We clarify different definitions of the density matrix by proposing the use of different names, the full density matrix for a single-closed quantum system, the compressed density matrix for the averaged single molecule state from an ensemble of molecules, and the reduced density matrix for a part of an entangled quantum system, respectively. We show that ensembles with the same compressed density matrix can be physically distinguished by observing fluctuations of various observables. This is in contrast to a general belief (...) that ensembles with the same compressed density matrix are identical. Explicit expression for the fluctuation of an observable in a specified ensemble is given. We have discussed the nature of nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computing. We show that the conclusion that there is no quantum entanglement in the current nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computing experiment is based on the unjustified belief that ensembles having the same compressed density matrix are identical physically. Related issues in quantum communication are also discussed. (shrink)

Although the ethical judgment of consumers in the United States and other industrialized countries has received considerable attention, consumer ethics in Asian-market settings have seldom been explored. The purchase and making of counterfeit products are considered common, but disreputable, attributes of Southeast Asian consumers. According to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia ranks third among the leading countries of counterfeit items in Asia. Retail revenue losses attributed to counterfeiting amounted to US $183 million in 2004. Therefore, elucidating the (...) ethical perspectives of Indonesian consumers is an effective means of clarifying an important cultural influence on consumer behavior. This exploratory study of 230 Indonesians has many meaningful findings. First, certain personal attitudes apparently affect the ethical judgments of Indonesian consumers. Second, Indonesian consumers who exhibited high ethical concern over actively benefiting from illegal actions had high levels of materialism and idealism, as well as low levels of relativism. Third, materialism, idealism, and relativism significantly influenced whether benefits were created from actively engaging in some questionable activities (DELEGAL). Analytical results indicated that Indonesians with high materialism and relativism were more likely to engage in actions that were questionable but legal. Finally, consumer ethics were compared by applying demographic variables such as gender, age, education, religion, and occupation, indicating that all variables significantly varied except for religion. (shrink)

As more and more firms operate globally, an understanding of the effects of cultural differences on ethical decision making becomes increasingly important for avoiding potential business pitfalls and for designing effective international marketing management programs. Although several articles have addressed this area in general, differences along specific, cultural dimensions have not been directly examined. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine differences in ethical decision making within Hofstede's cultural framework. The results confirm the utility of Hofstede's cultural dimensions (...) and place ethical decision making within an overall theoretical framework. Sales agents from a high power distance, uncertainty avoidant, Confucian, collectivist culture (i.e., Taiwan) placed more value on company and fellow employee interests (vis-à-vis self interests) than did managers from a masculine, individualistic culture (i.e., the United States). American and Taiwanese managers did not differ in their deontological norms or on the importance that they placed on customer interests. The theoretical and managerial importance of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this study is to link the effects of consumer personality traits on green buying intention via the mediating variable of consumer ethical beliefs so as to extend the context of green buying intentions with consumer ethics literatures. Based on a survey of 545 Taiwanese respondents, consumer personality traits were found to significantly affect consumer ethical beliefs. The results also indicate that some dimensions of consumer ethical beliefs significantly predict consumer intention to buy green products. Generally speaking, (...) this study enhances our knowledge of consumers’ ethical decision-making in the context of green consumption behaviors. Theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and future research are also provided. (shrink)

Consumer ethics is the moral principles and standards that guide consumers to determine the certain consumption behaviors are ethically right or wrong. Whereas cultural and personal dimensions are crucial constructs affecting individual ethical attitudes and behaviors, few studies consider Confucian dynamism and the role of money in consumer ethics. Confucian dynamism, a cultural dimension based on Confucianism, has played a central role in guiding moral obligations and ethics in human relations in several East Asian countries. Thus, this study tested its (...) hypotheses using a sample of 521 respondents obtained via a systematic random sampling technique. The authors find that individuals with a higher tendency to Confucian dynamism are less tolerant of unethical practices. These findings also show that the role of money partially influences consumer ethical beliefs. Finally, we examine the impact of demographic variables and find age and education affect consideration of ethical values. (shrink)

