Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a pioneering feminist writer, educationist and activist in colonial Bengal, who not only sought to emancipate women from the deeply entrenched values of Indian social and cultural patriarchy through her darkly satirical and provocative writings, but also actively pursued her idea of empowering women through education by setting up a school for Muslim girls. This article will investigate Rokeya’s feminist ideology and her educational programmes undertaken for the betterment of Indian women, especially Bengali Muslim women. I (...) intend to argue that although born into an orthodox family and brought up in strict purdah without any formal education, Rokeya had that rare foresight and courage to challenge the social status quo of her time and ridicule many of the outmoded gender practices in her writings, and even turn gender relations upside down by creating a Ladyland in her utopian narrative Sultana’s Dream, in which men are confined to indoors while women run the state. Moreover, she was practical enough to reify her vision by taking steps to eradicate women’s ignorance and invigorate their sense of self, by setting up a school in Calcutta and by running programmes to educate slum women through the association for Muslim women, Anjuman-i-Khwateen-i-Islam, which she founded in 1916—all at a time when Indian Muslim women were expected to live in confinement in the zenana and any attempt to educate them was seen as blasphemous. (shrink)

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental disorders. Present treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacological treatments show only moderate success, which emphasizes the importance for the development of new treatment protocols. Non-invasive brain stimulation methods such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation have been probed as therapeutic option for anxiety disorders in recent years. Mechanistic information about their mode of action, and most efficient protocols is however limited. Here the fear extinction model can (...) serve as a model of exposure therapies for studying therapeutic mechanisms, and development of appropriate intervention protocols. We systematically reviewed 30 research articles that investigated the impact of rTMS and tDCS on fear memory and extinction in animal models and humans, in clinical and healthy populations. The results of these studies suggest that tDCS and rTMS can be efficient methods to modulate fear memory and extinction. Furthermore, excitability-enhancing stimulation applied over the vmPFC showed the strongest potential to enhance fear extinction. We further discuss factors that determine the efficacy of rTMS and tDCS in the context of the fear extinction model and provide future directions to optimize parameters and protocols of stimulation for research and treatment. (shrink)

This work underscores the importance of answering the question: who are organizational stakeholders? It argues that stakeholder theory is a normative management theory, and there is a need to differentiate between stakeholder and non-stakeholder firms. It further argues that the overall organizational stakeholder orientation indicates how narrowly or broadly organizations define their stakeholders. Therefore, this work attempts to provide a stakeholder salience scheme for stakeholder organizations, i.e., organizations with accommodative and proactive stakeholder orientations. In the process, this work reviews key (...) scholarly contributions and points out some potential weaknesses in these contributions with an aim to develop a new stakeholder typology. This work contributes to the existing literature by: introducing a contingent variable, i.e., organizational strategy, in a stakeholder typology scheme; reaffirming the normative aspect of stakeholder theory by placing normative considerations at the center of stakeholder salience typology; and improving the descriptive validity of stakeholder theory by adding a new stakeholder variable, i.e., organization, in the presented stakeholder salience typology scheme. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in organizational trends to hire irregular workers. This inclination, in a time of great flux and uncertainty, exacerbates human resource issues faced by firms. We argue that corporate social responsibility can be an important antecedent to improve the workplace attitudes of irregular workers and as a result reduce the negative impact on organizations of the increased use of an irregular workforce. Hence, we explore the relationship between perceived CSR and unfairness perception (...) and social relations of subcontracted workers with regular workers. We further attempt to explain these relationships through the mediating effects of psychological contract violation and organizational identity, respectively. Our analysis supports a negative effect of composite and external CSR on unfairness perception and positive effect on social relations. Additionally, our results support partial mediating roles of psychological contract violation and organizational identity. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are also discussed. (shrink)

Dignity represents the essence of nursing care; hence, nurses are professionally responsible for promoting understanding about the promotion, provision, and preservation of every patient’s dignity, while considering contextual differences. The aim of this study was to explore the factors that influence, promote, or compromise patient dignity. A purposeful sample of 14 participants with hospitalization experience was chosen, and individual in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted for data collection. Using inductive content analysis, the themes and subthemes related to factors influencing patients’ dignity (...) were explored: “persona” (“personal beliefs” and “personal characteristics”), “communication behaviors” (“verbal interaction,” “body language,” “compassionate behavior,” and “devoting enough time”), and “staff conduct” (“professional commitment,” “adequate human resources,” and “staff’s proficiency and competency”). The findings revealed that it is essential to expand nurses’ insights and knowledge about preserving patients’ dignity and the factors that influence these. Recognizing and focusing on these factors will help nurses to establish practical measures for preserving and promoting patients’ dignity and providing more dignified care at the bedside. (shrink)

Thoughts of Raden Mas Panji Sosrokartono on Javanese spiritual philosophy.

Thoughts of Raden Mas Panji Sosrokartono on Javanese spiritual philosophy.

