For years, experimental philosophers have attempted to discern whether laypeople find free will compatible with a scientifically deterministic understanding of the universe, yet no consensus has emerged. The present work provides one potential explanation for these discrepant findings: People are strongly motivated to preserve free will and moral responsibility, and thus do not have stable, logically rigorous notions of free will. Seven studies support this hypothesis by demonstrating that a variety of logically irrelevant (but motivationally relevant) features influence compatibilist judgments. (...) In Study 1, participants who were asked to consider the possibility that our universe is deterministic were more compatibilist than those not asked to consider this possibility, suggesting that determinism poses a threat to moral responsibility, which increases compatibilist responding (thus reducing the threat). In Study 2, participants who considered concrete instances of moral behavior found compatibilist free will more sufficient for moral responsibility than participants who were asked about moral responsibility more generally. In Study 3a, the order in which participants read free will and determinism descriptions influenced their compatibilist judgments—and only when the descriptions had moral significance: Participants were more likely to report that determinism was compatible with free will than that free will was compatible with determinism. In Study 3b, participants who read the free will description first (the more compatibilist group) were particularly likely to confess that their beliefs in free will and moral responsibility and their disbelief in determinism influenced their conclusion. In Study 4, participants reduced their compatibilist beliefs after reading a passage that argued that moral responsibility could be preserved even in the absence of free will. Participants also reported that immaterial souls were compatible with scientific determinism, most strongly among immaterial soul believers (Study 5), and evaluated information about the capacities of primates in a biased manner favoring the existence of human free will (Study 6). These results suggest that people do not have one intuition about whether free will is compatible with determinism. Instead, people report that free will is compatible with determinism when desiring to uphold moral responsibility. Recommendations for future work are discussed. (shrink)

When consciousness is examined using subjective ratings, the extent to which processing is conscious or unconscious is often estimated by calculating task performance at the subjective threshold or by calculating the correlation between accuracy and awareness. However, both these methods have certain limitations. In the present article, we propose describing task accuracy and awareness as functions of stimulus intensity as suggested by Koch and Preuschoff . The estimated lag between the curves describes how much stimulus intensity must increase for awareness (...) to change proportionally as much as accuracy and the slopes of the curves are used to assess how fast accuracy and awareness increases and whether awareness is dichotomous. The method is successfully employed to assess consciousness characteristics on data from four different awareness scales. (shrink)

In this note we shall show that if L is a balanced pseudocomplemented Ockham algebra then the set ${\fancyscript{I}_{k}(L)}$ of kernel ideals of L is a Heyting lattice that is isomorphic to the lattice of congruences on B(L) where ${B(L) = \{x^* | x \in L\}}$ . In particular, we show that ${\fancyscript{I}_{k}(L)}$ is boolean if and only if B(L) is finite, if and only if every kernel ideal of L is principal.

The approach of the complex network has well described seismic complex systems. In this paper, this is the first time three classical network construction methods for seismicity are compared. By using the same dataset from the Southern California Seismic Network, three networks are constructed. They all present the scale-free, small-world properties, a strength-degree correlation, and an assortative mixing feature. However, they show some differences in the hierarchical clustering feature. On observing the evolution results, three measures show a similar correlation with (...) seismicity dynamics, but one measure shows a different result. These results show that different network construction methods will present some similarities and differences in network properties. This situation needs to be considered, especially when discussing a predictive indicator of seismicity. (shrink)

The explosion in sequencing technologies has provided us with an instrument to describe mammalian transcriptomes at unprecedented depths. This has revealed that alternative splicing is used extensively not only to generate protein diversity, but also as a means to regulate gene expression post‐transcriptionally. Intron retention (IR) is overwhelmingly perceived as an aberrant splicing event with little or no functional consequence. However, recent work has now shown that IR is used to regulate a specific differentiation event within the haematopoietic system by (...) coupling it to nonsense‐mediated mRNA decay (NMD). Here, we highlight how IR and, more broadly, alternative splicing coupled to NMD (AS‐NMD) can be used to regulate gene expression and how this is deregulated in disease. We suggest that the importance of AS‐NMD is not restricted to the haematopoietic system but that it plays a prominent role in other normal and aberrant biological settings. (shrink)

