In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-chingJonathan R. HermanLao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching. Edited by Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 330.Modern scholarship on the Tao Te Ching has tended to focus on questions of authorship and the intended meaning of the text, often working from both the unquestioned assumption that matters of origination are of primary historical importance and the quasi-theological (...) bias that the original textual meaning is somehow the "right" or authoritative one. But the role of the Tao Te Ching in Chinese history and culture, as well as that of its purported author, is a much more complex affair. The text has been the subject of more than seven hundred commentaries and has been appropriated by vast networks of scholars, government officials, self-conscious religious communities, and laypeople, while Lao Tzu himself has undergone a fascinating history of deification and aesthetic representation. With Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, editors Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue take steps toward filling in some of the complicated (and much overlooked) post-canonical history by assembling essays on subjects ranging from the ritual uses of the text to modern hermeneutic experiments. The volume includes nine new essays, as well as three older ones reprinted or translated from earlier sources.The book is organized in four sections—"Ancient Myths," "Chinese Interpretations," "Modern Readings," and "Critical Methods"—although there is noticeable [End Page 625] overlap among the parts. The twelve essays are of varying quality and of varying use for different readers. Some of the material is highly technical and presupposes a sinological audience, while other material rehearses data that should already be familiar to scholars of ancient Chinese philosophy but may be tremendously useful to those who are interested in the text but lacking the scholarly background. One case of the latter is Julia Hardy's "Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching," which does not especially break new ground but is a wonderful historical synopsis of Western scholarship on the text, as it meticulously identifies the key interpretive voices and sorts out their positions. Hardy gives only brief attention to the earliest eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholarship—omitting, for example, any mention of Victor von Strauss' 1870 German rendition—which might actually have been most edifying for specialists. LaFargue and Julian Pas' "On Translating the Tao-te-ching" is essentially a primer on hermeneutic problems relevant to the text that serves as an intelligent corrective to the uncoordinated body of Taoist materials available to novice readers.What may be most clear from several of the essays taken in tandem is that the popular Western "mystical" reading of the text not only is one of many historical interpretations but is also very much heir to Wang Pi's intellectual lineage. In "A Tale of Two Commentaries: Ho-shang-kung and Wang Pi on the Lao-tzu," Alan K. L. Chan notes how such standard tenets as the spiritualized metaphysical understanding of Tao, the relationship between nonbeing and creativity, and the identification of naturalness and nonaction with spontaneity originate with Wang Pi but are nowhere to be found in the earlier Ho-shang-kung reading. The latter employs typical Han dynasty correlative cosmological interpretive methods, referring to naturalness as the preservation of energies in the physical body and to "the One" not as an abstract metaphysical oneness but as "the original substance of life itself, energy in its most pure and potent form" (p. 93). According to Isabel Robinet's "Later Commen-taries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations," the panoply of text interpretations falls into roughly three categories—"technical or specialist readings," "philosophical exegeses," and "inner alchemy interpretations," which she then proceeds to divide further into "philological" and "ideological" readings. This is all further complicated when one considers the Tao Te Ching not as a strictly philosophical text but as a collection of polemical aphorisms, as LaFargue does in "Recovering the Tao-te-ching's Original Meaning: Some Remarks on Historical Hermeneutics," or as a ritual, liturgical or meditative aid, as Kohn does in "The Tao-te-ching in Ritual."Lao-tzu and the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE INCARNATION: MUSLIM OBJECTIONS AND THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE ROBERT L. FASTIGGI St. Edward's University Austin, Texas Introduction: Christian-Muslim Dialogue and the Incarnation THE TWO largest religions in the world, Christianity and Islam cannot help but encounter each other. In the last two decades, several important steps have been made by Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians to engage in meaningful dialogue with members of the Islamic faith.1 While sincerity, mutual (...) respect and good will are all in evidence in these efforts to dialogue, it also is clear that an authentic theological discussion between Christians and Muslims cannot help but arouse a certain degree of tension over the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. In my own experience in dialogue with Muslims,2 there seems to emerge a point in which discussion of Jesus the prophet vs. Jesus the Incarnate Word of God will inevitably take place. Such discussions can prove to be stimulating and educational. However, they tend to go best when there is an honest and open acknowledgement of the differences that exist between 1 A good summary of Catholic and Protestant efforts can be found in John Renard, " Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Review of Six Post-Vatican II, Church-Related Documents," Journal of Ecunmenical Studies 23 :1, Winter, 1986: 69-89. On the Orthodox Christian dialogue with Muslims, see Orthodox Christians and Muslims, ed. N. M. Vaporis (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1986). 2 I have visited Saudi Arabia and Bahrain as a Joseph J. Malone Fellow with the National Council of U.S.-Arab Relations, and I was a member of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Commission of the Austin Metropolitan Ministries in Austin, Texas. 457 458 ROBERT L. FASTIGGI the two traditions. As Georges Anawati, a Catholic Islamicist; notes : " As a starting point, dialogue requires respect for the identity of the other. It does not ignore obvious differences... for to do so would be of no use for ·either friendship or truth." 3 A Muslim scholar, Professor Mohammed Taibi of the University of Tunis, likewise remarks that " the more one is firm about the classical aspects of divergence, the better the contacts between Christians and Muslims." 4 At issue in the Christian-Muslim discussion of the Incarnation is the unique character of each faith. In Islam, there is the absolute affirmation of divine unity (tawhid) which necessarily condemns any attempt to associate something other than God with God (shirk). Christianity, though, has as one of its central tenets the affirmation that the uncreated Word of God (ho logos) became flesh (sarx) in Jesus (John 1 :14). Islam, therefore, presents a unique challenge to the Christian theologian. Is it possible to formulate a Christology which can affirm the Islamic principle of tawhid and evade the accusation of shirk without compromising the core of the Christian message? This is the question this article hopes to address. One suggestion for Christians in dialogue with Muslims is given by Hans Kiing in his book Christianity and the World Religions.5 Kiing believes that Christians would do best to go back to the mindset of the original Jewish Christians who possessed an understanding of Jesus which is much more compatible with the Qur'anic view of Jesus as the "servant of God." 6 While Kiing's suggestion is helpful for Christians who are looking for an analogy to the Islamic view of Jesus, I find it problematical for several reasons. Kiing seems to suggest that the Jesus of history (as s Georges Anawati, 0.P., "An Assessment of the Christian-Islamic Dialogue," in The Vatican, Islam and the Middle East, ed. Kail Ellis, O.S.A. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1987), p. 59. 4 Ibid., p. 65. 5 Hans Kung, Christi"anity and the World Religions: Paths of Dialogue with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, trans. Peter Heinegg (New York: Doubleday, 1986), pp. 109-130. a Ibid., p. 122. MUSLIM OBJECTIONS & CHRISTIAN RESPONSE 459 well as the Jesus of the New Testament) is quite separate from the Christ of the ecumenical councils. Such an assertion, though, does not find support from many Christian theologians and biblical scholars (not to mention church authorities).1 Moreover, Kiing appears to have an... (shrink)

