With the development of positive psychology, work engagement has received widespread attention from researchers in the fields of positive organizational behavior and occupational health. Some studies have shown that work-family conflict has an important influence on individual behaviors and attitudes, but little research has studied the influence of work-family conflict on work engagement. The present study examined whether the relationship between work-family conflict and work engagement was mediated by job satisfaction, and whether the mediating role was moderated by affective commitment. (...) We surveyed 358 Chinese primary and secondary school principals using the Work-Family Conflict Scale, Job Satisfaction Scale, Affective Commitment Scale, and Work Engagement Scale. The results revealed that there is a significant negative correlation between work-family conflict and primary and secondary school principals’ work engagement, and this relationship was partially mediated by job satisfaction. Moreover, affective commitment played a moderating role in the relationship between job satisfaction and work engagement. Specifically, the relationship between job satisfaction and work engagement was significant for primary and secondary school principals with high and low affective commitment. The current study contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between work-family conflict and work engagement. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms pervade contemporary society. They are integral to social institutions, inform processes of governance, and animate the mundane technologies of daily life. Consistently, the outcomes of machine learning reflect, reproduce, and amplify structural inequalities. The field of fair machine learning has emerged in response, developing mathematical techniques that increase fairness based on anti-classification, classification parity, and calibration standards. In practice, these computational correctives invariably fall short, operating from an algorithmic idealism that does not, and cannot, address systemic, Intersectional (...) stratifications. Taking present fair machine learning methods as our point of departure, we suggest instead the notion and practice of algorithmic reparation. Rooted in theories of Intersectionality, reparative algorithms name, unmask, and undo allocative and representational harms as they materialize in sociotechnical form. We propose algorithmic reparation as a foundation for building, evaluating, adjusting, and when necessary, omitting and eradicating machine learning systems. (shrink)

The interocular suppression technique termed continuous flash suppression (CFS) has become an immensely popular tool for investigating visual processing outside of awareness. The emerging picture from studies using CFS is that extensive processing of a visual stimulus, including its semantic and affective content, occurs despite suppression from awareness of that stimulus by CFS. However, the current implementation of CFS in many studies examining processing outside of awareness has several drawbacks that may be improved upon for future studies using CFS. In (...) this paper, we address some of those shortcomings, particularly ones that affect the assessment of unawareness during CFS, and ones to do with the use of ‘visible’ conditions that are often included as a comparison to a CFS condition. We also discuss potential biases in stimulus processing as a result of spatial attention and feature-selective suppression. We suggest practical guidelines that minimize the effects of those limitations in using CFS to study visual processing outside of awareness. (shrink)

We used social network analysis to examine a theoretical model exploring why, and under what circumstances, the perpetrators’ ostracizing behaviors are accurately perceived by the target employees. In turn, these perceptions of ostracism lead to the target employees’ counterproductive work behaviors. Adopting perspectives from both perpetrators and targets, we directly measured the ostracizing behaviors by all potential perpetrators and perceived workplace ostracism by target employees. We integrate Social information processing theory and conservation of resource theory to propose a moderated mediation (...) model, and found that employees who have a high level of need to belong are more likely to capture coworkers’ ostracizing behaviors, and those with low political skill are more likely to engage in counterproductive work behavior as their reaction to perceived workplace ostracism. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Background Professional ethics is the regulation and discipline of nurses’ daily nursing work. Nurses often encounter various ethical challenges and problems in their clinical work, but there are few studies on nurses' adherence to professional ethics. Research Aim An analysis of nursing adherence to nursing ethics from the perspective of clinical nurses in the Chinese public health system. Research Design This study adopts the grounded theory approach proposed by Strauss and Corbin. Participants and research context Between July 2021 and January (...) 2022, Clinical nurses were recruited for online video interviews using purposive and theoretical sampling methods in seven hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, Henan, Guangdong, and Fujian, China. Data analysis was conducted using Strauss and Corbin’s coding approach. Ethical considerations This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Sanming First Hospital (MingYiLun 71/2021) Findings A total of 27 participants were included. A theoretical model of nursing staff adherence to professional ethics was constructed. The main core was adherence to professional ethics and the other cores were (1) causal conditions: professional ethics code, individual conscience; (2) intervening conditions: personal growth, social support system, matching career compensation, prediction of adverse consequences; (3) action strategies: sticking to professional values, self-regulation, flexible response, post-event improvement; and (4) outcomes: self-harmony, reduced medical disputes. Conclusions This study provides an interpretive understanding of why clinical nurses adhere to professional ethics in China and describes the challenges and issues posed by nurses’ use of strategies to cope with ethical adversity. The findings can be used to develop future complex studies. (shrink)

