What things count as individuals, and how do we individuate them? It is a classic philosophical question often tackled from the perspective of analytic metaphysics. This volume proposes that there is another channel by which to approach individuation -- from that of scientific practices. From this perspective, the question then becomes: How do scientists individuate things and, therefore, count them as individuals? This volume collects the work of philosophers of science to engage with this central philosophical conundrum from a new (...) angle, highlighting the crucial topic of experimental individuation and building upon recent, pioneering work in the philosophy of science. An introductory chapter foregrounds the problem of individuation, arguing it should be considered prior to the topic of individuality. The following chapters address individuation and individuality from a variety of perspectives, with prominent themes being the importance of experimentation, individuation as a process, and pluralism in individuation's criteria. Contributions examine individuation in a wide range of sciences, including stem cell biology, particle physics, and community ecology. Other chapters examine the metaphysics of individuation, its bearing on realism/antirealism debates, and interrogate epistemic aspects of individuation in scientific practice. In exploring individuation from the philosophy of biology, physics, and other scientific subjects, this volume ultimately argues for the possibility of several criteria of individuation, upending the tenets of traditional metaphysics. It provides insights for philosophers of science, but also for scientists interested in the conceptual foundations of their work. (shrink)

Compte rendu de Otavio Bueno, Ruey-Lin Chen, Melinda Bonnie Fagan (eds), Individuation, process, and scientific practices.

Harry Frankfurt had insightfully pointed out that an agent acts freely when he acts in accord with the mental states with which he identifies. The concept of identification rightly captures the ownership condition (something being one’s really own), which plays a significant role in the issues of freedom and moral responsibility. For Frankfurt, identification consists of one’s forming second-order volitions, endorsing first-order desires, and issuing in his actions wholeheartedly. An agent not only wants to φ but also fully embraces his (...) desire to φ (and φ). Frankfurt’s official theory above encounters some serious problems, especially since it is believed that his concept of wholehearted identification is too strong to be necessary for freedom. In this paper, I propose that we can uncouple identification from wholeheartedness and thus get two different senses of identification: weak identification and strong identification. Then, I argue that this distinction does a better job than Frankfurt’s official theory. On the one hand, weak identification is enough for ownership and freedom and thus more promising than strong identification; on the other hand, this distinction has an attractive implication that it fits well with our intuition about the degree of freedom and responsibility. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship of ethical decision-making by individuals to corporate business ethics and organizational performance of three groups: SMEs, Outstanding SMEs and Large Enterprises, in order to provide a reference for Taiwanese entrepreneurs to practice better business ethics. The survey method involved random sampling of 132 enterprises within three groups. Some 524 out of 1320 questionnaires were valid. The survey results demonstrated that ethical decision-making by individuals, corporate business ethics and organizational performance are highly related. In summary, then, (...) high levels of organizational performance were directly attributable to high levels of applied corporate and individual ethics. Furthermore, there is a demonstrable tendency for Outstanding SMEs to reject ethically unsound practices such as padded expense accounts, tax evasion and misleading advertising. The measurement criteria used to assess organizational performance, however, did not include an objective evaluation of financial performance. (shrink)

Agassi’s chief contribution to the application of critical rationalism to political science is his claim that civic nationhood is a minimum requirement of democracy. This usually comes with the qualification that it is so, not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of contingency: it is an operative minimum requirement.

Agassi’s chief contribution to the application of critical rationalism to political science is his claim that civic nationhood is a minimum requirement of democracy. This usually comes with the qualification that it is so, not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of contingency: it is an operative minimum requirement.

Agassi’s chief contribution to the application of critical rationalism to political science is his claim that civic nationhood is a minimum requirement of democracy. This usually comes with the qualification that it is so, not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of contingency: it is an operative minimum requirement.

Previous studies have identified the critical role of the left fusiform cortex in visual word form processing, learning, and memory. However, this so-called visual word form area's other functions are not clear. In this study, we used fMRI and the subsequent memory paradigm to examine whether the putative VWFA was involved in the processing and successful memory encoding of faces as well as words. Twenty-two native Chinese speakers were recruited to memorize the visual forms of faces and Chinese words. Episodic (...) memory for the studied material was tested 3. h after the scan with a recognition test. The fusiform face area and the VWFA were functionally defined using separate localizer tasks. We found that, both within and across subjects, stronger activity in the VWFA was associated with better recognition memory of both words and faces. Furthermore, activation in the VWFA did not differ significantly during the encoding of faces and words. Our results revealed the important role of the so-called VWFA in face processing and memory and supported the view that the left mid-fusiform cortex plays a general role in the successful processing and memory of different types of visual objects. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. (shrink)