This study explores how China’s education responses to COVID-19 from a perspective of policy analysis. Specifically, it involves building an educational policy system for COVID-19 to examine educational governance framework, school management and teaching, policies for teachers during the epidemic. The education policy during the epidemic has achieved positive results. Those results aim to ensure the physical and mental health of teachers and students, ensure the supply of epidemic prevention materials and educational resources, ensure the quality of students' learning, and (...) enhance the application ability of teachers' teaching technology. The process of policy changes and effects of policy implementation have been examined to analyze how China’s education responses to COVID-19. The characteristics and experience of China's education policy in response to the epidemic concentrate on forming a governance system under the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China, building a pattern in which families and schools cooperate closely to promote the smooth development of education and teaching, transforming from an emergency substitute during the crisis into an important motivation to promote the transformation of education paradigm, and paying great attention to remote and poor areas and disadvantaged student groups. (shrink)

The web is being loaded daily with a huge volume of data, mainly unstructured textual data, which increases the need for information extraction and NLP systems significantly. Named-entity recognition task is a key step towards efficiently understanding text data and saving time and effort. Being a widely used language globally, English is taking over most of the research conducted in this field, especially in the biomedical domain. Unlike other languages, Arabic suffers from lack of resources. This work presents a BERT-based (...) model to identify biomedical named entities in the Arabic text data that investigates the effectiveness of pretraining a monolingual BERT model with a small-scale biomedical dataset on enhancing the model understanding of Arabic biomedical text. The model performance was compared with two state-of-the-art models, and it outperformed both models with 85% F1-score. (shrink)