System security is essential for the operation of the island microgrid. However, the system security is generally threatened due to the presence of physical uncertainties and cyber attacks. In this article, a novel sliding mode load control strategy is proposed for the microgrid to mitigate cyber attacks and physical uncertainties. Firstly, a high-order disturbance observer is designed to estimate the unmeasurable factors in the microgrid. Secondly, a HODO-based sliding mode control strategy is proposed where the estimated value observed by the (...) HODO is applied to the sliding mode surface and control law. It can better guarantee the security of the isolated microgrid. Then, the stability of the HODO-based SMC is demonstrated by Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed control strategy has excellent control performance. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to create an understanding of how the UN sustainable development goals can be used to steer stakeholder engagement for transformative change, meeting global challenges, and navigate a new business-societal practice driven by a values-based business model. The article is a conceptual study with case studies of the role that the SDGs play in multi-stakeholder dialog via the kind of sustainable business-societal practice that takes corporate social responsibility to the next level, where it is embedded (...) in a values-based business model, creating a new meaning to effect real business-societal transformation. Multi-stakeholder dialog implies interactive and communicative engagement with the full range of stakeholders in order to create value for all, employing a societal perspective and using the value network as a basis for effective decision-making. We explain our methodological approach by presenting multi-stakeholder dialog in practice, in the form of multiple case studies. These empirical settings consisted of two values-driven privately owned companies with a strong reporting mechanism and a clear transformation agenda based on the SDG challenges: IKEA and Löfbergs. The empirical study provides the basis for our proposed model. This article makes an original contribution to the study of the use of SDGs in management and service research. It investigates steering and navigating processes in specific contexts in order to determine what should be subject to legal enforcement and what comprises moral and/or ethical value, particularly at the societal level. (shrink)

We investigate the class of those algebras in which is a de Morgan algebra, is a quasi-Stone algebra, and the operations \ and \ are linked by the identity x**º = x*º*. We show that such an algebra is subdirectly irreducible if and only if its congruence lattice is either a 2-element chain or a 3-element chain. In particular, there are precisely eight non-isomorphic subdirectly irreducible Stone de Morgan algebras.

Spermiogenesis is an important physiological process of mammalian fertilization. The germ cells are susceptible to the harmful effects of either psychological or physiological stress, which could induce male infertility. Our previous studies have found that chronic psychological stress could decrease sexual motivation. However, molecular mechanisms underlying male reproductive toxicity induced by chronic stress remain elusive. Recently, autophagy is proven to be involved in regulating the survival of germ cells, which is related to apoptosis. Herein, we established a chronic psychological stress (...) model and a chronic pain model (physiological stressor) to explore the roles of autophagy in germ cells. Thirty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups, including the control group, the chronic psychological stress group, the SNI-sham group, and the chronic pain stress group. After exposure to stress for 35 days, open field test and the unconditioned sexual motivation test were performed. Following the behavioral experiment, autophagy in the rat testis was detected by Western blot and immunohistochemistry. We found both chronic psychological stress and chronic pain stress reduced total travel distance, the frequency of central crossing and increased the sensitivity to mechanical pain. While chronic psychological stress, but not the chronic pain stress declined sexual motivation. Chronic psychological stress prompt the expression of LC3-II with the decreased expression of p62, indicating that chronic psychological stress induced autophagy in rat testis. However, there was no significant difference between the expression of LC3-II and p62 in male rats under chronic pain stress. Therefore, chronic psychological stress and chronic pain stress have common behavior changes, but due to its unpredictability, chronic psychological stress leads to a decline in sexual motivation in male rats and induced the autophagy in testicular tissues. (shrink)

