The critical node detection problem is a central task in computational graph theory due to its large applicability, consisting in deleting $k$ nodes to minimize a certain graph measure. In this article, we propose a new Extremal Optimization-based approach, the Pseudo-Deterministic Noisy Extremal Optimization (PDNEO) algorithm, to solve the Critical Node Detection variant in which the pairwise connectivity is minimized. PDNEO uses an adaptive pseudo-deterministic parameter to switch between random nodes and articulation points during the search, as well as other (...) features, such as noise induction to preserve diversity, greedy search to better exploit the search space and a greater search space exploration mechanism. Numerical experiments on synthetic and real-world networks show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared with existing methods. (shrink)

We study behind-the-scenes investor activism promoting environmental, social, and governance improvements by means of a proprietary dataset of a large international, socially responsible activist fund. We examine the activist’s target selection, forms of engagement, impact on ESG performance, drivers of success, and effects on the targets’ operations and value creation. Target firms are typically large and visible, perform well, and have high liquidity and low ESG performance. Engagement induces ESG rating adjustments: firms with poor ex ante ESG ratings experience a (...) ratings increase after complying with the activist’s demands, whereas firms with high ex ante ESG ratings experience a ratings decrease following the revelation of their ESG problems. Activism that is focused on environmental and social issues is more likely to succeed if targets are ESG-sensitive. Successful engagements boost targets’ sales. Risk-adjusted excess stock returns of successful engagements outperform those of unsuccessful engagements by 2.7%. Results are especially strong for firms with low ex ante ESG scores. Specifically, targeted firms in the lowest ex ante ESG quartile outperform matched peers by 7.5% in the year after the end of the engagement. Our results thus suggest that the activism regarding corporate social responsibility generally improves ESG practices and corporate sales and is profitable to the activist. Taken together, we provide direct evidence that ethical investing and strong financial performance, both from the activist’s and the targeted firm’s perspective, can go hand-in-hand together. (shrink)

This book considers the Chinese conception of beauty from a historical perspective with regard to its significant relation to human personality and human existence. It examines the etymological implications of the pictographic character mei, the totemic symbolism of beauty, the ferocious beauty of the bronzeware. Further on, it proceeds to look into the conceptual progression of beauty in such main schools of thought as Confucianism, Daoism and Chan Buddhism. Then, it goes on to illustrate through art and literature the leading (...) principles of equilibriumharmony, spontaneous naturalness, subtle void and synthetic possibilities. It also offers a discussion of modern change and transcultural creation conducted with particular reference to the theory of the poetic state par excellence and that of art as sedimentation. (shrink)

Chromatic induction is a major contextual effect of color appearance. Patterned backgrounds are known to induce strong chromatic induction effects. However, it has not been clarified whether the spatial extent of the chromatic surrounding induces a chromatic contrast or assimilation effects. In this study, we examined the influence of the width of a center line and its flanking white contour on the color appearance when the line was surrounded by chromatic backgrounds. A strong color shift was observed when the center (...) line was flanked by white contours with the L/M- and S-cone chromatic backgrounds. There was a difference between the optimal widths of the center line and the contour for the shift in color appearance for the L/M-cone chromaticity and the S-cone chromaticity. The optimal width of the center line for the L/M-cone was finer than the resolution-limit width of the chromatic contrast sensitivity and coarser than that of the luminance contrast sensitivity. Thus, the color appearance of the center line could be obtained by integrating broad chromatic information and fine luminance details. Due to blurring and chromatic aberrations, the simulated artifact was large for the darker center line and S-cone background, thus suggesting that the artifact could explain the luminance dependency of the induction along the S-cone chromaticity. Moreover, the findings of this study reveal that the dominant factor of the color shift is neural instead of optical. (shrink)

Artificial Culture" is an examination of the articulation, construction, and representation of "the artificial" in contemporary popular cultural texts, especially science fiction films and novels. The book argues that today we live in an artificial culture due to the deep and inextricable relationship between people, our bodies, and technology at large. While the artificial is often imagined as outside of the natural order and thus also beyond the realm of humanity, paradoxically, artificial concepts are simultaneously produced and constructed by human (...) ideas and labor. The artificial can thus act as a boundary point against which we as a culture can measure what it means to be human. Science fiction feature films and novels, and other related media, frequently and provocatively deploy ideas of the artificial in ways which the lines between people, our bodies, spaces and culture more broadly blur and, at times, dissolve. Building on the rich foundational work on the figures of the cyborg and posthuman, this book situates the artificial in similar terms, but from a nevertheless distinctly different viewpoint. After examining ideas of the artificial as deployed in film, novels and other digital contexts, this study concludes that we are now part of an artificial culture entailing a matrix which, rather than separating minds and bodies, or humanity and the digital, reinforces the symbiotic connection between identities, bodies, and technologies. "--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

本书内容包括:党的重大战略思想中人的理论研究、人性和人的本质基本观点研究、人的信仰基本观点研究、人权基本观点研究等。.

