A hypergroup, as a generalization of the notion of a group, was introduced by F. Marty in 1934. The first book in hypergroup theory was published by Corsini. Nowadays, hypergroups have found applications to many subjects of pure and applied mathematics, for example, in geometry, topology, cryptography and coding theory, graphs and hypergraphs, probability theory, binary relations, theory of fuzzy and rough sets and automata theory, physics, and also in biological inheritance.

Proactively including the ethical and societal issues of new technologies could have a positive effect on their acceptance. These issues could be captured in terms of values. In the literature, the values stakeholders deem important for the development of technology have often been identified. However, the relative ranking of these values in relation to each other have not been studied often. The best worst method is proposed as a possible method to determine the weights of values, hence it is used (...) in an evaluative fashion. The applicability of the method is tested by applying it to the case of smart meters, one of the main components of the smart grid. The importance of values is examined for three dimensions of acceptance namely sociopolitical, market, and household acceptance. (shrink)

Recently, research on uncertainty modeling is progressing rapidly and many essential and breakthrough stud ies have already been done. There are various ways such as fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic sets to handle these uncertainties. Although these concepts can handle incomplete information in various real-world issues, they cannot address all types of uncertainty such as indeterminate and inconsistent information. Also, plithogenic sets as a generalization of crisp, fuzzy, intuitionistic fuzzy, and neutrosophic sets, which is a set whose elements are characterized by (...) many attributes’ values. In this paper, our aim is to demonstrate and review the history of fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic sets. For this purpose, we divided the paper as: section 1. History of Fuzzy Sets, section 2. History of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets and section 3. History of Neutrosophic Theories and Applications, section 4. History of Plithogenic Sets. (shrink)

Pitt :735–741, 2017) has argued that reductive representationalism entails an absurdity akin to the “paramechanical hypothesis” Ryle attributed to Descartes. This paper focuses on one version of reductive representationalism: the property-complex theory. We contend that at least insofar as the property-complex theory goes, Pitt is wrong. The result is not just a response to Pitt, but also a clarification of the aims and structure of the property-complex theory.

Medical ethics is a practical key element in the medical curriculum. Movies can be used as an effective and innovative way to involve students in discussions and reflections on ethical issues. This study aimed to evaluate the appropriateness of medical movies as a tool in medical ethics education. During the last teaching session of the medical ethics courses, the movie “Extreme Measures” was shown to the medical students. The present study is a descriptive-analytical study of 302 students’ manuscripts. The quantitative (...) content analysis of the students’ manuscripts was carried out using a checklist that contained 11 titles and 75 subtitles. Each student’s checklist was compared to the student’s final exam score. The most recognized issue was justice, and the least recognized one was confidentiality and privacy. Nonmaleficence, respecting autonomy and informed consent, honor and integrity, end of life, duty and responsibility, conflict of interest, beneficence, relationship with colleagues and altruism were located in-between. There was a relationship between students’ final exam scores and their manuscripts’ scores. According to our findings, relevant movies with standard categorization can be used as a useful method for medical ethics education and assessment. (shrink)

With the realization of the promised global village, media, particularly online newspapers, play a significant role in delivering news to the world. However, such means of news circulation can propagate different ideologies in line with the dominant power. This, coupled with the emergence of so-called Islamic terrorist groups, has turned the focus largely on Islam and Muslims. This study attempts to shed light on the image of Islam being portrayed in Western societies through a Critical Discourse Analysis approach. To this (...) end, a number of headlines about Islam or Muslims have been randomly culled from three leading newspapers in Western print media namely The Guardian, The Independent and The New York Times. This study utilizes “ideological square” notion of Van Dijk characterized by “positive presentation” of selves and “negative presentation” of others alongside his socio-cognitive approach. Moreover, this study will take the linguistic discourses introduced by Van Leeuwen regarding “representing social actors and social practices” into consideration. The findings can be employed to unravel the mystery behind the concept of “Islamophobia” in Western societies. Besides, it can reveal how specific lexical items, as well as grammatical structures are being employed by Western media to distort the notion of impartiality. (shrink)