Introduction: After the outbreak of COVID-19, psychological hotlines functioned as a main channel of psychological assistance and required a large number of professionals to provide services. These hotlines mostly offered a single-use service with short session times and allowed callers to retain anonymity. They functioned as a psychological counseling service for stress experienced in the COVID-19 public health emergency. Hotline psychological counselors must meet special competency requirements. The selection and evaluation tools for recruiting hotline counselors need to be developed.Materials and (...) Methods: The initial scale of competence for psychological hotline counselors was formed by expert evaluation based on theoretical constructs and by using the Delphi method. A link to the questionnaire was sent to a WeChat group of counselors from 36 major psychological hotlines in China in two stages. The questionnaire consisted of questions to elicit basic demographic information and the initial competence scale. In the first phase, 343 valid samples were used to perform exploratory factor analysis. In the second phase, 334 valid samples were used to perform confirmatory factor analysis. The status of the competence of psychological hotline counselors was also analyzed.Results: The factor structure of the Psychological Hotline Counselor Competence Scale was verified and defined in terms of skills, attitude, and knowledge. The results of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis showed that the scale has good reliability and validity. The McDonald’s omega for each factor was calculated. Meanwhile, it was found that the psychological hotline counselors’ self-assessed competence had a high average score.Conclusion: The Competence Scale for Psychological Hotline Counselors for Major Public Emergencies developed in this study has good reliability and validity, and can be a reliable tool for organizing psychological assistance and screening hotline psychological counselors during public emergencies in the future. (shrink)

本书分为理论探索、个案解读、研究生审美文化论坛三部分。收录的文章有:《文艺美学新形态——审美文化研究及其人文品位》、《略谈当代审美文化的“审美”内涵》、《论审美活动的学术定位——从“社会个体生成论”看 美学的研究对象》、《论审美抽象》等。.

This paper addresses the robust stabilization problem for a class of stochastic Markovian jump systems with distributed delays. The systems under consideration involve Brownian motion, Markov chains, distributed delays, and parameter uncertainties. By an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, the novel delay-dependent stabilization criterion for the stochastic Markovian jump systems is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities. When given linear matrix inequalities are feasible, an explicit expression of the desired state feedback controller is given. The designed controller, based on the obtained (...) criterion, ensures asymptotically stable in the mean square sense of the resulting closed-loop system. The convenience of the design is greatly enhanced due to the existence of an adjustable parameter in the controller. Finally, a numerical example is exploited to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed theory. (shrink)

This paper deals with a single-machine resource allocation scheduling problem with learning effect and group technology. Under slack due-date assignment, our objective is to determine the optimal sequence of jobs and groups, optimal due-date assignment, and optimal resource allocation such that the weighted sum of earliness and tardiness penalties, common flow allowances, and resource consumption cost is minimized. For three special cases, it is proved that the problem can be solved in polynomial time. To solve the general case of problem, (...) the heuristic, tabu search, and branch-and-bound algorithms are proposed. (shrink)

