Objectives: The growing rate of retraction of scientific publications has attracted much attention within the academic community, but there is little knowledge about the nature of such retractions in schizophrenia-related research. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of retractions of schizophrenia-related publications.

In this essay, we will follow Tang Junyi’s lead in exploring issues related to Chinese diaspora and Chinese philosophy. While we largely endorse Tang’s call for overseas Chinese to establish themselves in their adopted lands, we will argue for a more nuanced view on the identity of Chinese people outside China: they are not marginalized individuals scattered out of “homeland” China, rather they are people legitimately established in their own respective countries. In this connection, we will also advance a view (...) of future Chinese philosophy as a world philosophy that takes roots in China as well as in the world at large. In our view, although Chinese immigrant thinkers in the past century have played a major role in promoting Chinese philosophy outside China, the importance of such a role is likely to decline along with the success of Chinese philosophy becoming a world philosophy. (shrink)

Ratio, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 303-311, December 2021.

Both motivational internalism and externalism need to explain why sometimes moral judgments tend to motivate us. In this paper, I argue that Dreier’ second-order desire model cannot be a plausible externalist alternative to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation. I explain that the relevant second-order desire is merely a constitutive requirement of rationality because that desire makes a set of desires more unified and coherent. As a rational agent with the relevant second-order desire is disposed towards coherence, she (...) will have some motivation to act in accordance with her moral judgments. Dreier’s second-order desire model thus collapses into a form of internalism and cannot be a plausible externalist option to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation. (shrink)

In this thesis, I explore motivational internalism and externalism, which concern the relationship between moral judgments and motivation. I first introduce the basic terms and different forms of internalism and externalism, including the externalist objections to internalism based on the famous counterexamples. I then argue against externalism by defending and developing Michael Smith’s fetishism argument. I not only respond to the externalist objections to the fetishism argument but also further argue against different externalist explanations of moral motivation that intend to (...) avoid the fetishism charge. Finally, I re-examine different forms of internalism in order to argue for a new form of internalism that can better preserve our internalist intuitions whilst accommodating the externalist counterexamples. My ultimate conclusion will be that the most plausible form of internalism to accept is constitutional, unconditional, relatively strong, direct internalism that is formulated in terms of dispositional desires. (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)

Although patterns of human activity show a large degree of freedom, they exhibit structural patterns subjected by geographic and social constraints. Aiming at various problems of personalized recommendation in mobile networks, a social network recommendation algorithm is proposed with a variety of context-aware information and combined with a series of social network analysis methods.Based on geographical location and temporal information, potential social relations among users are mined deeply to find the most similar set of users for the target user, then (...) recommendations are carried out incorporating with social relations of the mobile users to effectively solve the problem of recommendation precision. The above study can not only help LBSN designers and developers to better understand their users and grasp their want, but also help to refine the design of their system to provide users with more appropriate applications and services.The experimental results on the real-world dataset verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and it has higher prediction accuracy compared with existing recommendation algorithms. (shrink)

Currently, little is known about the mechanism of how university students’ attitudes toward entrepreneurship education (ATEE) affect entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in the post-pandemic entrepreneurial environment. Based on the existing research, this study explores the relationship between ATEE, the post-pandemic entrepreneurship environment, and ESE through a questionnaire survey. A total of 910 university students from three universities in Zhejiang Province, China participated, with an effective rate of 92.9%. The data collection focused on the period from August to December 2020. In this (...) study, Stepwise Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze university students' ATEE and its impact on ESE, as well as the moderating effect of the post-pandemic entrepreneurial environment. (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)

Mathematical cognition is one of the most important cognitive functions of human beings. The latest brain and cognitive research have shown that mathematical cognition is a system with multiple components and subsystems. It has phylogenetic root, also is related to ontogenetic development and learning, relying on a large-scale cerebral network including parietal, frontal and temporal regions. Especially, the parietal cortex plays an important role during mathematical cognitive processes. This indicates that language and visuospatial functions are both key to mathematical cognition. (...) All of those advances have important implications for basic mathematical education. (shrink)

