This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

This inclusive, cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering, development, and culture. It offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary perspectives on how the philosophies of today’s cultural triumvirate—American, European and Chinese—are shaped and given nuance by the cross-fertilization of engineering and development. Scholars from the humanities and social sciences as well as engineers themselves reflect on key questions that arise in this relational context, such as how international development work affects the professional views, identities, practice and ethics of (...) engineers. The first volume to offer a systematic and collaborative study that cuts across continental boundaries, the book delineates the kinds of skills and competences that tomorrow’s engineering success stories will require, and analyzes fascinating aspects of the interplay between engineering and philosophy, such as how traditionally Chinese ways of thinking can influence modern engineering practice in the world’s most populous country. China’s problematic mix of engineering woes and wonders, from the high-profile crash on its high-profile rail network to its ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic stadium, adds to the urgency for reform, while Europe’s Enlightenment-informed legal frameworks are contrasted with Chinese mechanisms in their governance of the field of nanotechnology, a crucial element of future technical evolution. Fascinating and compelling in equal measure, this volume addresses one of the topics at the leading edge of humanity’s quest to survive, and to thrive.​. (shrink)

This book is the first academic work on the philosophy of engineering in China that reflects two decades of research. It puts forward a new thesis, namely that the core maxim in the philosophy of engineering is “I create, therefore I am,” which is radically different from the Cartesian maxim: “I think, therefore I am.” In addition, the book offers the first detailed portrait of the roots and evolution of the philosophy of engineering in China. The book begins by discussing (...) the triptych thesis of science, technology and engineering, which argues that there are a number of important distinctions between the three, e.g. scientific activities are chiefly based on discovery, while technological activities center on invention, and engineering activities focus on creation. Considering the latest developments in the philosophy of engineering, the author also analyzes engineering communities, engineering practice and a micro–meso–macro framework. In subsequent chapters, the author separately analyzes the three stages of engineering activities: planning, operating and using artifacts. In the closing chapter, two views on the philosophy of engineering are briefly explained. (shrink)

本书包括:知识、知识经济与知识社会;从哲学的观点看知识;从经济学的观点看知识;从社会学的观点看知识等内容。.

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

Harmony is a concept essential to Confucianism and to the way of life of past and present people in East Asia. Integrating methods of textual exegesis, historical investigation, comparative analysis, and philosophical argumentation, this book presents a comprehensive treatment of the Confucian philosophy of harmony. The book traces the roots of the concept to antiquity, examines its subsequent development, and explicates its theoretical and practical significance for the contemporary world. It argues that, contrary to a common view in the West, (...) Confucian harmony is not mere agreement but has to be achieved and maintained with creative tension. Under the influence of a Weberian reading of Confucianism as "adjustment" to a world with an underlying fixed cosmic order, Confucian harmony has been systematically misinterpreted in the West as presupposing an invariable grand scheme of things that pre-exists in the world to which humanity has to conform. The book shows that Confucian harmony is a dynamic, generative process, which seeks to balance and reconcile differences and conflicts through creativity. Illuminating one of the most important concepts in Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, this book is of interest to students of Chinese studies, history and philosophy in general and eastern philosophy in particular. (shrink)

Conducting emotion analysis and generating users' feedback from social media platforms may help understand their emotional responses to video products, such as a documentary on the lockdown of Wuhan during COVID-19. The results of emotion analysis could be used to make further user recommendations for marketing purposes. In our study, we try to understand how users respond to a documentary through YouTube comments. We chose “The lockdown: One month in Wuhan” YouTube documentary, and applied emotion analysis as well as a (...) machine learning approach to the comments. We first cleaned the data and then introduced an emotion analysis based on the statistical characteristics and lexicon combination. After that, we applied the Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling approach to further generate main topics with keywords from the comments and visualized the distribution by visualizing the topics. The result shows trust, joy, and anticipation are the most prominent emotions dominating the comments. The major three themes, which account for 70% of all comments, are discussing stories about fighting against the virus, medical workers being heroes, and medical workers being respected. Further discussion has been conducted on the changing of different sentiments over time for the ongoing health crisis. This study proves that emotion analysis and LDA topic modeling could be used to generate explanations of users' opinions and feelings about video products, which could support user recommendations in marketing. (shrink)

