Conflicts in land exploration are incisive social problems which have been the subject in many studies. Risk assessment of land conflicts is effective to resolve such problems. Specifically, fuzzy mathematics and the analytic hierarchy process were combined together to evaluate risk in land conflicts in our work, which is proved useful to solve uncertainty and imprecision problems. Based on the analysis of the principles for the risk assessment of a land conflicts index system, a set of risk assessment indexes using (...) the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process was presented. The results show that the overall risk is at medium level, and the risk of the feasibility index and controllability index need to be paid more attention to. The contribution of this article is reflected in two aspects: the application of FAHP in risk assessments of land conflicts is effective and valid; it is helpful for governments to establish a stricter management system of work safety for conflicts in land exploration based on the risk assessment results. (shrink)

In recent years, Liu Qingping 劉清平 has published a series of articles criticizing Confucian ethics in its modern context (see various articles by Liu), which has drawn the attention of many scholars. My friends and I have debated with him and his allies on this issue (See Guo 2002, Yang Haiwen 2002, Yang Zebo 2003, 2004a, 2004b, Ding 2003, 2005a, 2005b, Gong 2004, Guo and Gong 2004, and Wen 2005). Most of the important articles in the debate are now collected (...) in a volume I edited, A Collection of Contentions about Confucian Ethics: Focusing on the Mutual Concealment among Family Members (Guo 2005 [ed.]). In the following, I attempt to respond to some of Liu’s criticisms of Confucian ethics. (shrink)

Qingping åŠ‰æ¸ å¹³ has published a series of articles criticizing Confucian ethics in its modern context (see various articles by Liu), which has drawn the attention of many scholars. My friends and I have debated with him and his allies on this issue (See Guo 2002, Yang Haiwen 2002, Yang Zebo 2003, 2004a, 2004b, Ding 2003, 2005a, 2005b, Gong 2004, Guo and Gong 2004, and Wen 2005). Most of the important articles in the debate are now collected in a volume (...) I edited, A Collection of Contentions about Confucian Ethics: Focusing on the Mutual Concealment among Family Members (Guo 2005 [ed.]). In the following, I attempt to respond to some of Liu’s criticisms of Confucian ethics. (shrink)

Many philosophers who defend a Humean account of laws of nature also endorse scientific realism, such as David Lewis and Barry Loewer. It seems as if scientific realism and Humean accounts are orthogonal to, and so are naturally compatible with, one another. I argue otherwise: Humean accounts of laws are at odds with scientific realism in a way that would require significant changes to the standard formulations of scientific realism or Humean accounts to reconcile the two. I focus on two (...) of the most prominent Humean accounts, Lewis' Best System Account and Loewer's Package Deal Account, as examples and argue: Humean accounts like Loewer's, which take the fundamental ontology and laws as a package deal, conflict with scientific realism, while Humean accounts that do not take a package deal, such as Lewis's, do not conform to scientific practice. (shrink)

Editor’s AbstractGuo Qiyong is one of China's leading scholars of Confucianism, and in this essay proposes a distinctive way of thinking about Mainland New Confucianism that is notable for excluding Jiang Qing, Chen Ming, and some other self-identified Mainland New Confucians. Guo says that the fundamental political goal of all New Confucians has been “liberalism”; he argues that values like democracy and human rights can be both universally shared and yet retain distinctive, local differentiations.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), strongly believes that heritage—natural and cultural, tangible and intangible—is fundamental to addressing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper explores Liangzhu cultural heritage located in Hangzhou, China. It argues that cultural heritage is also a special kind of living narrative. In accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, cultural heritage narratives carry an important function in global sustainable development. Cross-media narrative development of Liangzhu site and ancient symbols are (...) explored, from the appearance of elements like "The God with Mixed Human and Animal Facial Features" in design products, to the consideration of the pioneer integration of 5G technology taking place in the city of Hangzhou, an example of sustainable urban development. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi is perhaps the one and only work in classical Chinese philosophy that never fails to blow one's mind with its exquisite intertwining of high frivolousness, literary power, ambiguity, ambivalence, profundity and provocativeness all at once. There is urgent need of a translation able to transmit this paradoxical reading experiences as it is. Happily, all of these qualities, with the possible exception of ambiguity, are revealed in Brook Ziporyn's Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, with both poetry and precision. Through a (...) hermeneutical approach that inter-contextualizes each line and each word of the thirty-three chapters, especially many controversial places, he makes the chaotic and unsystematic text... (shrink)

