This book reflects upon the political philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal, a towering intellectual figure in South Asian history, revered by many for his poetry and his thought. He lived in India in the twilight years of the British Empire and, apart from a short but significant period studying in the West, he remained in Punjab until his death in 1938. The book studies Iqbal's critique of nationalist ideology and his attempts to chart a path for the development of (...) the 'nation' by liberating it from the centralizing and homogenizing tendencies of the modern state structure. Iqbal frequently clashed with his contemporaries over his view of nationalism as 'the greatest enemy of Islam'. He constructed his own particular interpretation of Islam - forged through an interaction with Muslim thinkers and Western intellectual traditions - that was ahead of its time, and since his death both modernists and Islamists have continued to champion his legacy. (shrink)

It is in the name of Islam that the country has created an image of being the most potent source of religious terrorism, which poses a threat to peace and stability in large parts of the globe. This conception of a Pakistani ideology and Pakistani identity based on Islam was put forward by the religious circles rather than the founding fathers of the nation. At the time of independence even the secular ideologists were also looking at Islam as the key (...) symbol which consolidated the newly born and somewhat anomalous nation. The motive force for Pakistan came largely from the middle class Muslims of North India, many of whom had been educated at Aligarh. At some level, they identified with the ideas of Syed Ahmad Khan and Mohammad Iqbal along with the leaders of Muslim League including Mohammad Ali Jinnah. They all thought sincerely about the application of Islamic principles, but they certainly did not regard the movement for Pakistan as an effort to re-create some kind of a “golden age” in Islam or to re-establish Wahabiism. Over the years the social fabric of modern Pakistan underwent a radical change towards Islamisation and militarization. The paper aims to study the changes in Pak society, it however, is beneficial in studying any pro-religion society whose ruler, too, is committed to do the same way and play a significant role in changing social character of the nation like Pakistan. (shrink)

Since their introduction in the early 2000s, the use of social networking websites has exploded. Many businesses are seeing increased revenue due to their social commerce strategy. Despite the popularity of social commerce websites, some consumers are still hesitate to use them. This study aims to evaluate the factors that influence the adoption of social commerce. A sample of 721 Chinese We Chat users took part in the research. The findings reveal that social capital mediates the positive effect of social (...) commerce adoption and perceived ease of use on techno-stress and online impulse purchasing. Likewise, information overloading mediates the positive effect of social commerce adoption and PERU on techno-stress and online impulse purchasing. The findings have implications for both practice and research in understanding social commerce adoption in emerging economies. (shrink)

This study employs a newly developed methodology called the variational homotopy perturbation transformation method to study fractional acoustic wave equations. The motivation for this study is to extend the variational homotopy perturbation technique to the variational homotopy perturbation transformation technique in the sense of the Yang–Caputo–Fabrizio operator. The suggested method demonstrated a straightforward and accurate technique for investigating fractional-order partial differential equations. The technique’s validity is demonstrated through the use of several illustrative instances. The obtained answers were found to be (...) extremely near to the precise solutions. Additionally, the proposed strategy achieves the best degree of accuracy. Indeed, the current technique can be seen as one of the analytic strategies for solving nonlinear fractional partial differential equations compared to other analytical techniques. (shrink)

The current study examines the relationship between financialization, managers’ incentives, and the enterprise’s innovation. Based on the principal-agent and incentive theories, this study proposes a research model with two management incentives as moderating variables between financialization and the enterprise’s innovation. First, we analyze the direct relationship between financialization and the enterprise’s innovation. Second, we examine the moderating effect of managers’ equity incentive and compensation incentives on the relationship between entity financialization and the enterprise’s innovation in high-tech/non-high-tech enterprises and state-owned and (...) non-state-owned enterprises. This study covers the most recent updated data from both A-share listed companies in the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchange in China from 2009 to 2019. This study’s finding indicates a significant negative impact of entity financialization and the enterprise’s innovation. It means that the entity financial has a significant “crowding-out” effect on the enterprise’s innovation. This study also confirms that management incentives cannot effectively suppress a “crowding-out” impact of entity financialization on firm innovation because of the principal-agent severe problem in financialization. Finally, considering the heterogeneities of property rights and degrees of dependence on the enterprise’s innovation, a “crowding-out” effect of entity financialization on the enterprise’s innovation is more significant in high-tech and state-owned enterprises. Managers’ equity incentive significantly affects the enterprise’s innovation in high-tech enterprises, while the managers’ compensation incentive affects the enterprise’s innovation in state-owned enterprises. Our study could help the enterprise to improve the company manager’s incentive and provide the optimal assets allocation to improve the enterprise’s innovation ability. Lastly, this study provides significant policies and recommendations for the public sector high-tech enterprise and private sector high-tech enterprises. Moreover, policies and recommendations are fruitful for the public sector non-high-tech enterprise and private sector non-high-tech enterprise. (shrink)

