Psychology has been the significant discipline since the time of antiquity which becomes more consolidated during the medieval age of Islam. It had a strong foundation in the professional writings of polymaths from the Islamic Middle Ages that were eventually transmitted to the West. However, the unique psychological contributions of these medieval polymaths remained largely unexplored. Despite the growing interest in their work, which is partly due to Islamic psychology, only a handful of them have been investigated for their unique (...) psychological contributions, and a complete examination of psychological work has not been done, separately from an Islamic perspective. The majority of them have only been examined in terms of their medical value, neglecting psychological issues in their all-encompassing approaches to care. Therefore, it was quintessential to extensively explore all those scholars who contributed to the various fields of psychology and to fill a gap of information that has been left by the previous researchers. (shrink)

At the core of public reason liberalism is the idea that the exercise of political power is legitimate only if based on laws or political rules that are justifiable to all reasonable citizens. Call this the Public Justification Principle. Public reason liberals face the persistent objection that the Public Justification Principle is self-defeating. The idea that a society’s political rules must be justifiable to all reasonable citizens is intensely controversial among seemingly reasonable citizens of every liberal society. So, the objection (...) goes, the Public Justification Principle is not justifiable to all reasonable citizens, and thus fails its own test of legitimacy. And this, critics conclude, undermines the public reason liberal project. This article argues that answering the self-defeat objection to public reason liberalism requires fundamentally rethinking prevailing accounts of the Public Justification Principle’s role. My aim is to develop an account of the Public Justification Principle that vindicates its coherence and moral appeal in the face of reasonable disagreement. (shrink)

Contrary to much of the commentary tradition, the book of Job is not primarily a discourse on how to properly speak (or withhold speech) about God in the midst of innocent suffering, nor is it aimed primarily at offering up the character of Job as an exemplar of how to suffer correctly (or incorrectly). Neither is it a treatise about human submission to (or rebellion from) God’s mysterious sovereign prerogative in permitting evil. It is instead a theological exploration of the (...) dilemmas and demands of consolation that confront us given the inexplicable enormities of human suffering. Its unifying aim is to confront us with multiple voices that pull us into an open-ended—and decidedly pessimistic—reflection on what innocent suffering reveals to us about our creaturely limits and the fragility of our hope in God, features of the human condition that require our capacities for compassion to exceed our capacities for theological sense-making. (shrink)

Disparities exist in the health, livelihood, and opportunities for the 46-60 million people living in America’s rural communities. Rural communities across the United States need a new energy and focus concentrated around health and health care that allows for the designing capturing, and spreading of existing and new innovations. This paper aims to provide a framework for policy solutions to build a healthier rural America describing both the current state of rural health policy and the policies and practices in states (...) that could be used as a national model for positive change. (shrink)

In this essay we criticise Rainer Forst's attempt to draw a connection between power and justification, and thus ground his normative theory of a right to justification. Forst draws this connection primarily conceptually, though we will also consider whether a normative connection may be drawn within his framework. Forst's key insight is that if we understand power as operating by furnishing those subjected to it with reasons, then we create a space for the normative contestation of any exercise of power. (...) He calls this the noumenal understanding of power. Against the conceptual connection between power and justification, we argue that (i) on most plausible accounts of political freedom, some freedom-restrictions commonly attributed to the successful exercise of power would perplexingly count as failures of power on Forst's view, and that (ii) on the most plausible account of reason-recognition, namely an appropriateness of response account, a justification relation is only a sufficient but not necessary condition for recognition. Against the normative connection, we argue that (iii) Forst can establish the existence of a right to justification only if he reconsiders the transcendental aspirations of his theory. (shrink)

Computer crime on the Internet poses asignificant threat to the well-being ofbusinesses and individuals, and none are immunefrom the repercussions that can result. Onetype of this unethical and unlawful activity isonline software piracy. In this work, thesignificance of piracy as a topic for academicinquiry is first presented, followed by asummary of the conflicting stances on thisissue. Then, a review of scholarly literaturepreviously conducted in this area is given toprovide a backdrop for the current research. Univariate and bivariate findings from aquantitative (...) study of students are used todemonstrate the incidence, scope, andassociated correlates of Internet piracy in auniversity setting. Technological and ethicalpolicy solutions that an institution mightimplement are suggested and discussed inconclusion. (shrink)

