Background: Postoperative pneumonia is a preventable complication associated with adverse outcomes, that greatly aggravates the medical expenses of patients. The goal of our study is to identify risk factors and outcomes of postoperative pneumonia.

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

This 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)

We expect the laws of nature that describe the universe to be exact, but what if that isn't true? In this popular science article, I discuss the possibility that some candidate fundamental laws of nature, such as the Past Hypothesis, may be vague. This possibility is in conflict with the idea that the fundamental laws of nature can always and faithfully be described by classical mathematics. -/- [Bibliographic note: this article is featured on the magazine website under a different title (...) as "The fuzzy law that could break the idea of a mathematical universe" and on the magazine cover as "The Flaw at the Heart of Reality: Why precise mathematical laws can never fully explain the universe." It is a popular version of the article "Nomic Vagueness" that can be found on arXiv: 2006.05298.]. (shrink)

In this essay I suggest that we view design principles in systems biology as minimal models, for a design principle usually exhibits universal behaviors that are common to a whole range of heterogeneous (living and nonliving) systems with different underlying mechanisms. A well-known design principle in systems biology, integral feedback control, is discussed, showing that it satisfies all the conditions for a model to be a minimal model. This approach has significant philosophical implications: it not only accounts for how design (...) principles explain, but also helps clarify one dispute over design principles, e.g., whether design principles provide mechanistic explanations or a distinct kind of explanations called design explanations. (shrink)

Gila Sher interviewed by Chen Bo: -/- I. Academic Background and Earlier Research: 1. Sher’s early years. 2. Intellectual influence: Kant, Quine, and Tarski. 3. Origin and main Ideas of The Bounds of Logic. 4. Branching quantifiers and IF logic. 5. Preparation for the next step. -/- II. Foundational Holism and a Post-Quinean Model of Knowledge: 1. General characterization of foundational holism. 2. Circularity, infinite regress, and philosophical arguments. 3. Comparing foundational holism and foundherentism. 4. A post-Quinean model of (...) knowledge. 5. Intellect and figuring out. 6. Comparing foundational holism with Quine’s holism. 7. Evaluation of Quine’s Philosophy -/- III. Substantive Theory of Truth and Relevant Issues: 1. Outline of Sher’s substantive theory of truth. 2. Criticism of deflationism and treatment of the Liar. 3. Comparing Sher’s substantive theory of truth with Tarski’s theory of truth. -/- IV. A New Philosophy of Logic and Comparison with Other Theories: 1. Foundational account of logic. 2. Standard of logicality, set theory and logic. 3. Psychologism, Hanna’s and Maddy’s conceptions of logic. 4. Quine’s theses about the revisability of logic. -/- V. Epilogue. (shrink)

Contextualist accounts of “woman,” including Saul (2012), Diaz-Leon (2016), and Ichikawa (2020), aim to capture the variability of the meaning of the term, and do justice to the rights of trans women. I argue that (i) there is an internal tension between a contextualist stance and the commitment to trans-inclusive language, and that (ii) we should recognize and tackle the broader and deeper theoretical and practical difficulties implicit in the semantic debates, rather than collapsing them all into semantics. Moving on, (...) I sketch three strategies to help us advance feminist philosophical endeavors, including how attending to contextual matters can lead us to further reflect on the meta-contextual, such as our role in shaping contexts and whether the working of language is indicative of a larger oppressive social structure. (shrink)

A century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, the meaning of quantum mechanics still remains elusive. This is largely due to the puzzling nature of the wave function, the central object in quantum mechanics. If we are realists about quantum mechanics, how should we understand the wave function? What does it represent? What is its physical meaning? Answering these questions would improve our understanding of what it means to be a realist about quantum mechanics. In this survey article, I review (...) and compare several realist interpretations of the wave function. They fall into three categories: ontological interpretations, nomological interpretations, and the sui generis interpretation. For simplicity, I will focus on non-relativistic quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The mathematical structure of realist quantum theories has given rise to a debate about how our ordinary 3-dimensional space is related to the 3N-dimensional configuration space on which the wave function is defined. Which of the two spaces is our (more) fundamental physical space? I review the debate between 3N-Fundamentalists and 3D-Fundamentalists and evaluate it based on three criteria. I argue that when we consider which view leads to a deeper understanding of the physical world, especially given the deeper topological (...) explanation from the unordered configurations to the Symmetrization Postulate, we have strong reasons in favor of 3D-Fundamentalism. I conclude that our evidence favors the view that our fundamental physical space in a quantum world is 3-dimensional rather than 3N-dimensional. I outline lines of future research where the evidential balance can be restored or reversed. Finally, I draw lessons from this case study to the debate about theoretical equivalence. (shrink)

Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as ontology, possibility, explanation, induction, counterfactuals, time, determinism, and fundamentality. I suggest that laws are fundamental facts that govern the world by constraining its physical possibilities. I examine three hallmarks of laws-simplicity, exactness, and objectivity-and discuss whether and how they may be (...) associated with laws of physics. (shrink)

Although expected utility theory has proven a fruitful and elegant theory in the finite realm, attempts to generalize it to infinite values have resulted in many paradoxes. In this paper, we argue that the use of John Conway's surreal numbers shall provide a firm mathematical foundation for transfinite decision theory. To that end, we prove a surreal representation theorem and show that our surreal decision theory respects dominance reasoning even in the case of infinite values. We then bring our theory (...) to bear on one of the more venerable decision problems in the literature: Pascal's Wager. Analyzing the wager showcases our theory's virtues and advantages. To that end, we analyze two objections against the wager: Mixed Strategies and Many Gods. After formulating the two objections in the framework of surreal utilities and probabilities, our theory correctly predicts that (1) the pure Pascalian strategy beats all mixed strategies, and (2) what one should do in a Pascalian decision problem depends on what one's credence function is like. Our analysis therefore suggests that although Pascal's Wager is mathematically coherent, it does not deliver what it purports to, a rationally compelling argument that people should lead a religious life regardless of how confident they are in theism and its alternatives. (shrink)

The paper explores the influence of greenwash on green trust and discusses the mediation roles of green consumer confusion and green perceived risk. The research object of this study focuses on Taiwanese consumers who have the purchase experience of information and electronics products in Taiwan. This research employs an empirical study by means of the structural equation modeling. The results show that greenwash is negatively related to green trust. Therefore, this study suggests that companies must reduce their greenwash behaviors to (...) enhance their consumers’ green trust. In addition, this study finds out that green consumer confusion and green perceived risk mediate the negative relationship between greenwash and green trust. The results also demonstrate that greenwash is positively associated with green consumer confusion and green perceived risk which would negatively affect green trust. It means that greenwash does not only negatively affect green trust directly but also negatively influence it via green consumer confusion and green perceived risk indirectly. Hence, if companies would like to reduce the negative relationship between greenwash and green trust, they need to decrease their consumers’ green consumer confusion and green perceived risk. (shrink)

This article delves into the concept of "Egocloism," a term that amalgamates an inflated sense of self-importance ("ego") with a disposition towards isolation and resistance to external influences ("cloister"). It explores how this mindset manifests not only in individuals but also at the communal level, leading to insularity and a reluctance to embrace diversity and progress. Drawing inspiration from Anton Chekhov's narrative of "The Man in a Case," the article introduces the metaphor of "The Race in a Case" to critique (...) communities entrenched in their historical narratives and cultural identities to the detriment of inclusivity and growth. Through historical examples such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Tokugawa Shogunate’s Sakoku Policy, the Ottoman Empire’s late reforms, and the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the article illustrates the adverse effects of Egocloism. It concludes with strategies for individuals and communities to overcome this mindset, advocating for a shift towards an open horizon that embraces diversity, inclusivity, and global interconnectedness. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce an intrinsic account of the quantum state. This account contains three desirable features that the standard platonistic account lacks: (1) it does not refer to any abstract mathematical objects such as complex numbers, (2) it is independent of the usual arbitrary conventions in the wave function representation, and (3) it explains why the quantum state has its amplitude and phase degrees of freedom. -/- Consequently, this account extends Hartry Field’s program outlined in Science Without Numbers (...) (1980), responds to David Malament’s long-standing impossibility conjecture (1982), and establishes an important first step towards a genuinely intrinsic and nominalistic account of quantum mechanics. I will also compare the present account to Mark Balaguer’s (1996) nominalization of quantum mechanics and discuss how it might bear on the debate about “wave function realism.” In closing, I will suggest some possible ways to extend this account to accommodate spinorial degrees of freedom and a variable number of particles (e.g. for particle creation and annihilation). -/- Along the way, I axiomatize the quantum phase structure as what I shall call a “periodic difference structure” and prove a representation theorem as well as a uniqueness theorem. These formal results could prove fruitful for further investigation into the metaphysics of phase and theoretical structure. -/- (For a more recent version of this paper, please see "The Intrinsic Structure of Quantum Mechanics" available on PhilPapers.). (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)

