Background: This article aims to review research manuscripts in the past 5 years that focus on the effects of debt on depression, anxiety, stress, or suicide ideation in Asian countries.Methods: A search for literature based on the PRISMA guidelines was conducted on Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect, resulting in nine manuscripts meeting inclusion criteria. The studies were conducted in Thailand, Korea, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, and China.Results: The findings of the studies show that there is evidence to (...) support that being in debt is related to Asian participants experiencing depression, anxiety, stress, or suicide ideation. However, the studies are limited to quantitative studies only. The definition of debt is also unclear in most manuscripts. Few manuscripts also examined how other factors influence the relationship between debt and mental illness.Conclusion: There are limited studies on the psychological effects of debt on the Asian population. Future studies should focus on the relationship between debt and psychological well-being among this population. (shrink)

The twenty-first century is arguably the century of computing. In such a world saturated by computing, Computational Thinking is now recognized as a foundational competency for being an informed citizen and being successful in STEM work. Nevertheless, how to effectively import different types of teaching methods in university courses is subjected to further evaluation. Currently, the arguments in favor of tangible robots including high interaction, great practicality, and specific operation results make themselves to be often used as a teaching medium (...) and tool for teaching activities between teachers and students. Hence, in addition to cultivating students with computational thinking ability, this paper discussed how to integrate tangible robots into project-based learning courses of thinking skills training to improve the learning performance of the computational thinking ability. This study conducted in one semester on the 105 students from three classes. Experimental results show that the project-based learning method integrated with the teaching material of robotic visual programs approach had significantly better effectiveness in improving students' learning achievements than the traditional teaching method integrated with paper practice teaching materials approach. Analysis of the questionnaire results showed that the proposed learning approach did not increase the students' cognitive burden. In sum, the proposed approach helps students' learning achievement and cognitive load. (shrink)

This study aims to disclose how the magnetic resonance imaging neuroimaging approach has been applied in education studies, and what kind of learning themes has been investigated in the reviewed MRI neuroimaging research. Based on the keywords “brain or neuroimaging or neuroscience” and “MRI or diffusion tensor imaging or white matter or gray matter or resting-state,” a total of 25 papers were selected from the subject areas “Educational Psychology” and “Education and Educational Research” from the Web of Science and Scopus (...) from 2000 to 2019. Content analysis showed that MRI neuroimaging and learning were studied under the following three major topics and nine subtopics: cognitive function, science education, and brain development. As for the type of MRI neuroimaging research, the most frequently used approaches were functional MRI, followed by structural MRI and DTI, although the choice of approach was often motivated by the specific research question. Research development trends show that the neural plasticity theme has become more prominent recently. This study concludes that in educational research, the MRI neuroimaging approach provides objective and empirical evidence to connect learning processes, outcomes, and brain mechanisms. (shrink)

This book offers solutions to two persistent and I believe closely related problems in epistemology. The first problem is that of drawing a principled distinction between perception and inference: what is the difference between seeing that something is the case and merely believing it on the basis of what we do see? The second problem is that of specifying which beliefs are epistemologically basic (i.e., directly, or noninferentially, justified) and which are not. I argue that what makes a belief a (...) perceptual belief, or a basic belief, is not any introspectible feature of the belief but rather the nature of the cognitive system, or "module", that is causally responsible for the belief. Thus, even zombies, who in the philosophical literature lack conscious experiences altogether, can have basic, justified, perceptual beliefs. -/- The theories of perceptual and basic beliefs developed in the monograph are embedded in a larger reliabilist epistemology. I use this theory of basic beliefs to develop a detailed reliabilist theory: Inferentialist Reliabilism, which offers a reliabilist theory of inferential justification and which solves some longstanding problems for other reliabilist views by demanding inferential support for some—but not all—beliefs. The book is an instance of a thoroughgoingly naturalistic approach to epistemology. Many of my arguments have an empirical basis, and the view that I endorse reserves a central role for the cognitive sciences—in particular, cognitive neuroscience—in filling in the details of an applied epistemological theory. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of ethical climate on the relationship between the paternalistic leadership and team identification at the team level. In contrast to the prior studies which tended to focus on ethical climate as a whole dimension, this paper further classified the domain of construct into the categories of egoism, benevolence, and principle using a sample from 143 teams in Mainland China and Taiwan. Hierarchical regression results showed that the average paternalistic leadership had (...) a significant impact on the team identification at the team level. Moreover, the results indicated that the ethical climate of benevolence fully mediated while the ethical climate of egoism partially mediated the relationship between authoritarian leadership and team identification. Also, the ethical climates of benevolence and principle had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between benevolent leadership and team identification as well as moral leadership and team identification, respectively, but the ethical climate of egoism did not play a significant role. The major findings, theoretical contributions, practical implications, and the limitations were discussed. (shrink)