How is the validity of our consent, and others’ moral permission to act on our consent affected by coercion? Everyone agrees that in cases of two-party coercion—when X coerces Y to do something with or for X—the consent of the coerced is invalid, and the coercer is not permitted to act upon the consent they receive. But coercers and the recipients of consent are not always identical. Sometimes a victim, Y, agrees to do something to, with, or for Z because (...) they are being coerced by X. Recently, several philosophers have argued that consent under third-party coercion can be fully valid. We argue that this view has troubling implications. We develop a novel view of consent in third-party coercion cases, which we call the partial validity account. The core idea is that, under severe coercion, Y’s consent is at most partially valid—it reduces the strength of, but does not completely dissolve, Z’s consent-sensitive duties. We argue that the partial validity account gets the right results in important cases and explains the moral factors at play better than alternative accounts. (shrink)

This paper discusses thepractical impact of a non-materialistic cultureon sustainable farm management.Two elements are discussed: first, how deeplyrooted religion is in this culture; second,the feasibility of using both human knowledgeand experience, so-called tradition and divineguidance in management. Finally, theimplications of the fusion of these twoelements are drawn. The outcome is thecapability of man to integrate ethical valuesinto decisions and actions. This integration,when applied by skilled farmers, leads to amanagement of natural resources in analtruistic fashion and not merely to economicends. Moreover, (...) it makes agriculture meaningfuland sustainable. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Experience with a group of mechanical engineering seniors at the University of Colorado led to an informal experiment with engineering students in India. An attempt was made to qualitatively gauge the students’ ability to appreciate a worldview different from the standard engineering worldview—that of a mechanical universe. Qualitative differences between organic and mechanical systems were used as a point of discussion. Both groups were found to exhibit distinct thought and behavior patterns which provide important clues for sensitizing engineers to environmental (...) issues in future educational initiatives. Cross-cultural and global dimensions of these initiatives are discussed. (shrink)

Abstract In the present article, we provide a critical overview of the emerging field of ‘neuroeducation’ also frequently referred to as ‘mind, brain and education’ or ‘educational neuroscience’. We describe the growing energy behind linking education and neuroscience in an effort to improve learning and instruction. We explore reasons behind such drives for interdisciplinary research. Reviewing some of the key advances in neuroscientific studies that have come to bear on neuroeducation, we discuss recent evidence on the brain circuits underlying reading, (...) mathematical abilities as well as the potential to use neuroscience to design training programs of neurocognitive functions, such as working memory, that are expected to have effects on overall brain function. Throughout this review we describe how such research can enrich our understanding of the acquisition of academic skills. Furthermore, we discuss the potential for modern brain imaging methods to serve as diagnostic tools as well as measures of the effects of educational interventions. Throughout this discussion, we draw attention to limitations of the available evidence and propose future avenues for research. We also discuss the challenges that face this growing discipline. Specifically, we draw attention to unrealistic expectations for the immediate impact of neuroscience on education, methodological difficulties, and lack of interdisciplinary training, which results in poor communication between educators and neuroscientists. We point out that there should be bi-directional and reciprocal interactions between both disciplines of neuroscience and education, in which research originating from each of these traditions is considered to be compelling in its own right. While there are many obstacles that lie in the way of a productive field of neuroeducation, we contend that there is much reason to be optimistic and that the groundwork has been laid to advance this field in earnest. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s12152-011-9119-3 Authors Daniel Ansari, Numerical Cognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, Westminster Hall, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada Bert De Smedt, Parenting and Special Education Research Group, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Roland H. Grabner, Institute for Behavioral Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Journal Neuroethics Online ISSN 1874-5504 Print ISSN 1874-5490. (shrink)

In recent years there have been growing calls for forging greater connections between education and cognitive neuroscience. As a consequence great hopes for the application of empirical research on the human brain to educational problems have been raised. In this article we contend that the expectation that results from cognitive neuroscience research will have a direct and immediate impact on educational practice are shortsighted and unrealistic. Instead, we argue that an infrastructure needs to be created, principally through interdisciplinary training, funding (...) and research programs that allow for bidirectional collaborations between cognitive neuroscientists, educators and educational researchers to grow. We outline several pathways for scaffolding such a basis for the emerging field of ‘Mind, Brain and Education’ to flourish as well as the obstacles that are likely to be encountered along the path. (shrink)