The aim of this study is an analysis of the possible adaptive consequences of delivery of low birth weight infants. We attempt to reveal the cost and benefit components of bearing small children, estimate the chance of the infants’ survival, and calculate the mothers’ reproductive success. According to life-history theory, under certain circumstances mothers can enhance their lifetime fitness by lowering the rate of investment in an infant and/or enhancing the rate of subsequent births. We assume that living in a (...) risky environment and giving birth to a small infant may involve a shift from qualitative to quantitative production of offspring. Given high infant mortality rates, parents will have a reproductive interest in producing a relatively large number of children with a smaller amount of prenatal investment. This hypothesis was tested among 650 Gypsy and 717 non-Gypsy Hungarian mothers. Our study has revealed that 23.8% of the Gypsy mothers had low birth weight (<2,500 g) children, whose mortality rate is very high. These mothers also had more spontaneous abortions and stillbirths than those with normal weight children. As a possible response to these reproductive failures, they shortened birth spacing, gaining 2–4 years across their reproductive lifespan for having additional children. Because of the relatively short interbirth intervals, by the end of their fertility period, Gypsy mothers with one or two low birth weight infants have significantly more children than their ethnic Hungarian counterparts. They appear to compensate for handicaps associated with low birth weights by having a larger number of closely spaced children following the birth of one or more infants with a reduced probability of survival. The possible alternative explanations are discussed, and the long-term reproductive benefits are estimated for both ethnic groups. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that despite the philosophical, theological and cultural challenges, it is still possible to maintain, in a legitimate and critical way, a worldview that is coherent, unified, comprehensive and meaningful. I believe that the philosophical theology of KarlRahner offers just such a perspective. Hence, this paper explored the extent to which Karl Rahner’s understanding of the unity of matterand spirit, expressed in his integration of theology and evolution, can serve as the foundation for a more comprehensive (...) and integratedunderstanding of reality. I endeavored to provide a preliminary assessment of the adequacy of this integration by evaluating its abilityto respond to some of the important challenges to Christian theism raised by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett. By showingthat Rahner’s integration of theology and evolution can respond adequately to these challenges, the paper provides a promising firststep toward a more comprehensive investigation. (shrink)

Centering on the cultural transformations of China since late 1970s and covering a diverse of topics in the field, this collection of articles presents a multi-dimensional narrative on the dynamics, dilemmas and characteristics involving this giant process.

本书分为唯物史观研究的一般问题、坚持唯物史的基本原理、社会及其进步问题、科学发展观与唯物史观的创新等七部分。.

It is essential for social robots to fit in the human society. In order to facilitate this process we propose to use the family dog’s social behaviour shown towards humans as an inspiration. In this study we explored dogs’ low level social monitoring in dog-human interactions and extracted individually consistent and context dependent behaviours in simple everyday social scenarios. We found that proximity seeking and tail wagging were most individually distinctive in dogs, while activity, orientation towards the owner, and exploration (...) were dependent on the context and/or the activity of the owner. The functional analogues of these dog behaviours can be implemented in social robots of different embodiments in order to make them acceptable and more believable for humans. Keywords: dog-owner interaction; social robotics; low-level social monitoring; greeting behaviour; individually distinctive behaviours. (shrink)

Following on from Sources of British Feminism , the present six volumes contain primary source material on radicalism, marriage, motherhood, sexuality and militancy.

Some of the key primary source texts central to the history of British feminism are now being made available in the six volumes of Sources of British Feminism . These anthologies are intended to signal a tribute to the collective and collaborative efforts of writers whose work has effected profound social and political change. Writings compiled here include socialist manifestoes, miscellaneous pamphlets, personal reminiscences, full length biographies, histories of the various movements and impassioned treatises on the cause of women's rights (...) by leading advocates like Mary Astell, Barbara Bodichon and Emmeline Pankhurst. (shrink)

filozofiatortenet vallasfilozofia filozofiai antropologia Franciaorszag 17. szazad.