Biology lacks a central organism concept that unambiguously marks the distinction between organism and non-organism because the most important questions about organisms do not depend on this concept. I argue that the two main ways to discover useful biological generalizations about multicellular organization--the study of homology within multicellular lineages and of convergent evolution across lineages in which multicellularity has been independently established--do not require what would have to be a stipulative sharpening of an organism concept.

This essay reviews current work in conversation analysis with an eye to what it might contribute to the study of evidentiality and epistemic asymmetry. After a brief review of some aspects of the interactional organization of conversation, I turn to consider the way in which participants negotiate relative epistemic positioning through the use of particular practices of speaking. The analytic focus here is on agreements and confirmations especially in assessment sequences. In conclusion, I consider a single case in which various (...) practices are employed to convey a delicate balance of knowledge and simultaneously to attend to a range of other, non-epistemic, interactional issues. (shrink)

ZU "HEGEL UND DER STAAT" Der erste, der das Leben Hegels schrieb, war der Konigsberger Professor Karl Rosenkranz. Sein Buch erschien 1844. Der Verfasser hatte Hegel noch seIber gekannt. Unter den person lichen treuge­ bliebenen Schiilern ist er einer der freieren; ohne daB er seinen Anschauungen nach gerade der Hegelschen Linken zuzurechnen ware, ist ihm doch manches mit ihr gemein; nicht bloB eine gewisse Selbstandigkeit gegeniiber der Systematik des Meisters, sondern mehr noch eine eigentiimliche Zersplitterung und Beweglichkeit des Empfindens, ein (...) unruhig stoffsiichtiges Hineingreifen in die Schatze der Zeit und Vergangenheit, ein starker Hang endlich zum geist­ reichen Widersinn stell en den Verfasser der "Asthetik des HaBlichen" fast eher in die Reihe der StrauB, Bauer, Feuerbach als zu den Marheineke, Gabler und Henning. Sein Hegelbuch zeigt von diesen Eigenschaften verhaltnismaBig wenig; sie sind da zuriickge­ drangt durch die fromme Achtung des Schiilers gegen den toten Meister und wohl auch durch den Ernst des BewuBtseins, sozusagen im amtlichen Auf trag der Schule zu schreiben: die Lebensgeschichte trat an die Offentlichkeit als Erganzungsband zu den Werken. Auch die Menge handschriftlichen Stoffes, die das Buch im Abdruck oder Auszug brachte, tat das ihre, dem Verfasser den Ratim fiir seine eigenen Fliige einzuengen. Immerhin wird der Leser des noch heute unentbehrlichen und urn seiner ausgepragten und zeitcharakteristi­ schen Eigenart willen wohl nie ganz iiberftiissig zu machenden Buchs noch genug wunderbare Einfalle darin finden. (shrink)