This study attempts to investigate the relationships among the ethical beliefs of Chinese consumers and orientations based on attitudinal attributes: materialism and moral philosophies (idealism and relativism). In addition, this study examines Chinese consumers' ethical beliefs in relation to five selected demographic characteristics (gender, age, religion, family income and education). Based on this exploratory study of 284 Chinese consumers, the following statistically significant findings were discovered. First, Chinese consumers regard that a passively benefiting activity is more ethical, but actively benefiting (...) from an illegal or a questionable activity is unacceptable. Second, the two dimensions of passively benefiting and no harm/no foul can be used to distinguish the consumers who endorse higher levels of idealism or relativism. Third, Chinese consumers with a high level of materialism are more likely to actively benefit from illegal and questionable activities, and the passively benefiting actions. Finally, the more ethical Chinese consumers seem to be younger, be religious, and have a lower family income. (shrink)

Chinese consumers comprise a unique subculture that exerts a considerable influence on the market and are treated as a collective group by researchers. However, few studies have examined the effects of collectivism and consumer attitudinal attributes on consumer ethics. Although the practice of religion was prohibited in China before economic reforms in the late 1970s, religion remains a major factor that affects the ethical judgment of consumers. The present study, based on the Hunt–Vitell model, examines the influence of culture and (...) personal characteristics on consumer ethics. A total of 284 Chinese consumers were surveyed. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships in the research model. The results indicate that collectivism had a significant explanatory power for four dimensions of consumer ethical beliefs: actively benefiting from illegal activities; passively benefiting from questionable activities; actively benefiting from deceptive legal activities; and engaging in no harm and no foul activities. However, consumer attitude toward business significantly explained only the passive dimension of consumer ethics, and religious beliefs significantly explained only the active dimension of consumer ethical beliefs. (shrink)

While consumer motivation to maintain a relationship with a retailer is a function of personal idiosyncratic characteristics, specific perceptions of retailers may play a role in influencing receptivity to relationship maintenance. This study integrates relationship marketing tactics and corporate associates into a model of consumer ethical purchasing behavior that improves the relationship between sellers and buyers. Results show social benefits, special treatment benefits, CSR, and service quality have direct and indirect impact on ethically questionable consumer behaviors in retailing. This study (...) also modifies the consumer ethics scale of Muncy and Vitell for the East Asian market with good reliability and validity in order to measure ethically questionable consumption behaviors in retailing. Finally, some theoretical contribution and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Understanding the neural basis of schizophrenia (SZ) is important for shedding light on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this mental disorder. Structural and functional alterations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) have been implicated in the neurobiology of SZ. However, the effective connectivity among them in SZ remains unclear. The current study investigated how neuronal pathways involving these regions were affected in first-episode SZ using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Forty-nine patients (...) with a first-episode of psychosis and diagnosis of SZ—according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision—were studied. Fifty healthy controls (HCs) were included for comparison. All subjects underwent resting state fMRI. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to estimate directed connections among the bilateral ACC, DLPFC, hippocampus, and MPFC. We characterized the differences using Bayesian parameter averaging (BPA) in addition to classical inference (t-test). In addition to common effective connectivity in these two groups, HCs displayed widespread significant connections predominantly involved in ACC not detected in SZ patients, but SZ showed few connections. Based on BPA results, SZ patients exhibited anterior cingulate cortico-prefrontal-hippocampal hyperconnectivity, as well as ACC-related and hippocampal-dorsolateral prefrontal-medial prefrontal hypoconnectivity. In summary, spectral DCM revealed the pattern of effective connectivity involving ACC in patients with first-episode SZ. This study provides a potential link between SZ and dysfunction of ACC, creating an ideal situation to associate mechanisms behind SZ with aberrant connectivity among these cognition and emotion-related regions. (shrink)