The essential purpose of this research study is to measure the impact of the applications of traditional Chinese philosophical thinking in film and television music composition; for measuring, the research study used open-ended and closed-ended questions related to the variables. This research study depends upon primary data analysis for collecting data associated with traditional Chinese philosophical thinking and music composition. These data were collected from film industries, directors, and actors in musical department research conducted in China. For measuring, the research (...) used smart PLS and run different results related to the variables, including independent and dependent variables. Indicator correlation, discriminant validity, and composite reliability are all tests run for measuring the research. The smart PLS Algorithm model explains the impact with each other. The overall result found a positive and significant effect on the applications of traditional Chinese philosophical thinking in film and television music composition. (shrink)

In China, practice‐oriented views of science can be traced back to antiquity. In ancient times, the Chinese people independently created and developed application‐oriented sciences, but they ignored basic science. In modern times, China learned and introduced Western science and technology as a practical instrument to protect the nation and make it prosperous and powerful. Through technology and production, science has been playing an immediate and major role in the development of socialism since 1949. Since 1978, the Chinese government has always (...) emphasized that science and technology are the primary productive forces. From ancient times to the present, the practice‐oriented views of science are grounded in politics. Science has been the handmaiden of politics since the Qin Dynasty. However, this state of affairs hinders the development of basic science, a science that is not oriented toward immediate application. It also hinders open‐minded, critical reflection on the downsides or limits of science, which could draw on broader (moral, spiritual, or religious) values. (shrink)

I argue that there are two distinct approaches to understanding reduction: the ontology-first approach and the theory-first approach. They concern the relation between ontological reduction and inter-theoretic reduction. Further, I argue for the significance of this distinction by demonstrating that either one or the other approach has been taken as an implicit assumption in, and has in fact shaped, our understanding of what statistical mechanics is. More specifically, I argue that the Boltzmannian framework of statistical mechanics assumes and relies on (...) the ontology-first approach, whereas the Gibbsian framework should assume the theory-first approach. -/- . (shrink)

The representatives of modern Neo-Confucianism all greatly value Yi Zhuan and regard it as one of their spiritual resources, and give their own creative interpretations and transformations. Xiong Shili's ontological-cosmological theory takes "qian yuan" as its center; Ma Yifu has a theory of ontology-cultivation centered on "nature-principle"; Fang Dongmei has a metaphysics of production and reproduction; Mou Zongsan takes the view of "completely knowing the fathomless and understanding transformation" as a moral metaphysics; and in Tang Junyi there is a theory (...) of the harmony of doctrines on Heaven and man in which "the knowledge of divine understanding" is its key concept. They employ modern philosophical concepts and thinking to illustrate the cosmology, ontology, theory of life, theory of human nature, theory of spiritual worlds, axiology and their connections in Zhou Yi. They affirm that the characteristics of Chinese philosophy that are different from Western philosophy consist in a naturalist view of vital life, a harmonious view of totality, an axiological view that values exist in natural universe and the world of fact, the pursuit of Good and Beauty, and intuitive experience of inner world. (shrink)

This book offers an annotated translation of two of preeminent Chinese Tang dynasty monk Chengguan’s most revered masterpieces. With this book, Chengguan’s Commentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra and The Meanings Proclaimed in the Subcommentaries Accompanying the Commentaries to the Avatamsaka Sutra are finally brought to Western audiences.

Mou Zongsan uses the highest moral principle “autonomy” to interpret Confucius’ benevolence and Mencius’ “inherent benevolence and righteousness”, focuses on the self-rule of the will. It does not do any harm to Mencius’ learning, on the contrary, it is conducive to the communication between Chinese and Western philosophies. If we stick to Kant’s moral self autonomy and apply it to interpreting Zhu Xi’s moral theory, similarly we will discover the implications of Zhu Xi’s “autonomy” in his moral learning. Therefore, it (...) is inappropriate for Mou Zongsan to say that Zhu Xi’s ethics belongs to the autonomous one. (shrink)

This paper investigates Hegel’s idea of life, which is on the one hand significant to the research of the dynamic structure of Hegelian absolute idea and on the other hand provides a relevant philosophical foundation for our current exploration of life. In this paper, the research on the idea of life is mainly based on Hegel’s Science of Logic and is divided into two parts, namely an argumentative reconstruction of the moments of the life-idea and an interpretation of its role (...) in the inner-logical process of the idea itself. Through the study of these two dimensions, this paper shows that the complex logical structure of the life-idea is, as claimed by Hegel, in its forming activity, in its negative unity, the only one unified process and plays four relevant roles in the inner-logical construction of the idea itself, namely in the core concept of Hegel. (shrink)

