Understanding how teacher leaders are engaged in curriculum affairs is critical with the implementation of instructional decentralization. The current study adopts a qualitative approach to investigate Teaching Research Group leaders’ involvement in curriculum leadership in the Chinese context. It explores the conceptions of TRG leaders by interviewing 20 of them, observing four meetings held by TRG leaders, and collecting 10 extracts from appraisal summaries of TRG leaders in secondary schools in China. Drawing on the findings, this paper examines the characteristics (...) of TRG leader’s engagement in CL. More importantly, data highlighted significant problems the participants perceived and faced in their work as TRG leaders, which consisted of amplifying the necessity for empowering TRG leaders and identifying the phenomenon that said leaders are less empowered and less motivated to undertake the CL role. The results add to the international body of knowledge on the teachers’ engagement in CL. (shrink)

As an imitation of the biological nervous systems, neural networks, which have been characterized as powerful learning tools, are employed in a wide range of applications, such as control of complex nonlinear systems, optimization, system identification, and patterns recognition. This article aims to bring a brief review of the state-of-the-art NNs for the complex nonlinear systems by summarizing recent progress of NNs in both theory and practical applications. Specifically, this survey also reviews a number of NN based robot control algorithms, (...) including NN based manipulator control, NN based human-robot interaction, and NN based cognitive control. (shrink)

Extant studies of corporate hypocrisy have largely overlooked its implications for employees until recently. Drawing upon social information processing theory, we theorize the impact of corporate hypocrisy on employee silence—an employee behavior potentially detrimental to both organizations and society, as well as the underlying mediating and moderating mechanisms. We empirically tested our hypotheses with two studies. In Study 1, we found that corporate hypocrisy was positively related to employee silence through both employee cognitive trust and employee prosocial motivation. In Study (...) 2, we revealed that consumer pressure weakened the mediating roles of employee cognitive trust and prosocial motivation, while regulatory pressure strengthened these roles. Overall, this study sheds light on whether, how, and when employees remain silent when they perceive corporate hypocrisy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The proposition _zhengyan ruo fan_ 正言若反 (straightforward words seem paradoxical) embodies Laozi’s 老子 linguistic self-consciousness about the expression of ideas, and the way of thinking presented by this proposition is also commonly considered by ancient exegetes to be reflected in the linguistic expressions of Daoism. As such, contemporary Chinese scholars have paid great attention to this proposition and have discussed it enthusiastically. However, researchers have not yet reached a consensus on how to interpret this proposition. The divergence of views among (...) scholars is manifested both in the interpretation of this proposition according to the context it appears in and how to locate its role and status in Laozi’s thought. In terms of the interpretation of the text, scholars have different views on the chapter to which _zhengyan ruo fan_ should be attributed and the precise meaning of this proposition in the chapter where it appears. Scholars have also paid attention to linguistic phenomena involved in the _Laozi_, the theoretical motives behind these linguistic phenomena, and the way they relate to other important concepts in _Laozi._ There are many differences in the discussed opinions. In this article, an overview of these different views and an assessment of the merits and flaws of each interpretation in light of the textual basis and theoretical feasibility is provided in order to increase understanding of the linguistic expression and the thought behind it, in regard to _Laozi_ in particular and even Daoism in general. (shrink)

This study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the acquisitional features of English existential constructions at the syntax-pragmatics interface by Chinese learners, and explore the factors for non-native performance from the perspective of the Interface Hypothesis. A questionnaire was administered online to 300 Chinese learners of English and 20 English natives at a university in China, which included a picture description test and a context-matching test. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 Chinese learners. The experimental data were conducted using (...) comparing means and generalized linear mixed model. Results showed that Chinese learners overproduced existential constructions and reached a native-like level until the advanced stage. Moreover, Chinese learners displayed different preference patterns for existential constructions from English natives, and basically reached a native-like level by the intermediate stage. The qualitative data provided possible explanations for non-native performance. The analysis revealed that non-native performance in production attributed to L1 negative transfer and input frequency, while that in comprehension resulted from underspecification of form-function mapping, input frequency and contexts. Based on the findings, some implications on syntax-pragmatics teaching and L2 interface studies are provided. (shrink)

