, critics and philosophers talk about the same elusive relation, the philosophical explanations of the same phenomenon are essentially distinctive. (shrink)

This thirteenth volume of Collected Papers is an eclectic tome of 88 papers in various fields of sciences, such as astronomy, biology, calculus, economics, education and administration, game theory, geometry, graph theory, information fusion, decision making, instantaneous physics, quantum physics, neutrosophic logic and set, non-Euclidean geometry, number theory, paradoxes, philosophy of science, scientific research methods, statistics, and others, structured in 17 chapters (Neutrosophic Theory and Applications; Neutrosophic Algebra; Fuzzy Soft Sets; Neutrosophic Sets; Hypersoft Sets; Neutrosophic Semigroups; Neutrosophic Graphs; Superhypergraphs; Plithogeny; (...) Information Fusion; Statistics; Decision Making; Extenics; Instantaneous Physics; Paradoxism; Mathematica; Miscellanea), comprising 965 pages, published between 2005-2022 in different scientific journals, by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 110 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Abduallah Gamal, Sania Afzal, Firoz Ahmad, Muhammad Akram, Sheriful Alam, Ali Hamza, Ali H. M. Al-Obaidi, Madeleine Al-Tahan, Assia Bakali, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Bilal Hadjadji, Robert N. Boyd, Willem K.M. Brauers, Umit Cali, Youcef Chibani, Victor Christianto, Chunxin Bo, Shyamal Dalapati, Mario Dalcín, Arup Kumar Das, Elham Davneshvar, Bijan Davvaz, Irfan Deli, Muhammet Deveci, Mamouni Dhar, R. Dhavaseelan, Balasubramanian Elavarasan, Sara Farooq, Haipeng Wang, Ugur Halden, Le Hoang Son, Hongnian Yu, Qays Hatem Imran, Mayas Ismail, Saeid Jafari, Jun Ye, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Abdullah Kargın, Vasilios N. Katsikis, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, M. Khoshnevisan, Tapan Kumar Roy, Pinaki Majumdar, Sreepurna Malakar, Masoud Ghods, Minghao Hu, Mingming Chen, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Loey, Mihnea Alexandru Moisescu, Muhammad Ihsan, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Shabir, Mumtaz Ali, Muzzamal Sitara, Nassim Abbas, Munazza Naz, Giorgio Nordo, Mani Parimala, Ion Pătrașcu, Gabrijela Popović, K. Porselvi, Surapati Pramanik, D. Preethi, Qiang Guo, Riad K. Al-Hamido, Zahra Rostami, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Muzafer Saračević, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Selvaraj Ganesan, Shammya Shananda Saha, Marayanagaraj Shanmugapriya, Songtao Shao, Sori Tjandrah Simbolon, Florentin Smarandache, Predrag S. Stanimirović, Dragiša Stanujkić, Raman Sundareswaran, Mehmet Șahin, Ovidiu-Ilie Șandru, Abdulkadir Șengür, Mohamed Talea, Ferhat Taș, Selçuk Topal, Alptekin Ulutaș, Ramalingam Udhayakumar, Yunita Umniyati, J. Vimala, Luige Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Yaman Akbulut, Yanhui Guo, Yong Deng, You He, Young Bae Jun, Wangtao Yuan, Rong Xia, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zayen Azzouz Omar, Xiaohong Zhang, Zhirou Ma.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

on how to justify the rationality of sciences.

In “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions”, Weinberg, Nichols and Stich famously argue from empirical data that East Asians and Westerners have different intuitions about Gettier -style cases. We attempted to replicate their study about the Car case, but failed to detect a cross - cultural difference. Our study used the same methods and case taken verbatim, but sampled an East Asian population 2.5 times greater than NEI’s 23 participants. We found no evidence supporting the existence of cross - cultural difference about (...) the intuition concerning the Gettier car case. Taken together with the failures of both of the existing replication studies, our results provide strong evidence that the purported cross - cultural difference in Gettier intuitions does not exist. (shrink)

In addition to the known barriers to sharing research work openly, there is evidence for pressures that affect the quality of the research too, such as questionable research practices (QRPs), biases in research selection and assessment, and anti-collaborative practices.