With increasing technological improvements, production processes are becoming more and more automated. Nevertheless, full automation is improbable in the medium term since human abilities cannot yet be completely replaced. Therefore, it is likely that so-called hybrid human–robot teams will assume the future production. This raises questions regarding the shaping of future production and the effects it will have on the employees, workstations, and the companies as a whole. The project “Work in the Industry of the Future” addresses the entirely new (...) cooperative relationship between man and technology in the Industry 4.0 and its impact on opportunities for the work force. To derive the requirements and effects of hybrid workplaces, an initial work analysis of existing workplaces with varying levels of technological enhancement will be conducted. Multiple standardized work analysis instruments that vary in method, duration, level of analysis, and recorded characteristics already exist. This paper gives an overview of an assortment of these methods that can be used in production. (shrink)

Time processing is a multifaceted skill crucial for managing different aspects of life. In the current work, we explored the relationship between interoception and time processing by examining research on clinical models. We investigated whether time processing deficits are associated with dysfunction of the interoceptive system and/or insular cortex activity, which is crucial in decoding internal body signaling. Furthermore, we explored whether insular activation predicts the subjective experience of time (that is, the subjective duration of a target stimulus to be (...) timed). Overall, our work suggests that alteration of the interoceptive system could be a common psychophysiological hallmark of mental disorders affected by time processing deficits. (shrink)

Although informed consent is an integral part of clinical practice, its current doctrine remains mostly a matter of law and mainstream ethics rather than empirical research. There are scarce empirical data on patients’ perceived purpose of informed consent, which may include administrative routine/courtesy gesture, simple honest permission, informed permission, patient-clinician shared decision-making, and enabling patient’s self decision-making. Different purposes require different processes.

The field of medicine provides an important window through which to examine the encounters between religion and science, and between modernity and tradition. While both religion and science consider health to be a ‘good’ that is to be preserved, and promoted, religious and science-based teachings may differ in their conception of what constitutes good health, and how that health is to be achieved. This paper analyzes the way the Islamic ethico-legal tradition assesses the permissibility of using vaccines that contain porcine-derived (...) components by referencing opinions of several Islamic authorities. In the Islamic ethico-legal tradition controversy surrounds the use of proteins from an animal (pig) that is considered to be impure by Islamic law. As we discuss the Islamic ethico-legal constructs used to argue for or against the use of porcine-based vaccines we will call attention to areas where modern medical data may make the arguments more precise. By highlighting areas where science can buttress and clarify the ethico-legal arguments we hope to spur an enhanced applied Islamic bioethics discourse where religious scholars and medical experts use modern science in a way that remains faithful to the epistemology of Islamic ethics to clarify what Islam requires of Muslim patients and healthcare workers. (shrink)

Neurofibromatosis type 1 is associated with peripheral and central nervous system tumors. It is noteworthy that the regions in which these tumors frequently arise are the optic pathways and the brainstem. Thus, we decided to trace the procedure of diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging alterations along with Short-Wavelength Automated Perimetry examinations of the OPs after surgery and chemotherapy over 1 year, which enabled us to evaluate chemotherapy's efficacy in an NF1 patient with an OP tumor. In this study, a 25-year-old woman (...) with NF1 and left optic radiation glioma underwent surgery to remove the glioma. Immunohistochemistry revealed a Pilocytic Astrocytoma WHO grade I. Post-operation chemotherapy done using nine treatment cycles of administering Temozolomide for 5 days every 4 weeks. Applying the region of interest differential tractography method and SWAP four times every 3 months allowed us to follow the patient's visual acuity alterations longitudinally. The differential deterministic tractography method and statistical analyses enabled us to discover the white matter tracts anisotropy alterations over time. Furthermore, statistical analyses on the SWAP results along time illustrated possible alterations in visual acuity. Then, we could compare and associate the findings with the SWAP examinations and patient symptoms longitudinally. Statistical analyses of SWAP tests revealed a significant improvement in visual fields, and longitudinal differential tractography showed myelination and dense axonal packing in the left OR after 1 year of treatment. In this study, we examined an old hypothesis suggesting that chemotherapy is more effective than radiotherapy for NF1 patients with OP gliomas because of the radiation side effects on the visual field, cognition, and cerebrovascular complications. Our longitudinal clinical case study involving dMRI and SWAP on a single NF1-OPG patient showed that chemotherapy did not suppress the OP myelination over time. However, it should be noted that this is a clinical case study, and, therefore, the generalization of results is limited. Future investigations might focus on genetic-based imaging, particularly in more cases. Further, meta-analyses are recommended for giving a proper Field Of View to researchers as a subtle clue regarding precision medicine. (shrink)

The psychological cost on emotional well-being due to the collateral damage brought about by COVID-19 in accessing oncological services for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment has been documented by recent studies in the United Kingdom. The current study set out to examine the effect of delays to scheduled oncology services on emotional and cognitive vulnerability in women with a breast cancer diagnosis in Iran, one of the very first countries to be heavily impacted by COVID-19. One hundred thirty-nine women with (...) a diagnosis of primary breast cancer answered a series of online questionnaires to assess the current state of rumination, worry, and cognitive vulnerability as well as the emotional impact of COVID-19 on their mental health. Results indicated that delays in accessing oncology services significantly increased COVID related emotional vulnerability. Regression analyses revealed that after controlling for the effects of sociodemographic and clinical variables, women’s COVID related emotional vulnerability explained higher levels of ruminative response and chronic worry as well as poorer cognitive function. This study is the first in Iran to demonstrate that the effects of COVID-19 on emotional health amongst women affected by breast cancer can exaggerate anxiety and depressive related symptoms increasing risks for clinical levels of these disorders. Our findings call for an urgent need to address these risks using targeted interventions exercising resilience. (shrink)

