The vast majority of indigenous communities are among the world’s poorest and are unlikely to be engaged in a thriving, mutually beneficial partnership with an MNC. While there are increasing studies on CSR initiatives in base of the pyramid communities, few—if any—feature the self-initiated stakeholder transition of an impoverished community. This paper examines the factors that motivated the stakeholder transformation process of an indigenous community, from its position as a non-stakeholder, one lacking in power and legitimacy, to the status of (...) being a primary stakeholder of the firm. We applied a constructivist grounded theory approach to longitudinal data to arrive at the conceptual framework. The findings presented are drawn from an in-depth case study of the Maasai, an indigenous community from East Africa. The findings point to the existence of entrepreneurial alertness that is instrumental in propelling the indigenous community to evolve from one stakeholder category to the next. Our research aims to propose a possible foundation for how communities deep in poverty can coalesce themselves to make their social needs salient to multinational organizations. (shrink)

In this study, we first introduce polygonal cylinder and torus using Cartesian products and topologically identifications and then find their Wiener and hyper-Wiener indices using a quick, interesting technique of counting. Our suggested mathematical structures could be of potential interests in representation of computer networks and enhancing lattice hardware security.

In the process of rapid urbanization, urban heat island effect has been showing more and more significant impacts on human well-being. Therefore, a more detailed understanding of the impact of three-dimensional building morphology on UHI effect across a continuum of spatial scales will be necessary to guide and improve the human settlement.This study selected 31 provincial capital cities of mainland China to analyze the impacts of the 3D building morphology, including the number, area, height, volume, and the surface area of (...) the buildings, on the land surface temperature. By exploring how the influence of 3D building morphology on LST changes with the increase of spatial scale, this study finally recognized which 3D building morphology index is the most significant index affecting LST in different cities, and which spatial scale these 3D building morphology indexes have the most significant impact on LST. The results showed that the building area is the most important 3D building morphology parameter affecting the LST, while the building height has the slightest influence on the LST. These effects are more significant in the spatial scale of 150 m–540 m, and the spatial scale increases with the increase of building areas in developed cities. These results highlight the necessity of considering fine-grained management in the governance and alleviating of the urban thermal environment through urban planning and urban renewal strategies. (shrink)

The gig economy is a phenomenon that is rapidly expanding, redefining the nature of work and contributing to a significant change in how contemporary economies are organised. Its expansion is not unproblematic. This article provides a clear and systematic analysis of the main ethical challenges caused by the gig economy. Following a brief overview of the gig economy, its scope and scale, we map the key ethical problems that it gives rise to, as they are discussed in the relevant literature. (...) We map them onto three categories: the new organisation of work (what is done), the new nature of work (how it is done), and the new status of workers (who does it). We then evaluate a recent initiative from the EU that seeks to address the challenges of the gig economy. The 2019 report of the European High-Level Expert Group on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets is a positive step in the right direction. However, we argue that ethical concerns relating to algorithmic systems as mechanisms of control, and the discrimination, exclusion and disconnectedness faced by gig workers require further deliberation and policy response. A brief conclusion completes the analysis. The appendix presents the methodology underpinning our literature review. (shrink)

Wealthy individuals stand to gain materially from economic inequality and, moreover, have shaped many organizational and societal practices that perpetuate economic inequality. Thus, they are unlikely allies in the effort to remedy economic inequality. In this article, however, we study the mobilization of a small group of wealthy activists who join underprivileged allies to expose and contest the root causes of wealth consolidation; they offer an instructive alternative to “philanthrocapitalism,” whereby the wealthy give after extreme accumulation. Our study contributes to (...) the growing literature on inequality and organizations by recognizing how inequality is reproduced through organizations, cognizant that efforts to halt this reproduction will likely be contested by the wealthy. Our study examines how advocacy by the wealthy may be challenging, but it may garner attention because it is unexpected. We derive the concept of “privilege work” from our observations of an often awkward and fraught process that enables the wealthy to engage with their own privilege, use their insider knowledge of wealth accumulation as a lever for change, and work respectfully with underprivileged allies rather than invoking superior status. (shrink)

