Abstract The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) we will argue that formal semantics might have faltered due to its failure in distinguishing between two fundamentally very different types of concepts, namely ontological concepts, that should be types in a strongly-typed ontology, and logical concepts, that are predicates corresponding to properties of, and relations between, objects of various ontological types; and (ii) we show that accounting for these differences amounts to a new formal semantics; one that integrates lexical and (...) compositional semantics in one coherent framework and one where formal semantics is embedded with a strongly typed ontology; an ontology that reflects our commonsense knowledge of the world and the way we talk about it in ordinary language. We will show how in such a framework a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language are adequately and systematically treated. (shrink)

This article investigates the efficacy of a form of electoral innovation unique to the island-state of Singapore, the Nominated Member of Parliament scheme, and its impact on democratic governance, in light of the changing political landscape. A comparative perspective will be employed and broader conclusions on electoral engineering will be reached, especially for democratizing countries. Contrary to conventional scholarly wisdom, I argue that the NMP scheme can actually boost democratic representation in the country, considering the changing political landscape in the (...) state previously dominated by a hegemonic party. This is via two ways: firstly, NMPs could better represent the voices of the people at the margins of society and, secondly, they could be better positioned to raise issues that are deemed too to be raised by opposition parties. NMPs can enhance democratic governance by promoting deliberation, accountability, and representation. (shrink)

Islamic banking is based on moral foundations that make it distinct from conventional banking. Some argue that because of its foundation in Islam, Islamic banking may represent a more morally appealing alternative. Yet, evidence shows that this is not the case. Indeed, the current practice of Islamic banking has not been able to achieve its goals which are based on Islam's moral values: to enhance justice, equitability, and social well-being. This essay examines the extent to which Islamic banking is ethical (...) and concludes that the practice of the industry does not seem to be de facto ethical from the Islamic perspective of ethical values. It only consists in trading the same instruments of conventional banks without genuinely enforcing Islam's ethical vision. The practice of Islamic banking misrepresents Islam and does not contribute to solving social problems. The interaction between maqasid al-shari᾽a and qiyās provides a supplementary tool for interpreting the failure of the prior in terms of the practical misuse of the latter by Islamic banks. This essay provides an interpretive approach to the current debate about why Islamic banking has failed and suggests ways to move cautiously in the future. (shrink)

The concept of reincarnation is believed to be the rebirth of humans in the world as a form of part of their life journey in accordance with their actions during life with various forms of reincarnation—including being able to be reborn as humans or animals. This article aims to discuss Mullā Ṣadrā’s eschatological thoughts, especially his criticism of the concept of reincarnation which has been believed by Hindus and Buddhists. Reincarnation is a topic of discussion for philosophers including Islamic philosophers (...) in discussing the spirit, soul, body, death, and resurrection. Ṣadrā’s rejection of the concept of reincarnation is found in one of his main works entitled al-Asfār al-Arba‘ah. By using analytical and descriptive methods, it was concluded that Mullā Ṣadrā rejected the concept of reincarnation with his five philosophical arguments, including the natural unity argument, the material and form needs argument, Kawn and Fasād’s argument, the vacuum argument, and the argument with five premises. These philosophical arguments are based on Ṣadrā’s main philosophical principle, namely the substantial movement of the soul. Even though he rejects the concept of reincarnation, Ṣadrā still believes in the resurrection of the soul and body after death, which will continue the journey towards the highest perfection in the afterlife. (shrink)

The paper analyses the behaviour of French corporate executives towards the adoption of Internet voting at shareholders’ general meetings. The research extends the studies of legitimation strategies and institutional theory to a new topic and a new instrument of corporate governance. Taking a qualitative approach, the paper examines the particular case of a technology that is adopted by a company for the benefit of its shareholders. It contributes theoretically by showing how executives respond to institutional pressures when responding could affect (...) their own interests. The findings illustrate the nature and extent of six legitimation strategies used by executives when confronted by Internet shareholder voting. Interestingly, the results highlight the prevalence of manipulation and coalition-building strategies. A typology of adoption behaviours is also proposed. Interestingly, the results show how executives worry about the risk that Internet voting may lead to a loss of control. Overall, the paper argues that the relationship between shareholders and executives with regard to corporate governance is partially reversed by the adoption of Internet voting. Some theoretical and managerial implications of the paper for the literature on corporate governance and business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

_Autonome Praxis und intelligible Welt_ provides a reconstruction of Kant’s theory of freedom including the concept of transcendental-practical freedom as a specific type of action based on principles and reasons.

