Purpose This paper aims to study the developed countries’ experience on the cyberbullying legal regulation among adolescents, to identify existing shortcomings in the developing countries’ laws and to develop recommendations for regulatory framework improvement. Design/methodology/approach The authors have studied the state regulatory practice of the UK, the USA, Canada, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, UAE and analyzed the statistics of 2018 on the cyberbullying manifestation among adolescents in these countries. Findings The study results can encourage countries to create separate cyberbullying legislation (...) and periodically review and modify already existing legislation. Originality/value The study provides a list of the recommendations to regulate cybercrime in developing countries and prevent it as well. The results may contribute to creating laws related to the regulation of cyberbullying in countries where such legislation does not exist yet or existing regulatory legal acts do not bring the expected results, namely, in Post-Soviet countries and other developing countries of the world. (shrink)

This article proposes an analysis of changes implemented during Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration (20032003), which displayed bias against changes and introduced schemes to justify the systems it upheld. Transmutations wrought during Abdullah's tenure may have been neither substantial nor totalizing, but within the conservative paradigm which had long gripped national politics, Abdullah's deviations were significant nevertheless.

We all know that problems of transportation and allocation appear frequently in practical life. We need to transfer materials from production centers to consumption centers to secure the areas’ need for the transported material or allocate machines or people to do a specific job at the lowest cost, or in the shortest time. We know that the cost factors Time is one of the most important factors that decision-makers care about because it plays an “important” role in many of the (...) practical and scientific issues that we face in our daily lives, and we need careful study to enable us to avoid losses. For this, the linear programming method was used, which is one of the research methods. Processes, where the problem data is converted into a linear mathematical model for which the optimal solution achieves the desired goal. Since these models are linear models, we can solve them using the direct simplex method and its modifications, but the specificity that these models enjoy has enabled scholars and researchers to find special methods that help us in obtaining the optimal solution. Whatever the method used, the goal is to determine the number of units transferred from any material from production centers to consumption centers, or to allocate a machine or person to do a job so that the cost or time is as short as possible. These issues were addressed according to classical logic, but the ideal solution was a specific value appropriate to the conditions in which the data was collected and does not take into account the changes that may occur in the work environment. In order to obtain results that are more accurate and enjoy a margin of freedom, we present in this book a study of transport issues and neutrosophic allocation issues and some methods for solving them. By neutrosophic issues we mean These are the problems in which the data are neutrosophic values, i.e. the required quantities and the available quantities. (shrink)

Aristotle Middle Commentary on the Topics, comparing them, where necessary, to the testimonies collected by Boethius in his De topicis differentiis. In addition we show that the Themistian classification of loci was taken up by Abt al-Badb al-mub al-mu al-Barak thus reveals himself to be closer than Averroes to the testimony of Boethius. This suggests the idea of a double redaction by Themistius of the classification of loci: one, more concentrated, comes from an introduction to the paraphrase of the central (...) books of the Topics, which may have inspired Averroes; the other, more extensive, which will have been part of an original work, and inspired the classifications of Boethius and of Abt al-Badī. (shrink)

This article critiques the ‘withdrawal approach’ to deparochializing global justice and argues for an approach that views ‘departure’ from mainstream theorization as integral to truly critical engagement. It introduces Aakash Singh Rathore’s approach to deparochialization – purportedly founded on Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice – as an example of ‘withdrawal approach’ which advocates repudiation of the West-centric and ‘profession-oriented’ academic debate on global justice, and promotion of context-sensitive theories. I argue that Rathore’s ‘withdrawal approach’ springs from an inaccurate reading (...) of Sen’s The Idea of Justice and hence overlooks the critical spirit of Sen’s engagement with the global heritage of ideas and 'critical departure’ from parochial theories. This article further explores three analytical forms of parochialism that dominant theories of global justice may suffer from: epistemic, conceptual and descriptive. Using the case of India’s superrich and their culpability in global poverty, I demonstrate the parochial construction of ‘duties’ in Thomas Pogge’s theory of global poverty. I argue that deparochializing global justice, involving critical engagement with existing theorization along conceptual and descriptive lines, can illuminate a new way forward in global justice research. (shrink)

The laws are not silent in war, but what should they say? What is the moral function of the law of armed conflict? Should the law protect civilians who do not fight but help those who do? Should the law protect soldiers who perform non-combat functions or who may be safely captured? How certain should a soldier be that an individual is a combatant rather than a civilian before using lethal force? What risks should soldiers take on themselves to avoid (...) harming civilians? When do inaccurate weapons become unlawfully indiscriminate? When does 'collateral damage' to civilians become unlawfully disproportionate? Should civilians lose their legal rights by serving, voluntarily or involuntarily, as human shields? Finally, when should killing civilians constitute a war crime? These are the questions that Law and Morality at War answers, contributing to a cutting-edge international debate. Drawing on the concepts and methods of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, the book develops a normative framework within which the laws of war and international criminal law can be evaluated, criticized, and reformed. While several philosophical works critically examine the moral status of civilians and combatants, this book fills a gap, offering both an account of the laws of war and war crimes, and proposing how the law could be improved from a moral point of view. (shrink)