The year 2020 and 2021 have been decimated by the pandemic, leading to outbound vacations largely scrapped. Staycation, a typical domestic journal, has then been adopted by those who are tired of self-isolation for so long. This study aims to explore and assess the drivers exerting impact on attitude of tourists toward staycation and the interrelationship among the research constructs is also examined. A quantitative analysis is employed for evaluating the roles of reduced risk perception, benign envy, and perceived benefits (...) as they exert the effect on attitude toward staycation. An online questionnaire survey was used, and a total of 213 samples were collected from target respondents in Hong Kong, which were still under lockdown at the time of the study. The results of the study showed that reduced risk perception, benign envy as well as perceived benefits will influence tourists’ attitude toward staycation. The managerial and theoretical implications of the results are discussed based on the significant relationships identified in the study. (shrink)

This volume includes nineteen articles by scholars from Asia, North America, and Europe on Chinese thinkers from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Included here are intellectual biographies of literati such as Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi, Hu Hong, Wang Yangming, and Dai Zhen. Essays are arranged chronologically, and most begin with a biographical sketch of their subject. They provide variety rather than uniformity of approach, but all in all these essays are remarkably rich (...) and offer much new material on both familiar and lesser-known thinkers. (shrink)

This sixth volume of Collected Papers includes 74 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2015-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 121 co-authors from 19 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Abduallah Gamal, Amir Abdullah, Firoz Ahmad, Nadeem Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed Aboelfetouh, Ahmed Mostafa Khalil, Shariful Alam, W. Alharbi, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Amira S. Ashour, Asmaa Atef, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, A. A. Azzam, Willem K.M. Brauers, Bui (...) Cong Cuong, Fausto Cavallaro, Ahmet Çevik, Robby I. Chandra, Kalaivani Chandran, Victor Chang, Chang Su Kim, Jyotir Moy Chatterjee, Victor Christianto, Chunxin Bo, Mihaela Colhon, Shyamal Dalapati, Arindam Dey, Dunqian Cao, Fahad Alsharari, Faruk Karaaslan, Aleksandra Fedajev, Daniela Gîfu, Hina Gulzar, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Hewayda El-Ghawalby, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, F. Nirmala Irudayam, Branislav Ivanov, S. Jafari, Jeong Gon Lee, Milena Jevtić, Sudan Jha, Junhui Kim, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Songül Karabatak, Abdullah Kargın, M. Karthika, Ieva Meidute-Kavaliauskiene, Madad Khan, Majid Khan, Manju Khari, Kifayat Ullah, K. Kishore, Kul Hur, Santanu Kumar Patro, Prem Kumar Singh, Raghvendra Kumar, Tapan Kumar Roy, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luu Quoc Dat, T. Madhumathi, Tahir Mahmood, Mladjan Maksimovic, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Nivetha Martin, M. Kasi Mayan, Mai Mohamed, Mohamed Talea, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Raja Muhammad Hashim, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Nada A. Nabeeh, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Xenia Negrea, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Jagan M. Obbineni, Angelo de Oliveira, M. Parimala, Gabrijela Popovic, Ishaani Priyadarshini, Yaser Saber, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, A. A. Salama, M. Saleh, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Dönüș Șengür, Shio Gai Quek, Songtao Shao, Dragiša Stanujkić, Surapati Pramanik, Swathi Sundari Sundaramoorthy, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Muhammed Turhan, Alptekin Ulutaș, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Dan Valeriu Voinea, Volkan Duran, Navneet Yadav, Yanhui Guo, Naveed Yaqoob, Yongquan Zhou, Young Bae Jun, Xiaohong Zhang, Xiao Long Xin, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas. (shrink)