The fault ride-through capability and fault current issues are the main challenges in doubly fed induction generator- based wind turbines. Application of the bridge-type fault current limiter was recognized as a promising solution to cope with these challenges. This paper proposes a nonlinear sliding mode controller for the BFCL to enhance the FRT performance of the DFIG-based WT. This controller has robust performance in unpredicted voltage sag level and nonlinear features. Theoretical discussions, power circuit, and nonlinear control consideration of the (...) SMC-based BFCL are conducted, and then, its performance is verified through time-domain simulations in the PSCAD/EMTDC environment. To reduce the chattering phenomenon and decrease the reaching time, it used the exponential reaching law for designed SMC. Also, the SMC-based BFCL performance is compared with the conventional and PI controller-based BFCL for both symmetrical and asymmetrical short-circuit faults. Simulation results reveal that the SMC-based BFCL provides better performance compared with the conventional and PI controller-based BFCL to enhance the FRT. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 has taken the world by surprise and has impacted the lives of many, including the business sector and its stakeholders. Although studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the organizational structure, job design, and employee well-being have been on the rise, fewer studies examined the role of leadership and what it takes to be an effective leader during such times. This study integrates social cognitive theory and conservation of resources theory to argue for the importance of (...) adaptive personality in the emergence of effective leaders during crisis times, utilizing the crisis of COVID-19 as the context for the study. We argue that managers with an adaptive personality tend to have increased self-efficacy levels to lead during a crisis, resulting in increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, managers with increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis are argued to have enhanced adaptive performance, thereby suggesting a serial mediation model where crisis leader self-efficacy and motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis act as explanatory mechanisms of the relationship between the adaptive personality and performance of the manager. In order to test our hypotheses, we collected data from 116 full-time managers in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 crisis and used hierarchical linear regression as the method of analysis. The findings support all of the hypotheses. A discussion of the results, contributions, limitations, and future directions is included. (shrink)

What is it for an agent to have a reason to do a certain action? Does this mean that she would desire to do the action under specified conditions, or that there is some external consideration, which she ought to follow? The former affective (i.e., desire-based) theory is ascribed to Humeans, whereas the latter cognitive theory is adopted by Kantians. The debate between the two views has seemingly ended up in a theoretical standoff, and most of the theorists of practical (...) reason have recently turned their attention to the motivational attitude—preceded either by affective attitudes or by cognitive attitudes—as a necessary constituent of having a reason. They contend that an agent has a reason to f only if, on certain occasions, she would be motivated to f: I refer to it as Motivation Reason Internalism. In this paper, I argue that Motivation Reason Internalism is a mirage; it does not obtain necessarily. I classify major versions of Motivation Reason Internalism into three idealized counterfactual versions, arguing that they obtain only contingently, since they all face counterexamples. The Motivation Reason Internalist might attempt to dodge the counterexamples by appealing to Contextual Motivations Reason Internalism, but I show that this move also fails. I discuss a third cause for motivation, some unconscious cause, other than cognitive or affective attitudes, which can still be a motivation maker or breaker. These unconscious causes, such as an underlying biological inclination or psychological bias, functions as motivation maker/breaker but not a reason maker/breaker. This makes room for a variety of cases in which we have reason to perform an action in the absence of any kind (i.e., actual or counterfactual) of motivation. (shrink)

The past few years have witnessed a growing interest among scholars in the study of both the urban contour of the Andalusi cities and the estates called almunias. Almunia is a complex model of agricultural exploitation linked to elites and power, which also served other functions such as to provide space for solace. Ever since Joaquina Eguaras conducted the edition and translation of the Treatise of Agriculture of Ibn Luyūn in the seventies of the last century, her translation of the (...) last chapter about the organization of an almunia has been repeatedly reproduced and used to understand the archaeological remains of these properties or to interpret the information provided by the documentary sources. This article offers a new and more comprehensible translation of the text that attempts to correct some of the confusions Eguaras translation presents. For the purpose of comparability, the same manuscript, used earlier by Eguaras and currently preserved in the School of Arabic Studies, CSIC in Granada, has been used in the article. Additionally, the six marginal notes attached to the chapter, that have never been hitherto used in any study, have been included in this paper. The data provided by the 29 verses and six marginal notes, have been exhaustively analyzed and grounded in the existing knowledge about these estates along with the Andalusi agricultural practices of the time. Finally, this paper offers a hypothetical graphic reconstruction in which the ideas that Ibn Luyūn wanted to convey are visually translated. (shrink)