Appreciating nature may at its best feature have three levels of experience according to practical aesthetics. The first level is more sensuous as it largely pleases the ear and eye, the second level is more psychological as it chiefly pleases the mind and mood, and the third level is more sublimate as it mainly pleases the will and spirit. In Chinese culture the affinity between man and nature can be traced back to the traditional conception of tian ren he yi (...) 天人合一 as heaven-human oneness, which will be ultimately conducive to the artistic realm or aesthetic state of being. (shrink)

本是编为两篇:现代审美文化,侧重讨论文化与美学的关系、跨文化美学的方法论与学理要求;古代诗乐文化,依据跨文化美学研究的基本方法,对孔子和柏拉图的的诗学乐教思想进行探讨。.

本书收录的文章按照四个主题进行了编排,分别是:世界历史与世界交往、马克思主义全球化理论建构、全球化与社会主义以及全球化理论的全球化等。.

本书由"宗教工作","经典溯源","返本开新","中国境域","研究述要"五部分组成.探讨了当前我国宗教工作的理论依据及指导性原则,立场和方法;对经典作家的宗教观进行了深入阐释和剖析;对宗教人类学的丰 富发展,宗教的未来走向等进行了介绍和研究;探讨了马克思主义宗教观中国化的过程,经验及历史定位等问题;评价了新中国马克思主义宗教理论的研究情况,当代西方学界对马克思义宗教观的研究等.

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

For Jerry Fodor, Hume’sTreatise of Human Natureis “the foundational document of cognitive science” whose significance transcends mere historical interest: it is a source of theoretical inspiration in cognitive psychology. Here I am going to argue that those reading Hume along Fodor’s lines rely on a problematic, albeit inspiring, construction of Hume’s science of mind. My strategy in this paper is to contrast Fodor’s understanding of the Humean mind (consonant with the widely received view of Hume in both cognitive science and (...) much of Hume scholarship) with an alternative understanding that I propose. I thereby intend to show that the received view of Hume’s science of mind can be fruitfully revised while critically engaging with Fodor’s contemporary appropriation. Consequently, I use this occasion to put forward a rather unorthodox interpretation of Hume’s theory in dialogue with Fodor as my guide. (shrink)

An evolutionary theory of socialization suggests that children from father-absent families will mature earlier, and form less-stable pair bonds, compared with those from father-present families. Using a sample of about 1,000 persons the recent study focuses on elements of father-absent children’s behavior that could be better explained by a Darwinian approach than by rival social science theories. As a result of their enhanced interest in male competition, father-absent boys were found to engage in rule-breaking behavior more intensively than father-present boys. (...) Compared with father-present children, adolescents from widowed households (both boys and girls) showed a higher intensity of various kinds of noncompliant behavior, which can be linked to their earlier maturation. School attendance, age at marriage, and marital success proved to be influenced by the children’s early family experiences, governed by adapted evolutionary strategies. Father-absent daughters conceived more children than those whose fathers were present during their childhood. As evolutionary theory predicts, reproductive behavior of individuals from divorced households differed from that of individuals who grew up in widowed households. Finally, the strong correlation found between spontaneous abortion/stillbirths and family arrangement indicates that father absence has certain direct impacts on the neurohormonal processes of child development. (shrink)

This philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of racism brings together some of the most influential analytic philosophers writing on racism today. The introduction by Tamas Pataki outlines the historical and thematic development of conceptions of race and racism, and locates the following essays against the backdrop of contemporary reactions to that development. While the framework is primarily analytic, the volume also includes essays deeply informed by psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and feminist and social theory. The fourteen chapters in this collection address three (...) interrelated questions: What is racism? What are the causes of racism? and What are the moral and political implications of racism? Although their approaches are wide ranging, the contributors to Racism in Mind broadly endorse a psychological-characterological approach to the understanding of many aspects of racism. (shrink)

J.C. Nyíri’s work is well-known for his interpretation of Wittgenstein as a conservative thinker. Nevertheless, his reading of Wittgenstein is only one strand, even if presumably the most influential one, in his general interpretation of Austro-Hungarian philosophy. Therefore his reading of Wittgenstein is best understood if viewed as part of a complex, sociologically inspired picture of Austrian philosophy. In this introductory essay I present Nyíri’s work as an exercise in the sociology of philosophical knowledge, broadly understood, and provide a unified (...) view on his attempt by exploring its various strands. (shrink)