This seventh volume of Collected Papers includes 70 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2013-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 122 co-authors from 22 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel-Nasser Hussian, C. Alexander, Mumtaz Ali, Yaman Akbulut, Amir Abdullah, Amira S. Ashour, Assia Bakali, Kousik Bhattacharya, Kainat Bibi, R. N. Boyd, Ümit Budak, Lulu Cai, Cenap Özel, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Chunlai Du, Chunxin Bo, Rituparna Chutia, Cu Nguyen Giap, Dao The (...) Son, Vinayak Devvrat, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Fahad Alsharari, Feng Yongfei, S. Ganesan, Shivam Ghildiyal, Bibhas C. Giri, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ahmed Refaat Hawas, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, Hongbo Wang, Hongnian Yu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Saeid Jafari, Temitope Gbolahan Jaiyeola, Naeem Jan, R. Jeevitha, Jun Ye, Anup Khan, Madad Khan, Salma Khan, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Kifayat Ullah, Kishore Kumar P.K., Sujit Kumar De, Prasun Kumar Nayak, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Anam Luqman, Luu Quoc Dat, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa M. Malik, Nivetha Martin, Mai Mohamed, Parimala Mani, Mingcong Deng, Mohammed A. Al Shumrani, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Farshid Mofidnakhaei, Muhammad Shoaib, Muhammad Riaz, Karthika Muthusamy, Nabeela Ishfaq, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Sumera Naz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Noor ul Amin, Dragan Pamučar, Gabrijela Popović, S. Krishna Prabha, Surapati Pramanik, Priya R, Qiaoyan Li, Yaser Saber, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Saleem Abdullah, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Abdulkadir Sengür, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahzaib Ashraf, Shouzhen Zeng, Shio Gai Quek, Shuangwu Zhu, Shumaiza, Sidra Sayed, Sohail Iqbal, Songtao Shao, Sundas Shahzadi, Dragiša Stanujkić, Željko Stević, Udhayakumar Ramalingam, Zunaira Rashid, Hossein Rashmanlou, Rajkumar Verma, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Desmond Jun Yi Tey, Selçuk Topal, Naveed Yaqoob, Yanhui Guo, Yee Fei Gan, Yingcang Ma, Young Bae Jun, Yuping Lai, Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Wei Yang, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Lemnaouar Zedam. (shrink)

In Appearance and Explanation, McCain and Moretti propose a novel internalist account of epistemic justification called phenomenal explanationism, which combines phenomenal conservatism and explanationism. I argue that the current version of phenomenal explanationism faces a dilemma: either it omits the awareness requirement but implies an implausible form of logical-mathematical omniscience, or it preserves the requirement but leads to a vicious regress. I suggest how phenomenal explanationism might be revised to avoid this dilemma.

Kripke distinguishes necessity and priority as two different categories: priority is a notion of epistemology, while necessity is a notion of metaphysics. Based on this fundamental argument, Kripke objects to Descriptivism, which takes certain properties as the criteria of identity across all possible worlds, and he argues for the legitimacy of a posteriori necessary truths. Kripke also criticizes Russell’s methods for dealing with empty descriptions, and he puts forward a modal world to explain the rigidity of proper names. However, the (...) concept of rigid designation faces some challenges, including Kripke admitting to weak essentialism when he rejects transworld identification, and the fact that the truth value of a sentence containing a rigid designator may change. (shrink)

Lack of a historical sense is the hereditary defect of philosophers. … So what is needed from now on is historical philosophizing, and with it the virtue of modesty.

Recent discourse in the philosophy of scientific explanation involves an account known as the Kairetic account. I proposed implementing a complementarity view involving a mapping scheme to the Kairetic account and similar models. There are two natural concerns related to this mapping. The first concern is the treatment of multiple mappings required for an explanation: phenomena may involve two complementarity features. The second concern is regarding the acquisition of understanding and whether context-dependence facilitates understanding. This article aims to address the (...) first thought through an example involving interference and photon detectors in a telescope. I claim that context-dependent mapping is on a particle basis, accommodating the wave-particle duality for every single particle without generalization. I further introduce the implications of mathematical developments of a complementarity relation grounded in the uncertainty principle. In addition, I will offer the stance that context-dependence facilitates understanding because it ensures that explanations are logically consistent, precise, relevant, and comprehensive. (shrink)

E. Husserl’s reflections in Logical Investigations on “intentional feelings” and “non-intentional feelings” are significant in both his later ethical explorations and M. Scheler’s thought on ethics. Through the incorporation of the views of Husserl and Scheler, we find that the phenomenology of the intentional feeling-acts is not only the foundation of the non-formal ethics of values in Scheler’s phenomenology, but also at least the constitutive foundation of the ethics of Husserl’s first orientation.