Organizations today recognize that it is not only important to engage in corporate social responsibility, but that it is also equally important to ensure that information about CSR is communicated to audiences. At times, however, the CSR image perceived by audiences is not an accurate portrayal of the organization’s CSR identity and is, therefore, incongruent with the desired CSR image. In this paper, we build upon the nascent work on organizational impression management by examining CSR communication from an impression management (...) perspective. The model developed here proposes that incongruence between desired and current CSR images motivates an organization to decrease the incongruence through CSR communication. This relationship is moderated by four factors: importance of CSR image to the organization; power, status, and attractiveness of the target audience; importance of CSR image to the target audience; and media attention and public scrutiny. The model also identifies four dimensions of CSR communication structure and includes a feedback loop through which audience interpretation of the CSR communication can influence the organization’s CSR image incongruence. Two illustrative examples are provided to indicate how the model may be applied to organizations. This paper has several implications for research and practice. It draws connections between impression management theory and CSR and adds to the emerging literature on organizational impression management. It can also help organizations decide on the appropriate CSR communication structure to use in specific situations and be more effective in their CSR communication. (shrink)

The study focuses on the mobile telecommunications industry in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021 and seeks to study how the mobile telecommunications corporations engage with the different area-specific governance systems in order to gain legitimacy to operate across Afghanistan. The study capitalises on mixed qualitative data to conduct an embedded case study of the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry as an extreme context for understanding business-society relations in South Asia. Theoretically, the article integrates insights from (...) governance literature on areas of limited statehood to conceptualise business–society relations in Afghanistan beyond state-centric views and assumptions. The findings result in two modalities of business engagement that are conceptualised as a single vis-à-vis multiple governance system approach. Each of these modes of engagement implies a political nature and role for the businesses that are embedded in ethical dilemmas as discussed in the article. These findings contribute to the debate on the ‘political turn’ in the CSR literature and the governance literature on areas of limited statehood. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that individuals have duties to do their fair shares of the demands of achieving important common ends. But what happens when some individuals fail to do their fair shares?...

The perception of separation between school and home/community is related to diminished achievement in school and lack of motivation to learn STEM subjects. The National Council of Educational Research and Training is among many research organisations that have strongly recommended that schools bridge the disconnect between school-based knowledge and learners’ everyday knowledge. We designed the SPIRALS curriculum to bridge this gap between formal science and students’ everyday lives. SPIRALS helps students explore community-based practices to learn about science, environmental sustainability and (...) systems thinking. We implemented the SPIRALS curriculum in a private, urban, English medium school in Western India with approximately 315 students and their four teachers, 214 of whom also participated in the research from which our conclusions are drawn. Our findings about program impacts rely upon analysis of interviews with teachers and students, as well as student work, and conference participation assessment surveys distributed after a capstone experience at which students present their work. This chapter describes our findings about how students learned science, environmental sustainability, and systems thinking through engagement with community-based practices. We also discuss the process of how the SPIRALS approach worked in India and how it could be expanded into a broader learning model across different socio-cultural contexts within India. (shrink)

In _Divine Holiness and Divine Action _Mark Murphy seeks to establish four key claims: first, that divine holiness consists in a supreme desirability of creaturely union with God and a commensurately supreme creaturely unfittingness for that union; second, that this holiness-concept is grounded in a value-gap between God and creatures which by default motivates God to withdraw from creatures rather than love us or seek our welfare; third, that the love and concern for creaturely welfare exhibited in God’s creating and (...) redeeming is a contingent and freely chosen override of the default stance of holiness; and fourth, that God should be thanked and emulated in virtue of exhibiting a kind of humility in overriding the demands of holiness for our sakes, though not worshipped or praised for this humility, since these latter attitudes should be reserved for necessary rather than contingent features of God. I argue that each of these four claims is mistaken, and further that it is a good thing they are mistaken, because if Murphy’s account were right the appropriate response to God would be neither worship nor thanks but rather abject despair. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg has recently argued that there is a logical incompatibility between God’s being perfectly loving and there being non-resistant nonbelievers in the proposition that God exists. In this paper I highlight the parallel between this claim and the claim made by the logical problem of evil. Following Plantinga’s strategy in undermining the logical problem of evil, I argue that all that is needed to undermine the alleged incompatibility of divine love with non-resistant non-belief is a counterexample showing how (...) the two might possibly co-exist. But whereas most attempts to show this have been grounded anthropologically, by drawing on forms of love-relationship that God and humans have in common, I offer a defense of the compatibility of perfect divine love with human non-resistant non-belief in God’s existence grounded theologically, in the unique sort of love relationship that God wants with us, which is the relationship of “imaging.”. (shrink)