Gluten ataxia is a rare immune-mediated neurological disorder caused by the ingestion of gluten. The diagnosis is not straightforward as antibodies are present in only up to 38% of patients, but often at lower titers. The symptoms of ataxia may be mild at the onset but lead to permanent damage if remain untreated. It is characterized by damage to the cerebellum however, the pathophysiology of the disease is not clearly understood. The present study investigated the neurochemical profile of vermis and (...) right cerebellum and structural changes in various brain regions of patients with gluten ataxia and compared it with healthy controls. Volumetric 3-D T1 and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in the three planes of the whole brain and single-voxel 1H- magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the vermis and right cerebellum were acquired on 3 T human MR scanner. The metabolite concentrations were estimated using LC Model while brain volumes were estimated using the online tool volBrain pipeline and CERES and corrected for partial volumes. The levels of neuro-metabolites were found to be significantly lower in vermis, while N-acetyl aspartate + N-acetyl aspartate glutamate and glycerophosphocholine + phosphocholine was lower in cerebellum regions in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. A significant reduction in the white matter of ; reduction in the volumes of cerebellum lobe and thalamus while lateral ventricles were increased in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. The reduced neuronal metabolites along with structural changes in the brain suggested neuronal degeneration in the patients with gluten ataxia. Our preliminary findings may be useful in understanding the gluten-induced cerebral damage and indicated that MRI and MRS may serve as a non-invasive useful tool in the early diagnosis, thereby enabling better management of these patients. (shrink)

This study sought to explore the level of personal wellbeing and identified the determinants of happiness among Indian adolescents and youth. Data were collected from a sample of 495 participants residing in the National Capital Region of Delhi, using the bilingual version of the Personal Wellbeing Index. Their PWI score was 80.06, indicating high happiness levels in the nonwestern normative PWI range. Domains of personal relationships, community connectedness, and safety represented high overall wellbeing with the highest mean scores. Multivariate analysis (...) showed that the least happy group on life as a whole domain was students aged 19–23 years as compared with the 11–14 and 15–18 years age group. Furthermore, men had higher happiness levels on personal safety, while women had higher scores on life achievement. The qualitative analysis illustrated the socio-cultural basis of these wellbeing determinants as rooted in the hierarchical social structures and collectivistic cultural orientation. (shrink)

Delays in early language development are characteristic of young autistic children, and one of the most recognizable first concerns that motivate parents to seek a diagnostic evaluation for their child. Although early language abilities are one of the strongest predictors of long-term outcomes, there is still much to be understood about the role of language impairment in the heterogeneous phenotypic presentation of autism. Using a person-centered, Latent Profile Analysis, we first aimed to identify distinct patterns of language and social communication (...) ability in a clinic-based sample of 498 autistic children, ranging in age from 18 to 60 months. Next, a multinomial logistic regression analysis was implemented to examine sociodemographic and child-based developmental differences among the identified language and social communication profiles. Three clinically meaningful profiles were identified from parent-rated and clinician-administered measures: Profile 1 “Relatively Low Language and Social Communication Abilities,” Profile 2 “Relatively Elevated Language and Social Communication Abilities,” and Profile 3 “Informant Discrepant Language and Relatively Elevated Social Communication Abilities.” Overall, young autistic children from the lowest-resource households exhibited the lowest language and social communication abilities, and the lowest non-verbal problem-solving and fine-motor skills, along with more features of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and atypical auditory processing. These findings highlight the need for effective community-based implementation strategies for young autistic children from low-resource households and underrepresented communities to improve access to individualized quality care. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship of leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being with the work outcomes of intention to quit, job involvement and organization-based self-esteem, and whether workplace spirituality plays a role in mediating the associations of leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being with work outcomes. The study is cross-sectional and non-experimental. Data were obtained from 630 information technology employees from South India, adopting ‘power calculations’. The analysis was performed using SPSS version 20 for Windows and LISREL (...) version 8.72. Results reveal that leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being have a significant positive association with workplace spirituality, and this, in turn, has an impact on the work outcomes of intention to quit, job involvement and OBSE. Workplace spirituality can limit any negative associations of leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being with work outcomes. This research adds to the existing body of knowledge in the spirituality literature by drawing attention to the positive aspects of the interplay between spirituality, leadership transformation and well-being at work. The article concludes that building core values anchoring spirituality would lead to greater connectedness and healthier employee outcomes. (shrink)

