The renormalization group has been characterized as merely a coarse-graining procedure that does not illuminate the microscopic content of quantum field theory, but merely gets us from that content, as given by axiomatic QFT, to macroscopic predictions. I argue that in the constructive field theory tradition, RG techniques do illuminate the microscopic dynamics of a QFT, which are not automatically given by axiomatic QFT. RG techniques in constructive field theory are also rigorous, so one cannot object to their foundational import (...) on grounds of lack of rigor. (shrink)

I describe some interpretive strategies used by physicists in the development of quantum electrodynamics in the 1930s and 1940s, using Wimsatt's account of how to reason with false models as a guide. I call these “interpretive” strategies because they were used not just to derive empirical predictions, but also to derive information about the world besides the aforementioned predictions. These strategies were regarded as mathematically unrigorous, yet they were crucial to the development of a better theory of quantum electrodynamics. I (...) argue that these strategies are not easily assimilated into conventional axiomatic, deductivist views of what theories tell us about the world. Furthermore, it is unclear if these strategies are necessarily less reliable than strategies based solely on mathematically rigorous inferences. I suggest that these less than fully rigorous strategies are worth considering as general strategies for working with theories in physics. (shrink)

AbstractThis paper attempts to develop a comparative approach to the dream narratives of the Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou and the Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The analogous rhetorical function of the dream in their texts links the two authors from different cultures and traditions. As will be argued, in using dreams to stress a challenging and even deconstructive view of the so-called reality, both Zhuang and Hofmannsthal articulate their skepticism against substantial notions of human subjectivity and offer an imaginary life-world (...) which aims to remind us of the contingency of our being-forms. In so doing, they also shape an aesthetic way to keep oneself open to the perception and experience of the unbiased Dao or Being. Thus, their poetic texts can be read in the context of rethinking the boundary between our life and world. (shrink)

Trust is a natural mechanism by which an autonomous party, an agent, can deal with the inherent uncertainty regarding the behaviours of other parties and the uncertainty in the information it shares with those parties. Trust is thus crucial in any decentralised system. This paper builds on recent efforts to use argumentation to reason about trust. Specifically, a set of schemes is provided, and abstract patterns of reasoning that apply in multiple situations geared towards trust. Schemes are described in which (...) one agent, A, can establish arguments for trusting another agent, B, directly, as well as schemes that A can use to construct arguments for trusting C, where C is trusted by B. For both sets of schemes, a set of critical questions is offered that identify the situations in which these schemes can fail. (shrink)

Considering the significant contribution of teachers’ professional triumph in the prosperity of students, the current study aims to investigate the existence of any relationship among three factors influencing teachers’ success: immunity, mindfulness, and engagement. Furthermore, we attempt to investigate whether English as a foreign language teachers’ immunity and mindfulness can predict their work engagement. To this end, a Likert-scale questionnaire including items on teacher immunity, mindfulness, and work engagement was distributed to 582 EFL teachers in China through the WeChat application (...) by employing a convenient sampling. To analyze the collected data, the Spearman Rho correlation index and linear multiple regression analysis are employed. The findings are that there does exist an indication of a direct relationship among EFL teachers’ immunity, mindfulness, and work engagement. Also, it is found that immunity and mindfulness can predict EFL teachers’ work engagement. The current study’s findings support the necessity of training language teachers to cope with the EFL context adversities. (shrink)

In this paper, the Internet of Things with intelligent face perception and processing function is used to supervise online English teaching. In the intelligent learning environment, learners mainly learn by watching the information presentation screen of the learning content, i.e., the learning screen, which is the main environment for learners to learn and is the main channel for information interaction between learners and the learning content. The color matching, layout, graphic decoration, and background texture of the learning screen have a (...) significant impact on learners’ emotions, interests, motivation, and effect in the learning process. On the contrary, the accurate identification of learners’ emotions is the basis for building a harmonious emotional interaction in the wisdom learning environment and is an important means to judge learners’ learning status, which is of great significance to promote learners’ wisdom learning. In addition to providing learners with personalized learning contents and learning paths, the learning images presented by the intelligent learning environment should also be compatible with learners’ emotional states and visual emotional preferences and can play a role in regulating and stimulating learners’ learning emotions. The system works well in the testing process, which verifies the feasibility, rationality, and effectiveness of our application of face perception to online teaching effectiveness monitoring, and can be combined with the old result-oriented effectiveness monitoring method for online teaching, with certain theoretical research significance and practical application value. (shrink)

Throughout the developing world, it is a well-documented fact that women farmers tend to get lower yields than their male counterparts. Typically this is attributed to disproportionate access to high-quality inputs and labor, with some even arguing there could be a skills-gap stemming from unbalanced access to training and education. This article examines the gender-based yield gap in the context of Zambian maize producers. In addition to the usual drivers, we argue that Zambia’s patriarchal and multi-tiered land distribution system could (...) disfavor women with respect to accessing quality soils. We are uniquely able to control for soil characteristics using farm data from a sample of 1573 fields with accompanying soil analysis. We find an expected difference in yields, but no evidence of a gap in unobserved characteristics, like skill, after controlling for access to inputs, especially quality soil, suggesting women are indeed disproportionately disadvantaged. We discuss how our findings could be used to develop self-targeting policy interventions that could empower women and would be consistent with the government’s stated equity goals. (shrink)

