Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

A novel fuzzy control scheme with adaptation algorithms is developed for robot manipulators’ system. At the beginning, one adjustable parameter is introduced in the fuzzy logic system, the robot manipulators system with uncertain nonlinear terms as the master device and a reference model dynamic system as the slave robot system. To overcome the limitations such as online learning computation burden and logic structure in conventional fuzzy logic systems, a parameter should be used in fuzzy logic system, which composes fuzzy logic (...) system with updated parameter laws, and can be formed for a new fashioned adaptation algorithms controller. The error closed-loop dynamical system can be stabilized based on Lyapunov analysis, the number of online learning computation burdens can be reduced greatly, and the different kinds of fuzzy logic systems with fuzzy rules or without any fuzzy rules are also suited. Finally, effectiveness of the proposed approach has been shown in simulation example. (shrink)

This paper investigates the synchronization of general complex dynamical networks with both internal delay and transmission delay. Event-triggered mechanism is applied for the feedback controllers, in which the triggered function is formed as a nonincreasing function. Both continuous feedback and sampled-data feedback methods are studied. According to Lyapunov stability theorem and generalized Halanay’s inequality, quasi-synchronization criteria are derived at first. The synchronization error is bounded with some parameters of the triggered function. Then, the completed synchronization can be guaranteed as a (...) special case. Finally, coupled neural networks as numerical simulation examples are given to verify the theoretical results. (shrink)

A distributed fuzzy adaptive control with similar parameters is constructed for a class of heterogeneous multiagent systems. Unlike many existing works, the dimensions of each multiagent dynamic system are considered to be nonidentical in this paper. Firstly, similar properties for different dimensions of multiagent systems are introduced, and some similar parameters among multiagent systems are also proposed. Secondly, a distributed fuzzy adaptive control on the basis of similar parameters is designed for the consensus of leader-follower multiagent systems. Following the graph (...) theory and Lyapunov stability approach, it is concluded that UUB of all signals in the closed-loop system can be guaranteed, and the consensus tacking error converges to a small compact zero set. Finally, a simulation example with different dimensions is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

A decentralized adaptive control based on human linguistic is investigated to learn human behaviors for multiple robotic manipulators. Many experts’ words or sentences can be transferred into the control actions by employing membership functions in robot systems, which can be synthesized fuzzy controller by employing reasoning mechanism. For the unknown model dynamical robot manipulators, one adjustable parameter that relates to the approximation accuracy of fuzzy logic systems is introduced at first, which be utilized to deal with the unknown dynamics of (...) robot manipulators. Switching fuzzy adaptive controller is designed to overcome the limitation of logic structure that the number of adaptive laws only focus on fuzzy rules in conventional fuzzy logic systems. Another advantage of this design method is that the control with human linguistic extend the semi-global stability to global stability. Finally, effectiveness of the developed control design scheme has been shown in simulation example. (shrink)

This essay develops an inferential account of model explanation, based on Mauricio Suárez’s inferential conception of scientific representation and Alisa Bokulich’s counterfactual account of model explanation. It is suggested that the fact that a scientific model can explain is essentially linked to how a modeler uses an established model to make various inferences about the target system on the basis of results derived from the model. The inference practice is understood as a two-step activity, with the first step involving making (...) counterfactual statements about the model itself and the second step involving making hypothetical statements transferring over claims derived from the model onto the target. To illustrate how this two-step activity proceeds, an agent-based simulation model is discussed. (shrink)

This article is concerned with a class of singular nonlinear fractional boundary value problems with p-Laplacian operator, which contains Riemann–Liouville fractional derivative and Caputo fractional derivative. The boundary conditions are made up of two kinds of Riemann–Stieltjes integral boundary conditions and nonlocal infinite-point boundary conditions, and different fractional orders are involved in the boundary conditions and the nonlinear term, respectively. Based on the method of reducing the order of fractional derivative, some properties of the corresponding Green’s function, and the fixed (...) point theorem of mixed monotone operator, an interesting result on the iterative sequence of the uniqueness of positive solutions is obtained under the assumption that the nonlinear term may be singular in regard to both the time variable and space variables. And we obtain the dependence of solution upon parameter. Furthermore, two numerical examples are presented to illustrate the application of our main results. (shrink)