This correlational study investigated the relationship between preservice teachers’ math self-concept, self-efficacy, and attitude with their math achievement. Participants were chosen using stratified random sampling from BEEd and BSEd mathematics majors (n = 117). From the findings, preservice teachers had moderate to high math self-concept, self-efficacy, and attitude. These variables were statistically correlated with each other and with math achievement. The inclusion of training programs for developing the preservice teachers’ math self-concept, self-efficacy, and attitude, as well as designing curricula that (...) engage and encourage them to do mathematics and problem-solving, must be considered among teacher education institutions. (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)

If an asymmetry in time does not arise from the fundamental dynamical laws of physics, it may be found in special boundary conditions. The argument normally goes that since thermodynamic entropy in the past is lower than in the future according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then tracing this back to the time around the Big Bang means the universe must have started off in a state of very low thermodynamic entropy: the Thermodynamic Past Hypothesis. In this paper, we (...) consider another boundary condition that plays a similar role, but for the decoherent arrow of time, i.e. the subsystems of the universe are more mixed in the future than in the past. According to what we call the Entanglement Past Hypothesis, the initial quantum state of the universe had very low entanglement entropy. We clarify the content of the Entanglement Past Hypothesis, compare it with the Thermodynamic Past Hypothesis, and identify some challenges and open questions for future research. (shrink)

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)

This essay develops an inferential account of model explanation, based on Mauricio Suárez’s inferential conception of scientific representation and Alisa Bokulich’s counterfactual account of model explanation. It is suggested that the fact that a scientific model can explain is essentially linked to how a modeler uses an established model to make various inferences about the target system on the basis of results derived from the model. The inference practice is understood as a two-step activity, with the first step involving making (...) counterfactual statements about the model itself and the second step involving making hypothetical statements transferring over claims derived from the model onto the target. To illustrate how this two-step activity proceeds, an agent-based simulation model is discussed. (shrink)

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)

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)

Stephen Yablo’s notion of proportionality, despite controversies surrounding it, has played a significant role in philosophical discussions of mental causation and of high-level causation more generally. In particular, it is invoked in James Woodward’s interventionist account of high-level causation and explanation, and is implicit in a novel approach to constructing variables for causal modeling in the machine learning literature, known as causal feature learning (CFL). In this article, we articulate an account of proportionality inspired by both Yablo’s account of proportionality (...) and the CFL account of variable construction. The resulting account has at least three merits. First, it illuminates an important feature of the notion of proportionality, when it is adapted to a probabilistic and interventionist framework. The feature is that at the center of the notion of proportionality lies the concept of “determinate intervention effects.” Second, it makes manifest a virtue of (common types of) high-level causal/explanatory statements over low-level ones, when relevant intervention effects are determinate. Third, it overcomes a limitation of the CFL framework and thereby also addresses a challenge to interventionist accounts of high-level causation. (shrink)

The view of embodied cognition believes that cognition is embodied in nature, only the dynamics involved in the interaction between cognitive activities and the nervous system, body and environment, only by closely linking the correct evaluation of time-dependent and relationship, then only can make a correct understanding of cognitive activities. The core concepts of body and environment involved in embodied cognition are different from the body and environment in the usual sense. In terms of research methods, dynamic research methods that (...) are different from traditional computer simulations are also adopted. The article first integrates and analyzes the basic position and general propositions in the discipline, then the embodied cognition are explained based on author's understanding. In addition, the suitability of dynamic research methods, its advantages and disadvantages is analyzed, and finally, a brief summary of the current status of embodied cognition research. (shrink)

