A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), "it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.” Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in a world like ours. In this paper, I show that it can be achieved in a simple way and (...) discuss its implications for metaphysics and philosophy of science, including natural properties, free will, explanation, and modality. First, I propose a precise definition of strong determinism. Next, I discuss its philosophical ramifications and a toy example. Finally, I provide a realistic example of a strongly deterministic (and simple) physical theory---the Everettian Wentaculus. A surprising consequence is that whether or not our world is strongly deterministic may be empirically underdetermined. (shrink)

If there are fundamental laws of nature, can they fail to be exact? In this paper, I consider the possibility that some fundamental laws are vague. I call this phenomenon 'fundamental nomic vagueness.' I characterize fundamental nomic vagueness as the existence of borderline lawful worlds and the presence of several other accompanying features. Under certain assumptions, such vagueness prevents the fundamental physical theory from being completely expressible in the mathematical language. Moreover, I suggest that such vagueness can be regarded as (...) 'vagueness in the world.' For a case study, we turn to the Past Hypothesis, a postulate that (partially) explains the direction of time in our world. We have reasons to take it seriously as a candidate fundamental law of nature. Yet it is vague: it admits borderline (nomologically) possible worlds. An exact version would lead to an untraceable arbitrariness absent in any other fundamental laws. However, the dilemma between fundamental nomic vagueness and untraceable arbitrariness is dissolved in a new quantum theory of time's arrow. (shrink)

In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, it is standard to postulate that the initial wave function started in a particular macrostate---the special low-entropy macrostate selected by the Past Hypothesis. Moreover, there is an additional postulate about statistical mechanical probabilities according to which the initial wave function is a ''typical'' choice in the macrostate. Together, they support a probabilistic version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: typical initial wave functions will increase in entropy. Hence, there are two (...) sources of randomness in such a universe: the quantum-mechanical probabilities of the Born rule and the statistical mechanical probabilities of the Statistical Postulate. I propose a new way to understand time's arrow in a quantum universe. It is based on what I call the Thermodynamic Theories of Quantum Mechanics. According to this perspective, there is a natural choice for the initial quantum state of the universe, which is given by not a wave function but by a density matrix. The density matrix plays a microscopic role: it appears in the fundamental dynamical equations of those theories. The density matrix also plays a macroscopic / thermodynamic role: it is exactly the projection operator onto the Past Hypothesis subspace. Thus, given an initial subspace, we obtain a unique choice of the initial density matrix. I call this property "the conditional uniqueness" of the initial quantum state. The conditional uniqueness provides a new and general strategy to eliminate statistical mechanical probabilities in the fundamental physical theories, by which we can reduce the two sources of randomness to only the quantum mechanical one. I also explore the idea of an absolutely unique initial quantum state, in a way that might realize Penrose's idea of a strongly deterministic universe. (shrink)

Two of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics are (1) what gives rise to the arrow of time and (2) what the ontology of quantum mechanics is. I propose a unified 'Humean' solution to the two problems. Humeanism allows us to incorporate the Past Hypothesis and the Statistical Postulate into the best system, which we then use to simplify the quantum state of the universe. This enables us to confer the nomological status to the quantum state in (...) a way that adds no significant complexity to the best system and solves the ''supervenient-kind problem'' facing the original version of the Past Hypothesis. We call the resultant theory the Humean unification. It provides a unified explanation of time asymmetry and quantum entanglement. On this theory, what gives rise to time's arrow is also responsible for quantum phenomena. The new theory has a separable mosaic, a best system that is simple and non-vague, less tension between quantum mechanics and special relativity, and a higher degree of theoretical and dynamical unity. The Humean unification leads to new insights that can be useful to Humeans and non-Humeans alike. (shrink)

In this short survey article, I discuss Bell’s theorem and some strategies that attempt to avoid the conclusion of non-locality. I focus on two that intersect with the philosophy of probability: (1) quantum probabilities and (2) superdeterminism. The issues they raised not only apply to a wide class of no-go theorems about quantum mechanics but are also of general philosophical interest.

In this paper, I characterize and elaborate on the “Wentaculus” theory, a new approach to time’s arrow in a quantum universe that offers a unified solution to the problems of what gives rise to the arrow of time and what the ontology of quantum mechanics is.

