The religious transnationalism evident in the 21st century has heralded a new paradigm of religion ‘made to travel’ as adherents of religions navigate various cultural frontiers within Africa, Europe and North America. The role of Africa in shaping the global religious landscape, particularly the Christian tradition, designates the continent as one of the major actors of the Christian faith in the 21st century. The inability of European Christianity to address most of the existential realities of Africans and the stigmatisation of (...) African Traditional Religion mainly contributed to the emergence of African Independent Churches in the 19th century in Africa. The emergence and proliferation of African Independent Churches in Africa was Africa’s response to Europeanised Christianity with its imperialistic doctrines and practices that negated expectation of its new context – Africa. Despite the declining fortunes of Christianity in the West, African Christianity, which includes the African Independent Churches and African Pentecostal traditions, is now a major non-commodity export within Africa and North America. Apart from their rituals and peculiarities, African Independent Churches like other faith organisations are development actors. Although notions about the role of religion in development amongst some social scientists are mainly negative, African Independent Churches over the years are actively involved in various human and community transformation initiatives. This study argues that the transnational status of African Independent Churches has led to the emergence of developmental ideals that defy territorialisation. The collaboration with some Western development agencies by some of the African Independent Churches in Diaspora further blurs the concept of diaspora as the members of this Christian movement are active development actors in the receiving nations and their former home countries. This study argues that the role of religion in development in any context cannot be overemphasised. As a result of the globalisation of African Independent Churches, the United Kingdom and Nigeria will serve as our case study using historical survey and descriptive analyses to highlight African Independent Churches as development actors. (shrink)

Urban cities in the sub-Saharan Africa have witnessed unprecedented transformation because of the proliferation of religious orders within the social landscape. From Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon to Uganda, religious practitioners are actively involved in the spatial transformation through the construction of sacred spaces or prayer camps. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) typifies one of the several examples of African Pentecostal denominations with transnational status in 200 countries across the world with the hub of its international office situated at (...) the Redemption Camp, Mowe, Nigeria. The sacralisation of forest areas spanning 1600 ha of land has redefined religious institutions such as RCCG as perhaps one of the largest owners of private estate in Nigeria. However, there seems to be an intentional replication of the Redemption Camp, Mowe across Nigeria as well as across the Atlantic as part of the RCCG missionary enterprise. This study aims to utilise the ethnography of the Redemption Camps in Nigeria and Floyd, Texas, United States. The theoretical framework of social worlds is employed to examine the dynamics of religious creativity, innovations, contextual challenges of place-making involved in creating Redemption Camps across borders by the leadership of RCCG through the appropriation of religious capital of its community of sentiments. (shrink)

The publication ‘Governance arrangements for NHS Research Ethics Committees’ is clear in its recommendations about the composition of National Health Service research ethics committees in the United Kingdom. It highlights the need for a sufficiently broad range of experience and expertise, balanced age and gender distribution and every effort to be made to recruit members from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as people with disabilities. It was considered that this composition would make it possible for the scientific, clinical (...) and methodological aspects of a research proposal to be reconciled with the welfare of research participants, and with broader ethical implications. Black and other ethnic minorities constitute 7.9 per cent of the UK population. Ideally, in any research ethics committee with a maximum of 18 members, at least one would be a member of the black or other ethnic minority groups. However, this does not appear to be the case; some committees having more than one, while most do not have any. This paper looks at the present position and suggests ways of improving recruitment and retention of members of these groups. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility functions as a positive signal to stakeholders that a firm is a responsible corporate citizen. However, CSR is increasingly becoming an ambiguous signal of organizational goodwill because many companies engage in CSR purely out of self-interest, rather than genuine altruism. In this paper, we integrate attribution theory with signaling theory to explore how stakeholders react when they receive additional signals that contradict the company’s intended positive CSR signal. Specifically, we argue that morally questionable CEO ethics in the (...) media negatively influences stakeholders’ CSR motive attributions, which in turn results in increased cynicism that ultimately impacts CSR support intentions and behaviors. We find support for our hypotheses in a quasi-experimental study of stakeholder media exposure to different types of CEOs. Our findings demonstrate that stakeholders consider CEO ethics an important signal of CSR motives, and will shun the CSR initiatives of morally questionable CEOs. (shrink)