With growing global concerns about water scarcity and environmental sustainability, understanding the factors influencing individual water conservation behaviors is crucial. This study utilizes the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics to investigate the relationship between concerns of local issues and water conservation behaviors in a sample of 1831 residents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. New Mexico is an arid region of which 90% faced severe drought driven by the most significant wildfire in state history and some of the driest months ever (...) recorded in 2022. The results show a positive association between the drought or water scarcity concern and the number of water conservation behaviors adopted. Likewise, the positive association between the concern about population growth and development and water conservation behaviors is also observed. However, further examination is needed due to the weak reliability of this relationship. In contrast, negative associations between concerns about water quality and water bills with water conservation behaviors are also identified. Based on these findings, the study discusses the potential of building the eco-surplus culture by improving information dissemination of water-saving methods and existing water-related issues in the local areas. (shrink)

Roger White (2015) sketches an ingenious new solution to the problem of induction. He argues from the principle of indifference for the conclusion that the world is more likely to be induction- friendly than induction-unfriendly. But there is reason to be skeptical about the proposed indifference-based vindication of induction. It can be shown that, in the crucial test cases White concentrates on, the assumption of indifference renders induction no more accurate than random guessing. After discussing this result, the paper explains (...) why the indifference-based argument seemed so compelling, despite ultimately being unsound. (shrink)

In the paper, titled ‘Choosing death in unjust conditions: hope, autonomy and harm reduction,’ Wiebe and Mullin argue that people living in unjust social conditions are sufficiently autonomous to request medical assistance in dying (MAiD). The ethical issue is that some people may request MAiD primarily because of unjust social conditions, not their illness, disease, disability or decline in capability. It is easily agreed that people living in unjust social conditions can be autonomous. Nevertheless, Wiebe and Mullin fail to appreciate (...) that autonomy is only a necessary condition for MAiD. In addition to autonomy, one must decide that providing assisted dying to a patient because they are living in unjust social conditions is ethical. Central to making this ethical decision is the principle of non-maleficence, famously articulated as ‘do no harm.’ The authors admit that performing MAiD in response to unjust social circumstances is harmful, but they justify this harmful action by appealing to the principle of harm reduction. A fundamental flaw of their approach is that it relies on the legislative definition of intolerable suffering, which is based on circular reasoning and given that 99.2% of patients that have applied for MAiD satisfied this criterion, it is essentially equivalent to no standard/criterion. Canadian society is struggling with the ethical implications of its permissive MAiD programme, and, fundamental to this debate, will be determining the proper balance between autonomy and non-maleficence for people living in unjust social conditions. (shrink)

We develop a theoretical model of income and pay comparison satisfaction with two mediators, examine the direct and the indirect paths of our model, and treat culture as a moderator. Based on 311 professors in the US and Spain, we demonstrate a positive direct path and a negative indirect path. Our subsequent multi-group analysis illustrates: For American professors, their direct path shows that income is directly related to high pay comparison satisfaction. Their indirect path reveals the following new insights: Professors (...) with high income have a strong love of money orientation, set their pay equity comparison standards significantly higher than their own salary, and as a consequence, have low pay comparison satisfaction. For Spanish professors, love of money is not related to their pay comparison standards which are slightly higher than their own self-reported income. Neither the direct nor the indirect path is significant. The standardized total effect of income to pay satisfaction is positive for American professors, but negligible for Spanish professors. Are you satisfied with your pay when you compare? Our results demonstrate that pay comparison satisfaction depends on not only one’s income but also one’s love of money and pay equity comparison standards which may vary across cultures. (shrink)

