“Epistemic safety” refers to an epistemic status in which the subject acquires true beliefs without involving epistemic luck. There is a tradition of cashing out safety-defining modality in terms of possible world semantics, and even Julian Dutant's and Martin Smith's normalcy-based notions of safety also take this semantics as a significant component of them. However, such an approach has to largely depend on epistemologists’ ad hoc intuitions on how to individuate possible worlds and how to pick out “close” worlds. In (...) contrast, I propose a probabilistic approach to safety to maximally preclude the preceding type of ad hoc-ness. The main idea is as follows: Each epistemic vignette wherein a subject S holds a true belief p has to be evaluated by a safety-ascriber, hence, S holds a true belief p safely iff according to the safety-ascriber's evaluation, the probability of the occurrence of the truth-maker of p is above a pre-fixed “safety threshold”. My theory will be applied to Lottery Cases, Gettierized Cases and Skeptical Cases to test the scope of its applicability. (shrink)

This paper studies the problems of tip position regulation and vibration suppression of flexible manipulators without using the model. Because of the two-timescale characteristics of flexible manipulators, applying the existing model-free control methods may lead to ill-conditioned numerical problems. In this paper, the dynamics of a flexible manipulator is decomposed into two subsystems which are linear and controllable at different timescales by singular perturbation theory and a model-free composite controller is designed to alleviate the ill-conditioned numerical problems. To do this, (...) a model-free composite control strategy is constructed which facilitates in designing the controller in slow and fast timescales. In the slow timescale, the slow subsystem controller is designed by adaptive dynamic programming based on the measurements of the slow inputs and the position, while the vibration in the slow timescale is estimated by the least square method. In the fast timescale, the vibration is reconstructed based on the measurements of vibration and its estimate in the slow timescale, by which the fast controller is designed using ADP. Stability of the closed-loop system is proved by SP theory. Finally, simulations are given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 61-63.

In this paper, I provide a framework for accounting for the self, based on a reconstruction of Galen Strawson’s “theory of SESMETs,” or the Pearl view, with Barry Dainton’s continuous consciousness thesis. I argue that the framework I provide adequately accounts for the self and is preferable to solely adopting either Strawson’s or Dainton’s theory. I call my reconstruction the “Necklace” view of the self.

With the quickly rising popularity of smartphone among adolescents over the past decade, studies have begun to investigate the relationship between smartphone addiction and Eysenck's personality traits. Despite numerous studies on this topic, however, findings have been mixed and there is a lack of consensus regarding this relationship. Thus, this meta-analysis aimed to explore the relationship between smartphone addiction and Eysenck's personality traits in Chinese adolescents, as well as its possible moderators. Through literature search and screening, 33 studies were included, (...) comprising 79 independent effect sizes with a total of 17, 737 subjects. A random effects model was selected, and it was found that smartphone addiction was positively associated with psychoticism and neuroticism, but not significantly associated with extroversion. The moderating effect test showed that sex and year of study publication had significant influences on the relationship between smartphone addiction and psychoticism, and the year of study publication had a significant influence on the relationship between smartphone addiction and neuroticism. This study is the first meta-analysis on the relationship between smartphone addiction and Eysenck's personality traits among adolescents in China, and the results have helped to clarify the controversy of previous studies regarding this relationship. (shrink)