The pigeon-inspired optimization algorithm is a category of a newly proposed swarm intelligence-based algorithm that belongs to the population-based solution technique. The MKP is a class of complex optimization problems that have many practical applications in the fields of engineering and sciences. Due to the practical applications of MKP, numerous algorithmic-based methods like local search and population-based search algorithms have been proposed to solve the MKP in the past few decades. This paper proposes a modified binary pigeon-inspired optimization algorithm named (...) (Modified-BPIO) for the 0 - 1 multidimensional knapsack problem (MKP). The utilization of the binary pigeon-inspired optimization (BPIO) for solving the multidimensional knapsack problem came with huge success. However, it can be observed that the BPIO converges prematurely due to lost diversity during the search activities. Given the above, the crossover operator is integrated with the landmark component of the BPIO to improve the diversity of the solution space. The MKP benchmarks from the Operations Research (OR) library are utilized to test the performance of the proposed binary method. Experimentally, it is concluded that the proposed Modified-BPIO has a better performance when compared with the BPIO and existing state-of-the-arts that worked on the same MKP benchmarks. (shrink)

This article examines the practical nature of Christology in contemporary African Christianity. The writers argue that though the religious mindset of the African people does not allow a dichotomy between ontological and functional Christologies, existential challenges have made many Africans tilt towards the functional end. The method adopted in the article is a descriptive approach. Christology is central to the orthodox Christian faith. It permeates all the pages of the Bible. The Old Testament consistently predicts the coming of the Messiah. (...) The New Testament writers focused on Him in the light of His work on earth and the office he came to occupy concerning the Messianic predictions of the Old Testament. In history, the focus of theology has always been on the person and work of Christ. Contemporary African Christianity is not an exception to this trend. Many controversies have emerged in the process of the discussion on Christology. These Christological controversies surround the Person, picture, and deeds of Christ. A tilt towards functional Christology may cause a down-playing of God’s sovereign will to focus on what works. This may lead to syncretic beliefs and practices as people look for what gives a solution. The conclusion is that African Christology should blend ontology and functionality. The Christology that is both contextually relevant and scripturally balanced should be presented to the African people. Therefore, African theologians should make efforts to prepare theology that reflect a balanced Christological presentation intentionally. (shrink)

While previous research has established that employees who have a more conscientious leader are more likely to perceive that their leader is ethical, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this linkage remain unknown. In order to better understand the relationship between leader conscientiousness and ethical leadership, we examine the potential mediating role of leader moral reflectiveness, as well as the potential moderating role of decision-making autonomy. Drawing from social cognitive theory, results from two samples of workgroup leaders and their (...) immediate reports situated in Africa and Asia show that leader conscientiousness is positively related to leader moral reflectiveness, which in turn, is positively associated with employees’ assessment of ethical leadership. Furthermore, and consistent with our hypothesis, results from the two samples show that leader decision-making autonomy moderates the indirect path from leader conscientiousness to ethical leadership through moral reflectiveness, such that only morally reflective leaders who have high decision-making autonomy at work engage in ethical leadership behaviors. In our discussion, we highlight the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest ways in which organizations can better foster ethical leadership. (shrink)

Purpose In considering the ubiquity of information systems and the increasingly important role served in modern business and service delivery, social media if properly leveraged gives potential competitive advantage to a company in its respective industry. With Paramount Web Nigeria Ltd. as a case study, this paper aims to focus on the important aspects of adopting social media as an IS such as data privacy principles and the role of social media in the context of a small internet service company. (...) Design/methodology/approach Relevant research information was relied upon to highlight the various factors involved with adopting social media as an IS. Findings Data handling and privacy policies must also be considered and properly devised if the concerned company is to effectively adopt social media as an IS. Decision-making tools such as SWOT analysis and the quality triangle are vital during the planning stages of deploying an IS. Research limitations/implications Research papers on aspects of social media as an IS especially in West African academia has been lacking. The challenge is in contextual information related to similar topics. Practical implications Findings detailed in this paper will serve to provide a better understanding of the important factors to be considered when adapting a new IS to an existing business. Originality/value This paper serves to highlight the potential factors to be considered when dealing with business ISs with a strong focus on social media and internet related services. (shrink)