From the tape-recording of naturally occurring Chinese psychotherapy sessions, this article explores how repeated occurrences of resistance are managed in the course of interactional sequences and the participants’ actions within these sequences. By employing the methods of conversation analysis, we discuss the main discursive strategies employed by the clients to express their resistance and investigate how the therapist manages this. We find that clients show their resistance to the therapist’s questions in four ways: keeping silence, providing minimal response, making non-answer (...) responses, and being over-talkative. Persistent asking is the main technique we identify in the data for the therapist to manage the resistance; in the meantime, asking questions in a stepwise way, making requests after facing resistance to questions, active retreating and reformulating of the client’s words are employed as subsidiary techniques. The successful management of resistance leads to a smooth sequential development of the psychotherapy, while inappropriate strategies might result in a halt or even breakdown of the therapeutic work. In psychotherapy, resistance is a result of the shared interaction between client and therapist. It is such a complex issue that, in order to understand and manage it, we also take into consideration the broader social and cultural context in which it occurs. (shrink)

Few studies have actually explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in college students, although many studies have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic poses a great threat to people’s mental health in many cohorts. Furthermore, college students may be a particularly vulnerable cohort that needs more attention and access to psychological services due to the psychological changes involved in the transition to college and the characteristics of college students’ study habits and lifestyle. Therefore, investigating the basic characteristics (...) of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on college freshmen is of great practical importance and has theoretical implications for the identification and provisioning of services to vulnerable cohorts. A total of 5,818 college freshmen completed the College Student Adaptability Inventory. The results suggest that the mean detection rate of the seven dimensions of undergraduate maladjustment to university is 27.13%. Specifically, livelihood self-management adaptability has the highest detection rate, while environmental general evaluation has the lowest detection rate. Moreover, the school adaptation of college freshmen is impacted by gender, number of siblings, and family socioeconomic status. Specifically, students who are female, an only child, and have a lower SES have lower levels of school adaptation. However, the school adaptation of college freshmen is not influenced by minority status or left-behind status. The findings of the present study suggest that the maladaptation of college freshmen has been a common phenomenon in China during the COVID-19 epidemic. Prevention programs may be most helpful if they pay more attention to effective intervention efforts for students who are female, an only child, and have a lower SES. (shrink)

The influential stage of Internet of Things has reformed all fields of life in general but specifically with the emergence of artificial intelligence has drawn the attention of researchers into a new paradigm of life standard. This revolution has been accepted around the globe for making life easier with the use of intelligent devices such as smart sensors, actuators, and many other devices. AI-enabled devices are more intelligent and capable of doing a specific task which saves a lot of resources (...) and time. Different approaches are available in the existing literature to tackle diverse issues of real life based on AI and IoT systems. The role of decision-making has its own importance in the AI-enabled and IoT systems. In-depth knowledge of the existing literature is dire need of the research community to summarize the literature in effective way by which practitioners and researchers can benefit from the prevailing proofs and suggest new solutions for solving a particular problem of AI-enabled sensing and decision-making for the IoT system. To facilitate research community, the proposed study presents a systematic literature review of the existing literature, organizes the evidences in a systematic way, and then analyzes it for future research. The study reported the literature of the last 5 years based on the research questions, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and quality assessment of the selected study. Finally, derivations are drawn from the included paper for future research. (shrink)