Background Respect is essential to providing high quality healthcare, particularly for groups that are historically marginalized and stigmatized. While ethical principles taught to health professionals focus on patient autonomy as the object of respect for persons, limited studies explore patients’ views of respect. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of a multiculturally diverse group of low-income women living with HIV (WLH) regarding their experience of respect from their medical physicians. Methods We analyzed 57 semi-structured interviews conducted (...) at HIV case management sites in South Florida as part of a larger qualitative study that explored practices facilitating retention and adherence in care. Women were eligible to participate if they identified as African American (n = 28), Hispanic/Latina (n = 22), or Haitian (n = 7). They were asked to describe instances when they were treated with respect by their medical physicians. Interviews were conducted by a fluent research interviewer in either English, Spanish, or Haitian Creole, depending on participant’s language preference. Transcripts were translated, back-translated and reviewed in entirety for any statements or comments about “respect.” After independent coding by 3 investigators, we used a consensual thematic analysis approach to determine themes. Results Results from this study grouped into two overarching classifications: respect manifested in physicians’ orientation towards the patient (i.e., interpersonal behaviors in interactions) and respect in medical professionalism (i.e., clinic procedures and practices). Four main themes emerged regarding respect in provider’s orientation towards the patient: being treated as a person, treated as an equal, treated without blame or prejudice, and treated with concern/emotional support. Two main themes emerged regarding respect as evidenced in medical professionalism: physician availability and considerations of privacy. Conclusions Findings suggest a more robust conception of what ‘respect for persons’ entails in medical ethics for a diverse group of low-income women living with HIV. Findings have implications for broadening areas of focus of future bioethics education, training, and research to include components of interpersonal relationship development, communication, and clinic procedures. We suggest these areas of training may increase respectful medical care experiences and potentially serve to influence persistent and known social and structural determinants of health through provider interactions and health care delivery. (shrink)

The transplant community has faced unprecedented challenges balancing risks of performing living donor transplants during the COVID-19 pandemic with harms of temporarily suspending these procedures. Decisions regarding postponement of living donation stem from its designation as an elective procedure, this despite that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services categorise transplant procedures as tier 3b (high medical urgency—do not postpone). In times of severe resource constraints, health systems may be operating under crisis or contingency standards of care. In this manuscript, (...) the United Network for Organ Sharing Ethics Workgroup explores prioritisation of living donation where health systems operate under contingency standards of care and provide a framework with recommendations to the transplant community on how to approach living donation in these circumstances.To guide the transplant community in future decisions, this analysis suggests that: (1) living donor transplants represent an important option for individuals with end-stage liver and kidney disease and should not be suspended uniformly under contingency standards, (2) exposure risk to SARS-CoV-2 should be balanced with other risks, such as exposure risks at dialysis centres. Because many of these risks are not quantifiable, donors and recipients should be included in discussions on what constitutes acceptable risk, (3) transplant hospitals should strive to maintain a critical transplant workforce and avoid diverting expertise, which could negatively impact patient preparedness for transplant, (4) transplant hospitals should consider implementing protocols to ensure early detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections and discuss these measures with donors and recipients in a process of shared decision-making. (shrink)

The significance of this article is in its deconstruction of the criminal insanity defence in a meta-legal critical context. The article’s objective is to critically review beliefs that the insanity defence was designed solely for public protection from insane violent people, or, for criminal deterrence. Arising from the long and continued use of the Roman Law concept of non compos mentis, the question arises as to what has become of the practical meaning of the term “insanity”, when used as a (...) defence. The article tries to show that the defence of insanity is a public act of judicial denunciation against the accused, while the accused may have no effective responsibility for the crime. Argument begins with a critical discussion on the character of common-place denunciation as an appeal to public agreement. Then, it follows how the idea of “manifest criminality”, of the 1800s, might be cognate to modern ideas of “manifest madness”, linking into the origins of the English special verdict of insanity. This will allow a short critical analysis of the M’Naghten Case. Argument is completed with analysis of a psychologists’ expert construct of insanity and its relationship to jury perception. The article will suggest strongly that arguments based on the common law rules of insanity tend to expose juries more to denunciation of the accused, than to a reasoned account of the nature of his insanity and to the defects in his responsibility. Duly persuaded jurors would tend to acquiesce and participate in the denunciation of an accused person, whose unusual and unhealthy behaviours emanated from his sufferings by dint of his unbearable circumstances. (shrink)

The rise of religious conservatism following the 1998 reformasi has altered the face of Indonesian Islam, which has historically been regarded as peaceful and inclusive, which is why the Indonesian government has advocated for moderate Islam on a regional, national and even a global scale. Using West Java as a case study, this article presents the 2019 'English for Ulama' initiative, which intends to train ulama in West Java about the concept of moderate Islam before sending them to the United (...) Kingdom to promote moderate Islamic discourse in a global setting. This study demonstrates that the EFU programme is a strategic project that not only benefits West Javanese ulama regionally, where they may develop networks with other Muslims on a worldwide scale, but also benefits from the national development of moderate Islamic discourse. On a global scale, this programme is one of the best examples of moderate Islamic discourse diplomacy as the nature of Indonesian Islam. Furthermore, supporting moderate Islam on a worldwide scale is likely to influence Western society's view of Islamophobia. CONTRIBUTION: Although the EFU programme is a local government initiative, it has contributed to the promotion of moderate Islam at the world level and is framed as global diplomacy. (shrink)

We present this research to all researchers and scholars who have realized the existence of indeterminacy in all data, through the results they obtain and the values that are not accurate enough and that may cause loss to the systems and facilities under study, and we will present through it the emergence, foundations and development of Neutrosophic theories and their applications for more than two decades (1995- 2023) since it was defined and studied, along with its applications, in order to (...) be able to present new studies and research that keep pace with the great scientific development that our contemporary world is witnessing, through the use of research that has been published by the professionals and found on the attached open links. (shrink)

Arab and English cultures are incongruent, where the former is greatly influenced by religion when compared to the latter. This study focuses on court interpreting from Arabic into English and questions the interpreters’ objectivity when rendering religious and cultural expressions, bearing in mind that certain cultures, like the Arab and Muslim ones, have significant religious ties. To this end, fifteen transcripts were randomly collected from Canadian court hearings. The analysis showed that interpreting religious and cultural expressions can be complex, especially (...) when the original speaker attempts to transmit a notion that may have negative implications in the target language. The results also showed that court interpreters either added explanations to religious and cultural expressions or omitted them. Such additions and omissions may be used to avoid negative stereotypes other cultures have about Muslims and Arabs. The study recommends that future researchers interested in legal interpreting consider the non-verbal factors that can be observed during court hearings. The study suggests allocating extensive training sessions to interpreters on how to impartially render culture-bound expressions, mainly in the legal context. (shrink)