Economic burden of private supplementary tutoring is increasing around the world. Demand for private supplementary tutoring, contributing factors, and their effects are investigated in the study. For this purpose, data were collected through questionnaire, and multistage non-probability technique was used. Hurder model was used to find the factors affecting demand for private supplementary tutoring at the higher secondary level. Linear regression model was used to find the economic burden of family and factors affecting the demand for private tutoring. The findings (...) showed that several factors have a significant effect on the demand for private supplementary tutoring, and some of them significantly impact on the economic burden. The study recommends regulating the market of shadow education because of differentiated tuition fee in different tuition centers to cut down the burden of private tutoring for households. (shrink)

Healthcare policy and academic literature have promoted improving the transitional care of young people leaving child and adolescent mental health services. Despite the availability of guidance on good practice, there seems to be no readily accessible, coherent ethical analysis of transition. The ethical principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and respect for autonomy can be used to justify the need for further enquiry into the ethical pros and cons of this drive to improve transitional care. The objective of this systematic review (...) was therefore to systematically search for existing ethical literature on child- to adult-orientated health service transitions and to critically appraise and collate the literature, whether empirical or normative. A wide range of bioethics, biomedical and legal databases, grey literature and bioethics journals were searched. Ancestral and forward searches of identified papers were undertaken. Key words related to transition, adolescence and young adulthood, ethics, law and health. The timeframe was January 2000 to at least March 2016. Titles, abstracts and, where necessary, full articles were screened and duplicates removed. All included articles were critically appraised and a narrative synthesis produced. Eighty two thousand four hundred eighty one titles were screened, from which 96 abstracts were checked. Forty seven full documents were scrutinised, leading to inclusion of two papers. Ancestral and forward searches yielded four further articles. In total, one commentary, three qualitative empirical studies and two clinical ethics papers were found. All focused on young people with complex care needs and disabilities. The three empirical papers had methodological flaws. The two ethical papers were written from a clinical ethics context rather than using a bioethical format. No literature identified specifically addressed the ethical challenges of balancing the delivery of transitional care to those who need it and the risk of pathologizing transient and self-limited distress and dysfunction, which may be normal during adolescence. There is very little research on ethical aspects of transitional care. Most existing studies come from services for young people with complex care needs and disabilities. There is much scope for improvement in the amount and quality of empirical research and ethical analysis in this area. (shrink)

In this study, we first introduce polygonal cylinder and torus using Cartesian products and topologically identifications and then find their Wiener and hyper-Wiener indices using a quick, interesting technique of counting. Our suggested mathematical structures could be of potential interests in representation of computer networks and enhancing lattice hardware security.

Includes an introd. of 49 p. by S. G. Abbas.

_The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam_ is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now serves (...) as new bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of _The Reconstruction_ opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

Nowadays, mobile telephony interruptions in our daily life activities are common because of the inappropriate ringing notifications of incoming phone calls in different contexts. Such interruptions may impact on the work attention not only for the mobile phone owners, but also for the surrounding people. Decision tree is the most popular machine-learning classification technique that is used in existing context-aware mobile intelligent interruption management model to overcome such issues. However, a single-decision tree-based context-aware model may cause over-fitting problem and thus (...) decrease the prediction accuracy of the inferred model. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an ensemble machine-learning-based context-aware mobile telephony model for the purpose of intelligent interruption management by taking into account multi-dimensional contexts and name it “E-MIIM”. The experimental results on individuals’ real-life mobile telephony data sets show that our E-MIIM model is more effective and outperforms existing MIIM model for predicting and managing individual’s mobile telephony interruptions based on their relevant contextual information. (shrink)

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930) is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now (...) serves as new bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of The Reconstruction opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

Digital Health Technologies (DHTs) are currently the subject of much debate both in terms of their technological frontiers as well as their ethical, legal and societal implications (ELSI). Regulation of such technologies as medical devices currently lacks behind their level of adoption. Digital Twins are the next evolution step of such DHTs and provide an opportunity to anticipate and act on ELSI before adoption again leaps before the necessary review. This paper introduces the concept and use cases of digital twins (...) in medicine, then frames the debate through the lens of related technologies, machine learning and personalized medicine, and maps ethical challenges stemming from those. Finally, we lay out how digital twins may change and challenge the future practice of medicine. (shrink)