Introduction: The development of advanced sewage technologies empowers the industry to produce high-quality recycled water, which greatly influences human’s life and health. Thus, this study investigates the mechanism of individuals’ adoption of recycled water from the technology adoption perspective. -/- Methods: Employing the mixed method of structural equation modeling and artificial neural network analysis, we examined a research model developed from the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) framework. To examine the research model, this study employs (...) a leading web-survey company (Sojump) to collect 308 valid samples from the residents in mainland China. -/- Results: The structural equation modeling results verified the associations between the six predictors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, environmental motivation, and price value), individuals’ cognitive and emotional attitudes, and acceptance intention. The artificial neural network analysis validates and complements the structural equation modeling results by unveiling the importance rank of the significant determinants of the acceptance decisions. -/- Discussion: The study provides theoretical implications for recycled water research and useful insights for practitioners and policymakers to reduce the environmental hazards of water scarcity. (shrink)

Patient-centered care (PCC) is an approach to healthcare that values patients’ preference, need, and autonomy. The estimation of healthcare partly depends on how well PCC is implemented. In addition, the result of clinical research can inform the assessment of the implementation of PCC. In clinical research, health-related quality of life (HRQL) theoretical models offer a conceptual toolbox that informs clinical research and guides the hypotheses generation. Wilson and Cleary (1995) developed the most widely used HRQL theoretical model (Bakas et al., (...) 2012). Ontological assumptions about causation in Wilson and Cleary’s model will influence which kind of hypotheses will be generated. I will argue that Wilson and Cleary’s model instilled a kind of causal bias into hypothesis generation in clinical research on HRQL. Causation from biomedical factors to non-biomedical factors is frequently hypothesized while causation from non-biomedical factors to biomedical factors is rarely hypothesized. It leads to that the interdependence and interaction between constituent parts of patients are ignored, which is an obstacle to the implementation of PCC. In addition, I will propose a revised HRQL theoretical model which avoids the causal bias brought by Wilson and Cleary’s model. By doing so, I leave room for the improvement of the practice of healthcare by analyzing the ontological assumptions about causation. (shrink)

This article proposes a term structure model for dual-currency interest rate markets. The model assumes that volatility is a deterministic function of time alone. This volatility structure can reduce the dimension of the required state variables. An important special case is presented, which corresponds essentially to a Vasicek/Hull-White yield curve model in each currency. The model is very useful for pricing cross-currency derivatives.

This article presents a generic model for pricing financial derivatives subject to counterparty credit risk. Both unilateral and bilateral types of credit risks are considered. Our study shows that credit risk should be modeled as American style options in most cases, which require a backward induction valuation. To correct a common mistake in the literature, we emphasize that the market value of a defaultable derivative is actually a risky value rather than a risk-free value. Credit value adjustment (CVA) is also (...) elaborated. A practical framework is developed for pricing defaultable derivatives and calculating their CVAs at a portfolio level. (shrink)

This dissertation is a collection of standalone papers about a novel version of the deep self view of moral responsibility. Taken on its own, each chapter deals with a different thesis. But as the title of my dissertation reveals, taken together, the three chapters in it constitute the groundwork for my deep self view of moral responsibility. In Chapter 1, I develop and defend the thesis of responsibility for the deep self. In Chapter 2, I argue for a sufficient condition (...) for responsibility for one’s self that centers on the idea of aspiration. Drawing upon resources form the first two chapters, in Chapter 3, I further develop and defend a thesis of responsibility for what one does and its downstream consequences. -/- Here is a summary of my view. I argue that an agent acts freely and is morally responsible for what she does in the accountability sense only if she has a deep self for which she is responsible. How is one responsible for one’s deep self? To be responsible for the deep self, one must have a history where one was afforded the unimpeded opportunity to develop and exercise the ability to shape one’s own self. Exercise that ability in what way? I suggest that a critical way in which an agent shapes her own self is when she engages with various activities that I call aspirational self-shaping. Nevertheless, an agent needs not exercise the ability to shape her self and thus engage with aspirational self-shaping every time she acts freely. Indeed, being responsible for what she does is consistent with her failing to exercise that ability when she acts freely and responsibly. -/- Standard deep self views in the literature say something much stronger. They contend that an agent acts freely and responsibly for what she does if and only if her actions or omissions issue from, and so express, her deep self. Counterexamples proliferate. By offering a necessary condition for accountability drawing upon resources from responsibility for the deep self, my view escapes counterexamples that standard views face, while retains the core of the deep self view. Indeed, an agent may be blameworthy for her wrongdoing without it issuing from, and so expressing, her deep self. And yet, she must have a deep self for which she is responsible to be blameworthy for her wrongdoing. All of this is ultimately achieved by paying closer attention to the historical dimension of the deep self than other deep self proponents have. (shrink)