Michael Weisberg’s account of scientific models concentrates on the ways in which models are similar to their targets. He intends not merely to explain what similarity consists in, but also to capture similarity judgments made by scientists. In order to scrutinize whether his account fulfills this goal, I outline one common way in which scientists judge whether a model is similar enough to its target, namely maximum likelihood estimation method. Then I consider whether Weisberg’s account could capture the judgments involved (...) in this practice. I argue that his account fails for three reasons. First, his account is simply too abstract to capture what is going on in MLE. Second, it implies an atomistic conception of similarity, while MLE operates in a holistic manner. Third, Weisberg’s atomistic conception of similarity can be traced back to a problematic set-theoretic approach to the structure of models. Finally, I tentatively suggest how these problems might be solved by a holistic approach in which models and targets are compared in a non-set-theoretic fashion. (shrink)

We examine over 100 top performing Canadian firms in visibly polluting industries as we seek to answer four research questions: What specific environmental issues are firms addressing? How do these issues differ between industries? Are both symbolic and substantive actions financially beneficial? Does green-washing, measured as the difference between symbolic and substantive action, and/or green-highlighting, measured as the combined effect of symbolic and substantive actions, pay? We find that substantive actions of environmental issues (green walk) neither harm nor benefit firms (...) financially, but symbolic actions (green talk) are negatively related to financial performance. We also find that green-washing (discrepancy between green talk and green walk) has a negative effect on financial performance and green-highlighting (concentrated efforts of the talk and walk) has no effect on financial performance. In this article, we provide explanations of our findings and put forth future research directions. (shrink)

Accurate forward modeling is of great significance for improving the accuracy and speed of inversion. For forward modeling of large sizes and fine structures, numerical accuracy and computational efficiency are not high, due to the stability conditions and the dense grid number. In this paper, the symplectic partitioned Runge-Kutta method, surface conformal technique, and graphics processor unit acceleration technique are combined to establish a precise and efficient numerical model of electromagnetic wave propagation in complex geoelectric structures, with the goal of (...) realizing a refined and efficient calculation of the electromagnetic response of an arbitrarily shaped underground target. The results show that the accuracy and efficiency of ground-penetrating radar forward modeling are greatly improved when using our algorithm. This provides a theoretical basis for accurately interpreting GPR detection data and accurate and efficient forward modeling for the next step of inversion imaging. (shrink)

The interference of the complex background and less information of the small targets are two major problems in vehicle attribute recognition. In this paper, two cascaded networks of vehicle attribute recognition are established to solve the two problems. For vehicle targets with normal size, the multitask cascaded convolution neural network MC-CNN-NT uses the improved Faster R-CNN as the location subnetwork. The vehicle targets in the complex background are extracted by the location subnetwork to the classification subnetwork CNN for the classification. (...) The implementation of this task decomposition strategy effectively eliminates the interference of the complex background in target detection. For vehicle targets with small size, the multitask cascaded convolution neural network MC-CNN-ST applies the network compression strategy and the multilayer feature fusion strategy to extract the feature maps. These strategies enrich the location information and semantic information of the feature maps. In order to optimize the nonlinear mapping ability and the hard-to-detect samples mining ability of the networks, the activation function and the loss function in the two cascaded networks are improved. The experimental results show that MC-CNN-NT for the normal targets and MC-CNN-ST for the small targets achieve the state-of-the-art performance compared with other attribute recognition networks. (shrink)

China has long enjoyed its position as the world's cheapest production country. However, this position is being shaken due to the increasingly rising costs in China in pace with China's rapid economic development. China's New Labour Contract Law which took effect from 1 January 2008 has further pushed the labour costs in China in general. The purpose of this article is to arrive at an in-depth understanding of why foreign firms conduct sourcing in China where sourcing is becoming increasingly expensive. (...) The experiences of four Swedish companies in the textile and clothing industry (TCI) conducting sourcing in China are presented. Our findings show that sourcing in China is becoming both cost-and strategy-driven. Companies purely chasing the cheapest production would most probably consider leaving China, whereas companies with a long-term strategic intent and a high level of business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices will retain all or most of their sourcing activities on the Chinese soil despite the rising costs. (shrink)

Polger and Shapiro argue that their official recipe, a criterion for judging when the phenomenon of multiple realization exists, renders MR less widespread than its proponents have assumed. I argue that, although Polger and Shapiro’s criterion is a useful contribution, they arrive at their conclusion too hastily. Contrary to Polger and Shapiro, I claim that the phenomenon of multiple realization in the biological world, judged by their criterion, is not as scarce as they suggest. To show this, an updated official (...) recipe, namely a multiple mechanistic realization thesis, integrating Polger and Shapiro’s criterion with a compositional conception of realization, is developed. Then, three examples of varied kinds are examined, showing that cases of MR are not so hard to find in the biological world. (shrink)

