Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Muslim communities in the village facing the COVID-19 Pandemic attempts to find refuge from the plague and hope for survival. However, this led to more caution, which may lead to xenophobia. Via ethnography, this study unmasks the xenophobic attitude. This research discusses the root causes of panic in the community so that remedies can be implemented. The research attempts to explain, from a socio-anthropological viewpoint, how people and religious groups in the village perceive the pandemic of COVID-19 based on their (...) belief in their faith and in the science. The research takes place in Cigagak village, an area of approximately 7000 m2 on the outskirts of Bandung of West Java of Indonesia. This study examines the selected respondents from about 190 inhabitants who had close ties to managing places of worship and public places. This study utilises a collaborative self-ethnographic method and qualitative analysis. The influence of COVID-19 has moved to new exclusive and disintegrating practices from the inclusion-cohesive religious tradition. Therefore, this study tries to find out ways on how to reduce exclusive perception and religious practices to a minimum level and how to disappear xenophobia. Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, inclusive awareness and actions were re-established, and even social cohesiveness was fostered. This study concludes that in its deep conviction nature, theology can change exclusive behaviour to be inclusive if it is based on the religious principles that are raised in response to human events. In this case, the Muslim community in a village can change the fear of COVID-19 pandemic to be a reducer of the panic based on the support of the religious doctrines.Contribution: This article used a collaborative self-ethnography with a religious socio-anthropological viewpoint. This study could help to solve social problems through theological convergence in Islamic milieu, especially that of the government’s formal Islamic organisation and organic Islamic leaders of the society. (shrink)

This research aims to investigate the thematic system of Arabic texts, especially Arabic Sufi texts related to al-Hikam aphorisms. Thematic structure is defined as the set of options relating to ‘information structure’, the linguistic representation of extralinguistic experience and how a Sufi constructs an information structure in al-Hikam aphorisms. In this case, the extralinguistic experience is focused on the Arabic Sufi communities. The first problem of this research, about thematic system in al-Hikam aphorism related to Arabic Sufi communities and Islamic (...) identities, is elaborated comprehensively. The elaboration process can be classified into a number of thematic systems such as unmarked topical, marked topical, interpersonal and textual. The thematic analysis becomes the base foundation to elaborate the construction of Arabic Sufi communities and Islamic identities. A thematic model shows how language users in Arabic Sufi communities encode language from their mental picture of reality. By capturing the al-Hikam aphorism through the thematic system, it can be concluded that communication is pivotal in making Islamic Sufi identities.Contribution: Contextually, this research contributes to the study of cross-language and cross-culture. Language as a reflection of a certain culture can be seen both in terms of the product and the translation process. (shrink)

Objective Semiotica is published in six annual issues, in two languages (English and French). From time to time, Special Issues, devoted to topics of particular interest, are assembled by Guest Editors. The publishers of Semiotica offer an annual prize, the Mouton d'Or, to the author of the best article each year. The article is selected by an independent international jury. Topics We welcome papers reporting results of research in all branches of semiotic studies. Article formats Research articles, in-depth reviews, guest (...) editorials, reports Mouton D’Or Winner 2022 "Semiotricité et corps en jeu", Parlebas, Pierre, 248, 9-35. The judges commented: "The Committee members made this decision based on many appreciations. First, the article contains a concise theory on semiotics of movement, synthesizing decades of research of the author. It opens an exciting framework for the contribution of many other authors. The theoretical grounds of semiotircity are built on the most classical semiotic approaches and represent a genuine development. Second, the article refreshes semiotics methodology in very original way, by engaging the applied semiotics for furtive and instantaneous activities analysis. Third, the article is pretty clear and well structured, written in very comprehensible French. The theoretical frame it opens is thorough and far reaching. Fourth, the semiotic theory of movement comes in a very special moment when the whole world is football, but it covers also many other areas of applicability which reflect major trends such as the general gamification of life thanks to new media and digital technologies. It is crucial for semiotic theory to open its theoretic scope towards significant cultural trends and become more attractive for young researchers." Les membres du comité ont pris leur décision en fondant leur appréciation sur quatre éléments principaux. Premier élément : l'article, en peu de mots, en prenant appui sur des décennies de recherche de la part de l'auteur, déploie de manière précise les termes d'une sémiotique du mouvement. Les fondements théoriques de la sémiotricité sont construits sur des approches sémiotiques bien établies et représentent un véritable développement dans le domaine. En cela, le texte ouvre un cadre passionnant pour les contributions de nombreux autres chercheurs. Deuxièmement, l'article renouvelle la sémiotique appliquée de manière très originale, l'engageant dans une approche efficace des actions instantanées et furtives; la méthodologie sémiotique en général en tire donc aussi profit. Troisième point, en plus d'être profond, avec un cadre théorique d'ampleur et de grande portée, l'article est particulièrement bien structuré et écrit dans un français très compréhensible, ce qui est un véritable gain pour sa diffusion. Enfin, quatrièmement, s'il est indéniable que le texte pourrait bénéficier d'une visibilité complémentaire due à la ferveur liée au contexte récent de la coupe du monde de football au Qatar, il couvre surtout de nombreux autres domaines d'applicabilité qui reflètent des tendances majeures telles que la gamification générale de la vie, portée par les nouveaux médias et les technologies numériques. L'on y voit une belle opportunité pour la théorie sémiotique d'ouvrir son champ à la faveur de tendances culturelles significatives; ceci est une garantie pour continuer à attirer de nouvelles générations de chercheurs. (shrink)