Apophaticism in mainstream analytic theology and philosophy of religion has come to denote a metaphysical and semantic thesis: that, due to divine transcendence, God is ineffable, inconceivable, or incomprehensible. But this conception fails to properly take account of the central claim of apophaticism as a special type of _mystical _theology. As such, the apophatic commitments to divine ineffability are instrumental. More fundamental is the function of theological ignorance to uniquely inform the task of theology and transform the theologian in union (...) with God. Taking Jonathan Jacobs’ recent account as a test case, I argue that reconstructions of apophaticism need to be supplemented by an account of this informational and personally transformative value that apophatic mysticism places on its commitment to divine incomprehensibility. I supply the needed account of apophatic valuing in terms of wonder as the appropriate emotional attitude toward divine transcendence. (shrink)

The open secret of analytic philosophy of religion since its 20th century revival has been that it is for the most part a revival of philosophical theology, and particularly Christian philosophical theology. More recently, Christian analytic philosophers and theologians sympathetic to them have transformed this open secret into a research program by explicitly thematizing the use of analytic philosophical tools for the particular work of Christian theology. Dubbing this work as “analytic theology” (AT) Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea have succeeded (...) in inaugurating AT as a distinct subregion in the philosophy of religion. Besides prompting a spate of first-rate philosophical work theorizing a variety of Christian theological commitments, the advent of AT has also prompted a good deal of meta-theological reflection: Is AT more conducive for certain conceptions of Christian theology than others? Among the various kinds of theology produced by AT, liberation theology is notably absent. In this paper, I offer a diagnosis of why that might be, outline an argument for analytic engagement with liberation theology, and sketch what such an engagement might consist in. (shrink)

This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is whether a quiddity can cause its own (...) existence, the debate extends further. Rāzī draws on several arguments that “existence” must be predicated univocally of God and creature and then concludes that, given the univocity of “existence,” God cannot be simple, but is a composite of the divine quiddity and distinct attributes. In contrast, Ṭūsī denies that “existence” is said univocally of God and creature and rather is predicated ambiguously/analogously, and then defends divine simplicity. (shrink)

A fundamental problem in Christian theology has been that of determining whether God can be an object of experience and how we should account for God's empirical availability to us. Can experiences of God serve to inform and justify our theological beliefs and practices? The central claim in this work is that there is a radical mistake in many contemporary accounts that require grounding a theological story of Gods availability to us in experience in a prior general philosophical theory of (...) perception. Instead, it is argued that the philosophical problem of perception is a pseudoproblem and that in virtue of their entanglement with that pseudoproblem, the influential accounts of Christian religious experience, such as in Jean-Luc Marion, Kevin Hector, or William P. Alston, are at bottom incoherent. The study concludes with a new reading of Gregory of Nyssa and his theology of the spiritual senses, which is free from the bewitchment of the problem of perception. This critical retrieval of Nyssen opens the path toward a viable contemporary theological empiricism, one that characterizes both tasks of theological contemplation and spiritual formation in terms of a receptivity and responsiveness to the perceptible presence and agency of God in the world. (shrink)

This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is whether a quiddity can cause its own (...) existence, the debate extends further. Rāzī draws on several arguments that “existence” must be predicated univocally of God and creature and then concludes that, given the univocity of “existence,” God cannot be simple, but is a composite of the divine quiddity and distinct attributes. In contrast, Ṭūsī denies that “existence” is said univocally of God and creature and rather is predicated ambiguously/analogously, and then defends divine simplicity. (shrink)

An intelligent climate and watering agriculture system is presented that is controlled with Android application for smart water consumption considering small and medium ruler agricultural fields. Data privacy and security as a big challenge in current Internet of Things (IoT) applications, as with the increase in number of connecting devices, these devices are now more vulnerable to security threats. An intelligent fuzzy logic and blockchain technology is implemented for timely analysis and securing the network. The proposed design consists of various (...) sensors that collect real-time data from environment and field such as temperature, soil moisture, light intensity, and humidity. The sensed field information is stored in IoT cloud platform, and after the analysis of entries, watering is scheduled by implementing the intelligent fuzzy logic and blockchain. The intelligent fuzzy logic based on different set of rules for making smart decisions to meet the watering requirements of plant and blockchain technology provides necessary security to the IoT-enabled system. The implementation of blockchain technology allows access only to the trusted devices and manages the network. From the experimentation, it is observed that the proposed system is highly scalable and secure. Multiple users at the same time can monitor and interact with the system remotely by using the proposed intelligent agricultural system. The decisions are taken by applying intelligent fuzzy logic based on input variables, and an alert is transmitted about watering requirements of a field to the user. The proposed system is capable of notifying users for turning water motor on and off. The experimental outcomes of the proposed system also reveal that it is an efficient and highly secure application, which is capable of handling the process of watering the plants. (shrink)