Ethical culture construction is beneficial to maximize policy following behavior and avoid accidents of coal miners in an economic downturn. This paper examines the congruence between coal mine ethical culture values and miners’ moral values and the relationship with PFB. To shed light on this relationship, supervisor moral values act as a key moderator. We build on the initial structure of values to measure ECVs, MVs, and SMVs. At the same time, available congruence was defined to describe the relationship between (...) the two values. Drawing upon a survey of 267 miners in Chinese large state-owned coal mining enterprises, results revealed that ECVs–MVs congruence had a linear relationship with intrinsic PFB and a non-linear relationship with extrinsic PFB. These findings demonstrate that SMVs had a moderating effect on the relationship between ECVs–MVs congruence and extrinsic PFB. Thus, we continued to calculate the available congruence scope in tested enterprises. Furthermore, this study gives relative management proposals and suggestions to improve miners’ moral standards and to reduce coal mine accidents. (shrink)

Quasiperiodic signal is ubiquitous and entrenched in neuronal networks, and thus taking it into consideration is necessary. The Wiener process with the intensity of σ is used here to model randomly fluctuated phase in external weak quasiperiodic signal. The departure from the normal periodicity can be governed by the parameter σ. Then, the effects of randomly fluctuated phase of signal and time-periodic coupling intensity of synaptic junctions between neurons on propagation of weak quasiperiodic signal through feed-forward Hodgkin–Huxley network are explored (...) in detail. Increasing σ makes more neurons fire simultaneously, and better synchronous state is observed. Consequently, the external weak quasiperiodic signal introduced into all neurons in the first layer can be effectively transmitted through the whole feed-forward network via synchronization mechanism. In the case of time-periodic synaptic coupling intensity, when oscillatory frequency of synaptic coupling intensity is equal precisely to average frequency of external quasiperiodic signal, the propagation of weak quasiperiodic signal is optimal. Additionally, rapid oscillation of synaptic coupling intensity hinders or even kills the propagation of quasiperiodic signal to great depths of neuronal network, provided σ is not large enough. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship among the employees–organization pro-environmental values fit, supervisors’ PEVs and employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. Informed by the PEB, organizational values and employee–organization fit literature, we propose and test hypotheses that under egoistic, altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, E–O PEVs fit versus non-fit have significant effects on employees’ private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB, identifying supervisors’ PEVs as a moderator. An empirical investigation indicates that the effect of E–O PEVs fit on employees’ private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB varies as the (...) value orientation differs. More specifically, under the context of altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, if the organizational PEVs do not match the employees’ PEVs, especially when the former exceeds the latter, employees’ PEB will rise as the organizational PEVs increase. As for egoistic value orientation, when organizational PEVs exceed employees’ PEVs, not only will public-sphere PEB stop decreasing and tend to stabilize, but also private-sphere PEB will rise to a slight degree. Furthermore, compared with altruistic and biospheric values dimensions, supervisors who promote egoistic PEVs will have a more significant effect on the relationship between global E–O PEVs fit and employees’ PEB. Finally, we suggest that the goals of an organization and its supervisors need to be combined within the actual situation of Chinese corporations to truly implement corporate green practices by balancing the profit goal and the environmental goal. (shrink)