Abrogation (naskh) is one of the controversial themes of Islamic studies, especially in later period that of principle of exegesis (uṣūl al-tafsīr). However, the recent studies on abrogation (naskh) do not offer a comprehensive analysis on the concept. In fact, the problem of naskh (abrogation) is in need of a systematic and holistic approach, which would only be possible with a detailed study on how the concept of abrogation (naskh) is understood in Islamic interpretive tradition (tafsīr). With this purpose in (...) mind, this article intends to examine two points regarding the term abrogation: first, the article will offer a analytical reflection on the diverse views of naskh, and then it will highlight how Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373) understood and applied this term to his hermeneutical framework. By doing so, the present study aims to show Ibn Kathīr’s position in Islamic interpretive tradition on the matter of naskh. The key conclusion of this study is that although Ibn Kathīr is one of the representatives of the traditional riwayah (sound transmission through a chain of exegetes) exegesis, he advances his interpretive hermeneutics with multiple aspects that also involves dirayah (personal opinion) exegesis (tafsīr). SUMMARY The problem of naskh (abrogation) is one of the most important and controversial themes of science and principle of exegesis (ʿilm wan a-l uṣūl al-tafsīr) in Islamic tradition. In order to understand naskh, which is claimed to be occurred in the Qur’ānic text, it is necessary to involve the time of the revelation of the Qur’ān. An analysis of this period reveals that first Muslims regard the naskh as a natural process of the revelation and do not dispute over this matter. In other words, the controversial theme naskh is perceived by first addresses of the Qur’ān as a hermeneutical characteristic of the Qur’ānic revelation. Therefore, naskh was not considered as a controversial concept and debated its origins based on the question whether it organically belonged to the revelation. It will be clear that the different views on naskh (abrogation), particularly after the time of the Companions is not a conceptual problem; rather Muslim scholars differed in their methodological approaches to naksh. Naskh has not been questioned as a concept in early Islamic tradition. Rather it has gradually developed over the centuries. Naskh has been elaborated with the terms of uṣūl al-fiqh (principles of Law), such as takhṣīṣ (specification) and taqyīd (restriction) and its conceptual meaning has been extended after, particularly Abū ʿAbdullah Muḥammad b. Idris b. ʿAbbas al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820). To sum up, naskh is regarded with a methodological perspective. However, in the field of Turkish Islamic studies, especially after the Cumhuriyet, the term naskh is not regarded as a natural consequence of the process of tanzīl (revelation of the Qur’ān) neglecting the gradual aspect of revelation and the disputes over the term has been concluded either rejecting or simply accepting this concept without providing a satisfactory result on the matter. This article examines one of the most prominent Muslim exegete Ibn Kathīr’s (d. 1373) approach to the problem of naskh in the context of previous modern scholarship on naskh (abrogation). However, the analysis of Ibn Kathīr’s perception of naskh does not claim to be exhaustive on the matter. This requires a more comprehensive study on the concept of naskh, which is clearly beyond the scope of this article. Therefore, the present study intends to specifically focus on general aspect of Ibn Kathīr’s understanding of naskh and how his perception is presented in modern studies. When Ibn Kathīr’s commentary is analysed, it becomes clear that his understanding of naskh is significant and not necessarily in line with his riwayah (sound transmission through a chain of exegetes) tafsīr (exegesis). For example, he notes the dates between abrogating and abrogated Qur’ānic verses and claims that it is necessary to find certain proofs to validate the claim of abrogation (naskh) for particular legal judgments and verses, which clearly shows that Ibn Kathīr approaches to the problem of naskh with a methodological perspective. Ibn Kathīr’s interpretation of the well known Qur’ānic verse Q 2.106 in a different sense and most importantly his consideration of the matter only in the Qur’ānic context are clear examples of his methodological approach. His interpretation of Q 2.106 simply shows that he meticulously distinguish between the acceptance of naskh as a concept and as an interpretive method. The modern studies on naskh, on the contrary, consider the matter only on the base of a conceptual analysis. Ibn Kathīr prefers to transmit the traditional opinions based on personal interpretation and interprets some Qur’ānic verses. This is clearly his method of re-interpretation based on rational thinking (taʾwīl). His way of rational reasoning leads Ibn Kathīr to the rejection of naskh (abrogation) and the restriction of Qur’ānic verses that are related to the theory of abrogating and abrogated verses (nāsikh-mansūkh). This clearly proves that Ibn Kathīr does not merely adopts and employs the method of riwayah, which is contrary to the supposition that he is the exegete of a commentary that heavily draws on hadith reports and transmitted traditional reports. In fact, this most importantly shows that Ibn Kathīr’s Qur’ān commentary can also be regarded as a dirayah (personal opinion) tafsīr (exegesis) and that there are enough material in traditional Muslim Qur’ānic exegesis to re-analyse the problem of naskh (abrogation). Relying on this last point, this article argues that a comprehensive analysis of naskh requires a research on the traditional interpretive sources. Therefore, it might be helpful to reconsider the matter of naskh with its conceptual background in the works of traditional Muslim exegetes rather than focusing only on whether the concept naskh exits or not in the origins of the Qur’ānic revelation. At this point, an analysis of Ibn Kathīr’s perception of naskh and his rational reasoning that is employed in his commentary will contribute to the understanding of the theory of naskh (abrogation) in the tradition of Qur’ānic exegesis. (shrink)

