Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, EarlyView.

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the relationship between mathematic achievement and programming self-efficacy, and adopt a mediation model to verify the mediating role of creativity on the relationship between mathematic achievement and programming self-efficacy.Methods: A total of 950 upper-secondary school students were surveyed using their math test scores, the Kirton Adaption-Innovation and the Programmed Self-Efficacy Scale. SPSS-26 was used for descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis of related variables. The PROCESS plugin was used to test the mediating effect of (...) creativity.Results: Mathematic achievement has a positive effect on programming self-efficacy, mathematic achievement is positively related to creativity, and creativity also has a positive influence on programming self-efficacy. Creativity has a mediating effect on the relationship between mathematic achievement and programming self-efficacy.Conclusion: The results revealed that mathematic achievement affected programming self-efficacy directly and also indirectly through creativity. This provided certain ideas for the development of programming education for teenagers. Since students’ mathematics learning and creativity are related to programming learning, it is necessary to pay attention to the integration of the disciplines of programming education and mathematics. Further, the cultivation of innovative thinking is also critical to facilitate programming learning. (shrink)

With the popularization of mobile Internet and smart terminals, mobile reading with diversity and mobility has become a hot issue in the industry and academia. This article comes up with a hypothetical model of mobile reading user acceptance behavior based on the technology acceptance model and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and conducts an analysis of the reliability and validity of questionnaire data. Based on this, the model fitness is analyzed as well as the path hypotheses testing. (...) We find that user-perceived ease of use greatly influences perceived usefulness, and user attitude and behavioral intention are significantly impacted by perceived usefulness. The impact of social influence on user attitude toward using mobile reading is significant, but the influence of perceived payment is not obvious. The moderating effect of living habit is not obvious because the absolute value of the critical ratio is under 2.58 with a significance level of 0.01. (shrink)

This study examined the correlation between depressive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, and social support before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and verified causal relationships among them. The study used Social Support Scale and Symptom Self-Rating Scale to investigate relevant variables. A total of 1,414 employees from company were recruited for this longitudinal study, which a follow up study was conducted on the same group of participants 1 year later. Paired sample t-test results showed that significant differences were only found in social (...) support, not in depressive symptoms or interpersonal sensitivity. The results of correlation analysis showed that social support, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal sensitivity were significantly correlated between wave 1 and wave 2. The cross-lag autoregressive pathway showed that employees’ social support level, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal sensitivity all showed moderate stability. Crossing paths showed that wave 1 social support could significantly predict wave 2 depressive symptoms and wave 2 interpersonal sensitivity. Wave 1 depressive symptoms could significantly predict wave 2 social support, while wave 1 interpersonal sensitivity could not predict wave 2 social support. Social support can be considered as a protective factor against mental health problems. (shrink)

Introduction: Few studies are available on the prevalence and sleep-related factors of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) in Chinese older adults, aiming to explore the associations between sleep characteristics and DLB.Methods: A cross-sectional study with 7,528 individuals aged ≥65 years in 106 communities in Northern China was conducted from April 2019 to January 2020. Questionaries (including demographic characteristics, comorbidities, lifestyles, and sleep characteristics) were administered, and neuropsychological assessments and physical examination were conducted in phase I; screening for probable DLB was (...) done in phase II. Logistic regressions were used to assess associations.Results: A total of 919 (12.2%, 919/7,528) participants had dementia, and 101 (1.3%, 101/7,528) participants were diagnosed with DLB. The prevalence of dementia and DLB were slightly higher or equal in women, increased with age, and roughly decreased with nighttime sleep duration. Of the 101 participants, all of them (100.0%) had cognitive impairment, 46 (44.54%) displayed fluctuating cognition, 72 (71.29%) of them showed visual hallucination, 22 (21.78%) individuals reported RBD, and 27.71% showed Parkinsonism. Sleeping for 8 h had combined diagnostic value for DLB (AUC = 0.783, 95%CI: 0.734–0.831, p < 0.001).Conclusions: The current prevalence of DLB is 1.3% in Northern China. Short or long nighttime sleep duration is independently associated with the occurrence of dementia and DLB. (shrink)