Much has been said about the need for improving the current definitions of scientific authorship, but an aspect that is often overlooked is how to formulate and communicate these definitions to ensure that they are comprehensible and useful for researchers, notably researchers active in international research consortia. In light of a rapid increase in international collaborations within natural sciences, this article uses authorship of this branch of sciences as an example and provides suggestions to improve the comprehensibility of the definitions (...) of authorship in natural sciences. It assesses whether the definition of authorship provided by the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity can deal with current issues and problems of scientific authorship. Notably, problems that are experienced in project groups with researchers coming from multiple countries. Using theories developed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Merton, a normative framework is developed to articulate ethical authorship in natural sciences. Accordingly, enriching the current definition of authorship with normative elements and using discipline-specific metaphors to communicate them are introduced as possible ways of improving the comprehensibility of the definition of authorship in international environments. Finally, this article provides a proposal to be considered in the future revisions of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. (shrink)

Divided into five parts, the book provides general background information on Biruni's time, his world, and his life. It includes the full names of the 183 books written by Biruni. The titles of these books are given in Arabic, Persian, transliteration of the Arabic title, and English, and they are all annotated and if available the number of folios is given for each one. A list of available references in English on Biruni, including articles, bibliographies, books, internet sites, a dissertation, (...) and even a film. A list of Persian reference sources is also included. (shrink)

Radicalism has the potential to become more widespread in a younger generation of Muslims who are too textual, exclusive, extreme and uncritical. Their ethos of struggle has created a momentum to contest radical ideologies of Islamic radicals. This study investigates the potential for the radicalisation of Islamic students in Indonesia and formulates an approach of integrating national and religious values to mitigate the potential for radicalism. A qualitative research approach is used, and data were collected by distributing questionnaires to Indonesian (...) Islamic student activists. Interviews were also conducted with experts to strengthen secondary sources of information. The results show that the potential for Islamic student to be exposed to radical activists is high. Through categorisation, interpretation and analysis, it was found that the concepts and spread of radicalism were more influenced by religious interpretations than social tolerance factors. In addition, the religious nationalist approach is formulated based on religious terminology and religious narratives. CONTRIBUTION: This research contributes by assisting colleges' efforts in building a detection system and mitigating the risk of student radicalism through a religious nationalist approach. (shrink)

As the world keeps advancing, the need for automated interconnected devices has started to gain significance; to cater to the condition, a new concept Internet of Things has been introduced that revolves around smart devicesʼ conception. These smart devices using IoT can communicate with each other through a network to attain particular objectives, i.e., automation and intelligent decision making. IoT has enabled the users to divide their household burden with machines as these complex machines look after the environment variables and (...) control their behavior accordingly. As evident, these machines use sensors to collect vital information, which is then the complexity analyzed at a computational node that then smartly controls these devicesʼ operational behaviors. Deep learning-based guessing attack protection algorithms have been enhancing IoT security; however, it still has a critical challenge for the complex industries’ IoT networks. One of the crucial aspects of such systems is the need to have a significant training time for processing a large dataset from the networkʼs previous flow of data. Traditional deep learning approaches include decision trees, logistic regression, and support vector machines. However, it is essential to note that this convenience comes with a price that involves security vulnerabilities as IoT networks are prone to be interfered with by hackers who can access the sensor/communication data and later utilize it for malicious purposes. This paper presents the experimental study of cryptographic algorithms to classify the types of encryption algorithms into the asymmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithm. It presents a deep analysis of AES, DES, 3DES, RSA, and Blowfish based on timing complexity, size, encryption, and decryption performances. It has been assessed in terms of the guessing attack in real-time deep learning complex IoT applications. The assessment has been done using the simulation approach and it has been tested the speed of encryption and decryption of the selected encryption algorithms. For each encryption and decryption, the tests executed the same encryption using the same plaintext for five separate times, and the average time is compared. The key size used for each encryption algorithm is the maximum bytes the cipher can allow. To the comparison, the average time required to compute the algorithm by the three devices is used. For the experimental test, a set of plaintexts is used in the simulation—password-sized text and paragraph-sized text—that achieves target fair results compared to the existing algorithms in real-time deep learning networks for IoT applications. (shrink)

Much has been said about the need for improving the current definitions of scientific authorship, but an aspect that is often overlooked is how to formulate and communicate these definitions to ensure that they are comprehensible and useful for researchers, notably researchers active in international research consortia. In light of a rapid increase in international collaborations within natural sciences, this article uses authorship of this branch of sciences as an example and provides suggestions to improve the comprehensibility of the definitions (...) of authorship in natural sciences. It assesses whether the definition of authorship provided by the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity can deal with current issues and problems of scientific authorship. Notably, problems that are experienced in project groups with researchers coming from multiple countries. Using theories developed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Merton, a normative framework is developed to articulate ethical authorship in natural sciences. Accordingly, enriching the current definition of authorship with normative elements and using discipline-specific metaphors to communicate them are introduced as possible ways of improving the comprehensibility of the definition of authorship in international environments. Finally, this article provides a proposal to be considered in the future revisions of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTVirtue ethics, a topic of growing interest in media ethics and philosophy more broadly, poses challenges for classroom instruction because it is rooted in long-term development of character. This article explores approaches for incorporating virtue into media ethics instruction and assessing associated student learning, based on an analysis of how students in a journalism ethics class demonstrated their understanding and application of virtues through activities tailored to virtue ethics. The analysis, in addition to suggesting the value of assignments such as (...) an exemplar paper for learning and assessment, highlights several challenges instructors should consider in both teaching and evaluating virtue instruction. (shrink)