Congenital nystagmus in infants and young children can lead to early blindness. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that EB is accompanied by alterations in brain structure and function. However, the effects of visual impairment and critical developmental periods on brain functional connectivity at rest have been unclear. Here, we used the voxel-wise degree centrality method to explore the underlying functional network brain activity in adolescents with EB. Twenty-one patients with EBs and 21 sighted controls underwent magnetic resonance imaging. Differences between (...) the two groups were assessed using the DC method. Moreover, the support vector machine method was used to differentiate patients with EB patients from the SCs according to DC values. Compared with the SCs, the patients with EB had increased DC values in the bilateral cerebellum_6, cerebellum vermis_4_5, bilateral supplementary motor areas, and left fusiform gyrus; the patients with EB had decreased DC values in the bilateral rectal gyrus and left medial orbital frontal gyrus. The SVM classification of the DC values achieved an overall accuracy of 70.45% and an area under the curve of 0.86 in distinguishing between the patients with EB and the SCs. Our study may reveal the neuromechanism of neuroplasticity in EB; the findings provide an imaging basis for future development of restorative visual therapies and sensory substitution devices, and future assessments of visual rehabilitation efficacy. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Generalized Argumentation Theory which takes argumentation as a locally rational socio-cultural interaction governed by social norms and carried out through discourse between the members of a socio-cultural community in order to reason things out. Then we bring in the basic structure of generalized argumentation and the localized procedure of Generalized Argumentation Theory for studying the argumentative rules. On the basis of above introduction, we use the localized procedure to analyze a case of political argumentation by reciting (...) poems in ancient China. By doing so, it’s indicated that political argumentation by reciting poems, in essence, takes cultural principle of Li of the Spring and Autumn Period as argumentative rules and uses poems to express ideas, in virtue of which arguments are accepted as locally rational by the politicians at that time. At last, the Little Red Book quotation fight, a similar political activity, is discussed briefly to show the significance that ancient Chinese political argumentation has on contemporary argumentation. (shrink)

Competitor pressure is one of the major reasons that a SME engages in environmentally friendly or damaging activities. Extant research has argued that environmental strengths and concerns have mirror opposite relationships with stakeholder antecedents as well as with performance outcomes. We suggest this argument does not reflect the reality. Building on stakeholder management and Red Queen theories, we hypothesize that environmental strengths and concerns have differential relationships with competitors–firm power exchange and financial performance for Chinese SMEs. Results of ten interviews, (...) a pretest, and a large-scale field study indicate that competitors–firm power divergence has a positive relationship with environmental strengths, yet the link between this divergence and environmental concerns does not exist. Further, environmental strengths mediate the relationship between competitors–firm power divergence and financial performance of Chinese SMEs. (shrink)

本书通过事例告诉人们美的灵感究竟是怎样产生的,怎样了解审美意识的心理过程和心理结构等。.

Primary stakeholder pressure has long been considered the main reason that firms engage in responsible behaviors. However, prior studies are generally silent on how industry characteristics reshape the relationships among stakeholders. By integrating information asymmetry in credence goods industries with the stakeholder power framework, we posit that the extent to which consumers can evaluate the qualities of goods alters the dynamics between a firm and its two primary stakeholders, regulators and consumers. Longitudinal data collected on 72 pharmaceutical companies indicate that (...) consumers of pharmaceutical products can only influence firms indirectly through the regulator. Further, contrary to the conventional wisdom that innovative firms are more capable of resisting stakeholder pressure, we find that R&D investment increases the dependency of pharmaceutical firms on the regulator. Lastly, we do not find that lobbying reduces dependency on the regulator except for high R&D firms. These findings provide important theoretical, ethical, and policy implications. (shrink)

The fire safety of industrial buildings has always been a great concern. An excellent evacuation indicator system can guide the personnel to escape quickly, thus reducing the casualties. In this study, we present a virtual simulation fire scene based on virtual reality to explore the impact of different colors, brightness values, and flashing frequencies on escape time in case of fire emergencies. The presented scene can help shorten the time required for evacuation in an industrial plant by identifying the escape (...) path under the fire and smoke environment and improve the escape efficiency. The results show that the green color is the most suitable color for evacuations; the escape efficiency increases with an increase in brightness, and there is no significant difference between the escape times under high and medium brightness; the evacuation time decreases with an increase in the flicker frequency. Based on these experimental results, the fire evacuation indicating system is designed. A virtual reality verification experiment is used to compare the escape efficiency of the improved design with an original factory’s indicating system. The verification results show that the improved scheme reduces the evacuation time and significantly improves the psychological stress on the evacuees. This work provides a theoretical basis for safe evacuation designs. (shrink)

Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) is the online journals publishing service of Cambridge University Press. CJO hosts leading journals across multiple disciplines.

Let ∃n denote the set of all formulas ∃x1…∃xn[P = 0], where P is a polynomial with integer coefficients. We prove a new relation-combining theorem from which it follows that if ∃n is undecidable over N, then ∃2n+2 is undecidable over Z.