The Hungarian health care system is scheduled to undergo dramatic structural changes, emphasizing preventive medicine, health education, and competition among providers. Keywords: cost control, health care reform, health education, Hungary, market system, preventive medicine CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

The present-day arena of Chinese political culture features glocalizational considerations with regard to the exploration of renzheng as humane governance that is somewhat corresponding to shanzhi as good governance. Both forms of governance seem to share such similar principles as accountability, efficiency, equity, honesty and transparency, among others. However, humane governance places more emphasis on humanity, fairness, competence, correctness and morality with its ultimate goal to build up a harmonious society per se. It is claimed to consist in at least (...) two most important dimensions in the social setting of China at the current stage. One is fazhi as rule of law drawn from the Western democracy, and the other is xianming as wise leadership originated from the Chinese Confucianism. This pair of compasses can be employed to draw proper circles so long as they are synthesized into an organic whole by virtue of shiyong lixing as pragmatic reason. Such kind of reason is primarily characteristic of the Chinese mode of thought in one sense, and largely manifesting the ethos of Chinese culture in the other sense. In practice it is often conceived as general as “a creative principle in a dynamic process” of historical accumulation, cultural formation and psychological sedimentation as well. It was first formulated in early Confucianism but stays open to further modification along the passage of time. With respect to the preoccupation with humane governance in the given description, the pragmatic reason comprises at least four essential aspects ranging from usefulness (you yong xing), ethicalness (lun li xing), affective-cum-reasonable synthesis (qing li bu fen) to historical awareness (li shi yi shi). All this helps in varied ways rediscover the traditional sources and transform the conception of humane governance into a relevant strategy in order to upgrade the level of governmental efficiency and social management. (shrink)

AbstractPlato’s analogy of the ladder in the Symposium involves an inquiry into the love of beauty that pertains to a spiritual phenomenology of love. It is reconsidered in this discussion from both an aesthetic and teleological perspectives, and thus construed as a process of philosophical learning and virtuous cultivation. In the final analysis, this paper argues that it is intended to direct the love of beauty along with wisdom as virtue towards the Platonic ideal of human fulfillment and true happiness (...) for the good life qua its ultimate telos. On this account, both the value of knowledge and the cultivation of personality are emphasized for inter-connected reasons, and meanwhile a pragmatic stance is proposed on the kinds-of-life option in the light of the kinds-of-wisdom stratification. (shrink)

For so long a time it has been getting increasingly formidable, if not possible, to define art in general ever since the advent of the so-called “found art” or “ready-mades” of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, among other avant-garde or pop artists. But this does not have too much constraint over some philosophers who have made persistent attempts in this regard. What have turned out to be considerably influential are the “artworld” framed by Arthur C. Danto and the “institutional theory” (...) proposed by George Dickie. Nevertheless, Li Zehou, a contemporary Chinese philosopher, argues that the two theories aforementioned are not self-sufficient and convincing enough. For they could not well explicate the distinction between art and non-art, not to speak of the difference between artworks as artifacts and those as aesthetic objects. He then continues to treat art as sedimentation from an anthropo-historical viewpoint peculiar of his practical aesthetics (shijian meixue). His argument is underlined by a transcultural approach that is deployed to expand the intellectual horizon and consequently bear the theoretical fruit. (shrink)

The interlink between myth and wisdom in Hellenic heritage is characteristically embodied in the Platonic philosophizing as regards the education and enculturation of the human psyche. As is read in the end of The Republic , the myth of Er turns out to be a philosophical rewriting of poetry to a large degree. For it engagingly reveals Plato’s moral inculcation, philosophical instruction and poetic wisdom in particular, all of which are intended to guide human conduct along the right track for (...) the bliss of the postmortem cycle, and put philosophy learning into first priority for the choice of the future life. Moreover, the transmigrate experience in the mystic overtone of “the Orphic-Pythagorean conglomerate” is discussed with a intercultural reference to the Buddhist doctrines of samsara and karma. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Scholarship Beyond East and West: An Intercultural Transformation The Theory of the Poetic State The Theory of the Refined Conclusion.