The discourse on the integration of science and Islam is being realised through the establishment of various Islamic religious universities in Indonesia. One of the Islamic universities that accommodates this discourse is the Al-Qur’an Science University, Central Java, Indonesia (UNSIQ). This study aims to examine the basic concept of scientific integration at the UNSIQ and critically analyses the academic tradition and research development patterns based on the Lakatos research development pattern, both of which are hard-core and auxiliary hypotheses. This research (...) shows that the scientific base at the UNSIQ has been structured in an awareness that supports the establishment of a distinctive academic tradition and scientific culture in the framework of al-Qur’an-based academic knowledge. However, research as auxiliary hypotheses in building scientific paradigm is still limited in certain disciplines and needs to be improved. This needs to be a common concern in order to increase the scientific base of the Syajarah al-Qur’an into a solid scientific paradigm.Contribution: This research figured out that the scientific base at the UNSIQ has been structured in an awareness that supports the establishment of a distinctive academic tradition and scientific culture, but this scientific base needs to be supported by research plan and researches in various disciplines. Thus, those researches become the auxiliary hypotheses to build a particular scientific paradigm of this university. (shrink)

The most prominent form of human communication and interaction is speech. It plays an indispensable role for expressing emotions, motivating, guiding, and cheering. An ill-intentioned speech can mislead people, societies, and even a nation. A misguided speech can trigger social controversy and can result in violent activities. Every day, there are a lot of speeches being delivered around the world, which are quite impractical to inspect manually. In order to prevent any vicious action resulting from any misguided speech, the development (...) of an automatic system that can efficiently detect suspicious speech has become imperative. In this study, we have presented a framework for acquisition of speech along with the location of the speaker, converting the speeches into texts and, finally, we have proposed a system based on long short-term memory which is a variant of recurrent neural network to classify speeches into suspicious and nonsuspicious. We have considered speeches of Bangla language and developed our own dataset that contains about 5000 suspicious and nonsuspicious samples for training and validating our model. A comparative analysis of accuracy among other machine learning algorithms such as logistic regression, SVM, KNN, Naive Bayes, and decision tree is performed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the system. The experimental results show that our proposed deep learning-based model provides the highest accuracy compared to other algorithms. (shrink)

Decision-makers in governments, enterprises, businesses and agencies or individuals, typically, make decisions according to various regulations, guidelines and policies based on existing records stored in various databases, in particular, relational databases. To assist decision-makers, an expert system, encompasses interactive computer-based systems or subsystems to support the decision-making process. Typically, most expert systems are built on top of transaction systems, databases, and data models and restricted in decision-making to the analysis, processing and presenting data and information, and they do not provide (...) support for the normative layer. This paper will provide a solution to one specific problem that arises from this situation, namely the lack of tool/mechanism to demonstrate how an expert system is well-suited for supporting decision-making activities drawn from existing records and relevant legal requirements aligned existing records stored in various databases.We present a Rule-based reporting systems architecture, which is intended to integrate databases, in particular, relational databases, with a logic-based reasoner and rule engine to assist in decision-making or create reports according to legal norms. We argue that the resulting RuleRS provides an efficient and flexible solution to the problem at hand using defeasible inference. To this end, we have also conducted empirical evaluations of RuleRS performance. (shrink)

BackgroundConsenting for retrospective medical records-based research (MR) and leftover tissue-based research (TR) continues to be controversial. Our objective was to survey Saudis attending outpatient clinics at a tertiary care hospital on their personal preference and perceptions of norm and current practice in relation to consenting for MR and TR.MethodsWe surveyed 528 Saudis attending clinics at a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia to explore their preferences and perceptions of norm and current practice. The respondents selected one of 7 options from (...) each of 6 questionnaires.ResultsRespondents' mean (SD) age was 33 (11) years, 42% were males, 56% were patients, 84% had ≥ secondary school education, and 10% had previously volunteered for research. Respectively, 40% and 49% perceived that the norm is to conduct MR and TR without consent and 38% and 37% with general or proposal-specific consent; the rest objected to such research. There was significant difference in the distribution of choices according to health status (patients vs. companions) for MR (adjusted Kruskal-Wallis test P = 0.03) but not to age group, gender, education level, or previous participation in research (unadjusted P = 0.02 - 0.59). The distributions of perceptions of current practice and norm were similar (unadjusted Marginal Homogeneity test P = 0.44 for MR and P = 0.89 for TR), whereas the distributions of preferences and perceptions of norm were different (adjusted P = 0.09 for MR and P = 0.02 for TR). The distributions of perceptions of norm, preferences, and perceptions of current practice for MR were significantly different from those of TR (adjusted P < 0.009 for all).ConclusionsWe conclude that: 1) there is a considerable diversity among Saudi views regarding consenting for retrospective research which may be related to health status, 2) the distribution of perceptions of norm was similar to the distribution of perceptions of current practice but different from that of preferences, and 3) MR and TR are perceived differently in regard to consenting. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between urban culture and street vending. Prior research on this topic is limited and inconclusive. Therefore, we have proposed an integrated model to test the positive effect of urban culture on street vending using multiple mediations of consumption patterns, resistance, and microfinance. We tested a sample of 425 responses that reflect the public opinion in Baghdad, Iraq. These responses were collected between September and November 2018. A partial least squares–based structural equation modeling is employed to (...) test the validity of measurement models and the significance of the entire structural model, predictive power, and mediation analysis. We found that resistance mediates the effect of urban culture on street vending; low-income consumption and resistance sequentially mediate the effect of urban culture on street vending, while resistance mediates the effect of a lack of microfinance on street vending. The direct impact of culture on street vending is not significant, and a lack of microfinance positively influences the pervasiveness of trading on streets. This study contributes to the extant literature as it proposed and tested a novel and comprehensive model to analyze the relationship between urban culture and street vending, simultaneously examining the effects of culture, consumption, resistance, and microfinance on street vending. (shrink)