Resumen: el arte es la encarnación de la cultura y el espíritu nacional. El canto y el baile son una de las formas más antiguas y ricas del arte humano. No es sólo el producto de la experiencia y la experiencia emocional, sino también la trascendencia de la vida cotidiana vulgar. Como la característica más distinde las películas modernas de la India, el arte de cantar y bailar herede las ideas estéticas tradicionales de la India y la filosofía religiosa en (...) el entorno audiovisual moderno se puede encontrar. Mantiene una impresión nacional distintiva en la marea de la internacionalización. Este tipo de arte es de gran importancia para la exploración de la nacionalidad del arte chino de canto y danza. (shrink)

The global refugee crisis has posed severe challenges to social stability and sustainable development around the world. While the business sector is expected to shoulder social responsibility in crisis relief efforts, our initial assessment shows that refugee‐related corporate social responsibility (CSR) significantly diverged across the Global Fortune 500 corporations. To advance scholars and managers' understanding of this complex CSR issue, this study draws upon National Business System Theory to explore how country‐level factors influence the multinational corporations' CSR communication about the (...) refugee issue. Specifically, the study focuses on the strategic cross‐sector alliances between corporations, NGOs, and IGOs. The analysis shows that in this controversial global crisis, the following factors of corporations' countries‐of‐origin can significantly affect the level of cross‐sector CSR alliances: democracy levels, economic inequality levels, and unemployment rates. Findings of this study provide practical guidelines that can help managers to anticipate societal expectations when dealing with controversial social issues in an international setting. Our findings could also assist policymakers, NGOs, and IGOs to better design strategies to mobilize the corporate resources. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 577-588, April 2022.

Grit, as an important positive psychological quality, has rarely been studied for its role involved in the mechanism between stress and psychological security. This article explores the moderating and mediating role of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security of freshmen through two studies. In study 1, freshmen from several Chinese universities were recruited to complete a battery of questionnaire, including assessments about interpersonal stress, grit, and psychological security. The moderating effect analysis showed that grit moderated the (...) relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. Specifically, grit buffered the negative effects of interpersonal stress on freshmen’s psychological security, but this effect was obvious only when the level of interpersonal stress was relatively low, and decreased when the level of interpersonal stress was high. In study 2, college freshmen from another university apart from above ones were recruited, and we verified the results of study 1 and further explored the mediating role of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and security. The moderating effect analysis of study 2 also verified that of study 1. The mediating effect analysis showed that interpersonal stress not only negatively predicted psychological security, but also affected psychological security through the mediation of grit. In general, grit played a mediating and moderating role in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. This study provides first-hand evidence to explain the multiple roles of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. (shrink)

In this paper, we axiomatize the negatable consequences in dependence and independence logic by extending the systems of natural deduction of the logics given in [22] and [11]. We prove a characterization theorem for negatable formulas in independence logic and negatable sentences in dependence logic, and identify an interesting class of formulas that are negatable in independence logic. Dependence and independence atoms, first-order formulas belong to this class. We also demonstrate our extended system of independence logic by giving explicit derivations (...) for Armstrong's Axioms and the Geiger-Paz-Pearl axioms of dependence and independence atoms. (shrink)