What is the quantum state of the universe? Although there have been several interesting suggestions, the question remains open. In this paper, I consider a natural choice for the universal quantum state arising from the Past Hypothesis, a boundary condition that accounts for the time-asymmetry of the universe. The natural choice is given not by a wave function but by a density matrix. I begin by classifying quantum theories into two types: theories with a fundamental wave function and theories with (...) a fundamental density matrix. The Past Hypothesis is compatible with infinitely many initial wave functions, none of which seems to be particularly natural. However, once we turn to density matrices, the Past Hypothesis provides a natural choice---the normalized projection onto the Past Hypothesis subspace in the Hilbert space. Nevertheless, the two types of theories can be empirically equivalent. To provide a concrete understanding of the empirical equivalence, I provide a novel subsystem analysis in the context of Bohmian theories. Given the empirical equivalence, it seems empirically underdetermined whether the universe is in a pure state or a mixed state. Finally, I discuss some theoretical payoffs of the density-matrix theories and present some open problems for future research. (Bibliographic note: the thesis was submitted for the Master of Science in mathematics at Rutgers University.). (shrink)

Background: High ethical sensitivity positively affects the quality of nursing care; nevertheless, Chinese nurses’ ethical sensitivity and the factors influencing it have not been described. Research objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe ethical sensitivity and to explore factors influencing it among Chinese-registered nurses, to help nursing administrators improve nurses’ ethical sensitivity, build harmony between nurses and patients, and promote the patients’ health. Research design: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. Participants and research context: We recruited 500 nurses (...) from several departments in three tertiary hospitals. The Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised version and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals were used to assess the nurses’ ethical sensitivity and empathy ability, respectively. Fifteen sociodemographic variables were included in the questionnaires. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was obtained from the participants regarding participation and data storage and handling. This program has been examined and supported by the research center of medical ethics and professional ethics of Guilin Medical University. The Approval No. was 2016RWYB04. The whole research process is conducted strictly according to ethical requirements. Results: The valid response rate was 84.40% ( n = 422). The total score of Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire–Revised was 35.82 ± 8.17. The subscale scores of moral responsibility and strength and sense of moral burden were 21.50 ± 4.91 and 14.33 ± 3.98, respectively. Significant differences were found among age groups, gender, years of working, category of profession, and quality of family communication regarding nurses’ ethical sensitivity ( p < 0.05). Regression analysis showed that the main factors influencing nurses’ ethical sensitivity were gender, years of working, quality of family communication, career satisfaction, and empathic ability. Discussion: Our findings suggest that Chinese nurses’ ethical sensitivity in tertiary hospitals in Guilin is at a medium level. Conclusion: The director of nursing schools and hospitals in China should pay attention to nurses’ ethical sensitivity and should intensify education and training to improve nurses’ ethical sensitivity. Further studies should focus on interventions aimed at improving Chinese nurses’ ethical sensitivity. (shrink)

According to the algebraic approach to spacetime, a thoroughgoing dynamicism, physical fields exist without an underlying manifold. This view is usually implemented by postulating an algebraic structure (e.g., commutative ring) of scalar-valued functions, which can be interpreted as representing a scalar field, and deriving other structures from it. In this work, we point out that this leads to the unjustified primacy of an undetermined scalar field. Instead, we propose to consider algebraic structures in which all (and only) physical fields are (...) primitive. We explain how the theory of natural operations in differential geometry—the modern formalism behind classifying diffeomorphism-invariant constructions—can be used to obtain concrete implementations of this idea for any given collection of fields. For concrete examples, we illustrate how our approach applies to a number of particular physical fields, including electrodynamics coupled to a Weyl spinor. (shrink)

The book offers an interdisciplinary perspective on finance, with a special focus on stock markets. It presents new methodologies for analyzing stock markets’ behavior and discusses theories and methods of finance from different angles, such as the mathematical, physical and philosophical ones. The book, which aims at philosophers and economists alike, represents a rare yet important attempt to unify the externalist with the internalist conceptions of finance.