Parity games are combinatorial representations of closed Boolean μ-terms. By adding to them draw positions, they have been organized by Arnold and Santocanale [3] and [27] into a μ-calculus whose standard interpretation is over the class of all complete lattices. As done by Berwanger et al. [8] and [9] for the propositional modal μ-calculus, it is possible to classify parity games into levels of a hierarchy according to the number of fixed-point variables. We ask whether this hierarchy collapses w.r.t. the (...) standard interpretation. We answer this question negatively by providing, for each n≥1, a parity game Gn with these properties: it unravels to a μ-term built up with n fixed-point variables, it is not semantically equivalent to any game with strictly less than n−2 fixed-point variables. (shrink)

This study presents the fundamental concepts and technical details of a U-model-based control system design framework, including U-model realisation from classic model sets, control system design procedures, and simulated showcase examples. Consequently, the framework provides readers with clear understandings and practical skills for further research expansion and applications. In contrast to the classic model-based design and model-free design methodologies, this model-independent design takes two parallel formations: it designs an invariant virtual controller with a specified closed-loop transfer function in a feedback (...) control loop and it determines the real controller output by resolving the inverse of the plant U-model. It should be noted that this U-control provides a universal control system design platform for many existing linear/nonlinear and polynomial/state-space models and it complements many existing design approaches. Simulation studies are used as examples to demonstrate the analytically developed formulations and guideline for potential applications. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over the (...) period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

BackgroundClinical genomic professionals are increasingly facing decisions about returning incidental findings (IFs) from genetic research. Although previous studies have shown that research participants are interested in receiving IFs, yet there has been an argument about the extent of researcher obligation to return IFs. We aimed in this study to explore the perspectives of clinical genomics professionals toward returning incidental findings from genomic research.MethodsWe conducted a national survey of a sample (n = 113) of clinical genomic professionals using a convenient sampling. (...) A self-administered questionnaire was used to explore their attitudes toward disclosure of IFs, their perception of the duties to return IFs and identifying the barriers for disclosure of IFs. A descriptive analysis was employed to describe participants' responses.ResultsSixty-five (57.5%) respondents had faced IFs in their practice and 31 (27.4%) were not comfortable in discussing IFs with their research subjects. Less than one-third of the respondents reported the availability of guidelines governing IFs. The majority 84 (80%) and 69 (62.7%) of the study participants indicated they would return the IFs if the risk of disease threat ≥ 50% and 6–49%, respectively and 36 (31.9%) reported they have no obligation to return IFs.ConclusionClinical genomics professionals have positive attitudes and perceptions toward the returning IFs from genomic research, yet some revealed no duty to do so. Detailed guidelines must be established to provide insights into how genomics professionals should be handled IFs. (shrink)

Business performance is traditionally viewed from the one-dimensional financial angle. This paper develops a new approach that links performance to the ethical vision of Islam based on maqasid al-shari’ah . The approach involves a Pentagon-shaped performance scheme structure via five pillars, namely wealth, posterity, intellect, faith, and human self. Such a scheme ensures that any firm or organization can ethically contribute to the promotion of human welfare, prevent corruption, and enhance social and economic stability and not merely maximize its own (...) performance in terms of its financial return. A quantitative measure of ethical performance is developed. It surprisingly shows that a firm or organization following only the financial aspect at the expense of the others performs poorly. This paper discusses further the practical instances of the quantitative measurement of the ethical aspects of the system taken at an aggregate level. (shrink)

Over two decades ago a "quite revolution" overwhelmingly replaced knowledgebased approaches in natural language processing (NLP) by quantitative (e.g., statistical, corpus-based, machine learning) methods. Although it is our firm belief that purely quantitative approaches cannot be the only paradigm for NLP, dissatisfaction with purely engineering approaches to the construction of large knowledge bases for NLP are somewhat justified. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that both trends are partly misguided and that the time has come to enrich logical semantics (...) with an ontological structure that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about in ordinary language. In this paper it will be demonstrated that assuming such an ontological structure a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language (e.g., metonymy, intensionality, copredication, nominal compounds, etc.) can be properly and uniformly addressed. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) we argue that the structure of commonsense knowledge must be discovered, rather than invented; and (ii) we argue that natural language, which is the best known theory of our (shared) commonsense knowledge, should itself be used as a guide to discovering the structure of commonsense knowledge. In addition to suggesting a systematic method to the discovery of the structure of commonsense knowledge, the method we propose seems to also provide an explanation for (...) a number of phenomena in natural language, such as metaphor, intensionality, and the semantics of nominal compounds. Admittedly, our ultimate goal is quite ambitious, and it is no less than the systematic ‘discovery’ of a well-typed ontology of commonsense knowledge, and the subsequent formulation of the longawaited goal of a meaning algebra. (shrink)

