The productivity of researchers and the impact of the work they do are a preoccupation of universities, research funding agencies, and sometimes even researchers themselves. The h-index is the most popular of different metrics to measure these activities. This research deals with presenting a practical approach to model the h-index based on the total number of citations and the duration from the publishing of the first article. To determine the effect of every factor on h, we applied a set of (...) simple nonlinear regression. The results indicated that both NC and D1 had a significant effect on h. The determination of coefficient for these equations to estimate the h-index was 93.4% and 39.8%, respectively, which verified that the model based on NC had a better fit. Then, to record the simultaneous effects of NC and D1 on h, multiple nonlinear regression was applied. The results indicated that NC and D1 had a significant effect on h. Also, the determination of coefficient for this equation to estimate h was 93.6%. Finally, to model and estimate the h-index, as a function of NC and D1, multiple nonlinear quartile regression was used. The goodness of the fitted model was also assessed. (shrink)

This paper describes the central role of peace in the Bahá’í Faith. For Bahá’ís, peace begins at the level of the individual and migrates outward to the community, nation, and the world. The article explains how the Bahá’í Faith outlines a covenant – an agreement between Bahá’ís and between Bahá’ís and the world – made manifest in an Administrative Order in which the ascertainment of peaceful principles and the establishment of peaceful practices are developed. The paper explains how concepts like (...) the oneness of humanity, the symbiosis between science and religion, and the unity of religion and God combine with ideals like justice, equality, and consultation to form a Bahá’í approach to the creation and maintenance of peace. Integration and disintegration – broad-structured, dynamic effects that shift societies and the world – will help to usher in two main aspects of a present and future Bahá’í order: the Lesser Peace and the Most Great Peace. The Lesser Peace is defined by the efforts of nations and international actors to form a broad-based, global peace. The Most Great Peace describes the arrival and ascendance of the Bahá’í Administrative Order, which will result in an unprecedented level of global peace and security. (shrink)

This study examined the influence of sex and racial discrimination on academic alienation among Iranian university students. Two groups of 60 girls and 60 boys were sampled through multi-stage cluster sampling from among first-year Tabriz University students in Tabriz, Iran. All participants, between18 and 22, were asked to respond on an academic alienation questionnaire. The findings of a two-way ANOVA revealed that girls and Turkish speakers had higher levels of academic alienation compared to boys and Persian speakers. An investigation of (...) interactional effects indicated that Turkish girls demonstrated the highest levels of academic alienation, with no significant effects in the powerlessness dimension. Finally, the effects of the factors relevant to academic alienation were discussed. (shrink)

Notwithstanding universities’ many laudable aims, incidents of serious bullying, academic harassment and sexual harassment in academic settings are reported with increasing regularity globally. However, the human rights violations involved in bullying and academic harassment have not received attention by the literature. In this article, we pierce the veil of silence surrounding university environments and provide a systematic account of the breaches of international and European human rights law involved in academic bullying and harassment. By adopting a socio-legal lens, we shed (...) light onto such practices and tactics, the breaches of specific human rights and norms and the reluctance of states and regulators to intervene in what is perceived to be universities’ ‘sovereign’ sphere of jurisdiction in order to prevent human rights’ violations and to protect the victims of human rights abuse. We call for a multi-faceted and multi-agency approach to tackle academic bullying and harassment, and make a number of institutional and policy recommendations to ensure universities’ compliance with human rights standards and the effective protection of academics under attack. (shrink)

Statistical distributions play a prominent role for modeling data in applied fields, particularly in actuarial, financial sciences, and risk management fields. Among the statistical distributions, the heavy-tailed distributions have proven the best choice to use for modeling heavy-tailed financial data. The actuaries are often in search of such types of distributions to provide the best description of the actuarial and financial data. This study presents a new power transformation to introduce a new family of heavy-tailed distributions useful for modeling heavy-tailed (...) financial data. A submodel, namely, heavy-tailed beta-power transformed Weibull model is considered to demonstrate the adequacy of the proposed method. Some actuarial measures such as value at risk, tail value at risk, tail variance, and tail variance premium are calculated. A brief simulation study based on these measures is provided. Finally, an application to the insurance loss dataset is analyzed, which revealed that the proposed distribution is a superior model among the competitors and could potentially be very adequate in describing and modeling actuarial and financial data. (shrink)