Technology advancement provide more effective and efficient ways for the people to perform individual and or collective roles and execution of responsibilities, and this has also resulted to tenacious upsurge in peoples' dependence on technology. As the right for people with disabilities increases, the need to cater for their educational right like every other learner brought about the quest to provide for AT that can best serve those special students. Application of AT can help students with one or more deficiencies, (...) aid information collection process and increase learning motivation. The aim of this study is to conduct content analysis of studies on AT in education and the research sample consist of research publications on AT in education published on Scopus between 2018-2022. Content analysis was conducted on the research publications related to the research and the data gotten were evaluated through descriptive statistical methods with the intention that research findings will add to the body of literature and create more quest for research interest on AT in education. The findings indicated that, more studies were conducted in the year 2021 compared to others, qualitative research method was applied more in those studies, followed by quantitative and mixed methods, the larger percentage of the studies under review were conducted under special education, and the greater part of co-authorship were local collaboration. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the institutional requirements for sustainable agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the situation from the perspective of both the recipient and the donor of aid and identifies the institutional conditions under which Official Development Assistance (ODA) — a major source of funding for agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa — can become more effective in promoting sustainable development.Agriculture represents the major employment sector in the region (as high as 75 to 80 percent in some countries). However, this (...) high labor force contribution has not been translated into productivity for the sector. Also, bilateral and multilateral development agencies represent a major source of capital and technology for the region's development. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest recipient of official development assistance in the world, larger on a percentage and per capita basis than any other Third World region. Yet, the region has made only modest progress socioeconomically, compared to other developing regions and is now more dependent on food aid than ever. This raises an issue as to whether conventional technology transfer schemes are adequate in meeting the development needs of the region. Consequently, this study argues the following: that the present framework informing agricultural technology transfer to the region has been ineffective because environmental sustainability, energy efficiency, agricultural self-reliance (including domestic food security), and social equity have not been the central goals of programs. (shrink)

As climate change continues to be a pressing issue affecting businesses, firms are taking proactive measures by integrating carbon considerations into their overall strategic planning for environmental sustainability. Nonetheless, the question of whether it pays to be green remains inconclusively answered. Based on an analysis of the 200 largest public listed firms by market capitalisation in Malaysia, the findings indicated that most of the firms are still reactive in managing their carbon activities; however, corporate carbon strategy does, indeed, lead to (...) better financial performance. The findings reaffirmed that going green pays off, particularly for firms with higher levels of foreign ownership. Interestingly, an inverse relationship was observed among firms with higher levels of government shareholdings. Additionally, the firms have been categorised into six different groups based on their scope and level of corporate carbon strategies, ranging from “wait-and-see” to “all-round explorer” classifications. Taken together, these findings enrich corporate carbon and sustainability literature and offer insights into theoretical and policy implications, along with suggestions for future research. (shrink)

HIV prevention is a critical health issue in Nigeria; a country that has one of the worst HIV epidemic profiles in the world. With 270,000 new infections in 2012, Nigeria is a prime site for HIV prevention research. One effect of the HIV epidemic has been to revolutionalise ethical norms for the conduct of research: it is now considered unethical to design and implement HIV related studies without community engagement. Unfortunately, there is very little commensurate effort in building the capacity (...) of local persons to engage actively with researchers, and there is no existing platform to facilitate dialogue between researchers and communities engaged in research in Nigeria. In an effort to address this gap, we undertook a series of three community dialogues and two community-researcher interface meetings in Nigeria. This paper aims to give an empirical account of the dialogue from these community engagement processes and provide a resulting critique of the implementation of research ethics practices in Nigeria. It is anticipated that the outputs will: support researchers in designing community-based research protocols; inform ethics committees of key considerations during research protocol reviews from a community perspective; and inform policy makers and research sponsors about issues of primary concern to communities with respect to HIV research. (shrink)

This article is the attempt of an historically oriented analysis focused on the role of Nigerian music as a cultural hub for the export of African cultural influences into the Black diaspora in the United States and its anticipation by the Free Jazz/Avantgarde-scene as well as the import of key-values related to the Black Power-movement to the African continent. The aim is to demonstrate the leading role and international impact of Nigeria's cultural industry among sub-saharan African nation states and its (...) specific ability to absorb and incorporate elements of Western culture. -/- After a short discussion of African influences on jazz music in general and the socio-political, cultural, and artistic context in which Free Jazz emerged, examples for the articulation of African consciousness among influencing key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane or the Art Ensemble of Chicago are being presented. Furthermore, the personal and ideological links between the Avantgarde Jazz-scene and the Black Power-movement - especially the Black Panther Party - are made transparent. -/- In a second step the central influence of the Nigerian drum-pioneer Babatunde Olatunji on the Africanization of US-Jazz musicians, his personal and creative impact on John Coltrane, as well as the Black Power-movement is being highlighted. On the other hand, Coltrane, Free Jazz, and the Black Panther Party are being portrayed as a central creative and ideological turn in the career and work of Fela Kuti and towards political activism and his efforts to implement and apply the Africa-inspired Black Power -struggle of the US on the African continent in order to fight post-colonial forms of oppression. -/- . (shrink)