This study explores the emergence and productivity of word order usage in Mandarin-speaking typically-developing children and children with autism spectrum disorder, and examines how this emergence relates to frequency of use in caregiver input. Forty-two caregiver-child dyads participated in video-recorded 30-min semi-structured play sessions. Eleven children with ASD were matched with 10 20-month-old TD children and another 11 children with ASD were matched with 10 26-month-old TD children, on expressive language. We report four major findings: Preschool Mandarin-speaking children with ASD (...) produced word order structures with pervasive ellipsis at similar rates to language-matched TD children, but also displayed differences from TD children in their usage of SVt and VtO frames; Grammatical productivity was observed in both TD children and children with ASD; moreover, children with ASD with higher expressive language produced less stereotyped language; Both TD children and children with ASD heard a range of word orders in their caregivers’ input, with TD children’s input greater in amount and complexity; however, caregivers of both groups also showed no age/language-related changes in word order usage; Few word-order-specific correlations emerged between caregivers and their children; however, strong correlations were observed for mean length of utterances for both groups: Caregivers who produced longer/more complex utterances had children who did the same. Taken together, it seems that despite their pragmatic deficits, the early grammatical knowledge of word order in Mandarin-exposed children with ASD is well preserved and in general follows the typical developmental pattern. Moreover, caregiver input is broadly rather than finely tuned to the linguistic development of TD children and children with ASD, and plays a more important role in children’s general syntactic development than in specific word order acquisition. Thus, early word order usage in preschool Mandarin-speaking TD children and children with ASD may be influenced by both caregiver input and child abilities. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated the integration between neuroscience and entrepreneurship. First, we explored the concept of neuroentrepreneurship and the investigation of neuroentrepreneurship using scientific research methods. Second, we constructed a road map for entrepreneurial researchers interested in conducting neuroentrepreneurship-related research. This is an emerging research area; therefore, to more clearly analyze the dynamics of the research trends, we used a bibliometric method to capture patterns in current publications on subjects related to neuroentrepreneurship, examining papers published between 1999 and 2021 (...) using the keywords “neuroscience” and “entrepreneurship” or “neuroentrepreneurship.” To identify the keywords, we used two academic databases—the Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index—accessed through the Web of Science website. The three keywords were identified from studies integrating neuroscience with entrepreneurship. After carefully reviewing the research papers, we identified neuroentrepreneurship as a novel research area. The outcomes of this study provide a guide for describing the theoretical connection between neuroscience and entrepreneurship. In the future, this field of study should be empirically investigated. (shrink)

As many philosophers agree, the frame problem is concerned with how an agent may efficiently filter out irrelevant information in the process of problem-solving. Hence, how to solve this problem hinges on how to properly handle semantic relevance in cognitive modeling, which is an area of cognitive science that deals with simulating human's cognitive processes in a computerized model. By "semantic relevance", we mean certain inferential relations among acquired beliefs which may facilitate information retrieval and practical reasoning under certain epistemic (...) constraints, e. g., the insufficiency of knowledge, the limitation of time budget, etc. However, traditional approaches to relevance—as for example, relevance logic, the Bayesian approach, as well as Description Logic—have failed to do justice to the foregoing constraints, and in this sense, they are not proper tools for solving the frame problem/relevance problem. As we will argue in this paper, Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS) can handle the frame problem in a more proper manner, because the resulting solution seriously takes epistemic constraints on cognition as a fundamental theoretical principle. (shrink)

Online learning resources play an important role in teaching and learning in the process of online learning. Teachers will be satisfied with selectable and suitable online learning resources, which can promote their self-efficacy to facilitate online teaching and learning. This study proposed a model to examine the effects of the selectivity of online learning resources and the suitability of online learning resources on teachers’ online teaching satisfaction, and the mediating role of technology self-efficacy and online teaching self-efficacy between them. The (...) results indicated that SE-OLR and SU-OLR positively affected teachers’ online teaching satisfaction; TECHN-SE and OT-SE positively influenced teachers’ online teaching satisfaction, while TECHN-SE and OT-SE played mediating roles between SE-OLR and SU-OLR and teachers’ online teaching satisfaction. The findings have implications for the design and development of online learning resources to improve teachers’ satisfaction and facilitate students’ learning effectiveness and teachers’ online teaching. (shrink)