Wheat is the most imperative crop for man feeding and is planted in numerous countries under rainfed conditions in semiarid zones. It is necessary for decision-makers and governments to predict the yield of rainfed wheat before harvest and to determine the effect of the major factors on it. Different methods have been suggested for forecasting yield with various levels of accuracy. One of these approaches is the statistical regression model, which is simple and applicable for regions with scarce data available. (...) Since the weather is the most important factor affecting the production of wheat, particularly in rainfed cultivation, regression models using weather parameters are very common. However, the coefficients of these models are location based and should be determined locally. Therefore, in this research, backward multiple linear regression technique based on relative importance metrics was used to determine the most important effective weather parameters on rainfed wheat productions in Fars Province, south of Iran, during 2006–2013. The influence of each parameter in the final model was analyzed using the values of LMG relative importance metric. The result indicated that sunshine hours had the biggest LMG and, therefore, was the most effective parameter. Also, among the other considered parameters, rainy days, minimum relative humidity, and average relative humidity with LMG values of 21.97%, 21.69%, and 21.62%, respectively, had the most effects on rainfed wheat yield in the studied area. All parameters except for the sunshine hours positively affected rainfed wheat yield. The most important reason for the significance of these parameters can be the prevailing dry and semidry climate in the southern areas of Iran. The proposed model for determination of weather parameters effects on rainfed wheat could be a great guidance and aid for different stakeholders such as farmers, decision-makers, and governments. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This essay examines Cornel West's position that social justice for the socially marginalized, especially African Americans, can only be obtained through, among other things, a synthesis of Marxian critique of capitalistic culture and hegemony, and Black prophetic theological outlook. I bring out certain limitations in West's position, in particular, what I construe as his tendency to reduce all forms of oppression to the economic. Furthermore, even as I agree with West that capitalism needs to be examined, I argue, on the (...) contrary, that social justice can still be effected within a reformed liberal capitalist system. (shrink)

This essay examines Cornel West's position that social justice for the socially marginalized, especially African Americans, can only be obtained through, among other things, a synthesis of Marxian critique of capitalistic culture and hegemony, and Black prophetic theological outlook. I bring out certain limitations in West's position, in particular, what I construe as his tendency to reduce all forms of oppression to the economic. Furthermore, even as I agree with West that capitalism needs to be examined, I argue, on the (...) contrary, that social justice can still be effected within a reformed liberal capitalist system. (shrink)

But for a very recent exception, Hume has generally been thought to deny that cognitive reason plays a distinctive role in morality. The cornerstone of this view has been his notorious remark that reason is and ought only to be the slave of passion and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey passion. But, this remark notwithstanding, Hume’s view about the significance of intention in moral processes suggests that he does assign to cognitive reason a (...) very crucial role in morality. This is what the present study establishes. (shrink)

But for a very recent exception, Hume has generally been thought to deny that cognitive reason plays a distinctive role in morality. The cornerstone of this view has been his notorious remark that reason is and ought only to be the slave of passion and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey passion. But, this remark notwithstanding, Hume’s view about the significance of intention in moral processes suggests that he does assign to cognitive reason a (...) very crucial role in morality. This is what the present study establishes. (shrink)

White on White/Black on Black is a unique contribution to the philosophy of race. The text explores how 14 philosophers, 7 white and 7 black, philosophically understand the dynamics of the process of racialization.

Cornel West's reputation as a public and celebrity intellectual has overshadowed his important contributions to philosophy. Professor Clarence Shole Johnson provides a rectification of this situation in this benchmark, thought-provoking book. After a brief biographical sketch, Johnson leads us through a comprehensive examination of West's philosophy from his conceptions of pragmatism, existentialism, Marxism, and Prophetic Christianity to his persuasive writings on black-Jewish relations, affirmative action, and the role of black intellectuals. Special focus is given to West's writings on ethics (...) and social justice, and how these inform his entire theoretical framework. Cornel West and Philosophy is a unique and indispensable guide to West's diverse philosophical writings. (shrink)

This essay examines Cornel West's position that social justice for the socially marginalized, especially African Americans, can only be obtained through, among other things, a synthesis of Marxian critique of capitalistic culture and hegemony, and Black prophetic theological outlook. I bring out certain limitations in West's position, in particular, what I construe as his tendency to reduce all forms of oppression to the economic. Furthermore, even as I agree with West that capitalism needs to be examined, I argue, on the (...) contrary, that social justice can still be effected within a reformed liberal capitalist system. (shrink)

A distinctive characteristic of contemporary Hume scholarship is the attempt by scholars to read Hume both critically and sympathetically. This is itself quite encouraging, especially in view of the misinterpretations to which Hume's views have traditionally been subject. More positively, how-ever, we now have a systematic attempt, hitherto absent, to appreciate the richness and complexity of Hume's views and of the many positive things Hume has to say in philosophy.