This review examines issues relating to biomedical ethics and literature in the African drama The President’s Physician by Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale. The play investigates the psychological dilemma of Doctor Bituki Warunga, a personal physician to General Kalunga Ntibantunganyah who brutally and inhumanely rules Wavaria, a fictional African country. The doctor is faced with deciding to uphold the ethics of his profession versus terminating the tyrant’s life to set the nation free. The play aims to help budding medical doctors rightly (...) inculcate the principles of medical ethics—autonomy, beneficence, competence, and power—by providing a fictional platform to investigate difficult issues that can arise in clinical practice. The play highlights Warunga’s complex dilemma as he struggles to uphold the Hippocratic Oath and at the same time satisfy his conscience towards his contribution to his country’s freedom. This review explores the difficulties in decision-making when professional duties not only clash with personal preferences but also with the well-being of an entire nation. This discussion is done alongside the ethical concept of utilitarianism and also highlights significant literary concepts such as satire, symbolism, intertextuality, utopian aesthetics, and authorial vision as conveyed in the text. (shrink)

Extensively updated to include clinical findings over the last two decades, this third edition of A Practitioner's Guide to Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy reviews the philosophy, theory, and clinical practice of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. This model is based on the work of Albert Ellis, who had an enormous influence on the field of psychotherapy over his 50 years of practice and scholarly writing. Designed for both therapists-in-training and seasoned professionals, this practical treatment manual and guide introduces the basic principles of (...) rational-emotive behavior therapy, explains general therapeutic strategies, and offers many illustrative dialogues between therapist and patient. The volume breaks down each stage of therapy to present the exact procedures and skills therapists need, and numerous case studies illustrate how to use these skills. The authors describe both technical and specific strategic interventions, and they stress taking an integrative approach. The importance of building a therapeutic alliance and the use of cognitive, emotive, evocative, imaginal, and behavioral interventions serves as the unifying theme of the approach. Intervention models are presented for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, anger, personality disorders, and addictions. Psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors, psychotherapists, and students and trainees in these areas will find this book useful in learning to apply rational-emotive behavior therapy in practice. (shrink)

La admirable riqueza cultural y artística del Renacimiento esconde una desoladora miseria y aquella "edad de la abundancia" contrasta con una inmensa pobreza. Lejos de ser una broma o una pesadilla, la celebrada Utopía de Tomás Moro fue antes que nada un desafío insoslayable, pues proponía que ninguna sociedad merece tal nombre si tolera la miseria de un solo pobre. Rico y pobre explora la cuestión en ese libro de 1516 y en otros del escritor londinense para concluir con un (...) esbozo de su vida a la luz de la pobreza como virtud indispensable y libertadora. He aquí un hombre afortunado que no fue indiferente ante el infortunio de tantos y que vio en la humanitas la virtud por excelencia que lleva a una constante atención y cuidado del prójimo. Inspirado por un cambio de actitud en su época, así como por su fe cristiana y la mejor tradición estoica, mostró una robusta preocupación sobre el tema subrayando el valor social que debe tener toda riqueza, tanto a nivel estatal como individual, destacando la grave obligación cívica de los ricos y la necesidad que tienen todos, ricos y pobres, de empeñarse en la práctica de cierto desprendimiento y generosidad si no quieren mermar su propia humanidad y fallecer en su avaricia. La percepción de la miseria había cambiado de tal manera que su remedio ya no podía estar en una u otra limosna en plazas e iglesias, sino en la acción bien pensada y perentoria de todo gobierno que se tenga por justo. Sir Tomás Moro, privilegiado desde la cuna y seguro en su trabajo profesional, vio la pobreza de tantos como un desastre social, pero uno que, al mismo tiempo, debería llevar a todo ser humano a ver en el desprendimiento y generosidad una excelencia o virtud que alumbra la "otra" libertad, y tan íntima y valiosa que en su caso brilló aun en la prisión y ante el horror de una muerte injusta y atroz." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Objective To determine the attitudes of Egyptian patients regarding their participation in research and with the collection, storage and future use of blood samples for research purposes. Design Cross-sectional survey. Study population Adult Egyptian patients (n=600) at rural and urban hospitals and clinics. Results Less than half of the study population (44.3%) felt that informed consent forms should provide research participants the option to have their blood samples stored for future research. Of these participants, 39.9% thought that consent forms should (...) include the option that future research be restricted to the illness being studied. A slight majority (66.2%) would donate their samples for future genetic research. Respondents were more favourable towards having their blood samples exported to other Arab countries (62.0%) compared with countries in Europe (41.8%, p<0.001) and to the USA (37.2%, p<0.001). Conclusions This study shows that many individuals do not favour the donation of a blood sample for future research. Of those who do approve of such future research, many favour a consent model that includes an option restricting the future research to the illness being studied. Also, many Egyptians were hesitant to have their blood samples donated for genetic research or exported out of the Arab region to the USA and European countries. Further qualitative research should be performed to determine the underlying reasons for many of our results. (shrink)