We provide new findings that add to the growing body of empirical evidence that important epistemic intuitions converge across cultures. Specifically, we selected three recent studies conducted in the US that reported surprising effects of knowledge attribution among English speakers. We translated the vignettes used in those studies into Mandarin Chinese and Korean and then ran the studies with participants in Mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea. We found that, strikingly, all three of the effects first obtained in the US (...) also emerged in the East Asian cultures we studied. Our findings not only cohere with but also provide—at least moderate—support for the existence of extensive convergences of important epistemic intuitions across cultures. (shrink)

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)

Objective: This study aimed to investigate and compare the effects of tubular gastroesophageal anastomosis and traditional gastroesophageal supra-arch anastomosis on the postoperative lung function of patients with esophageal carcinoma. -/- Methods: A total of 90 patients with middle-lower segmental esophageal cancer admitted in our hospital from August 2014 to August 2016 were recruited to our study. They were randomly divided into two groups. The observation group underwent tubular gastroesophageal anastomosis, whereas the control group underwent traditional gastroesophageal supra-arch anastomosis. Changes in (...) the postoperative pulmonary function were compared between the two groups. -/- Results: The numbers of CD4 cells (27.45 ± 5.48), CD8 cells (35.97 ± 7.16), and natural killer cells (20.79 ± 2.49), as well as the CH4/CD8 ratio (0.69 ± 0.18), of the patients in the observation group were significantly higher than the (38.45 ± 5.98), (20.45 ± 6.41), (39.44 ± 3.49), and (1.31 ± 0.48), respectively, of the patients in the control group. The differences between the two groups were statistically significant (P<0.05). By contrast, the preoperative forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), and maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV) did not significantly differ between the two groups (P>0.05). The FEV1 (1.76 ± 0.41 L), FVC (2.33 ± 0.32 L), and MVV (33.7 ± 5.2 L/min) of the observation group were significantly higher than those of the control group (P<0.05). Meanwhile, the complication rate of the observation group was 42.2%, which was significantly lower than that of the control group (75.6%) (P<0.05). -/- Conclusion: Tubular gastroesophageal anastomosis can benefit patients with esophageal cancer by significantly reducing the adverse effects on their postoperative pulmonary function and control the occurrence of postoperative complications. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge’s (2006) framework of global justice can be adapted for individual agents or collective unilateral donations in the same way Peter Singer’s framework has been. I do so by amending Pogge’s institutional principles for international human rights NGOs and by adding two further principles to address challenges that arise when his framework is applied. This adapted framework enjoins donors to make principled philanthropic decisions that prioritize existing and near-term suffering, while also rectifying their part in causing this suffering. It (...) makes Pogge’s negative duty account easier to implement than his previous proposal, and provides well-off individuals with an alternative to Effective Altruism. (shrink)

Little attention has been paid to the place attachment and homeland construction for refugees and their descendants in China. This study investigates the process by which the place attachment of Young Overseas Chinese Relatives is shaped in the context of resettlement sites. This qualitative research employed ethnographic fieldwork, and the author collected local literature and materials from February to December 2019 through participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires. It is believed that the construction of a new homeland in the community, (...) the emotional experience of the Young in childhood, and the cultural logic of place attachment shape place attachment. The process by which place attachment is shaped is interwoven with homeland construction, which indicates that the living state and mentality of the Young are becoming increasingly stable. The Young developed different mentalities on the basis of traditional Confucian culture in responding to the socio-cultural environments. (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)

Cybernetics for the 21st Century Vol.1 is dedicated to the epistemological reconstruction of cybernetics, consisting of a series of historical and critical reflections on the subject – which according to Martin Heidegger marked the completion of Western metaphysics. In this anthology, historians, philosophers, sociologists and media studies scholars explore the history of cybernetics from Leibniz to artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as the development of twentieth-century cybernetics in various geographical regions in the world, from the USA to the (...) Soviet Union, Latin America, France, Poland, China and Japan. The reconstruction shows the various paths of cybernetics and their socio-political implications, which remain unfamiliar to us today. It reveals more than what we thought we knew – and yet we hardly know – and allows us to understand where we are and to reflect on the future of technology, ecology and planetary politics. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