A large body of psycholinguistic research demonstrates that both language processing and language acquisition are sensitive to the distributions of linguistic constructions in usage. Here we investigate how statistical distributions at different linguistic levels – morphological and lexical, and phrasal – contribute to the ease with which morphosyntax is processed and produced by second language learners. We analyze Chinese ESL learners’ knowledge of four English inflectional morphemes: -ed, -ing, and third-person -s on verbs, and plural -s on nouns. In Elicited (...) Imitation Tasks, participants listened to length- and difficulty-matched sentences each containing one target morpheme and typed the whole sentence as accurately as they could after a short delay. Experiment 1 investigated lexical and morphemic levels, testing the hypotheses that a morpheme is expected to be more easily processed when it is highly available, and highly reliable. Thirty sentences were made for each morpheme, divided into three Availability-Reliability Distribution groups on the basis of corpus analysis in the Corpus of Contemporary American English : 10 target words high in availability, 10 high in reliability, and 10 low in both reliability and availability. Responses were scored on whether the target morpheme was accurately reproduced given the provision of the correct lemma. A generalized linear mixed-effects logit model revealed fixed effects of morpheme type, availability, and reliability on the accuracy of morpheme provision. There were no effects of lemma frequency. Experiment 2 successfully replicated these results and extended the investigation to explore phrasal formulaicity by manipulating the frequency of the four-word strings in which the morpheme was embedded. GLMMs replicated the effects of word-form availability and reliability and additionally revealed independent phrase-superiority effects where morphemes were better reproduced in contexts of higher string-frequency. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that morpheme acquisition reflects the distributional properties of learners’ experience and the mappings therein between lexis, morphology, phraseology, and semantics. These conclusions support an emergentist view of the statistical symbolic learning of morphology where language acquisition involves the satisfaction of competing constraints across multiple grain-sizes of units. (shrink)

People have a capacity to imaginatively recreate mental states that they themselves do not have. These recreative states are referred to as ‘I-states’. Several philosophers, such as Gregory Currie,...

In the history of Chinese and European philosophy, metaphysics has played an outstanding role: it is a theoretical framework which provides the basis for a philosophical understanding of the world and the self. A theory of the self is well integrated in a metaphysical understanding of the totality of nature as a dynamic process of continuous changes. According to this view, the purpose of existence can be conceived of as the development and realization of the full potential given to the (...) individual by its nature. In regard to human nature specifically, this idea of self-realization includes the development of all cognitive faculties as well as of the moral character. Metaphysics has, however, suffered a loss of importance in current debates, especially in ethics. As a result, we observe the emergence of such philosophical views as moral skepticism and even nihilism. The consequence of this tendency has been the renunciation of a claim to understanding and to providing a solid ground for ethics. Yet an intercultural dialogue can provide us with some hope as the consolidation of debates on crucial topics of our traditions might indeed serve as the basis for a more powerful philosophy in the future. (shrink)

In the original publication of the article, the y axis labels present in Figs. 1a and 2a are incorrect. The correct Figs. 1a and 2a are provided here.

In this paper, we propose two four-base related 2D curves of DNA primary sequences and their corresponding single-base related 2D curves. The constructions of these graphical curves are based on the assignments of individual base to four different sinusoidal functions; then by connecting all these points on these four sinusoidal functions, we can get the F-B curves; similarly, by connecting the points on each of the four sinusoidal functions, we get the single-base related 2D curves. The proposed 2D curves are (...) all strictly non degenerate. Then, a 8-component characteristic vector is constructed to compare similarity among DNA sequences from different species based on a normalized geometrical centers of the proposed curves. As examples, we examine similarity among the coding sequences of the first exon of beta-globin gene from eleven species, similarity of cDNA sequences of beta-globin gene from eight species, and similarity of the whole mitochondrial genomes of 18 eutherian mammals. The experimental results well demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

The reform of China’s housing system has gone through a complex historical process from private real estate before 1949 to public ownership and then partial privatization. These successive temporalities of housing rights can be seen as a concentrated expression of the social transformation process in China. This paper aims at emphasizing both process and structures, revealing a complex relationship between government, market and society, but also the characteristics of the regime behind the events and phenomena described.The research is based on (...) a longitudinal fieldwork and was conducted by a team of teachers and students from Tsinghua University. From the perspective of the politics and sociology of action, housing is the most important contributing factor for the quality of life; to safeguard legal residence rights as well as property rights means to safeguard human rights in the sense of rights of subsistence.Therefore, to safeguard legal residence rights and to pursue social justice are citizens’ most relevant political issues. (shrink)