Michael Weisberg’s account of scientific models concentrates on the ways in which models are similar to their targets. He intends not merely to explain what similarity consists in, but also to capture similarity judgments made by scientists. In order to scrutinize whether his account fulfills this goal, I outline one common way in which scientists judge whether a model is similar enough to its target, namely maximum likelihood estimation method. Then I consider whether Weisberg’s account could capture the judgments involved (...) in this practice. I argue that his account fails for three reasons. First, his account is simply too abstract to capture what is going on in MLE. Second, it implies an atomistic conception of similarity, while MLE operates in a holistic manner. Third, Weisberg’s atomistic conception of similarity can be traced back to a problematic set-theoretic approach to the structure of models. Finally, I tentatively suggest how these problems might be solved by a holistic approach in which models and targets are compared in a non-set-theoretic fashion. (shrink)

Polger and Shapiro argue that their official recipe, a criterion for judging when the phenomenon of multiple realization exists, renders MR less widespread than its proponents have assumed. I argue that, although Polger and Shapiro’s criterion is a useful contribution, they arrive at their conclusion too hastily. Contrary to Polger and Shapiro, I claim that the phenomenon of multiple realization in the biological world, judged by their criterion, is not as scarce as they suggest. To show this, an updated official (...) recipe, namely a multiple mechanistic realization thesis, integrating Polger and Shapiro’s criterion with a compositional conception of realization, is developed. Then, three examples of varied kinds are examined, showing that cases of MR are not so hard to find in the biological world. (shrink)

I propose a dynamic causal approach to characterizing the notion of a mechanism. Levy and Bechtel, among others, have pointed out several critical limitations of the new mechanical philosophy, and pointed in a new direction to extend this philosophy. Nevertheless, they have not fully fleshed out what that extended philosophy would look like. Based on a closer look at neuroscientific practice, I propose that a mechanism is a dynamic causal system that involves various components interacting, typically nonlinearly, with one another (...) to produce a phenomenon of interest. (shrink)

Allelopathy is an important biological phenomenon in exotic plant invasions. Studies about this phenomenon can help us to understand how plant interactions influence plant colony and ecosystem functioning. Both alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides, Ap) and crofton weed (Eupatorium adenophorum, Ea) are important destructive exotic species in China. Their allelopathic effects on native plant species are well documented. However, whether alligator weed and crofton weed antagonize each other regarding plant growth? There is largely unknown currently. Here we report that the leaf (...) extract from crofton weed possesses the negative effect on the growth of alligator weed. The results showed that root growth of alligator weed could be seriously inhibited by aqueous extract from crofton weed, exhibited as no root or a few roots if only. Consistent with the inhibition of root growth, we observed changes of physiological and biochemical parameters in treated alligator weed. The chlorophyll content, the root activity and the acetolactate synthase (ALS) activity were significantly decreased; while the rate of superoxide anion (O2-), the malondialdehyde (MDA) content, the peroxidase (POD) activity, and the shikimic acid content were remarkably increased in the treated alligator weed plants. These physiological analyzes suggested that the main allelopathic effects of crofton weed were mainly through affecting the integrity of cell membrane and the activity of the key enzymes. Further, these data also imply that one exotic species has the potential value to be used in bio-control of the other exotic species. (shrink)

Wang Yangming’s discussions concerning evil mainly appear in two sets of texts, i.e., Chuanxilu 传习录 (Instructions for Practical Living) and gongyi 公移 (documents transferred to vertically unrelated departments). The former addresses evil in metaphysical terms, and the latter in social terms. These subtly different approaches show the nuance between self-cultivation and governance of others.