Reprint of Volume XVII in Probsthain's Oriental Series. With a Chinese index and an index of names and references. The Book of Lord Shang was probably compiled sometime between 359 and 338 BCE. Along with the Han Fei-Tzu, it is one of the two principal sources of Legalism, a school of Chinese political thought. Legalism asserts that human behavior must be controlled through written law rather than through ritual, custom or ethics because people are innately selfish and ignorant. The (...) law is not effective when it is based on goodness or virtue; it is effective when it compels obedience. This is essential to preserve the stability of the State. Roscoe Pound recommended this book for the study of old Chinese law in Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence (5th ed.) 235. (shrink)

Shang, Yang. The Book of Lord Shang. A Classic of the Chinese School of Law. Translated from the Chinese with Introduction and Notes by Dr. J.J.L. Duyvendak.

Compiled in China in the fourth-third centuries B.C.E., The Book of Lord Shang argues for a new powerful government to penetrate society and turn every man into a diligent tiller and valiant soldier. Creating a "rich state and a strong army" will be the first step toward unification of "All-under-Heaven." These ideas served the state of Qin that eventually created the first imperial polity on Chinese soil. In this new translation, The Book of Lord Shang's intellectual boldness and (...) surprisingly modern-looking ideas shine through, underscoring the text's vibrant contribution to global political thought. The Book of Lord Shang is attributed to the political theorist Shang Yang and his followers. It epitomizes the ideology of China's so-called Legalist School of thought. In the ninety years since the work's previous translation, major breakthroughs in studies of the book's dating and context have recast our understanding of its messages. This edition applies these advances to a whole new reading of the text's content and function in the sociopolitical life of its times and subsequent centuries. This fully annotated translation is ideal for newcomers to the book while also guiding early Chinese scholars and comparatists in placing the work within a timeline of influence. It highlights the text's practical success and its impact on the political thought and political practice in traditional and modern China. (shrink)

We are less optimistic than Madole & Harden that family-based genome-wide association studies (GWASs) will lead to significant second-generation causal knowledge. Despite bearing some similarities, family-based GWASs and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are not identical. Most RCTs assess a relatively homogenous causal stimulus as a treatment, whereas GWASs assess highly heterogeneous causal stimuli. Thus, GWAS results will not translate so easily into second-generation causal knowledge.

This article is aimed to compare the efficacy and acceptability of exercise intervention with other nonpharmacological therapies in improving attention in ADHD patients and then rank those therapies. Methods. Relevant RCT studies from the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Psycinfo, and PubMed were systematically searched from January 2011 to January 2020. The literature was screened, and the researchers extracted and used Stata16 and WinBugs1.4 independently to analyze the data. Results. The improvement of “attention deficit” in ADHD patients was measured in (...) 83 independent studies with 4,998 participants and 14 nonpharmacological therapies. Therapies were ranked as follows, according to the efficacy and acceptability of the cumulative probability area under the curve : meditation and cognitive; sport intervention therapy; vitamin and mineral; cognitive behavioral therapy; computer training; psychological education; working memory training; neurofeedback therapy; polyunsaturated fatty acids; mineral supplements; meditation; vitamin; biofeedback therapy; and school-based training. However, because the effect size of meditation and cognitive therapy was at a marginally significant level ), the robustness of the results was far lower than that of sport intervention therapy. Therefore, careful interpretation is needed in practice. Conclusion. Considering the efficacy and acceptability of various nonpharmacological therapies, sport intervention has a more stable effect on the improvement of attention deficit. Secondly, meditation and cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and computer training can also be effective complementary tools. (shrink)