The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view “Socraticism”. I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts—(1) this view is compatible with the claim that most of (...) our knowledge ascriptions are true, and (2) provided that (1) is true, the costs of accepting Socraticism are much less than the costs of accepting any other resolution to the Paradox. I argue for (1) in Section 2 by developing a question-sensitive contextualist model for knowledge that shows how Socraticism is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true. I also argue how this contextualist model can achieve this result where other contextualist models fail. I then consider other closure-friendly solutions to the paradox in Section 3 and show how accepting those solutions forces us to give up a number of plausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

Nghiên cứu này tìm hiểu mức độ nhận thức của người dân về ô nhiễm rác thải nhựa và xác định mức chi trả tự nguyện của họ cho quỹ môi trường để cải thiện chất lượng xử lý rác thải nhựa ở Việt Nam.

Nhân ngày Báo chí Cách mạng, 21-6-2024, cuốn sách về văn hóa do Tổng Bí thư Nguyễn Phú Trọng chủ biên, có tựa đề Xây dựng và phát triển nền văn hóa Việt Nam tiên tiến, đậm đà bản sắc dân tộc, được Nhà xuất bản Chính trị Quốc gia Sự thật in và phát hành cuối tháng 6-2024, đã ra mắt đông đảo độc giả. Sự kiện lễ giới thiệu sách được tác giả Nhật Minh tường thuật ngay cùng (...) ngày. (shrink)

There are infinitely many ways the world might be, and there may well be infinitely many people in it. These facts raise moral paradoxes. We explore a conflict between two highly attractive principles: a Pareto principle that says that what is better for everyone is better overall, and a statewise dominance principle that says that what is sure to turn out better is better on balance. We refine and generalize this paradox, showing that the problem is faced by many theories (...) of interpersonal aggregation besides utilitarianism, and by many decision theories besides expected value theory. Considering the range of consistent responses, we find all of them to be quite radical. (shrink)

The Evaluative Judgment Theories of Emotion mainly suggest that emotions can be reduced to evaluative beliefs or judgments. Specifically, evaluative beliefs are necessary but not sufficient conditions for evaluative judgments. And reducing emotions to evaluative judgments requires the subject’s conceptualizing ability. However, the Evaluative Judgment Theories of Emotion has many problems, including that evaluative beliefs are neither sufficient nor necessary for emotions; the evaluative judgment theory of emotion presupposes the subject’s conceptual content, but conceptual content is not a necessary and (...) sufficient condition for emotions; the requirement of conceptualization ability for evaluative judgments is too high, which makes emotions overintellectualize; and the add-on strategy of emotions cannot save the evaluative judgment theory of emotions as well. (shrink)

Valuing something is complicated. Philosophers have offered different stories about what we do when we value something. However, we have not paid enough attention to the thought that, sometimes, valuing something is what makes us the kind of practical agents we are. In this paper, I offer a novel account of valuing, which I call thick valuing, to capture this special phenomenon in which our valuing makes us who we are. This requires us to recognize that the cognitive, motivational, and (...) affective components of thick valuing do not merely co-occur. More importantly, it is key to focusing on how thickly valuing something partially constitutes, and indeed crucially expresses, our practical identities. Beyond that, the account sheds new light on how we can better understand inauthenticity—to act without authenticity is to act from what one thickly values but where that which one thickly values are not values of one’s own. (shrink)

Equity-linked securities with a guaranteed return become popular in a volatile market environment. This paper presents a new model for valuing guaranteed equity-linked notes. We consider a security whose value depends on the performance of a basket of equities averaged over certain points in time, but that is floored by a guaranteed amount. We show that the security’s price is given by the sum of the guaranteed amount plus the price of an Asian style option on the basket above. The (...) model provides analytical formulas for the security’s price as well as for corresponding hedge ratios; these respective formulas appear to be accurate over a wide range of underlying security parameter values, based on numerical testing against a Monte Carlo benchmark, Finally, we apply our method to value a type of segregated fund with a maturity guarantee. (shrink)