In order to improve the impact resistance and mechanical performance of anchor rods and satisfy the requirements for supporting rockburst roadways, the energy balance equation of the energy-absorbing support and roadway surrounding rock system is established. Moreover, to effectively prevent rockburst disasters, the energy criterion for roadway instability is derived. From the perspective of an energy-absorbing support, a yield-absorbing anti-shock anchor composed of a rod body, tray, constant resistance energy-absorbing device, and special-shaped nut is designed and developed; compared with ordinary (...) anchor rods, this rod has stronger mechanical properties for resisting impact. Theoretical and numerical simulation studies show that the energy-absorbing device has a repeatable deformation failure mode and a constant yield force. The paper also presents the principle involved in the design of anti-shock bolt supports. The energy-absorbing support not only effectively guides and controls the release and conversion of impact energy but also consumes the impact energy in the buffering process of the anchor to ensure the stability of surrounding rock and support protection system. This study aims to provide reference for roadway support design and to improve rock bolts used in rockburst roadways. (shrink)

本书讲述了中国传统道德文化治国之道, 强调了传统文化对国家发展的重要性.内容包括: 故国之思, 核心之道, 庙堂之器, 大道之行及复兴之焰五个部分.

This study explored the global cyberspace security issues, with the purpose of breaking the stereotype of people’s cognition of cyberspace problems, which reflects the relationship between interdependence and association. Based on the Apriori algorithm in association rules, a total of 181 strong rules were mined from 40 target websites and 56,096 web pages were associated with global cyberspace security. Moreover, this study analyzed support, confidence, promotion, leverage, and reliability to achieve comprehensive coverage of data. A total of 15,661 sites mentioned (...) cyberspace security-related words from the total sample of 22,493 professional websites, accounting for 69.6%, while only 735 sites mentioned cyberspace security-related words from the total sample of 33,603 non-professional sites, accounting for 2%. Due to restrictions of language, the number of samples of target professional websites and non-target websites is limited. Meanwhile, the number of selections of strong rules is not satisfactory. Nowadays, the cores of global cyberspace security issues include internet sovereignty, cyberspace security, cyber attack, cyber crime, data leakage, and data protection. (shrink)

With the increasing economic development and gradual opening of China’s aviation market, the Chinese aviation industry is experiencing rapid growth and is facing some problems at the same time. Many scholars have assessed the profitability of the Chinese aviation industry using a single assessment approach. Both theory and methods in assessing the profitability of the airlines need to be developed and improved. This article presents a new integrated approach – a combination of factor analysis, principal component analysis, and gray relational (...) analysis. Based on the theory of decision making and data mining, this more reasonable and effective model overcomes the one-sidedness and limitations of the individual methods and has significant impact in theory and practice. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the problem of how to avoid the Third Man Argument which Plato put forward in Parmenides 132a1-b2. According to Gregory Vlastos, this argument is based on two tacit assumptions: the Self-Predication and the Non-Identity Assumption. In recent years there have been a number ofinterpretations which attempted to avoid the Third Man Argument by proving that the Self-Predication Assumption is not an acceptable part of Plato’s theory. However, in this article I will show that the fallacy (...) of the Third Man Argument does not lie in the Self-Predication Assumption, but in the Non-Identity Assumption. That is, we may avoid the Third Man Argument by proving that the Non-Identity Assumption is false. Besides, in this article I will point out that in putting forward the Third Man Argument, Plato does not really intend to raise a criticism of his own theory. Rather, his device of the Third Man Argument in Parmenides 132a1-b2 should be considered as a warning against the materialistic interpretation of the relation between Forms and particulars: if we interpret the conception of“participation” in a materialistic manner, the Theory of Forms will inevitably be caught in the Largeness Regress. (shrink)

Visual inspections have been typically used in condition assessment of infrastructure. However, they are based on human judgment and their interpretation of data can differ from acquired results. In psychology, this difference is called cognitive bias which directly affects Structural Health Monitoring -based decision making. Besides, the confusion between condition state and safety of a bridge is another example of cognitive bias in bridge monitoring. Therefore, integrated computer-based approaches as powerful tools can be significantly applied in SHM systems. This paper (...) explores the relationship between the use of advanced computational intelligence and the development of SHM solutions through conducting an infrastructure monitoring methodology. Artificial Intelligence -based algorithms, i.e., Artificial Neural Network, hybrid ANN-based Imperial Competitive Algorithm, and hybrid ANN-based Genetic Algorithm, are developed for damage assessment using a lab-scale composite bridge deck structure. Based on the comparison of the results, the employed evolutionary algorithms could improve the prediction error of the pre-developed network by enhancing the learning procedure of the ANN. (shrink)