Human behavior depends on the ability to effectively introspect about our performance. For simple perceptual decisions, this introspective or metacognitive ability varies substantially across individuals and is correlated with the structure of focal areas in prefrontal cortex. This raises the possibility that the ability to introspect about different perceptual decisions might be mediated by a common cognitive process. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether inter-individual differences in metacognitive ability were correlated across two different perceptual tasks where individuals made judgments (...) about different and unrelated visual stimulus properties. We found that inter-individual differences were strongly correlated between the two tasks for metacognitive ability but not objective performance. Such stability of an individual’s metacognitive ability across different perceptual tasks indicates a general mechanism supporting metacognition independent of the specific task. (shrink)

Given the paradoxical nature of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), that it simultaneously involves sincere extraordinary efforts to help the organization but violates ethical norms, we examined its paradoxical psychological and behavioral outcomes in the workplace. We hypothesized that UPB generates simultaneous but conflicting feelings: On one hand, guilt (for having behaved unethically) and on the other, psychological entitlement (for having done something positive for the organization). In turn, these conflicting psychological states differentially affect two conflicting behaviors. Feelings of guilt motivate (...) customer service behavior but reduce self-serving cheating, whereas psychological entitlement does the opposite. We further hypothesized that moral identity centrality moderates the paradoxical effects of UPB. Data from three studies using experimental and field methodologies demonstrated support for all hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings. (shrink)

Banks play a unique role in society. They not only maximize profits but also consider the interests of stakeholders. We investigate whether banks consider firms’ pollution records in their lending decisions. The evidence shows that banks offer significantly higher loan spreads, higher total borrowing costs, shorter loan maturities, and greater collateral to firms with higher levels of chemical pollution. The costly effects are stronger for borrowers with greater risk and weaker corporate governance. Further, the results show that banks with higher (...) social responsibility account for their borrowers’ environmental performance and charge higher loan spreads to those with poor performance. These results support the idea that banks with higher social responsibility can promote the practice of business ethics in firms. (shrink)

Morality, in the context of luxury counterfeit goods, has been widely discussed in existing literature as having a strong association with decreased purchase intention. However, drawing on moral disengagement theory, we argue that individuals are motivated to justify their immoral behaviors through guilt avoidance, thus increasing counterfeit purchase intention. This research demonstrates that consumers’ desire to purchase counterfeit luxuries hinges on two types of moral reasoning strategies: moral rationalization and moral decoupling. The empirical results show that each strategy increases purchase (...) intention, but respectively through moral judgment and perceived benefit. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed. (shrink)

Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie epistemic (...) value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection. (shrink)

We examine the effect of the cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) activities of Chinese firms on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. We find that Chinese acquirers significantly increase CSR performance and CSR spending following cross-border M&As. The legal origins and social norms of host countries are found to positively affect the acquirers’ CSR performance and CSR spending in the post-M&A period. The results are consistent with Chinese acquirers signaling their commitment toward CSR through cross-border M&As to respond to diverse (...) stakeholder demands and strengthen corporate reputation. We also provide evidence that Chinese firms’ knowledge acquisition through cross-border M&As boosts green innovation. In addition, we show that the financial performance of Chinese acquirers does not suffer in the long term, indicating that strategic CSR investments can be integrated with other corporate investment activities. Our study demonstrates how cross-border M&As affect stakeholder value beyond value for shareholders. (shrink)

The gaze cueing effect is characterized by faster attentional orienting to a gazed-at than a non-gazed-at target. This effect is often enhanced when the gazing face bears an emotional expression, though this finding is modulated by a number of factors. Here, we tested whether the type of task performed might be one such modulating factor. Target localization and target discrimination tasks are the two most commonly used gaze cueing tasks, and they arguably differ in cognitive resources, which could impact how (...) emotional expression and gaze cues are integrated to orient attention. In a within-subjects design, participants performed both target localization and discrimination gaze cueing tasks with neutral, happy, and fearful faces. The gaze cueing effect for neutral faces was greatly reduced in the discrimination task relative to the localization task, and the emotional enhancement of the gaze cueing effect was only present in the localization task and only when this task was performed first. These results suggest that cognitive resources are needed for gaze cueing and for the integration of emotional expressions and gaze cues. We propose that a shift toward local processing may be the mechanism by which the discrimination task interferes with the emotional modulation of gaze cueing. The results support the idea that gaze cueing can be greatly modulated by top-down influences and cognitive resources and thus taps into endogenous attention. Results are discussed within the context of the recently proposed EyeTune model of social attention. (shrink)