One reaction to the theory of moral responsibility Hume presentsis that the theory cannot be reconciled with his remarks about the self in Treatise, Book One. Hume declared a self or person to be nothing but a bundle of transient perceptions, arguing further that there is no one perception that continues invariably the same at any two moments of time. It would follow from such a view that, since one and the same bundle cannot logically exist at two distinct moments, (...) and hence a person at t1 is distinct and different from a person at t2, it is logically impossible, even unjust, to ascribe responsibility to a person at a later time for, say, a moral crime committed at a previous time. The reason is that the individual to whom responsibility will be ascribed is the successor of the criminal and not the criminal himself. But since this runs counter to our moral practices of making accountable the perpetrators of crimes, Hume would therefore have to give up or at least revise his theory of the self if he is to discuss intelligibly the issue of individual moral responsibility. (shrink)

This paper examines Paulin Hountondji's endeavor both to explode what he terms the myth about African philosophy and to elaborate what he deems the reality of African philosophy. Hountondji argues that it is a myth that African philosophy consists in the beliefs collectively held by various ethnic groups. Yet it is this myth that has gained currency in Western circles. Hountondji believes that this myth has been given currency largely by Western ethnographers and ethnophilosophers bent on promoting the idea that (...) Africans are incapable of individual rational thinking. Hountondji challenges this myth and then offers a reconceptualization of African philosophy. I argue in this study that while Hountondji's rejection of ethnophilosophy is plausible, his proposal for reconceptualizing African philosophy is fraught with some very serious problems. I close by suggesting a direction for contemporary African philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, the covariance control algorithm for nonlinear stochastic systems using covariance feedback is studied. Covariance control of nonlinear systems scenario involves the theory of covariance control based on the idea of the covariance feedback. Therefore, the proposed covariance control algorithm is derived for our case, firstly by applying the covariance control method and linear approximation of nonlinear systems, and then it is achieved by adopting this method for a class of nonlinear stochastic systems by using feedback linearization idea (...) and a covariance feedback controller. The effectiveness of the proposed covariance feedback algorithm is studied using numerous simulations concerning different nonlinear case studies. (shrink)

Annette Baier should have entitled her book A Progress of Reason and Sentiments instead of A Progress of Sentiments, because one of her chief concerns is the role and significance of reason in Hume's philosophy. She says in the Preface that her aim in the book is “to present Hume's work as exhibiting a progress of thought and sentiment, and acquiring ‘new force as it advances‘” (p. viii). Because the issue of reason in Hume's philosophy is central to her concern, (...) Baier initiates a discussion of it in Chapter 1 and relentlessly pursues the discussion throughout the book. I think it is fair to say that Baier wishes to answer the question “How, if at all, does cognitive reason function in Hume's philosophy?” To answer this question she begins by contrasting Hume's method of conducting philosophy with the method of the Cartesian or intellectualist tradition. She shows that solipsism is, to borrow Gilbert Ryle's expression, the “ineluctable destiny” of the kind of philosopher who glorifies the intellect while denigrating the other human capacities, the individual who indulges in abstract speculation over practical matters. According to Baier, this solipsistic predicament i s what Hume's protagonist articulates towards the end of his intellectual adventure in Book I, Part IV of the Treatise in saying: “Where am I or what? From what causes do I derive my existence?…” Here, Baier affirms, is pure (read unsociable) reason trapped in a miasma of self-doubt, perplexities, bewilderment and desolation from which it cannot extricate itself. (shrink)

Thematically, this book is a sustained attack on what its author characterizes as a myth about African philosophy, and he contrasts this myth with what he believes is the real or authentic African philosophy. Hountondji pursues this theme in a variety of ways in a total of eight chapters and a “Postscript.” I will first provide a brief description of the chapters and then go on to examine both Hountondji’s account of what he claims is the myth about African philosophy (...) and his own alternative account. (shrink)

Cet article s’appuie sur la thèse de Galien formulée dans le titre de son traité Que le meilleur médecin est aussi philosophe, afin de mieux appréhender les situations de pandémies, passées et présentes. On abordera la relation entre la philosophie antique et la médecine à la lumière des propos sarcastiques et sévères de Galien à l’égard des médecins cupides et immoraux de son temps, ainsi que dans le contexte plus large des relations socio-philosophiques de la société antique et médiévale, où (...) la théorie philosophique et la médecine comme praxis appartiennent à différents domaines aristotéliciens : le loisir ( sholé ) et le travail ( asholía ). Plus largement, c’est en adoptant une approche à la fois médicale et philosophique sur les maux auxquels l’humanité est confrontée que l’on peut espérer les surmonter avec une conscience éclairée. (shrink)