BackgroundThere are limited sensitive evaluation methods to distinguish people’s symptoms of peripheral fatigue and central fatigue simultaneously. The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate them after acute exercise with a simple and practical scale.MethodsThe initial scale was built through a literature review, experts and athlete population survey, and a small sample pre-survey. Randomly selected 1,506 students were evaluated with the initial scale after exercise. Subjective fatigue self-assessments were completed at the same time.ResultsThe Acute Exercise-Induced Fatigue Scale was (...) determined after performing a factor analysis. In the exploratory factor analysis, the cumulative variance contribution rate was 65.464%. The factor loadings of the total 8 questions were 0.661–0.816. In the confirmatory factor analysis, χ2/df = 2.529, GFI = 0.985, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.982, IFI = 0.989, CFI = 0.989, and RMSEA = 0.048. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.872, and it was 0.833 for peripheral fatigue and 0.818 for central fatigue. The intra-class correlation coefficient for the scale was 0.536, and the intra-class correlation coefficients for peripheral fatigue and central fatigue were 0.421 and 0.548, respectively. The correlation coefficient between the total score of the AEIFS and the SFSA score was 0.592.ConclusionOur results demonstrate that the AEIFS can distinguish peripheral fatigue and central fatigue and can also reflect their correlation. This scale can be a useful evaluation tool not only for measuring fatigue after acute exercise but also for guiding reasonable exercise, choosing objective testing indicators, and preventing sports injuries resulting from acute exercise-induced fatigue. (shrink)

Embedded pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs), like other types of randomized comparative-effectiveness research (CER) studies, are sometimes conducted without informed consent. Indeed, authors of both...

Digitized information and network have made an enormous impact on the music and movie industries. Internet piracy is popular and has greatly threatened the companies in these industries. This study tests Hunt-Vitell’s ethical decision model and attempts to understand why and how people share unauthorized music files with others in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The norm of anti-piracy, the ideology of free software, the norm of reciprocity, and the ideology of consumer rights are proposed as four deontological norms related to (...) using P2P systems. The model is tested using a scenario survey with four alternatives; the results indicate that the deontological norm of anti-piracy is not a main factor in affecting P2P users’ ethical considerations regarding sharing files with others. This finding suggests that to protect their property rights, record companies should try to realize the consumer benefits brought via new digital and network technology, instead of simply declaring their intellectual property and resisting the innovations resulting from new technologies. (shrink)

To oversimplify quite a bit, scholars’ presentation of Hegel's teleology constitutes a continuum according to how more-or-less secured the progress towards the goal is supposed to be, which tracks roughly the nature of the end and its necessity. In this article, rather than focus on the end and progress towards it, we will focus on the means and structure of teleological relationships on Hegel's account. This focus follows from an essential feature of Hegel's discussion of teleology in the Logic, in (...) which teleology is introduced to solve a problem in the individuation of entities. It will turn out that the fullest actualization of the end is in the durable means, which is also thereby individuated. And it will turn out that the paradigmatic historical means—the state—is tensed, as it were, between the end and its realization that makes it synchronically historical. This synchronic historicity is missing in the usual progressive and thus diachronic accounts of the teleological process of history. But first we step back even farther (at least historically). We begin by taking up the two most important philosophical accounts of teleology for Hegel, namely those of Aristotle and Kant. Then we go to Hegel's Logic for his reconstruction of teleological processes against the background of the explanatory need for individuation. We focus on four aspects of Hegel's account: that teleology is a structure of reciprocal interaction, that the purpose is an immanent governing principle, that change is the price of immanence, and that the durable means is the teleological object par excellence. Finally, we trace these features through Hegel's account of world history and conclude with some brief remarks on the historicity of the state described in the Philosophy of Right. (shrink)