We argue that logical semantics might have faltered due to its failure in distinguishing between two fundamentally very different types of concepts: ontological concepts, that should be types in a strongly-typed ontology, and logical concepts, that are predicates corresponding to properties of and relations between objects of various ontological types. We will then show that accounting for these differences amounts to the integration of lexical and compositional semantics in one coherent framework, and to an embedding in our logical semantics of (...) a strongly-typed ontology that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about it in ordinary language. We will show that in such a framework a number of challenges in natural language semantics can be adequately and systematically treated. (shrink)

Using a sample of 15,174 firms from 24 countries included in the 2009 World Bank Enterprise Survey, we investigate the impact of disclosure standards and auditing infrastructure on the bribery of public officials to secure government contracts. We find that firms are less likely to grant gift to secure a government contract in countries having more extensive financial reporting requirements and countries where audit firms face a higher litigation and sanction risk. Findings also show that firms are less likely to (...) bribe bureaucrats in case financial statements are reviewed by an external audit firm. Our results are economically significant and are robust to several sensitivity analyses. These findings support certain policies that are currently being implemented or discussed to mitigate bribery within the public sector across the globe. (shrink)

According to the World Health Organization, female genital cutting affects millions of girls and women worldwide, particularly on the African continent and in the Middle East. This paper presents a plausible, albeit hypothetical, clinical vignette and then explores the legal landscape as well as the ethical landscape physicians should use to evaluate the adult patient who requests re-infibulation. The principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, justice, and autonomy are considered for guidance, and physician conscientious objection to this procedure is discussed as well. (...) Analyses of law and predominant principles of bioethics fail to yield a clear answer regarding performing female genital cutting or re-infibulation on an adult in the United States. Physicians should consider the patient’s physical, mental, and social health when thinking about female genital cutting and should understand the deep-rooted cultural significance of the practice. (shrink)

We argue for a compositional semantics grounded in a strongly typed ontology that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about it. Assuming such a structure we show that the semantics of various natural language phenomena may become nearly trivial.

Despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that quantifier scope is a phenomenon that must be treated at the pragmatic level, most computational treatments of scope ambiguities have thus far been a collection of syntactically motivated preference rules. This might be in part due to the prevailing wisdom that a commonsense inferencing strategy would require the storage of and reasoning with a vast amount of background knowledge. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that the challenge in developing a commonsense inferencing strategy is (...) in the discovery of the relevant commonsense data and in a proper formulation of the inferencing strategy itself, and that a massive amount of background knowledge is not always required. In particular, we present a very effective procedure for resolving quantifier scope ambiguities at the pragmatic level using simple quantitative data that is readily available in most database environments. (shrink)

Argumentation has remained under-researched in studies analyzing academic journal publications despite its importance in academic writing. This paper reports a study in which we investigated stereotypical argumentative trends, lexico-grammatical features, and interactional metadiscourse markers in 354 research article free-standing discussion sections from the journal of ESP over forty years. The field of ESP was chosen because of its maturity, which has given substance to a dynamic ground for arguments. We drew on the pragma-dialectical approach to analyzing argumentations in the corpus. (...) Findings indicated that due to the argumentative nature of the discussion section, certain argumentative trends recurred more often. The analysis of the lexico-grammatical features and metadiscourse markers of the standpoints also showed patterns of variability over time. The study concludes that it is imperative to incorporate relevant facets from various argumentation models to construct a comprehensive argumentation theory and gain deeper insights into argumentation in academic writing. (shrink)

Whether it was John Searle’s Chinese Room argument (Searle, 1980) or Roger Penrose’s argument of the non-computable nature of a mathematician’s insight – an argument that was based on Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem (Penrose, 1989), we have always had skeptics that questioned the possibility of realizing strong Artificial Intelligence (AI), or what has become known by Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). But this new book by Landgrebe and Smith (henceforth, L&S) is perhaps the strongest argument ever made against strong AI. It is (...) a very extensive review of what building a mind essentially amounts to drawing on insights and results from biology, physics, linguistics, computability, philosophy, and mathematics. (shrink)