AimThe current study attempted to assess the effect of positive emotion on post-graduate students’ psychological capital as well as on their academic engagement behavior. Also, the direct relationship between PsyCap and academic engagement behavior was assessed alongside the presence of Stress as a moderating variable between PsyCap and academic engagement behavior amongst post-graduate students in Malaysia.Materials and MethodsA self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection from 373 post-graduate Ph.D. students registered in various universities throughout Malaysia with a non-probabilistic sampling technique. (...) Research respondents belonged to management, humanities, engineering, computer science, and health sciences domains, and they responded through a questionnaire copy. Statistically, structural equation modeling was applied to evaluate confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis, validity analysis, measurement model, structural model, and path analysis. Furthermore, the bootstrapping approach was utilized to test the final model.ResultsFor the hypothesized model, our results confirmed that positive emotions had a positive and significant effect on students’ psychological capita as well as on their academic engagement behavior. Further, PsyCap also had a positive and significant effect on academic engagement behavior. Our results also reported that stress as a moderating variable has a negative and deteriorating effect on the relationship between PsyCap and the academic engagement of students.ConclusionThe study’s findings support the theoretical assumption that positive emotions help individuals generate cognitive resources, which in turn help them manage their engagement behavioral requirements. However, the stress caused by their study needs may deplete their psychological resources, consequently influencing their academic engagement behavior. Interventions like personal coaching/counseling, appropriate follow-up, and flexible goal settings with other measures may help post-graduate students in achieving their daunting tasks. (shrink)

Ideas such as “I am born a labor, poor, a hereditary syphilitic/unhandy” are ones that people tend to resort to as excuses when they feel as if the odds of life are stacked against them and characterized it either “fate” or punishment. In every life situation, an individual finds a choice. In the contemporary world, human life faces boundary situations (COVID) and messy lived experiences such as paralysis, which have different consequences for different people. However, life seems more difficult for (...) the less fortunate to escape their predicament and enjoy a better life. The presence of difficult human conditions in the world brings some serious questions concerning our fate, facticity, situation, and freedom into a sharp focus. In this connection, the paper attempts to rethink Sartre’s idea of absolute freedom in the context of situations that Sartre characterizes as facticity. Since Sartre affirms that humanity encounters certain restrictions on the road of freedom he also claims that freedom alone may change the situation of an individual. The study, however, tries to explore how an individual enjoys freedom despite certain restrictions and limitations and explain how both of these points of view are valid. The work, however, interprets Sartre’s idea of absolute freedom in terms of existential counseling to transcend facticity and break the barriers that prevent people from living a free, authentic, and worthwhile life. (shrink)

: The modern era may be deemed as that of scientific and technologicaldevelopment but peace and harmony among the people remain elusive. Thetwo world wars, Palestinian problem, bombing of world twin towers, invasionof Muslim countries by Americans and allied forces, and the continuous bloodshedding of humanity in one form or another in different parts of the world, allthese horrifying phenomena prove lack of political will on the part of UnitedNations. Had religions in the strife-torn regions played their crucial role, therewould (...) never have occurred bloodshed of the humanity. Judaism, Christianity,and Islam account for the big majority in the world today and have so manythings in common, especially essential human values guided by two universalprinciples, unity of God and unity of man. The Ten Commandments in theTorah, confirmation of the Mosaic Law in the Bible, and reconfirmation of theMosaic and Biblical instructions in the Qur’an still hold the significance forcreating peace and harmony among people of the three creeds. (shrink)

Talk of mechanisms is ubiquitous in the natural sciences. Interdisciplinary fields such as biochemistry and pharmacy frequently discuss mechanisms with the assistance of diagrams. Such diagrams usually depict entities as structures or boxes and activities or interactions as arrows. While some of these arrows may indicate causal or componential relations, others may represent temporal or operational orders. Importantly, what kind of relation an arrow represents may not only vary with context but also be underdetermined by empirical data. In this manuscript, (...) we investigate how an analysis of pharmacological mechanisms in terms of producing and underlying mechanisms—as discussed in the contemporary philosophy of science—may shed light on these issues. Specifically, we shall argue that while pharmacokinetic mechanisms usually describe causal chains of production, pharmacodynamics tends to focus on mechanisms of action underlying the in vivo effects of a drug. Considering the action of thyroid gland hormones in the human body as a case study, we further demonstrate that pharmacodynamic schemes tend to incorporate entities and interactions on multiple levels. Yet, traditional pharmacodynamic schemes are sketched “flat”, i.e., non-hierarchically. We suggest that transforming flat pharmacodynamic schemes into mechanistic multi-level representations may assist in disentangling the different kinds of mechanisms and relations depicted by arrows in flat schemes. The resulting Baumkuchen model provides a powerful and practical alternative to traditional flat schemes, as it explicates the relevant mechanisms and relations more clearly. On a more general note, our discussion demonstrates how pharmacology and related disciplines may benefit from applying concepts from the new mechanist philosophy to guide the interpretation of scientific diagrams. (shrink)

The integration of cellular networks and vehicular networks is complex and heterogeneous. Synchronization among vehicles in heterogeneous vehicular clusters plays an important role in effective data sharing and the stability of the cluster. This synchronization depends on the smooth exchange of information between vehicles and remote servers over the Internet. The remote servers predict road traffic patterns by adopting deep learning methods to help drivers on the roads. At the same time, local data processing at the vehicular cluster level may (...) increase the capabilities of remote servers. However, global positioning system signal interruption, especially in the urban environment, plays a big part in the detritions of synchronization among the vehicles that lead to the instability of the cluster. Instability of connections is a major hurdle in developing cost-effective solutions for deriving assistance and route planning applications. To solve this problem, a self-localization scheme within the vehicular cluster is proposed. The proposed self-localization scheme handles GPS signal interruption to the vehicle within the cluster. A unique clustering criterion and a synchronization mechanism for sharing traffic information system data among multiple vehicles are developed. The developed scheme is simulated and compared with existing known approaches. The results show the better performance of our proposed scheme over others. (shrink)