Background:The concept of patient advocacy is still poorly understood and not clearly conceptualized. Therefore, there is a gap between the ideal of patient advocacy and the reality of practice. In order to increase nursing actions as a patient advocate, a comprehensive and clear definition of this concept is necessary.Research objective:This study aimed to offer a comprehensive and clear definition of patient advocacy.Research design:A total of 46 articles and 2 books published between 1850 and 2016 and related to the concept of (...) patient advocacy were selected from six databases and considered for concept analysis based on Rodgers’ evolutionary approach.Ethical considerations:This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tarbiat Modares University.Findings:The attributes of patient advocacy are safeguarding (track medical errors, and protecting patients from incompetency or misconduct of co-workers and other members of healthcare team), apprising (providing information about the patient’s diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, suggesting alternatives of healthcare, and providing information about discharge program), valuing (maintaining self-control, enabling patients to make decisions freely, maintaining individualization and humanity, maintaining patient privacy, and acting in the patients’ values, culture, beliefs, and preferences), mediating (liaison between patients, families, and healthcare professionals, being patients’ voice, and communicate patient preferences and cultural values to members of the healthcare team), and championing social justice in the provision of healthcare (confronting inappropriate policies or rules in the healthcare system, identifying and correcting inequalities in delivery of health services, and facilitating access to community health services and health resources).Discussion and conclusion:The analysis of this concept can help to develop educational or managerial theories, design instruments for evaluating the performance of nurses in patient advocacy, develop strategies for enhancing patient advocacy, and improve the safety and quality of nursing care in the community and healthcare system. (shrink)

Recent studies highlight the need for ethical and equitable digital health research that protects the rights and interests of racialized communities. We argue for practices in digital health that promote data self-determination for these communities, especially in data collection and management. We suggest that researchers partner with racialized communities to curate data that reflects their wellness understandings and health priorities, and respects their consent over data use for policy and other outcomes. These data governance approach honors and builds on Indigenous (...) Data Sovereignty (IDS) decolonial scholarship by Indigenous and non-indigenous researchers and its adaptations to health research involving racialized communities from former European colonies in the global South. We discuss strategies to practice equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility and decolonization (EDIAD) principles in digital health. We draw upon and adapt the concept of Precision Health Equity (PHE) to emphasize models of data sharing that are co-defined by racialized communities and researchers, and stress their shared governance and stewardship of data that is generated from digital health research. This paper contributes to an emerging research on equity issues in digital health and reducing health, institutional, and technological disparities. It also promotes the self-determination of racialized peoples through ethical data management. (shrink)

A generic extension of the constructible universe by reals is defined, in which the union of ‐classes of x and y is a lightface set, but neither of these two ‐classes is separately ordinal‐definable.

Emergency care providers regularly deal with ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. In comparison with in-hospital nurses, emergency medical service personnel are faced with more problems such as distance to resources including personnel, medico-technical aids, and information; the unpredictable atmosphere at the scene; arriving at the crime scene and providing emergency care for accident victims and patients at home. As a result of stressfulness, unpredictability, and often the life threatening nature of tasks that ambulance professionals have to deal with every (...) day, ethical decision-making has become an inevitable challenge. The content analysis approach was used to conduct the present qualitative study in Iran. The participants consisted of 14 EMS personnel selected through purposive sampling, which continued until the data became saturated. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed concurrently with their collection through the constant comparison method. The process of data analysis resulted in the emergence of 3 main categories “respecting client’s values”, “performing tasks within the professional manner”, “personal characteristic”, and the emergence of eight sub-categories signifying participants’ experiences with regard to EDM. According to the results, when EMS personnel are faced with ethical dilemmas, they consider the client’s values and professional dignity, and perform the assigned tasks within the framework of the regulation. The findings also suggest that pre-hospital care providers assess legal consequences before making any decision. Further studies should be conducted regarding the experiences of the subordinates and other related parties. (shrink)