How do people learn multisensory, or amodal, representations, and what consequences do these representations have for perceptual performance? We address this question by performing a rational analysis of the problem of learning multisensory representations. This analysis makes use of a Bayesian nonparametric model that acquires latent multisensory features that optimally explain the unisensory features arising in individual sensory modalities. The model qualitatively accounts for several important aspects of multisensory perception: (a) it integrates information from multiple sensory sources in such a (...) way that it leads to superior performances in, for example, categorization tasks; (b) its performances suggest that multisensory training leads to better learning than unisensory training, even when testing is conducted in unisensory conditions; (c) its multisensory representations are modality invariant; and (d) it predicts ‘‘missing” sensory representations in modalities when the input to those modalities is absent. Our rational analysis indicates that all of these aspects emerge as part of the optimal solution to the problem of learning to represent complex multisensory environments. (shrink)

Objective: To explore the experiences of people with a “terminal illness”, focusing on the patients’ perspective of euthanasia and assisted suicide.Method: A qualitative study using narrative interviews was conducted throughout the UK. The views of the 18 people who discussed euthanasia and assisted suicide were explored. These were drawn from a maximum variation sample, who said that they had a “terminal” illness, malignant or non-malignant.Results: That UK law should be changed to allow assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia was felt strongly (...) by most people. Those who had seen others die were particularly convinced that this should be a right. Some had multiple reasons, including pain and anticipated pain, fear of indignity, loss of control and cognitive impairment. Those who did not want to be a burden also had other reasons for wanting euthanasia. Suicide was contemplated by a few, who would have preferred a change in the law to allow them to end their lives with medical help and in the company of family or friends. The few who opposed a change in UK law, or who felt ambivalent, focused on involuntary euthanasia, cited religious reasons or worried that new legislation might be open to abuse.Conclusion: Qualitative research conducted on people who know they are nearing death is an important addition to the international debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Those who had seen others die were particularly convinced that the law should be changed to allow assisted death. (shrink)

It has been claimed that the ability to remember the past and the ability to project oneself into the future are intimately related. We sought support for this proposition by examining whether individual differences in dimensions that have been shown to affect memory for past events similarly influence the experience of projecting oneself into the future. We found that individuals with a higher capacity for visual imagery experienced more visual and other sensory details both when remembering past events and when (...) imagining future events. In addition, individuals who habitually use suppression to regulate their emotions experienced fewer sensory, contextual, and emotional details when representing both past and future events, while the use of reappraisal had no effect on either kind of events. These findings are consistent with the view that mental time travel into the past and into the future relies on similar mechanisms. (shrink)

This volume sets the agenda for future work on time and chance, which are central to theemerging sub-field of metaphysics of science.

The purpose of this article is to find out to what demand of philosophical and scientific thinking is culturology a response, treating culturology from two aspects: as a set of approaches to culture and as a school subject in the system of education. The task is not to define the subject boundaries of some science . I am interested in the "metaphysical location" of the interest in culture, in the lacuna of man's understanding of the world and of himself it (...) seeks to fill. (shrink)