Policies promoted and adopted for allocating ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic have often prioritised healthcare workers or other essential workers. While the need for such policies has so far been largely averted, renewed stress on health systems from continuing surges, as well as the experience of allocating another scarce resource—vaccination—counsel revisiting the justifications for such prioritisation. Prioritising healthcare workers may have intuitive appeal, but the ethical justifications for doing so and the potential harms that could follow require careful analysis. Ethical (...) justifications commonly offered for healthcare worker prioritisation for ventilators rest on two social value criteria: instrumental value, also known as the ‘multiplier effect’, which may preserve the ability of healthcare workers to help others, and reciprocity, which rewards past usefulness or sacrifice. We argue that these justifications are insufficient to over-ride the common moral commitment to value each person’s life equally. Institutional policies prioritising healthcare workers over other patients also violate other ethical norms of the healthcare professions, including the commitment to put patients first. Furthermore, policy decisions to prioritise healthcare workers for ventilators could engender or deepen existing distrust of the clinicians, hospitals and health systems where those policies exist, even if they are never invoked. (shrink)

In this paper, I will identify two problems of trust in an AI-relevant context: a theoretical problem and a practical one. I will identify and address a number of skeptical challenges to an AI-relevant theory of trust. In addition, I will identify what I shall term the ‘scope challenge’, which I take to hold for any AI-relevant theory of trust that purports to be representationally adequate to the multifarious forms of trust and AI. Thereafter, I will suggest how trust-engineering, a (...) position that is intermediate between the modified pure rational-choice account and an account that gives rise to trustworthy AI, might allow us to address the practical problem of trust, before identifying and critically evaluating two candidate trust-engineering approaches. (shrink)

Could translation be fully automated? We must first acknowledge the complexity, ambiguity, and diversity of natural languages. These aspects of natural languages, when combined with a particular dilemma known as the computational dilemma, appear to imply that the machine translator faces certain obstacles that a human translator has already managed to overcome. At the same time, science has not yet solved the problem of how human brains process natural languages and how human beings come to acquire natural language understanding. We (...) will then distinguish between the task of translation and the responsibility of the translator. Thereafter, we will conduct a survey of the methods of machine translation (viz. RBMT, SMT, NMT, foundation models or large language models). These methods will then be critically evaluated both in general and relative to Bar-Hillel’s hypothesis about the impossibility of fully automatic, high-quality machine translation (Fahqmt). Some concluding remarks will be made about the scope, prospects, and limits of machine translation. (shrink)

In this paper, I advance an original view of the structure of space called Infinitesimal Gunk. This view says that every region of space can be further divided and some regions have infinitesimal size, where infinitesimals are understood in the framework of Robinson’s nonstandard analysis. This view, I argue, provides a novel reply to the inconsistency arguments proposed by Arntzenius and Russell, which have troubled a more familiar gunky approach. Moreover, it has important advantages over the alternative views these authors (...) suggested. Unlike Arntzenius’s proposal, it does not introduce regions with no interior. It also has a much richer measure theory than Russell’s proposal and does not retreat to mere finite additivity. (shrink)

Having enjoyed remarkable economic success, China’s natural environment is being increasingly degraded, and with it, the quality of life. Researchers and environmentalists have responded by...

