This study aimed at exploring the impact of post-epidemic era on teachers’ behavioral intention of distance education. In this study, purposive sampling method was used to enroll 390 teachers in colleges and universities, high schools and vocational schools, and junior high and elementary schools to be the research subjects for the questionnaire survey. A total of 360 questionnaires were collected for statistics, and AMOS 23.0 statistical software was used to analyze the correlation between variables. Meanwhile, a structural equation model was (...) used to analyze and verify the impact of the technology acceptance model, information system success model, and diffusion of innovations theory. According to the results, the system quality of distance teaching platforms certainly affected perceived usefulness, and perceived usefulness affected teachers’ attitudes toward using distance teaching systems. In addition, perceived ease of use had an impact on perceived usefulness, and trialability had an impact on teachers’ attitudes toward using distance teaching systems. Finally, teachers’ attitude toward using a distance teaching system also affected their behavioral intention. According to the results, suggestions were made in this study to teachers and students for distance teaching. Additionally, the main contribution of this study lies in providing specific strategies for further distance teaching through empirical results in combination with on-site teaching. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze nurses' experiences of role strain when taking care of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). We adopted an interpretive/constructivist paradigm. Twenty-one nurses who had taken care of SARS patients were interviewed in focus groups. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The self-state of nurses during the SARS outbreak evolved into that of professional self as: (1) self-preservation; (2) self-mirroring; and (3) self-transcendence. The relationship between self-state and reflective practice is discussed.

The practice of respecting patients’ autonomy is rooted in the healthcare professionals’ empathy for patients’ situations, without which appropriate supports to the patients during the informed consent process may be remarkably moderated. The purpose of this study was to explore elective surgery patients’ experiences during their decision-making process. This research was conducted using a phenomenological approach, and the data analysis was guided by Colaizzi’s method. A total of 17 participants were recruited from a hospital in southern Taiwan. Two major themes (...) emerged from the analyses: (a) a voluntary yet necessary alternative—to undergo a surgery and (b) alternatives compelled by the unalterable decision—the surgery. It was concluded that unless healthcare professionals can empathize with the distressed situation of their patients who are facing elective surgery, the practice of informed consent may become merely a routine. Nurses can be the best advocates for patients and facilitators to enhance communication between patients and healthcare personnel. (shrink)

Offers a renovated form of Confucian liberalism that forges a reconciliation between the two extremes of anti-Confucian liberalism and anti-liberal Confucianism.

Although they hold different political positions, Oakeshott and Dunn actually share in common a sceptical reading of the human condition and the nature of politics. There are, however, two sceptical traditions within the British context that they seem, respectively, to have followed: the Humean autonomy of practice and the Lockean quest for guidance. It is hoped that by tracing their sources back to Hume and Locke, Oakeshott's and Dunn's conflicting views on the theory of practical reason, namely the detachment view (...) versus the engagement view, can be well explicated, and that the differentia between the `right' and the `left' can be philosophically reconsidered. (shrink)

This paper analyzes how space is metaphorized in some Chan poems, and it investigates how space metaphor contributes to Chan culture. It concentrates onorientational metaphors, metaphor associated with an upward or/and a downward orientation. Orientational metaphors tend to be grounded in dichotomized thought, e.g., “GOOD IS UP” vs. “BAD IS DOWN”, “DIVINE IS UP” vs. “MORTAL IS DOWN”, etc. This paper will demonstrate that in some Chan poems, orientational metaphors do not function this way. Instead, what is foregrounded is the (...) kind of spatial relationship created by opposite orientations, namely, the broad, ever-extending space. To demonstrate how this metaphorical understanding of space is achieved, this paper addresses three particular space-related issues: (1) how certain entities representing dimensional space serve to function as a cognitive metaphor that is common in Chan poetry as a genre; (2) how up-down orientations can interact and form a metaphorical pattern in a text; and (3) how spatial image schemas (e.g., VERTICALITY, NEAR-FAR, PATH, CENTER-PERIPHERY, CONTAINER, etc.) can be identified, interact with one another, and underpin the pattern of metaphor communicating the idea of that broad, ever-extending, imaginal space. All in all, this study aims to demonstrate how space metaphor, as a signifying force, functions in Chan poems and how suchmetaphor represents Chinese Chan culture. (shrink)

Unlike Tang Junyi 唐君毅, who gave a high appraisal of the British Idealists or British Hegelians, mainly including T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Bernard Bosanquet, Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 only occasionally mentions these names. The fact that Mou did not go deeper into the traditions of Idealism, however, does not, it appears to me, necessarily prevent us from seeking a family resemblance between the New Confucianism and British Idealism. For one thing, as Mou confesses, it was through Tang's talking (...) about Bradley's "reconciliatory dialectic" that Mou came to realize the gist of dialectical thinking and the importance of Hegel's philosophy.1 Besides, as we... (shrink)

To do theology in the twenty-first century, we must understand Hegel. In this accessible introduction, Tseng examines the philosopher's significant influence on European thought in general and Protestant theology in particular.