The rise in ethical and social responsibility awareness in contemporary businesses has led to assumptions that the associated behaviours would enable competitive advantage to be attained as a firm distinguishes itself from its competitors through such practices. This paper reports on a study conducted on the prevalence of such practices among entrepreneurial ventures in an emerging economy (Malaysia), and the effect of such practices on both financial and non-financial performance. A sequential inter-method mixing design was employed in which during stage (...) 1, a series of semi-structured interviews with ten Malaysian SME founder-owners were conducted. Stage 2 involved a survey in which a total of 212 usable questionnaires were received. The results of the first phase of the research (qualitative) found evidence that entrepreneurial ventures in Malaysia do generally engage in both ethical and socially responsible practices. The subsequent model testing using SEM, however, revealed that while ethical practices were positively associated with venture performance, socially responsible practices were not. This may indicate that while entrepreneurial ventures in emerging economies like Malaysia become quickly aware of the more serious consequences of not adopting ethical practices, the concern for social issues may still be lacking, i.e., in terms of motivations, they may be closer to the profitable end of the philanthropy versus profitability spectrum. While the findings may be equivocal, we believe that the paper makes the following two significant contributions: (1) it provides an empirical test of the importance of ethical and socially responsible practices to entrepreneurial venture performance and (2) it furthers understanding of how and why this may be different in an emerging economy context. (shrink)

Half a million species of plants could be existing in the world. Classification of plants based on leaf features is a critical job as feature extraction from binary images of leaves may result in duplicate identification. However, leaves are an effective means of differentiating plant species because of their unique characteristics like area, diameter, perimeter, circularity, aspect ratio, solidity, eccentricity, and narrow factor. This paper presents the extraction of plant leaf gas alongside other features from the camera images or a (...) dataset of images by applying a convolutional neural network. The extraction of leaf gas enables identification of the actual level of chlorophyll and nitrogen which may help to interpret future predictions. Our contribution includes the study of texture and geometric features, analyzing ratio of Ch and N in both healthy and dead leaves, and the study of color-based methods via CNN. Several steps are included to obtain the results: image preprocessing, testing, training, enhancement, segmentation, feature extraction, and aggregation of results. A vital contrast of the results can be seen by considering the kind of image, whether a healthy or dead leaf. (shrink)

Background and AimPsycho-oncology is a cross-disciplinary and collaborative sub-specialty of oncology that focuses on the psychological, behavioral, ethical, and social aspects of cancer in clinical settings. The aim of this bibliometric study was to analyze and characterize the research productivity and trends in psycho-oncology between 1980 and 2021.MethodologyIn May 2022, the Scopus® database was searched for psycho-oncology-related publications using predetermined search keywords with specific restrictions. Lotka’s law was applied to check the authors’ productivity, while Bradford’s law was used to assess (...) the core journals in this field. The data was analyzed for different bibliometric indicators in the Biblioshiny package, an RStudio tool for bibliometric analysis.ResultsThe initial search resulted in a total of 2,906 publications. Of which, 1,832 publications were included in the final analysis, published between 1980 and 2021. The analyzed publications were written by 7,363 authors from 74 countries and published in 490 journals. There has been a significant increase in psycho-oncology-related publications after 2010. The most productive year was 2021. The annual scientific growth rate was found to be 13.9%. The most relevant leading author in terms of publications was Luigi Grassi from the University of Ferrara, Italy. Lotka’s law found that the number of authors declined as the number of papers written increased. The core journals were Psycho-Oncology, Supportive Care in Cancer, and Journal of Psychosocial Oncology. The most frequently used author’s keywords other than searching keywords were cancer, oncology, quality of life, depression, and anxiety. Recent psycho-oncology-related topics included mental health, COVID-19 infection in humans, people, pandemic, and tumor. The University of Sydney was the top-ranked institution. The leading country in terms of publications, citations, corresponding author country, and international collaboration was the United States of America. The United States had the strongest collaboration with Australia and Canada.ConclusionThe research hotspots include mental health conditions and interventions in cancer patients. We identified international collaboration and research expenditure to be strongly associated with psycho-oncology research productivity. Researchers’ collaboration, which is visible among developed countries, should be extended to low-income countries in order to expand psycho-oncology-related research and understanding. (shrink)

In the course of human civilization, religion has underpinned the development of values of human respect, tolerance, peace, and the culture of peace. Unfortunately, at the same time, religion has also played the opposite role during some periods of history. Therefore, it is important to investigate how and to what extent religious faiths, or if I may say more accurately religious paradigms, have been and are ready to educate their believers in the above-mentioned value support system, and how they could (...) set about so doing. How can religion provide us with an ambiance and a paradigm within which we can create an atmosphere of dialogue among different value systems? In this brief article, I try to seek light from the teachings of the great Persian thinker and poet, Jalaluddin Mowlavi Rumi, to be able to elaborate on this topic. (shrink)

The paper highlights the importance of cultivating several trans-cultural human values, and controlling many such dis-values in order to stem the qualitative rot in corporate management. Rights-without-duties refers to an untenable state of affairs. If this is not recognized the free market model may itself be aban doned. According to the author, hierarchical need models of motivation, or contingency theories of leader ship have only temporary superficial effect. Instead, the fundamental psychological principles of the Gita and the Isha Upanishad are (...) deeper and foolproof. The author strongly argues for management with ethics, science with human values, and technology with a conscience. Enlightened managers must acquire wisdom, he concludes. (shrink)