The experience of embarrassment was explored in two experiments comparing monolingual and bilingual speakers from cultures varying in the degree of elabo- ration of the embarrassment lexicon. In Experiment 1, narratives in English or Korean depicting three types of embarrassing predicaments were to be rated on their embarrassability and humorousness by Korean-English bilinguals, Korean monolinguals, and Euro-American monolinguals. All groups judged certain predicaments (involving social gaffes) to be the most embarrassing. However, significant group and language differences occurred in judgments of (...) the inten- sity of embarrassment and amusement judgments evoked. Euro-Americans ex- hibited higher overall levels of amusement than the two Korean groups who, in turn, reported higher levels of embarrassment, particularly for certain predica- ment types and contexts (ingroup members present). Further, for the bilinguals, inept performance predicaments in English were judged more embarrassing than those in Korean, whereas all predicament types were judged more amusing when framed with English emotion labels. Bilinguals also appeared to show a heightened embarrassability relative to both monolingual groups. Experiment 2 found lexical selection differences in open-ended responses to embarrassing predicaments depicted in each language, with Euro-Americans preferring to give justifications or use humor to minimize the embarrassment and Korean-English bilinguals preferring to give apologies or say nothing. The findings are interpret- ed to reflect the influence of culturally-mediated schemas guiding the activation and processing of emotion vocabulary. (shrink)

An endomorphism on an algebra \ is said to be strong if it is compatible with every congruence on \; and \ is said to have the strong endomorphism kernel property if every congruence on \, other than the universal congruence, is the kernel of a strong endomorphism on \. Here we characterise the structure of those double MS-algebras that have this property by the way of Priestley duality.

We consider two ways one might use algorithmic randomness to characterize a probabilistic law. The first is a generative chance* law. Such laws involve a nonstandard notion of chance. The second is a probabilistic* constraining law. Such laws impose relative frequency and randomness constraints that every physically possible world must satisfy. While each notion has virtues, we argue that the latter has advantages over the former. It supports a unified governing account of non-Humean laws and provides independently motivated solutions to (...) issues in the Humean best-system account. On both notions, we have a much tighter connection between probabilistic laws and their corresponding sets of possible worlds. Certain histories permitted by traditional probabilistic laws are ruled out as physically impossible. As a result, such laws avoid one variety of empirical underdetermination, but the approach reveals other varieties of underdetermination that are typically overlooked. (shrink)

The Purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cloud mobile learning and creative environment on college student’s creativity performance. A nonequivalent pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in this research. The objects were two freshman classes selected from a public university and randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. A learning activity named Amphibious Mechanical Beast was conducted in this teaching experiment. The experimental was taught using cloud mobile learning, while the control group was taught (...) using the traditional (usual) way. Participant student’s design performances before and after the experiment were evaluated. Creative Environment Scale was used to collect data of student’s perception of creative environment. Additionally, an open ended questionnaire was used to realize student’s learning processes. The one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and the two-way analysis of covariance were performed in this research. After data coding, relative concepts, themes, and theories were integrated and developed. Finally, the findings were proposed according to result of qualitative data analysis. Those main results of this research were: 1.Cloud mobile learning had a positive effect on student’s creative process. Most participant students thought cloud mobile device using convenient and prompt while learning. Cloud mobile learning improved student active participation, and was student-centered rather than teacher-centered. Participant student’s high order thinking abilities could be improved by receiving information and discussing anytime and anywhere. Those high order thinking included problem solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking. Nevertheless, minor participant students’ learning was influenced by past learning habits and insufficient devices. 2. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on newness, elaborateness, and total aspect of creative products. 3. Perceptions of creative environment had positive effects on preparation stage and reaction stage of creative process. 4. Perceptions of creative environment which were above a certain level had positive effects on creative products. 5. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on preparation stage of students’ creative process who had lower perceptions of creative environment. 6. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on value of students’ creative products who had lower perceptions of creative environment. 7. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on total aspect of students’ creative products who had higher perceptions of creative environment. Finally, recommendations and suggestions were addressed for implementation of cloud mobile learning and future studies based on results of this research. (shrink)

The text addresses conceptions of human selfhood and humankind as developed by two major nineteenth-century German-speaking historians, Johann Gustav Droysen and Jacob Burckhardt. It aims at ascertaining to what extent the historical anthropologies proposed by both authors can be considered to be humanistic. We will attempt to provide an answer to this question while locating and discussing both humanistic and anti-humanistic features in their texts. Humanism is understood here as a perspective that emerged within the framework of the philosophy of (...) the Enlightenment, for example, in Immanuel Kant's ethics and in Friedrich Niethammer's pedagogy. On the one hand, we will define Droysen's and Burckhardt's anthropologies as humanistic, stressing their intellectual connection to the universalistic notions of humankind and human nature developed in the late eighteenth-century. On the other, we will relativize this predicament by exploring their main anti-humanistic traits, i.e. nationalism, with regard to Droysen, and aestheticism, in the case of Burckhardt. (shrink)