Counter to ‘political meritocracy’, the goal of this article is to present a different approach to incorporating the Confucian political ideal into an ethical modification of liberal democracy, nam...

This excellent collection contains 13 essays from Gadamer's _Kleine Schriften, _dealing with hermeneutical reflection, phenomenology, existential philosophy, and philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer applies hermeneutical analysis to Heidegger and Husserl's phenomenology, an approach that proves critical and instructive.

Using Bakhtin's notion of polyphony, this study explored the discussion of the end-of-life issues in the Course on Life and Death Education in one Chinese university. Ethnographic methods were adopted to investigate the collision between the classroom voices and the voices of the mainstream culture on end-of-life in the process of developing students' attitudes toward death. The findings revealed that “to understand death” involved challenging the voice of “strangeness and fear of death”; “honestly facing up to and accepting the feelings (...) of the fear, pain, and helplessness” was the response to “be brave”; and the goal “to die peacefully” resisted the notion of “extending life at any cost.” Through the collision between these voices, students developed their attitudes toward death in facing, understanding, accepting, and choosing how to die. The analysis further revealed that providing only one “answer” to death by the teacher is not sufficient or effective to foster students' attitudes toward death because the students are a diverse group holding different views on the end-of-life issues, which demonstrated the importance of creating dialogues in the life and death education. (shrink)

Aiming at the long repressed politico-semiotic dimension of Dream of the Red Chamber, this essay employs Lacanian theories of discourse and subjectivity inconjunction with the Chan Buddhist idea of enlightenment to analyze the coming into being of the what Zizek defines as a “modern subject” at the historical juncture of the Manchu conquest of China. Attempting to come to terms with the historical trauma caused by the Manchu conquest, the novel re-examines the fate of the emerging Chinese modernity founded in (...) the discourse of qing or “feeling” by re-visiting the last forty years or so of the Ming resistance against the invasion. The examination, however, reveals that the subject involved in this nationalist struggle unwittingly becomes a “modern subject” because of what Zizek describes as a “redoubled renunciation”: he who sacrifices his particular attachment for the purpose of bolstering the universal Cause ends up losing both. Also unprecedented in classical Chinese literature is that this “modern subject” eventually is able somehow doubly to “identify with the symptom/ sinthome” as his only consistency: “man” on the level of the “framed story” in the metafictional structure of the novel, and “contingency” on the level of the framing story. (shrink)

This paper seeks to bypass assumptions that researchers in critical algorithmic studies and urban studies find it difficult to study algorithmic systems due to their black-boxed nature. In addition, it seeks to work against the assumption that advocating for transparency in algorithms is, therefore, the key for achieving an enhanced understanding of the role of algorithmic technologies on modern life. Drawing on applied assemblage thinking via the concept of the urban assemblage, I demonstrate how the notion of urban assemblage can (...) work as an alternative way to explore the distributed and potential dimensions of what has been termed as Urban AI phenomena. Rather than seeing Urban AI phenomena as black-boxed, unknown and opaque, the notion of urban assemblage locates such entities within the wider contests of the city: urban places, communities and politics, where human-algorithmic relationships gather and disperse. In addition, this approach focuses on the potentialities of Urban AI phenomena—how algorithmic systems can operate differently through different aspects of the city—which can be seen to manifest new forms of resistance, collective actions and democracy. I use a case study of an algorithmic system designed to facilitate digital democracy—vTaiwan—to exemplify how assemblage methodology foregrounds the role of cities as spaces and places for exploring the democratic possibilities of algorithmic systems. This paper concludes with discussion of how the assemblage methodology contributes to serve as a bridge between critical algorithm studies and recent studies of platform urbanism. (shrink)

The Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport (ESCRTs) drive membrane remodeling in a variety of cellular processes that include the formation of endosomal intralumenal vesicles (ILVs) during multivesicular body (MVB) biogenesis. During MVB sorting, ESCRTs recognize ubiquitin (Ub) attached to membrane protein cargo and execute ILV formation by controlling the activities of ESCRT‐III polymers regulated by the AAA‐ATPase Vps4. Exactly how these events are coordinated to ensure proper cargo loading into ILVs remains unclear. Here we discuss recent work documenting the (...) ability of Bro1, an ESCRT‐associated Ub‐binding protein, to coordinate ESCRT‐III and Vps4‐dependent ILV biogenesis with upstream events such as cargo recognition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine the meditation practices of Chinese Buddhists during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on their motivation and activities, and the health benefits derived from meditation. Initially, the article delves into the motivations driving Chinese Buddhists to practise meditation. Subsequently, it explores the meditation-related activities undertaken by Chinese Buddhists. The article also investigates the role of faith in fostering resilience within the Chinese Buddhist community by exploring the medical benefits of meditation, with special emphasis (...) on its effectiveness in alleviating health issues stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak. This article reveals that the motivation for practising meditation arises from the aspiration to attain enlightenment in accordance with Buddhist teachings and that the meditation-related activities not only spread across major Chinese Buddhist communities worldwide but also serve as a source of solace for followers grappling with the challenges posed by the pandemic. Additionally, the article provides strong evidence to support that meditation-based interventions have positive effects on mental and physical health problems caused by the pandemic. (shrink)

This study examines the mediating role of felt accountability and cost–benefit consideration in the relationship between implicit ethics institutionalization and ethical selling intention. The research hypotheses are developed and tested with data collected using a scenario‐based questionnaire. The research design proposes two types of ethical dilemmas. In the first dilemma, the insurance salespeople are told that the dishonest selling behavior will lead to a profitable outcome. In the second dilemma, the insurance salespeople are informed that the honest selling behavior will (...) lead to an unprofitable outcome. The findings show that implicit ethics institutionalization is positively related to felt accountability, cost–benefit consideration and ethical selling intention, while felt accountability and cost–benefit consideration could partially mediate the relationship between implicit ethics institutionalization and the insurance salespeople’s ethical selling intention. The study highlights the importance of implicit ethics institutionalization in sales ethics and helps researchers and practitioners to better understand the mediators of felt accountability and cost–benefit consideration through which implicit ethics institutionalization benefits ethical selling intention. (shrink)

Prior research indicates that managers’ dark personality traits increase their tendency to engage in disruptive and unethical organizational behaviors including accounting earnings management. Other research suggests that the prevalence of dark personalities in management may represent an accidental byproduct of selecting managers with accompanying desirable attributes that fit the stereotype of a “strong leader.” Our paper posits that organizations may hire some managers who have dark personality traits because their willingness to push ethical boundaries aligns with organizational objectives, particularly in (...) the accounting context where ethical considerations are especially important. Using several validation studies and experiments, we find that experienced executives and recruiting professionals favor hiring a candidate with dark personality traits into an accounting management position over an otherwise better-qualified candidate when the hiring organization faces pressure to manage earnings. Our results help to illuminate why individuals with dark personality traits may effectively compete for high-level accounting positions. (shrink)

This is the first book-length study to provide a structured interpretation of the significance of Michael Oakeshott's critique of the Enlightenment. By seeing the thinker as a 'sceptical idealist’ posing a serious challenge to the intellectual positions informed by the Enlightenment, this book attempts to resolve some of the issues debated by Oakeshott scholars. The author argues that Oakeshott’s famous critique of philosophisme and Rationalism in fact expresses a sense of the crisis of philosophical modernity. Moreover, notwithstanding some recent interpretations, (...) throughout his intellectual career Oakeshott has never altered his analysis of these two themes: philosophy as the persistent re-establishment of completeness by transcending abstractness, and the modes of experience as self-consistent worlds of discourse. To apply this philosophy in his moral and political writings, Oakeshott has redressed an imbalance in favour of the Enlightenment ethical position — ‘the sovereignty of technique’, ‘demonstrative moral truth’, ’the politics of faith’ and ‘enterprise association’ — by revitalising the importance of ‘traditional knowledge’, ‘conversation’, ‘intimation’, ‘the politics of scepticism’ and ‘civil association’. Oakeshott is neither a doctrinal liberal nor a dogmatic conservative, but a philosophical sceptic. Moreover, Oakeshott’s contribution to history not only lies in his effort to transcend the Enlightenment historiographical position — by separating the historical from the naturalised conception of History on which so-called ‘scientific history’ rests — but also in his idealistic solution for the ‘temporal dilemma’ and the ‘epistemic tension’ in history that have long bothered philosophers. (shrink)