This paper investigates Western professional bankers’ perceptions of Islamic finance. Exploiting data from an original survey, we carry out a principal component analysis to characterize the main dimensions on which financial agents diverge. The PCA extracts five dimensions—accounting for 61 % of the variance in the agents’ answers—that we interpret with the help of a pilot field survey. In addition to confirm the increased association of Islamic financial values with ethical practices in the West, our results allow us to understand (...) how the observed growth of the industry has been conceptualized by conventional agents. The five dimensions identified shed light on the multitude of constructs that have informed the diffusion of Islamic financial ideas to international markets. This supports the fact that Islamic finance cannot be seen as a single movement but is characterized by opposing and concurrent logics in global markets. (shrink)

Economic openness, both in terms of increased international trade exposure and enhanced inter-firm networking, has been a key element of China’s economic emergence since the implementation of market reforms and the “opening-up policy” over 30 years ago. Unfortunately, these changes have also coincided with the increased incidence of bribery and corruption. Both in general, and in the specific context of China, research on the relationship between a firm’s tendency toward openness and its propensity to engage in bribery is scarce. This (...) study seeks to fill this gap based on empirical evidence provided by a large sample of Chinese firms. The findings of the study reveal that firms’ increased networking and openness tend to occur contemporaneously with greater bribery and corruption. We suggest that this may be due to the misuse of guanxi-based networks that coincide with the presence of firms’ open network strategies, heightened by the potential loss of resource and capability heterogeneity (and hence reduced competitive advantages) in the context of openness. We further find that firms paying bribes do so as an attempt to overcome unnecessary bureaucratic processes and ineffective institutional support that might tend to hinder their development. (shrink)

This essay considers a mixed-effects modeling practice and its implications for the philosophical debate surrounding reductive explanation. Mixed-effects modeling is a species of the multilevel modeling practice, where a single model incorporates simultaneously two levels of explanatory variables to explain a phenomenon of interest. I argue that this practice makes the position of explanatory reductionism held by many philosophers untenable, because it violates two central tenets of explanatory reductionism: single level preference and lower-level obsession.

With the growth of research collaborations, the average number of authors per article and the phenomenon of equally important authorships have increased. The essence of the phenomenon of equally important authorships is the approximately equal importance of authors, both because of the difficulties in comparing authors’ contributions to a paper and some actual research evaluation practices, which give full paper credit only to the most important authors. A mechanism for indicating that various authors contributed equally is required to maintain and (...) strengthen collaboration. However, the phenomenon of multiple important authors can cause unfair comparisons among the research contributions and abilities of authors of different papers. This loophole may be exploited. Normalizing the credit assigned to a given paper’s authors is an easy way to solve this ethical dilemma. This approach enables fair comparisons of the contributions by the authors of different articles and suppresses unethical behaviour in author listings. Bibliometric researchers have proposed mature methods of normalized paper credit assignment that would be easy to use given the current level of computer adoption. (shrink)

An endomorphism on an algebra \ is said to be strong if it is compatible with every congruence on \; and \ is said to have the strong endomorphism kernel property if every congruence on \, other than the universal congruence, is the kernel of a strong endomorphism on \. Here we characterise the structure of those double MS-algebras that have this property by the way of Priestley duality.

In this note we shall show that if L is a balanced pseudocomplemented Ockham algebra then the set ${\fancyscript{I}_{k}(L)}$ of kernel ideals of L is a Heyting lattice that is isomorphic to the lattice of congruences on B(L) where ${B(L) = \{x^* | x \in L\}}$ . In particular, we show that ${\fancyscript{I}_{k}(L)}$ is boolean if and only if B(L) is finite, if and only if every kernel ideal of L is principal.

It is commonly hypothesized that scientists are more likely to engage in data falsification and fabrication when they are subject to pressures to publish, when they are not restrained by forms of social control, when they work in countries lacking policies to tackle scientific misconduct, and when they are male. Evidence to test these hypotheses, however, is inconclusive due to the difficulties of obtaining unbiased data. Here we report a pre-registered test of these four hypotheses, conducted on papers that were (...) identified in a previous study as containing problematic image duplications through a systematic screening of the journal PLoS ONE. Image duplications were classified into three categories based on their complexity, with category 1 being most likely to reflect unintentional error and category 3 being most likely to reflect intentional fabrication. We tested multiple parameters connected to the hypotheses above with a matched-control paradigm, by collecting two controls for each paper containing duplications. Category 1 duplications were mostly not associated with any of the parameters tested, as was predicted based on the assumption that these duplications were mostly not due to misconduct. Categories 2 and 3, however, exhibited numerous statistically significant associations. Results of univariable and multivariable analyses support the hypotheses that academic culture, peer control, cash-based publication incentives and national misconduct policies might affect scientific integrity. No clear support was found for the “pressures to publish” hypothesis. Female authors were found to be equally likely to publish duplicated images compared to males. Country-level parameters generally exhibited stronger effects than individual-level parameters, because developing countries were significantly more likely to produce problematic image duplications. This suggests that promoting good research practices in all countries should be a priority for the international research integrity agenda. (shrink)