To improve sustainable practices and attract investors, companies in emerging markets have increasingly embraced strategies for inclusion in rapidly expanding sustainability indices. However, most early studies on socially responsible investment or sustainability investment have only focused on exploring the relationship between corporate sustainability and firm value. Moreover, little has been done to explore the practices of emerging market companies for engaging with a sustainability index. To address this research gap, we employed the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method to identify (...) critical factors that influence the inclusion of emerging market companies in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Five critical factors and best practices were identified based on the analysis of seven Taiwanese electronics companies that have been listed in the DJSI for several consecutive years. Our results provide insights on the critical factors and best practices that reinforce the sustainable practices of emerging market companies for inclusion in the DJSI. This study also contributes to the literature by investigating the engagement of emerging market companies with the DJSI. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop a diagnostic model of multi-kinematic parameters for patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).MethodIn this cross-sectional study, 94 older adults were included (33 cognitively normal, CN; and 61 aMCI). We conducted neuropsychological battery tests, such as global cognition and cognitive domains, and collected gait parameters by an inertial-sensor gait analysis system. Multivariable regression models were used to identify the potential diagnostic variables for aMCI. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were applied to assess the diagnostic accuracy (...) of kinematic parameters in discriminating aMCI from healthy subjects.ResultsMultivariable regression showed that multi-kinematic parameters were the potential diagnostic variables for aMCI. The multi-kinematic parameter model, developed using Timed Up and Go (TUG) time, stride length, toe-off/heel stride angles, one-leg standing (OLS) time, and braking force, showed areas under ROC (AUC), 0.96 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.905–0.857]; sensitivity, 0.90; and specificity, 0.91. In contrast, a single kinematic parameter’s sensitivity was 0.26–0.95 and specificity was 0.21–0.90. Notably, the separating capacity of multi-kinematic parameters was highly similar to Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA; AUC: 0.96 vs. 0.95). Compared to cognitive domain tests, the separating ability was comparable to Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) and Boston Naming Test (BNT; AUC: 0.96 vs. 0.97; AUC: 0.96 vs. 0.94).ConclusionWe developed one diagnostic model of multi-kinematic parameters for patients with aMCI in Foshan. (shrink)

Window opening behavior in residential buildings has important theoretical significance and practical value for improving energy conservation, indoor thermal comfort, and indoor air quality. Climate and cultural differences may lead to different window opening behavior by residents. Currently, research on residential window opening behavior in northwest China has focused on indoor air quality, and few probabilistic models of residential window behaviors have been established. Therefore, in this study, we focused on an analysis of factors influencing window opening behavior and the (...) establishment of a predictive model for window opening behavior. Four typical residential buildings in different locations and building types in Xi’an were selected. The indoor and outdoor environments and window opening states were measured. Subsequently, a multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine the factors that had a significant effect on window opening behavior. Single- and multiparameter logistic regression models for window opening behavior were established. Of all the measured factors, we found that indoor temperature and CO2 concentration, outdoor temperature, and relative humidity had significant effects on window opening behavior, and indoor relative humidity and noise did not. Meanwhile, the temperature was positively correlated with the window opening probability, whereas indoor CO2 concentration and outdoor relative humidity were negatively correlated. The prediction accuracy of the multiparameter model was promising, at almost 75%, and the model can provide theoretical support for modelling residential buildings in Xi’an. (shrink)

I lay out the framework for my theory of sensory imagination in “Imagining as a guide to possibility.” Sensory imagining involves mental imagery , and crucially, in describing the content of imagining, I distinguish between qualitative content and assigned content. Qualitative content derives from the mental image itself; for visual imaginings, it is what is “pictured.” For example, visually imagine the Philadelphia Eagles defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers to win their first Super Bowl. You picture the greenness of the field and (...) the football’s brown oblong shape. Some of what you imagine isn’t explicitly pictured, however. That it is Sunday, that it is the Super Bowl: these facts are assigned. (shrink)

Some bioethicists argue that a doctor may frame treatment options in terms of effects on survival rather than on mortality in order to influence patients to choose the better option. The debate over such framing typically assumes that the survival and mortality frames convey the same numerical information. However, certain empirical findings contest this numerical equivalence assumption, demonstrating that framing effects may in fact be due to the two frames implying different information about the numerical bounds of survival and mortality (...) rates. In this paper, I use these findings to argue that framing is presumptively wrong because it violates the duty of proper disclosure. Along the way, I highlight morally relevant features affecting the permissibility of framing, tackle three objections and draw some general lessons for the ethics of nudging. (shrink)

