The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect and use of distributed practice in the context of self-regulated mathematical learning in high school. With distributed practice, a fixed learning duration is spread over several sessions, whereas with massed practice, the same time is spent learning in one session. Distributed practice has been proven to be an effective tool for improving long-term retention of verbal material and simple procedural knowledge in mathematics, at least when the practice schedule is (...) externally guided. In the present study, distributed practice was investigated in a context that required a higher degree of self-regulation. In total, 158 secondary school students were invited to participate. After motivational and cognitive characteristics of the students were assessed, the students were introduced to basic statistics, a topic of their regular curriculum. At the end of the introduction, the students could sign up for the study to further practice this content. Eighty-seven students did so and were randomly assigned either to the distributed or to the massed practice condition. In the distributed practice condition, they received three practice sets on three different days. In the massed practice condition, they received the same three sets, but all on one day. All exercises were worked in the context of self-regulated learning at home. Performance was tested two weeks after the last practice set. Only 44 students finished the study, which hampered the analysis of the effect of distributed practice. The characteristics of the students who completed the exercises were analyzed exploratory: The proportion of students who finished all exercises was significantly higher in the massed than in the distributed practice condition. Within the distributed practice condition, a significantly larger proportion of female students completed the exercises compared to male students. Additionally, among these female students, a larger proportion showed lower concentration difficulty. No such differential effects were revealed in the massed practice condition. Our results suggest that the use of distributed practice in the context of self-regulated learning might depend on learner characteristics. Accordingly, distributed practice might obtain more reliable effects in more externally guided learning contexts. (shrink)

The critical narrative of this interdisciplinary book offers a first-time look at the interrelationship between biology, mythology and philosophy in human development. Its daring premise follows the trajectory of human thought, starting with the biological roots of fear and the original need for religion, truth-seeking, and myth-making. The narrative then innovatively links a number of maverick philosophical teachings over the centuries, from pre-Buddhist times to the Buddha, from Epicurus and Pyrrho to Lucretius, and eventually to the seminal poetry of Omar (...) Khayyam. These emergent philosophies exemplified liberation from the grasp of mythical and religious thinking and instead espoused an empirical and joyful mind. The narrative concludes with a look at the emancipating philosophical movement that resulted in the European Enlightenment, and it suggests that the philosophical teachings explored in the book may offer the potential for a second, broader Enlightenment. (shrink)

The Islamic Republic of Iran is unsecular and follows religious interpretations from Shia Islam in deciding the laws of the land. In recent decades, the strengthening of civil society in the country has shaped various political debates on human rights among secular intellectuals and reflected in the discourse of some religious figures as well. While the regime has officially adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) since 1990, different views on the Islamic human rights and its social (...) implications still exist among the conservative and reformist Shia clergy within the country. This paper examines the view of an influential conservative pro-regime clergy, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who has been concerned about the Western interpretation of human rights and engaged in its theorization based on his interpretation of Shia Islam. He has criticized the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and its each single item and has also proposed his own version of the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights and Obligations. While Islamic fundamentalists have no concrete theoretical support for their negative view of the Western conceptions regarding human rights, Mesbah Yazdi’s approach is based on a reading of Shia theology and Sadraean ontology. He engages in a dialogue with the Western ideologies and rejects UDHR after philosophical and theological reasoning. His stance can be viewed as a reflection of the unsecular political Shia Islam as the main characteristic of the conservative faction within the Islamic Republic of Iran which results in serious policy and social implications on the rights of the people living in the country. (shrink)

Pepper & Nettle argue that the more present-oriented behavior associated with a low socioeconomic status is an adaptive response to having relatively little control over the future. However, a study of fasters during Ramadan shows that self-imposed deprivation, which carries no implications regarding the ability to realize deferred rewards, is associated with loss and risk aversion.

