Investor recommendation is a critical and challenging task for startups, which can assist startups in locating suitable investors and enhancing the possibility of obtaining investment. While some efforts have been made for investor recommendation, few of them explore the impact of startups’ features, including partners, rounds, and fields, to investor recommendation performance. Along this line, in this paper, with the help of the heterogeneous information network, we propose a FEatures’ COntribution Measurement approach of startups on investor recommendation, named FECOM. Specifically, (...) we construct the venture capital heterogeneous information network at first. Then, we define six venture capital metapaths to represent the features of startups that we focus on. In this way, we can measure the contribution of startups’ features on the investor recommendation task by validating the recommendation performance based on different metapaths. Finally, we extract four practical rules to assist in further investment tasks by using our proposed FECOM approach. (shrink)

To meet the stability requirements for moving quadruped robots, it is important to design a rational structure for a single leg and plan the trajectory of the foot. First, a novel electrically driven leg mechanism for a quadruped robot is designed in this paper to reduce the inertia of the leg swing. Second, a modified foot trajectory based on a compound cycloid is proposed, which has swing-back and retraction motion and continuous velocity in the x-axis direction. Third, a Simulink platform (...) is built to verify the correctness of the proposed foot trajectory. The simulation result shows that when the flight phase and the stand phase switch, the impact of torque is smaller than the foot trajectory before modification. Finally, an experimental platform is constructed, and a control algorithm is written into the controller to realize the foot proposed trajectory. The results of the experiment prove the feasibility of the leg mechanism and the rationality of the proposed foot trajectory. (shrink)

By “strong representationalism” (“SR” hereafter), I mean a version of naturalistic philosophy of mind which first naturalizes intentionality by identifying it with causation to physical properties and then naturalizes phenomenology by identifying it with intentionality or making them co-supervene on each other (Montague [2010]). Most specifically, SR will be taken as the conjunction of causal-function semantics and the intentionality-phenomenology identity thesis, the latter of which entails what I call “converse intentionalism”, the principle that experiential content supervenes on phenomenology. Because of (...) this identity thesis, SR enjoys some phenomenological plausibility which is absent from traditional physicalism of mind. However, in this paper, I shall raise an integration challenge to SR by arguing that its foundational principles do not integrate easily. I will also explore some strategies open to SR for addressing my challenge, and argue that by invoking those strategies, SR either loses its phenomenological plausibility or undermines causal-function semantics. I conclude that if my argument is correct, it provides us reason to search for new principles to replace SR’s foundations. (shrink)

More and more research on left ventricle quantification skips segmentation due to its requirement of large amounts of pixel-by-pixel labels. In this study, a framework is developed to directly quantify left ventricle multiple indices without the process of segmentation. At first, DenseNet is utilized to extract spatial features for each cardiac frame. Then, in order to take advantage of the time sequence information, the temporal feature for consecutive frames is encoded using gated recurrent unit. After that, the attention mechanism is (...) integrated into the decoder to effectively establish the mappings between the input sequence and corresponding output sequence. Simultaneously, a regression layer with the same decoder output is used to predict multi-indices of the left ventricle. Different weights are set for different types of indices based on experience, and l2-norm is used to avoid model overfitting. Compared with the state-of-the-art, our method can not only produce more competitive results but also be more flexible. This is because the prediction results in our study can be obtained for each frame online while the SOTA only can output results after all frames are analyzed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. Rudnick, (...) Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

This paper uses lines of argument drawn from Amartya Sen's Idea of Justice to support the notion that NGO efforts, far from being oppressive, are helpful and progressive. It cites the work of Lairap‐Fonderson and Chen, and alludes to specific projects. Contrast is made with Rawls, and the paper suggests that more formal theories of justice may not enable us to grapple with our intuitive sense that justice for the poverty stricken involves, at a minimum, both financial progress and (...) forward movement with respect to internal growth. Examples of work done by NGOs in Bangladesh and other places help us to realize that women in these areas often have their own sense of what a more just situation would require—and NGOs and others can work from these conceptions as a point of departure. Part of the conclusion here is that Sen's concept of the just is a step in the right direction. (shrink)