This paper delves into the historical evolution of Huang Feihong's cultural heritage and its intersection with cultural and creative design. It seeks a profound comprehension of Huang Feihong's life achievements, the cultural traditions he embodied, and his contributions to Lingnan culture. The study specifically examines the relationship between Huang Fei-hong's cultural legacy and cultural and creative design, focusing on the concepts of cultural and creative products, the application of design, and the dynamic interplay between tradition and modernity. Through a comprehensive (...) analysis of Huang Feihong's culture, this paper unveils the intricate connection between tradition and modernity, highlighting the role of cultural and creative design in both preserving and innovating. This dynamic research field not only enhances our understanding of Huang Feihong's cultural heritage but also imparts valuable insights for the practical aspects of cultural preservation and creative design. The findings offer fresh avenues and possibilities for the continued inheritance and promotion of Chinese cultural traditions. (shrink)

An anthology of new translations of essential readings from the classical texts of early Chinese philosophy. It includes the Analects of Confucius, Meng Zi (Mencius), Xun Zi, Mo Zi, Lao Zi (Dao De Jing), Zhuang Zi, and Han Fei Zi, as well as short chapters on the Da Xue and the Zhong Yong. Pedagogically organized, it offers philosophically sophisticated annotations and commentaries as well as an extensive glossary explaining key philosophical concepts in detail.

Six-month-old infants discriminate between large sets of objects on the basis of numerosity when other extraneous variables are controlled, provided that the sets to be discriminated differ by a large ratio (8 vs. 16 but not 8 vs. 12). The capacities to represent approximate numerosity found in adult animals and humans evidently develop in human infants prior to language and symbolic counting.

Abstract:A number of philosophers of language have proposed that people do not have conceptual access to‘bare particulars’, or attribute‐free individuals (e.g. Wiggins, 1980). Individuals can only be picked out under some sortal, a concept which provides principles of individuation and identity. Many advocates of this view have argued thatobjectis not a genuine sortal concept. I will argue in this paper that a narrow sense of‘object’, namely the concept of any bounded, coherent, three‐dimensional physical object that moves as a whole (Spelke, (...) 1990) is a sortal for both infants and adults. Furthermore,objectmay be the infant's first sortal and more specific sortals such ascupanddogmay be acquired later in the first year of life. I will discuss the implications for infant categorization studies, trying to draw a conceptual distinction between a perceptual category and a sortal, and I will speculate on how a child may construct sortal concepts such ascupanddog. (shrink)

Simion and Kelp develop the obligation-based account of trustworthiness as a compelling general account of trustworthiness and then apply this account to various instances of AI. By doing so, they explain in what way any AI can be considered trustworthy, as per the general account. Simion and Kelp identify that any account of trustworthiness that relies on assumptions of agency that are too anthropocentric, such as that being trustworthy, must involve goodwill. I argue that goodwill is a necessary condition for (...) being trustworthy and further suggest a network account of trustworthy AI, which retains the goodwill as the essential requirement for the concept of trustworthiness and meanwhile predicts that current AI can be trustworthy. The alternative account suggests that the focus of trustworthy AI is not merely AI technology, but the whole network of AI involving AI technology, AI designers, AI companies, and other social and legal institutions. A trustworthy AI requires that AI technology is reliable and that other involved agents are trustworthy. (shrink)

For a long time the dominant view on the nature of blame was that to blame someone is to have an emotion toward her, such as anger, resentment or indignation in the case of blaming someone else and guilt in the case of self-blame. Even though this view is still widely held, it has recently come under heavy attack. The aim of this paper is to elaborate the idea that to blame is to have an emotion and to defend the (...) resulting emotion account of blame. (shrink)