Publication date: 30 March 2017 Source: Author: Tahereh Rezaei, Mohsen Hanif Art in general and fiction in particular have had close affinities with politics throughout history. When there is a close tie between a narrative fiction and political issues then critics may deem it as “committed fiction”. Political fiction is at the crossroads of political science and the art of fiction. And more often than not, novelists are involved with politics but not all of them are dubbed as or (...) even consider themselves to be political novelists. In this article I attempt to investigate political fiction as a distinct genre produced consciously by a range of novelists and critics. The authors discussed in this paper demonstrate dissimilar perspectives on freedom and democracy. Also, regarding political fiction and the responsibility of author, we will see how divergent is the attitudes of critics such as George Orwell, Allen Robbe-Grillet, Juan Goytisolo, Mario Vargas Llosa and Isabel Allende. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

Focusing on some contemporary Islamic reformers’ solutions, in particular, Abolkarim Soroush, Mohsen Kadivar, and Fazlur Rahman, to concrete issues in Muslim societies, this article examines two different methodological strategies of alternative readings of the Sunna: an archeological one and a genealogical one. In the archeological perspective, the holy text has been considered as a repository of answers to all sorts of questions. Through a pathological analysis, this view suggests solutions to correct distortions and looks for new windows seeking an original (...) interpretation of the Qur’an. The genealogical view, on the other hand, puts aside this pathology and instead insists on the idea of the contingency of any interpretation. Regardless of accuracy and validity, according to the genealogical view, all interpretations have addressed temporal and contextual questions. What is important in this perspective is not returning to an original source for finding the exact message of Allah, or correcting previous interpretations, but recurrently referring to an open-ended text in order to explore the futures of the Qur’an. (shrink)

Application of technologies has an important role in agricultural development. Identifying and assessing the impacts of agricultural technologies is necessary. This study aimed at assessing the impacts of laser levelling economically, socially, environmentally, and technically in the viewpoint of the agricultural experts and identifying factors determining their perception of the impacts. The study samples (151 experts) were selected using multi-stage random sampling in Fars Province, Iran. The results revealed that experts considered uniform distribution of water, using conservation tillage, facilitating agricultural (...) activities, decreased water consumption and decrease of water wasting as the most important technical impacts of laser levelling technology. The most environmentally important impacts were the decrease of soil erosion and retention of crop residues. Experts stated the most significant social impacts as improvement in villages living conditions and sense of belonging to rural areas. Besides, an increase of income and reduction of inputs costs were among the economic impacts of laser levelling technology. According to the results, attitude towards water and soil resources conservation and environmental beliefs had the highest direct effect on individual perception toward impacts. Practical recommendations have been presented based on the results of the study. (shrink)

Background and objectivesThe study of brain functional connectivity alterations in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has been the subject of considerable investigation, but the biological mechanisms underlying these changes remain poorly understood. Here, we aim to investigate the brain alterations in patients with ADHD and Typical Development children and accurately classify ADHD children from TD controls using the graph-theoretical measures obtained from resting-state fMRI.Materials and methodsWe investigated the performances of rs-fMRI data for classifying drug-naive children with ADHD from TD controls. Fifty (...) six drug-naive ADHD children and 56 age matched TD controls were included in this study. The graph measures extracted from rs-fMRI functional connectivity were used as features. Extracted network-based features were fed to the RFE feature selection algorithm to select the most discriminating subset of features. We trained and tested Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting using Peking center data from ADHD-200 database to classify ADHD and TD children using discriminative features. In addition to the machine learning approach, the statistical analysis was conducted on graph measures to discover the differences in the brain network of patients with ADHD.ResultsAn accuracy of 78.2% was achieved for classifying drug-naive children with ADHD from TD controls employing the optimal features and the GB classifier. We also performed a hub node analysis and found that the number of hubs in TD controls and ADHD children were 8 and 5, respectively, indicating that children with ADHD have disturbance of critical communication regions in their brain network. The findings of this study provide insight into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying ADHD.ConclusionPattern recognition and graph measures of the brain networks, based on the rs-fMRI data, can efficiently assist in the classification of ADHD children from TD controls. (shrink)

Rough set theory is an excellent mathematical tool for the analysis of a vague description of actions in decision problems. Now, in this paper by considering the notion of an equality algebra, the notion of the lower and the upper approximations are introduced and some properties of them are given. Moreover, it is proved that the lower and the upper approximations define an interior operator and a closure operator, respectively. Also, using D-lower and D-upper approximation, conditions for a nonempty subset (...) to be definable are provided and investigated that under which condition D-lower and D-upper approximation can be filter. (shrink)