A nonlinear coupled wing model subject to unknown external disturbances is proposed in this paper. Since the model is modeled by partial differential equations, the traditional control design scheme based on the ordinary differential equation model is not applicable, and the control law design becomes very complex. In this paper, a new antidisturbance boundary control scheme based on a finite time convergent disturbance observer is proposed. The control laws are designed based on the new disturbance observers to make the external (...) disturbance errors converge to zero in a finite time and ensure the uniformly bounded stability of the controlled system. Finally, the effectiveness of the controllers and the finite-time convergence of disturbance errors are verified by the simulation and comparison. (shrink)

Based on the concept of “passengers self-help hubbing,” we build a flight schedule optimization model where maximizing the number of feasible flight connections, indicating transfer opportunities, as one objective and minimizing total slot displacements as the other objective. At the same time, the “Demand Smoothing Model” is introduced into the flight schedule optimization model to reduce the queuing delays for arrival and departure flights. We take into account all aircraft itineraries, the difficulty level of schedule coordination, and the maximum displacement (...) of any single flight acceptable to airlines when optimizing flight schedule. Given an original schedule, the model produces a feasible modified schedule that obeys the slot limits specified for an airport without canceling any flights, increases transfer opportunities, and improves on-time performance for hub airports while reducing interference with airline scheduling preferences. The model was verified with the operating data of the Urumqi international airport, and the results show that minor adjustments to flight schedules can increase the transfer opportunities of the airport and significantly reduce flight queuing delays. (shrink)

Among biologists and philosophers, there is an ongoing debate over the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Some argue that our current evolutionary biology is in need of (at least) some substantial revision or nontrivial extension, while others maintain that the Modern Synthesis remains the foundational framework for evolutionary biology. It has been widely debated whether the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis provides a more promising framework than the Modern Synthesis. The nature and methodological implications of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis were (...) also examined. This paper offers an integrated historical and philosophical examination of the debate over the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. It reviews the development of evolutionary biology of the twentieth century. It argues that there are substantial conceptual and theoretical differences between the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, but they are not incommensurable paradigms in the Kuhnian sense. It also argues for a functional approach to the debate over these two frameworks of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical review of the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research and examines the notion of philosophical foundations. It distinguishes axiology-oriented from ontology-oriented philosophical foundations. It also identifies three different senses of philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. The weak sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., pragmatism) merely allows the possibility of the integration of both quantitative and qualitative methods/data/designs. The moderate sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., transformativism) provide a good reason to use mixed methods (...) in (at least some) social scientific research. The strong sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., dialectical pluralism) justifies a normative thesis that mixed methods research should be encouraged in (at least some) social scientific research. (shrink)

We present a general theory of scope and binding in which both crossover and superiority violations are ruled out by one key assumption: that natural language expressions are normally evaluated (processed) from left to right. Our theory is an extension of Shan’s (2002) account of multiple-wh questions, combining continuations (Barker, 2002) and dynamic type-shifting. Like other continuation-based analyses, but unlike most other treatments of crossover or superiority, our analysis is directly compositional (in the sense of, e.g., Jacobson, 1999). In (...) particular, it does not postulate a level of Logical Form or any other representation distinct from surface syntax. One advantage of using continuations is that they are the standard tool for modeling order-of-evaluation in programming languages. This provides us with a natural and independently motivated characterization of what it means to evaluate expressions from left to right. We give a combinatory categorial grammar that models the syntax and the semantics of quantifier scope and wh-question formation. It allows quantificational binding but not crossover, in-situ wh but not superiority violations. In addition, the analysis automatically accounts for a variety of sentence types involving binding in the presence of pied piping, including reconstruction cases such as Whose criticism of hisi mother did each personi resent? (shrink)