People are not as fast or as strong as many other creatures that evolved around us. What gives us an evolutionary advantage is working together to achieve common aims. Coordinating joint action begins at a tender age with such cooperative activities as alternating babbling and clapping games. Adult joint activities are far more complex and use multiple means of coordination. Joint action has attracted qualitative analyses by sociolinguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers as well as empirical analyses and theories by cognitive (...) scientists. Here, we analyze how joint action is spontaneously coordinated from start to finish in a novel complex real‐life joint activity, assembling a piece of furniture, a task that captures the essentials of joint action, collaborators, things in the world, and communicative devices. Pairs of strangers assembled a TV cart from a stack of parts and a photo of the completed cart. Coordination prior to each assembly action was coded as explicit, using speech or gesture, or implicit, actions that both advanced the task and communicated the next step. Initial planning relied on explicit communication about structure, but not action nor division of labor, which were improvised. That served to establish a joint representation of the goal that informed actions and monitored progress. As assembly progressed, coordination was increasingly implicit, through actions alone. Joint action is a dynamic interplay of explicit and implicit signaling with respect to things in the world to coordinate ongoing progress, guided by a shared representation of the goal. (shrink)

Improving the resilience of urban road networks suffering from various disruptions has been a central focus for urban emergence management. However, to date the effective methods which may mitigate the negative impacts caused by the disruptions, such as road accidents and natural disasters, on urban road networks is highly insufficient. This study proposes a novel adaptive signal control strategy based on a doubly dynamic learning framework, which consists of deep reinforcement learning and day-to-day traffic dynamic learning, to improve the network (...) performance by adjusting red/green time split. In this study, red time split is regarded as extra traffic flow to discourage drivers to use affected roads, so as to reduce congestion and improve the resilience when urban road networks are subject to different levels of disruptions. In addition, we utilize the convolution neural network as Q-network to approximate Q values, link flow distribution and link capacity are regarded as the state space, and actions are denoted as red/green time split. A small network is utilized as a numerical example, and a fixed time signal control and other two adaptive signal controls are employed for the comparisons with the proposed one. The results show that the proposed adaptive signal control based on deep reinforcement learning can achieve better resilience in most of the cases, particularly in the scenarios of moderate and severe disruptions. This study may shed light on the advantages of the proposed adaptive signal control dealing with major emergencies compared to others. (shrink)

In "Formations of World Literature and Shaw's The Man of Destiny in Chinese and Japanese Translation" Shunqing Cao and Xin Chen expand Franco Moretti's dictum that "world literature is not an object, it's a problem" to elaborate that the concept of world literature is in some sense a problematic one, which is itself under a process of problematization. Cao and Chen discuss how variation and heterogeneity contribute to a more in-depth understanding of formations of world literature. Taking the (...) Bernar Shaw's The Man of Destiny they discuss the writer's presence in world literature from a bi-lateral perspective: Shaw's work in the English-speaking West and Shaw in Asia. For the former, Shaw stands in a specific place in recent postcolonial Irish Studies and thus raise problems for their research paradigm. For the latter, Cao and Chen present an analytical comparison between a Chinese and a Japanese translation of The Man of Destiny. Cao and Chen argue that by such a bilateral approach we may recognize the importance of heterogeneity so as to obtain further reflections on present discussions of world literature. (shrink)

Experiments in animal models have shown that running increases neuronal activity in early visual areas in light as well as in darkness. This suggests that visual processing is influenced by locomotion independent of visual input. Combining mobile electroencephalography, motion- and eye-tracking, we investigated the influence of overground free walking on cortical alpha activity and eye movements in healthy humans. Alpha activity has been considered a valuable marker of inhibition of sensory processing and shown to negatively correlate with neuronal firing rates. (...) We found that walking led to a decrease in alpha activity over occipital cortex compared to standing. This decrease was present during walking in darkness as well as during light. Importantly, eye movements could not explain the change in alpha activity. Nevertheless, we found that walking and eye related movements were linked. While the blink rate increased with increasing walking speed independent of light or darkness, saccade rate was only significantly linked to walking speed in the light. Pupil size, on the other hand, was larger during darkness than during light, but only showed a modulation by walking in darkness. Analyzing the effect of walking with respect to the stride cycle, we further found that blinks and saccades preferentially occurred during the double support phase of walking. Alpha power, as shown previously, was lower during the swing phase than during the double support phase. We however could exclude the possibility that the alpha modulation was introduced by a walking movement induced change in electrode impedance. Overall, our work indicates that the human visual system is influenced by the current locomotion state of the body. This influence affects eye movement pattern as well as neuronal activity in sensory areas and might form part of an implicit strategy to optimally extract sensory information during locomotion. (shrink)

Examples from Chinese, Thai, and Finnish illustrate why researchers cannot always be confident about the precise nature of the word unit. Understanding ambiguities regarding where a word begins and ends, and how to model word recognition when many derivations of a word are possible, is essential for universal theories of reading applied to both developing and expert readers.