BackgroundIn order to achieve the goals of the healthcare system, nursing managers are required to comply with ethical principles in decision-making. In complex and challenging healthcare settings, it is shown that the managers’ mere awareness of ethics does not suffice and managers need to be sensitive toward making ethical decisions.AimTo explore nursing managers and their sensitivity toward ethical decision-making by analyzing their related experiences.MethodThe current study has been conducted in Iran in 2017 through a qualitative content analysis approach. Nineteen nurse (...) managers were selected purposefully from different hospitals in Tehran. Data were collected using semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews, and after transcription, they were analyzed according to the Graneheim and Lundman method.Ethical considerationsThe research was approved by the ethics committee of Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Participants were informed about the purpose of the study and submitted written informed consents regarding their participation. The principle of autonomy, confidentiality, and anonymity was taken into account in data collection.ResultsFifteen subcategories, three categories (assertiveness, commitment, and insight), and one theme of excellent decision-making were the results of data analysis.DiscussionFindings showed that nursing managers’ sensitivity to ethical decision-making allows them to make the best decision by insight, commitment, and assertiveness. Making a morally excellent decision ensures that ethical principles are followed in the healthcare system.ConclusionConsidering that most managers are committed to making ethical decisions, it is required to develop the scope of their insights even further using a professional management and ethical principles training program. Also, by addressing some of the ethical barriers at personal and organizational levels, the assertiveness in managers can be improved, which in turn can facilitate their ethical decision-making. (shrink)

This research aims to examine the specific risk of companies and their effectiveness in various stages of the company life cycle on state and nonstate ownership. For this purpose, the specific risk was estimated using Fama and French three-factor models, and the research objective was examined by considering the data panel model during the period 2015 to 2020 in a statistical sample consisting of 136 companies active in the Tehran Stock Exchange. For this purpose, the main contribution of research is (...) evaluation of the effect of specific risk in different stages of the life cycle of companies admitted to the Tehran Stock Exchange. Therefore, the main valuable advantage to helping stock managers is assessing the impact of government ownership and nongovernment ownership on the specific risk of companies at different stages of the life cycle. Also, presenting a model to show the effects of dependent and independent variables in order to evaluate the impact of government and nongovernment ownership. The research results confirmed that the specific risk of the company in the stages of introduction, growth, and decline is higher compared to the stages of maturity and stagnation of the life cycle of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Because the coefficients of virtual variables related to the life cycle stages of the company are estimated to be significant. Also, the finding confirmed that government ownership significantly affects the relationship between firm risk and life cycle stages in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Because, the coefficient of variable state ownership is negative and significant, indicating a lower specific risk in state-owned companies than in nonstate-owned companies. (shrink)

This article examines the effects on cost stickiness of firms’ involvement in corporate social responsibility activities. Cost stickiness represents asymmetric cost behavior whereby the magnitude of cost increases in response to an increase in the activity level is greater than the magnitude of cost decreases with a decrease in the activity level. We hypothesize that CSR involvement requires ongoing investments in value-creating activities; hence, it is difficult to scale down committed resources instantly even when the activity declines. We use two (...) different CSR proxies and find support for the CSR-related cost stickiness hypothesis. We further decompose CSR into strategic and tactical CSR and find that cost stickiness is more pronounced for strategic CSR. Finally, we examine the CSR-related cost behavior pattern across business cycles and find some evidence of cost stickiness during an expansionary phase of the economy and cost anti-stickiness during a recessionary phase but only for the tactical CSR component. (shrink)

The Polish researcher in the field of logic and philosophy, Jan Woleński, in one of his recent articles, "Metalogical Observations About the Underdetermination of Theories by Empirical Data," logically formalized two weak and strong versions of the underdetermination of theories by empirical data (or UT by abbreviation) and with these formalization has metalogically analyzed these two versions. Finally he has deducted that the weak version is defensible while the strong version is not. In this paper we will critically study Woleński’s (...) analysis of the strong version of UT. (shrink)