Except the two types of state, complete failure and perfect functioning, some intermediate states also existed between those two states. This characteristic enables multistate system whose components are often of more than two states. Moreover, because of dependence between components, common cause failure enhances the failure risk of components during the operating period of MSS. A protection mechanism needs to be adopted because of the importance of certain components. For a MSS with CCF and protection mechanism, its reliability can be (...) evaluated by a proposed approach. Certain components not only can cause failure at one state, but also can cause failure to other components because of the CCF. Under the impact of one type of CCF, those components can constitute a specific group that can overlap with certain components. Universal generating function is adopted to incorporate the CCF and protection mechanism of a component. Consequently, reliability indices of a MSS can be evaluated by the proposed approach based on UGF. Examples and comparisons illustrate and validate this method. This method can also help engineers prioritize elements that require protection mechanism under various resource limitations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Techniques of the Self:Nourishing Life as Art of LivingLi Manhua (bio)Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life. By Eric S. Nelson. London and New York: Routledge, 2021.This essay proposes an account of the techniques of the self in early Daoism in light of Eric S. Nelson's Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life (Routledge, 2021). It argues that the techniques of the self involved in nourishing life (yangsheng 養生) are indispensable (...) to the creation of the interdependent human-nature rapport that Nelson considers. Such interdependence does not require a moralistic stance that negates the self or forsakes individual desires in the cause of the environment—as in some of the existing Western ecological discourse—but a new form of self-relation involving the practice of a set of techniques of the self that relates the human to the non-human. The present contribution begins by arguing that the practice of nourishing life entails a series of bodily and spiritual techniques (shu 術) of the self, with the example of Cook Ding. This is followed by my exposition of different categories of such techniques, and why the techniques of nourishing the spirit (shen 神) are prioritized over those of the preservation of the bodily form (xing 形). Finally, I extend my discussion on the specific techniques of nourishing the spirit with regard to his chapter "Emptying Ecology," where Nelson argues that undoing fixations of the self and being responsive (ying 應) to things are attainable through deconstructive, skeptical, and paradoxical communicative strategies (p. 80).To start with, Nelson regards nourishing life as a way of living and speaking that goes beyond the binary opposition or a hierarchical relation between the human and other forms of life in some Western ecological philosophies:In the current crisis conditions, it appears that humans need every motivating ecology available whether it be light or dark green, anthro- or bio-centric, shallow or deep. All of these contending discourses are equalized in a Daoist ecology of shifting perspectives and ways of speaking. A benefit of dao-centric models—that as inflections of the "way" encompass and extend beyond notions of "bios" (specific life) and "zōe" (life in general)—is that they contest the binary oppositions and stratified hierarchies that have dominated recent Western environmental discourses: anthropocentrism/biocentrism, and humanism/posthumanism [End Page 762] (although the latter finds biocentrism still too anthropocentric in positing the very distinction between them).(p. 31, my emphasis)In other words, a non-hierarchical and non-opposing rapport between the human and the non-human lies in a practice of changing perspectives and, more concretely and importantly, adjusting communicative ways. Such a way of perceiving and speaking beyond boundaries between the individual and the general forms of life (sheng 生) is epitomized by the practice of nourishing life of Cook Ding in the third chapter of the Zhuangzi 庄子, titled "The Master of Nourishing Life" (Yangsheng zhu 養生主). When Ding—Lord Wenhui's chef—cuts up an ox, he avoids violent and forced slaughter, slitting through the tender parts of the animal without touching any bone. As such, by concentrating only on the intestines of the ox, his movement is so agile that the knife produces a musical rhythm.More precisely, Nelson regards the example of Ding as "a cultivated and practiced process in which nature can come to be itself" (p. 36). In the context of the Zhuangzi, nature (tian 天) as an extension of the Dao goes beyond the "one-and-many" anthropocentric paradigm wherein humans have exclusive knowledge of the One, namely the unifying principle of reality (Chai 2018, p. 265). In this sense, specific life forms, bios, are undifferentiated from the wholeness of the One in the generic life, zōe. In other words, as the root of all life lies in Dao in terms of the onto-cosmological attunement of nothingness (wuwei 無為), our bodies (shen 身) mirror Heaven or Nature (tian 天) and the Earth (di 地) in the way they attune to the flow of vital energetic dynamics, responding to the myriad things and Heaven and Earth in an organic totality. This is manifest in Ding, as he nourishes life by turning his daily activity into a practice of encountering non-human life forms... (shrink)