In past decades, the subject atmosphere and mood has gone beyond the physio-meteorological and psychological scopes and become a new direction of aesthetics which concerns two sides of the same phenomenon. As the primary sensuous reality constructed by both the perceiving subject and the perceived object, atmosphere and mood are neither a purely subjective state nor an objective thing. Atmosphere is essentially a quasi-object pervaded by a specific affective quality and a ubiquitous phenomenon forming the foundation of our outer life (...) experiences, while mood is a quasi-subject pervaded by specific objective quality and thus a ubiquitous phenomenon forming the foundation of our inner life experiences. A practical dimension is thereby, from the outset, embedded in the consideration of both concepts. This is mainly characterized by actions and, correspondingly, ethical aspects, which concern the design and creation of atmosphere and thus the triggering of mood through works of art. Here, on the one hand, the process of artistic formation, long neglected in the European tradition, is given prominence as an aesthetic practice, and on the other hand, an interactive dialogue is effectively established between the artist, the work and the viewer. Due to the fact that atmosphere and mood, both as in-between, emphasize the interaction of the perceiver and the perceived from two sides, here the decisive question is: in what kind of environment do we live or participate and in what way do we experience it? The focus of aesthetics is now not on the conventional issue whether the environment is beautiful or gives us a sense of beauty, but on how the environment influences our feeling of being there (Befinden) through our own sensuality. Such an approach would contribute to a critical transformation in aesthetic methodology, namely from the ontological and/or epistemological what to the phenomenological and anthropological how. -/- The tension between atmosphere and mood, as revealed here, opens up a large space for exploring a new understanding of aesthetics. On this basis the special issue pursued to diversify this discussion on an international level. (shrink)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

In this paper, we report on the development of The Sustainable Port video game, which aims to simulate the complex dynamics and decisions occurring in the present and future development of a port area considering environmental aspects (CO2 emissions) and profit. To evaluate if this game fulfills its purpose, we asked 75 students and 34 employees at the Port of Rotterdam (PoR) to play The Sustainable Port. Our results show that PoR employees score higher than students suggesting a transfer between (...) real-life experience of being an employee in the port and performance in the game. Furthermore, port participants reported that The Sustainable Port can be successfully used to start discussions about the future of the Port of Rotterdam and to raise awareness about the complexity characterizing the decision-making processes occurring in a port environment. Our results, taken together, provide evidence of the effectiveness of The Sustainable Port in simulating dynamics occurring in port development and give us optimism about future applications. (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)

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)

This study aimed to evaluate if eye blinks can be used to discriminate players with different performance in a session of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Tetris. To that end, we developed a state-of-the-art method for blink extraction from EAR measures, which is robust enough to be used with data collected by a low-grade webcam such as the ones widely available on laptop computers. Our results show a significant decrease in blink rate per minute (blinks/m) during the first minute of playing (...) Tetris. After having defined 3 groups of proficiency based on in-game performance (Novices, Intermediates, and Experts) we found out that expert players display a significantly lower decrease in blinks/m compared to novices during the first minute of gameplay, which shows that Tetris players' proficiency can be detected by looking at eye blinks/m variations during the early phase of a game session. This difference in blinks/m is observed throughout the entire game session, which supports the general conclusion that proficient Tetris players have a lower decrease in blinks/m, even when playing more difficult levels. Finally, we offer some interpretations of this effect and the relationship that our results may have with the visual cognitive workload experienced during the gameplay. (shrink)

This paper examines the fortunes of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy written by European and American philosophers from the 17th century to the present day. It charts the shift from inclusive histories of philosophy, which included non-European philosophies, to exclusive histories of philosophy, which excluded and/or marginalized non-European philosophies, at the end of the 18th century. This shift was motivated by racial Eurocentrism, which cast a long shadow over histories of philosophy written during the 19th and 20th centuries. The (...) paper also considers recent attempts to produce a more inclusive history of philosophy. By examining the history of the inclusion and exclusion of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy, this paper seeks to challenge the assumption that philosophy began and has been practised exclusively by European or western thinkers. (shrink)

Residents' high medical expenses is the core challenge that needs to be solved urgently in China's medical reform for a long time. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in Chinese Mainland during 2011–2019, we evaluate the impact of China's national comprehensive medical reform pilot policy on residents' medical expenses by using the difference-in-differences model. The results show that the pilot policy was generally conducive to reducing residents' medical expenses, resulting in a reduction of 2.13% in per capita medical (...) expenses for inpatients, but the effect on per capita medical expenses for outpatients was insignificant. Mechanism analysis shows that hospital competition and institutional environment played a moderating role in the effect of the pilot policy on residents' medical expenses reduction. The more intense the hospital competition and the better the institutional environment, the more significant of the reduction effect. In addition, the reduction effect of the pilot policy was greater in the central provinces, the provinces with poor medical infrastructure, and the provinces with strong financial strength. This study provides useful policy insights for deepening medical reform and reducing residents' medical expenses. (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 study, we predict the different levels of performance in a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Tetris session based on the score and the number of matches played by the players. Using the first 45 seconds of gameplay, a Random Forest Classifier was trained on the five keys used in the game obtaining a ROC_AUC score of 0.80. Further analysis revealed that the number of down keys (forced drop) and the number of left keys (left translation) are the most relevant (...) keys in this task, showing that by merely including the data from these two keys our Random Forest Classifier reached a ROC_AUC score of 0.83.We conclude that the keylogger data during the early phases of a game session can be successfully used to predict performance in longer sessions of Tetris. (shrink)