How does the critical Kant view ontology? There is no shared scholarly answer to this question. Norbert Hinske sees in the Critique of Pure Reason a “farewell to ontology,” albeit one that took Kant long to bid (Hinske 2009). Karl Ameriks has found evidence in Kant’s metaphysics lectures from the critical period that he “was unwilling to break away fully from traditional ontology” (Ameriks 1992: 272). Gualtiero Lorini argues that a decisive break with the tradition of ontology is essential (...) to Kant’s critical reform of metaphysics, as is reflected in his shift from “ontology” to “transcendental philosophy,” two notions that Lorini takes to be related by mere “analogy” (Lorini 2015). I agree with Lorini that a thorough reform of ontology is a pivotal part of Kant’s critical plan for metaphysics and that ontology somehow “survives within the critical philosophy” (Lorini 2015: 76). To make this case, however, I deem it important to identify “ontology” and “transcendental philosophy” in the sense of extensional equivalence. While we can detect this identification in Kant’s writings, only from his metaphysics lectures can we get a full sense of its historical and philosophical significance. In this chapter I focus on how it represents a definitive turn from as well as notable continuity with traditional treatments of ontology, particularly the Wolffian one. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of chief executive officer ability on firms’ corporate social responsibility performance. We find that firms’ CSR performance increases with CEO ability. Specifically, firms with more able CEOs are associated with more socially responsible activities and fewer socially irresponsible activities, and are associated with more stakeholder CSR rather than third-party CSR. We further find that the positive relation between CEO ability and CSR is weakened for CEO who is also the chair of the board and for (...) CEO who is close to retirement; and is weakened when the CSR emphasis exerted by a firm’s external environment is high. Our results are robust after controlling for firm fixed effects and to the use of multiple measures of CSR performance and CEO ability. Overall, our evidence is consistent with our conjecture that more able CEOs have less career concerns so that these CEOs are more willing to undertake long-term investments in socially beneficial activities, leading to better CSR performance. (shrink)

This study empirically examines whether firms’ environmental capital expenditures impact institutional investors’ investment decisions in the Chinese market. We particularly examine the impact of ownership type on the relationship of environmental capital expenditures and the behavior of different types of institutional investors by classifying institutional investors into two categories, short-term and long-term investors. In addition, this study further investigates whether environmental capital expenditures related to ownership type increase firm value. We find that long-term institutional investors tend to invest (...) in state-owned firms making environmental capital expenditures. Results also indicate that, with governmental backing and encouragement, the market value of SOEs making more environmental capital expenditures is likely to increase. However, no similar results are found for non-SOEs. (shrink)

Stock price data have the characteristics of time series. At the same time, based on machine learning long short-term memory which has the advantages of analyzing relationships among time series data through its memory function, we propose a forecasting method of stock price based on CNN-LSTM. In the meanwhile, we use MLP, CNN, RNN, LSTM, CNN-RNN, and other forecasting models to predict the stock price one by one. Moreover, the forecasting results of these models are analyzed and compared. The (...) data utilized in this research concern the daily stock prices from July 1, 1991, to August 31, 2020, including 7127 trading days. In terms of historical data, we choose eight features, including opening price, highest price, lowest price, closing price, volume, turnover, ups and downs, and change. Firstly, we adopt CNN to efficiently extract features from the data, which are the items of the previous 10 days. And then, we adopt LSTM to predict the stock price with the extracted feature data. According to the experimental results, the CNN-LSTM can provide a reliable stock price forecasting with the highest prediction accuracy. This forecasting method not only provides a new research idea for stock price forecasting but also provides practical experience for scholars to study financial time series data. (shrink)

Megaprojects are implemented by different organisations, such as owners, consultants, and contractors. Gradually, these organisations and their connections can form business networks that influence both the market position of individual organisations and project performance. Previous research on large-scale projects mainly focused on static and homogeneous networks that were constructed by one individual project and/or carried out over one-off collaboration. However, this neglected the consideration of project network diversity, as well as repetitive, dynamic, cross-project coopetition relationship and long-term business networks (...) formed by key actors. Here, we chose Chinese skyscrapers over 300 meters that were built from 1996 to 2015 as typical megaproject cases and analysed the formation and evolution of megaproject business networks from the perspective of interorganisational coopetition. We identified the key actors involved and empirically studied their dynamic network positions over time. The main contributions of this study are threefold. First, we found that past collaboration experience has direct and dynamic impacts on the formation of megaproject business networks. Second, we identified key actors in the interorganisational business network and unveiled their dynamic positions with clear patterns. Third, we highlighted the temporal-spatial effect on the formation and development of business networks, alongside developments in the megaproject market. The findings of this study also provide practical applications for owners to choose collaboration partners and to build high-performance teams and for suppliers to enter and sustain the business in the megaprojects networks. (shrink)

In the mid-T'ang movement for the reform of literary style, literary form, and literary language, Liu Tsung-yüan made brilliant contributions. His travelogues, metaphorical satires, and miscellaneous other works are a precious heritage of Chinese literature. This has long been well known, but his important place in the history of the development of Chinese materialism and atheism, on the other hand, has long since been hidden in obscurity.