Since 2019, Northeastern post-industrial culture has been a popular topic of discussion; the general public refers to it as the Northeastern Renaissance. Crises of identity, honor, and faith have been recurring themes in several Northeastern films released in recent years. Furthermore, these cinematic narratives frequently generate somber humor by presenting an enormous contrast between ideals and actuality. The article examines how the post-industrial narrative context of Northeast China has influenced audio-visual cultural products and contemporary Chinese popular culture. To elucidate the (...) fundamental aspect of the Northeast narrative, the article’s author employs the absurd theory of Albert Camus. The main structure and viewpoints of the article are as follows: The first is after presenting individuals’ contemplations on the Northeastern Renaissance-instigated post-industrial narrative of the Northeast. In the following sections, the article explores the narrative context of post-industrial audio-visual works in Northeast China, focusing on the absurdity depicted in the documentary Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002). The authors’ analysis reveals how the documentary captures the socio-economic decline and the resulting human experiences of absurdity and dislocation. Key findings indicate that the narrative structure and visual style effectively convey the bleak realities of post-industrial life, offering critical insights into the region’s socio-cultural transformation. These findings suggest that future research should explore the intersection of visual media and social change in other post-industrial contexts. -/- . (shrink)

Fall prediction using machine learning has become one of the most fruitful and socially relevant applications of computer vision in gerontological research. Since its inception in the early 2000s, this subfield has proliferated into a robust body of research underpinned by various machine learning algorithms (including neural networks, support vector machines, and decision trees) as well as statistical modeling approaches (Markov chains, Gaussian mixture models, and hidden Markov models). Furthermore, some advancements have been translated into commercial and clinical practice, with (...) companies in various stages of development capitalizing on the aging population to develop new commercially available products. Yet despite the marvel of modern machine learning-enabled fall prediction, little research has been conducted to shed light on the security and privacy concerns that such systems pose for older adults. The present study employs an interdisciplinary lens in examining privacy issues associated with machine learning fall prediction and exploring the implications of these models in elderly care and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Ultimately, a justice-informed set of best practices rooted in social geroscience is suggested to help fall prediction researchers and companies continue to advance the field while preserving elderly privacy and autonomy. (shrink)

The article will be divided into three parts: 1. Explain the literary origins of the nesting pattern and its relationship to cinema narrative, and analyse the nesting tactics commonly used in films under Hollywood’s classical narrative. 2. Describe the variations in nested structures in films made in the 1990s, focusing on self-reflexive nesting, which emerged as a new model beyond conventional nesting during this period. 3. Distinguish the literary style of embedded narratives from the visual recognition mode and provide an (...) example of how the latter is used in films to create impossible puzzles. (shrink)

A recent solution to the Body-Minus problem, which is a problem of material constitution, claims that ordinary proper parts (such as left feet) exist, but the complements of these objects (such as left-foot complements) do not exist. In this paper, I examine a defense of this solution from the worry of arbitrariness and from its ineffectiveness against a revised version of the problem that focuses on the head, and I show that this defense fails.

When the city of Wuhan was severely locked down on January 23, 2020 for 76 days due to the coronavirus outbreak, many residents started writing “lockdown diaries.” This article argues these diaries constitute a kind of performance art for their authors, specifically, an 'art of endurance' as described by Shalson (2018). Keeping a diary requires a plan, but the following through of the plan is a contingent process requiring efforts and endurance. The challenges become particularly daunting for authors of online (...) diaries in pandemic times. The article analyzes multiple types of endurance associated with the Wuhan lockdown diarists, showing that in digitally-driven environments, where potential collective responses are a key context, the lockdown diaries of Wuhan, like works of endurance art, engage with meanings that reach far beyond their original experience and context. Their stories of endurance are an allegory of the endurance of the entire city of Wuhan. (shrink)