With the increasing growth of online shopping, businesses are intertwining to establish new shopping antecedents. Customer experience has steadily become the most important source of retailers’ long-term competitive advantage via difference. To preserve long-term and sustained consumer loyalty, retailers must continually improve the customer experiences. This study presents a framework for online retailing in a digital environment called the Online Customer Experience-Engagement Context model in the presence of value co-creation. Data was gathered from 189 people who purchased products online. For (...) additional analysis, testing the hypothesis, and model construction, SPSS 26 and Smart-PLS were used. The data was then evaluated further using descriptive statistics, path analysis, measurement, and structural model. The findings show that the online customer experience substantially influenced customer engagement, which improved customer loyalty. The VCC strengthened the link between online customer experience and customer engagement. It suggests that including consumers in co-creating a delightful online customer experience from time to time may be a valuable strategy for online retailers to increase customer engagement and loyalty. To create an overarching outcome, information integration theory, multi-attribute utility theory, and the attitude-behavior-context theory theories are converged to explain the proposed model in the study. (shrink)

The premise of this study is to look at the intergenerational transferal of language and racial trauma of Asian immigrants in general and Korean–American immigrants in particular to a western country, the United States of America. This study investigates trauma from a psychological standpoint, based on Chang-Rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker. In describing a marker of citizenship, the novel’s title also points to who is the native language speaker and who is a native of a country, and why one who (...) is not may be excluded. The Korean immigrants’ vulnerability to the English language and racial differences highlights their status as minority “others,” and they suffer from transgenerational trauma. As a result of transgenerational traumatic effects, Henry has various traumatic side effects such as dysphasia, aphasia, and parasomnia and finally leaves no stone unturned to recuperate from trauma. The Trauma of the Unspeakable theory by Michelle Balaev is used in this article to show how trauma affects people’s minds. (shrink)

Cryonics is a technique for freezing dead bodies at very low temperatures in the hope they will be revived at some time in the future when medical technology becomes available. At present, there are no known revival methods; however, the role of innovation in medical practice leads certain individuals to hypothesize that death will be reversible in the future. While cryonics might resonate with certain questionable contemporary Western cultural themes of death denial and neoliberalism its uptake remains minuscule. Several reasons (...) may be pertinent. First cryonics does not fit with existing western cultural views of death and medicine. Second, poor marketing, prohibitive cost, and the lack of involvement with the funerary industry may be significant factors impacting poor intake. Third, the cryonics discourse around ideas of ‘death’ constructs a barrier that prevents ‘outsiders’ from relating to the task of cryonicists. Fourth, the general public may have a poor understanding of this technology. Finally, there may be religious objections and cultural reductions due to the lack of ritual and thus no possibility of memorializing the dead, which impacts the human appeal of cryonics. (shrink)

This is an exploratory paper of the ethical implications for genomic research and mental illness with specific reference to Singapore. Singapore has a unique context due to its social and political systems, and although it is a relatively small country, its population is religiously and culturally diverse. The issues that we identify here, therefore, will offer new perspectives and will also shed light on the existing literature on psychiatric genomics in society. We contextualise issues such as risk and stigma in (...) the identification and diagnosis of psychosis in the way they relate to Singaporean society, and use a current study as a case example. Genomic research has the potential to change significantly he practice of clinical medicine if, as expected, fast and inexpensive sequencing becomes a reality. It will likely also change how society thinks and acts in respect to multi-factorial diseases, conditions, traits, and syndromes that have a genetic component. Genomic research already raises a number of ethical concerns relating to the privacy of individuals, including the disclosure of research results and incidental findings, surreptitious tests, third party access to data, and the re-emergence of genetic determinism. These issues are potentially exacerbated when genomics - the study of whole genomes to understand complex illness and behavioural traits - is applied to psychiatric research, because of the stigma that is often attached to mental illness. In this paper, we discuss some of the issues that have arisen in the context of a study in Singapore that is currently investigating the genomics and biomarkers of psychosis. We argue that although a genomic study rarely creates data that is directly useful to the participant, it can have incidental benefits to the individual who is identified during the study as being at high risk of developing psychosis and its related states. Understanding these potential benefits requires us to examine the implications that this type of research may have on public understandings of genomic data and risk. (shrink)

Philosophy is an incredible intellectual enterprise that promotes comprehensive exposure to creative and critical thinking. The paper is written to invite general people towards the philosophical studies and wisdom at the outset it promises an intellectual journey. The paper claims that the expansion of philosophical studies and thinking in contemporary times would be a task of huge magnitude. It mainly tries to explore the utility of philosophical studies and thinking in contemporary times. However, it is an attempt to bring philosophy (...) into the public sphere and popularize it in the post-truth era. In this connection, the paper is engaged with some arguments reflecting why philosophical studies matter? Why it should go side by side with other sciences/disciplines? It is observed that philosophy, despite being a widely respected discipline in the world, is still absent in various parts of India, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. In this region, philosophy received less attention because of certain misunderstandings. In this paper, however, an attempt has been made to clarify such misunderstandings and to highlight that isolating philosophy means depending on conservatism and remote learning. It argues that in the absence of philosophy our new generations may lack a moral compass, and the ability to think logically and critically. (shrink)

This article presents a theory of how the consumption of Islamic products may promote morally consistent behavior over time. We identify and examine three unique meta-characteristics (MCs) of Islamic ethics: ubudiyah (subservience to God), akhirah (focus on the hereafter or the long-term), and tawado (being modest while doing an ethical act). In four experiments, we show that after consumption of an Islamic banking product, MCs produce moral consistency or repeat ethical behavior, which is one major objective of an ethical system. (...) We also show that the absence of MCs results in moral inconsistency, that is, unethical behavior follows earlier consumption of an Islamic banking product due to the mediating psychological mechanism of moral licensing. Hence, it is not only the enactment of general ethical practices, rather the enactment of ethical practices in the specific context set by the MCs through which Islamic ethical system promotes ethical conduct and prevents unethical conduct. The findings have implications for Islamic ethical system and Islamic banking. (shrink)