The Party has shifted the focus of its national endeavor onto socialist modernization. In light of the severe disproportion in economic development that resulted from the long-time interference and sabotage by Lin Biao and the "gang of four," the Party has decided to implement from this year onward a policy of readjustment, reform, consolidation, and improvement of the national economy so that it can move from a state of serious disequilibrium to relative equilibrium and along a track of proportionate (...) development of sustained high speed. This is a major policy to achieve socialist modernization in China. To acquire a deep understanding of and fully implement this policy, we should conduct further discussions on the issue of equilibrium and disequilibrium in light of the basic theory of Marxist philosophy. This will bear a positive significance both in theory and in practice. (shrink)

In the process of pursuing the studies of Marxist philosophy, I have been over a long period of time preoccupied with a question — namely, in our life today we encounter a large number of questions of "combination" and a string of problems involving the identity and struggle of opposites derived from them.

With significant development of Internet of medical things and cloud-fog-edge computing, medical industry is now involving medical big data to improve quality of service in patient care. Karyotyping refers classifying human chromosomes. However, performing karyotyping task generally requires domain expertise in cytogenetics, long-period experience for high accuracy, and considerable manual efforts. An end-to-end chromosome karyotype analysis system is proposed over medical big data to automatically and accurately perform chromosome related tasks of detection, segmentation, and classification. Facing image data generated (...) and collected by means of edge computing, we firstly utilize visual feature to generate chromosome candidates with Extremal Regions technology. Due to severe occlusion and cross overlapping, we utilize ring radius transform to cluster pixels with same property to approximate chromosome shapes. To solve the problem of unbalanced and small dataset by covering diverse data patterns, we proposed multidistributed generated advertising network to perform data enhancement by generating additional training samples. Afterwards, we fine-tune CNN for chromosome classification task by involving generated and sufficient training images. Through experiments in self-collected datasets, the proposed method achieves high accuracy in tasks of chromosome detection, segmentation, and classification. Moreover, experimental results prove that MD-GAN-based data enhancement contributes to classification results of CNN to a certain extent. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between a firm’s business strategy and its corporate social responsibility performance. Using a comprehensive measure of business strategy based on the Miles and Snow theoretical framework, we find that firms following an innovation-oriented strategy are associated with better CSR performance than those following an efficiency-oriented strategy. Specifically, compared with defenders, prospectors engage in more socially responsible activities, fewer socially irresponsible activities, and perform better in both stakeholder- and third-party-related CSR areas. Taken together, our results suggest (...) that business strategy is an important determinant of CSR performance. Prospectors take advantage of CSR, as their innovation-oriented strategy allows them not only to benefit more from CSR, but also to have more tolerance for the uncertainty, risk, and long time-horizon associated with CSR engagement. (shrink)

The field of causal learning and reasoning (largely overlooked in the target article) provides an illuminating case study of how the modern Bayesian framework has deepened theoretical understanding, resolved long-standing controversies, and guided development of new and more principled algorithmic models. This progress was guided in large part by the systematic formulation and empirical comparison of multiple alternative Bayesian models.

As a new form of smart grid, the energy transmission mode of the Energy Internet has changed from one direction to the interconnected form. Centralized scheduling of traditional power grids has the problems of low communication efficiency and low system resilience, which do not contribute to long-term development in the future. Owing to the fact that it is difficult to achieve an optimal operation for centralized control, we propose a decentralized energy flow control framework for regional Energy Internet. Through (...) optimal scheduling of regional EI, large-scale utilization and sharing of distributed renewable energy can be realized, while taking into consideration the uncertainty of both demand side and supply side. Combing the multiagent system with noncooperative game theory, a novel electricity price mechanism is adopted to maximize the profit of the regional EI. We prove that Nash equilibrium of theoretical noncooperative game can realize consensus in the multiagent system. The numerical results of real-world traces show that the regional EI can better absorb the renewable energy under the optimized control strategy, which proves the feasibility and economy of the proposed decentralized energy flow control framework. (shrink)