This study investigated the views about constructivist instruction and personal epistemology of the secondary earth science teachers in Taiwan. Participants were assessed through a paper‐and‐pencil survey and a Learning environment preference questionnaire designed to explore personal epistemology. On a five‐point Likert scale, teachers, on average, showed a neutral agreement on constructivist instruction. The content analysis suggested that teachers held alternative views about the nature of the constructivist instruction. LEP scores were found to be statistically associated with gender, education, current teaching (...) level and years of teaching; the score distribution indicated that most teachers had not developed a constructivist‐compatible epistemology. By one‐way ANOVA, it was suggested that views about the constructivist instruction were aligned with personal epistemology. (shrink)

In March 2010, China launched a pilot programme of deceased donor organ donation in 10 provinces and cities. However, the deceased donor donation rate in China remains significantly lower than in Spain and other Western countries. In order to provide incentive for deceased donor organ donation, five pilot provinces and cities have subsequently launched a financial compensation policy. Financial compensation can be considered to include two main forms, the ‘thank you’ form and the ‘help’ form. The ‘thank you’ form is (...) an expression of gratitude on behalf of the Red Cross Society of China for consenting to donation. The ‘help’ form is social welfare support for needy families. (shrink)

This study investigated their views concerning evidence and expert opinion of 10th‐grade students, accessed by an open‐ended questionnaire in the context of a socio‐scientific issue: the cause of flood disasters, and personal epistemology identified by the Learning Environment Preference Questionnaire . Students' responses to the open‐ended questions showed that when thinking about the flood issue, most students rely heavily on direct and numerical data to draw their conclusions, while experts represented a source of conclusive information. The LEP scores indicated that, (...) in terms of epistemological development, students were mostly at the stage of the ‘multiplicists’ in Perry's model. The statistical analysis suggested that view towards evidence and expert were associated with personal epistemology. (shrink)

This is a study of the first Critique of Immanuel Kant, examining the first Critque as a whole, liimiting the study strictly relative to mathematics. The greatest emphasis is on the relevance and compatibility between Kant's epistemology and mathematics proper in the mainstream, yesterday, today and tomroow. This text draws a line of demarcation between mathematics and metamathmatics.

Moral issues have been included in the studies of consumer misbehavior research, but little is known about the joint moderating effect of moral intensity and moral judgment on the consumer’s use intention of pirated software. This study aims to understand the consumer’s use intention of pirated software in Taiwan based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) proposed by Ajzen (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179, 1991). In addition, moral intensity and moral judgment are adopted as a joint (...) moderator to examine their combined influence on the proposed research framework. The results obtained from this Taiwan case reveal that the antecedent constructs proposed in the TPB model–an individual’s attitude and subjective norms toward using pirated software, and perceived behavioral control to use pirated software–indeed have positive impacts on the consumer’s use intention of pirated software. In addition, the joint moderating effect of moral intensity and moral judgment is manifested in the consumer’s use intention of pirated software. The results of this study not only could substantiate the results of consumer misbehavior research, but also could provide some managerial suggestions for Taiwanese government authorities concerned and the related software industries devoted to fighting pirated software. (shrink)

In this note we shall describe the lattice of the congruences on a balanced Ockham algebra with the pseudocomplementation whose quotient algebras are boolean. This is an extension of the result obtained by Rodrigues and Silva who gave a description of the lattice of congruences on an Ockham algebra whose quotient algebras are boolean.

Moral issues have been included in the studies of consumer misbehavior research, but little is known about the joint moderating effect of moral intensity and moral judgment on the consumer's use intention of pirated software. This study aims to understand the consumer's use intention of pirated software in Taiwan based on the theory of planned behavior proposed by Ajzen. In addition, moral intensity and moral judgment are adopted as a joint moderator to examine their combined influence on the proposed research (...) framework. The results obtained from this Taiwan case reveal that the antecedent constructs proposed in the TPB model–an individual's attitude and subjective norms toward using pirated software, and perceived behavioral control to use pirated software–indeed have positive impacts on the consumer's use intention of pirated software. In addition, the joint moderating effect of moral intensity and moral judgment is manifested in the consumer's use intention of pirated software. The results of this study not only could substantiate the results of consumer misbehavior research, but also could provide some managerial suggestions for Taiwanese government authorities concerned and the related software industries devoted to fighting pirated software. (shrink)