Background: An overview of ethical sensitivity among Chinese registered nurses is needed to develop and optimize the education programs and interventions to cultivate and improve ethical sensitivity. Aim: The study was conducted to explore the barriers to and facilitators of ethical sensitivity among Chinese registered nurses working in hospital settings. Research design: A convergent parallel mixed-methods research design was adopted. Participants and research context: In the cross-sectional quantitative study, the Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–revised version was used to assess the levels (...) of ethical sensitivity among registered nurses, and the scores were correlated with key demographics, training experiences in ethics, and workplace cultural environments ( n = 306). In the qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the nurses’ perceptions of the barriers and facilitators in nurturing ethical sensitivity ( n = 15). The data were collected from February to June 2014. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. Results: Despite moderately high overall Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–revised version scores, the ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses lags in practice. Barriers to ethical sensitivity include the lack of knowledge related to ethics, lack of working experience as a nurse, the hierarchical organizational climate, and the conformist working attitude. The positive workplace cultural environments and application of ethical knowledge in practice were considered potential facilitators of ethical sensitivity. Discussion: The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the barriers and facilitators of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. Conclusion: This mixed-methods study showed that even though the Chinese nurses have moderately high sensitivity to the ethical issues encountered in hospitals, there is still room for improvement. The barriers to and facilitators of ethical sensitivity identified here offer new and important strategies to support and enhance the nurses’ sensitivity to ethical issues. (shrink)

Even though the idea that privacy is some kind of control is often presented as the standard view on privacy, there are powerful objections against it. The aim of this paper is to defend the control account of privacy against some particularly pressing challenges by proposing a new way to understand the relevant kind of control. The main thesis is that privacy should be analyzed in terms of source control, a notion that is adopted from discussions about moral responsibility.

Background: Ethical issues pose challenges for nurses who are increasingly caring for patients in complicated situations. Ethical sensitivity is a prerequisite for nurses to make decisions in the best interest of their patients in daily practice. Currently, there is no tool for assessing ethical sensitivity in Chinese language, and no empirical studies of ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. Research objectives: The study was conducted to translate the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised Version (MSQ-R) into Chinese and establish the psychometric properties of the (...) Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised Version into Chinese (MSQ-R-CV). Research design: This research was a methodological and descriptive study. Participants and research context: MSQ-R was translated into Chinese using Brislin’s model, and the Translation Validity Index was evaluated. MSQ-R-CV was then distributed along with a demographic questionnaire to 360 nurses working at tertiary and municipal hospitals in Changsha, China. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. Findings: MSQ-R-CV achieved Cronbach’s alpha 0.82, Spearman-Brown coefficient 0.75, significant item discrimination (p < 0.001), and item-total correlation values ranging from 0.524 to 0.717. A two-factor structure was illustrated by exploratory factor analysis, and further confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Chinese nurses had a mean total score of 40.22 ± 7.08 on the MSQ-R-CV, and sub-scores of 23.85 ± 4.4 for moral responsibility and strength and 16.37 ± 3.75 for sense of moral burden. Discussion: The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the structure and meaningful implications of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. Conclusion: The two-factor MSQ-R-CV (moral responsibility and strength, and sense of moral burden) is a linguistically and culturally appropriate instrument for assessing ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. (shrink)

With the increasing degrees A.I.s and machines are applied across different social contexts, the need for implementing ethics in A.I.s is pressing. In this paper, we argue for a pluralist hybrid model for the implementation of moral A.I.s. We first survey current approaches to moral A.I.s and their inherent limitations. Then we propose the pluralist hybrid approach and show how these limitations of moral A.I.s can be partly alleviated by the pluralist hybrid approach. The core ethical decision-making capacity of an (...) A.I. based on the pluralist hybrid approach consists of two systems. The first is a deterministic algorithm system that incorporates different moral rules for making explicit moral decisions. The second is a machine learning system that calculates the value of the variables required by the application of moral principles. The pluralist hybrid system is better than the existing proposals as (i) it better addresses the moral disagreement problem of the top-down approach by including different moral principles, while (ii) it reduces the opacity of ethical decision-making compared with a bottom-up system by implementing explicit moral principles for moral decision making. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the right to privacy that is inspired by classic control views on this right and recent developments in moral psychology. The core idea is that the right to privacy is the right that others not make personal information about us flow unless this flow is an expression of and does not conflict with our deep self. The nature of the deep self will be spelled out in terms of stable intrinsic desires. The paper argues (...) that this view has advantages over alternative accounts of the right to privacy, that it is extensionally adequate in interesting test cases, that there is a good reason to think that the right to privacy, thus understood, can be justified, and that this view helps identify what kind of information is protected by the right to privacy. (shrink)