The mathematical model of physical problems interprets physical phenomena closely. This research work is focused on numerical solution of a nonlinear mathematical model of fractional Maxwell nanofluid with the finite difference element method. Addition of nanoparticles in base fluids such as water, sodium alginate, kerosene oil, and engine oil is observed, and velocity profile and heat transfer energy profile of solutions are investigated. The finite difference method involving the discretization of time and distance parameters is applied for numerical results by (...) using the Caputo time fractional operator. These results are plotted against different physical parameters under the effects of magnetic field. These results depicts that a slight decrease occurs for velocity for a high value of Reynolds number, while a small value of Re provides more dominant effects on velocity and temperature profile. It is observed that fractional parameters α and β show inverse behavior against u y, t and θ y, t. An increase in volumetric fraction of nanoparticles in base fluids decreases the temperature profile of fractional Maxwell nanofluids. Using mathematical software of MAPLE, codes are developed and executed to obtain these results. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 216 Seiten: 297-316.

In this article, we examined the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant workplace behavior and the moderating role of an Islamic Work Ethic. Three hundred and thirty‐six employees in different organizations (specializing in software development, medicine, law enforcement, telecommunication, pharmaceutics, and banking) across Pakistan completed our questionnaire. The results revealed that abusive supervision was positively related to deviant workplace behavior. Moreover, the moderation of an Islamic Work Ethic on the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant work behavior was confirmed. The (...) study contributed in many ways. It expanded literature by revealing a weaker relationship between abusive supervision and deviant behavior when Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) was high. It also tested the conservation of resources theory by providing a plausible reasoning of the role of IWE in employee motivation. By integrating IWE as a resource in the workplace, practitioners would learn that the proper use of resources would produce satisfied workers who would not indulge in deviant workplace behaviors. (shrink)