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

The popularity of social media, such as WeChat and Weibo in China, has provided an opportunity to develop social commerce. Although shopping through social commerce platforms is widely favored by consumers, the factors affecting consumers’ decision-making behavior in the social commerce environment remain unclear. Therefore, from the perspective of the stimulus–organism–response theory, we construct a consumer repurchase decision model in the social commerce environment and analyze the influencing mechanism of social commerce features on perceived value and consumers’ repurchase intention. The (...) empirical results found that social commerce features are positively related to the generation of perceived value, which in turn drives consumers to form repurchase intentions. We also found some mediating effects of perceived value. The study’s conclusions clarify the intrinsic influence mechanism of social commerce features on consumers’ perceived value and repurchase intentions. In addition, it can provide some theoretical guidance for future research and business. (shrink)

This essay explores a tragic event that happened in China, which garnered much attention, the Li case: a young woman who was nine months pregnant and her baby died as a result of the failure to receive a medically necessary c-section due to the hospital having failed to secure her family's consent for the c-section. Differing from some critiques, this essay argues that the Li case should not be used to blame the Confucian family-determination model that has been applied in (...) Chinese society for thousands of years. Based on summarizing the reasons supporting the model, this essay indicates that it is an integral part of the model that, in emergency or special cases, the physician must take medical action to save the patient, without the need to secure the consent of a family member. In order to prevent tragic cases like the Li case from happening, we recommend that relevant Chinese laws be further developed and specified and that, most importantly, Chinese physicians must cultivate the Confucian virtue of benevolence in their practice of taking care of patients in a virtuous way, along with patients’ families. (shrink)

This essay introduces the philosophy of harmony in Classical Confucianism. In the first part of the essay the author summarizes the concept of harmony as it was developed in various Confucian classics. In the second part, the author offers an account of the Confucian program of harmony, ranging from internal harmony in the person, to harmony in the family, the state, the international world, and finally to harmony in the entire universe.

This study aims to investigate mental health among Chinese people living in areas with differing levels of infection severity during the COVID-19 outbreak. It also assesses the association between reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety and mental health in times of crises. A sample of 1,201 Chinese participants was surveyed between April and June 2020. Wuhan city, Hubei province outside Wuhan, and elsewhere in China were categorized into high, moderate, and low infection severity areas, respectively. The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale’s (...) severity cut-points were used to categorize participants. In the overall sample, 20.9, 34.2, and 29.0% of the participants showed elevated levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Those in the highest infection severity group were significantly more likely to be categorized as having elevated levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. General linear modeling was performed on a composite mental distress variable. This model indicated that, even after adjusting for group differences in age, gender, education, and filial piety, the high infection severity group displayed more mental distress than the low infection severity groups. The model also found reciprocal filial piety to have a negative association with mental distress. Conversely, authoritarian filial piety was found to be unrelated to mental distress when controlling for the other variables in the model. No evidence was found for an interaction between either authoritarian or reciprocal filial piety and infection severity, which suggests that the negative association observed between reciprocal filial piety and mental distress was relatively consistent across the three infection severity groups. The findings suggest that future public health programs may integrate the promotion of filial piety as a strategy to help Chinese people maintain good mental health in the face of pandemic crises. (shrink)

All cultures are infused by or even rooted in certain values. Although those values are generally recognised in all societies, they are diversely ranked or proritised in different human groups and different perceptions partly account for cultural diversity as not all values can be equally upheld in any community or by any individual. Though value universalism in a strict sense is unachievable, we can all agree on a pluralistic mutual understanding of and tolerance for diversity.

