Confucian Virtue Jurisprudence

Virtue jurisprudence is an approach to legal theory that develops the implications of virtue ethics and virtue politics for the law. Recent work on virtue jurisprudence has emphasized a NeoAristotelian approach. This essay develops a virtue jurisprudence in the Confucian tradition. The title of this essay, “Confucian Virtue Jurisprudence,” reflects the central aim of our work, to build a contemporary theory of law that is both virtue-centered and that provides a contemporary reconstruction of the central ideas of the early Confucian intellectual tradition. This essay provides a sketch of our contemporary version of Confucian virtue jurisprudence, including a view of (1) the ends of law, (2) legislation and the judiciary, (3) the nature of law. We shall argue that the highest value of Confucian ethical, political theory is the virtue of citizens and the harmony of society and individuals. From the perspective of the use of evaluative language, the Confucian doctrine of Correcting Names gives us an explanation of the mechanism of internalization of legal rules in terms of the relationship among social norms, law and thick evaluative concepts. This might throw light on our normative understanding of legislation and the judiciary,and it also provides a functional account of the nature of law

Stationary state solutions for a gently stochastic nonlinear wave equation with ultraviolet cutoffs

We consider a non-linear, one-dimensional wave equation system with finite-dimensional stochastic driving terms and with weak dissipation. A stationary process that solves the system is used to model steady-state non-equilibrium heat flow through a non-linear medium. We show existence and uniqueness of invariant measures for the system modified with ultraviolet cutoffs, and we obtain estimates for the field covariances with respect to these measures, estimates that are uniform in the cutoffs. Finally, we discuss the limit of these measures as the ultraviolet cutoffs are removed.Comment: 19 page

Effect of mean on variance function estimation in nonparametric regression

Variance function estimation in nonparametric regression is considered and the minimax rate of convergence is derived. We are particularly interested in the effect of the unknown mean on the estimation of the variance function. Our results indicate that, contrary to the common practice, it is not desirable to base the estimator of the variance function on the residuals from an optimal estimator of the mean when the mean function is not smooth. Instead it is more desirable to use estimators of the mean with minimal bias. On the other hand, when the mean function is very smooth, our numerical results show that the residual-based method performs better, but not substantial better than the first-order-difference-based estimator. In addition our asymptotic results also correct the optimal rate claimed in Hall and Carroll [J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B 51 (1989) 3--14].Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053607000000901 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The first-order effect of Holocene Northern Peatlands on global carbon cycle dynamics

Given the fact that the estimated present-day carbon storage of Northern Peatlands (NP) is about 300–500 petagram (PgC, 1 petagram = 1015 gram), and the NP has been subject to a slow but persistent growth over the Holocene epoch, it is desirable to include the NP in studies of Holocene carbon cycle dynamics. Here we use an Earth system Model of Intermediate Complexity to study the first-order effect of NP on global carbon cycle dynamics in the Holocene. We prescribe the reconstructed NP growth based on data obtained from numerous sites (located in Western Siberia, North America, and Finland) where peat accumulation records have been developed. Using an inverse method, we demonstrate that the long-term debates over potential source and/or sink of terrestrial ecosystem in the Holocene are clarified by using an inverse method, and our results suggest that the primary carbon source for the changes (sinks) of atmospheric and terrestrial carbon is the ocean, presumably, due to the deep ocean sedimentation pump (the so-called alkalinity pump). Our paper here complements ref. 1 by sensitivity tests using modified boundary conditions

Effects of Kernel Breakage and Fermentation on Corn Germ Integrity and Oil Quality

To investigate the ability of corn germ to withstand the fuel ethanol fermentation process without major damage to germ integrity and germ oil quality, five treatments were designed to explore degerming before fermentation (front-end) and after fermentation (tail-end), and the feasibility of breaking the kernel with minimum shear forces (wet-split). Germ from low-shear (wet-split) tail-end degerming maintained its integrity during the process. The wet-grind pretreatment caused 22% germ damage, and the subsequent fermentation caused 18% additional germ damage. The germ recovered after fermentation showed physical strength similar to that of those isolated by wet means before fermentation. The oils extracted from the tail-end germ fractions had the same low free fatty acid (FFA) content (2%) and similar low peroxide value (2 meq/kg) as those extracted at the front end. The good oil quality of the tail-end germ fraction was attributed to excellent germ integrity. The oil recovered after traditional dry-grind ethanol production was highly deteriorated, with 22% FFAs and 9 meq/kg peroxide value because the germ was broken into small pieces during dry grinding. So long as kernel-breakage or size-reduction pretreatments are conducted to retain intact germs or keep them in large pieces before fermentation, the germ can survive the cooking, starch hydrolysis, and yeast metabolism during the ethanol fermentation process. These findings lay a foundation for developing new degerming strategies where the germ can be isolated during or after fermentation, which could be easily integrated into the conventional dry-grind corn ethanol process