Prof. Dr. Mustafa Demirci's monograph "Black Rage: The Rebellion of Negro Slaves in the Medieval Islamic World (869-883)" on the 'Zanj rebellion' that took place between 869-883 A.D., during the Abbasid period, and was led by the Ali b. Muhammad, is one of the most important studies both in terms of its subject matter and the author's approach and perspective on the subject. The study, which was prepared with a rich academic literature using basic sources and modern research on (...) the subject, deals with issues such as the geography of the event, the causes and spread of the rebellion, the wars and warfare techniques to suppress the rebellion, the short and long-term effects of the damage left behind by the rebellion from an academic perspective in chronological order. The Zanj revolt started in the marshes of Basra in 869 as a result of Ali b. Muhammad (d. 883), who was originally white and claimed to be a descendant of Ali, organizing black slaves working under difficult conditions in the large farms in and around Basra, and the rebellion grew and spread in a short time. Muwaffak Billāh (843-891), the brother of the Abbasid Caliph Mu’temid Alallâh (843-892), who was assigned to suppress the revolt, was victorious against the rebels after tough struggles, and the revolt ended with the killing of the leader of the rebellion, Ali b. Muhammad, in 883. (shrink)

Nūr Muḥammad is one of the teachings in Sufism that studies the beginning of the creation of the universe. The Sufis discussed Nūr Muḥammad through God's tajallī (manifestation), and they believed that only Insan Kamil (Perfect Humans) possessed the perfection of His tajallī. This Sufi theory can be comprehended through the dhawqi approach. This research will deal with Nūr Muḥammad's theory of Sufism through the perspective of Tijaniyah Tarekat. The data for this study was obtained through library research utilizing a (...) documentary technique. The collected data will be analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. This study finds that the Tijaniyah Tarekat is a Sufism institution that bases its teachings and practices on the concept of Nūr Muḥammad in the form of ṣalawāt al-fātiḥ and ṣalawāt jawharah al-kamāl. This Tarekat's elucidation of Nūr Muḥammad is also built on and consistent with the explication of authoritative Sufis in Islam's intellectual and spiritual tradition. (shrink)

Could some social kinds be natural kinds? In this paper, I argue that there are three kinds of social kinds: 1) social kinds whose existence does not depend on human beings having any beliefs or other propositional attitudes towards them ; 2) social kinds whose existence depends in part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them, though attitudes need not be manifested towards their particular instances ; 3) social kinds whose existence and that of their instances depend in (...) part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them . Although all three kinds of social kinds are mind-dependent, this does not make them ontologically subjective or preclude them from being natural kinds. Rather, what prevents the third kind of social kinds from being natural kinds is that their properties are conventionally rather than causally linked. (shrink)

1. Academics as a profession is traditionally viewed as stress-free due to high levels of academic freedom, clarity of job description and performance indicators, and tenure protected positions (Th...

Consumers occasionally buy commodity products without much thought but purchase high involvement products or services after rigorous information collection and detailed comparisons of the different options. At the core, research on consumer behavior comprises studies on the cognitive processes involved in consumer purchasing decisions and the way buying decisions are made. The discipline of consumer research and marketing has remained dominated by positivist, empiricist, and realist philosophies. Since consumer behaviour is a social phenomenon, the researchers have used logical positivist and (...) interpretivist philosophies to study and develop various theories about consumer behaviour. However, both of these philosophies have inherent limitations to capture the complete knowledge of consumer reality. Pragmatist philosophy is capable of providing solutions to real-life problems by starting with research question and exploring the issues from multiple perspectives. It is, therefore, suggested to explore the various aspects of consumer behaviour research from a pragmatist perspective and contribute more effective information to the body of knowledge in this discipline. (shrink)