Circular economy is a critical approach to realize the coordinated development of society, economy, and ecological environment. Given the fact that urban is a complex system in which human beings integrate material, energy, information, and natural environment and interact and influence each other, reviewing the urban circular economy research and development could benefit for having a better and comprehensive understanding on urban complexity. Mainly based on the Chinese literature studies from 1999 to 2020, this study aims to present an in-depth (...) analysis of the research themes, policy systems, and index system of Chinaʼs urban-scale circular economy, discuss the changes and evolution trends of themes, levels, and perspectives in time series, sort out the policy systems at both the national and local levels, and analyze the design principles and application fields of indicators. Finally, we propose that future development of an urban circular economy should be built based on modern techniques, technologies, and models. The construction of development mechanism on the circular economy should be framed as “government-led, market-driven, legal norms, policy support, technological support, and public participation” and inject concepts such as “Internet +,” “sharing economy,” “Internet of Things,” and “artificial intelligence.”. (shrink)

In this article, I elaborate on the approach to joy preserved in East Asian Yogācāra texts authored by Xuanzang and his disciple, Kuiji. I argue that these Yogācāra Buddhists propose a contextualist approach that does not presume joy to be an emotion with an essential property but rather perceives joy as always contextualized in lifeworlds at the personal and interpersonal levels. As such, Xuanzang and Kuiji outline two contrasting pictures of joy to capture how it is experienced in the lifeworld (...) of ignorance and the lifeworld of wisdom, respectively. Upon delineating what joy is and how it is experienced, I continue to explore what joy can promise. Since joy does not have an inherent property, people can always make a collaborative effort to recontextualize joy for inclusion and emancipation. As such, I hope to draw on the Yogācāra analysis of joy to enrich the feminist discussion on happiness. (shrink)

In this essay I attempt to articulate a Confucian idea of gender equality from a perspective of yin-yang philosophy.

The rapid popularity of mobile shopping makes people’s lives more convenient, but it also makes it easier for customers to change providers. How to use marketing stimulus to retain customers has become an urgent concern for mobile sales companies. However, the theoretical researches in this field are not enough. For this reason, this study used the methods of literature review and structural equation to explore the effects of mobile marketing design factors on the continual intention of consumers in mobile shopping (...) by using the S-O-R model and its extended theories. The conclusions of the research showed that interface quality of mobile sales terminal and integrity of mobile sales terminal had significant positive impacts on consumption emotion; sales promotion in mobile sales terminal had a significant positive impacts on continual intention of mobile shopping; consumption emotion had a significant positive effect on continual intention of consumers in mobile shopping; consumption emotion played a significant mediating role in the relationship between interface quality of mobile sales terminal and continual intention of mobile shopping and between integrity of mobile sales terminal and continual intention of mobile shopping. The conclusions could not only enrich the theories of mobile shopping behavior but also provide guidance for companies to carry out mobile marketing activities and allocate marketing resources rationally. (shrink)

In his feature article,1 McCullough LB et al highlights the importance of civility among medical educators and academic leaders in shaping the professional habits of junior doctors. He emphasises the role of medical educators in correcting unprofessional behaviour and emphasises the need for academic leaders to motivate junior doctors to develop virtuous professional habits. The relationship between junior doctors and medical educators can be likened to that between students and teachers. Through active or passive learning from medical educators, junior doctors (...) gain the necessary knowledge, experience and professional virtues. Academic leaders, as prominent experts in their field, play a guiding role in this process. Therefore, their relationship with junior doctors is akin to that between idols and fans. In this regard, academic leaders can serve as exceptional role models for guiding junior doctors to develop the inclination to …. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the new directions towards internationalization of higher education in China during post-COVID 19. The systematic literature review is applied as an evidence-based policy analysis approach. The findings indicate that the challenges and difficulties of internationalization of higher education in the post-COVID 19 were considered as a high-frequency discussion topic. In order to address the crises of internationalization of higher education during the post-COVID 19, the idea of internationalization at home is regarded as a beneficial approach (...) to deal with the process of internationalization of higher education, systematically. This study also highlighted that the internationalization at home within Chinese higher education institutions not only brings opportunities for the development of China’s higher education system, but also poses challenges to the reform of the current higher education system. In addition, the conclusion and implication were provided to analyze the rationales of promoting internationalization of higher education system in contemporary China. (shrink)