Starting from the four theses that globalization is unavoidable, ambivalent, incalculable, and can be controlled rationally, ethics has an indispensable and important role to play in the process of globalization. Indeed, a number of international documents published in the 1990s not only acknowledge human rights but also speak explicitly of human responsibilities. The author pleads for the primacy of ethics over politics and economics and, in reviewing both the Interfaith Declaration for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and the Caux Roundtable Principles (...) for Business Conduct, he raises the question about the foundation for the unconditional validity of particular basic ethical values and attitudes. In Küng’s view, no universal ethic, but only religion, expressed by the three prophetic religions, the mystical religions of Indian origin, and the wisdom religions of Chinese origin, can provide this foundation. Yet, religion as a spiritual resource intends to influence concrete behavior and decision making. Therefore, the author stresses the importance of a personality culture for business executives and an “ethic of responsibility” to shape business culture and institutions. He then proposes the Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions Toward a Global Ethic as a basis to develop a business ethics that can be supported by believers and non-believers alike. (shrink)

Recently in epistemology a number of authors have mounted Bayesian objections to dogmatism. These objections depend on a Bayesian principle of evidential confirmation: Evidence E confirms hypothesis H just in case Pr(H|E) > Pr(H). I argue using Keynes' and Knight's distinction between risk and uncertainty that the Bayesian principle fails to accommodate the intuitive notion of having no reason to believe. Consider as an example an unfamiliar card game: at first, since you're unfamiliar with the game, you assign credences based (...) on the indifference principle. Later you learn how the game works and discover that the odds dictate you assign the very same credences. Examples like this show that if you initially have no reason to believe H, then intuitively E can give you reason to believe H even though Pr(H|E) ≤ Pr(H). I show that without the principle, the objections to dogmatism fail. (shrink)

"Presents the text of the 'Declaration' and a commentary on its evolution and significance.... The message of this book is very timely.

Three claims about essential properties are frequently advanced in recent discussions: (1) a property belongs essentially to a thing only if that thing would cease to exist without that property, (2) an essential property is explanatory, And (3) an essential property is such that it must belong to everything to which it belongs. I argue that the "only if" in (1) cannot be changed to "if and only if" and (1) needs to be supplemented by (2), And that (2) is (...) an indispensable feature of aristotle's view of essential properties and that it casts doubt on (3), Although (2) is usually assumed to provide a reason for (3). (shrink)

It has long been suggested that emotion, especially threatening emotion, facilitates early visual perception to promote adaptive responses to potential threats in the environment. Here, we tested whether and how fearful emotion affects the basic visual ability of visual acuity. An adapted Posner’s spatial cueing task was employed, with fearful and neutral faces as cues and a Vernier discrimination task as the probe. The time course of the emotional attention effect was examined by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony of the (...) cue and probe. Two independent experiments consistently demonstrated that the brief presentation of a fearful face increased visual acuity at its location. The facilitation of perceptual sensitivity was detected at an SOA around 300 ms when the face cues were presented for both 250 ms and 150 ms. This effect cannot be explained by physical differences between the fearful and neutral faces because no improvement was found when the faces were presented inverted. In the last experiment, the face cues were flashed very briefly, and we did not find any improvement induced by the fearful face. Overall, we provide evidence that emotion interacts with attention to affect basic visual functions. (shrink)

Digitized information and network have made an enormous impact on the music and movie industries. Internet piracy is popular and has greatly threatened the companies in these industries. This study tests Hunt-Vitell’s ethical decision model and attempts to understand why and how people share unauthorized music files with others in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The norm of anti-piracy, the ideology of free software, the norm of reciprocity, and the ideology of consumer rights are proposed as four deontological norms related to (...) using P2P systems. The model is tested using a scenario survey with four alternatives; the results indicate that the deontological norm of anti-piracy is not a main factor in affecting P2P users’ ethical considerations regarding sharing files with others. This finding suggests that to protect their property rights, record companies should try to realize the consumer benefits brought via new digital and network technology, instead of simply declaring their intellectual property and resisting the innovations resulting from new technologies. (shrink)

In ‘Measuring the Consequences of Rules’, Holly Smith presents two problems involving the indeterminacy of compliance, which she takes to be fatal for all forms of rule-utilitarianism. In this reply, I attempt to dispel both problems.

_Uses the concept of religiosity to challenge traditional views of Nietzsche and Zhuangzi as nihilistic and anti-religious._.