BackgroundMental stress and imbalance of its two neural stress systems, the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, are associated with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome and erectile dysfunction. However, the comprehensive analyses of psychological stress and stress systems are under-investigated, particularly in CP/CPPS patients complicated by lower urinary tract symptoms and ED.Materials and methodsParticipants were 95 patients in CP/CPPS+ED group, 290 patients in CP/CPPS group, 124 patients in ED group and 52 healthy men in control group. The National Institutes (...) of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index, the International Index of Erectile Function-5 and the International Prostate Symptom Score were used for assessing the disease severity of CP/CPPS, LUTS and ED. Psychometric self-report questionnaires including the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale, Type A Personality Test and Symptom Checklist 90 were completed for distress from physical symptoms. Twenty-five subjects per group were randomly selected for further investigating the changes of the HPA axis and ANS. Saliva samples were taken on 3 consecutive days at 8 specific times with strict reference to time of morning awakening for evaluation of free cortisol. Heart rate variability as marker of the ANS was measured using 24 h electrocardiography, and time-and frequency-domain variables were analyzed.ResultsThe BAI and SCL-90 scores were significantly higher in the CP/CPPS+ED, CP/CPPS and ED groups compared with the control group. The PSS scores of both groups with ED were significantly higher than the control group. Compared with the CP/CPPS group, the differences of PSS, SCL-90 and TAPT scores were statistically significant in CP/CPPS+ED patients. The IPSS scores were shown to have significantly positive correlations with BAI, PSS and SCL-90 in the CP/CPPS patients. However, in all subjects, the IIEF-5 scores were shown to have significantly negative correlations with BAI, PSS, SCL-90 and quality of life score in NIH-CPSI. Cortisol awakening response parameters and diurnal cortisol levels did not significantly vary between the four groups. Time-dependent parameters of HRV also did not differ significantly across groups. In the frequency domain analysis, low frequency was significantly lower in ED patients when compared with CP/CPPS+ED patients and healthy controls, high frequency power was significantly higher in healthy controls compared to patients with ED, CP/CPPS and CP/CPPS+ED, and the CP/CPPS+ED group had significantly higher LF/HF ratio than the control group.ConclusionCP/CPPS and ED patients score exceedingly high on most psychosocial variables. The symptom scores of LUTS and ED positively correlate with the severity of psychological stress. Our findings also suggest that the ANS sympathovagal imbalance is associated with ED and LUTS in CP/CPPS, whereas HPA axis activity is not. (shrink)

We are living in a world which is severely crisis-ridden and faces some major challenges. The fact that we are currently facing a genuine global pandemic brings about even more uncertainty. The social and political institutions, which emerged and consolidated during the 20th century, and which created stability, have become fragile. The young generation born in the 1990s and onwards have experienced 9/11 and the ‘war against terrorism’, the financial crisis of 2008, changes to climate, environmental degradation, and most recently (...) the COVID-19 pandemic. The generation born between 1960 and 1990 have had the same experiences along with severe economic crises in the 1970s and 1980s and the Cold War. Some of these challenges are in different ways intertwined with capitalism and its crises, while others are linked to the rapid development of new technologies, in particular innovations within communication and information technologies. This introduction lists the most important grand challenges facing the world as they have emerged more recently. The five articles following this introduction address some of these challenges, with particular attention to the problems of capitalism and democracy and the relation between these two areas. Most authors agree that climate change and the destruction of the environment are the biggest and most pertinent problems to address, but it is their stance that we can only meet these challenges if democracy is functioning well. (shrink)

Drawing on the theory of cognitive-affective processing system and that of construal level, we propose a moderated mediation model illustrating the relationship among abusive supervision, shame, construal level, and work withdrawal. We tested this model with a two-source time-lagged survey of 387 employees from 129 work teams in central and East China. Results revealed that abusive supervision had a positive association with the emotion of shame and supported the mediating role of shame linking abusive supervision to work withdrawal. Besides, our (...) findings supported the buffering effect of construal level on the shame-work withdrawal relationship as well as the indirect relationship between abusive supervision and work withdrawal channeled through the emotion of shame. (shrink)