The search for the “furniture of the mind” has acquired added impetus with the rise of new technologies to study the brain and identify its main structures and processes. Philosophers and scientists are increasingly concerned to understand the ways in which psychological functions relate to brain structures. Meanwhile, the taxonomic practices of cognitive scientists are coming under increased scrutiny, as researchers ask which of them identify the real kinds of cognition and which are mere vestiges of folk psychology. Muhammad (...) Ali Khalidi presents a naturalistic account of “real kinds” to validate some central taxonomic categories in the cognitive domain, including concepts, episodic memory, innateness, domain specificity, and cognitive bias. He argues that cognitive kinds are often individuated relationally, with reference to the environment and etiology of the thinking subject, whereas neural kinds tend to be individuated intrinsically, resulting in crosscutting relationships among cognitive and neural categories. (shrink)

Mankind is faced with a number of serious problems that demand an effective solution. The prevalence of injustice and the frequency of financial crises are two of the most serious of these problems. Consisting of an in-depth introduction along with a selection of eight of Muhammad Umer Chapra's essays--four on Islamic economics and four on Islamic finance--this timely book raises the question of what can be done to not only minimize the frequency and severity of the financial crises, but (...) also make the financial system more equitable. The author considers the origins of Islamic economics and outlines its development and underlying principles. He compares the approach taken to ethics and economics in Islam with that taken in the West, considering whether lessons can be applied to the global financial architecture in order to mitigate against financial crises. The book also examines the case against interest and looks at both innovation in Islamic finance, as well as challenges facing the industry. Written by a leading authority in the field, this book will be a stimulating resource for students and researchers in Islamic economics and finance, as well as providing valuable insight to all of those with an interest in financial systems and their interaction with society. (shrink)

Recently the World Health Organization has highlighted the need to strengthen mental health systems following emergencies, including natural and manmade disasters. Mental health services need to be informed by culturally attuned evidence that is developed through research. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish rigorous ethical research practice to underpin the evidence-base for mental health services delivered during and following emergencies.

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

Discussions about politics and human power, including discussions about the concept of the state, have been a discussion that has been going on since Greek times until the time of the growth of Islamic philosophy. The overemphasis on the power of reason led early modern Western societies to reject religion in all political discourse. At this stage, all views of man, power, the constitution, and the state eventually ceased to be associated with God. On the other hand, especially among Muslims, (...) religion is still connected with discussions of politics and human power. This paper will reveal how secularization in political thought grew and developed through principles such as the state of nature and the social contract. Then, based on the thought of one of the influential Muslim scholars, Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, the author tries to provide a critique of the views of Western thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and other philosophers, by presenting the concept of the ideal state form derived from the concept of tamaddun formulated by Al-Attas. This research is literature review research using the descriptive method. The findings of this research show that secularization is a product purely born by Western secular thinkers and not taken from any religious teachings, so Western political concepts cannot always be applied, especially in Muslim societies. (shrink)

In recent years, researchers have paid special attention to religiosity and the practice of religious beliefs. If people put religiosity at the forefront of their affairs and maintain the roots of religion in various aspects of work and family life, they will see God present and watchful in doing all things, and the result of such a vision will be the successful performance of deeds and walking the path of perfection. Having a heartfelt belief in the value of work and (...) adhering to it will result in a greater desire to work. Religiosity is a variable that can be related to job variables. In addition, it can play an important role in the behaviours of employees. In Islam, work is a virtue and is necessary to balance the personal and social life of the individual. Given the importance of this issue, the present study aimed to evaluate the relationship between Islamic religiosity and job satisfaction of Muslim teachers in Malaysia. In total, 2200 Muslim teachers of Kuala Lumpur and Penang were selected for the study by simple random sampling. Data were collected by using standard questionnaires and analysed by Pearson's correlation coefficient in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the results, there was a significant and positive relationship between teachers' Islamic religiosity and job satisfaction as P = 0.784 and T = 0.000 which was less than the Sig level of 0.05. CONTRIBUTION: According to Islamic teachings, working for a Muslim is like worship. Based on the findings of this research, teachers with higher Islamic religiosity enjoy higher job satisfaction. (shrink)

This article discusses the haul stage which is held once a year on the date of death of the fourth former President of the Republic of Indonesia, namely Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), which demonstrates harmonious relations between adherents of different religions in Indonesia. Consequently, the haul rituals have become vehicles for affirming understandings of the interfaith dialogue. This study aims to map the use of haul rituals to promote interfaith value. Analysing YouTube videos, this study finds that interfaith dialogue forms (...) have been reflected in: (1) declarations of a cross-religious ideology, (2) the involvement of interfaith figures, and (3) the inclusivist discourses themselves. Gus Dur’s haul, thus, has provided collaborative spaces wherein interfaith dialogue value can be sustainably structured.Contribution: This research contributes to exploration of the haul stage, which takes place annually on the death anniversary of former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur). (shrink)