This paper shows how the method of cohesion analysis in film provides a strong foundation for constructing coherent filmic narrative across different spatial and temporal settings. Until now the unit of a fine-grained systematic analysis of film viewers' narrative comprehension has been anchored in the shot. This paper provides a semiotic descriptive tool of filmic cohesion for analyzing elements within and across shots, i.e., how viewers comprehend the presenting and tracking of dominant narrative elements such as characters, objects, and settings (...) as a film unfolds. In addition, this paper also reviews the Neo-Formalist exploration of cinematic cohesion and then demonstrates how the semiotics-oriented method suggested here can support more systematically and even strengthen the Neo-Formalist account. Most importantly, this article will explicitly show the potential of this tool for providing empirical accounts of filmic narrative construction by analyzing scene transitions in Wong Kar Wai's film 2046 (2004). (shrink)

The explosion of multiomics data poses new challenges to existing data mining methods. Joint analysis of multiomics data can make the best of the complementary information that is provided by different types of data. Therefore, they can more accurately explore the biological mechanism of diseases. In this article, two forms of joint nonnegative matrix factorization based on the sparse and graph Laplacian regularization method are proposed. In the method, the graph regularization constraint can preserve the local geometric structure of data. (...) L 2,1 -norm regularization can enhance the sparsity among the rows and remove redundant features in the data. First, SG-jNMF1 projects multiomics data into a common subspace and applies the multiomics fusion characteristic matrix to mine the important information closely related to diseases. Second, multiomics data of the same disease are mapped into the common sample space by SG-jNMF2, and the cluster structures are detected clearly. Experimental results show that SG-jNMF can achieve significant improvement in sample clustering compared with existing joint analysis frameworks. SG-jNMF also effectively integrates multiomics data to identify co-differentially expressed genes. SG-jNMF provides an efficient integrative analysis method for mining the biological information hidden in heterogeneous multiomics data. (shrink)

- A powerful defence of religion in which the author draws upon his wide knowledge of the world religions.- One of the greatest ironies of the modern world is that its most ardent champions are the blindest to the real assets of the times.

This essay aims to explore the meaning of freedom from a comparative perspective, focusing on critical comparisons between the discourses of liberalism and Neo-Confucianism. In so doing, my specific purpose is to characterize one of the possible, and perhaps the most plausible, presentations of Confucian liberalism as a perfectionist form of Hegelian liberalism. The contents are organized into three major sections.To begin with, thanks largely to Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” and Chang Fo-ch’üan’s Tzu-yu yü jen-ch’üan, an asymmetry emerged (...) in conceptualizing negative and positive freedom in the Chinese context; this development suggests that whereas negative.. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study is to explore and map the intellectual structure of business ethics studies during 1997–2006 by analyzing 85,000 cited references of 3,059 articles from three business ethics related journals in SSCI and SCI databases. In this article, co-citation analysis and social network analysis techniques are used to research intellectual structure of the business ethics literature. We are able to identify the important publications and the influential scholars as well as the correlations among these publications by (...) analyzing citation and co-citation. Three factors emerged in this study are: (1) ethical/unethical decision making, (2) corporate governance and firm performance, and (3) ethical principles and code of conduct. (shrink)

As Paulo Freire’s education theory for social change and emancipation is being continually studied and disseminated in East Asia, it has faced skepticism as some educators are unfamiliar with its critical pedagogy or education for freedom concepts. In light of this, scholars have attempted to compare Freirean philosophies with concepts in Chinese philosophy of education as a way of bridging East and West. Diverging from previous studies that use popular Chinese philosophies (such as Confucianism) to connect with Freirean theory, this (...) paper introduces an understudied but compatible Chinese philosophical thought, Mohism, for comparison with Freirean theory. Mohism is a political philosophy for the working class that expanded into grassroots movements for people’s welfare in ancient China. The Mohist bottom-up approach echoes the grassroots emancipatory pedagogy that underlies Freirean philosophy. A comparative analysis of education concepts in both philosophies reveals that despite differences in the educational content of Freirean theory and Mohism, there are similarities in their conceptualization of education for anti-oppression and praxis for social change. Implications for utilizing Mohist philosophy to contemplate Freirean philosophy within the East Asian educational context are also explored. Ultimately this paper revives educational concepts of Mohism that aligns with Freirean philosophy to a broader audience of scholars and educators. (shrink)