La Chine contemporaine 'pense-t-elle'? Et si oui, comment pense-t-elle? Et d'ailleurs, quel sens donner au terme 'penser'? Le noeud du problème réside dans la langue: si la Chine contemporaine veut avoir une pensée authentique, elle doit commencer par étudier sa propre langue? et c'est précisément la difficulté à laquelle se heurte la construction d'un corps intellectuel en chinois. Afin d'éclairer le raisonnement chinois moderne, et de démontrer les implications méthodologiques de la pratique philosophique en chinois, l'auteure a choisi de centrer (...) son étude sur le philosophe chinois contemporain (né en 1952) Chen Jiaying. À la croisée de la linguistique et de la philosophie du langage, elle s'attache à l'approche linguistique de ce philosophe, en particulier à sa manière de développer son raisonnement en clarifiant systématiquement l'usage des mots chinois, et à son style argumentatif et dialogique fondé sur des caractéristiques linguistiques propres à la langue chinoise, mais aussi à travers l'identification et la classification d'une série de concepts chinois 'naturels'. Cet ouvrage démontre ainsi comment la pensée en langue chinoise peut se révéler innovante et dynamique en répondant à des questions universelles cruciales? 'Qu'est-ce que la philosophie aujourd'hui, dans un monde dominé par les méthodes scientifiques empiriques?' 'Qu'est-ce qu'une bonne vie?', 'Comment bien vivre dans notre monde actuel aux valeurs plurielles, fragmentées, voire contradictoires?'...Par-delà l'analyse de ce qu'est 'penser en chinois', Xiyin Zhou ménage une large place à l'analyse conceptuelle interlinguistique, faisant des allers-retours entre les langues chinoise et occidentales. Elle plaide ainsi pour surmonter l'étroitesse de la pratique philosophique dans une seule langue, et pour une approche philosophique 'écolinguistique' fondée sur l'utilisation naturelle du langage."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Commodities and Capabilities presents a set of inter-related theses concerning the foundations of welfare economics, and in particular about the assessment of personal well-being and advantage. The argument presented focuses on the capability to function, i.e. what a person can do or can be, questioning in the process the more standard emphasis on opulence or on utility. In fact, a person's motivation behind choice is treated here as a parametric variable which may or may not coincide with the pursuit of (...) self-interest. Given the large number of practical problems arising from the roles and limitations of different concepts of interest and the judgement of advantage and well-being, this scholarly investigation is both of theoretical interest and practical import. (shrink)

A volume of studies of utilitarianism considered both as a theory of personal morality and a theory of public choice. All but two of the papers have been commissioned especially for the volume, and between them they represent not only a wide range of arguments for and against utilitarianism but also a first-class selection of the most interesting and influential work in this very active area. There is also a substantial introduction by the two editors. The volume will constitute an (...) important stimulus and point of reference for a wide range of philosophers, economists and social theorists. (shrink)

Without denying the importance of the postmodernist approach to the narrative form and rhetorical strategies of historiography, the author, one of Germany's ...

The importance of business ethics is not contrdicted in any way by Adam Smith’s pointer to the fact that our “regards to our own interests” provide adequate motivation tor exchange. There are many important economic relationships other than exchange, such as the institution of production and arrangements of distribution. Here business ethics can playa major part. Even as far as exchange is concerned, business ethics can be crucially important in terms of organization and behavior, going weil beyond basic motivation.

How valuable is the market mechanism for practical morality? What is its moral standing? We can scarcely doubt that as individuals we do value tremendously the opportunity of using markets. Indeed, without access to markets most of us would perish, since we don't typically produce the things that we need to survive. If we could somehow survive without using markets at all, our quality of life would be rather abysmal. It is natural to feel that an institution that is so (...) crucial to our well-being must be valuable. And since moral evaluation can hardly be indifferent to our interests and their fulfillment, it might appear that there is nothing much to discuss here. The market's moral standing “has to be” high. (shrink)