This research paper examines the foreign investment laws and procedure of Pakistan and their role in protection of foreign investment in Pakistan. These laws are untapped area of research and one cannot find any specific research tracing the legal development in this highly specialized field. So far Pakistan has 48 BITs enforced with different countries and has also signed ICSID Convention, which is promulgated locally through Arbitration Act, 2011 incorporating the Convention in the schedule to ease the difficulty of foreign (...) investors to enforce the awards rendered under auspices of ICSID in the territory of Pakistan. Under this research, an attempt has been made to study prevalent foreign investment laws and its trends in Pakistan. Though Pakistan has significantly improved its foreign investment regime by introducing new investor’s friendly laws like, Special Economic Zones Act, 2011 and Investment Policy, 2013 etc., apart from its previous legislation on the subject, yet this regime needs more improvement and updating. Extensive overview of all existing foreign investment laws were carried out in this research. Fair and Equitable Treatment, Expropriation and other factors affecting foreign investment laws are the areas, which need to be taken care of by policy maker in the existing foreign investment laws of Pakistan. With these aims, it is hoped that this research paper would be a humble contribution in the literature on the subject. (shrink)

I will begin by proposing a taxonomy of taxonomic positions regarding the mind–brain: localism, globalism, revisionism, and contextualism, and will go on to focus on the last position. Although some versions of contextualism have been defended by various researchers, they largely limit themselves to a version of neural contextualism: different brain regions perform different functions in different neural contexts. I will defend what I call “environmental-etiological contextualism,” according to which the psychological functions carried out by various neural regions can only (...) be identified and individuated against an environmental context or with reference to a causal history. While this idea may seem innocuous enough, it has important implications for a structure-to-function mapping in the mind and brain sciences. It entails that the same neural structures can subserve different psychological functions in different contexts, leading to crosscutting psycho-neural mappings. I will try to illustrate how this can occur with reference to recent research on episodic memory. (shrink)