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

This paper presents a human-computer interaction model with a three layers learning mechanism in a pervasive environment. We begin with a discussion around a number of important issues related to human-computer interaction followed by a description of the architecture for a multi-agent cooperative design system for pervasive computing environment. We present our proposed three- layer HCI model and introduce the group formation algorithm, which is predicated on a dynamic sharing niche technology. Finally, we explore the cooperative reinforcement learning and fusion (...) algorithms; the paper closes with concluding observations and a summary of the principal work and contributions of this paper. (shrink)

Meritocracy claims to reward the meritorious with more resources, thereby achieving social efficiency and justice in a level playground. This article argues that the rise of meritocracy in a society is the institutional consequence of adopting progressive humanism, an ideal-type worldview that advocates the harmonious co-realization of individual achievement and social contribution. However, meritocracy is a self-defeating illusion because, even in a level playground, it only rewards conspicuous and wasteful display of ‘merit’ rather than genuine contributions to society. Similar to (...) the promise of an afterlife to Catholicism, the illusion of meritocracy constitutes an indispensable theodicy to progressive humanism. For societies holding such worldviews, meritocracy is a necessary illusion that cannot be dispelled by institutional reforms or political movements. (shrink)

This article presents a comprehensive framework for valuing financial instruments subject to credit risk. In particular, we focus on the impact of default dependence on asset pricing, as correlated default risk is one of the most pervasive threats in financial markets. We analyze how swap rates are affected by bilateral counterparty credit risk, and how CDS spreads depend on the trilateral credit risk of the buyer, seller, and reference entity in a contract. Moreover, we study the effect of collateralization on (...) valuation, since the majority of OTC derivatives are collateralized. The model shows that a fully collateralized swap is risk-free, whereas a fully collateralized CDS is not equivalent to a risk-free one. (shrink)

Although most Asian states are signatories to UNCLOS, which offers options for dispute resolution by either voluntary or compulsory processes, in reality fewer than a dozen Asian states have taken advantage of such an approach. The decision to adopt third-party mechanisms comes under great scrutiny and deliberation, not least because of the entailing legal procedures and the politically sensitive nature of disputes. Vietnam claims the second-largest maritime area in the South China Sea dispute after China. A comparison of two recent (...) cases—the arbitration between the Philippines and China and the conciliation between Timor-Leste and Australia—highlights the importance of selecting between binding and nonbinding decisions and framing a complaint. In particular, any legal action under UNCLOS should specify China’s claims and actions in areas that encroach on Vietnam’s claimed exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and violate international law. (shrink)

This paper integrates type functionalism with the Kairetic account to develop context-specific models for explaining mental states, particularly pain, across different species and systems. By employing context-dependent mapping f_c, we ensure cohesive causal explanations while accommodating multiple realizations of mental states. The framework identifies context subsets C_i and maps them to similarity subspaces S_i, capturing the unique physiological, biochemical, and computational mechanisms underlying pain in different entities such as humans, octopi, and AI systems. This approach highlights the importance of causal (...) relations in defining mental states and preserves their functional roles across diverse contexts. Furthermore, the paper incorporates elements of token functionalism by recognizing species-specific realizations of mental states. By acknowledging the unique representations of mental states within different species and systems, the framework provides a nuanced understanding of how similar functional roles can be fulfilled by diverse physical substrates. This synthesis of type and token functionalism enhances our explanatory power and coherence in addressing the complex nature of mental states. The resulting framework offers a robust tool for analyzing and understanding mental phenomena, with significant implications for cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence. By maintaining the functional roles of mental states while accommodating their multiple realizations, this approach not only advances theoretical understanding but also opens new avenues for practical applications in cross-species empathy, AI ethics, and the development of context-aware cognitive models. (shrink)

This paper presents a new model for pricing OTC derivatives subject to collateralization. It allows for collateral posting adhering to bankruptcy laws. As such, the model can back out the market price of a collateralized contract. This framework is very useful for valuing outstanding derivatives. Using a unique dataset, we find empirical evidence that credit risk alone is not overly important in determining credit-related spreads. Only accounting for both collateral arrangement and credit risk can sufficiently explain unsecured credit costs. This (...) finding suggests that failure to properly account for collateralization may result in significant mispricing of derivatives. We also empirically gauge the impact of collateral agreements on risk measurements. Our findings indicate that there are important interactions between market and credit risk. (shrink)