Background Workplace Incivility is a common issue in the nursing profession. Nurses who are affected by such behaviors may experience distress. Objectives This study aimed to assess the relationship between workplace incivility and nurses’ professional quality of life. Research design This cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in 2021 in “Tehran”. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, the Nursing Incivility Scale (NIS), and the Professional Quality Of Life scale (ProQOL). Data analysis was performed through the Pearson correlation and multiple linear (...) regression, using the SPSS v.16. Participants and research context Participants were 200 nurses randomly recruited from selected hospitals of “TUMS”. Ethical considerations The study obtained research ethics approval and all participants were informed of the voluntary and anonymous nature of their participation. Findings The mean age of participants was 32.30 ± 7.22, and 76.5% were female. There was a significant correlation between the professional quality of life and workplace incivility ( r = −0.23, p =.001). Multiple regression analysis between the subscales of workplace incivility and professional quality of life demonstrated that the incivility from the supervisor ( β = −0.29, p =.001) and incivility from patients ( β = −0.27, p <.001) can predict the compassion satisfaction dimension. The incivility from the supervisor ( β = 0.24, p =.001) and incivility from patients ( β = 0.26, p <.001) can explain burnout. The incivility of the patients can explain secondary traumatic stress ( β = 0.14, p =.02). Conclusion This study showed that workplace incivility is significantly related to professional quality of life. Therefore, the reduction of behaviors of incivility can lead to the improvement of the professional quality of life. (shrink)

The concept of sustainability was developed in response to stakeholder demands. One of the key mechanisms for engaging stakeholders is sustainability disclosure, often in the form of a report. Yet, how reporting is used to engage stakeholders is understudied. Using resource dependence and stakeholder theories, we investigate how companies within the same industry address different dependencies on stakeholders for economic, natural environment, and social resources and thus engage stakeholders accordingly. To achieve this objective, we conducted our research using qualitative research (...) methods. Our findings suggest that the resource dependencies on different stakeholders lead to development of different stakeholder relationships and thus appropriate resources within the company to execute engagement strategies that are informing, responding, or involving. Our research explains why diversity exists in sustainability disclosure by studying how it is used to engage stakeholders. We find that five sustainability reporting characteristics are associated with the company’s stakeholder engagement strategy: directness of communication, clarity of stakeholder identity, deliberateness of collecting feedback, broadness of stakeholder inclusiveness, and utilization of stakeholder engagement for learning. Our study develops the literature by providing insight into companies’ choices of stakeholder engagement strategy thus explaining diversity in sustainability reporting based on the characteristics and relationships with specific stakeholders. (shrink)

Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist, Ursachen und Faktoren zu ermitteln, die in der Entstehung und Verstärkung von Bildungsungleichheit im iranischen Bildungssystem wirksam sind. Diese Forschung wurde gemäß einem qualitativen Paradigma unter Verwendung der Methode der “Grounded Theory” durchgeführt. Die Daten wurden von einer Fokusgruppe, bestehend aus 20 Teilnehmern, mithilfe der Methode des Tiefeninterviews erhoben. Die Teilnehmer wurden nach dem Prinzip der maximalen Streuung und unter Berücksichtigung des Sättigungspunkts durch eine gezielte Auswahl ausgewählt. Für die Datenanalyse wurde der interpretativ-absorptive Ansatz verwendet. Die (...) Ergebnisse der qualitativen Analyse zeigten, dass einerseits die Bildungsungleichheit im iranischen Bildungssystem von den sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheiten in der Gesellschaft beeinflusst wird, und andererseits das Bildungssystem des Landes und die Struktur, die es regiert, Faktore für die Verstärkung und Ausweitung der Ungleichheiten sind. Nach den Forschungsergebnissen kann mit Sicherheit gesagt werden, dass in der gegenwärtigen Struktur des Bildungswesens der Hauptrahmen des Bildungssystems des Landes, einschließlich der Prinzipien, Ziele, Inhalte, Methoden, Erzieher, und Lernenden, jeweils auf eine bestimmte Art und Weise eine spezifische Rolle bei der Bildungsungleichheit und Ungerechtigkeit in der Gesellschaft spielen. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to explore the process linking participative leadership to organizational identification. The study examines the relationship between participative leadership and internal CSR perceptions of employees and also investigates the role that pride in membership plays in the affiliation of CSR perceptions with organizational identification. By studying these relationships, the paper aspires to contemplate new presumed mediators in the association of participative leadership with organizational identification as well as determine a possible novel antecedent of employee CSR (...) perceptions. Empirical evidence is provided from data that was collected through a survey distributed to employees working for small- and medium-sized enterprises in three countries in the Middle East and North Africa regions, particularly the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Findings show that participative leadership leads to positive internal CSR perceptions of employees and that these CSR perceptions lead to pride in membership which, in turn, results in organizational identification. Implications of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)