Ethical principles are among the topics that are widely emphasised in the Islamic society. Ethics is a set of values, do's and don'ts that can play an important role in the effective management of organisations. If employees of organisations, especially medical staff, are working in the atmosphere of Islamic ethics, they show functional behaviours in line with the goals and missions of organisation. Due to the direct relationship and treatment of nurses with recipients of medical services, nurses' behaviours have significant (...) impact on the quality of services provided by medical centres. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between Islamic ethics and commitment of 1100 Muslim nurses in Indonesia in 2021. This study was performed by descriptive-analytical correlational method. Data were collected using Islamic ethics and organisational commitment questionnaires and measured by Pearson correlation coefficient in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and structural equation modelling analysis (SEM) in linear structural relationships (LISREL). The results indicate that Islamic ethics have significant and positive relationship with nurses' commitment as p = 0.542 and t = 5.63. CONTRIBUTION: According to the research findings, it can be concluded that commitment of nurses can be improved by applying Islamic ethics in medical centres. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to problematise a particular social transparency and disclosure regulation in the UK, that transcend national boundaries in order to control slavery in supply chains operating in the developing world. Drawing on notions from the regulatory and sociology literature, i.e. transparency and normativity, and by interviewing anti-slavery activists and experts, this study explores the limitations of the disclosure and transparency requirements of the UK Modern Slavery Act and, more specifically, how anti-slavery activists experience and interpret (...) the new regulations and the regulators’ implementation of the regulation. This research found limited confidence among anti-slavery activists regarding the Act’s call for transparency in relation to the elimination of slavery from global supply chains. The research also found that the limits of the transparency provisions within the Act appear to hinder the attainment of normativity. This study provides new and unique insights into the critical role that social activists play in exposing the lack of corporate transparency and failures of responsibility to protect workers within global supply chains. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a record global crisis, particularly and extremely, for the service sectors. Due to extensive security measures, many service sector employees have to work remotely to maintain services. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this research investigates the impact of servant leadership on the task performance of employees in virtual working environments during the COVID-19 crisis. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from 335 individual employees in the education sector of Pakistan. SPSS version (...) 26.0 was applied to find the hypothesized relationship between the study variables. To find the indirect mediating effect, we applied Model 4; for moderation, we applied Model 1; and for the moderation and mediation effect, we applied Model 7 of the Process Macro model of Hayes. The results of the study revealed that servant leadership is positively related to task performance in a virtual environment during crises. Furthermore, psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between servant leadership and task performance. Perceived supervisor support positively moderates the relationship between servant leadership and task performance. Moreover, the indirect effect of servant leadership on task performance via psychological empowerment is moderated by perceived supervisor support. The results provided guidance to the educational sector on how to lead effectively in times of crisis when service sector employees work predominantly in virtual environments. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Due to existence of a huge amount of textual data either on the World Wide Web or in textual databases like PubMed, the development of novel automatic keyphrase extraction methods has emerged as one of the key research problems in recent past. Consequently, a number of machine learning techniques, mostly supervised, have been proposed to extract keyphrases from text documents. But, one of the main bottlenecks that hinders the success of such systems is the requirement of annotated corpora for training (...) purpose. In this paper, we propose the design of a deep text mining system to identify keyphrases in text documents that are either unstructured or semi-structured in nature. The novelty of our system lies in its applicability on a single document, instead of demanding a collection of annotated texts for training, to identify keyphrases embedded within it. The proposed system applies parsing techniques to identify candidate phrases. After mapping the original set of candidate phrases into a low-dimensional space using Singular Value Decomposition, the Markov Clustering technique is applied to cluster related sentences together. Finally, considering each cluster as a document, Latent Dirichlet Allocation is applied to identify feasible keyphrases that are presented to users in non-increasing order of their relevance score values. The efficacy of the proposed system is established through experimentation on datasets from two different domains. On comparative evaluation, we found that the proposed system outperforms KEA and KEA that apply the supervised machine learning approach for automatic keyphrase extraction from text documents. (shrink)

Artikel ini berbicara tentang analisis metode dialektika Hegel atas paradigma hukum, yang sebagaimana telah diketahui, problematika pengembangan ilmu hukum, akhir-akhir ini hanya dilihat dari sudut pandang tertentu saja, sehingga tidak sedetail mungkin memberi hasil penyelesaian secara terbuka. Atas faktor paradigma hukum yang telah digunakan tersebut, penulis kemudian menjadikan objek penelitian khusus untuk ditelisik dengan menggunkan metode deskriptif analisis yang diperoleh melalui library research, dengan sumber yang relevan dan realibel seperti buku, jurnal, skripsi, tesis, disertasi, dan sebagainya. Sebelum memperoleh pemahaman implikatif (...) dalam penelitian ini, penulis memaparkan dahulu biografi Hegel, dan metode dialektikanya. Secara implisit, ini begitu reflektif, karena mampu mengungkap dan menghasilkan kebenaran dibalik hakikat pengetahuan yang terkandung di dalam bidang kefilsafatan atau realitas sejarah tentang paradigma hukum. Rangkaian dialektis itu, terdiri dari paradigma hukum post-modernisme, yang merupakan “antitesis” atas paradigma hukum modern sebagai “sintesa”. Hal ini, pada hakikatnya adalah hasil dari perpaduan antara paradigma hukum Yunani kuno sebagai pernyataan “tesis” dan rangkuman terhadap sebuah konsep universal yang abstrak sebagai titik tolak munculnya paradigma hukum yang dikemukakan pada masa abad pertengahan. Lebih tepatnya, paradigma hukum di masa Yunani kuno, sebagai pernyataan “tesis”, sedangkan di masa abad pertengahan, paradigma hukum yang digunakan yakni sebagai pernyataan “antitesis” dari paradigma hukum Yunani kuno. (shrink)