In Mencius' theory of the original goodness in human nature, fate is the original source of xing (nature). Heart is the appearance of nature. There are two aspects to nature and heart: ti (form) and yong (function). From the perspective of form, nature is liangzhi (the goodness in conscience) and liangneng (the inborn ability to be good) in human beings and heart is human's conscience and original heart. From the perspective of function, nature is the four things of benevolence, righteousness, (...) propriety and wisdom, and heart consists in compassion, shame, respect, right and wrong. As the foundation for the theory of the original goodness in human nature, conscience and heart are a combination of human moral instinct, moral rationality and moral volition, whereas moral instinct gradually rises to moral volition and passes through moral rationality. Mencius' theory of the original goodness in human nature is not a theory of future goodness, but a theory of original goodness. /// 在孟子的性骨告中，命是性的本原 心是性的显现。性和心的含义都包括 "体" 和 "用" 两层:从体而言，性是人之所以为人的良知良能，心是人的良心和L'; 从用而 言，性是仁义礼智四端，心是恻隐、羞恶、恭敬、剧阳心。良心司马L作为性都色的立 论基础，是人的道德本能、道德理性和道德意志的集舍，其显现过程勘人道德本能出发 经过道德理性逐渐上升到道德意志的过程。孟子的性骨色不是向善论，而是性本善论。. (shrink)

The output feedback controller is designed for a class of stochastic nonlinear systems that satisfy uncertain function growth conditions for the first time. The multivariate function growth condition has greatly relaxed the restrictions on the drift and diffusion terms in the original stochastic nonlinear system. Here, we cleverly handle the problem of uncertain functions in the scaling process through the function maxima theory so that the Ito differential system can achieve output stabilization through Lyapunov function design and the solution of (...) stochastic nonlinear system objects satisfies the existence of uniqueness, ensuring that the system is globally asymptotically stable in the sense of probability. Furthermore, it is concluded that the system is inversely optimally stable in the sense of probability. Finally, we apply the theoretical results to the practical subsea intelligent electroexecution robot control system and obtain good results. (shrink)

In the Philebus, Plato considers pleasure to be part of the good life. Always despises pleasure, Plato, however, no longer insists on extreme rationalism, instead, he reconciles reason and pleasure with the fundamental principle of ‘measure’ In the Philebus, Plato considers ‘measure (μέτρον)’ to be of the highest value. He not only argues for the concrete application of ‘measure’ in the sensual world, but also confirms the metaphysical ground of ‘measure’. Many scholars have discussed the application of ‘measure’ from different (...) perspectives, but the deep logical principle of ‘measure’ has not been clarified clearly yet. Actually, the thought of ‘measure’ involves the relationship between ideas and sensual things. On the basis of the redefinition of this relationship, Plato proposes that a life that mixes reason and pleasure is a good one. On the one hand, ‘measure’ gives a certain rationalistic color to pleasure, and on the other hand, ‘measure’ protects pleasure from being replaced by reason. In this way, Plato turns to moderate rationalism, pioneers the principle of ‘measure’ in dealing with ethical issues, and draws a line between the gods and man. (shrink)

This article investigates whether increased female representation on a board improves firm performance in terms of electric vehicle (EV) sales in China when government subsidies are available. The increase in EV sales in China is a direct result of the sustainability efforts spearheaded by the various levels of local and state governments. This area is of importance due to the rising Chinese footprint in global EV sales, the increasing role of subsidies, and a transformation from State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to market-driven (...) firms that are more likely to pay attention to corporate governance issues such as board diversity. Using the instrumental variable (IV) approach, we estimate a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression to control for more women representation on EV boards using firm-level data. The results indicate that board gender diversity (BGD) positively impacts firm performance in terms of EV sales. Furthermore, the effect amplifies in the presence of government subsidies. The insights provide valuable contributions to bridge the critical literature gap on how board diversity impacts firm performance in the presence of subsidies and offer valuable insights into corporate governance and policymaking. (shrink)

Meat consumption has long been a staple in China, but its environmental and social impacts have prompted the development of a market for meat substitutes. However, the question remains whether meat substitutes can coexist with traditional food culture in the context of sustainable development. To address this issue, the researchers used a mixed methods approach to examine the factors influencing Chinese consumers' purchase intentions for meat substitutes. This study conducted an online survey to explore the demographic characteristics of Chinese consumers (...) who are more likely to purchase meat substitutes. The online survey focused on environmental factors such as greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), animal welfare, energy efficiency, and waste. Differences in the intention to purchase meat substitutes across various groups were compared using a Chi-square test. The results showed that women were more likely to buy meat alternatives for environmental sustainability, over half of the vegetarians were willing to purchase plant-based meat to reduce GHG emissions, and over a quarter of younger respondents were ready to buy cultured meat to minimize waste. Nearly a third of higher-income earners were willing to purchase cultured meat to protect animal welfare. Furthermore, the study conducted in-depth interviews with experts from various industries to explore consumer perceptions of meat alternatives. Text analysis revealed factors that motivate or discourage consumers from purchasing meat alternatives, such as traditional Chinese medicine, food therapy, masculinity, and other socio-cultural factors. The study highlights the complex interplay of cultural, environmental, and social factors that shape Chinese consumers' attitudes toward meat alternatives, providing new insights into the future of sustainable meat. (shrink)