Gary Becker and others have done important work to broaden the content of self interest, but have not departed from seeing rationality in terms of the exclusive pursuit of self-interest. One reason why committed behavior is important is that a person can have good reason to pursue objectives other than self interest maximization (no matter how broadly it is construed). Indeed, one can also follow rules of behavior that go beyond the pursuit of one's own goals, even if the goals (...) include non-self-interested concerns. By living in a society, one develops possible reasons for considering other people's goals as well, which takes one beyond an exclusive concentration on one's own goals, not to mention the single-minded pursuit of one's own self interest. The recognition of other people's goals may be a part of rational thought. If rational behavior may depart from the relentless pursuit of one's own goals, commitment has to be important in a theory of rationality. Furthermore, seeing the role of commitment in human behavior can have explanatory importance in allowing us to understand behavior patterns that are hard to fit into the narrow format of contemporary rational choice theory. Commitment is, thus, important both for practical reason and for causal explanation. (shrink)

Drawing on cognitive moral development and moral identity theories, this study empirically examines the moral antecedents and consequences of authentic leadership. Machiavellianism, an individual difference variable relating to the use of the ‘end justifies the means’ principle, is predicted to affect the link between morality and leadership. Analyses of multi-source, multi-method data comprised case studies, simulations, role-playing exercises, and survey questionnaires were completed by 70 managers in a large public agency, and provide support for our hypotheses. Our findings reveal that (...) Machiavellianism offsets the positive relationship between moral reasoning and authentic leadership. Specifically, we show that when Machiavellianism is high, both the positive relationship between moral reasoning and authentic leadership, and the positive relationship between authentic leadership and moral actions, are reversed. This study offers new insights on the underlying processes contributing to the emergence of leaders’ authentic behavior and moral action. Implications for the moral development of leaders, and directions for improved leadership training are provided. (shrink)

This paper is a revised version of the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Annual Lecture, 2016. It discusses the demands of critical reasoning in ethical arguments, and focuses in particular on the assessment of justice. It disputes the belief that reasoning about choice remains unfinished until an optimal alternative has been identified. A successful closure of a reasoning may identify a maximal alternative, which is not judged to be worse than any other available option. A maximal alternative need not be optimal (...) in the sense of being ‘best’. Critically sound reasoning can lead us to a partial ordering yielding a maximal alternative that is not optimal. The compulsive search for an optimal alternative needlessly limits the reach of reasoning in ethics. (shrink)

This paper argues that many of Adam Smith’s insights,particularly those in his Theory of moral sentiments, have a relevance tocontemporary thought about economics and ethics that is currentlyunderappreciated. In economics, for example, Smith was concerned notonly with the sufficiency of self-interest at the moment of exchange butalso with the wider moral motivations and institutions required tosupport economic activity in general. In ethics, Smith’s concept of animpartial spectator who is able to view our situation from a criticaldistance has much to contribute (...) to a fuller understanding of therequirements of justice, particularly through an understanding ofimpartiality as going beyond the interests and concerns of a localcontracting group. Smith’s open, realization-focussed and comparativeapproach to evaluation contrasts with what I call the “transcendentalinstitutionalism” popular in contemporary political philosophy andassociated particularly with the work of John Rawls. (shrink)

This essay discusses the place of business principles and of moral sentiments in economic success, and examines the role of cultures in influencing norms of business behavior. Two presumptions held in standard economic analysis are disputed: the rudimentary nature of business principles (essentially restricted, directly or indirectly, to profit maximization), and the allegedly narrow reach of moral sentiments (often treated to be irrelevant to business and economics). In contrast, the author argues for the need to recognize the complex structure of (...) business principles and the extensive reach of moral sentiments by using theoretical considerations, a thorough analysis of Adam Smith’s work, and a careful interpretation of Japan’s remarkable economic success. Referring to the economic corruption in Italy and the “grabbing culture” in Russia, he further shows how deeply the presence or absence of particular features of business ethics can influence the operation of the economy, and even the nature of the society and itspolitics. Being an Indian himself, he warns against grand generalizations like the superiority of “Asian values” over traditional Western morals. To conclude, it is diversity—over space, over time, and between groups —that makes the study of business principles and moral sentiments a rich source of understanding and explanation. (shrink)