Philosophical progress is one of the most controversial topics in metaphilosophy. It has been widely debated whether philosophy makes any progress in history. This paper revisits the concept of philosophical progress. It first identifies two criteria of an ideal concept of philosophical progress. It then argues that our accounts of philosophical progress fail to provide such an ideal concept. Finally, it argues that not only do we not have a good concept of philosophical progress, we also do not need a (...) concept of philosophical progress in order to arrive at a good understanding of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This article develops and defends a new functional approach to scientific progress. I begin with a review of the problems of the traditional functional approach. Then I propose a new functional account of scientific progress, in which scientific progress is defined in terms of usefulness of problem defining and problem solving. I illustrate and defend my account by applying it to the history of genetics. Finally, I highlight the advantages of my new functional approach over the epistemic and semantic approaches (...) and dismiss some potential objections to my approach. (shrink)

This book offers an integrated historical and philosophical examination of the origin of genetics. The author contends that an integrated HPS analysis helps us to have a better understanding of the history of genetics, and sheds light on some general issues in the philosophy of science. This book consists of three parts. It begins with historical problems, revisiting the significance of the work of Mendel, de Vries, and Weldon. Then it turns to integrated HPS problems, developing an exemplar-based analysis of (...) the development and the progress in early genetics. Finally, it discusses philosophical problems: conceptual change, evidence, and theory choice. Part I lays out a new historiography, serving as a basis for the discussions in part II and part III. Part II introduces a new integrated HPS method to analyse and interpret the historiography in Part I and to re-examine the philosophical issues in Part III. Part III develops new philosophical accounts which will in turn make a better sense of the history of scientific practice more generally. This book provides a practical defence of integrated HPS: the best way to defend integrated HPS is to do it. (shrink)

The functional approach to scientific progress has been mainly developed by Kuhn, Lakatos, Popper, Laudan, and more recently by Shan. The basic idea is that science progresses if key functions of science are fulfilled in a better way. This chapter defends the function approach. It begins with an overview of the two old versions of the functional approach by examining the work of Kuhn, Laudan, Popper, and Lakatos. It then argues for Shan’s new functional approach, in which scientific (...) progress is defined as an increase of usefulness of exemplary practices. (shrink)

This paper partly answers the question “what a frame may be exactly like when it characterizes a pretabular logic in NExtK4”. We prove the pretabularity crieria for the logics of finite depth in NExtK4. In order to find out the criteria, we create two useful concepts—“pointwise reduction” and “invariance under pointwise reductions”, which will remain important in dealing with the case of infinite depth.

Alexander Bird indicates that the significance of Thomas Kuhn in the history of philosophy of science is somehow paradoxical. On the one hand, Kuhn was one of the most influential and important philosophers of science in the second half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, nowadays there is little distinctively Kuhn’s legacy in the sense that most of Kuhn’s work has no longer any philosophical significance. Bird argues that the explanation of the paradox of Kuhn’s legacy is that (...) Kuhn took a direction opposite to that of the mainstream of the philosophy of science in his later academic career. This paper aims to provide a new way to understand and develop Kuhn’s legacy by revisiting the development of Kuhn’s philosophy of science in 1970s and proposing a new account of exemplar. Firstly, I propose my diagnosis of Kuhn’s “wrong turning” by identifying Kuhn’s two novel contributions: the introduction of paradigm and the proposal of the incommensurability thesis. Secondly, I argue that Kuhn made a conceptual/terminological turn from paradigm to theory, which undermined Kuhn’s novel contributions. Thirdly, I propose a new articulation of exemplar and propose an exemplar-based approach to analysing the history of science. Finally, I show how the exemplar-based approach can be applied to analyse the history of science by my case study of the early development of genetics. (shrink)

Recently the first protective measurement has been realized in experiment [Nature Phys. 13, 1191 ], which can measure the expectation value of an observable from a single quantum system. This raises an important and pressing issue of whether protective measurement implies the reality of the wave function. If the answer is yes, this will improve the influential PBR theorem [Nature Phys. 8, 475 ] by removing auxiliary assumptions, and help settle the issue about the nature of the wave function. In (...) this paper, we demonstrate that this is indeed the case. It is shown that a psi-epistemic model and quantum mechanics have different predictions about the variance of the result of a Zeno-type protective measurement with finite N. (shrink)