It is frequently demanded that AI-based Decision Support Tools (AI-DSTs) ought to be both explainable to, and trusted by, those who use them. The joint pursuit of these two principles is ordinarily believed to be uncontroversial. In fact, a common view is that AI systems should be made explainable so that they can be trusted, and in turn, accepted by decision-makers. However, the moral scope of these two principles extends far beyond this particular instrumental connection. This paper argues that if (...) we were to account for the rich and diverse moral reasons that ground the call for explainable AI, and fully consider what it means to “trust” AI in a descriptively rich sense of the term, we would uncover a deep and persistent tension between the two principles. For explainable AI to usefully serve the pursuit of normatively desirable goals, decision-makers must carefully monitor and critically reflect on the content of an AI-DST’s explanation. This entails a deliberative attitude. Conversely, calls for trust in AI-DSTs imply the disposition to put questions about their reliability out of mind. This entails an unquestioning attitude. As such, the joint pursuit of explainable and trusted AI calls on decision-makers to simultaneously adopt incompatible attitudes towards their AI-DST, which leads to an intractable implementation gap. We analyze this gap and explore its broader implications: suggesting that we may need alternate theoretical conceptualizations of what explainability and trust entail, and/or alternate decision-making arrangements that separate the requirements for trust and deliberation to different parties. (shrink)

本书是一本研究建筑学的书籍, 全书包括有《现象学与建筑学的思考》、《建筑中的神性》等多篇文章.

The intelligent transportation system under the big data environment is the development direction of the future transportation system. It effectively integrates advanced information technology, data communication transmission technology, electronic sensing technology, control technology, and computer technology and applies them to the entire ground transportation management system to establish a real-time, accurate, and efficient comprehensive transportation management system that works on a large scale and in all directions. Intelligent video analysis is an important part of smart transportation. In order to improve (...) the accuracy and time efficiency of video retrieval schemes and recognition schemes, this article firstly proposes a segmentation and key frame extraction method for video behavior recognition, using a multi-time scale dual-stream network to extract video features, improving the efficiency and efficiency of video behavior detection. On this basis, an improved algorithm for vehicle detection based on Faster R-CNN is proposed, and the Faster R-CNN network feature extraction layer is improved by using the principle of residual network, and a hole convolution is added to the network to filter out the redundant features of high-resolution video images to improve the problem of vehicle missed detection in the original algorithm. The experimental results show that the key frame extraction technology combined with the optimized Faster R-CNN algorithm model greatly improves the accuracy of detection and reduces the leakage. The detection rate is satisfactory. (shrink)

IntroductionInternational trade in digitally deliverable services has been developing rapidly in recent years, especially during pandemics. However, the growth rate and scale differ among regions and countries. To promote the growth and bridge the divide of global trade in digitally deliverable services, we provide feasible policy suggestions in this paper.MethodsBased on panel data of 33 countries' digitally deliverable service trade from 2005 to 2020, this study analyzes the development trends and influencing factors of international trade in digital-global service trade.ResultsThe development (...) of digitally deliverable services in developed countries is far ahead, while in emerging economies such as China and India, it is growing at a high speed. Digital infrastructure; human capital; and science, technology, and innovation capacity have a significant impact on the digitally deliverable trade of countries with the level of STI playing the most important influence. Further, heterogeneity analysis shows that human capital and STI capacity are more sensitive to the digitally deliverable trade of middle-income countries than to the impact of high-income countries, and the contribution of population in middle-income countries is more pronounced.ConclusionAs the proportion of digital trade in global trade continues to increase, the role of digital service trade in countries' sustainable development is becoming more prominent. To cope with such opportunities and challenges, countries, especially developing countries, should actively increase digital infrastructure construction, improve talent training, vigorously develop digital technology, and enhance their innovation capacity. (shrink)

Deontology and utilitarianism are two competing principles that guide our moral judgment. Recently, deontology is thought to be intuitive and is based on an error-prone and biased approach, whereas utilitarianism is relatively reflective and a suitable framework for making decision. In this research, the authors explored the relationship among moral identity, moral decision, and moral behavior to see how a preference for the deontological solution can lead to moral behavior. In study 1, a Web-based survey demonstrated that when making decisions, (...) individuals who viewed themselves as moral people preferred deontological ideals to the utilitarian framework. In study 2, the authors investigated the effect of moral identity and moral decision on moral behavior in an experimental study. The results showed that when deontology was coupled with the motivational power of moral identity, individuals were most likely to behave morally. (shrink)