While translation competence assessment has been playing an increasingly facilitating role in translation teaching and learning, it still failed to offer fine-grained diagnostic feedback based on certain reliable translation competence standards. As such, this study attempted to investigate the feasibility of providing diagnostic information about students’ translation competence by integrating China’s Standards of English with cognitive diagnostic assessment approaches. Under the descriptive parameter framework of CSE translation scales, an attribute pool was established, from which seven attributes were identified based on (...) students’ and experts’ think-aloud protocols. A checklist comprising 20 descriptors was developed from CSE translation scales, with which 458 students’ translation responses were rated by five experts. In addition, a Q-matrix was established by seven experts. By comparing the diagnostic performance of four widely-used cognitive diagnostic models, linear logistic model was selected as the optimal model to generate fine-grained information about students’ translation strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, relationships among translation competence attributes were discovered and diagnostic results were shown to differ across high and low proficiency groups. The findings can provide insights for translation teaching, learning and assessment. (shrink)

Recently implemented Chinese health insurance schemes have failed to achieve a Chinese health care system that is family-oriented, family-based, family-friendly, or even financially sustainable. With this diagnosis in hand, the authors argue that a financially and morally sustainable Chinese health care system should have as its core family health savings accounts supplemented by appropriate health insurance plans. This essay’s arguments are set in the context of Confucian moral commitments that still shape the background culture of contemporary China.

BackgroundSocial support plays an important role for health outcomes. Support for those living with chronic conditions may be particularly important for their health, and even for their survival. The role of support for the survival of cancer patients after receiving an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant is understudied. To better understand the link between survival and support, as well as different sources and functions of support, we conducted two studies in alloHCT patients. First, we examined whether social support is related to (...) survival. Second, we examined who provides which support and which specific support-related functions and tasks are fulfilled by lay caregivers and healthcare professionals.MethodsIn Study 1, we conducted a retrospective chart review of alloHCT patients and registered availability of a dedicated lay caregiver and survival. In Study 2, we prospectively followed patients after alloHCT from the same hospital, partly overlapping from Study 1, who shared their experiences of support from lay caregivers and healthcare providers in semi-structured in-depth interviews 3 to 6 months after their first hospital discharge.ResultsPatients with a dedicated caregiver had a higher probability of surviving to 100 days than patients without a caregiver, OR = 2.84, p = 0.042. Study 2 demonstrated the importance of post-transplant support due to patients’ emotional needs and complex self-care regimen. The role of lay caregivers extended to many areas of patients’ daily lives, including support for attending doctor’s appointments, managing medications and financial tasks, physical distancing, and maintaining strict dietary requirements. Healthcare providers mainly fulfilled medical needs and provided informational support, while lay caregivers were the main source of emotional and practical support.ConclusionThe findings highlight the importance of studying support from lay caregivers as well as healthcare providers, to better understand how they work together to support patients’ adherence to recommended self-care and survival. (shrink)

Climate change is now a global problem that can no longer be ignored. As climate change signals a civilization failure, the emerging reality will spur cultures everywhere to re-examine their traditions and rediscover the ecological wisdom of the ancients. Daoism will be no exception. This paper tries to explain the Daoist response to climate change by focusing on the manifestation of Dao, the responsibility of humankind and the ideal life. It shows that in its tenets and practices, Daoism articulates ideas (...) that emphasize conservation, envision a post-consumerist existence and inform a climate ethics, which can help with the cultural adaptations that are now necessary for a sustainable future. (shrink)

The theorem of convergence of opinions is an important theorem in the subjective theory of probability.It demonstrates that the subjectivity of a prior probability will be substituted with the objectivity of a posterior probability as evidences increase.The theorem of convergence of opinions is regarded as the dynamic principle of rationality concerning the subjective probability,and therefore is used to resolve Hume's problem,i.e.,the problem of inductive rationality.However,Hacking convincingly argues that the theorem of convergence of opinions is not about the convergence of a (...) posterior probability Pre(h),but about the convergence of a conditional probability Pr(h/e).The subjective theory of probability implies a tacit acceptance of an equation that is Pre(h)=Pr(h/e),usually called "the rule of conditionalisation".Thus,the problem of rationality of induction is converted into one concerning the rule of conditionalisation.In this paper a new principle of rationality(the principle of minimum number of initial probabilities)is put forward,which,in combination with the concept of "local rationality",offers a justification for the rule of conditionalisation. (shrink)

This paper is to investigate the existence and uniqueness of solutions for an integral boundary value problem of new fractional differential equations with a sign-changed parameter in Banach spaces. The main used approach is a recent fixed point theorem of increasing Ψ − h, r -concave operators defined on ordered sets. In addition, we can present a monotone iterative scheme to approximate the unique solution. In the end, two simple examples are given to illustrate our main results.