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)

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)

In this paper, I attempt to show how Davidson’s anti-sceptical argument can respond to the closureRK-based radical scepticism. My approach will focus on the closureRK principle rather than the possibility that our beliefs could be massively wrong. I first review Davidson’s principle of charity and the triangulation argument, and then I extract his theory on content of a belief. According to this theory, content of a belief is determined by its typical cause and other relevant beliefs. With this constraint on (...) content, I argue that doubt must be local. Furthermore, since one cannot rationally believe that one’s commitment to the cause of beliefs could be false, our commitment to the denial of a sceptical hypothesis is not a knowledge-apt belief. Therefore, the closureRK principle is not applicable to rational evaluations of this commitment. As a result, the closureRK-based sceptical argument fails while the closureRK principle remains. (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)

Despite a growing interest in and sympathy with Confucianism, there remains a stereotyped conception of Confucian civil order as a form of authoritarian hierarchy that is responsible for various oppressions in ancient China and is reprehensible from a modern egalitarian perspective. One central target of this modern criticism is the Confucian maxim of sangang 三綱, whose underlying idea is essential for regulating the relationship between sovereign and subject, father and son, and husband and wife in traditional Confucian society. Tu Wei-ming (...) translates sangang as the “Three Bonds” and argues that it is the “least defensible legacy of Confucian ethics” from the “modern egalitarian and liberal perspective.” For Tu.. (shrink)

斯特劳逊 （Strawson）的语义预设概念在语义学和语言哲学研究上颇有建树。尽管如此，语义预设概念一直遭受来自各方面的批判。概要说来，对语义预设概念之批判主要来自两个方面：其一，试图抽去语义预设概念的逻辑基础 ，即非真值概念 (the notion of truthvaluelessness)，从而达到间接地拒斥语义预设概念之目的。其二，直接批判语义预设概念本身。他们或者论证此概念在理论上不自恰或微不足道，或者断定即使此概念本身在理论上自恰，但实为一空 洞无物之概念。因为我们根本找任何一个语义预设的具体例证。所以，语义预设概念不具任何真正的哲学意义。它只是一个当代神话，理应拒斥。 -/- 玻尔(S. Ber)和莱肯(W. Lycan)对语义预设概念的批判集中代表了以上两个方面。据我所知，迄今不曾有人对他们的批判予以全面和公正的反驳，以致于许多人人云亦云，使得他们的论点至今颇有影响。给予玻尔和莱恩的批判以全面反驳乃本文初 衷。于此相关，我以为很有必要澄清对语义预设概念的诸多误解，从而确立一个理论上自恰，实际上可行，和确有实质性内容的语义预设概念。基于以上考虑，我对语义预设概念批判之反驳包括正 反两个方面。在第二节，我试图建立一个自恰，完备，非庸俗的语义预设概念。基于这一概念，第三节对玻尔和莱恩反对语义预设的两个核心批判予以全面反驳。第四节着重辩护非真值概念。本文的最后结论是：各种批判并未损 伤斯特劳逊的语义预设概念的精髓。语 义预设概念非但不是一个当代神话，而且具有重大哲学意义。 .

By laying bare the philosophical prejudices underlying certain modern deprecations of Confucianism, this article defends the integrity of Confucian civilization and reclaims its significance for the modern world. Taking on a typical criticism of Confucian Ethics by Alsadire MacIntyre, I argue that the ideal of Confucian self can be defined neither in terms of Western concepts of autonomy nor heteronomy; it consists rather in a kind of virtuosity as inspired by the empathetic openness of the self. Through a comparative study (...) of Confucian and typical Western ethical theories, I will demonstrate further how the empathetic embodiment of the Confucian self informs an order of ritual that may still be relevant for the modern world in promoting harmonious social and political orders that can elevate the conventional and current power hierarchies into the virtuous rule of benefaction. (shrink)