H. C. B. Liu

With their prospect for causing both novel and known forms of damage, harm and injury, the issue of responsibility has been a recurring theme in the debate concerning autonomous vehicles. Yet, the discussion of responsibility has obscured the finer details both between the underlying concepts of responsibility, and their application to the interaction between human beings and artificial decision-making entities. By developing meaningful distinctions and examining their ramifications, this article contributes to this debate by refining the underlying concepts that together inform the idea of responsibility. Two different approaches are offered to the question of responsibility and autonomous vehicles: targeting and risk distribution. The article then introduces a thought experiment which situates autonomous vehicles within the context of crash optimisation impulses and coordinated or networked decision-making. It argues that guiding ethical frameworks overlook compound or aggregated effects which may arise, and which can lead to subtle forms of structural discrimination. Insofar as such effects remain unrecognised by the legal systems relied upon to remedy them, the potential for societal inequalities is increased and entrenched, situations of injustice and impunity may be unwittingly maintained. This second set of concerns may represent a hitherto overlooked type of responsibility gap arising from inadequate accountability processes capable of challenging systemic risk displacement.

This paper critically surveys Adorno's dialectical-philosophical perspective of communication, which addresses a question and a quest for humanity: "How is communication possible?" In my view, any discussion of Adorno's view on communication should start with his distinction of two concepts: mediation and communication. Mediation involves the ideological critique of illusory relations of objectivity. Communication, defined by Adorno as the never-ending confrontation and reconciliation between subjectivity and objectivity, comes after the epistemological critique of objective mediation. Therefore, the quest for communication always involves a never-ending wrestling between subject and object, particular and universal, experience and information. As Adorno would argue, true communication is "a result not an illusion o f (non-) identity of self and others. If any authentic mediated communication is humanly possible, it is because such communication is inscribed in a dialectical-dialogical process and it can only be accomplished momentarily.

This paper critically evaluates Habermas's social-philosophical exploration of the public sphere in the age of mass communication, which addresses a key question: "Is the public possible in the sociohistorical formation of the mass public sphere?" In his genealogical analysis of different public spheres from feudal to modern times, Habermas indicates that the emergence of inter-subjectivity is historically based upon the dichotomy of private / public (subjective/objective). He emphasizes the opposition of the "subjective side" of rationality to its "objective side" while dealing with the public spheres in different historical periods. Habermas points out that the notion of the public can exist only at the face-to-face level communication. It is impossible for the (impersonal) masses to construct any sense of publicness, since there are no historical and social conditions in which the masses of working class can establish an "autonomous private sphere" outside of material production and consumption, as the bourgeoisie did. In this way, Habermas ambivalently argues that the public is not possible in the mass public sphere.

The intense and polemical debate over the legality and morality of weapons systems to which human cognitive functions are delegated (up to and including the capacity to select targets and release weapons without further human intervention) addresses a phenomena which does not yet exist but which is widely claimed to be emergent. This groundbreaking collection combines contributions from roboticists, legal scholars, philosophers and sociologists of science in order to recast the debate in a manner that clarifies key areas and articulates questions for future research. The contributors develop insights with direct policy relevance, including who bears responsibility for autonomous weapons systems, whether they would violate fundamental ethical and legal norms, and how to regulate their development. It is essential reading for those concerned about this emerging phenomenon and its consequences for the future of humanity.

Long distance travel is an unusual activity for humans. The economical cabin environment during the long haul flights causes discomfort and even stress for many passengers. In-flight video and music systems are commonly available to improve the comfort level of the passengers. However, current in-flight music systems do not explore how the content can be used to reduce passengers stress. Most of these systems are designed and implemented assuming a homogeneous passenger group that has similar tastes and desires. In this paper, we present a heart rate controlled in-flight music recommendation system for reducing the stress during air travel. The system recommends personalized music playlists to the passengers and attempts to keep their heart rate in a normal range with these playlists. Experiments in a simulated long haul flight cabin environment find that the passengers’ stress can indeed be significantly reduced through listening to the recommended music playlists.

In this paper we investigate whether independent directors’ attendance at board meetings enhances investor protection using a difference-in-difference approach. We find that independent directors’ attendance alleviates tunneling. This effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises than in state-owned enterprises. The reinforcement of external supervision substitutes for the role of independent directors’ attendance and this substitution effect is more significant in non-SOEs. Together, these results imply that independent directors’ attendance at board meetings can play an important role in protecting investors, especially in non-SOEs and when external supervision is weak. This paper sheds new light on independent directors’ function in corporate governance, and has implications for institutional improvements.

Muller Ma Hou fiction with the characters and the world of fiction and cross-cultural imagination, and is the author of "human destiny" philosophy of management of the concrete, is to convey the author's philosophical and cultural symbols. The early twentieth century, the face of a crisis of values ​​of Western culture, Hou Ma Muller tried to find new oriental culture inspiration for Western civilization Fuxing into vitality. He does not follow the appearance of life, but the current implementation of the Bank "transformation of imagination," to guide humans beyond self, beyond the time limit in an attempt to question the future of human dignity. Muller Hou Ma through the relocation and cross-borrowing, in the framework of the Chinese revolution in the philosophy of success In order to find the abnormal carrier and adventure field. In the Eastern and Western civilizations collision and intersection, the horse Muller Hou conducted In order thinking shift and switch, the story location in Asia, and awareness of the coordinate system is in the West, giving In order to fiction extraordinary uniqueness and moral nature, Order refreshing. The world and characters built in Andre Malraux's fictions possess a quality of invention and imagination. They are the concrete representations of the author's philosophy, "the condition of human beings", as well as the symbols which deliver his cultural philosophical speculation. In the early twentieth century, fronting the value crisis of the western culture, Malraux tried to search for new inspirations from the eastern culture in order to inject fresh energy to the revival of western civilization. He did not abide by life's appearance but switched the imagination towards the reality , guiding people to exceed themselves and surpass the limit of time so as to inquire human dignity. Using relocation and removal, Malraux successfully found the carrier of philosophy and the foreign field for exploration under the framework of Chinese Revolution. Through the convergence and collision between eastern and western civilizations, Malraux conducted the displacement and switchover of ideas. The story takes place in Asia while the true consciousness is located in the West thus endows the fiction with extraordinary specificity and morals which is truly refreshing

Cet article se propose de montrer que le langage en traduction joue un rôle performatif parce que les termes qu’il emploie retraduisent des normes sociales et des positions institutionnelles construites dans une autre culture, avec d’autres conditions historiques. Dans le cas de la naissance des sciences de la communication en Chine, des concepts américains sur la communication sont venus par leur traduction à la rencontre des normes et positions chinoises sur le journalisme et la propagande, engendrant une reconfiguration mutuelle des actants, qu’ils soient sociaux ou langagiers. Nous étudions comment le système socio-culturel de la Chine a recréé un ordre local propre sous la forme d’une discipline spécifique à ce pays, xinwen chuanboxue .This article sets out to show that language in translation plays a performative role, because the terms it uses effectively retranslate social norms and institutional positions that were built up in a different culture and in different historical circumstances. In the case of the emerging communication sciences in China, American concepts on communication, which arrived in translation, came to encounter Chinese norms and positions on journalism and propaganda, and this caused a mutual reconfiguration of the actants, both social and linguistic. We look here at how the Chinese socio-cultural system re-created its own local order in the form of a discipline which is specific to the country, “xinwen chuanboxue”