The novel COVID-19 has created an exogenous shock to capital markets and, hence, an ideal opportunity for researchers to assess whether CSR-related activities provide an insurance-like mechanism to protect firms against the shock. Using a large sample of 4361 firms domiciled in 40 countries, we investigate the roles of CSR reporting and assurance in the negative consequences of COVID-19 on firm value. The results confirm that prior CSR reporting experience buffers firms against the adverse effects of the health crisis. The (...) results also support that not only does the assurance on CSR reports create a buffering effect against the health crisis, but it also intensifies the buffering effects of prior CSR reporting experience against the pandemic. Moreover, using difference-in-difference method for testing the link between CSR reporting and firm value, we show that the positive association of reporting and assurance with firm value is more pronounced during the pandemic as compared with the years preceding it. The results of this study are robust to various analyses. Replicating the analyses to the context of the global financial crisis, we find that prior CSR reporting experience and assurance provide similar buffering effects when a market is exposed to various exogenous shocks. The results also hold for the mandatory disclosure regimes. By distinguishing first and subsequent reports and assurance, we show that, unlike subsequent CSR reports and assurance, the initial ones cannot mitigate the negative effects of the crisis on firm value, indicating that stakeholders take into account longer-term CSR reporting experiences. Aside from reporting and assurance aspects of CSR, we analyze the role of CSR report's quality and accuracy and show that the adoption of Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) frameworks can enhance socially responsible firms' resilience against systematic shocks. (shrink)

Advocates of Causal Decision Theory (CDT) argue that Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) is inadequate because it gives the wrong result in Newcomb problems. Egan (2007) provides a recipe for converting Newcomb problems to counterexamples to CDT, arguing that CDT is inadequate too. Proposed by Edgington (2011), the Conditional Causal Decision Theory (CCDT) is widely taken uncritically in the recent literature as a version of CDT that conforms to the supposedly correct pre-theoretic judgments about the rationality of acts in Newcomb problems (...) and Egan cases. While the renewed attention to the debate between EDT and CDT is mostly focused on how various theories treat Egan cases, this paper scrutinizes Edgington’s treatment of Newcomb problems and argues that, despite Edgington’s promise, CCDT actually fails in Newcomb problems. This, I assume, shows that CCDT is superior neither to the classic visions of CDT nor to EDT. The paper concludes by arguing, in general, that CCDT is systematically bound to deliver the same results as does EDT in any decision problem. Despite being formulated in terms of causal notions, therefore, it collapses back into the classic EDT. (shrink)

BackgroundHaving moral courage is a crucial characteristic for nurses to handle ethical quandaries, stay true to their professional obligations towards patients, and uphold ethical principles. This concept can be influenced by various factors including personal, professional, organizational, and leadership considerations. The purpose of this study was to explore the predictors of moral courage among nurses working in hospitals.MethodsIn 2018, an observational cross-sectional study was carried out on 267 nurses employed in six hospitals located in the northern region of Iran. The (...) participants were selected through a simple random sampling technique. To collect data, a demographic information form was used along with two questionnaires. The first questionnaire was a standard survey on moral courage, while the second questionnaire was designed to assess the ethical climate. Linear regression was used to assess the predictors of moral courage.ResultsNurses had an average moral courage score of 87.07 ± 15.52 and an average moral climate score of 96.12 ± 17.17. The study showed that 16% of the variation in moral courage scores among nurses was explained by ethical climate and monthly overtime hours.ConclusionThis study underscores the significance of establishing an ethical work environment and minimizing overtime hours in order to enhance moral courage among nurses. These findings carry weight for both nursing practice and organizational policies focused on fostering ethical conduct within healthcare settings. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have sought to investigate the impact that ethical leaders can have within organisations. Yet, only a few theoretical perspectives have been adopted to explain how ethical leaders influence subordinate outcomes. This study therefore draws on social rules theory (SRT) to extend our understanding of the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to employee attitudes. We argue that ethical leaders reduce disengagement, which in turn promotes higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, as well as lower turnover intentions. (...) Co-worker social undermining is examined as a moderator of the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement, as we suggest that it is difficult for ethical leaders to be effective when co-worker undermining prevails. To test the proposed model, questionnaires were administered to 460 nurses in Romanian hospital settings over three time points separated by two-week intervals and the hypotheses were tested using generalised multilevel structural equation modeling (GSEM) with STATA. The findings revealed that ethical leadership has a beneficial effect on employee attitudes by reducing disengagement. However, the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement was moderated by co-worker social undermining, such that when undermining was higher, the significance of the mediated relationships disappeared. These results suggest that while ethical leaders can promote positive employee attitudes, their effectiveness is reduced in situations where co-worker undermining exists. (shrink)