Cangdong is a typical oil-rich sag in the Bohai Bay Basin, China. After more than 50 years of exploration and development, the Kong2 Member still has considerable residual oil and gas resource potential. To pursue replacement areas of oil and gas exploration and development, the basic geology of the entire Kong2 Member in Cangdong Sag as a unit has been reexamined, and the findings have been used to guide the secondary exploration deployment. In this study, the characteristics of sedimentary reservoirs, (...) source rocks, and oil and gas distribution in the Kong2 Member have been systematically studied, and a sedimentary model of the ring belt-circle layer of the closed lake basin in the Kong2 Member of the Cangdong Sag, with three segments on the profile, three ring belts on the plane, and three circle layers in space has been established. The ring belt and circle layer are jointly controlled by water-body differentiation in the closed lake basin, source-material supply, depositional accommodation space, and deposition base-level cycle, and they can be in round, oval, long strip, and irregular shapes. The outer ring, located near the basin margin, mainly has delta-front subfacies conventional coarse-grained medium-thick sandstone and near-source structural and stratigraphic-lithologic reservoirs; the middle ring, the transitional zone from the basin margin to the central basin, is dominated by fine sandstone, siltstone, and lacustrine carbonates of front delta subfacies, and it mainly contains isolated lithologic reservoirs and unconventional tight oil; the inner ring is the high-quality hydrocarbon source-rock development zone in the center of the closed lake basin, featuring a high abundance of shale, where the dolomite and siltstone of distal gravity flow right next to source rock, and fine-grained diamictite of the source reservoir in one area rich in tight oil, whereas the high-abundance shale of frequent source-reservoir interbeds is rich in shale oil. The strategy of oil and gas exploration deployment is to look for structural, stratigraphic-lithologic reservoirs in the outer circle, lithologic reservoirs in the middle circle, and retained tight oil and shale oil in the inner ring. In recent years, major discoveries have been made in oil and gas exploration in the three circle layers of the Kong2 Member in the Cangdong Sag through drilling, especially in tight-oil exploration in the inner-circle layer: two sandstone sweet-spot intervals of greater than 60 m and three dolomite sweet-spot intervals of greater than 100 m have been confirmed. The maximum daily oil production of vertical wells after fracturing is up to 50 t; several hundred square kilometers of favorable exploration area has been delineated, with an estimated oil geologic resource of 100 million tons. (shrink)

Cangdong is a typical oil-rich sag in the Bohai Bay Basin, China. After more than 50 years of exploration and development, the Kong2 Member still has considerable residual oil and gas resource potential. To pursue replacement areas of oil and gas exploration and development, the basic geology of the entire Kong2 Member in Cangdong Sag as a unit has been reexamined, and the findings have been used to guide the secondary exploration deployment. In this study, the characteristics of sedimentary reservoirs, (...) source rocks, and oil and gas distribution in the Kong2 Member have been systematically studied, and a sedimentary model of the ring belt-circle layer of the closed lake basin in the Kong2 Member of the Cangdong Sag, with three segments on the profile, three ring belts on the plane, and three circle layers in space has been established. The ring belt and circle layer are jointly controlled by water-body differentiation in the closed lake basin, source-material supply, depositional accommodation space, and deposition base-level cycle, and they can be in round, oval, long strip, and irregular shapes. The outer ring, located near the basin margin, mainly has delta-front subfacies conventional coarse-grained medium-thick sandstone and near-source structural and stratigraphic-lithologic reservoirs; the middle ring, the transitional zone from the basin margin to the central basin, is dominated by fine sandstone, siltstone, and lacustrine carbonates of front delta subfacies, and it mainly contains isolated lithologic reservoirs and unconventional tight oil; the inner ring is the high-quality hydrocarbon source-rock development zone in the center of the closed lake basin, featuring a high abundance of shale, where the dolomite and siltstone of distal gravity flow right next to source rock, and fine-grained diamictite of the source reservoir in one area rich in tight oil, whereas the high-abundance shale of frequent source-reservoir interbeds is rich in shale oil. The strategy of oil and gas exploration deployment is to look for structural, stratigraphic-lithologic reservoirs in the outer circle, lithologic reservoirs in the middle circle, and retained tight oil and shale oil in the inner ring. In recent years, major discoveries have been made in oil and gas exploration in the three circle layers of the Kong2 Member in the Cangdong Sag through drilling, especially in tight-oil exploration in the inner-circle layer: two sandstone sweet-spot intervals of greater than 60 m and three dolomite sweet-spot intervals of greater than 100 m have been confirmed. The maximum daily oil production of vertical wells after fracturing is up to 50 t; several hundred square kilometers of favorable exploration area has been delineated, with an estimated oil geologic resource of 100 million tons. (shrink)