Metal roof enclosure system is an important part of steel structure construction. In recent years, it has been widely used in large-scale public or industrial buildings such as stadiums, airport terminals, and convention centers. Affected by bad weather, various types of accidents on metal roofs frequently occurred, causing huge property losses and adverse effects. Because of wide span, long service life and hidden fault of metal roof, the manual inspection of metal roof has low efficiency, poor real-time performance, and it (...) is difficult to find hidden faults. On the basis of summarizing the working principle of metal roof and cause of accidents, this paper classifies the fault types of metal roofs in detail and establishes a metal roof monitoring and fault diagnosis system using distributed multisource heterogeneous sensors and Zigbee wireless sensor networks. Monitoring data from strain gauge, laser ranging sensor, and ultrasonic ranging sensor is utilized comprehensively. By extracting time domain feature, the data trend characteristics and correlation characteristics are analyzed and fused to eliminate erroneous data and find superficial faults such as sensor drift and network interruption. Aiming to the hidden faults including plastic deformation and bolt looseness, an SVM fault diagnosis algorithm based on RBF kernel function is designed and applied to diagnose metal roof faults. The experimental results show that the RBF-SVM algorithm can achieve high classification accuracy. (shrink)

The modal account of luck has become very popular and influential in the past decade. More recently, some of its proponents have also put forth a modal account of risk and argued that we ought to apply it to problems both in and out of philosophy. This paper tries to show that modal conceptions of luck and risk are mistaken.

Assessing the impact of CSR initiatives can be a complex task for marketers given the variety of methods of communicating about CSR as well as the broad range of stakeholders that CSR initiatives might interest. Social media helps increase the visibility and credibility of CSR communication and provides new ways of reaching and involving stakeholders in CSR initiatives. Using data collected and coded from Facebook pages of the Top 100 Global Brands, the authors introduce a new measure of effectiveness for (...) CSR communication; CSR communication productivity (CCP). The findings indicate that CCP has a positive impact on firm performance (Tobin’s Q). The authors also investigate the impact of External Stakeholder Involvement in CSR initiatives. The results suggest that when external stakeholders are involved in an organization’s CSR initiatives, both CCP and firm performance (Tobin’s Q) improve. In addition, third-party evaluations of CSR performance positively moderate the impact of External Stakeholder Involvement on CCP. These findings offer contributions to CSR communication and social media marketing theories. They also have implications for marketing managers regarding how to measure and benchmark CCP, and how to maximize returns by involving external stakeholders in CSR efforts. (shrink)

According to rational pedagogy models, learners take into account the way in which teachers generate evidence, and teachers take into account the way in which learners assimilate that evidence. The authors develop a framework for integrating rational pedagogy into models of active exploration, in which agents can take actions to influence the evidence they gather from the environment. The key idea is that a single agent can be both teacher and learner.

As more organizations adopt telecommuting or working from home, the work-connected behavior of their employees during non-working hours increases, weakening the boundary between work and family. However, no study has clearly identified whether and how work connectivity behavior after-hours affects employees’ work and family status. Therefore, using role theory, we explored the mechanisms by which WCBA affects employees’ thriving at work and family through work–family enrichment and work–family conflict, and compared the impact of different levels of support for family members (...) on work–family enrichment and conflict, using the Johnson–Neyman method. Our analysis of two-wave data from 257 employees led to the following findings. WCBA had a positive impact on thriving at work, but not on family. There is a ‘double-edged sword’ effect on the impact of WCBA on thriving at work, meaning that work–family enrichment can positively influence thriving at work and negatively influence work–family conflict. There is a double-edged sword effect on the impact of WCBA on thriving at family, meaning that work–family enrichment can positively influence thriving at family and negatively influence work–family conflict. The support of family members moderates the double-edged sword effect between WCBA and thriving at work, in that it can strengthen the positive effects of work–family enrichment and weaken the negative effects of work–family conflicts. Support from family members reinforces the positive impact of work–family enrichment on thriving at family. Thus our study reveals the mechanisms by which WCBA affects the thriving at work and family of employees, and identifies potential methods for managing different levels of work–family enrichment and work–family conflict from the perspective of family member support. (shrink)