We study the possible connection between self-consciousness and quantum process. It is shown that the self-consciousness function can help to measure the collapse time of wave function under some condition, while the usual physical device without self-consciousness can't. Furthermore, we show that the observer with self-consciousness can distinguish the definite state and the superposition of definite states under some stronger condition. This provides a practical physical method to differentiate man and machine, and will also help to find the possible existence (...) of self-consciousness in the animal kingdom. We finally give some further discussions about these new results. (shrink)

Social scientists often draw on a variety of evidence for their causal inferences. There is also a call to use a greater variety of evidence in social science research. This topical collection examines the philosophical foundations and implications of evidential diversity in the social sciences. It assesses the application of Evidential Pluralism in the context of the social sciences, especially its application to economics and political science. It also discusses the concept of causation in cognitive science and the implications of (...) evidential diversity for the social sciences. (shrink)

Protective measurement is a new measuring method introduced by Aharonov, Vaidman, and Anandan, with the aim of measuring the expectation value of an observable on a single quantum system, even if the system is initially not in an eigenstate of the measured observable. According to these authors, this feature of protective measurements favors a realistic interpretation of the wave function. These claims were challenged by Uffink. He argued that only observables that commute with the system's Hamiltonian can be protectively measured, (...) and that an allegedly protective measurement of an observable that does not commute with the system's Hamiltonian does not actually measure this observable, but rather another related one that commutes with the system's Hamiltonian. In this paper we identify a number of unresolved issues in Uffink's proofs and argue that his alternative interpretation of what happens in a protective measurement has not been justified. (shrink)

Dysregulation of lipid metabolism is a commonly observed feature associated with metabolic syndrome and leads to the development of negative health outcomes such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease, or atherosclerosis. Time‐restricted feeding/eating (TRF/TRE), an emerging dietary intervention, has been shown to promote pleiotropic health benefits including the alteration of diurnal expression of genes associated with lipid metabolism, as well as levels of lipid species. Although TRF likely induces a response in multiple organs leading to the modulation of (...) lipid metabolism, a majority of the studies related to TRF effects on lipids have focused only on individual tissues, and furthermore there is a lack of insight into potential underlying mechanisms. In this review, we summarize the current insights regarding TRF effects on lipid metabolism and the potential mechanisms in adipose tissue, liver, skeletal muscle, and heart, and conclude by outlining possible avenues for future exploration. (shrink)

In Heidegger’s Black Notebooks some ideas about political embodiment can be found, which have come under suspicion to justify the Third Reich’s race law. In the following article, the analysis and discussion of Heidegger’s political embodiment will firstly be traced back to the traditional understanding of the human as a “rational animal”, and will then look at how the “racial being” is subsequently developed and eventually transformed into political absolute subjectivism. Moreover, Heidegger’s in-depth explanation and critique on Nietzsche’s metaphysics, which (...) he views as having transformed human experiences to a metaphysical representation and thus misunderstanding human nature, will also be clarified. Through Heidegger’s critic on biologism, a profound disclosure which potentially imply an attack of the racism at his time can be shown. Furthermore, Heidegger’s thinking of Being as a kind of emancipation of European political embodiment will also be analyzed. Lastly, although Heidegger and Confucianism have different ideas of lived-body, both schools basically show the same fundamental understanding of human nature. In regard to this, their understanding of political embodiment, their similarities and divergences, will be elucidated. (shrink)

本书是对中国文化思想史的研究,主要包括资政新篇;论世变之亟;中国国民党第一次钱国代表大会宣言等内容。.