The current public health crisis has exposed deep cracks in social equality and justice for marginalised and vulnerable communities around the world. The reported rise in the number of ‘do not resuscitate’ orders being imposed on people with disabilities has caused particular concerns from a human rights perspective. While the evidence of this is contested, this article will consider the human rights implications at stake and the dangers associated with using ‘quality of life’ measures as determinant of care in medical (...) decision-making and triage assessments. (shrink)

Item response theory (IRT) is a modern psychometric framework for estimating respondents’ latent traits (e.g., ability, attitude, and personality) based on their responses to a set of questions in psychological tests. The current study adopted an item response tree (IRTree) method, which combines the tree model with IRT models for handling the sequential process of responding to a test item, to score individual moral inclination for the CNI test—a broadly adopted model for examining humans’ moral decision-making with three parameters generated: (...) sensitivity to moral norms, sensitivity to consequences, and inaction preference. Compared to previous models for the CNI test, the resulting EIRTree-CNI Model is able to generate individual scores without increasing the number of items (thus, less subject fatigue or compromised response quality) or employing a post hoc approach that is deemed statistically suboptimal. The model fits the data well, and the subsequent test also supported the concurrent validity and the predictive validity of the model. Limitations are discussed further. (shrink)

This study examines the role of codes of ethics in reducing the extent to which managers act opportunistically in reporting earnings. Corporate codes of ethics, by clarifying the boundaries of ethical corporate behaviors and making relevant social norms more salient, have the potential to deter managers from engaging in opportunistic financial reporting practices. In a sample of international companies, we find that the quality of corporate codes of ethics is associated with higher earnings quality, i.e., lower discretionary accruals. Our results (...) are confirmed for a subsample of firms more likely to be engaging in opportunistic reporting behavior, i.e., firms that just meet or beat analysts’ forecasts. Further, codes of ethics play a greater role in reducing earnings management for firms in countries with weaker investor protection mechanisms. Our results suggest that corporate codes of ethics can be a viable alternative to country-level investor protection mechanisms in curbing aggressive reporting behaviors. (shrink)

Background: Moral distress occurs when nurses experience ethical dilemmas. Issues related to these dilemmas are addressed in some nursing education courses. Nurses’ reaction to dilemma such as moral distress is relatively less noticed. Objective: This study aimed to identify and describe the various types of perceptions of moral distress exhibited by nurses. Research design: This study applied Q methodology to explore the perspectives of nurses regarding moral distress. Data were collected in two stages. First, in-depth interviews were conducted to collect (...) nurses’ opinions. Sentences that best fit the concepts of moral distress were extracted for the construction of Q statements. Second, nurses subjectively ranked these Q statements so that the relevant severity of moral distress could be determined using Q sorts. The study participants were nurses at a regional teaching hospital in northeast Taiwan. A total of 60 participants were invited to rank 40 moral distress Q statements. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of National Yang-Ming University Hospital. Only the participants who signed an informed consent form participated in the study. The respondents’ right to withdraw from the study was respected. Findings: Five types of responses were identified regarding the nurses’ perspectives. These types were “conflict with personal values,” “excessive of workload,” “curbing of autonomy,” “constraint engendered by organizational norms,” and “self-expectation frustration.” Conclusion: The findings regarding nurses’ experiences of moral distress can be used to construct multifaceted policies and solutions and to incorporate ethical education in training programs. (shrink)

We expect the laws of nature that describe the universe to be exact, but what if that isn't true? In this popular science article, I discuss the possibility that some candidate fundamental laws of nature, such as the Past Hypothesis, may be vague. This possibility is in conflict with the idea that the fundamental laws of nature can always and faithfully be described by classical mathematics. -/- [Bibliographic note: this article is featured on the magazine website under a different title (...) as "The fuzzy law that could break the idea of a mathematical universe" and on the magazine cover as "The Flaw at the Heart of Reality: Why precise mathematical laws can never fully explain the universe." It is a popular version of the article "Nomic Vagueness" that can be found on arXiv: 2006.05298.]. (shrink)

The study of dialectical logic has a history of nearly one hundred years in China. It is significant for understanding both the growth of Chinese logic and the Sinicization of Marxism to review dialectical logic in the context of introducing the study of Marxism in China. Debates about dialectical logic in Chinese academic circles involve not only the problems of logic itself, but more importantly the understanding of Marxist philosophy. In the 1920s and 1930s, some Marxist researchers in China were (...) influenced by the philosophers and logicians of the former Soviet Union, and they came very close to equating dialectical logic with Marxist dialectics. They also identified the formal logic originating from ancient Greece as metaphysics, praising the former and criticizing the latter. In the upsurge of Marxist philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese logicians carried out normal and formal academic research on dialectical logic. During the period from the end of 1970s to the end of 1990s, the research and teaching of dialectical logic in China reached its heyday, and logicians performed comprehensive and detailed research on some critical issues, including the basic laws of dialectical logic, which they tried to formalize. Since the beginning of the 21st century, dialectical logic has ceased to prosper and has faded from the core field of the discipline of logic, although some honorable scholars still persist in studying it. (shrink)

Joining the dialogue on the role of management scholars, we propose to cultivate all-round scholars to fulfill the needs of our stakeholders; only by becoming responsible scholars can we achieve responsible scholarship.