Destination image is essential to tourists' loyalty and has been discussed in length among researchers and marketers in the tourism industry for decades. Based on a literature review, the destination image model, including cognitive image, affective image, and conative image, has been firmly established as an acceptable means to gain an understanding of tourists' behavior toward revisiting and recommendations. The understanding of the moderating role of cultural constructs is still unclear, especially in cross-cultural travel behavior. Therefore, this conceptual paper proposes (...) an integrated model of cognitive-affective-conative image that includes the constructs of individualism and uncertainty avoidance. Based on the underpinning theories and empirical studies, this paper proposes affective image potentially mediates the correlation between cognitive image and conative image. This model also incorporated individualism and uncertainty as potential moderating effects between affective image and conative image. By integrating individualism and uncertainty avoidance into the theoretical model from the perspective of tourism, this paper contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of travel behavior on emerging tourism marketing. (shrink)

Relational agency is pivotal for understanding how language teachers seek and utilize relational resources in different contexts and grow to be agents of change amid various educational challenges. This study explored how three university teachers of Chinese as a second language enacted their relational agency to enhance their research capacity and sustain their professional development. Data on their personal network development was collected through concentric circle interviews, life-history interviews and written reflections over three months. Thematic analysis was adopted for iterative (...) coding and interpretation of the data. The findings revealed that teachers’ personal networks provided them with value guidance, emotional support and academic support, which exerted differential levels of impact on them to make agentic choices and actions. The study suggests that personal network analysis may serve as a suitable theoretical lens to achieve a multi-layered understanding of relational agency. The study also calls for more efforts to create learning opportunities and spaces in the relational context for teachers to build their career as agentic academics in language teacher education and development programs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The contextual dimension of ren or li is celebrated in English studies of Confucian ethics. However, it often gives way to the issue of individual practice in studies concerning the relationship between ren and li due perhaps to an excessive focus on personal moral development. Inspired by a painting metaphor from the Analects, the present study reassesses this unbalanced approach to the ren-li relationship through the proposed theme of contextual individuality. In the wake of relationally constituted individuality in Confucian (...) philosophy, this study shows that the moral endowment of caring for others in human nature, which constitutes the moral foundation of ren and li, calls for a contextually practical approach to the ren-li relationship. This approach is crucial for the recognition that one’s moral development may not be truly accomplished unless undertaken in the context of the moral development of fellow human beings. (shrink)

BackgroundThe brain death standard allowing a declaration of death based on neurological criteria is legally endorsed and routinely practiced in the West but not in Asia. In China, attempts to legalize the brain death standard have occurred several times without success. Cultural, religious, and philosophical factors have been proposed to explain this difference, but there is a lack of empirical studies to support this hypothesis.Methods476 medical providers from three academic hospitals in Hunan, China, completed a selfadministered survey including a 12-question (...) brain death clinical knowledge assessment and hypothetical vignettes describing brain dead patients.ResultsThe response rate was 95.2 %. Almost all of the providers had heard of the term “brain death.” More than half have encountered presumed brain dead patients. Two-thirds accepted brain death as an ethical standard to determine human death. The mean knowledge score was 8.50 ± 1.83 out of 12. When given the description of a brain dead patient, 50.7 % considered the patient dead, 51.9 % would withdraw life support, and 40.6 % would allow organ procurement. Both provider and patient characteristics contributed to the providers’ decisions. Ethical acceptance was the most important independent predictor for brain death acknowledgement, followed by high knowledge scores, and the belief that the soul lives in the brain. Religious faith and associated beliefs did not have a significant effect.ConclusionsNotwithstanding scarce official accounts, recognition of the brain death standard is not uncommon in China. Chinese medical providers can adequately define the medical characteristics of brain death and accept it in theory, but hesitate to apply it to practice in the vignettes. Legalization is paramount in providing the protection providers need to comfortably declare brain death. However the medical decision-making surrounding brain death is complex and the provider's past experiences and emotions may also influence the process. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNegative emotion influences cognitive control, and more specifically conflict adaptation. However, discrepant results have often been reported in the literature. In this study, we broke down negative emotion into integral and incidental components using a modern motivation-based framework, and assessed whether the former could change conflict adaptation. In the first experiment, we manipulated the duration of the inter-trial-interval to assess the actual time-scale of this effect. Integral negative emotion was induced by using loss-related feedback contingent on task performance, and measured (...) at the subjective and physiological levels. Results showed that conflict-driven adaptive control was enhanced when integral negative emotion was elicited, compared to a control condition without changes in defensive motivation. Importantly, this effect was only found when a short, as opposed to long ITI was used, suggesting that it had a short time scale. In the second experiment, we controlled for effe... (shrink)