In this essay I propose that what design principles in systems biology and systems neuroscience do is to present abstract characterizations of mechanisms, and thereby facilitate mechanistic explanation. To show this, one design principle in systems neuroscience, i.e., the multilayer perceptron, is examined. However, Braillard (2010) contends that design principles provide a sort of non-mechanistic explanation due to two related reasons: they are very general and describe non-causal dependence relationships. In response to this, I argue that, on the one hand, (...) all mechanisms are more or less general (or abstract), and on the other, many (if not all) design principles are causal systems. (shrink)

Abstract: Leadership quality is treated as both a specialized role and a social influence process and today’s business environment requires executives who are able to operate on a global scale. Talent development includes mobility between business units domestically and abroad. It is essential that job shifts and production structure be fundamentally aligned because developing large pool of talent could lead to oversupply and the developed team would simply have no place to go. The study was focused to establish effects of (...) talent development practices on leadership quality of financial sector regulatory institutions in Kenya through explanatory and cross-sectional survey design. A total population of 636 employees in the six financial sector regulatory institutions in Kenya were targeted. Stratified random sampling was embraced thus deriving 127 employees as the sample population. Both primary and secondary data was used where Primary data was collected using questionnaires which was analysed used SPSS software and presented as percentages, frequencies, means, charts and standard deviations. The study established that employee assessment, employee sourcing, leadership grooming and employee development programmes affect leadership quality. Human resource department needs to step up and play a critical role on employees’ talent development. There is need for management to have employee assessment on regular basis as this will help in identifying the skills they have and those they require, hence improving leadership quality. Over and above, the management need to have clear policies on employee assessment, sourcing, development and leadership grooming with an aim of improving. (shrink)

Peirce's concept of “community” is a philosophical notion closely intertwined with society. The production of knowledge within a community entails the characteristics of the “knowledge production chain” revealed by Peirce's pragmatic maxim. Knowledge can only effectively grow within an open community that the dynamism of maxim has implied. The openness of the community essentially consists of two dimensions: internal structural openness and external orientation openness. Internal structural openness refers to the dynamic operation of the knowledge structure within a community. External (...) orientation openness refers to the borderless nature of the community, that is, it can be open to other communities, accommodate the knowledge elements of others, and form its own developmental vitality. The open community relies on signs, where the mediating function sustains its operation. Signs partition and combine elements of experience, thereby carrying concepts and conveying information. (shrink)

This essay considers a mixed-effects modeling practice and its implications for the philosophical debate surrounding reductive explanation. Mixed-effects modeling is a species of the multilevel modeling practice, where a single model incorporates simultaneously two (or even more) levels of explanatory variables to explain a phenomenon of interest. I argue that this practice makes the position of explanatory reductionism held by many philosophers untenable because it violates two central tenets of explanatory reductionism: single-level preference and lower-level obsession.

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.

Since 2019, Northeastern post-industrial culture has been a popular topic of discussion; the general public refers to it as the Northeastern Renaissance. Crises of identity, honor, and faith have been recurring themes in several Northeastern films released in recent years. Furthermore, these cinematic narratives frequently generate somber humor by presenting an enormous contrast between ideals and actuality. The article examines how the post-industrial narrative context of Northeast China has influenced audio-visual cultural products and contemporary Chinese popular culture. To elucidate the (...) fundamental aspect of the Northeast narrative, the article’s author employs the absurd theory of Albert Camus. The main structure and viewpoints of the article are as follows: The first is after presenting individuals’ contemplations on the Northeastern Renaissance-instigated post-industrial narrative of the Northeast. In the following sections, the article explores the narrative context of post-industrial audio-visual works in Northeast China, focusing on the absurdity depicted in the documentary Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002). The authors’ analysis reveals how the documentary captures the socio-economic decline and the resulting human experiences of absurdity and dislocation. Key findings indicate that the narrative structure and visual style effectively convey the bleak realities of post-industrial life, offering critical insights into the region’s socio-cultural transformation. These findings suggest that future research should explore the intersection of visual media and social change in other post-industrial contexts. -/- . (shrink)