The promotion of tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior plays a central role in destination management for sustainability. Based on the stimulus–organism–response framework, this study proposes an integrated model for behavior management by examining the relationship between stimuli and response factors through the organism. Survey data from 458 tourists visiting Mount Heng in Hunan Province, Southern China, were used to empirically evaluate the proposed framework. The findings demonstrate that the perception of a destination’s natural environment positively impacts tourists’ sense of awe and (...) satisfaction; the perception of availability of infrastructure positively and significantly influences awe, satisfaction, and TERB; and awe positively impacts satisfaction and TERB. Moreover, the emotion of awe plays a significant mediating role in this proposed model. The theoretical significance of this study and the implications for tourism destinations are discussed. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage rend hommage à différents « Maîtres à penser » qui, par leur oeuvre, ont notablement enrichi leur discipline. Les juristes, historiens, politistes, philosophes, économistes étudiés ici ont en commun de réfléchir sur le pacte démocratique. Comment articuler liberté et égalité, économie et politique, religion et laïcité, violence et norme coercitive... pour qu'advienne une harmonie synonyme de paix sociale? Chacun - Sturzo, Cuche, Pocock, Quesnay, Zagrebelsky, Makhno, Fanon, Rivero, Albert, Bataille, Desjardins - apporte sa propre réponse. La diversité des (...) auteurs est à l'image de la dimension résolument pluridisciplinaire de ce nouvel opus du Bulletin annuel de Villetaneuse. (shrink)

Gott denken: Diese Aufgabe zielt in die Mitte der Philosophie – und eben dieser Aufgabe widmet sich dieses Buch: einem Kompendium der europäischen Religionsphilosophie und ihrer wichtigsten Fragestellungen unter historischen wie systematischen Aspekten. Am Beginn des Bandes findet sich der hier erstmals veröffentlichte Habilitationsvortrag des bedeutenden deutschen Religionsphilosophen Richard Schaeffler – dem dieses Buch gewidmet ist – über Anselm von Canterbury und seinen Widersacher Gaunilo von Marmoutiers. Schaeffler geht der Frage nach, die vor und nach Anselm der Philosophie keine Ruhe (...) gelassen hat: Können wir in unserem Denken zu einer Vergewisserung des Daseins Gottes finden? Wie ein roter Faden zieht sich das Ringen mit dieser Ungewissheit, ob und wie im Denken eine Vergewisserung Gottes möglich ist, durch die Geschichte der europäischen Philosophie. Eben das ist die Leitfrage auch dieses Buches: Welche Bedeutung hat Gott für unser Denken und in unserem Denken? Ist das möglich: zu denken, ohne Gott zu denken? Der InhaltDie Kontroverse zwischen Anselm von Canterbury und Gaunilo von Marmoutiers: zur Frage nach der Vertretbarkeit des Daseins Gottes im Denken • Geschichtliche Bezüge • Gott erkennen und erfahren? • Gott: effabile et ineffabile – sagbar und doch unsagbar • Zur programmatischen Idee einer rationalen Theologie • Etsi Deus daretur – aut non daretur Die HerausgeberChristoph Böhr ist Professor für Philosophie an der Hochschule Heiligenkreuz/Wien. Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz ist Professorin em. für Religionsphilosophie an der TU Dresden sowie Vorstand des Europäischen Instituts für Philosophie und Religion an der Hochschule Heiligenkreuz/Wien. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe psychological condition of healthcare workers since the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted the attention of many studies. However, few have reported on psychosocial problems of primary healthcare workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to examine the mediating roles of social support and resilience in COVID-19-related work stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression.MethodsA total of 840 primary healthcare workers in 17 community health centers in Guangzhou, China, were recruited from May to July 2021. Data on demographic characteristics, COVID-19-related (...) work stress, social support, resilience, anxiety and depression were collected. A structural equation model was used for mediation analysis.ResultsMore than half of participants reported mild or more severe symptoms of anxiety and depression. Social support and resilience mediate the association between COVID-19-related work stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression, respectively. Furthermore, the association between work stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression was also mediated by an accumulation of social support and resilience. The indirect effect of COVID-19-related work stress on anxiety and depression through resilience was much greater than other indirect effects.ConclusionAnxiety and depression were prevalent among primary healthcare workers. This study highlights the psychological impact of the COVID-19-related psychosocial work environment on primary healthcare workers. There is an urgent need to improve working conditions for primary healthcare workers in the COVID-19 and to implement intervention strategies aimed at increasing individual resilience alongside the establishment of external supportive work environments. (shrink)