What are mental states? When we talk about people’s beliefs or desires, are we talking about what is happening inside their heads? If so, might cognitive science show that we are wrong? Might it turn out that mental states do not exist? Mental fictionalism offers a new approach to these longstanding questions about the mind. Its core idea is that mental states are useful fictions. When we talk about mental states, we are not formulating hypotheses about people’s inner machinery. Instead, (...) we simply talk "as if" people had certain inner states, such as beliefs or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This is the first book dedicated to exploring mental fictionalism. Featuring contributions from established authors as well as up-and-coming scholars in this burgeoning field, the book reveals the exciting potential of a fictionalist approach to the mind, as well as the challenges it faces. In doing so, it offers a fresh perspective on foundational debates in the philosophy of mind, such as the nature of mental states and folk psychology, as well as hot topics in the field, such as embodied cognition and mental representation. Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals alike. (shrink)

Gyorgy Tamas works in the philosophy of logic, that difficult interdisciplin ary region wherein the notion of categories is both basic and subtle. To understand ways of thinking, to understand patterns of whatever is real, to recognize what is possible and to reject the nonsensical and the impossible is to comprehend the categories. This was a in thought and in fact, recurring motive of European thought from the earliest self-aware beginnings, and Tamas knows that history well, as his critical respect (...) demonstrates. Ancient, medieval, and modern thinkers appear in this book, set forth in their own words; and likewise we see that Tamas has built upon the historians and commentators, upon the pioneering historical investigation of the categories by Trendelenburg a century ago and by Bochenski in our days. Tamas has two principal goals here: to investigate the logic, which is to say the structure and the relations, of the philosophical categories; and to set forth the logic of thought which may then be based upon the critically established system of categories obtained by that investigation. Ancillary but of striking value is his style of historical relevance which enables the reader to engage in a discussion that is both analytically sharp and developmentally insightful. Furthermore, Tamas draws upon his contem porary colleagues with similar critical respect: Lukasiewicz, Quine, Patzig, Menne, Tavanets and others. (shrink)

In this introductory paper I sketch the tradition, several early aspects of which are discussed in the following essays and reviews. I introduce the main figures whose work initiated and maintained the sociological orientation in Hungarian philosophy thereby tracing its evolution. I suggest that its sociological outlook, if taken to be a characteristic tendency that gives Hungarian philosophy its distinctive flavour, provides us with the framework of a possible narrative about the history of Hungarian philosophy in the broader context of (...) Central European philosophy. This narrative, in turn, suggests a way of integrating the latter into the history of Western philosophy rather than restricting its scope to a handful of canonical works only. (shrink)

Unethical behavior in organizations has garnered more and more attention in the last decades but most of the scholarly work has used a static approach relying on methodological individualism and a mechanistic worldview when studying this topic. The process of moral disengagement and organizational culture have been linked to the prevalence of unethical behavior earlier, but this paper uses a complexity-informed systems perspective to explore the dynamic relationship of these concepts and aims to improve our understanding of the often unnoticeable, (...) step-by-step process through which organizational cultures can become conducive to unethical behavior. Organizations are conceptualized as complex adaptive systems in which transformative and stabilizing processes based on feedback loops take place continuously. It is discussed how these processes can lead to a phase transition driving organizations towards a state where unethical behavior is the general norm. The process is illustrated through real-life examples. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology comprises a wide area of theories and researches. One area focuses on the universal and comprehensive mechanisms of selection which can be utilized to interpret cultural phenomena. Memetic selection, epidemiology of representations, naturalistic approach to culture, and evolutionary epistemology use various principles and methods to explain the origin and spread of the cultural traits. Csaba Pléh, one of the representatives of Darwinian approach to social sciences, has made an effort to integrate these theoretical frameworks. He emphasizes the continuity (...) among biological evolution, hominid development, and cultural differentiation and change. Indeed, understanding mental, behavioral, and material commonalities shared across individuals or groups of individuals requires a multi-level explanation at different types and levels of evolutionary processes that are based on the same organizational principles but also imply quite distinctive procedures for acquiring, interpreting and using information derived from the social world. (shrink)

Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit, and Jaegwon Kim put forward two models of higher-level causal explanation. Advocates of both versions are inclined to draw the conclusion that the models don't differ substantially. I argue, on the contrary, that there are relevant metaphysical differences between Jackson and Pettit's notion of programme explanation on the one hand, and Kim's idea of supervenient causation on the other. These can be traced back to underlying differences between the contents of their physicalisms.