Operational definitions of biological altruism in terms of actual fitness exchanges will not work because they include accidental acts as altruistic and exclude altruistic acts that have gone awry. I argue that the definition of biological altruism should contain an analogue of the role intention plays in psychological altruism. I consider two possibilities for this analogue, selected effect functions and the proximate causes and effects of behavior. I argue that the selected-effect function account will not work because it confuses the (...) explanation of some altruistic behavior with the definition of all of it and the information needed to justify a selected effect account of function is too often inaccessible. Close attention to the proximate explanations of a behavior is all that is needed to determine if an act is biologically altruistic, returning biological altruism to descriptive ethology, where it belongs. (shrink)

We describe an emerging field, that of nonclassical computability and nonclassical computing machinery. According to the nonclassicist, the set of well-defined computations is not exhausted by the computations that can be carried out by a Turing machine. We provide an overview of the field and a philosophical defence of its foundations.

Many epistemologists endorse a view I call “evidence essentialism:” if e is evidence of h, for some agent at some time, then necessarily, e is evidence of h, for any agent at any time. I argue that such a view is only plausible if we ignore cognitive diversity among epistemic agents, i.e., the fact that different agents have different—sometimes radically different—cognitive skills, abilities, and proclivities. Instead, cognitive diversity shows that evidential relations are contingent and relative to cognizers. This is especially (...) obvious in extreme cases and in connection with epistemic defeat, but it is also very plausibly true of ordinary agents, and regarding prima facie justification. (shrink)

The purpose of aesthetic research is to uncover the internal method in human aesthetic behaviors and to answer the following questions: Where do beautiful things come from? Why are things beautiful? What is the reason that some things are beautiful while others are not? How can people derive aesthetic pleasure? Until those fundamental problems are solved, further questions cannot be answered, such as “Why do some people like certain things, while other people like other things?” and “How does human aesthetic (...) taste develop?”The aesthetic study established by the Greek philosophical aesthetician Plato is an ontological approach that suggests that there is something decisive in beautiful things that makes them... (shrink)

The True Teaching, Practice and Realization of the Pure Land Way, A translation of Shinran's Kyogyoshinsho, Vol. 1. Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Hongwanji International Center, Kyoto 1983. 200 pp. N. P.

The concept of self-interest is core to modern understandings of individual desire and need. It is also central in the concept of homo economicus and, in a variety of forms, underpins economic science. The critical discussion of the notion of self-interest in William Hazlitt, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action ([1805] 1969), remains unknown in sociology and economics even though it resolves a number of key problems associated with the concept and makes an original, indeed, unique contribution to (...) action theory. In particular, Hazlitt shows that the basis on which an individual pursues their own interest is identical with their sympathy with the interests of others. Hazlitt shows that a clear distinction between self and other cannot be sustained, and that an individual is as remote from their future self as they are from any other person. Even the `sexual appetite' Hazlitt shows cannot be understood in terms of simple self-interest as it is stimulated and consummated through mental and reciprocal capacities. These and related aspects of Hazlitt's Principles are set out below, and their relevance for an understanding of self-interested action and self-formation is demonstrated. (shrink)

Taking into account Jones’s adoption of principles of modernist poetics—juxtaposition, allusion, and parataxis, all geared “to create newness”—this essay examines the theological ramifications for the poet’s breaking down, in his semi-autobiographical World War I poem, of modernist order and control. Jones unravels modernist aesthetics, conveying their inadequacy to the brutal realities of war. A space for religious belief appears through this process, but one not of heightened understanding; instead it is a via negativa, an unknowing, consonant with ideas from medieval (...) mysticism but applied to the modern Waste Land. This pattern is borne out in Jones’s handling of the medieval trope of “misadventure,” his references to Eliot, his play on the word “line,” and his development of the concept of “parenthesis.”. (shrink)