It is increasingly recognized that human values play an essential role in engineering design. Recent literature in the ethics of technology has focused on spelling out the role of values in different fields of engineering. Value Sensitive Design, as a well-established approach, aims to systematically integrate human values into technologies and engineering products. Although there is significant attention to stakeholders in VSD, how contexts may affect what stakeholders perceive as values deserves more attention. It seems that there is an implicit (...) tendency to universality in the studies of VSD and it is often assumed implicitly that values have the same meaning in different contexts and in different cultures. Therefore, while the concept of cultural relativism and its difference to universalism has been taken into account, we propose paying explicit attention to the contextual sense of values, namely the interpretation, prioritization and perception of values that have their basis in the specific contexts in which they are implemented, for instance, in a specific cultural or religious setting. Building on the proposed categorization of contextual sense of values in which their evolution has shown, we aim to shed light on what these contextual senses entail and how an explicit focus on contextuality could improve VSD. It will be argued that contextually looking at VSD may make it more flexible in dealing with the different contexts/cultures. (shrink)

This bibliography of Ludwig Wittgenstein is limited to the doctoral dissertations submitted in North American Universities. It covers almost all aspects of Wittgenstein's thought. Compared with K.T. Fann's "Wittgenstein Bibliography", published in the International Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 7 1967 pp. 311-339, where there are only seventeen references to Ph.D. dissertations, this present list cites more than one hundred and twenty five. Further, the dissertations which have been published are indicated.

During the 1982 Canadian Philosophical Association Meeting in Ottawa, a workshop on the philosophy of religion in Canada was held. Its participants were all contributors to a previously published book edited for the University of Ottawa Press, entitled Analytical Philosophy of Religion in Canada, who were thus given the opportunity to comment on their own positions and to reply to the criticism that had been made of them.

Shiʿi jurists have three different theories with regard to gestational surrogacy and who should be recognized as the mother of the newborn: (1) the surrogate mother (2) or the ovum provider (biological mother) (3) or both of them. The religious law (al-Aḥkam al-sharʿi) regarding the title of ‘mother’ and issues such as inheritance, will (Waṣiya), marriage, and custody have been discussed by Shiʿi jurists but no exact definition of this term has been provided by them. Because the fertilized ovum is (...) considered the origin of humans and the formation of an embryo also determines the kinship of the newborn, the mother of the child is the woman that fetus created by her ovum. It is this woman who has all the rights and responsibilities of a mother; even if the surrogate mother is considered the mother of the child, she has no rights over the child nor does she have any duties towards him/her. (shrink)

During the rapid process of deindustrialization in Iran, the term ‘industrial heritage’ has recently emerged as a new subject into public realm. In order to integrate the methodologies for the protection and adaptive reuse strategies, the ‘industrial heritage’ itself needs to be divided into various categories. UNESCO has begun inscribing increasing numbers of local industrial legacies such as railway, mines, factories, assembly plants, agricultural production and manufacturing production in its World Heritage List. However, in the process of their adaptive reuse (...) the question of heritage meanings arises. Over the past century in Iran, powerful corporate and governmental actors have created a broad range of oil imaginaries that changed over time and in line with local cultures. Starting from 1920s and after the nationalization of oil industry in Iran, oil cities such as Abadan and Masjid Suleiman saw massive expansion to house labors and oil-industry specialists who had arrived from the United States, Europe, India, and the Persian Gulf states. This research aims to clarify how the oil industry, in close collaboration with national governments, has materially shaped the oil cities through oil-specific architecture like company headquarters, gas stations, retail and infrastructure buildings. The current legacy of oil industry continues to reshape the industry, society and politics as well. This research uses a critical and analytical problem-based approach to examine the current policies that build a new image and identity through adaptive reuse strategies to promote sustainable local development in Iran’s industrial heritage. (shrink)