Many philosophers characterize a particularly important sense of free will and responsibility by referring to basically deserved blame. But what is basically deserved blame? The aim of this paper is to identify the appraisal entailed by basic desert claims. It presents three desiderata for an account of desert appraisals and it argues that important recent theories fail to meet them. Then, the paper presents and defends a promising alternative. The basic idea is that claims about basically deserved blame entail that (...) the targets have forfeited their claims that others not blame them and that there is positive reason to blame them. The paper shows how this view frames the discussion about skepticism about free will and responsibility. (shrink)

An adaptive fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller for a microgyroscope is presented with uncertainties and external disturbances using a fuzzy neural network compensator based on a backstepping technique. First, the dynamic of the microgyroscope is transformed into an analogical cascade system to guarantee the application of a backstepping design. Then, a fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode surface is designed which provides an additional degree of freedom, higher precision, and finite convergence without a singularity problem. The proposed control scheme requires (...) no prior knowledge of the unknown dynamics of the microgyroscope system since the fuzzy neural network is utilized to approximate the upper bound of the lumped uncertainties and adaptive algorithms are derived to allow online adjustment of the unknown system parameters. The chattering phenomenon can be reduced simultaneously by the fuzzy neural network compensator. The stability and finite time convergence of the system can be established by the Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller and the comparison of root mean square error between different fractional orders and integer order is given to signify the high precision tracking performance of the proposed control scheme. (shrink)

This paper discusses the idea that the concept of privacy should be understood in terms of control. Three different attempts to spell out this idea will be critically discussed. The conclusion will be that the Source Control View on privacy is the most promising version of the idea that privacy is to be understood in terms of control.

The Top-Down Argument for the ability to do otherwise aims at establishing that humans can do otherwise in the sense that is relevant for debates about free will. It consists of two premises: first, we always need to answer the question of whether some phenomenon (such as the ability to do otherwise) exists by consulting our best scientific theories of the domain at issue. Second, our best scientific theories of human action presuppose that humans can do otherwise. This paper argues (...) that this is not enough to establish the conclusion. The Top-Down Argument supports that humans can do otherwise _in some sense_. But it does not show that humans can do otherwise _in the sense that is relevant for debates about free will_. The paper then shows that the apparently best way to make the argument valid does not work. (shrink)

Object individuation provides a test case for the claim that infants already have a prelinguistic language-of-thought (LOT). By 12 months, infants represent several sortal-kinds: Object, agent, animate, and perhaps artifact. Infants have also encountered many words for object kinds, animals, people, and artifacts, therefore it remains a viable hypothesis that language learning may play a causal role in the acquisition of sortal-kinds, contra Quilty-Dunn et al.

In this article, I argue for a distinct and novel right-based account of risks and I call it the Sophisticated High-risk Thesis. I argue that there is a distinction between rights-infringing risk impositions and no-rights-infringing risk impositions. An action imposing a high risk of harm infringes rights, whereas an act imposing a low risk of harm does not. I also suggest three principles that govern the permissibility of highly risky actions. If a highly risky action meets the conditions specified by (...) any of these three principles, it can be justified. These principles are the consent principle*, the prevent disaster principle* and the reciprocity principle**. I show that the Sophisticated High-risk Thesis is, in general, better than the alternative Risk Thesis defended by McCarthy. (shrink)

In the last two decades, blame has become a core topic in ethics, philosophical moral psychology and, more recently, epistemology. This chapter aims at clarifying the complex state of the debate and at making a suggestion for how we should proceed from here. The core idea is that accounts of blame are often motivated by very different background goals. One standard goal is to provide a unifying account of our everyday blame practices. The chapter argues that there is reason to (...) think that this goal is not achievable. Another goal is to provide the tools for solving or clarifying important social or philosophical problems. The chapter suggests that this is what theories of blame should focus on. (shrink)