Background: In 2019, an outbreak of COVID-19 broke out in Hubei, China. Medical workers from all over the country rushed to Hubei and participated in the treatment and care of COVID-19 patients. These nurses, dedicated to their professional practice, volunteered to provide compassion and expert clinical care during the pandemic. As with other acts of heroism, the ethical dilemmas associated with working on the front line must be considered for future practice. Purpose: To explore the ethical dilemmas of frontline nurses (...) of Jiangsu Province in China during deployment to Wuhan to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia, and to provide a basis for developing strategies to help nursing staff address personal and practice concerns in order to work more effectively during this pandemic and other disasters in the future. Research design and method: Using the phenomenological research method and the purpose sampling method, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 nurses, post-deployment to Wuhan, who had worked on the front line to fight the novel coronavirus. Ethical considerations: The research proposal was approved by the Research Ethic Committee of Yangzhou University, China. Findings: From the analysis of the interviews of the 10 participants, three main themes were identified: ethical dilemmas in clinical nursing, ethical dilemmas in interpersonal relationships, and ethical dilemmas in nursing management. Conclusion: During a quick response to public health emergencies, where nurses are deployed immediately as a call to action, the issues surrounding ethical dilemmas from several perspectives must be considered. This research suggests that a team approach to proactive planning and open communication during the emergency is an efficient and productive strategy to improve the nurses’ experience and sense of well-being. (shrink)

In the current dialogue of “science and religion,” it is widely assumed that the thoughts of Darwinists and that of atheists overlap. However, Jerry Fodor, a full-fledged atheist, recently announced a war against Darwinism with his atheistic campaign. Prima facie, this “civil war” might offer a chance for theists: If Fodor is right, Darwinistic atheism will lose the cover of Darwinism and become less tenable. This paper provides a more pessimistic evaluation of the situation by explaining the following: Fodor’s criticism (...) of adaptationism (as the backbone of Darwinism), viz., his refutation of any counterfactual-supporting laws on the macro-evolutionary level, implies that a law-maker is dispensable on this level. This will either encourage skepticism against the omniscience (at least that concerning the future of macro-evolution) of the Creator, or render the notion of God less appealing. (shrink)

Intending to have a constructive dialogue with the combination of evolutionary theory (E) and metaphysical naturalism (N), Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) takes the reliability of human cognition (in normal environments) as a purported explanandum and E&N as a purported explanans. Then, he considers whether E&N can offer a good explanans for this explanandum, and his answer is negative (an answer employed by him to produce a defeater for N). But I will argue that the whole EAAN goes (...) wrong by assuming that R is a qualified explanandum crying out for scientific explanations, since it cannot meet either of the two criteria for any scientifically qualified explanandum: Realizability Criterion and Informativeness Criterion. Hence, EAAN is simply setting a task that E&N, as a scientific theory, will not care at all. Therefore, EAAN cannot substantially shake E&N. (shrink)

For millennia, Buddhism as a contemplative science has been deeply concerned about solving the problems inherent to the “human condition,” as the Buddha calls it (Dalai Lama 2009), which include mo...

A large part of Hilary Putnam’s latest work is spent on disagreeing with John McDowell’s conceptualist view of perception which has been expressed in Mind and World and the McDowellian disjunctivism. Nevertheless, Putnam does not articulate which specific aspects of McDowell’s view he disagrees with. This paper endeavours to: first, clarify what Putnam’s disagreement with McDowell precisely is based on an investigation of the views held by each of the two philosophers regarding the problem of the mind and perception, as (...) well as their attitudes toward the relevant sciences; and second, examine Putnam’s argument against McDowell, then reconstruct it in its most plausible form. Before diving into Putnam’s exact disagreement with McDowell in §3, I consider it important to first clarify the common stance that the two philosophers share, namely the stance which opposes reductionism and eliminativism about the mind. Following that, I will explicate the views held by each of the two philosophers as well as point out where they diverge or disagree on. We will see that Putnam has appreciated the virtue in McDowell’s conceptualist view of doxastic perception. Nevertheless, Putnam argues that perceptual experience is not exhausted by what must be put under the actualisation of the perceiving subject’s conceptual capacities, and there is the dimension of ‘sense impression’, together with the possibility for science’s intervention to our discussion on perception, that has been neglected by McDowell. Finally, in §4, I will discuss some problems I have found in Putnam’s argument and give my own solutions in the hope of contributing to today’s current debates. I argue that ‘sense impression’, though it exceeds the perceiver’s acquired conceptual capacities, must in principle be conceptual insofar as it can be intelligible to us. Putnam’s criticism of McDowell only stands if McDowell’s conceptualist view is understood as a static first-order metaphysical picture of human perception. Meanwhile, Putnam’s proposal for science’s intervention should be taken not as aiming at a better substitutive picture to McDowell’s, but as advocating a certain attitude towards our enterprise of studying human perception which is always open to possible collaborations between different disciplines as well as to possible critiques from future reflections. (shrink)