Greed is one of the most common features of human nature, and it has recently attracted increasing research interest. The aims of this paper are to provide one of the first empirical investigations of the effects of greed on job performance and to explore the mediating role of the need for social status and perceived distributive justice. Using a working sample (N = 315) from China, the current study found that greed promoted both task and contextual performance through the intermediary (...) effect of the need for social status. At the same time, greed inhibited both types of performance through perceived distributive justice. These results confirmed our hypothesis that greed is a double-edged sword with opposite effects on one’s performance. The findings suggest that organizations should both address greedy employees’ social status concerns and ensure that they are treated fairly so that organizations can fully utilize the talents of greedy people and channel their energy in a beneficial direction. (shrink)

This collection of original essays offers a comprehensive examination of scientific progress, which has been a central topic in recent debates in philosophy of science. Traditionally, debates over scientific progress have focused on different methodological approaches, notably the epistemic and semantic approaches. The chapters in Part I of the book examine these two traditional approaches, as well as the newly revived functional and newly developed noetic approaches. Part II features in-depth case studies of scientific progress from the history of science. (...) The chapters cover individual sciences including physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, seismology, psychology, sociology, economics, and medicine. Finally, Part III of the book explores important issues from contemporary philosophy of science. These chapters address the implications of scientific progress for the scientific realism/anti-realism debate, incommensurability, values in science, idealisation, scientific speculation, interdisciplinarity, and scientific perspectivalism. New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also (...) be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) an account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation for mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections. (shrink)

To explore the motivations underpinning corporate social responsibility (CSR) decisions in China, a country characterized by extensive government intervention, this paper investigates whether building a good relationship with the government is a political incentive that is driving firms to conduct CSR by examining the effects of political connections on the latter. Our results indicate that politically connected firms exhibit better CSR. However, the effect is considerably more significant for firms with existing political relationships. Additionally, findings show that the effect is (...) more prominent in firms for which political connections are more valuable, namely, non‐state‐owned enterprises, small firms, and firms operating in less market‐oriented cities, indicating that CSR can serve as a differentiation strategy to compete against other bidders. Dividing CSR activities into economic, environmental and social aspects, we find that the social‐based activities are more likely to be driven by political motivations. By categorizing CSR and political connections, this paper not only expands the scope of political CSR and renders the generated results that have been mixed together more distinguishable, but also provides a more precise understanding of the fundamental drivers of CSR in China from the perspective of resource exchange. (shrink)

In a recent paper (Found Phys 54:14, 2024), Carcassi, Oldofredi and Aidala concluded that the \(\psi\) -ontic models defined by Harrigan and Spekkens cannot be consistent with quantum mechanics, since the information entropy of a mixture of non-orthogonal states are different in these two theories according to their information theoretic analysis. In this paper, I argue that this no-go theorem for \(\psi\) -ontic models is false by explaining the physical origin of the von Neumann entropy in quantum mechanics.

The teacher self is a composite psychological construct which encompasses the cognitive, affective, emotional, and social dimensions of teaching. This qualitative study draws on Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, answerability, and addressivity to discuss how English language teachers negotiated the shifting and conflictive context to construct selves in relation to the promoted communicative language teaching approach. Based on narrative interviews and classroom observations with five tertiary English teachers in China, we found that these teachers were actively engaged in the dialog with (...) their prior learning experiences and active, responsive in answering their contexts while authoring selves in everyday teaching practice. The multiple-case study data support a Bakhtinian understanding that teachers are active users and producers of theory in their own right, highlighting teachers’ agency, creativity, and autonomy. Based on Bakhtin’s dialogism and the case study findings, we bring cognition, identity and practice together and conceptualize the teacher self as having multiple facets and layers: the autobiographical self, the discursive self, and the pedagogical self. The three selves are constitutive of the consummated whole of the teacher self instead of being separate entities functioning individually. The study is concluded with implications for language teacher education and teacher development. (shrink)

According to the laws of physics, the state of a physical system can only be measured by another system (usually a particular measuring device) via a physical interaction. However, when our brain is in a conscious mental state, it can in principle output the information about its physical state based on the psycho-physical correspondance between the mental state and the physical state. It is argued that this suggests that the conscious mind violates physical laws and it is not physical as (...) physicalism claims. (shrink)