Pakatan Harapan won the 14thGeneral Election held in May, 2018 in Malaysia. PH thus ended sixty-one years rule of Barisan Nasional.While the slogan of Malaysia Bahru, indicating changes to come in the country, became a popular slogan, one thing remained constant. This was the number of women contesting the GE-14 as candidates and the number of them who were elected was much less than the number of men contesting and getting elected in GE-14 although women represented slightly more than 50% (...) of the total registered voters in that election. The main objective of this paper is to examine the main factors that influenced the female voters in GE-14. Two states in the northern Malaysia were selected with 200 eligible female voters. They were clustered and conveniently sampled and were given self-administered questionnaires. Demographic variables were cross-tabbed while asking the women which factors had influenced their votes. The findings show that majority of the female voters were influenced by the candidates’ social background. Younger women were very concerned with the issues directly affecting them. Significantly, preference for political party was of least interest to them while voting. While the majority of women voters from the three main ethnic groups supported more women to be nominated as candidates in elections, the Malay women showed the highest level of disagreement on that matter as compared to the rest. The study also shows that majority of the female voters, whether young or old, rural or urban, use social media as the main and the most trusted source of news on election. These findings have concluded that, their demographic background interplayed with each other constructing their voting preferences. Female voters are crucial and each contesting parties need to pay closer attention to the women’s concerns in order to secure their votes. (shrink)

The uses of statistical distributions for modeling real phenomena of nature have received considerable attention in the literature. The recent studies have pointed out the potential of statistical distributions in modeling data in applied sciences, particularly in financial sciences. Among them, the two-parameter Lomax distribution is one of the prominent models that can be used quite effectively for modeling data in management sciences, banking, finance, and actuarial sciences, among others. In the present article, we introduce a new three-parameter extension of (...) the Lomax distribution via using a class of claim distributions. The new model may be called the Lomax-Claim distribution. The parameters of the Lomax-Claim model are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation method. The behaviors of the maximum likelihood estimators are examined by conducting a brief Monte Carlo study. The potentiality and applicability of the Lomax claim model are illustrated by analyzing a dataset taken from financial sciences representing the vehicle insurance loss data. For this dataset, the proposed model is compared with the Lomax, power Lomax, transmuted Lomax, and exponentiated Lomax distributions. To show the best fit of the competing distributions, we consider certain analytical tools such as the Anderson–Darling test statistic, Cramer–Von Mises test statistic, and Kolmogorov–Smirnov test statistic. Based on these analytical measures, we observed that the new model outperforms the competitive models. Furthermore, a bivariate extension of the proposed model called the Farlie–Gumble–Morgenstern bivariate Lomax-Claim distribution is also introduced, and different shapes for the density function are plotted. An application of the bivariate model to GDP and export of goods and services is provided. (shrink)

Helen Frowe’s Defensive Killing is in many respects an excellent book, full of arguments that are original, interesting, important, and often persuasive. In other respects, the book is deeply unsettling, as it forcefully challenges the belief that killing ordinary civilians in armed conflict is a paradigmatic moral wrong. In particular, Frowe argues that civilians who make political, material, strategic, or financial contributions to an unjust war may lose their moral protection from intentional and collateral harm. On this point, Frowe’s arguments (...) are original, interesting, and important but, thankfully, not persuasive. (shrink)

Egyptians had many reasons to overthrow the government of Hosni Mubarak, and to challenge the legitimacy of the interim military government. Strikingly, among the leading reasons for the uprising and for continued protest are reasons grounded in criminal justice. Reflection on this dimension of the Egyptian uprising invites a broader examination of the relationship between criminal justice and political legitimacy. While criminal justice is neither necessary nor sufficient for political legitimacy, criminal injustice substantially undermines political legitimacy and can provide independent (...) reasons for revolution. A state may compromise its legitimacy by committing criminal acts, by perverting or subverting the criminal process, and by failing to discharge its duty to punish serious wrongdoing—a duty that then falls to individuals to discharge either directly (through vigilantism) or indirectly (through revolution). Contrary to the views of many leading criminal law theorists, the duty to punish serious wrongdoing applies to individuals and not only to states. The relevance of political legitimacy to criminal justice is more complicated. Individuals are morally obligated to follow the morally justified laws of an illegitimate state, but are not morally obligated to follow the morally unjustified laws of a legitimate state. Nor may any state punish in the absence of moral wrongdoing and moral fault. However, illegitimate states may be incapable of justly holding individuals accountable to the state, to the community, or to victims through criminal trials. This incapacity provides an additional reason to overthrow illegitimate states and replace them with legitimate states capable of justly administering a just criminal law. (shrink)

As the COVID-19 outbreak remains an ongoing issue, there are concerns about its disruption, the level of its disruption, how long this pandemic is going to last, and how innovative technological solutions like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and expert systems can assist to deal with this pandemic. AI has the potential to provide extremely accurate insights for an organization to make better decisions based on collected data. Despite the numerous advantages that may be achieved by AI, the use of AI can (...) be perceived differently by society, where moral and ethical issues may be raised, especially in regards to accessing and exploiting public data gathered from social media platforms. To better comprehend the concerns and ethical challenges, utilitarianism and deontology were used as business ethics frameworks to explore the aforementioned challenges of AI in society. The framework assists in determining whether the AI’s deployment is ethically acceptable or not. The paper lays forth policy recommendations for public and private organizations to embrace AI-based decision-making processes to avoid data privacy violations and maintain public trust. (shrink)

Non-medical or Social egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) is currently a controversial topic in Islam, with contradictory fatwas being issued in different Muslim countries. While Islamic authorities in Egypt permit the procedure, fatwas issued in Malaysia have banned single Muslim women from freezing their unfertilized eggs (vitrified oocytes) to be used later in marriage. The underlying principles of the Malaysian fatwas are that (i) sperm and egg cells produced before marriage, should not be used during marriage to conceive a child; (ii) (...) extraction of mature egg cells from single women being unacceptable; and (iii) fertility preservation in anticipation of late marriage is a conjecture that has not yet occurred. Ovarian tissue freezing can potentially be a more Shariah-compliant alternative to social egg freezing, because once the frozen ovarian cortical tissue sections have been re-transplanted back into the woman, mature egg cells can readily be produced, collected, and fertilized by the husband’s sperm only during the period of marriage contract (′akd al-nikāḥ). Unlike accidental mix-ups with frozen eggs, muddling of lineage (nasab) would be automatically avoided in ovarian tissue freezing due to immunological rejection. However, upon critical analysis based on Qawā’id Fiqhiyyah (Islamic Legal Maxims), Maqāṣid-al-Shariah (Higher Objectives of Islamic Law), and Maslaḥah-Mafsadah (benefits versus harmful effects on society), elective ovarian tissue freezing by healthy single women for social reasons would likely be a highly contentious and controversial issue within Muslim communities that may conflict with conservative social-religious norms. This thus needs further debate among Islamic jurists in dialogue with medical doctors and biomedical scientists. (shrink)