This paper deals with one kind of Kripke-style semantics, which we shall call algebraic Kripke-style semantics, for relevance logics. We first recall the logic R of relevant implication and some closely related systems, their corresponding algebraic structures, and algebraic completeness results. We provide simpler algebraic completeness proofs. We then introduce various types of algebraic Kripke-style semantics for these systems and connect them with algebraic semantics.

ABSTRACT This article develops a theory of rhetorical impression through a critical genealogy of the term phantasia. The genealogy demonstrates cause for understanding phantasia as impression, not image. I trace phantasia as impression through the work of Plato and Aristotle but ultimately argue that the stoics offer the most productive leads for thinking through impressions, materiality, and sensations together. Specifically, I demonstrate how the stoics' concept of lekton can productively mediate the relationship between rhetoric, materiality, imagination, and idealism. In the (...) closing section, I suggest how a theory of rhetorical impression can address lacunae in existing new materialist approaches. (shrink)

This paper addresses a set-theoretic completeness based on a relational semantics for fuzzy extensions of two versions Rt and R T of R (Relevance logic). To this end, two fuzzy logics FRt and FRT as extensions of Rt and R T, respectively, and the relational semantics, so called Routley-Meyer semantics, for them are first recalled. Next, on the semantics completeness results are provided for them using a set-theoretic way.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Person reidentification aims to recognize a specific pedestrian from uncrossed surveillance camera views. Most re-id methods perform the retrieval task by comparing the similarity of pedestrian features extracted from deep learning models. Therefore, learning a discriminative feature is critical for person reidentification. Many works supervise the model learning with one or more loss functions to obtain the discriminability of features. Softmax loss is one of the widely used loss functions in re-id. However, traditional softmax loss inherently focuses on the feature (...) separability and fails to consider the compactness of within-class features. To further improve the accuracy of re-id, many efforts are conducted to shrink within-class discrepancy as well as between-class similarity. In this paper, we propose a circle-based ratio loss for person re-identification. Concretely, we normalize the learned features and classification weights to map these vectors in the hypersphere. Then we take the ratio of the maximal intraclass distance and the minimal interclass distance as an objective loss, so the between-class separability and within-class compactness can be optimized simultaneously during the training stage. Finally, with the joint training of an improved softmax loss and the ratio loss, the deep model could mine discriminative pedestrian information and learn robust features for the re-id task. Comprehensive experiments on three re-id benchmark datasets are carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Specially, 83.12% mAP on Market-1501, 71.66% mAP on DukeMTMC-reID, and 66.26%/63.24% mAP on CUHK03 labeled/detected are achieved, respectively. (shrink)