has been put forth by Rolston, which leads to respect for the irreversibly comatose by virtue of the residual biological (objective) life. By comparing objective and subjective life, he develops a naturalistic principle which he contrasts with the humanistic norm of contemporary medical ethics. He claims there are clinical applications which would necessarily follow. A critique of this viewpoint is presented here, which begins with an analysis of what might be of value in spontaneous objective life. A measure of the (...) moral worth of simple objective life is attempted by means of comparison with our attitudes toward animals. Finally, some of the clinical applications suggested by Rolston are reviewed. Except for euthanasia, there appear to be few clinical situations where the naturalistic principle helps in problem solving. Keywords: naturalistic principle, value of life, irreversibly comatose CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In the aftermath of the horrors of the First World War and during the years of American Prohibition, Paris became a cheap and popular tourist destination as well as the home to a new generation of aspiring writers from artists including Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. Novels written during that period and memoirs remembering it have described the exciting, boozy community there but none have been read as widely as Hemingway’s The Sun Also (...) Rises and A Moveable Feast. This paper aims to discuss the ways in which alcohol and sports play a part in the community of American expatriates in 1920s Paris and how this can be seen in particular in Hemingway’s works. It will also discuss how the prevalence of alcohol and sports in this period affected Hemingway and his work for the rest of his life. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe studies showed the benefits of virtual reality training for functional mobility and balance in older adults. However, a large variance in the study design and results is presented. We, thus, completed a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantitatively examine the effects of VRT on functional mobility and balance in healthy older adults.MethodsWe systematically reviewed the publications in five databases. Studies that examine the effects of VRT on the measures of functional mobility and balance in healthy older adults were screened (...) and included if eligible. Subgroup analyses were completed to explore the effects of different metrics of the intervention design on those outcomes related to functional mobility and balance.ResultsFifteen studies of 704 participants were included. The quality of these studies was good. Compared to traditional physical therapy, VRT induced greater improvement in TUG and one-leg stance with open eyes. Subgroup analyses revealed that immersive VRT with more than 800 min of total intervention time over 8 weeks and at least 120 min per week and/or designed by the two motor-learning principles was optimal for functional mobility and balance.ConclusionVirtual reality training can significantly improve functional mobility and balance in healthy older adults compared to TPT, and the findings provided critical knowledge of the optimized design of VRT that can inform future studies with more rigorous designs.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/], identifier [CRD42021297085]. (shrink)

Background: Nosocomial infections represent a serious challenge for healthcare systems worldwide. Adherence to hand hygiene plays a major role in infection prevention and control. These adherence rates can be improved through behaviour tracking innovations. This requires the systems to be widely implemented and accepted. Therefore, both a systematic analysis of the normative issues related and the evaluation of technology acceptance are equally important. Objectives: To explore and describe relevant aspects regarding the acceptance of technology and ethical implications using a tracking (...) device to measure and improve adherence to hand hygiene. Research design: A quantitative study with a descriptive design was performed. Participants and research context: A total of 75 questionnaires were collected in three hospitals in Germany. Acceptance of technology was measured with n = 60 participants (n = 50 nurses; n = 9 physicians; n = 1 not disclosed) and ethical assessment with n = 15 participants (nurses only). Ethical considerations: Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the institutional review board. Findings: The acceptance of technologies improving hygiene in general was good (median = 80.5, interquartile range = 28, range: 0–100). The experience with technologies in general (median = 48.5, interquartile range = 57, range: 0–100) and the acceptance of the specific technology (mean = 82.23, standard deviation = 15.16 (range: 23–138)) was moderate. There was a significant positive correlation between the acceptance and experience of technology in general ( r = 0.217, p =.025). Ethical concerns played a minor role. The need for practical support was a key topic. Discussion: Study participants accepted technologies improving hygiene; however, the specific device implemented was only moderately accepted. This creates specific opportunities in the implementation process for higher later acceptance. More practical support and an increase in experience may create opportunities for device implementation with high acceptance and low ethical concerns. Conclusion: Study results indicate a vast potential for improving the implementation process of hand hygiene technologies. Ethical concerns in this study did not seem to be a relevant barrier for successful implementation of hand hygiene technologies. (shrink)