The Zhuangzi is perhaps the one and only work in classical Chinese philosophy that never fails to blow one's mind with its exquisite intertwining of high frivolousness, literary power, ambiguity, ambivalence, profundity and provocativeness all at once. There is urgent need of a translation able to transmit this paradoxical reading experiences as it is. Happily, all of these qualities, with the possible exception of ambiguity, are revealed in Brook Ziporyn's Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, with both poetry and precision. Through a (...) hermeneutical approach that inter-contextualizes each line and each word of the thirty-three chapters, especially many controversial places, he makes the chaotic and unsystematic text... (shrink)

A longstanding criticism of Ernest Nagel's model of reduction is that it fails to take theory change into account. This criticism builds on the received view that Nagelian reductions are incompatible with theory change. This article challenges the received view by showing that Nagel's model can easily accommodate theory change. Indeed, Nagel's model is essentially static as it only gives unchanging formal and nonformal conditions for reduction; in contrast, theory change belongs to the dynamic history of science; as a result, (...) the application of Nagel's model to scientific knowledge from different historical periods yields a series of Nagelian reductions of different degrees of reductive success. This Nagelian treatment of theory change is illustrated by considering the enterprise of reducing thermodynamics to statistical mechanics in the late nineteenth century. It is also contended that, in handling theory change Nagel's model has greater merits than subsequent models (exemplified by Kenneth Schaffner's general reduction-replacement model). This article concludes by suggesting that Nagel's model of reduction deals with theory change exactly in the same way as logical empiricism does with historicism. (shrink)

This paper examines the association between corporate philanthropy and tunneling by controlling shareholders. Using a unique dataset from China, the paper finds evidence that firms donating more are less likely to tunnel. The negative association between philanthropy and tunneling is stronger when firms are faced with more severe agency conflicts, as indicated by lower largest shareholding, fewer growth opportunities, lower state ownership, and weaker product market competition. The results suggest that companies engaging in philanthropy have incentives to enhance their reputations (...) and improve their relationships with stakeholders. (shrink)

Industry reputation crises trigger producers and consumers to switch to certification as a signal of quality, especially in a weak institutional environment. In this paper, we posit that firm certification as a signaling mechanism involves the co-evolution of firms and consumers. We investigate the impact of industry reputation crises on firm certification as a response strategy. Feedback between producers and consumers causes producers to seek more certifications over time to differentiate themselves from competitors. However, the proliferation of certifications may dilute (...) their credibility and reduce the effectiveness of the signal. Competition from imports that command higher trust from consumers exacerbates the problem in developing countries. We conduct empirical tests using firms in China’s dairy industry after an industry reputation crisis. The findings support our hypotheses. This study provides insights on the certification mechanisms through which producers and consumers interact and the effect of institutional environments on this interaction. It also offers implications for managers on how to better respond to industry crises and for policymakers on how to manage the certification market. (shrink)

With the rapid and unbalanced development of industry, a large amount of cultivated land is converted into industrial land with lower efficiency. The existing research is extensively concerned with industrial land use and industrial development in isolation, but little attention has been paid to the relationship between them. To help address this gap, the paper creates a new efficiency measure method for industrial land use combining Subvector Data Envelope Analysis with spatial analysis approach. The proposed model has been verified by (...) using the industrial land use data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2001 to 2013. The spatial autocorrelation relationship between industrial development and industrial land use efficiency is explored. Furthermore, this paper examines the effects of industrial development on industrial land use efficiency by spatial panel data model. The results indicate that the industrial land use efficiency and the industrial development level in the provinces of eastern region are higher than those of the western region. The spatial distribution of industrial land use efficiency shows remarkable positive spatial autocorrelation. However, the level of industrial development has obvious negative spatial autocorrelation since 2009. The improvement of industrial development has a significant positive impact on the industrial land use efficiency. (shrink)