This article provides the findings of a quantitative and qualitative study of participants from the prematurely cancelled Ontario Basic Income Pilot in the Hamilton region. We compare our evidence with those of other large-scale experiments from the high-income countries between 1968 and 2019 to place OBIP’s findings in the context of evidence from randomized control experiments with similar policy conditions to Ontario’s. Our study identified a small decline in labour market participation, but improvements on a variety of quality-of-life measurements. We (...) hypothesize that OBIPs comparatively positive results on general well-being can be attributed to its: i) generous benefit rates relative to social assistance rates; ii) 50 percent take back rate; and iii) unconditionality; iv) broad well-being/welfare design. (shrink)

Appealing to some analytic tools developed by contemporary analytic philosophers, I discuss Avicenna’s views regarding the problem(s) of linguistic and mental reference to non-existents, also known as the problem(s) of ‘empty intentionality’. I argue that, according to Avicenna, being in an intentional state directed towards an existing thing involves three elements: (1) an indirect relation to that thing, (2) a direct relation to a mental representation of that thing, and (3) a direct relation to the essence of that thing. Empty (...) intentionality does not involve the first element. Moreover, depending on the nature of the non-existent we are thinking about, the third element may not be involved either. Thus, the necessary element of being in an intentional state towards something is to be related to a mental representation of that thing. The nature of this representation may vary depending on the nature of the non-existent towards which our thought is directed. (shrink)

The article at hand presents the results of a literature review on the ethical issues related to scientific authorship. These issues are understood as questions and/or concerns about obligations, values or virtues in relation to reporting, authorship and publication of research results. For this purpose, the Web of Science core collection was searched for English resources published between 1945 and 2018, and a total of 324 items were analyzed. Based on the review of the documents, ten ethical themes have been (...) identified, some of which entail several ethical issues. Ranked on the basis of their frequency of occurrence these themes are: 1) attribution, 2) violations of the norms of authorship, 3) bias, 4) responsibility and accountability, 5) authorship order, 6) citations and referencing, 7) definition of authorship, 8) publication strategy, 9) originality, and 10) sanctions. In mapping these themes, the current article explores major ethical issue and provides a critical discussion about the application of codes of conduct, various understandings of culture, and contributing factors to unethical behavior. (shrink)

In the article of Bueno titled “Davidson and Skepticism: How Not to Respond to the Skeptic,” he intends to demonstrate that although Davidson’s theory of Coherence holds many attractions, it does not entail a response to any kinds of skepticism including Global, Lottery, and Pyrrhonian. In this study, the goal is to criticize the work of Prof. Bueno in connection with two criticisms raised by him over Davidson’s anti-skeptical strategy. Further, by giving some reasons in favor of Davidson’s anti-skepticism argument, (...) it will be shown that neither the above stated criticisms nor the global skepticism response could undermine the validity of anti-skepticism argument. (shrink)

Street vendors are prominent on public streets and in traditional markets in most developing countries. They raise significant problems for public authorities, residents, pedestrians, and formal retailers. Their informal business is problematic, leading to conflicts and sometimes violence. Moreover, unlicensed street vendors employ children and women and are accused of counterfeiting and drug trading. However, they participate in reducing poverty and unemployment. The current data article aims to formulate a public perception on the problematic issue of street vending pervasiveness by (...) describing a survey dataset on street vending and its main driving factors. Street vending has traditionally be examined by linking it with one or more determinants; thus, the dataset covers poverty, lack of education, immigration, unemployment, urban culture, low-income consumption, resistance, and lack of microfinance as latent constructs. Five measurable variables are introduced that reflect each construct. All variables are measured via seven-point Likert scales. Using a Google Form, 425 responses were collected that reflect the attitudes of the general public in Baghdad, Iraq. This dataset is useful for research on socio-economic problems; more specifically, it introduces reliable measurement models for street vending and the eight factors driving it. (shrink)

There has recently been a surge of development in augmented reality (AR) technologies that has led to an ecosystem of hardware and software for AR, including tools for artists and designers to accelerate the design of AR content and experiences without requiring complex programming. AR is viewed as a key “disruptive technology” and future display technologies (such as digital eyewear) will provide seamless continuity between reality and the digitally augmented. This article will argue that the technologization of human perception and (...) experience of reality, coupled with the development of artificial intelligence (AI)–based natural language assistants, may lead to a secular re‐enchantment of the world, in the sense outlined by Charles Taylor, where human existence is shaped through AR inhabited by advanced personal and social AI agents in the form of digital avatars and daemons, and that enchantment has been persistent throughout the formation of modernity and is being rekindled by the integration of AI in the plane of AR. (shrink)

For more than a decade, Iran has been referring to a fatwa issued by its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, proscribing nuclear weapons. The fatwa, however, not only failed to influence the process that led to the resolution of Iran’s nuclear crisis, but also has been met with a good deal of skepticism. The most commonly held suspicions about the credibility of the fatwa can be summed up in five central questions: Has the nuclear fatwa actually been issued? Does the fatwa (...) apply to all the aspects of nuclear weapons including their production, possession and use? What is the juridical status of the fatwa? Was the nuclear fatwa issued only to deceive other nations? Is the fatwa really irreversible? This article tries to answer these questions by providing a chronological review of the fatwa and analyzing all the relevant statements by Khamenei. The analysis is conducted against the background of Islamic principles, Shi’a jurisprudence and the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The article concludes that the fatwa is a credible religious decree and could indeed contribute to the cause of nuclear disarmament. (shrink)