The basic methodology of rough set theory depends on an equivalence relation induced from the generated partition by the classification of objects. However, the requirements of the equivalence relation restrict the field of applications of this philosophy. To begin, we describe two kinds of closure operators that are based on right and left adhesion neighbourhoods by any binary relation. Furthermore, we illustrate that the suggested techniques are an extension of previous methods that are already available in the literature. As a (...) result of these topological techniques, we propose extended rough sets as an extension of Pawlak’s models. We offer a novel topological strategy for making a topological reduction of an information system for COVID-19 based on these techniques. We provide this medical application to highlight the importance of the offered methodologies in the decision-making process to discover the important component for coronavirus infection. Furthermore, the findings obtained are congruent with those of the World Health Organization. Finally, we create an algorithm to implement the recommended ways in decision-making. (shrink)

In a papyrus fragment we have a passage of an Attic comedy of the third century B.C., The Phoenicides by Strato, in which the cook is represented as using archaic, Homeric words for common everyday things, and his exasperated master is obliged “to look through the books of Philitas for their meaning”. This is a farcical application of the new trend of research which the scholar Philitas of Cos initiated in language studies and introduced into Alexandria early in the third (...) century B.C. This new movement took root in Alexandria and was maintained by a distinguished line of scholars, members of the Mouseion. The results of their research soon crossed over to the other shores of the Mediterranean. Thus we have the bitter and rather envious reaction of Timon of Phlius, a poet residing at Pella in Macedonia who, as the representative of a more conservative attitude, resented “modern” intellectual developments and attacked, not only contemporary Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, but also scholars of the Alexandrian Mouseion, “Many are feeding in populous Egypt, scribblers on papyrus, ceaselessly wrangling in the bird-cage of the Muses”. (shrink)

In this paper, using the tenets of Situation-Bound Utterances and referring to Pragmatic Act Theory, the verb mordan, and its different realisations are analysed among Persian speakers. Through the analysis of authentic talk in interaction, this study aims to ponder nonstandard meanings of the term mordan and its different SBUs. The primary focus of the study is on strings of linguistic events as well as the “conventions of usage” or cultural understanding that may lead to standard and nonstandard meanings considering (...) mordan and its different SBUs. The findings suggest that the SBUs regarding mordan, a neglected sociolinguistic context, not only is affected by its actual situational characteristics but also by prior context encoded in utterances used, which manifests culture-specific ways of thinking. Overall, 19 SBUs and 7 generic categories were identified with regard to the verb mordan in Persian. This paper exhibits that mordan is a versatile verb, which, when combined with situational/contextual factors, conveys different nonstandard functions that fulfil social needs. This study will also refer to linguistic features underlying SBUs that are influential in assigning various distinct meanings to the verb mordan in Persian. (shrink)

Visual cryptography is a cryptographic technique that allows visual information to be encrypted so that the human optical system can perform the decryption without any cryptographic computation. The halftone visual cryptography scheme (HVCS) is a type of visual cryptography (VC) that encodes the secret image into halftone images to produce secure and meaningful shares. However, the HVC scheme has many unsolved problems, such as pixel expansion, low contrast, cross-interference problem, and difficulty in managing share images. This article aims to enhance (...) the visual quality and avoid the problems of cross-interference and pixel expansion of the share images. It introduces a novel optimization of color halftone visual cryptography (OCHVC) scheme by using two proposed techniques: hash codebook and construction techniques. The new techniques distribute the information pixels of a secret image into a halftone cover image randomly based on a bat optimization algorithm. The results show that these techniques have enhanced security levels and make the proposed OCHVC scheme more robust against different attacks. The OCHVC scheme achieves mean squared error (MSE) of 95.0%, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of 28.3%, normalized cross correlation (NCC) of 99.4%, and universal quality index (UQI) of 99.3% on average for the six shares. Subsequently, the experiment results based on image quality metrics show improvement in size, visual quality, and security for retrieved secret images and meaningful share images of the OCHVC scheme. Comparing the proposed OCHVC with some related works shows that the OCHVC scheme is more effective and secure. (shrink)