Adherence to ethical principles in clinical research and practice is becoming topical issue in China, where the prevalence of mental illness is rising, but treatment facilities remain underdeveloped. This paper reports on a study aiming to understand the ethical knowledge and attitudes of Chinese mental health professionals in relation to the process of diagnosis and treatment, informed consent, and privacy protection in clinical trials.

The term “epistemic shifts” refers to a widely recognized phenomenon that knowledge ascribers would ascribe different epistemic statuses to the same belief under different internal/external conditions. Mainstream theories explaining shifts can all be assimilated into a probabilistic framework, according to which the epistemic status of a belief P can be at least partially evaluated in terms of the strength of the link between this belief and its normal truth-maker, namely, a P-corresponding fact, and the strength of this link can be (...) further probabilistically measured in terms of the knowledge-undermining force of an “abnormal” truth-maker of P, namely, a P-inducing fact which itself is not a P-corresponding fact simpliciter. I will further claim that by accepting my framework, a theorist of shifts has to tolerate a pluralist view of the etiology of shifts on the philosophical level, and mainstream theories explaining shifts are flawed in the sense that they all attempt to exaggerate one single and particular factor underpinning shifts by ignoring others. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s criticism of the notion of ‘private language’ is related to the putative centrality of “being“ and the ‘subject-predicate’ distinction. However, his efforts would prove to be more f...

Peer feedback is essential in writing English as a Second/Foreign Language. Traditionally, offline PF was more widely favored but nowadays online peer feedback has become frequent in ESL/EFL learners’ daily writing. This study is undertaken to probe into the gains of using OPF in ESL/EFL writing on the basis of 37 research articles published in core journals from 2012 till 2022. In order to accurately cover the previous researches, we capitalize on three methods to evaluate and analyze the data, i.e., (...) database search, citation search and manual search. Results show that from the perspective of the ESL/EFL learners’ gains, the OPF is basically divided into two categories, involving eight aspects in all: face-based strategies, revision-based comments, writing performance, learning environment, reflection/critical thinking/responsibility, writing emotion, motivation, and attitudes; and OPF can be well supported by a set of theories like Process-oriented Writing Theory, Collaborative Learning Theory, Interactionist Theory of L2 Acquisition and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. By comparison, the gains from OPF outperform those from offline PF in many dimensions, despite some overlaps that were revealed in several investigations. Based on the past studies, we propose some pedagogical implications on OPF from ESL/EFL writing, including accenting the “student-centered” teaching strategy, providing students with OPF on the basis of incremental knowledge, adopting OPF regularly in ESL/EFL writing activities to shape personalities and outlooks and putting OPF into its full play with recourse to abundant internet-based vehicles. This review is desired to provide a guideline for both the peer feedback practice and the upcoming scholarly researches with respect to EFL/ESL writing. (shrink)

This study investigated the second language processing and acquisition of Chinese temporality, specifically the interaction of grammatical and lexical aspects. An experimental group of 31 English-speaking learners of Chinese and a control group of 29 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese completed an online sentence-picture matching task and an offline translation task. Results from these experiments demonstrated the prototype effect: In aspectual development, perfective aspect started with telic verbs and progressive aspect started with activity verbs, in accordance with the Aspect Hypothesis, (...) both for online processing and offline comprehension. The prototype effect of the grammatical aspect was evident for activity verbs but less so for accomplishment verbs in the L2 group across tasks, and this was explained through language-specific properties and L2 learners’ instructional input. In addition, L2 proficiency and working memory capacity were found to modulate these processes. (shrink)