Background The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in (...) biomedical research. Methods This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 to 5. Results Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be ‘moderately important’ to ‘very important’ for their decision making. Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF. Conclusions Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF. (shrink)

The liver is the human body’s mandatory organ, but detecting liver disease at an early stage is very difficult due to the hiddenness of symptoms. Liver diseases may cause loss of energy or weakness when some irregularities in the working of the liver get visible. Cancer is one of the most common diseases of the liver and also the most fatal of all. Uncontrolled growth of harmful cells is developed inside the liver. If diagnosed late, it may cause death. Treatment (...) of liver diseases at an early stage is, therefore, an important issue as is designing a model to diagnose early disease. Firstly, an appropriate feature should be identified which plays a more significant part in the detection of liver cancer at an early stage. Therefore, it is essential to extract some essential features from thousands of unwanted features. So, these features will be mined using data mining and soft computing techniques. These techniques give optimized results that will be helpful in disease diagnosis at an early stage. In these techniques, we use feature selection methods to reduce the dataset’s feature, which include Filter, Wrapper, and Embedded methods. Different Regression algorithms are then applied to these methods individually to evaluate the result. Regression algorithms include Linear Regression, Ridge Regression, LASSO Regression, Support Vector Regression, Decision Tree Regression, Multilayer Perceptron Regression, and Random Forest Regression. Based on the accuracy and error rates generated by these Regression algorithms, we have evaluated our results. The result shows that Random Forest Regression with the Wrapper Method from all the deployed Regression techniques is the best and gives the highest R2-Score of 0.8923 and lowest MSE of 0.0618. (shrink)

Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2,554 young adults from three undergraduate samples (...) and a high-risk young adult sample. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a four-correlated factor model and a four-bifactor model showed good fit to the data. Evidence of weak invariance was found for both models across gender. These findings highlight that the SRP-SF is a useful measure of low-level psychopathic traits in noncriminal samples, although the underlying factor structure may not fully translate across men and women. (shrink)

The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because they have a hyper-theory of mind (...) through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed. (shrink)

The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because they have a hyper-theory of mind (...) through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed. (shrink)

Ethical guidance for genomic research is increasingly sought and perceived to be necessary. Although there are pressing ethical issues in genomic research – concerning for example the recruitment of patients/participants; the process of taking consent; data sharing; and returning results to patients/participants – there is still limited useful guidance available for researchers/clinicians or for the research ethics committees who review such projects. This report outlines the ethical principles and guidance for genomic research co-produced with stakeholders during two workshops which took (...) place in the UK between November 2016 and May 2017. The stakeholders involved in these workshops included: healthcare professionals, genomic research teams, academics, patients, biobank managers, and representatives from the Health Research Authority, NHS Research Ethics Committees, patient support groups, pharmaceutical industry, and health policy think tanks. The co-produced principles and guidance are specifical... (shrink)

The study aimed to investigate the impact of behavioral biases on herding for Islamic financial products with the mediation of shariah literacy. An adopted questionnaire from several published studies was used to collect data. The data were collected from 410 respondents and were analyzed with SmartPLS. The results for the direct impact showed that self-attribution, illusion of control, and information availability have a positive and significant impact on herding for Islamic financial products while shariah literacy showed an insignificant impact on (...) herding. The results for mediation showed that previously significant and positive impact turned to insignificant when shariah literacy was introduced as mediating variable between the illusion of control, self-attribution, information availability, and herding. From a theoretical perspective, this study would contribute to the existing body of knowledge of financial decision making from shariah literacy point-out. On the other hand, the findings of this study may be useful for investors to avoid herding in the Islamic financial markets. The authors synthesize the contribution made by behavioral finance studies in extending the knowledge of herding behavior in Islamic financial products with a mediating role of shariah literacy. The key limitation of the study includes data that were collected from three districts of Punjab, Pakistan. (shrink)

If the physical mind is located in quantized space of the brain then how does the physical mind become the self? This remains an unresolved problem. It can be restated as how mental representations or mental states get their informational contents, and of doing so in terms of the natural functions brain states have? We call these natural brain functions not teleosemantic functions, but rather teleological functions. This is because teleosemantics portrays mental representations which must have informational contents that track (...) “operational explanations of cognitive capacities” while teleological functions do not as they are hidden in quantized space, suggesting that mind is physical. Specifically teleonomic capacities have been built into us by natural selection, which naturally leads to a teleogical notion of function. Our claim is that teleofunctionality as unification of mental states has natural functions that carry intrinsic dispositions that may be broadly defined as ‘subjectivity’ or intrinsic information content of mental states. Mental states have intrinsic dispositions to change their functions, producing correspondences to the world that includes further layers of subtlety hidden in quantized space. How does intrinsic information self-replicate content in cases of mental misrepresentation? The putative special virtue of teleosemantics and its ability to give a theory of error through ‘uncertainty’ is discussed based on a teleological functionalist epistemology. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