Head transplantation has ignited intense discussions about whether it should be done scientifically and ethically. This paper examines the ethics of head transplantation from a Confucian perspective and offers arguments against the permissibility of head transplantation. From a Confucian point of view, human beings are the most precious organisms in the world, and ren and li are the basic moral principles of human beings. As long as head transplant technology remains underdeveloped, this procedure should not be done because it will (...) pose a serious risk of harm to humans and thus violate the principles of Confucian ren and li. If head transplant technology matures to the point that it would be safe to try in humans, it still should not be performed because it would change the selfhood or identity of the head donor and the body donor and create a new person. Confucian personal virtues greatly depend on selfhood or personal identity, and selfhood or personal identity depend on one’s body cultivation and mind rectification. Through the hard effort of body cultivation and mind rectification, one transforms one’s selfhood or identity and personality. This selfhood, identity, and personality cannot be separated from one’s body but are embedded in one’s body. Thus, head transplant would destroy two persons’ identities and result in a new person, and the characteristics of this new person’s identity are still unknown. (shrink)

This paper investigates force shift, a phenomenon in which the canonical discourse conventions, or force, associated with a clause type can be overridden to yield polar questions with the help of additional force-indicating devices. Previous studies attribute force shift to the presence of a complex question force component operating on semantic content. Based on utterance particles and particle clusters in Cantonese, we analyze force shift as resulting from compositional operations on force-bearing expressions. We propose that a simplex force, such as (...) assertion or question, denotes unanchored sentence acts, while a force-shifting particle like Cantonese _ho2_ is an anchoring function anchoring a sentence act to the speaker while querying whether or not the addressee can perform the sentence act. The proposed semantics makes predictions about _ho2_’s interactions with addressee-changing operations and imperatives, as well as about a larger family of force shift phenomena. (shrink)

Abstract: In this essay I will discuss five major challenges faced by Confucianism in recent times. Two of these challenges have been widely acknowledged, namely those of science and democracy. I believe that Confucianism's problem with science has been largely solved, even though more constructive work would further strengthen Confucianism in this regard. The problem of democracy is still being dealt with. I will examine three more major challenges. The third major challenge for Confucianism comes from environmentalism. Confucianism has taken (...) note of its important message and has begun to respond to it. The fourth major challenge is the feminist challenge. Even though contemporary Confucianism accepts sexual equality, philosophically significant progress is yet to be made. The final challenge is the challenge of Confucianism's own survival. After serving three major assults in the 20th century, especially the most recent assult by "the glorious cat," Confucianism needs to find a way to renew itself into future. . (shrink)

The position of immoralism in analytic aesthetics and the philosophy of art holds that a work's moral defects can sometimes contribute to its artistic value. This position has suffered massive criticism in recent years. In support of immoralism, I present in this paper a new argument by examining immorality in the artistic genre of transgressive art. I argue that in the category of transgressive art, due to the nature of immorality that is a transgressive and liberating force against morality's authority, (...) being immoral can contribute directly to an artwork's artistic value by contributing to the realization of its artistic aim. (shrink)

Engaging in dialogue with African philosophy, I respond to questions raised by Thaddeus Metz on characteristics of Confucian philosophy in comparison with African philosophy. First, in both Confucian philosophy and African philosophy, harmony/harmonization and self-realization coincide in the process of person-making. Second, Confucians accept that sometimes it is inevitable to sacrifice individual components in order to achieve or maintain harmony at large scales; the point is how to minimize such costs. Third, Confucians give family love a central place in the (...) good life before extend love to the rest of the world. Fourth, the Confucian philosophy of gender equality is based on appropriate division of labor consistent with its yin-yang philosophy, rather than equal split of power in the family. Fifth, in the Confucian view, hierarchy and harmony do not necessarily contradict each other, though hierarchy is not essential to all forms of harmony. The two can co-exist. (shrink)