The concept of business responsibility, usually termed as corporate social responsibility (CSR), originated in the early 1930s after the Wall Street crash of 1929 exposed corporate irresponsibility in large organisations. The understanding of CSR has evolved since then and its scope has now broadened from mere compliance to corporate laws to active alignment of internal business goals with externally set societal aspirations. Unfortunately, the significance of this multidimensional concept within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector has continued to be (...) overshadowed by its application in large and multinational organisations. More importantly, this has led to the practice of judging SMEs, which are experiencing increasing pressure to engage in social activities, as if they are no different from their larger counterparts. This study therefore investigates CSR from the perspective of SMEs in Australia without any theoretical presumptions and then comments on the relevance and applicability of the two theories that have been commonly used to investigate business responsibility, namely, stakeholder theory (ST) and social capital theory (SCT). The research findings indicate that CSR within the SME sector is more aligned to the fundamentals of SCT, mainly owing to the unique resource and survival challenges that they face, and which are, arguably, not so pronounced in large organisations. (shrink)

One approach to the analysis of ethical dilemmas in medical practice uses the “four principles plus scope” approach. These principles are: respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice, along with concern for their scope of application. However, conflicts between the different principles are commonplace in psychiatric practice, especially in forensic psychiatry, where duties to patients often conflict with duties to third parties such as the public. This article seeks to highlight some of the specific ethical dilemmas encountered in forensic psychiatry: (...) the excessive use of segregation for the protection of others, the ethics of using mechanical restraint when clinically beneficial and the use of physical treatment without consent. We argue that justice, as a principle, should be paramount in forensic psychiatry, and that there is a need for a more specific code of ethics to cover specialised areas of medicine like forensic psychiatry. This code should specify that in cases of conflict between different principles, justice should gain precedence over the other principles. (shrink)

Skeptiker aller Schattierungen nicht gern zur Kenntnis, daft sie ihren Standpunkt nicht beweisen konnen. Eine solche komplexe Feststellung provoziert geradezu das emporte Aufbegehren: "Dies kann doch unmoglich dein letztes Wort sein. Irgendeine Losung in der einen oder anderen Richtung muB es doch geben!" Dazu kann ich nur sagen: "Diese,Losung' hast du jederzeit in der Hand: Entscheide dich!" Hier trage ich allerdings an einer gewissen, bei man chen Lesern entstandenen Begriffsverwirrung vermutlich selbst Schuld. Obwohl es mir schien, daB aus dem (...) jeweiligen Kon­ text hinreichend klar hervorgehe, was ich mit "unentscheid­ bar" meine, sind einige Leser tiber die Doppeldeutigkeit dieses Wortes gestolpert. Wenn ich sage, daB das Problem der Metaphysik absolut unentscheidbar sei, so verwende ich das Wort "entscheidbar" in einem rein theoretischen Sinn (in Analogie zu dem allerdings viel spezielleren Sprachge­ brauch, nach dem man sagt, Godel habe ftir sein Unvoll­ standigkeitstheorem einen formal unentscheidbaren Satz konstruiert). Gemeint ist, grob gesprochen: "Diese Frage laBt sich nicht durch reines Nachdenken entscheiden". Da­ gegen ist es gerade meine Auffassung, daft das Problem, ob hie et nunc eine echte, gelten zu lassende und anzuerkennende Einsicht vorliegt, allein durch meine personliche Gewissens­ entscheidung, fur die ich nur mir selbst gegenuber verant­ wortlich bin, gelost werden kann. Mein personliches Gewis­ sen ist nicht nur bei ethischen Entscheidungen die oberste Instanz, sondern auch bei den scheinbar ganz entsubjekti­ vierten objektiv-wissenschaftlichen Sachfragen. Dies ist eine Entscheidung im praktischen, nicht-theoretischen Sinn. (shrink)