Cooperative innovation has become a critical method for freight logistics firms in supply chain management. The previous study has proved that relational embeddedness has a positive effect on service innovation performance. However, the influence of organizational learning capacity has been widely ignored. This study focuses on explaining the mechanism of OLC on the relationship between RE and innovation performance of freight logistics service. Firstly, a theoretical model is constructed based on Social Network Theory, and four research hypotheses are presented. Secondly, (...) a sample of 236 respondents from freight logistics firms in China is analyzed to test the hypotheses. Finally, several management implications and recommendations are suggested. The research results demonstrate that both RE and OLC have positive effects on IPFLS. Meanwhile, OLC partially mediates the relationship between RE and IPFLS. The findings provide practical guidance for managers to strengthen the relationship with partners and enhance OLC. (shrink)

This study explored the global cyberspace security issues, with the purpose of breaking the stereotype of people’s cognition of cyberspace problems, which reflects the relationship between interdependence and association. Based on the Apriori algorithm in association rules, a total of 181 strong rules were mined from 40 target websites and 56,096 web pages were associated with global cyberspace security. Moreover, this study analyzed support, confidence, promotion, leverage, and reliability to achieve comprehensive coverage of data. A total of 15,661 sites mentioned (...) cyberspace security-related words from the total sample of 22,493 professional websites, accounting for 69.6%, while only 735 sites mentioned cyberspace security-related words from the total sample of 33,603 non-professional sites, accounting for 2%. Due to restrictions of language, the number of samples of target professional websites and non-target websites is limited. Meanwhile, the number of selections of strong rules is not satisfactory. Nowadays, the cores of global cyberspace security issues include internet sovereignty, cyberspace security, cyber attack, cyber crime, data leakage, and data protection. (shrink)

Higher education policy and manpower training fail to meet the requirement of rapidly-changing society and employers' expectation in Taiwan, resulting in the great gap between university education and employment. Students employability is also what all higher education institutions should focus whether a high degree of student learning outcomes can represent a high degree of students employability or not, this still unclarified. This study aims to explore the relationships among pedagogy for employability, problem-based teaching mode, absorptive capacity and student employability in (...) higher education institutions (HEIs). In terms of analyzing a total sample of 553 undergraduates from 12 Taiwanese HEIs by using structural equation model (SEM), the results show that the influences of pedagogy for employability and problem-based teaching mode on absorptive capacity and student employability are statistically positive significant. Based on the findings, specific suggestions and managerial implications for HEIs, curriculum and instruction planning, and future research are provided. (shrink)

The processes in construction are more likely than others to breed unsafe behaviors, and the consequences of these actions can be serious. This paper first reviews the research status on unsafe behavior in construction teams. It then analyzes the complex mechanisms that lead to unsafe behavior and constructs a three-layer structural model based on agent-based modeling technology. This modeling deals with complexity and elaborates on key points and potential research ideas in the study of unsafe behavior in construction teams. Using (...) the ABM method, the effects of different incentive strategies on the safe behavior of construction teams under different management scenarios were studied. The results showed that when members have a fair perception of the situation, the effect of the excess performance reward distribution, according to the member’s safety awareness level, is better than the average distribution effect. This is the case whether the member’s safety behavior level is positively or negatively related to the member’s safety awareness level. This study proves the feasibility, validity, and universality of the three-layer structural model. It also reaches certain management conclusions and ideas for further development. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reference for research on the containment and prevention of unsafe behavior in construction teams. (shrink)

In Beck, focus intervention is used as an argument for reducing Hamblin’s semantics for questions to Rooth’s focus semantics. Drawing on novel empirical evidence from Mandarin and English, we argue that this reduction is unwarranted. Maintaining both Hamblin’s original semantics and Rooth’s focus semantics not only allows for a more adequate account for focus intervention in questions, but also correctly predicts that focus intervention is a very general phenomenon caused by interaction of alternatives in different dimensions.

Although data sharing platforms host diverse data types the features of these platforms are well-suited to facilitating biomarker research. Given the current state of biomarker discovery, an innovative paradigm to accelerate biomarker discovery is to utilize platforms such as Vivli to leverage researchers' abilities to integrate certain classes of biomarkers.