Blame skeptics argue that we have strong reason to revise our blame practices because humans do not fulfill all the conditions for it being appropriate to blame them. This paper presents a new challenge for this view. Many have objected that blame plays valuable roles such that we have strong reason to hold on to our blame practices. Skeptics typically reply that non-blaming responses to objectionable conduct, like forms of disappointment, can serve the positive functions of blame. The new challenge (...) is that skeptics need to show that it can be appropriate (or less inappropriate) to respond with this kind of disappointment to people’s conduct if it is inappropriate to respond with blame. The paper argues that current blame-skeptical views fail to meet this challenge. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel adaptive fuzzy super-twisting sliding mode control scheme for microgyroscopes with unknown model uncertainties and external disturbances. Firstly, an adaptive algorithm is used to estimate the unknown parameters and angular velocity of microgyroscopes. Secondly, in order to improve the performance of the system and the superiority of the super-twisting algorithm, this paper utilizes the universal approximation characteristic of the fuzzy system to approach the gain of the super-twisting sliding mode controller and identify the gain of the (...) controller online, realizing the adaptive adjustment of the controller parameters. Simulation results verify the superiority and the effectiveness of the proposed approach, compared with adaptive super-twisting sliding mode control without fuzzy approximation; the proposed method is more effective. (shrink)

Climate change is one of the most important issues we are currently facing. There are many ways in which states can fight climate change. Some of them involve interfering with citizens’ personal lives. The question of whether such interference is justified is under-explored in philosophy. This paper focuses on a specific aspect of people’s personal lives, namely their informational privacy. It discusses the question of whether, given certain empirical assumptions, it is proportional of the state to risk its citizens’ privacy (...) or to risk infringing its citizens’ right to privacy to fight climate change. The main claim this paper argues for is that if fighting climate change and protecting our privacy conflict, we have good reason to fight climate change rather than protect our privacy. (shrink)

This paper reveals a serious flaw in the consequentialist solution to the inefficacy problem in moral philosophy. The consequentialist solution is based on expected utility theory. In current philosophical literature, the debate focuses on the empirical plausibility of the solution. Most philosophers consider the cases of collective actions as of the same type as a horse-racing game, where expected utility theory is adequate to solve the choice problem. However, these cases should be considered as of the same type as a (...) coordination game, where the assumption of common knowledge is also required. However, the assumption is implausible—it is impossible to obtain common knowledge of rationality in cases such as voting. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Recently, many authors have argued that claims about determinism and free will are situated on different levels of description and that determinism on one level does not rule out free will on another. This paper focuses on Christian List’s version of this basic idea. It will be argued for the negative thesis that List’s account does not rule out the most plausible version of incompatibilism about free will and determinism and, more constructively, that a level-based approach to free will (...) has better chances to meet skeptical challenges if it is guided by reasoning at the moral level – a level that has not been seriously considered so far by proponents of this approach. (shrink)

Skepticism about blameworthiness says that there is good reason to doubt that, in our world, humans are ever blameworthy for their deeds. A significant problem for the discussion of this view is that it is unclear how to understand the kind of blame that should be at issue. This paper makes a new proposal. The basic idea is that the kind of blame skeptics should be skeptical about is constituted by responses that can violate the targets’ claims and by the (...) responders’ thought that the targets have forfeited this claim because of their morally objectionable actions and because of how they were when they performed them. This view identifies an important part of our everyday lives and frames discussions about skepticism about blameworthiness in a new way. (shrink)

A standard account of privacy says that it is essentially a kind of control over personal information. Many privacy scholars have argued against this claim by relying on so-called threatened loss cases. In these cases, personal information about an agent is easily available to another person, but not accessed. Critics contend that control accounts have the implausible implication that the privacy of the relevant agent is diminished in threatened loss cases. Recently, threatened loss cases have become important because Edward Snowden’s (...) revelation of how the NSA and GCHQ collected Internet and mobile phone data presents us with a gigantic, real-life threatened loss case. In this paper, I will defend the control account of privacy against the argument that is based on threatened loss cases. I will do so by developing a new version of the control account that implies that the agents’ privacy is not diminished in threatened loss cases. (shrink)