This paper argues that the reduced-form jump diffusion model may not be appropriate for credit risk modeling. To correctly value hybrid defaultable financial instruments, e.g., convertible bonds, we present a new framework that relies on the probability distribution of a default jump rather than the default jump itself, as the default jump is usually inaccessible. As such, the model can back out the market prices of convertible bonds. A prevailing belief in the market is that convertible arbitrage is mainly due (...) to convertible underpricing. Empirically, however, we do not find evidence supporting the underpricing hypothesis. Instead, we find that convertibles have relatively large positive gammas. As a typical convertible arbitrage strategy employs delta-neutral hedging, a large positive gamma can make the portfolio highly profitable, especially for a large movement in the underlying stock price. (shrink)

It is very natural to think that if two people, x and y, are qualitatively identical and have committed qualitatively identical actions, then it cannot be the case that one has committed something wrong whereas the other did not. That is to say, if x and y differ in their moral status, then it must be because x and y are qualitatively different, and not simply because x is identical to x and not identical to y. In this fictional dialogue (...) between Socrates and Cantor involving infinitely many qualitatively identical agents, this assumption is challenged. (shrink)

If a future AI system can enjoy far more well-being than a human per resource, what would be the best way to allocate resources between these future AI and our future descendants? It is obvious that on total utilitarianism, one should give everything to the AI. However, it turns out that every Welfarist axiology on the market also gives this same recommendation, at least if we assume consequentialism. Without resorting to non-consequentialist normative theories that suggest that we ought not always (...) create the world with the most value, or non-welfarist theories that tell us that the best world may not be the world with the most welfare, I propose a new theory that justifies giving some resources to humanity in the face of overwhelming AI well-being. I call this new theory, “Group Prioritarianism". (shrink)

Deep self views of moral responsibility suggest that an agent fully satisfies the freedom condition for responsibility if and only if her actions or omissions issue from, and so express, her deep self. This analysis generates both false negatives and false positives regarding people's responsibility, and counterexamples proliferate. I defend a novel version of the deep self view by offering a necessary condition for accountability while retaining the core of deep self views. Indeed, an agent may be blameworthy for her (...) wrongdoing without it issuing from, and so expressing, her deep self. And yet, I argue that she must have a deep self for which she is responsible. This is achieved by paying closer attention to history than standard views have. Focusing on history then reveals a less discussed problem for standard views: the ahistorical features of them make them less equipped to explain cases of blameworthiness that is undermined. (shrink)

This paper attempts to assess the economic significance and implications of collateralization in different financial markets, which is essentially a matter of theoretical justification and empirical verification. We present a comprehensive theoretical framework that allows for collateralization adhering to bankruptcy laws. As such, the model can back out differences in asset prices due to collateralized counterparty risk. This framework is very useful for pricing outstanding defaultable financial contracts. By using a unique data set, we are able to achieve a clean (...) decomposition of prices into their credit risk factors. We find empirical evidence that counterparty risk is not overly important in credit-related spreads. Only the joint effects of collateralization and credit risk can sufficiently explain unsecured credit costs. This finding suggests that failure to properly account for collateralization may result in significant mispricing of financial contracts. We also analyze the difference between cleared and OTC markets. (shrink)

Discussions in the philosophy of explanation involving scientific explanations often include a form of logical entailment, causal history, unification, and more. Strevens constructs the Kairetic account in an attempt to unify the entailment structure, causal relations, and the notion of difference-making in a manner that also offers high-level explanations. When dealing with quantum mechanics, Strevens then points toward Railton's account of probabilities, known as the DNP account. In this paper, I will introduce the preliminary accounts (D-N, causal, Unificationism) and the (...) Kairetic and DNP accounts and offer an extension of the Kairetic/DNP account to accommodate the view of complementarities. This will be done through a scheme that I call "context-dependent mapping." This will be illustrated in a couple of example cases. (shrink)

This paper presents a Least Square Monte Carlo approach for accurately calculating credit value adjustment (CVA). In contrast to previous studies, the model relies on the probability distribution of a default time/jump rather than the default time itself, as the default time is usually inaccessible. As such, the model can achieve a high order of accuracy with a relatively easy implementation. We find that the valuation of a defaultable derivative is normally determined via backward induction when their payoffs could be (...) positive or negative. Moreover, the model can naturally capture wrong or right way risk. (shrink)