Almost every case of visual experience is as of a unified state of affairs and as of one or more specific particulars. I argue that a view on which the content of visual experience is a singular proposition does a better job at explaining these two features of visual experience than three popular theories: the Complex Property Theory, Generalism, and Fregean Particularism. The defended view, however, entails that there are no visual hallucinations traditionally understood. I make the case for the (...) plausibility of this consequence. (shrink)

The conventional production model based on extensive use of chemical inputs such as pesticides is increasingly challenged. Organic agriculture is considered as one of the most important alternative agricultural systems to produce healthy food without any chemicals. Current models are not suitable for prediction of environmental behaviors. The current study aims to analyze the diffusion of organic agriculture to produce healthy food with the environmental sociology approach among farmers. The study was conducted using the survey research and multi-stage random sampling (...) in Fars province, in the south of Iran. The samples included 215 farmers. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by conducting a pilot study out of the main sample. The results showed that the farmers have strong attitude to the environment and are for the most part, highly intentioned to perform organic activities. Based on the results, the farmers’ intention toward adoption of organic agriculture, environmental identity, and responsibility of pro-environmental behavior, and their moral norms play an important role to accept organic agricultural activities. There are also some effective factors in implementation of organic agriculture including farmers` increasing awareness about the principles of organic farming, controllability of environmental behaviors as well as their accessibility to the resources and facilities for organic farming. The study emphasized that the attitude and enhancing the knowledge do not lead to pro-environmental behaviors and organic activities directly. Using the models and environmental sociology theories is more efficient to explain pro-environmental behaviors. To this aim, some suggestions were presented to increase the adoption of organic activities and persuade the Iranian farmers to select this kind of cultivation. (shrink)

Background: Euthanasia is a controversial issue in many countries. However, there is little evidence about attitudes of nurses and nursing students toward euthanasia. Research aims: The present study aimed to compare nurses and nursing students' attitudes toward euthanasia. Research design: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. Participants and research context: Using census sampling, 390 nurses and 125 nursing students were enrolled in this study. Methods: Data were collected using a socio-demographic questionnaire and Euthanasia Attitude Scale that included 20 items that (...) sought to record participants’ level of agreement with euthanasia based on a Likert-type scale. Ethical considerations: Objectives of the study were stated for all samples, and emphasized the confidentiality of their specifics and responses, and informed written consent was obtained from all participants. Findings: The mean score of nurses and nursing students’ attitudes about euthanasia was 3.14 ± 0.26 and 3.22 ± 0.24 out of 5, respectively. The majority of nurses and nursing students had a positive attitude toward euthanasia. There was a significant statistical difference between the attitudes of nurses and nursing students to euthanasia. Discussion: The results indicated that the majority of students and nurses had a positive attitude regarding euthanasia. Conclusion: It was recommended to conduct more studies on euthanasia in Iran. (shrink)

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03218-0.

Diego Bubbio criticizes the current debate between the “new theists” and the “new atheists,” arguing that philosophy of religion has been reduced to a kind of inconclusive debate between atheistic naturalism and theistic natural philosophy. He calls for a revision of the criteria defining the scope of philosophy of religion and believes that the post-Kantian philosophy (particularly contemporary continental philosophy) can help set a proper normative criterion for redefining the scope of philosophy of religion. In this article, we elaborate on (...) some other aspects on which continental philosophers can have a role in setting a proper scope for the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