This article uses the “Green Credit Guidelines” issued in 2012 as a quasi-natural experiment, using the statistics of A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2017, using the PSM-DID model to examine the effect and mechanism of green credit policies on the investment efficiency of heavily polluting companies, and taking into consideration the heterogeneous influence of the financial ecological environment on the relationship between the two. The research indicates that, after the Green Credit Guidelines were promulgated, the investment efficiency of heavy-polluting (...) companies has been slightly improved compared with non-heavy-polluting companies and that the impact is more obvious in regions with better financial ecological environment. The research conclusions confirm the beneficial effects of the Green Credit Guidelines policy on the prudent investment of companies that cause serious pollution to the environment and improve investment efficiency, a provision of empirical evidence for financial leverage to drive the green economy transformation. (shrink)

This article examines turns prefaced by `look'. Analysis indicates that `look'-prefaced turns in first position are used to launch a course of action. In second position, prefacing by `look' serves to mark a disjunction and redirection of the talk away from the conditionally relevant next action and towards some alternative. Examples from recorded conversations and news interviews reveal participants' own orientation to these functions of `look'-prefaced turns. Moreover, comparison with turns prefaced by `listen', which also launch courses of action, suggests (...) that `look'-prefaced turns have an intercessionary function. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work is commonly associated with the philosophical movement called existentialism and its intention to begin with an analysis of the concrete experiences, perceptions, and difficulties, of human existence. However, he never propounded quite the same extreme accounts of radical freedom, being-towards-death, anguished responsibility, and conflicting relations with others, for which existentialism became both famous and notorious in the 1940s and 1950s. Perhaps because of this, he did not initially receive the same amount of attention as his French contemporaries (...) and friends, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. These days though, his phenomenological analyses are arguably being given more attention than either, in both France and in the Anglo-American context, because they retain an ongoing relevance in fields as diverse as cognitive science, medical ethics, ecology, sociology and psychology. Although it is difficult to summarize Merleau-Ponty’s work into neat propositions, we can say that he sought to develop a radical re-description of embodied experience (with a primacy given to studies of perception), and argued that these phenomena could not be suitably understood b y the philosophical tradition because of its tendency to drift between two flawed and equally unsatisfactory alternatives: empiricism and, what he called, intellectualism. This article will seek to explain his understanding of perception, bodily movement, habit, ambiguity, and relations with others, as they were expressed in his key early work, Phenomenology of Perception, before exploring the enigmatic ontology of the chiasm and the flesh that is so evocatively described in his unfinished book, The Visible and the Invisible. (shrink)

In this thought-provoking study, Jack Russell Weinstein suggests the foundations of liberalism can be found in the writings of Adam Smith, a pioneer of modern economic theory and a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. While offering an interpretive methodology for approaching Smith’s two major works, _The Theory of Moral Sentiments _and _The Wealth of Nations_, Weinstein argues against the libertarian interpretation of Smith, emphasizing his philosophies of education and rationality. Weinstein also demonstrates that Smith should be recognized for (...) a prescient theory of pluralism that prefigures current theories of cultural diversity. (shrink)

Une analyse de l'interprétation de la philosophie spinoziste comme philosophie de l'immanence soutenue par G. Deleuze, notamment dans "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" (Paris: Éd. Minuit, 1991).

This article explores impact investing within the renewable energy sector. Drawing on ethical decision making and sensemaking, this article contributes to an enhanced understanding of the complex ethical sensemaking process of impact investors when facing plausible situations in a world of contested truths. Addressing the ethical tensions faced by impact investors with mixed motives, this study investigates the way decision makers use context-specific reasons to make sense of and shape the renewable energy investment process. This represents an initial attempt to (...) understand ethical sensemaking in impact investing made within the renewable energy sector using a multi-stakeholder approach. Our findings show that prosocial, personal, reputational, and economic motives are the main drivers of REI, with prosocial and personal motives being value-based, and reputational and economic motives being evidence-based. We find three different modes of ethical sensemaking, allowing for the construction of the four motives noted above. These motives are based on the context-specific reasons of impact investing decision makers in the RE sector. This article contributes to the academic discourse on ethical sensemaking with some key processes involved in ethical decision making, and a better understanding of the underlying motivations of impact investing in the RE sector. (shrink)