Non-communicable diseases disproportionately affect low and middle-income countries where nearly three quarters of NCD deaths occur. Bangladesh is also in NCD burden. This cross-sectional study was done on 50 health facilities centres at Gazipur district in Bangladesh from July 2015 to December 2015 to introduce SARA for better monitoring and evaluation of non-communicable diseases health service delivery. The General Service readiness index score was 61.52% refers to the fact that about 62% of all the facilities were ready to provide general (...) services like basic amenities, basic equipment, standard precautions for infection prevention, and diagnostic capacity and essential medicines to the patients. But in case of non-communicable diseases, among all the health facilities 40% had chronic respiratory disease and cardiovascular diseases diagnosis/ management and only 32% had availability of diabetes diagnosis/management. Overall readiness score was 52% in chronic respiratory disease, 73% in cardiovascular disease and 70% in diabetes. Therefore, service availability and readiness of the health facilities to provide NCD related health services were not up to the mark for facing future targets. A full-scale census survey of all the facilities of the study area would give a better understanding of the availability and service readiness. (shrink)

Publication date: 27 August 2018 Source: Author: Mohammad Safari, Mahdi Zamani Mazdeh What matters in strategic management for the organization and can move the organization forward, is translating the strategies developed in the strategic planning phase into the operational program in the implementation phase. In other words, cascading the strategic plan into a form of an operational program is a key to organizational success. Strategic success will be achieved if the right strategies are cascaded in the organization rightly. The (...) purpose of this research is to provide a framework for the strategic plan cascading into steps and an operational process to facilitate its implementation in the organization. For this purpose, the mission-focused organizations were considered. These organizations go beyond profitability and following the implementation of strategies and action plans are in searching to fulfill the mission for which it is designed and developed. Here, the ultimate goal is to achieve a designated and defined mission. This qualitative analytic research is seeking to provide a framework for cascading organizational strategies using a scientific and applied approach. After presenting the research's conceptual framework, in order to test and analysis the model, using experts' viewpoints through a questionnaire required data was gathered and analyzed. The results and findings of this research show that for the implementation of the developed strategies, a systematic and stepwise model is needed that consists of several stages: the formulation of strategies, the prioritization of strategies with strategic tools, comparative studies to find the transformation of the strategy into the program, and finally the design of the operational program and its quantitative objectives and measures. (shrink)

Biometrics readers are deployed in many public sites and are used for user identification and verification. Nowadays, most biometrics readers can be connected to local area networks, and consequently, they are potential targets for network attacks. This article investigates the robustness of several fingerprint and iris readers against common denial of service attacks. This investigation has been conducted using a set of laboratory experiments and DoS attack generator tools. The experiments show clearly that the tested biometric readers are very vulnerable (...) to common DoS attacks, and their recognition performances deteriorate significantly once they are under DoS attacks. Finally, the article lists some security consideration that should be taken into consideration when designing secure biometrics readers. (shrink)

Retractions solicited by authors following the discovery of an unintentional error—what we henceforth call a “self-retraction”—are a new phenomenon of growing importance, about which very little is known. Here we present results of a small qualitative study aimed at gaining preliminary insights about circumstances, motivations and beliefs that accompanied the experience of a self-retraction. We identified retraction notes that unambiguously reported an honest error and that had been published between the years 2010 and 2015. We limited our sample to retractions (...) with at least one co-author based in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany or a Scandinavian country, and we invited these authors to a semi-structured interview. Fourteen authors accepted our invitation. Contrary to our initial assumptions, most of our interviewees had not originally intended to retract their paper. They had contacted the journal to request a correction and the decision to retract had been made by journal editors. All interviewees reported that having to retract their own publication made them concerned for their scientific reputation and career, often causing considerable stress and anxiety. Interviewees also encountered difficulties in communicating with the journal and recalled other procedural issues that had unnecessarily slowed down the process of self-retraction. Intriguingly, however, all interviewees reported how, contrary to their own expectations, the self-retraction had brought no damage to their reputation and in some cases had actually improved it. We also examined the ethical motivations that interviewees ascribed, retrospectively, to their actions and found that such motivations included a combination of moral and prudential considerations. These preliminary results suggest that scientists would welcome innovations to facilitate the process of self-retraction. (shrink)