Kuan Feng and Lin Lü-shih's long article "On Kuan Chung's System of Thought" is a thorough and serious study of the well-known ancient philosopher-statesman Kuan Chung in the light of the Marxist philosophy of history and society. Kuan Chung is identified as a materialist, a dialectician, and a philosopher for the people. This sympathetic perspective marks another attempt in Communist China to reevaluate the past and to assimilate, if possible, what is valuable in the past into the current ideological (...) system. (shrink)

The coordinated development of smart cities has become the goal of world urban development, and the railway network plays an important role in this progress. This paper proposes a solution that integrates data acquisition, storage, GIS visualization, deep learning, and statistical correlation analysis to deeply analyze the distribution data of companies collected in the past 40 years in the Yangtze River Delta. Through deep learning, we predict the spatial distribution of the company after the opening of the train stations. Through (...) statistical and correlation analysis of the company’s registered capital and quantity, the urban development relationship under the influence of the opening of the railway is explored. Going forward, the use and application of such analysis can be tested for use and application in the context of other smart cities for specific aspects or scale. (shrink)

Ethics education has become essential in modern engineering. Ethics education in engineering has been increasingly implemented worldwide. It can improve ethical behaviors in technology and engineering design under the guidance of the philosophy of technology. Hence, this study aims to compare China-US engineering ethics education in Sino-Western philosophies of technology by using literature studies, online surveys, observational researches, textual analyses, and comparative methods. In my original theoretical framework and model of input and output for education, six primary variables emerge in (...) the pedagogy: disciplinary statuses, educational goals, instructional contents, didactic models, teaching methods, and edificatory effects. I focus on the similarities and differences of engineering ethics educations between China and the US in Chinese and Western philosophies of technology. In the field of engineering, the US tends toward applied ethics training, whereas China inclines toward practical moral education. The US is the leader, particularly in the amount of money invested and engineering results. China has quickened its pace, focusing specifically on engineering labor input and output. Engineering ethics is a multiplayer game effected at various levels among lower level technicians and engineers, engineering associations, and stockholders; middle ranking engineering ethics education, the ministry of education, the academy of engineering, and the philosophy of technology; and top national and international technological policies. I propose that professional engineering ethics education can play many important roles in reforming engineering social responsibility by international cooperation in societies that are becoming increasingly reliant on engineered devices and systems. Significantly, my proposals contribute to improving engineering ethics education and better-solving engineering ethics issues, thereby maximizing engineering sustainability. (shrink)

Calls for justice and reconciliation in response to political catastrophes are widespread in contemporary world politics. What implications do these normative strivings have in relation to colonial injustice? Examining cases of colonial war, genocide, forced sexual labor, forcible incorporation, and dispossession, Lu demonstrates that international practices of justice and reconciliation have historically suffered from, and continue to reflect, colonial, statist and other structural biases. The continued reproduction of structural injustice and alienation in modern domestic, international and transnational orders generates contemporary (...) duties of redress. How should we think about the responsibility of contemporary agents to address colonial structural injustices and what implications follow for the transformation of international and transnational orders? Redressing the structural injustices implicated in or produced by colonial politics requires strategies of decolonization, decentering, and disalienation that go beyond interactional practices of justice and reconciliation, beyond victims and perpetrators, and beyond a statist world order. (shrink)