The present study is the first to empirically test a hierarchical, positive-oriented model of self and its relationship to the second language (L2) achievement motivation, and compare it in three different cultural contexts of Japan, U.S. and Taiwan. Based on the L2 self model (Lake, 2016), three levels of constructs were developed: Global Self (i.e., Flourishing, Curiosity, and Hope); Positive L2 domain self (i.e., interested-in-L2 self, harmonious passion for L2 learning, and mastery L2 goal orientation); and L2 Motivational Variables (i.e., (...) reading, speaking and listening self-efficacy). A total of 667 students participated in this study, including 181 first-year college students in Japan, 159 high school students in Taiwan, and 327 college students in the U.S. All the participants were learning a L2 in school. Results showed that the measures of positive global self, L2 domain self, and L2 motivational self all had a stronger relationship within their respective levels, and progressively weaker relationships as level of generality/specificity became more distal. Furthermore, the relationships among measures varied in the differing cultural contexts with the Japan-based student participants relatively lower on all measures. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTwo studies aimed to examine whether high socially anxious individuals are more likely to negatively interpret ambiguous social scenarios and facial expressions compared to low socially anxious individuals. We also examined whether interpretation bias serves as a mediator of the relationship between trait social anxiety and state anxiety responses, in particular current state anxiety, bodily sensations, and perceived probability and cost of negative evaluation pertaining to a speech task. Study 1 used ambiguous social scenarios and Study 2 used ambiguous facial (...) expressions as stimuli to objectively assess interpretation bias. Undergraduate students with high and low social anxiety completed measures of state anxiety responses at three time points: baseline, after the interpretation bias task, and after the preparation for an impromptu speech. Results showed that high socially anxious individuals were more likely to endorse threat interpretations for ambiguous social scenarios and to interpret ambi... (shrink)

This paper proposes an account of natural analogy in scientific theorizing via Mary Hesse’s original understanding of analogical reasoning. Starting with discussing Hesse’s examples and her symbolic scheme, I argue that the traditional distinction between the type of formal analogy and the type of material analogy should be abandoned. All analogies in theorizing, that are both formal and material, contain a set of pretheoretic associations and a theoretic structure between two analogues. I thus provide a new interpretation of Hesse’s symbolic (...) scheme to reveal the pretheoretical and the structural dimensions of analogy and further illustrate the account of natural analogy by applying it to the history of the construction of Coulomb’s law, which is traditionally seen as a typical case of formal analogy, arguing that pretheoretic associations as well as a theoretic structure play a necessary role in this case. In the final part of this paper, I argue that the account of natural analogy is preferable to Dedre Gentner’s structural mapping theory. (shrink)

Confucian state doctrines have shaped Asian cultures for millennia as prescriptive codes of conduct with an emphasis on hierarchy and obligation. Yet a premise at the core of lǐ —understood as propriety, ritual, or generally a cultural grammar—is authenticity, and authentic respect cannot be commanded. What if the lǐ were to be elegant instead? Hans-Georg Gadamer analyzed play as a fusion of horizons that are absorbed into the same event, co-constituting subject and object in an aesthetic experience, and dissolving their (...) dichotomy. We consider examples from Japanese aesthetics in this framework to give depth to key Confucian concepts: the values that enable a relationality that is not in conflict with autonomy; the points of reference for self-improvement through culture; a social organization that enacts reciprocity; and the essential posture this requires. The radical simplicity of the philosophy of tea, chanoyu, and the aesthetic refinement of the Katsura Rikyū palace illuminate the principle of emotional resonance in encounters, which underlies the fusion of cognitive, ethical, and aesthetic horizons. This view reveals how the relational premise of the Confucian philosophical system entails an ontological commitment to mutuality. This is indeed ethics, but neither particularism nor generalism; in its aesthetic dimension it is the mode of perception of a self fulfilled in play. (shrink)