In social networks, individual heterogeneity is widely existed, and an individual often tends to contact more frequently with friends of similar status or opinion. It is worth noting that the contact preference characteristic among heterogeneous individuals will have a significant effect on social contagions. Thus, we propose a social contagion model which takes the heterogeneity of individual influence and contact preference into account, and make a theoretical analysis of the social spreading process by developing an edge-based compartmental theory. We find (...) that the competition between simple contagion and complex contagion leads to the emergence of crossover phase transition phenomena when the influence of ordinary individuals is low: it changes from being hybrid to continuous, then to hybrid, and eventually to continuous phase transition with the increase of the contact probability of homogeneous individuals. However, it changes from being first-order to continuous phase transition when the influence strength of ordinary individuals is relatively high. In addition, there is an optimal value or range of contact probability of homogeneous individuals which maximizes the spreading size, and the optimal value or lower bound of the optimal range decreases with the increase of transmission probability. Our theoretical prediction results are in good agreement with the simulation results. (shrink)

Early childhood development intervention has gained considerable achievements in eliminating intergenerational transmission of poverty in rural areas. Paying further attention to rural children’s community inclusion can also promote the sustainable development of the village. However, there is a lack of systematic theoretical constructs on the village inclusion of rural children. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the problem mechanism and solution strategy of community inclusion of rural children using a grounded theory approach of in-depth interviews. Seventeen parents (...) of children in a national-level poverty-stricken county in Inner Mongolia of China were investigated, adopting the strategy of intensity sampling. The results revealed that the content of rural children’s activities demonstrates enhanced participation in the virtual environment and weakened participation in the real community environment. That is, the activities are characterized by more virtualization and individualization. Rural parents and community peers are two major channels for children’s community inclusion, while both the community peer environment and parental community participation show a weakening trend. This may be an important reason for the virtualization and individualization of the children’s psychological development environment. Developmental intervention programs for rural children in poverty-stricken areas should focus on the reconstruction of children’s community peer environment, encourage the community participation of parents, and fully mobilize local-based educational resources. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a framework for accounting for the self, based on a reconstruction of Galen Strawson’s “theory of SESMETs,” or the Pearl view, with Barry Dainton’s continuous consciousness thesis. I argue that the framework I provide adequately accounts for the self and is preferable to solely adopting either Strawson’s or Dainton’s theory. I call my reconstruction the “Necklace” view of the self.

Behavioral psychology is increasingly important in relationship marketing. As key factors of emotional interactions between buyer and seller, psychological contracts and opportunistic behaviors play a critical role in interorganizational relationships which are based on personal relationships of boundary spanners and top management. Most of the existing research mainly focus on positive performance of cooperation but ignoring the dark side of relationships. This study introduces the psychological contract into the exploration of why formal contracts cannot completely avoid opportunistic behaviors. It mainly (...) investigates whether psychological contracts in relationships can reduce the occurrence of opportunistic behaviors. The results show that psychological contract has a significant positive effect on the relationship quality, and negatively affect opportunistic behavior through trust and commitment. The positive relationship between psychological contracts and relationship quality is moderated by dependence. This study enriches and expands the domestic and foreign research on psychological contracts and opportunistic behaviors in relationship marketing. (shrink)