This paper presents a unique manuscript copy of a fifth/eleventh-century Maghribī commentary on al-Bāqillānī’s Kitāb al-Tamhīd. The work, entitled al-Tasdīd fī sharḥ al-Tamhīd, was written by ‘Abd al-Jalīl b. Abī Bakr al-Dībājī —also known as Ibn al-Ṣābūnī— who had studied the Kitāb al-Tamhīd with al-Bāqillānī’s disciples in Qayrawān. The present study first reviews the transmission of al-Bāqillānī’s work to the Islamic west. It then continues to present the author of the commentary, to reconstruct the work’s genesis and to describe its (...) content. The final section focuses on a sample chapter and argues that al-Dībājī follows al-Bāqillānī’s later position on a specific theory —the so-called theory ofaḥwāl— of which the Tamhīd strongly disapproved. The Tasdīd is one of the oldest texts of Maghribī Ash‘arism that has come down to us and provides valuable new insights into the school’s early history in the Islamic west. (shrink)

To optimize the weak robustness of traditional face recognition algorithms, the classification accuracy rate is not high, the operation speed is slower, so a face recognition algorithm based on local binary pattern and stacked autoencoder is proposed. The advantage of LBP texture structure feature of the face image as the initial feature of sparse autoencoder learning, use the unified mode LBP operator to extract the histogram of the blocked face image, connect to form the LBP features of the entire image. (...) It is used as input of the stacked AE, feature extraction is done, realize the recognition and classification of face images. Experimental results show that the recognition rate of the algorithm LBP-SAE on the Yale database has achieved 99.05%, and it further shows that the algorithm has a higher recognition rate than the classic face recognition algorithm; it has strong robustness to light changes. Experimental results on the Olivetti Research Laboratory library shows that the developed method is more robust to light changes and has better recognition effects compared to traditional face recognition algorithms and standard stack AEs. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 371-373.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 460-471.

The article explores the emergent tension between the minority imagination and anticaste politics among India’s most significant religious minority, the Muslims. Since the late 1990s, the mobilization of lowered-caste Muslims in the form of the Pasmanda movement has increasingly challenged the hegemony of the so-called high-caste Ashraf Muslims. The nascent Pasmanda counterdiscourse has contested the critical elements of the entrenched Muslim-minority discourse: identity and the religio-cultural, security and interreligious (communal) violence, and equity and affirmative action. The monolithic image of the (...) Muslim community has been dispelled, and the Muslim-minority discourse has been characterized as a machination for preserving and reproducing the Muslim elite interests. The article maps the Pasmanda discourse and locates it as an instance within the evolving literature on the analytical limitations of the concept of minority to address the justice claims of emergent political subjectivities. The Pasmanda contestations present a sharp anomaly to the existing Muslim-minority discourse and indicate a paradigmatic shift. (shrink)

In air traffic control, the airspace is divided into several smaller sectors for better management of air traffic and air traffic controller workload. Such sectors are usually managed by a team of two air traffic controllers: planning controller and executive controller. D-side controller is responsible for processing flight-plan information to plan and organize the flow of traffic entering the sector. R-side controller deals with ensuring safety of flights in their sector. A better understanding and predictability of D-side controller actions, for (...) a given traffic scenario, may help in automating some of its tasks and hence reduce workload. In this paper, we propose a learning model to predict D-side controller actions. The learning problem is modeled as a supervised learning problem, where the target variables are D-side controller actions and the explanatory variables are the aircraft 4D trajectory features. The model is trained on six months of ADS-B data over an en-route sector, and its generalization performance was assessed, using crossvalidation, on the same sector. Results indicate that the model for vertical maneuver actions provides highest prediction accuracy. Besides, the model for speed change and course change action provides predictability accuracy of 80% and 87%, respectively. The model to predict the set of all the actions for each flight achieves an accuracy of 70% implying for 70% of flights; D-side controller’s action can be predicted from trajectory information at sector entry position. In terms of operational validation, the proposed approach is envisioned as ATCO assisting tool, not an autonomous tool. Thus, there is always ATCO discretion element, and as more ATCO actions are collected, the models can be further trained for better accuracy. For future work, we will consider expanding the feature set by including parameters such as weather and wind. Moreover, human in the loop simulation will be performed to measure the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (shrink)

The theory put forward by Cohen Kadosh & Walsh (CK&W) proposing that semantic representations of numerical magnitude in the parietal cortex are format-specific, does not specify how these representations might be constructed over the course of learning and development. The developmental predictions of the non-abstract theory are discussed and the need for a developmental perspective on the abstract versus non-abstract question highlighted.