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study examines a mechanism, namely organizational social capital, through which self-sacrificial leadership is related to two types of employee behaviours: organizational citizenship behaviours and counterproductive behaviours. The results of two different studies in Egypt showed that self-sacrificial leadership is positively related to OSC which, in turn, is positively related to OCBs and negatively related to CPBs. Overall, the findings suggest that self-sacrificial leaders are more likely to achieve desirable employee behaviours through improving the quality (...) of social relationships among employees. (shrink)

After a brief review of the relationship between science and value, this paper introduces the value of ‘traditionality’ as a value in the pure and applied sciences. Along with other recognized values, this value can also contribute to formulating hypotheses and determining theories. There are three reasons for legitimizing the internal role of this value in science: first, this value can contribute to scientific progress by presenting more diverse hypotheses; second, the value of external consistency in science entails this value; (...) and third, this value helps to eliminate some of the adverse social and cultural effects of Western science in non-Western societies. ‘Traditionality’ is an extrinsic epistemic value, according to the first two reasons, and at the same time, is an ethical value, according to the last reason. Also, the ethics of belief is adopted to further confirm the ethical role of this value. Finally, this paper discusses three potential criticisms that can be levelled against this idea and responds to each of them. (shrink)

This survey was conducted in 2017 to investigate factors influencing social risk perception of biotechnologists and plant breeders in training toward GM food based on a conceptual model. A random sample of 210 biotechnologists and plant breeders in training was studied. Confirmatory factor analysis and the reliability tests have been used to verify the uni-dimensionality of the measurement scale, SEM also was carried out to determine the most parsimonious models with the best fit for social risk perception of GM foods (...) and path analysis was conducted to understand the exogenous variables introduced in the research model. The findings revealed that the engineers in training had moderate social risk perception regarding GM foods. Moreover, the results of structural equation modeling showed the capability of the model in predicting the social risk perceptions of engineers in training. The psychological attributes of risks, social benefit perception, attitude toward using technology, level of religiosity, and moral and ethical beliefs emerged as the most powerful predictors of the social risk perception. The social benefit perception and attitude toward using technology also mediated the effects of psychological attributes of risks, level of religiosity, and moral and ethical beliefs. The social benefit perception also had an indirect influence on the engineers in training’s social risk perception of GM foods. Finally, we recommend the application of the model developed by this study for better understanding of social risk perception of stakeholders to have a more informed view of the development and promotion of GM foods. (shrink)

In this paper, I have explored and examined al-Farabi short treatise on fourteen ancient Greek proper names that somehow all of them are related to wisdom. Al-Farabi explicit intention as a philosopher/philologist is to "interpret" them and accordingly here his possible conception and meaning of this term within a short exotic onomasticon of non-Arabic proper names is examined.

We explore the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) personality traits and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. Upper echelons theory indicates that the values, experiences, and personalities of top organizational managers influence their organization's strategic decisions and effectiveness. We utilize IBM Watson Personality Insights software to infer CEOs’ personality traits based on their responses to questions raised by analysts during year‐end conference calls; we obtain CEOs’ Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—from which we compute a measure of (...) their risk tolerance. Using a longitudinal dataset of Standard and Poor's 500 firms for 2008–2015, we document that high CEO risk tolerance is related to lower CSR report readability and smaller CSR disclosure volume. This finding indicates that executives who are comfortable with greater risk are more willing to supply stakeholders with reports that are shorter and require greater effort to understand. Exploration of the association between CEO Big Five personality traits and CSR report readability and disclosure volume allows key stakeholders to better comprehend CSR disclosures and connotations thereof. Overall, our results contribute to the debate on how CEO personality traits affect organizations’ CSR disclosure reporting strategies, and support upper echelons theory in the CSR setting. (shrink)