Traditional rehabilitation strategies become difficult in the chronic phase stage of stroke prognosis. Brain–computer interface combined with external devices may improve motor function in chronic stroke patients, but it lacks comprehensive assessments of neurological changes regarding functional rehabilitation. This study aimed to comprehensively and quantitatively investigate the changes in brain activity induced by BCI–FES training in patients with chronic stroke. We analyzed the EEG of two groups of patients with chronic stroke, one group received functional electrical stimulation rehabilitation training and (...) the other group received BCI combined with FES training. We constructed functional networks in both groups of patients based on direct directed transfer function and assessed the changes in brain activity using graph theory analysis. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: after rehabilitation training, the Fugl–Meyer assessment scale score was significantly improved in the BCI–FES group, and there was no significant difference in the FES group. Both the global and local graph theory measures of the brain network of patients with chronic stroke in the BCI–FES group were improved after rehabilitation training. The node strength in the contralesional hemisphere and central region of patients in the BCI–FES group was significantly higher than that in the FES group after the intervention, and a significant increase in the node strength of C4 in the contralesional sensorimotor cortex region could be observed in the BCI–FES group. These results suggest that BCI–FES rehabilitation training can induce clinically significant improvements in motor function of patients with chronic stroke. It can improve the functional integration and functional separation of brain networks and boost compensatory activity in the contralesional hemisphere to a certain extent. The findings of our study may provide new insights into understanding the plastic changes of brain activity in patients with chronic stroke induced by BCI–FES rehabilitation training. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIki is the key word of Shūzō Kuki’s The Structure of Iki, and it became one of the most widely recognized Japanese aesthetic categories mainly due to this work. However, in The Problems of Contingency, which is Kuki’s most important philosophical work, there is no discussion of iki again, and consequently, most commentators of Kuki fail to see the correlation between his theories of iki and contingency. This article, by contrast, intends to provide a new interpretation of iki in the (...) light of Kuki’s theory of contingency. The specific thesis of this paper is that aesthetic phenomena categorized as subject to the principles of iki are positively evaluated in Japanese culture just because the consciousness of iki is just one form of the consciousness of contingency, in which the awareness of alternatives to the actual situation could produce considerable spiritual entertainment for aesthetic subjects. (shrink)

To have a coherent picture of Wang Chong’s Lunheng is difficult. Some of Lunheng’s chapters obviously show Wang’s hostility to a large part of the folklore (including the social institutions based...

The COVID-19 is creating panic among people around the world and is causing a huge public mental health crisis. Large numbers of observational studies focused on the prevalence of psychological problems during the COVID-19 pandemic were published. It is essential to conduct a meta-analysis of the prevalence of different psychological statuses to insight the psychological reactions of general population during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Sixty six observational studies about the psychological statuses of people during the COVID-19 were included, searching (...) up to 1 December 2020. Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies. OpenMeta[Analyst] was used for the data analysis. High prevalence of acute stress and fear symptoms were observed in the early period of the epidemic. Additionally, anxiety and depression symptoms continued at a high prevalence rate during the epidemic. It should alert the lasting mental health problems and the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders.Systematic Review Registration:PROSPERO CRD 42020171485. (shrink)

In the information era, the instant and diversified broadcasting of the COVID-19 pandemic has played an important role in stabilizing the societal mental state and avoiding inter-group conflicts. The presentation of visual graphics was considered as an innovative information form and broadly utilized in news reports. However, its effects on the audiences' cognition and behaviors have received little empirical attention. The current study applied real-time and retrospective priming paradigms to examine the impacts of information framing (positive vs. negative) and form (...) (plain text vs. pie chart) on individuals' risk perception (cognition), positive emotion (emotion), and willingness to help others (behavioral intention) during the outbreak and post-pandemic period in China. The results indicated the “amplification effect” of the innovative form of information in the real-time priming condition, which increased the effect of the information framing on cognition, emotion, and behavioral intention. However, in the retrospective priming condition, the amplification effect on cognition and emotion were weakened, while its effect on behavioral intention disappeared. In conclusion, the study found the “amplification effect” of innovative information forms. Further, the difference in the results in the real-time and retrospective priming paradigms suggested the constraint of the context of the “amplification effect,” and indicated the possible deviation of the retrospective paradigm in studies about disaster-related news. This study provides empirical support for how subtle changes in information presentation influence public mental and behavioral responses during a pandemic and has important implications for media psychology and social governance. (shrink)