We live in a world in which the idea of human rights is persistently invoked. However, despite the tremendous appeal of the idea of human rights, it is also seen by many as lacking in foundation. I have argued, particularly in my book The Idea of Justice, that human rights are best seen as articulations of commitments in social ethics, comparable to — but very different from — accepting utilitarian reasoning. Like other ethical tenets, human rights can, of course, be (...) disputed, but the claim is that they will survive open and informed scrutiny.This view contrasts with seeing human rights in primarily legal terms, either as consequences of humane legislation, or as precursors of legal rights, or as pointing towards what should ideally be legal rights. Human rights may well be reflected in legislation, may inspire legislation, and may even serve, in many circumstances, as ideals that demand legislative attention. However, these are ‘further facts’— not the defining characteristics of human rights. (shrink)

Die mit dem Buch von Oswald Schwemmer vorgestellte Grundlegung etabliert Kulturphilosophie als eine systematisch organisierte Disziplin, und zwar als Ansatz für Forschungen, die auch über die geistigen Verhältnisse der Menschen ein empirisches Wissen bilden können. Angesichts der historischen Kontingenz und Vielfalt der verschiedenen Kulturen konzentriert sich die vorliegende Darstellung auf die - z. B. bildlichen und begriffli-chen - Medien, die als kollektiver Grundbestand die Formen der menschlichen Artikulation und Sinnbildung in einer Kultur prägen. Das Buch bietet eine Grundlegung auch (...) für Leser, die sich in den oft verwirrenden Disputen der Philosophie noch nicht verfangen haben. Eine Orientierung auf dem gedanklichen Weg dieser Grundlegung soll die Begriffskette Artikulation und Medium - Medium und Symbol - Symbol und Form - Form und Sinn - Sinn und Bild - Bild und Begriff - Begriff und Kultur geben, mit der die einzelnen Kapitel über ihre Titel zusammengehalten werden. Die Titelbegriffe stehen dabei für die Themenfelder, mit denen sich die Überlegungen in den jeweiligen Kapiteln auseinandersetzen. Diese Fokussierung auf ganze Themenfelder erlaubt es, in einigen Exkur-sen auch Um- oder Seitenwege in diesen Gebieten zu gehen. Dass die gedanklichen Wege dieser Grundlegung am Ende wieder zu ihrem Ausgangsbegriff Kultur zurückführen, zeigt, dass das Ende auch als ein neuer Anfang, nämlich zur Fortsetzung des Projektes einer medientheoretisch orientierten Kulturphilosophie gelesen werden kann. (shrink)

The great poet and novelist Rabindranath Tagore once remarked that he was extremely sad that he was not alive when Gautama Buddha was still around. Tagore very much wished he could have had conversations with Buddha. I share that sentiment, but, like Rabindranath, I am also immensely grateful that, even now, we can enjoy—and learn from—the ideas and arguments that Buddha gave us twenty-five hundred years ago. Our world may be very different from what Buddha faced in the sixth century (...) bce, but we can still benefit greatly from the reasoned approach to ethics, politics, and social relations that Gautama Buddha brought to the world of human understanding. (shrink)

Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel are one of the most ancient communities in the world, one that has been detached from the known Jewish world for about 2,500 years. Throughout this very long period of isolation, the Ethiopian Jewish community maintained Jewish tradition and dreamed over the centuries to unite with the rest of the Jewish world and immigrate to the Jewish state—Israel. But this transition occurred within a short time from an agrarian society in Ethiopia (traditional culture) with an (...) oral culture to a knowledge society in Israel (modern culture) with a written culture. Most studies that examine cultural transition focus on anthropological, sociological, and cultural aspects; but there are nearly no studies that examine the technological knowledge of non-literate populations. The purpose of this study is to examine and characterize technological knowledge among this population—the case of Ethiopian non-literate immigrants in Israel. The study involved in-depth interviews to examine technological knowledge through using technological appliances in their everyday life, assembly of two simple technological systems, and a home technology profile compared to the general population in Israel. Participants included 50 non-literate Ethiopian immigrants between the ages of 40–60. The results of our study are surprising in that we have shown that non-literate immigrants adapt to a technology-rich environment at an average degree with respect to the general population in Israel. Also, comparing technological knowledge between traditional and modern cultures shows participants’ wide range of knowledge without ability to read and write. Illiteracy does not preclude the development of knowledge in general, technological knowledge particularly, and does not prevent non-literate populations from acquiring knowledge in a new environment. (shrink)