Polger and Shapiro (2016) claim that unlike human-made artifacts cases of multiple realization in naturally occurring systems are uncommon. Drawing on cases from systems biology, I argue that multiple realization in naturally occurring systems is not as uncommon as Polger and Shapiro initially thought. The relevant cases, which I draw from systems biology, involve generalizable design principles called network motifs which recur in different organisms and species and perform specific functions. I show that network motifs with entirely different underlying causal (...) structures can perform the same function of interest. The article also considers the scope problem of multiple realization. (shrink)

In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wave function. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable to consider a mixed-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a (mixed-state) density matrix. Here, we develop the conceptual foundations for decoherence and branching in a mixed-state multiverse, and extend the standard Everettian justifications for the Born rule to this setting. This (...) extended framework provides a unification of 'classical' and 'quantum' probabilities, and additional theoretical benefits, for the Everettian picture. (shrink)

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.

This article argues for the explanatory autonomy of psychology drawing on cases from the multilevel modeling practice. This is done by considering a multilevel linear model in personality and social psychology, and discussing its philosophical implications for the reductionism debate in philosophy of psychology. I argue that this practice challenges the reductionist position in philosophy of psychology, and supports the explanatory autonomy of psychology.

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images (...) acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

The phenomenon of intentional identity has bemused philosophical communities since Geach (1967). I argue that the phenomenon is ubiquitous and much more significant than previously acknowledged. The foundations of the problem are implicated in many other well-knownpuzzles, such as Kripke’s (1979) puzzles about beliefs. Thus, the need for a proper analysis is eminently pressing. I specify a template for generalizing intentional identity, identify the challenges involved, and argue that positing a level of representational entity in both philosophy of mind and (...) language(e.g., mental files) is a promising approach to tackling the problem across the board. (shrink)

I argues that quantificational adverbs are unselective binders over individuals. The Lewisian analysis, however, fails to recognize the ambiguity in some quantificationally modified conditionals. That the Lewisian approach cannot predict some attested reading is known as the “proportion problem.” I propose a solution based on the following ideas: (a) quantificational adverbs bind selectively; (b) a singular indefinite and its anaphoric pronoun may introduce a plural discourse referent, and (c) plural predication is elusive.

In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, we postulate a low-entropy boundary condition to account for the temporal asymmetry. In this paper, I show that the Past Hypothesis also contains enough information to simplify the quantum ontology and define a unique initial condition in such a world. First, I introduce Density Matrix Realism, the thesis that the quantum universe is described by a fundamental density matrix that represents something objective. This stands in sharp contrast to Wave Function (...) Realism, the thesis that the quantum universe is described by a wave function that represents something objective. Second, I suggest that the Past Hypothesis is sufficient to determine a unique and simple density matrix. This is achieved by what I call the Initial Projection Hypothesis: the initial density matrix of the universe is the normalized projection onto the special low-dimensional Hilbert space. Third, because the initial quantum state is unique and simple, we have a strong case for the \emph{Nomological Thesis}: the initial quantum state of the universe is on a par with laws of nature. This new package of ideas has several interesting implications, including on the harmony between statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, the dynamic unity of the universe and the subsystems, and the alleged conflict between Humean supervenience and quantum entanglement. (shrink)

This paper presents a formalization of the classical proof of completeness in Henkin-style developed by Troelstra and van Dalen for intuitionistic logic with respect to Kripke models. The completeness proof incorporates their insights in a fresh and elegant manner that is better suited for mechanization. We discuss details of our implementation in the Lean theorem prover with emphasis on the prime extension lemma and construction of the canonical model. Our implementation is restricted to a system of intuitionistic propositional logic with (...) implication, conjunction, disjunction, and falsity given in terms of a Hilbert-style axiomatization. As far as we know, our implementation is the first verified Henkin-style proof of completeness for intuitionistic logic following Troelstra and van Dalen's method in the literature. (shrink)