A personalized recommender system is broadly accepted as a helpful tool to handle the information overload issue while recommending a related piece of information. This work proposes a hybrid personalized recommender system based on affinity propagation, namely, APHPRS. Affinity propagation is a semisupervised machine learning algorithm used to cluster items based on similarities among them. In our approach, we first calculate the cluster quality and density and then combine their outputs to generate a new ranking score among clusters for the (...) personalized recommendation. In the first phase, user preferences are collected and normalized as items rating matrix. This generated matrix is then clustered offline using affinity propagation and kept in a database for future recommendations. In the second phase, online recommendations are generated by applying the offline model. Negative Euclidian similarity and the quality of clusters are used together to select the best clusters for recommendations. The proposed APHPRS system alleviates problems such as sparsity and cold-start problems. The use of affinity propagation and the hybrid recommendation technique used in the proposed approach helps in improving results against sparsity. Experiments reveal that the proposed APHPRS performs better than most of the existing recommender systems. (shrink)

We present evidence that preschool children oftentimes understand disjunctive sentences as if they were conjunctive. The result holds for matrix disjunctions as well as disjunctions embedded under every. At the same time, there is evidence in the literature that children understand or as inclusive disjunction in downward-entailing contexts. We propose to explain this seemingly conflicting pattern of results by assuming that the child knows the inclusive disjunction semantics of or, and that the conjunctive inference is a scalar implicature. We make (...) two assumptions about implicature computation in the child: that children access only a proper subset of the adult alternatives, and that children possess the adult capacity to strengthen sentences with implicatures. As a consequence, children are expected to sometimes not compute any implicatures at all, but in other cases they are expected to compute an implicature that is different from the adult implicature. We argue that the child’s conjunctive strengthening of disjunctive sentences realizes the latter possibility: the adult infers that the conjunction is false but the child infers that the conjunction is true. This behaviour is predicted when our assumptions about child development are coupled with the assumption that a covert exhaustive operator is responsible for strengthening in both the child and the adult. Specifically, children’s conjunctive strengthening is predicted to follow from the same mechanism used by adults to compute conjunctive free choice implicatures in response to disjunctive permission sentences. We furthermore argue that this parallel between the child and the adult extends to disambiguation preferences. In particular, we present evidence that children prefer to strengthen disjunctions to conjunctions, in matrix and embedded positions ; this result mirrors previous findings that adults prefer to compute free choice, at the root and under every. We propose a disambiguation strategy that explains the preference for conjunctive strengthening – by both the child and the adult – even though there is no general preference for exhaustification. Specifically, we propose that the preference for a conjunctive strengthening follows from a pragmatic preference for a complete answer to the Question Under Discussion. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend an account of the reasons for which we act, believe, and so on for any Ф such that there can be reasons for which we Ф. Such reasons are standardly called motivating reasons. I argue that three dominant views of motivating reasons (psychologism, factualism and disjunctivism) all fail to capture the ordinary concept of a motivating reason. I show this by drawing out three constraints on what motivating reasons must be, and demonstrating how each view (...) fails to satisfy at least one of these constraints. I then propose and defend my own account of motivating reasons, which I call the Guise of Normative Reasons Account. On the account I defend, motivating reasons are propositions. A proposition is the reason for which someone Ф‐s when (a) she represents that proposition as a normative reason to Ф, and (b) her representation explains, in the right way, her Ф‐ing. As I argue, the Guise of Normative Reasons Account satisfies all three constraints on what motivating reasons must be, and weathers several objections that might be leveled against propositionalist views. (shrink)

Susanna Rinard has recently offered a new argument for pragmatism and against evidentialism. According to Rinard, evidentialists must hold that the rationality of belief is determined in a way that is different from how the rationality of other states is determined. She argues that we should instead endorse a view she calls Equal Treatment, according to which the rationality of all states is determined in the same way. In this paper, I show that Rinard’s claims are mistaken, and that evidentialism (...) is more theoretically virtuous than its opponents sometimes give it credit for. Not only does evidentialism not make an exception for belief, but it fits naturally into a unified, explanatorily powerful account of the rationality of intentional mental states. According to such an account, the rationality of all intentional mental states, including belief, is determined by the right kind of reasons for those states. Since the right kind of reasons for belief just are evidential considerations, this unified account entails evidentialism. I conclude, contra Rinard, that evidentialism can be situated within a general account of rationality that is at least as theoretically virtuous as pragmatism, if not more so. (shrink)

Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and contingency theories of leadership, this study aims to investigate how sustainable leadership influences employees' wellbeing through employee resilience and to examine the moderating effect of environmental turbulence on the “sustainable leadership-employees' wellbeing” relationship. Data were collected from 593 employees and 373 supervisors adopting two-wave design among small and medium-sized enterprises in China. The authors used structural equation modeling to empirically test the hypothesized model in this study. The research shows that SL is (...) significantly related to the employees' WB in SMEs. Regarding mediating effect, SL also indirectly influences employees' WB through ER. Moreover, the impact of SL on employees' WB becomes more prominent in the presence of lower ET. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no prior study is available about the integrated relationship of SL, ER, ET, and employee WB. (shrink)

Computational aesthetics is a relatively new subfield of artificial intelligence (AI). It includes research that enables computers to "recognize" (and evaluate) beauty in various domains such as visual art, music, and games. Aside from the benefit this gives to humans in terms of creating and appreciating art in these domains, there are perhaps also philosophical implications about the nature and "mechanics" of aesthetic perception in humans. We can, potentially, learn more about ourselves as we replicate or simulate this ability in (...) machines. My original intention or objective was to develop an aesthetics model or method for computers to recognize beauty in the game of chess since it is greatly appreciated by .. (shrink)

Book Name MUHAMMAD: A PROPHET FOR OUR TIME Review written by Mr Kashif Iqbal.

In lattice theory the two well known equational class of lattices are the distributive lattices and the modular lattices. All distributive lattices are modular however a modular lattice in general is not distributive. In this book, new classes of lattices called supermodular lattices and semi-supermodular lattices are introduced and characterized.

Traditionally, mainstream psychology mostly presented religion in a negative light. However, recent years have witnessed a growing realization that religion has a substantial role to play in improving physical and mental health. Given the importance of religion, the American Psychological Association has division 36 “Psychology of religion.” But the perspective of mainstream psychology does not acknowledge the spiritual nature of human beings and their connection to God. Islamic psychology is one of the religion-based perspectives which acknowledges it. This perspective has (...) also attracted the attention of Western psychologists. Three different trends have been identified in this area: the Islamic filter approach, the comparison approach, and the Islamic psychology approach. However, despite more than 40 years of work, there is a considerable lack of progress in the development of this paradigm. The present article discussed the emergence and challenges in the development of this new perspective. Moreover, we suggest that the research paradigms of Western social and behavioral sciences are useful for developing Islamic psychology. (shrink)

This essay analyzes a silent short film portraying an urban canoeist. The film suggests that it is possible to make conscious choices about one’s means of conveyance through the city. Using a critical theoretical framework to unpack the implications of the film, this paper argues for the need to imagine unconventional modes of transportation and examine the power structures of automotive hegemony.

Comprises articles on Sikh faith and philosophy.

Shamans, including medicine men, mediums, and the prophets of religious movements, recur across human societies. Shamanism also existed among nearly all documented hunter-gatherers, likely characterized the religious lives of many ancestral humans, and is often proposed by anthropologists to be the “first profession,” representing the first institutionalized division of labor beyond age and sex. In this article, I propose a cultural evolutionary theory to explain why shamanism consistently develops and, in particular, (1) why shamanic traditions exhibit recurrent features around the (...) world; (2) why shamanism professionalizes early, often in the absence of other specialization; and (3) how shifting social conditions affect the form or existence of shamanism. According to this theory, shamanism is a set of traditions developed through cultural evolution that adapts to people's intuitions to convince observers that a practitioner can influence otherwise unpredictable, significant events. The shaman does this by ostensibly transforming during initiation and trance, violating folk intuitions of humanness to assure group members that he or she can interact with the invisible forces that control uncertain outcomes. Entry requirements for becoming a shaman persist because the practitioner's credibility depends on his or her “transforming.” This contrasts with dealing with problems that have identifiable solutions (such as building a canoe), in which credibility hinges on showing results and outsiders can invade the jurisdiction by producing the outcome. Shamanism is an ancient human institution that recurs because of the capacity of cultural evolution to produce practices adapted to innate psychological tendencies. (shrink)