In this article, we try to study Clark Pinnock’s point of view in explaining the methodological foundations of the Open Theism Theory with a descriptive-analytical method so that we can have a fair critique of the strengths and weaknesses of this theory while also understanding it correctly. Pinnock can be considered one of the most important theorists and founders of Open Theism. In his view, Open Theism is one of the theological-philosophical theories that have emerged in the critique of the (...) teachings of traditional Christian theology and consider its claims to be logically and narratively contradictory. Pinnock believes that open theists sanctify God as acknowledged in the Bible and that some of the attributes of God in traditional theology should be revised and modified based on the text of the Bible. They believe that God is the God of the Bible; someone who is truly connected to the world, a relationship that requires the most mobility, not immobility. In this view, God is portrayed as a triune relationship-oriented truth, which seeks romantic relationships with human beings and thereby grants them true freedom. Finally, since open theists believe that theology should be understood by the people of the present age, a better explanation of theology depends on reliance on modern philosophy and its effects. In modern philosophy, method and methodology have become very important. In general, methodology is the knowledge that recognizes “how to go” and the fundamental methodology reveals the hidden principles of each theory and creates the basis for its basic critique. Of course, the purpose of this article is specifically to examine the “basics” of Pinnacle’s method, not his “method.” In fact, the report presented by his method is a platform for examining the basics. From the author’s point of view, most of the mistakes that have been made in traditional theology are also reflected in Open Theism; leading in another way! That is to say, most of the objections that Pinnock made to traditional theologians also apply to him. For example, why is it bad to be influenced by Greek philosophy, but Open Theism’s claims can be influenced by modern philosophy? Do ancient philosophy and modern philosophy have precise and acceptable boundaries at all? On what basis do open theists claim that modern philosophy is more acceptable to modern people than ancient philosophy? Can mere simultaneity justify it? If we take as a basis the claim of open theists – that every thought comes “from somewhere” and that no thought is pristine – the encounter of open theists with the text of the Bible is also done with the presuppositions of modern philosophy, and their pivotal mindset has influenced their understanding of the Bible. How can one be sure that the path taken by theology is more correct than the path taken by its predecessors? Since a better understanding of each theory is gained by reflecting on its foundations, in this article we intend to examine the methodological foundations of Open Theism by looking at the book Most Moved Mover. In general, from Pinnock’s point of view, the method of open theism can be based on the three main bases of the critical study of the interpretation of traditional theologians, return to the Bible and overcoming Hellenism, and attention to modern philosophy, which we will describe and critique. (shrink)

The study contributes to building an understanding of the impact of political forces on the information environment of listed firms in a developing economy. Specifically, it investigates the tensions between politico-institutional factors and accounting regulation on the prolonged and incomplete implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards in Bangladesh from 1998 to 2010. Two phases of interviews were conducted in 2010–2011 and IFRS-related enforcement documents from 1998 to 2010 were evaluated. The study contributes that IFRSs are being diffused to developing (...) countries like Bangladesh, but they invariably interact with local institutions, with variable outcomes. Coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphisms are low in Bangladesh. Notably, political forces have been undermining mimetic isomorphism because of the high level of government intervention and the high level of political lobbying. Political institutional pressures stand in the way of mimetic isomorphism and constitute negative forces that add further tension to accounting regulation in Bangladesh. Regarding the low level of normative isomorphism, there is evidence of a ‘blame culture’, with state institutions and professional accountancy institutions in the country blaming each other for the poor progress in IFRS implementation. Although the study focuses on Bangladesh, its results have implications for international policy makers, as well as the governments and regulators of other developing economies facing similar challenges in implementing IFRS. (shrink)

The medieval Islamic solutions to the liar paradox can be categorized into three different families. According to the solutions of the first family, the liar sentences are not well-formed truth-apt sentences. The solutions of the second family are based on a violation of the classical principles of logic (e.g. the principle of non-contradiction). Finally, the solutions of the third family render the liar sentences as simply false without any contradiction. In the Islamic tradition, almost all the well-known solutions of the (...) third family are inspired by the solution proposed by At_īr al-Dīn al-Abharī (d. 1265). Providing a logical analysis of his discussion of the liar paradox, I show that his solution is based on a conception of truth according to which every sentence signifies, usually among other things, its own truth. This makes Abharī’s solution of the same spirit as certain solutions that were later developed in the Latin tradition, in particular by John Buridan (d. 1358) and Albert of Saxony (d. 1390). (shrink)

We show that if [Formula: see text] then any nontrivial [Formula: see text]-closed forcing notion of size [Formula: see text] is forcing equivalent to [Formula: see text] the Cohen forcing for adding a new Cohen subset of [Formula: see text] We also produce, relative to the existence of suitable large cardinals, a model of [Formula: see text] in which [Formula: see text] and all [Formula: see text]-closed forcing notion of size [Formula: see text] collapse [Formula: see text] and hence are (...) forcing equivalent to [Formula: see text] These results answer a question of Scott Williams from 1978. We also extend a result of Todorcevic and Foreman–Magidor–Shelah by showing that it is consistent that every partial order which adds a new subset of [Formula: see text] collapses [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

The objective of the present work is to develop a theory of meaning based on the method of transcendental phenomenology. The key idea of the project is to explain the constitution of the meaning by means of the analyses of the intentionality. We have investigated different intentional acts which are functioning in the expression and in constructing the meanings. In this regard we have studied, first, the act of the primordial expression, in which a content of an intuition is raised (...) to the realm of the ideal, and then the acts of the categorial synthesis, in which further meanings are constituted in the absence of their proper intuition. -/- We have investigated the effects of the phenomenological theory of meaning to the conception of pure logic. Dialogical semantics is shown to be an adequate framework, from the phenomenological point of view, to interpret logical reasoning and to explain the meaning of the logical constants as well. -/- We have also discussed the meanings of some logical connectives, and their formalizations, using our phenomenologico-dialogical method. In particular, the meaning explanations of negation(s), strict implication and necessity are given in a way which is not model theoretic nor proof theoretic, but based on the transcendental intentionality as manifested in the course of the dialogue. (shrink)