"This book does not treat Smith as an historical curiosity who has accomplished all that he was capable of. It treats Smith as someone with a contemporary message. That capitalism is the dominant political system in the contemporary world is almost without doubt. That capitalism is succeeding, however, is much more contentious. I will argue that Smith would challenge such claims of success. As the standard of living rises in most of the world, few could challenge the notion that vast (...) numbers of people are being left behind. While some countries gorge themselves into obesity, others starve. Furthermore, while the information revolution has made access to recorded knowledge easier than ever, global cultural experience is becoming whitewashed in a money- and media-driven frenzy of homogeneity. Every generation has complained that their successors are intellectually inferior and poorly educated. Sometimes the weaker of us are forced to wonder whether this time it might be true.". (shrink)

This paper aims at a partial rehabilitation of E. A. Moody''s characterization of the 14th century as an age of rising empiricism, specifically by contrasting the conception of the natural science of psychology found in the writings of a prominent 13th-century philosopher (Thomas Aquinas) with those of two 14th-century philosophers (John Buridan and Nicole Oresme). What emerges is that if the meaning of empiricism can be disengaged from modern and contemporary paradigms, and understood more broadly in terms of a cluster (...) of epistemic doctrines concerned with the methodology of knowing, it characterizes very appropriately some of the differences between the ways in which late-medieval thinkers both understood and practised the science of psychology. In particular, whereas Aquinas thinks psychology is about reasoning demonstratively to the real nature of the soul from its evident operations (thereby assimilating psychology to metaphysics), Buridan and Oresme, both of whom doubt whether real animate natures can be known empirically, focus on giving detailed accounts of those operations themselves (thereby assimilating psychology to physics). (shrink)

It is obvious that technology is rapidly changing the world around us. Nowhere is that change more evident than in the revolution occurring for those with physical and mental limitations-their portrayal in the media, their use of the media to achieve group aims and their use of the new on-line media to communicate with others who have limitations and the non-disabled world. In a very real way the growing sense of community among those with disabilities has been linked to the (...) media. (shrink)

In Telling Flesh: the Substance 0f the C0rporeul, Vicki Kirby suggests, among other things, that it is not in the interests of feminism to propound what she describes as an ‘inessentialist’ position in regards to embodiment. While she objects to undifferentiating biological givens that might, for example, attempt to construe women as confined to a nurturing role, she also does not want to simplistically insist that embodiment has nothing to do with subjectivity. To pose the problem in terms more closely (...) aligned with her own, Kirby is wary of the tendency to simply reverse binary oppositions, to swap nature for culture, reality for representation, and originary cause for interpretive effect. According to her, themes like ‘textuality’, and linguistic ideality have all but replaced the notion of ‘reality’. As arguably the pre-eminent ‘continental’ philosopher of our generation, the work of Derrida is invariably associated with this reversal of binary oppositions that seem to prohibit recourse to questions concerning embodiment. Several critics have even suggested that deconstruction is nothing but semiological reductionism in disguise. However, Kirby’s thesis, via an extended meditation upon Derrida’s claim that "there is nothing outside of the text," constitutes an important attempt to redeem him from such criticism. Rather than eschewing any and every reference to the body, she wants to insist that deconstruction cannot be contained within such a framework, and that it makes sense, within the logic of Of Grummutology (and she also pays cursory attention to Derrida’s ""Eating Well," or the Calculation of the Subject"), to conceive of embodiment in deconstructive terms. Examining the coherence of this claim will be the main focus of this paper, though in order to facilitate this task, this paper will also compare the notion of embodiment that Kirby espouses, to a curiously similar conception of the body that Merleau-Ponty theorizes in his unfinished text The Wsible und the Invisible.. (shrink)