The efficiency of distribution networks is hugely affected by active and reactive power flows in distribution electric power systems. Currently, distributed generators (DGs) of energy are extensively applied to minimize power loss and improve voltage deviancies on power distribution systems. The best position and volume of DGs produce better power outcomes. This work prepares a new hybrid SSA–GWO metaheuristic optimization algorithm that combines the salp swarm algorithm (SSA) and the gray wolf optimizer (GWO) algorithm. The SSA–GWO algorithm ensures generating the (...) best size and site of one and multi-DGs on the radial distribution network to decrease real power losses (RPL) (kW) on lines and resolve voltage deviancies. Our novel algorithm is executed on IEEE 123-bus radial distribution test systems. The results confirm the success of the suggested hybrid SSA–GWO algorithm compared with implementing the SSA and GWO individually. Through the proposed SSA–GWO algorithm, the study decreases the RPL and improves the voltage profile on distribution networks with multiple DGs units. (shrink)

With regard to the new directions in the Humanities, here I am going to consider and examine the approach of al-Farabi as a medieval thinker in introducing a new outlook to “language” in difference with the other views. Thereby, I will explore his challenges in the frame of “philosophical humanism” as a term given by Arkoun (1970) and Kraemer (1984) to the humanism of the Islamic philosophers and their circles, mainly in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Al-Farabi’s conception of philosophical (...) humanism, in which philosophy is thick and religion is thin, makes its agony with the other versions of humanism and also orthodox Islam. It means that his introduction of a humanistic understanding of language should be placed in such a multi-level contested environment. According to al-Farabi, language as a universal category has relation with reason that logic should function as its proper instrument. As a result, there is no specific privileged predetermined language, but the position of any language is shaped by its relation with human reason and formal logic that is something human-made. And such a conception means language in human terms. Key Terms: Al-Farabi; Language; Philosophical Humanism; Arabic: Greek . (shrink)

With regard to the importance of interrelations and interplays of topos and logos in ancient theory and practices, here I will appropriate Aristotle philosophizing of topos and logos and apply it for the ancient persian Empire as reflected in related inscriptions.

In this paper in the context of philosophical ethics I want to explore the classical reception of Farabi from Happiness through Aristotle's Nicomachaean Ethics.

With regard to the importance and position of phone for thought and language in Aristotle, and his brief account of it in Περὶ Ψυχῆς / De Anima, here I am going to paraphrase his brief mentioning in the chapter eight of the second book of the mentioned treatise. When we read the pertinent section of 4201b - 421a, we see that Aristotle examines it in connection with “hearing” as a sense that is embedded in his wide discussion about “soul”. But (...) when we go into details under this general topic, we see that phone definition is connected with three concepts such as sound, phantasia and semantic. In other words, Aristotle considers human phone in a unit that consists of “hearing, sound, phantasia and semantic” and all of these within a broader specific discussion about human “soul” denotes to the texture and nature of his account. (shrink)

With the rapid growth of informatics systems’ technology in this modern age, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become more valuable and vital to everyday life in many ways. IoT applications are now more popular than they used to be due to the availability of many gadgets that work as IoT enablers, including smartwatches, smartphones, security cameras, and smart sensors. However, the insecure nature of IoT devices has led to several difficulties, one of which is distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. IoT (...) systems have several security limitations due to their disreputability characteristics, like dynamic communication between IoT devices. The dynamic communications resulted from the limited resources of these devices, such as their data storage and processing units. Recently, many attempts have been made to develop intelligent models to protect IoT networks against DDoS attacks. The main ongoing research issue is developing a model capable of protecting the network from DDoS attacks that is sensitive to various classes of DDoS and can recognize legitimate traffic to avoid false alarms. Subsequently, this study proposes combining three deep learning algorithms, namely recurrent neural network (RNN), long short-term memory (LSTM)-RNN, and convolutional neural network (CNN), to build a bidirectional CNN-BiLSTM DDoS detection model. The RNN, CNN, LSTM, and CNN-BiLSTM are implemented and tested to determine the most effective model against DDoS attacks that can accurately detect and distinguish DDoS from legitimate traffic. The intrusion detection evaluation dataset (CICIDS2017) is used to provide more realistic detection. The CICIDS2017 dataset includes benign and up-to-date examples of typical attacks, closely matching real-world data of Packet Capture. The four models are tested and assessed using Confusion Metrix against four commonly used criteria: accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. The performance of the models is quite effective as they obtain an accuracy rate of around 99.00%, except for the CNN model, which achieves an accuracy of 98.82%. The CNN-BiLSTM achieves the best accuracy of 99.76% and precision of 98.90%. (shrink)