This paper is devoted to introduce a novel fourth-order hyperchaotic system. The hyperchaotic system is constructed by adding a linear feedback control level based on a modified Lorenz-like chaotic circuit with reduced number of amplifiers. The local dynamical entities, such as the basic dynamical behavior, the divergence, the eigenvalue, and the Lyapunov exponents of the new hyperchaotic system, are all investigated analytically and numerically. Then, an active control method is derived to achieve global chaotic synchronization of the novel hyperchaotic system (...) through making the synchronization error system asymptotically stable at the origin based on Lyapunov stability theory. Next, the proposed novel hyperchaotic system is applied to construct another new hyperchaotic system with circuit deformation and design a new hyperchaotic secure communication circuit. Furthermore, the implementation of two novel electronic circuits of the proposed hyperchaotic systems is presented, examined, and realized using physical components. A good qualitative agreement is shown between the simulations and the experimental results around 500 kHz and below 1 MHz. (shrink)

Abstract:The Confucian classic Great Learning (Daxue 大學) articulates in a sequence eight human aims for the good life. There have been various interpretations of the relations of these aims. This essay problematizes these interpretations and proposes a solution that the sequence of these Confucian human aims is developmentally temporal yet not stage-exclusive. I illustrate such an account by drawing on the model of Erik Erikson's developmental theory. Accordingly, while there is a temporal progression in achieving these aims, they nevertheless should (...) be pursued concurrently throughout most of a person's life. (shrink)

Whether risk events can be effectively controlled and mitigated is largely influenced by people’s perceptions of risk events and their behavioral cooperation. Therefore, this study used a web-based questionnaire to investigate the specific factors influencing people’s risk perceptions and behaviors, and included a test for the difference in the effect of positive and negative emotions of the audiences. The results show that the overall model has good explanatory power for the behavioral variables, and how people’s use of different media significantly (...) influenced their positive and negative emotions; how people’s frequency of TV use significantly influenced their risk susceptibility and how online media use significantly influenced their risk severity ; how people’s sense of efficacy for risky events is the strongest predictor of their risk control behavior; and that there are different mediating effects of different emotions and risk severity and sense of efficacy between the frequency of media use and risk control behavior. (shrink)

This book is the first academic work on the philosophy of engineering in China that reflects two decades of research. It puts forward a new thesis, namely that the core maxim in the philosophy of engineering is “I create, therefore I am,” which is radically different from the Cartesian maxim: “I think, therefore I am.” In addition, the book offers the first detailed portrait of the roots and evolution of the philosophy of engineering in China. The book begins by discussing (...) the triptych thesis of science, technology and engineering, which argues that there are a number of important distinctions between the three, e.g. scientific activities are chiefly based on discovery, while technological activities center on invention, and engineering activities focus on creation. Considering the latest developments in the philosophy of engineering, the author also analyzes engineering communities, engineering practice and a micro–meso–macro framework. In subsequent chapters, the author separately analyzes the three stages of engineering activities: planning, operating and using artifacts. In the closing chapter, two views on the philosophy of engineering are briefly explained. (shrink)

Though genome editing is a powerful technology, germline GE engineering is strongly objectionable for a huge ethical challenge. The after-effects of the genome-edited babies incident have been emerging in China, whether technology or ethics. It is very noticeable that the case has been adverse effects on the application of GE technology in other fields, especially in GE crops. After the incident, research and development of GE crops was affected obviously. It is clear that GE crops and other basic research and (...) application related to GE technology should be encouraged and should not be treated differently. An ethically acceptable development route of GE technology needs to be established in China. (shrink)

Adults increase the certainty of their inductive inferences by observing more diverse instances. However, most young children fail to do so. The present study tested the hypothesis that children's sensitivity to instance diversity is determined by three variables: ability to discriminate among instances ( Discrimination ); an intuition that large numbers of instances increase the strength of conclusion ( Monotonicity ); ability to detect subcategories and evaluate numerical differences between the subcategories, or Extraction . A total of 219 Chinese children (...) aged 6 to 11 were tested for sensitivity to diversity by means of Discrimination, Monotonicity, and Extraction. The results indicated that children at all ages were able to discriminate instances and attend to set size. However, only 9- and 11-year-olds demonstrated Extraction and sensitivity to diversity. Furthermore, among all children diversity scores increased linearly with the level of Extraction. These results suggest that the law of large numbers plays a role in children's diversity-based reasoning. (shrink)

Purpose Over the past decade, many research works in various disciplines have benefited from the endless ocean of people and their potentials as an effective problem-solving strategy and computational model. But nothing interesting is ever completely one-sided. Therefore, when it comes to leveraging people's power, as the dark side of crowdsourcing, there are some possible threats that have not been considered as should be, such as recruiting black hat crowdworkers for organizing targeted adversarial intentions. The purpose of this paper is (...) to draw more attention to this critical issue through investigation of its different aspects. Design/methodology/approach To delve into details of such malicious intentions, the related literature and previous researches have been studied. Then, four major typologies for adversarial crowdsourced attacks as well as some real-world scenarios are discussed and delineated. Finally, possible future threats are introduced. Findings Despite many works on adversarial crowdsourcing, there are only a few specific research studies devoted to considering the issue in the context of cyber security. In this regard, the proposed typologies for such human-mediated attacks can shed light on the way of identifying and confronting such threats. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this the first work in which the titular topic is investigated in detail. Due to popularity and efficiency of leveraging crowds' intelligence and efforts in a wide range of application domains, it is most likely that adversarial human-driven intentions gain more attention. In this regard, it is anticipated that the present research study can serve as a roadmap for proposing defensive mechanisms to cope with such diverse threats. (shrink)