Utility functions often lack additive separability, presenting an obstacle for decision theoretic axiomatizations. We address this challenge by providing a representation theorem for utility functions of quasi-separable preferences of the form $$u(x,y,z)=f(x,z) + g(y,z)$$ on subsets of topological product spaces. These functions are additively separable only when holding z fixed but are cardinally comparable for different values of z. We then generalize the result to spaces with more than three dimensions and provide applications to belief elicitation, inequity aversion, intertemporal choice, (...) and rank-dependent utility. (shrink)

PurposeThyroid-associated ophthalmopathy is a vision threatening autoimmune and inflammatory orbital disease, and has been reported to be associated with a wide range of structural and functional abnormalities of bilateral hemispheres. However, whether the interhemisphere functional connectivity of TAO patients is altered still remain unclear. A new technique called voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity combined with support vector machine method was used in the present study to explore interhemispheric homotopic functional connectivity alterations in patients with TAO.MethodsA total of 21 TAO patients and 21 (...) wellmatched healthy controls, respectively, underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning in the resting state. We evaluated alterations in the resting state functional connectivity between hemispheres by applying VMHC method and then selected these abnormal brain regions as seed areas for subsequent study using FC method. Furthermore, the observed changes of regions in the VMHC analysis were chosen as classification features to differentiate patients with TAO from HCs through support vector machine method.ResultsThe results showed that compared with HCs, TAO patients showed significantly lower VMHC values in the bilateral postcentral gyrus, lingual gyrus, calcarine, middle temporal gyrus, middle occipital gyrus and angular. Moreover, significantly decreased FC values were found between the right postcentral gyrus/lingual gyrus/calcarine and left lingual gyrus/cuneus/superior occipital gyrus, left postcentral gyrus/lingual gyrus/calcarine and right lingual gyrus/ middle temporal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus and left cerebellum-8/lingual gyrus/middle occipital gyrus/supplementary motor area, left middle temporal gyrus and right middle occipital gyrus, right middle occipital gyrus/angular and left middle temporal pole. The SVM classification model achieved good performance in differentiating TAO patients from HCs.ConclusionThe present study revealed that the altered interhemisphere interaction and integration of information involved in cognitive and visual information processing pathways including the postcentral gyrus, cuneus, cerebellum, angular, widespread visual cortex and temporal cortex in patients with TAO relative to HC group. VMHC variability had potential value for accurately and specifically distinguishing patients with TAO from HCs. The new findings may provide novel insights into the neurological mechanisms underlying visual and cognitive disorders in patients with TAO. (shrink)

We consider the equivalence relations on induced by the Banach subspaces. We show that if, then there is no Borel reduction from the equivalence relation, where X is a Banach space, to.

More and more research on left ventricle quantification skips segmentation due to its requirement of large amounts of pixel-by-pixel labels. In this study, a framework is developed to directly quantify left ventricle multiple indices without the process of segmentation. At first, DenseNet is utilized to extract spatial features for each cardiac frame. Then, in order to take advantage of the time sequence information, the temporal feature for consecutive frames is encoded using gated recurrent unit. After that, the attention mechanism is (...) integrated into the decoder to effectively establish the mappings between the input sequence and corresponding output sequence. Simultaneously, a regression layer with the same decoder output is used to predict multi-indices of the left ventricle. Different weights are set for different types of indices based on experience, and l2-norm is used to avoid model overfitting. Compared with the state-of-the-art, our method can not only produce more competitive results but also be more flexible. This is because the prediction results in our study can be obtained for each frame online while the SOTA only can output results after all frames are analyzed. (shrink)

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are characterized by attenuated pulmonary function and are frequently reported with cognitive impairments, especially memory impairments. The mechanism underlying the memory impairments still remains unclear. We applied resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brain local activities with static and dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations among patients with COPD and healthy controls. Compared with HC, COPD patients exhibited decreased sALFF in the right basal ganglia and increased dALFF in the bilateral parahippocampal/hippocampal gyrus. The (...) reduced the left basal ganglia was associated with lower oxygen partial pressure. Besides, the increased dALFF in the left hippocampal/parahippocampal cortex was associated with poor semantic-memory performance and the increased dALFF in the left hippocampal/parahippocampal cortex was associated the forced vital capacity. The present study revealed the abnormal static and dynamic local-neural activities in the basal ganglia and parahippocampal/hippocampal cortex in COPD patient and its relationship with poor lung function and semantic-memory impairments. (shrink)