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the leadership of the new country carried out a political, cultural, and scientific campaign to “comprehensively learn from the Soviet Union,” with the goal of rapid development on all fronts. In the realm of medicine, this had profound consequences. The hegemonic Soviet theory of physiology and psychology—Pavlovianism—became highly influential in China, first as Party Line and second as the basis for a reformed “traditional Chinese medicine”. In the early 1950s, (...) Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity had the status of unquestioned orthodoxy. However, a disagreement between the Ministry of Health and national leader Mao Zedong led to an important shift in 1954. After that date, instead of adopting the Soviet theories wholesale, Chinese medical practitioners used Pavlovianism to shape Chinese medicine’s underlying theoretical constructs. The influence of this reconstruction persists to this day, in practices thought of by the public as thoroughly Chinese, like acupuncture, holistic thinking, inner organs theory, and acupoint injection therapy. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze demonstrated the key role of flashback in dealing with the relationship between actual image and recollection-image when interpreting the temporality of images. He established two criteria for judging whether a flashback implies a recollection-image by stating that: (1) it serves as some kind of prompt in the narrative to make the viewer perceive that the scene has entered a flashback; (2) it relies on fate or forking time. But Deleuze also mentioned that, if the context or condition disappears, (...) the recollection-image represented by the flashback will lose its support, at which point, the pure recollection will also disappear. In this case, the actual image no longer forms a connection with the sensor-motor, but is suspended, which produces a fantasmatic effect. Bi Gan extends this suspension in his film “Long Day’s Journey into Night” by removing the character being referred to in the flashback, stripping it from figure and confining it in the voice-over. The film features an extreme use of several effects in the sensory-motor situations and the flashbacks, as described in Deleuze’s “Cinema 2: Time-Image,” namely recollection, dream, and falsification. Thus, the boundary between flashback and reality is completely broken. In addition, Bi Gan uses doppelgangers in the second part of the film to reconstruct the ambiguity of actual images and recollection-images in the first part, turning them into pure fantasies. This essay will analyze issues relating to the images and characters in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” and show how this film constitutes a typical case of recollection-images transformed into fantasies through the power of falsification. (shrink)

We show that the formulations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics can be derived from an extended least action principle. The principle can be considered as an extension of the least action principle from classical mechanics by factoring in two assumptions. First, the Planck constant defines the minimal amount of action a physical system needs to exhibit during its dynamics in order to be observable. Second, there is constant vacuum fluctuation along a classical trajectory. A novel method is introduced to define the (...) information metrics to measure additional observability due to vacuum fluctuations, which is then converted to an additional action through the first assumption. Applying the variational principle to minimize the total actions allows us to recover the basic quantum formulations including the uncertainty relation and the Schrödinger equation in the position representation. In the momentum representation, the same method can be applied to obtain the Schrödinger equation for a free particle while further investigation is still needed for a particle with an external potential. Furthermore, the principle brings in new results on two fronts. At the conceptual level, we find that the information metrics for vacuum fluctuations are responsible for the origin of the Bohm quantum potential. Even though the Bohm potential for a bipartite system is inseparable, the underlying vacuum fluctuations are local. Thus, inseparability of the Bohm potential does not justify a non-local causal relation between the two subsystems. At the mathematical level, quantifying the information metrics for vacuum fluctuations using more general definitions of relative entropy results in a generalized Schrödinger equation that depends on the order of relative entropy. The extended least action principle is a new mathematical tool. It can be applied to derive other quantum formalisms such as quantum scalar field theory. (shrink)

Reduplicative approaches to the incarnation attempt to avoid the charge of incoherence by employing a qua-operator that operates on an entire assertion. The main objection to this approach is that it still yields a contradiction. Recently, two new reduplicative approaches have been offered that purport to avoid contradiction, one that offers a novel analysis of negative predications and the other which prevents conjoining divine and human predicates into a meaningful sentence. In this paper, I argue that these newer approaches either (...) fail to provide a distinctive solution or do not show whether the model is genuinely possible. (shrink)