There is a growing interest in non-invasive stimulation interventions as treatment strategies to improve functional outcomes and recovery after spinal cord injury. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation is a neuromodulatory intervention which has the potential to reinforce the residual spinal and supraspinal pathways and induce plasticity. Recent reviews have highlighted the therapeutic potential and the beneficial effects of rTMS on motor function, spasticity, and corticospinal excitability modulation in SCI individuals. For this scoping review, we focus on the stimulation parameters used in (...) 20 rTMS protocols. We extracted the rTMS parameters from 16 published rTMS studies involving SCI individuals and were able to infer preliminary associations between specific parameters and the effects observed. Future investigations will need to consider timing, intervention duration and dosage that may depend on the stage, the level, and the severity of the injury. There is a need for more real vs. sham rTMS studies, reporting similar designs with sufficient information for replication, to achieve a significant level of evidence regarding the use of rTMS in SCI. (shrink)

We conducted a systematic literature review on the ethical considerations of the use of contact tracing app technology, which was extensively implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid and extensive use of this technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, while benefting the public well-being by providing information about people’s mobility and movements to control the spread of the virus, raised several ethical concerns for the post-COVID-19 era. To investigate these concerns for the post-pandemic situation and provide direction for future events, we (...) analyzed the current ethical frameworks, research, and case studies about the ethical usage of tracing app technology. The results suggest there are seven essential ethical considerations—privacy, security, acceptability, government surveillance, transparency, justice, and voluntariness—in the ethical use of contact tracing technology. In this paper, we explain and discuss these considerations and how they are needed for the ethical usage of this technology. The fndings also highlight the importance of developing integrated guidelines and frameworks for implementation of such technology in the post- COVID-19 world. (shrink)

One of the highly contraversial discussions in philosophy of mind is equivalence of human being mind and machines. Here we show that no one could prove that, in certain he is a machine.

"Novels, movies, and lies - these are all fictions that provoke with their as ifs and what ifs. In response to the idea that fiction has somehow become an unfashionable topic in contemporary criticism, this volume argues that the question of fiction needs to be updated in the absence of a widely accepted theory of truth. This collection, dedicated to the noted scholar and literary critic Lubomir Dolezel, covers an extensive number of theoretical and historical issues relevant to our understanding (...) of the status of fictions - literary or not." "Fiction Updated offers approaches to fiction and poetics that, in an imaginary topography of contemporary humanities, dwell at a distance from both the mimetic theory of literature and deconstruction. The contributors introduce new perspectives to the problem of fictionality, or broaden the scope of its applications, by examining the works of such authors as Homer, Casanova, Aristotle, Woolf, Vaihinger, Borges, Kundera, Coetzee, and Bakhtin."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 363-385, April 2022.

The primary objective of this research is to examine the potential influence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure on cash holdings. Additionally, the study explores the role of earnings management (EM) practices as a mediating factor in this relationship. The sample comprises 797 companies listed on financial markets across 19 European countries, and the data spans from 2013 to 2019. The outcomes indicate a significant negative correlation between ESG disclosure and cash holdings, implying that ESG performance can be used (...) by management to resolve disputes with stakeholders. The outcomes further indicate that the existence of EM practices partially mediates the link between ESG disclosure and cash holdings. Moreover, they are robust by substitute cash holdings specification, three distinct initiatives of ESG disclosure (i.e., environment, social, and governance), and a two-stage least squares assessment. Therefore, the findings document that nonfinancial reporting in the form of ESG disclosure can assist in controlling agency conflict, leading to better valuations of company performance by stakeholders. (shrink)

It is hypothesized that iron from biological tissues, liberated during decay, may have played a role in inhibiting loss of anatomical information during fossilization of extinct organisms. Most tissues in the animal kingdom contain iron in different forms. A widely distributed iron‐bearing molecule is ferritin, a globular protein that contains iron crystallites in the form of ferrihydrite minerals. Iron concentrations in ferritin are high and ferrihydrites are extremely reactive. When ancient animals are decaying on the sea floor under anoxic environmental (...) conditions, ferrihydrites may initialize the selective replication of some tissues in pyrite FeS2. This model explains why some labile tissues are preserved, while other more resistant structures decay and are absent in many fossils. A major implication of this hypothesis is that structures described as brains in Cambrian arthropods are not fossilization artifacts, but are instead a source of information on anatomical evolution at the dawn of complex animal life. (shrink)