Hardy’s $$\psi$$ -ontology theorem proves the reality of the wave function under the assumption of restricted ontic indifference. It has been conjectured that restricted ontic indifference, which is a very strong assumption from the $$\psi$$ -epistemic view, can be derived from two weaker sub-assumptions: an ontic state assumption and a locality assumption. However, Leifer argued that this derivation cannot go through when considering the existence of the vacuum state in the second-quantized description of quantum states. In this paper, I present (...) a new analysis of Hardy’s theorem. First, I argue that the ontic state assumption is valid in the second-quantized description of quantum states. Second, I argue that the locality assumption is a locality assumption for product states and it is weaker than the preparation independence assumption of the PBR theorem. Third, I argue that Leifer’s objection to the derivation of restricted ontic indifference is invalid. Finally, I argue that although the vacuum state is irrelevant, the existence of the tails of the wave function will block the derivation of restricted ontic indifference from the ontic state assumption and the locality assumption. (shrink)

The role of the light postulate in special relativity is reexamined. The existing theory of relativity without light shows that one can deduce Lorentz-like transformations with an undetermined invariant speed based on homogeneity of space and time, isotropy of space and the principle of relativity. However, since the transformations can be Lorentzian or Galilean, depending on the finiteness of the invariant speed, a further postulate is needed to determine the speed in order to establish a real connection between the theory (...) and special relativity. In this paper, I argue that a certain discreteness of space-time, whose existence is strongly suggested by the combination of quantum theory and general relativity, may result in the existence of a maximum and invariant speed when combing with the principle of relativity, and thus it can determine the finiteness of the speed in the theory of relativity without light. According to this analysis, the speed constant c in special relativity is not the actual speed of light, but the ratio between the minimum length and the shortest time of discrete space-time. This suggests a more complete theory of relativity, the theory of relativity in discrete space-time, which is based on the principle of relativity and the constancy of the minimum size of discrete space-time. (shrink)

Historiographical analyses of the development of genetics in the first decade of the 20th century have been to a great extent framed in the context of the Mendelian-Biometrician controversy. Much has been discussed on the nature, origin, development, and legacy of the controversy. However, such a framework is becoming less useful and fruitful. This paper challenges the traditional historiography framed by the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction. It argues that the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction fails to reflect the theoretical and methodological diversity in the controversy. (...) It also argues that that the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction is not helpful to make a full understanding of the development of genetics in the first decade of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Although many studies have previously examined medicalisation, we add a new dimension to the concept as we explore how contemporary oncological medicine shapes the dying self as predominantly medical. Through an analysis of multiple case studies collected within a comprehensive cancer centre in Ontario, Canada, we examine how people with late‐stage cancer and their healthcare providers enacted the process of medicalisation through engaging in the search for oncological treatments, such as experimental drug trials, despite the incurability of their disease. The (...) seven cases included 20 interviews with patients, family, physicians and nurses, the analysis of 30 documents and 5 hr of field observation. A poststructural perspective informed our study. We propose that searching for life extension enacts medicalisation by shaping the dying person afflicted with terminal cancer into new medical subjectivities that are knowledgeable, active, entrepreneurial and curative. Participants initially took up medical thinking from the formal oncology system, but then began to apply and internalise medical rationalities to alter their personhood, thereby generating new curative possibilities for themselves. For people seeking life extension, the embodied and day‐to‐day experiences of suffering and being close to death became expressed and moderated in fundamentally medicalised terms. (shrink)

In this article, the importance of the namelessness of language will be firstly explained through an analysis of authenticity in Heideggerian philosophy, and will be further clarified by way of the phenomenon of “profound boredom” from his Freiburg lecture. As the exploration of namelessness in Heideggerian philosophy plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between East and West, a brief comparison concerning the idea of namelessness and its underlying philosophy of language between the Heideggerian and the madhyamaka Buddhist tradition (...) will also be discussed. (shrink)