In recent years, the “financial-like” behavior of non-financial enterprises has contributed to the “off real to virtual,” which has seriously restricted the virtuous cycle of finance and economy. This study selects non-financial enterprises listed on Chinese A-shares from 2008 to 2019 as the research sample, and empirically analyzes the impact of CEOs’ financial background on the shadow banking business of non-financial enterprises and its mechanism. The results show that: CEOs’ FB has a positive effect on shadow banking business of non-financial (...) enterprises; among which, the positive effect generated by non-banking FB is stronger. The conclusions still hold after robustness tests by replacing the measurement of variables, controlling for other shocks, changing the parameter estimation method, and considering the endogeneity problem. The mechanism analysis reveals the positive effect mainly by reducing the level of entity investment by enterprises. The heterogeneity analysis finds that, on the one hand, with respect to the internal micro characteristics of enterprises, the positive effect is more significant in state-owned enterprises, non-manufacturing enterprises, and non-growth stage enterprises. On the other hand, with respect to the external macro environment, the positive effect is more significant in periods of easy monetary policy, in industries with a higher competition or in regions with a better institutional environment. This study reveals the intrinsic mechanism of CEOs’ FB and non-financial enterprises’ shadow banking business, enriches the study of the influencing factors of non-financial enterprises’ shadow banking business, and provides micro-level empirical support to alleviate the “off real to virtual” of the economy. (shrink)

This research performed four experiments to investigate the influence of infant schema cues on charitable donation intention and examine the moderating effect of gender. The results indicate that: individuals stimulated by infant schema cues had a higher willingness to donate when facing charity promotion; the main effect was not due to the perceived cuteness of character in posters; empathy played an entirely mediating role in the relationship between infant schema cues and donation intention; gender moderated the influence of infant schema (...) on donation intention: infant schema cues are effective for improving females’ donation intention, but ineffective for males. These findings contributed to the literature on infant schema and provide practical significance for introducing infant schema in charity promotion. (shrink)

Randomness, uncertainty, and lack of regularity had concerned savants for a long time. As early as the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal conceived the arithmetic of chance for gambling. At the height of positional astronomy, mathematicians developed a theory of errors to cope with random deviations in astronomical observations. In the nineteenth century, pioneers of statistics employed probabilistic calculus to define “normal” and “pathological” in the distribution of social characters, while physicists devised the statistical-mechanical interpretation of thermodynamic effects. By the end (...) of the century, a probabilistic worldview—as historians Lorrain Daston, Theodore Porter, and Stephen Stigler. (shrink)

CEO compensation by nonprofit organizations is controversial. Higher-qualified CEOs should be compensated more than lesser-qualified individuals because of better performance regarding organizational goals and missions. Alternatively, an ethical issue may exist if CEOs are overcompensated resulting in a negative impact on the operations of their organizations. Donors have the incentive to monitor nonprofit organizations, but their role is limited to their ability to acquire nonprofit organization information. However, charity rating agencies make information more accessible and understandable, thus reducing information asymmetry (...) between donors and nonprofit organizations. This study examines whether charity rating availability is associated with negative pay-to-performance sensitivity. Using a sample derived from the IRS Form 990 s and Charity Navigator ratings, this study provides evidence that rating availability is negatively related to pay-to-performance sensitivity in nonprofit organizations. Additional tests provide evidence that the overall rating score and its financial rating component are negatively associated with pay-to-performance sensitivity. (shrink)

In recent years, a greater focus has been placed on the influential power of domain-general psychological properties in second language acquisition and learning. The investigations of these properties, such as grit, academic procrastination and enjoyment etc. have been extensively conducted and are well-documented. Notwithstanding the surge of academic inquiry, the link between psychopathological notions and second language learning has not been adequately established and thoroughly scrutinized. The current study, therefore, aims to broaden the spectrum of second language research and explore (...) the impact of social phobia on willingness to communicate in the second language context. Meanwhile, this research introduces the self-construct, particularly the ideal L2 self to further examine and elucidate the impact. 173 qualified Chinese speakers of L2 English participated in the study. By conducting correlation analysis, regression analysis and structural equation modelling analysis, it was revealed that social phobia had a significant negative impact on L2 willingness to communicate in social situations of meetings and public speaking. Ideal L2 self acted as a complete mediating role in the impact. Pedagogical implications and future directions were proposed and discussed. (shrink)