Using patients as teaching tools raise many ethical issues like informed consent, privacy, confidentiality and beneficence. The current study highlights issues on respecting patient’s choice and acquiring informed consent with its spirit rather than as mere formality. The study was conducted in out-patient department of The Kidney Center Postgraduate Training Institute Karachi Pakistan in May 2008 to July 2008. All patients who had come for the first time to see the author were included in the study. The said study explored (...) the willingness of patients to allow medical students to be present during history taking and physical examination by the consultant. There were 18 male and 03 female patients. Age ranging from 22 to 73 years with mean age of 53.5 ± 13.7 years. There were total of 21 patient–students encounters out of which two encounters were with male students only and two with female students only. So in 17 Patient–students encounters, students of both genders were present. All patients permitted history taking in the presence of medical students except one who had a history of extramarital sexual contact and signs and symptoms suggestive of sexually transmitted disease. Of the male patients 50% (9/18) did not allow intimate examination before medical students. Out of these nine patients who refused, four consented earlier but when enquired again about their true willingness, they expressed their preference not to have medical students in the room while undergoing digital rectal and external genital examinations. Physicians need to develop sensitivity to acquire informed consent in its true essence rather than just as a formality by exploring actual willingness of the patient. One should refrain from being judgmental on the basis of gender, looks, religion or norms. (shrink)

Effective communication during a pandemic, such as the current COVID-19 crisis, can save lives. At the present time, social and physical distancing measures are the lead strategy in combating the spread of COVID-19. In this study, a survey was administered to 705 adults from Switzerland about their support and practice of social distancing measures to examine if their responses depended on (1) whether these measures were supported by a government official or an internationally recognized celebrity as a spokesperson, (2) whether (...) this spokesperson was liked, and (3) the respondent’s age. We also considered several attitudinal and demographic variables that may influence the degree to which people support and comply with social distancing measures. We found that the government official was more effective in eliciting responses supportive of social distancing, particularly as manifested in the stated current compliance with social distancing measures. The effect was substantially stronger among older respondents, although these respondents expressed a lower risk perception. Although there was a general trend for greater endorsement of the social distancing measures among participants who liked the spokesperson, this was non-significant. In addition, respondents’ greater support and compliance was positively associated with (1) higher concern for the current situation, (2) higher concern for the well-being of others, and (3) greater belief that others were practicing social distancing, and negatively with (4) greater self-reported mobility. Current compliance correlated negatively with (5) household size. Since different parts of the population appear to have different perceptions of risk and crisis, our preliminary results suggest that different spokespersons may be needed for different segments of the population, and particularly for younger and older populations. The development of evidence-based knowledge is required to further identify who would be the most effective spokesperson, and in particular to groups with low risk perception and low compliance. (shrink)

In a distributed multi-agent system, an idle agent may be available to assist other agents in the system. An agent architecture called intent recognition is proposed in this article to accomplish this with minimal communication. To assist other agents in the system, an agent performing recognition observes the tasks other agents are performing. Unlike the much-studied field of plan recognition, the overall intent of an agent is recognized instead of a specific plan. The observing agent may use capabilities that it (...) has not observed. In this study, the key research question is: What are intent-recognition systems and how can these be used to have agents autonomously assist each other effectively and efficiently? A conceptual framework is proposed to address this question. An implementation of the conceptual framework is tested and evaluated. A set of metrics, including task time and number of communications, is used to compare the performance of plan recognition and intent recognition. This research shows that under certain conditions, an intent-recognition system is more efficient than a plan recognition system. (shrink)

It is evident, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that has physicians confronting death and dying at unprecedented levels along with growing data suggesting that physicians who care for dying patients face complex emotional, psychological and behavioural effects, that there is a need for their better understanding and the implementation of supportive measures. Taking into account data positing that effects of caring for dying patients may impact a physician’s concept of personhood, or “what makes you, ‘you’”, we adopt Radha (...) Krishna’s Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) to scrutinise the experiences of physicians working in intensive care units (ICU) using a fictional scenario that was inspired by real events. The impact of death and dying, its catalysts, internal constituents, external factors, dyssynchrony, and buffers, specific to ICU physicians, were identified and explored. Such a framework allows for ramifications to be considered holistically and facilitates the curation of strategies for conflict resolution. This evaluation of the RToP acknowledges the experience and wide-ranging effects it has on ICU physicians. As such, our findings provide insight into their specific needs and highlight the importance of support on a personal and organisational level. Although further research needs to be conducted, the RToP could serve as the basis for a longitudinal assessment tool supported by the use of portfolios or mentorship due to their provision of personalised, appropriate, specific, timely, accessible and long-term support. (shrink)

None of the studies published in the extant literature has discussed the role of green innovation climate and green autonomy concerning green creativity and this study aims to offer these two novel constructs. By introducing the componential theory of creativity, this study explores green transformational leadership, green innovation climate, and green autonomy as antecedents of green creativity. The authors employed structural equation modeling to analyze survey-based data collected from automotive firms in China. Data were collected from employee-supervisor working in the (...) automotive industry located in Liaoning province, China. The findings reveal that GTL directly and indirectly via green innovation climate partially mediates the green creativity of employees in China. Moreover, green autonomy moderates the relationship between green innovation climate and green creativity. This pivotal contribution suggests that automotive business enterprises should develop GTL to nurture a green innovation climate and offer green autonomy for the green creativity of employees. The above antecedents of green creativity may enable business firms to gain a competitive advantage by innovating green products and practices. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging is precise and efficient for interpreting the soft and hard tissues. Moreover, for the detailed diagnosis of varied diseases such as knee rheumatoid arthritis, segmentation of the knee magnetic resonance image is a challenging and complex task that has been explored broadly. However, the accuracy and reproducibility of segmentation approaches may require prior extraction of tissues from MR images. The advances in computational methods for segmentation are reliant on several parameters such as the complexity of the tissue, (...) quality, and acquisition process involved. This review paper focuses and briefly describes the challenges faced by segmentation techniques from magnetic resonance images followed by an overview of diverse categories of segmentation approaches. The review paper also focuses on automatic approaches and semiautomatic approaches which are extensively used with performance metrics and sufficient achievement for clinical trial assistance. Furthermore, the results of different approaches related to MR sequences used to image the knee tissues and future aspects of the segmentation are discussed. (shrink)