The principles of medical ethics, common as they are in the world at the present time, have been formed in the context of Western secular communities; consequently, secular principles and values are inevitably manifested in all corners of medical ethics. Medical ethics is at its infancy in Iran. In order to incorporate medical ethics into the country's health system, either the same thoughts, principles, rules, and codes of Western communities should be translated and taught across the country, or else, if (...) the principles and values and consequently the prominent moral rules and codes of Western medical ethics are not consistent with the culture, customs, and religion of our country, then new principles and values should be formulated that are more in harmony with our society. According to the available literature in Iran, the four principles proposed by Beauchamp and Childress do not contradict the Islamic-Iranian culture and can thus be generally applied in the mentioned context. However, the application of these four principles and their derivatives requires careful examination and adaptation to Islamic ethics. A comparison of the ontological, anthropological and epistemological foundations of secular and Islamic attitudes shows the differences between these two attitudes to be deep-rooted. “Rationalism,” “scientism,” and “humanism” are the main foundations of secularism, whereas “Godcentrism,” “pure human servitude to God,” the belief in “returning of humans to God,” “resurrection day,” and also human's accountability to God are all fundamental beliefs and principles of religion for Muslims of all cults and sects. It can thus be concluded that the principles of secularist thought are different from and to some extent inconsistent with the principles of Islam. Instructions derived from secular thought can therefore not be implemented in an Islamic community; rather, these communities should adopt Islamic foundations as the source for the norms and standards of their medical ethics. The capacities of religious thought make possible the formation of an ethical system consistent with Islamic Ummah. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to introduce the notion of stabilizers in \(L\)-algebras and develop stabilizer theory in \(L\)-algebras. In this paper, we introduced the notions of left and right stabilizers and investigated some related properties of them. Then, we discussed the relations among stabilizers, ideal and co-annihilators. Also, we obtained that the set of all ideals of a \(CKL\)-algebra forms a relative pseudo-complemented lattice. In addition, we proved that right stabilizers in \(CKL\)-algebra are ideals. Then by using (...) the right stabilizers we produced a basis for a topology on \(L\)-algebra. We showed that the generated topology by this basis is Baire, connected, locally connected and separable and we investigated the other properties of this topology. (shrink)

The falling shadow theory is applied to subhoops and filters in hoops. The notions of falling fuzzy subhoops and falling fuzzy filters in hoops are introduced, and several properties are investigated. Relationship between falling fuzzy subhoops and falling fuzzy filters are discussed, and conditions for a falling fuzzy subhoop to be a falling fuzzy filter are provided. Also conditions for a falling shadow of a random set to be a falling fuzzy filer are displayed.

The falling shadow theory is applied to subhoops and filters in hoops. The notions of falling fuzzy subhoops and falling fuzzy filters in hoops are introduced, and several properties are investigated. Relationship between falling fuzzy subhoops and falling fuzzy filters are discussed, and conditions for a falling fuzzy subhoop to be a falling fuzzy filter are provided. Also conditions for a falling shadow of a random set to be a falling fuzzy filter are displayed.

The notions of soju filters in a hoop algebra are introduced, and related properties are investigated. Relations between a soju sub-hoop, a soju filter and an implicative soju filter are discussed. Conditions for a soju filter to be implicative are displayed, and characterizations of an implicative soju filters are considered. The extension property of an implicative soju filter is established.

The notions of soju filters in a hoop algebra are introduced, and related properties are investigated. Relations between a soju sub-hoop, a soju filter and an implicative soju filter are discussed. Conditions for a soju filter to be implicative are displayed, and characterizations of an implicative soju filters are considered. The extension property of an implicative soju filter is established.

The relations between reason, motivation and value present problems which, though ancient, remain intractable. If values are objective and rational how can they move us and if they are dependent on our contingent desires how can they be rational? E. J. Bond makes a bold attack on this dilemma. The widespread view among philosophers today is that judgements contain an irreducible element of personal commitment. To this Professor Bond proposes an account of values as objective and value judgements as true (...) or false, employing a distinction between grounding and motivating reasons to establish their connection with action. He defines and tests his position against a number of recent theories, providing in the process forceful criticism of Williams, Wiggins, Foot, Narveson and Nagel, among others. A distinctive contribution to the subject, it will stimulate interest and worthwhile debate among philosophers, while also serving as an introduction to this vital topic. (shrink)

In this paper, as an extension of CI-algebras, we discuss the new notions of Neutro-CI-algebras and Anti-CI-algebras. First, some examples are given to show that these definitions are different. We prove that any proper CI-algebra is a Neutro-BE-algebra or Anti-BE-algebra. Also, we show that any NeutroSelf-distributive and Anti-Commutative CI-algebras are not BE-algebras.