COVID-19 has caused significant damage globally, including tourism. This study adopts the quantitative research method, selects 588 samples from tourists watching short videos to investigate the antecedents and effects of parasocial interaction between tourists and short video tourism Vloggers, and analyses them with partial least squares. Based on parasocial relationship theory, this study investigates the antecedents of parasocial relationships between tourists and short video tourism Vloggers and their willingness to share short video tourism. Results show that the consistency of values, (...) entertainment motivation, and emotional engagement positively impact the parasocial relationships between tourists and short video tourism Vloggers and affect the online sharing intention through the parasocial relationship. The consistency of values can directly affect sharing intention. As an intermediary variable, parasocial relationship positively impacts value congruence, entertainment motivation, emotional engagement, and sharing intention. This study introduces parasocial relationship into the research of tourism short video Vloggers, which enriches the literature. Furthermore, this introduction provides new marketing strategies and suggestions for the sustainable development of tourism. (shrink)

Aiming at the problem of inaccurate classification of big data information in traditional English teaching ability evaluation algorithms, an English teaching ability evaluation algorithm based on big data fuzzy K-means clustering and information fusion is proposed. Firstly, the author uses the idea of K-means clustering to analyze the collected original error data, such as teacher level, teaching facility investment, and policy relevance level, removes the data that the algorithm considers unreliable, uses the remaining valid data to calculate the weighting factor (...) of the modified fuzzy logic algorithm, and evaluates the weighted average with the node measurement data and gets the final fusion value. Secondly, the author integrates the big data information fusion and K-means clustering algorithm, realizes the clustering and integration of the index parameters of English teaching ability, compiles the corresponding English teaching resource allocation plan, and realizes the evaluation of English teaching ability. Finally, the results show that using this method to evaluate English teaching ability has better information fusion analysis ability, which improves the accuracy of teaching ability evaluation and the efficiency of teaching resources application. (shrink)

The study expects to find a better way to improve the teaching quality of the education of college students' outlook on life, based on the theory of educational psychology. First, the relevant theories of positive psychology are introduced and expounded, and the importance of the education of college students' outlook on life is analyzed. Second, the current situations of college students' outlook on life and the education of their outlook on life are investigated through a questionnaire survey, and the problems (...) presented in the questionnaire are analyzed. Then, the correlation between positive psychology and the education of college students' outlook on life is explored, and their mutual connection is analyzed. The results are as follows: 77.4% of the college students have periodical aims and work hard for them; 80.8% of the students think that the realization of life goals rely on hard work, accounting for the largest proportion; when they encounter setbacks, more than 80% of the students choose to work hard to overcome them; 69.2% students think that their outlook on life comes from self-learning and exploration. According to college students' outlook on life in China and other countries, there are many problems in the education of college students' outlook on life, and the teaching quality of the education of college students' outlook on life is backward. The combination of positive psychology and college students' education of college students' outlook on life under the theory of educational psychology provides new ideas and ways for college students' education of college students' outlook on life. The conclusion of this study promotes the innovation of the education of college students' outlook on life. (shrink)

Robustness of a supply network highly depends on its structure. Although structural design methods have been proposed to create supply networks with optimal robustness, a real-life supply network can be quite different from these optimal structural designs. Meanwhile, real cases such as Thailand floods and Tohoku earthquake demonstrate the vulnerability of supply networks in real life. Obviously, it is urgent to enhance the robustness of existing real-life supply networks. Thus, in this paper, a supply network reconfiguration method based on adaptive (...) variable neighborhood search is proposed to enhance the structural robustness of supply networks facing both random and target disruptions. Firstly, a supply network model considering the heterogeneous roles of entities is introduced. Based on the model, two robustness metrics, Rr and Rt, are proposed to describe the tolerance of supply networks facing random and target disruptions, respectively. Then, the problem of reconfiguration-based supply network robustness enhancement is described. To solve the problem effectively and efficiently, a new heuristic based on general variable neighborhood search, namely, AVNS, is proposed. Finally, a case study based on three real-life supply networks is presented to verify the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed robustness enhancing method. (shrink)