Shan people live in Shan State, Myanmar; Dehong, Yunnan, China; Northern Thailand; and also in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, India. Khamti Shan in Arunachal Pradesh, India are people who migrated from the northern part of Shan State, Myanmar at least 200 years ago. This paper provides field data about Khamti Shan Buddhist practice and way of life from a short visit to Namsai Village, Lohit District, Arunchal Pradesh, India, in March 2006. Cohabiting with many other ethnic groups in Arunachal Pradesh, (...) it is worth exploring to what extent Khamti Shan have maintained their Shan identity in the context of Arunachal Pradesh in India. From the many villages and temples I visited, certain aspects of Buddhist practice have been observed; for example, similar architecture of the chedi, tiered-roof temples, the worship of Uppakutta, the Sangkaen festival, the Buddhist tradition of poi lu lik in which people offer lik to monks on a special occasion. This paper looks at lik titles and the occasions for being offered to the monk. This will help us understand how Khamti Shan make use of Buddhism in their worldly life. Khamti Buddhism co-exists with Hinduism and indigenous beliefs. Other aspects of Khamti culture are also recorded. Remnants of Chaofa's families and Shan Chaofa's political system can still be traced. The Khamti Shan housing style, including rice barns and weaving looms, was also observed. Certain Khamti myths, folktales, folksongs and folklife were also collected. Overall, the Khamti in Arunachal Pradesh retain, to a large extent, their Shan-ness as if they were still in northern Shan State from where they departed a long time ago. (shrink)

Our discussion should open with a story in the “Weizi” 微子 chapter of the Analects. Confucius, while traveling on a long journey, sent his disciple Zi Lu 子路 to ask two hermits, Chang Zu 長沮 and Jie Ni 桀溺, where a ferry could be found. Sneering at Confucius for canvassing around the country, they retorted: “Turbulent waves are sweeping away everything under Heaven. With whom, then, are you to change the world?” Zi Lu reported their words back to Confucius, (...) who said, “Since I cannot live among the birds and animals, if I do not live among these men, with whom should I live? If there were a Way under Heaven, I would not need to strive to change the world.”1What world was it that Confucius dreamed of? What vision did.. (shrink)

Publier en sciences économiques impose des délais considérables se chiffrant facilement en de multiples années, de la soumission à la parution. Aussi, le contenu des revues est en retard par rapport à la frontière de la recherche. Les principaux médias pour s’informer de cette frontière sont alors les conférences et les cahiers de recherche, des polycopiés qui circulent parmi certains scientifiques. Ceci favorise la formation de petits cercles fermés et exclut la participation de tiers à la pointe de la recherche. (...) L’apparition d’Internet a fondamentalement changé l’accès aux cahiers de recherche, mais encore faut-il que cet accès soit organisé et qu’il permette d’être lu par les autres. Le présent article décrit RePEc, une initiative qui a justement permis d’accorder tous les économistes sur un dénominateur commun et qui est maintenant devenue un instrument incontournable dans leur domaine de recherche. Des initiatives similaires dans d’autres champs de recherche sont aussi abordées.Publishing articles on the economics involves long time frames of up to several years, from submission to publication. Consequently, journal contents tend to lag behind what is happening on the research frontier. The most usual sources of information on frontier research are conferences and « working papers », which are photocopied documents that circulate among certain scientists. This practice is fostering the emergence of exclusive small groups and prevents third parties from participating in pioneering research. The Internet has radically changed possibilities for access to working papers, but Internet access still needs to be organised and to allow others to read one’s work. This article describes the RePEc initiative, which effectively places all economists on the same footing and has become an essential instrument in its field. Similar initiatives in other fields are also investigated. (shrink)