Derek Parfit’s view of personal identity raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self-determining at all. However, rather than accepting that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of what it implies morally. Part II of this article argues that contractual obligations provide a moral basis for honoring (...) advance decisions refusing life-saving and/or life-sustaining medical treatment; advance decisions have similarities to contracts, such as life insurance policies and will-contracts, that come into effect when the psychological discontinuity is through death. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical care provided by nurses to earthquake victims is one of the main subjects in nursing profession.ObjectivesGiven the information gap in this field, the present study is an attempt to explore the nurses’ experience of ethical care provided to victims of an earthquake.Research design and methodA hermeneutic phenomenological study was performed. The participants were 16 nurses involved in providing care to the injured in Kermanshah earthquake, Iran. They were selected using purposeful sampling, and in-depth and semi-structured interviews were carried out. (...) The transcribed interviews were analyzed based on the hermeneutic approach using the analysis method proposed by Diekelmann et al.Ethical considerationsThe study was approved by the Research Council and Ethics Committee of Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Iran.FindingsData analyses revealed four themes and 10 sub-themes that illustrated nurses’ experience of ethical care during earthquake. The themes were (1) Respecting humanistic values (sacrifice, stepping beyond task description, and voluntary work), (2) Commitment to ethics (honesty, confidentiality, and trustworthiness), (3) Respecting dignity of victims (respecting cultural values, maintaining privacy, having humanistic perspective, and effective communication), and (4) Spiritual support (helping patients to do religious rituals Psychological support).ConclusionThe results showed the nurses’ experience with providing care to earthquake victims. The findings underlined ethics and ethical values in providing nursing care during disasters. It is suggested that special courses on the importance of nursing ethics in critical situations be incorporated into nursing curriculums and in-service educations. (shrink)

It is deemed that the effectiveness of teachers is highly entangled with psycho-emotional constructs, such as critical thinking (CT), emotion regulation (ER), and immunity. Despite the potential roles of CR, ER, and immunity, their possible relationships have remained unexplored in the higher education context of Iran. To fill in this lacuna, this study explored the potential role of CT and ER in university teachers' immunity in the Iranian higher education context. For this purpose, a total of 293 English university teachers (...) were selected using a convenience sampling method. They were invited to fill out the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form, Language Teacher Emotion Regulation Inventory, and Language Teacher Immunity Instrument. The findings of path analysis indicated that the university teachers with higher CT were more productively immunized. Moreover, the results revealed that ER could predict the university teachers' immunity. The findings of the study lead to this implication that higher order thinking skills, emotion regulatory strategies, and immune enhancement should be incorporated into educational programs of higher education. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore how nurses perceive patient participations of patients over 75 years old undergoing hemodialysis treatment in dialysis units, and of their next of kin. Ten nurses told stories about what happened in the dialysis units. These stories were analyzed with critical discourse analysis. Three discursive practices are found: (1) the nurses’ power and control; (2) sharing power with the patient; and (3) transferring power to the next of kin. The first and the predominant (...) discursive practice can be explained with an ideology of paternalism, in which the nurses used biomedical explanations and the ethical principle of benefice to justify their actions. The second can be explained with an ideology of participation, in which the nurses used ethical narratives as a way to let the patients participate in the treatment. The third seemed to involve autonomous decision-making and the ethical principle of autonomy for the next of kin in the difficult end-of-life decisions. (shrink)

Arguing that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably relied on metaphors in articulation, the contributors to this volume offer a new "key" to understanding a critically important area of human knowledge by specifying the major metaphors.

Released in 1984, Steven E. Rhoads' classic was considered by many to be among the best introductions to the economic way of thinking and its applications. This anniversary edition has been updated to account for political and economic developments - from the greater interest in redistributing income and the ascendancy of behaviorism to the Trump presidency. Rhoads explores opportunity cost, marginalism, and economic incentives and explains why mainstream economists - even those well to the left - still value free markets. (...) He critiques economics for its unbalanced emphasis on narrow self-interest as controlling motive and route to happiness, highlighting philosophers and positive psychologists' findings that happiness is far more dependent on friends and family than on income or wealth. This thought-provoking tour of the economist's mind is a must read for our times, providing a clear, lively, non-technical insight into how economists think and why they shouldn't be ignored. (shrink)

We have identified a sample of 53 societies outside of the classical Himalayan and Marquesean area that permit polyandrous unions. Our goal is to broadly describe the demographic, social, marital, and economic characteristics of these societies and to evaluate some hypotheses of the causes of polyandry. We demonstrate that although polyandry is rare it is not as rare as commonly believed, is found worldwide, and is most common in egalitarian societies. We also argue that polyandry likely existed during early human (...) history and should be examined from an evolutionary perspective. Our analysis reveals that it may be a predictable response to a high operational sex ratio favoring males and may also be a response to high rates of male mortality and, possibly, male absenteeism. Other factors may contribute, but our within-polyandry sample limits analysis. (shrink)