This research aims at determining the effect of adolescent rearing practices toward self identity formation. Several hypotheses are set as follows: (1) there is the effect of adolescence rearing practice toward self identity formation; (2) there is deference between boys and girls in terms of adolescence rearing practice and self identity formation; (3) there is deference between student’s department in terms of adolescence rearing practice and self identity formation; (4) there is defference between parent occupation in terms of adolescence rearing (...) practice and self identity formation; (5) there is defference between geographic’s student from in terms of adolescence rearing practice and self identity formation. The subject of the research are 68 Syariah’s Departement students and 57 Tarbiyah’s Departement student both from Javanese etnic. The data have been collected with OM-EIS from Adam, Shea, Fitch. The first hyphotesis was analysis by using regression analysis, the second and third hyphoteses are analysis by using t test and the others using one way analysis of varian. The result of this research showed: (1) there was F values 12.862, whereas the determinant coefficient is 0.095, it meant there was significantly effect of adolescence rearing practice toward self identity formation; (2) The second analysis showed that there are not difference between boys and girls, student’s department, parent occupation and geographic’s student in terms of adolescence self identity formation,; (3) there are not defference between boys and girls, geographic’s student in term of adolescence rearing practice. (shrink)

This research is aimed at explaining and analyzing the ontological status of semantical objects of religious language. This ontological status concern how every term in religious language refers to an object and how we interpret those terms, whether it represents the object itself or merely its sensual or constructive properties. This finding lies in the disputation between religious realism and non-realism. The results of this research are (1) every believer is exactly a realist because he or she has the ontological (...) commitment to the object of the utterance, but (2) God exists independently from human thought and consciousness, (3) it is possible to put God as the object of intentional and semantic but only represents sensible qualities of the real object, and (4) the meaning of religious language depends on believer's ontological commitment on God's existence. (shrink)

This research focuses on the employee loyalty aspect of private hospitals in Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic, seriously impacted by strict work demand and work-family conflict. To manage this issue, social rewards and psychological rewards played a role as a mediator. The study uses a causal research design with a correlational study design in a non-contrived environment. Minimal researcher interference has been assured. AMOS 24 has been used to deal with the mediation in study design with bootstrap methodology. The (...) study was conducted on 250 nurses of different private hospitals across Punjab province using a proportionate stratified sampling technique. A finding of this study suggests that nurses remain loyal to their organizations despite having uncompromising work demands and facing work-family conflict when they are provided with social and psychological rewards on their job by their organizations. (shrink)

Virtue signaling serves to express moral and ethical values publicly, showcasing commitment to social and sustainable ideals. This research, conducted with non-WEIRD samples to mitigate the prevalent WEIRD bias (i.e., the tendency to solely rely on samples from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies), examines whether the scarcely studied virtue-signaling construct mediates the influence of consumers’ attachment anxiety (vs. avoidance) on their green purchase behavior and prosocial responses. Drawing on attachment theory and the emerging virtue-signaling literature, the current work (...) reports the results from three studies (_N_ total = 898) in which consumers’ attachment patterns were not only measured, as in most prior related research, but also manipulated. Study 1 confirmed the unique ability of measured attachment anxiety, but not attachment avoidance, to predict consumers’ green purchase behavior and prosocial tendencies, with virtue signaling mediating these links. Study 2 manipulated participants’ attachment patterns, finding further support for the mediating role of virtue signaling between attachment anxiety (vs. avoidance) and these dependent variables. Study 3 provided a more nuanced account for our virtue-signaling conceptualization by documenting that self-oriented, but not other-oriented, virtue signaling mediated the link between attachment anxiety and both our key outcomes in public contexts. From a managerial viewpoint, these findings indicate that anxiously attached consumers constitute a potentially lucrative segment for companies seeking to expand their market share of sustainable and ethically produced products. (shrink)

This article intends to synthesise the results of various studies related to the influence of religiosity on life satisfaction, with the aim of mapping how religiosity variables influence people's life satisfaction in multiple countries. Additionally, this study seeks to identify the development of research issues regarding religiosity and life satisfaction. For this reason, a meta-analysis approach was applied to synthesise 21 articles quantitatively, and the systematic literature review (SLR) approach was used to narrate the development of issues concerning religiosity and (...) life satisfaction in 40 articles. In general, this study succeeds in demonstrating that the influence of the religiosity variable on life satisfaction in various study samples is linear and has a positive effect. CONTRIBUTION: The dimensions of religiosity and life satisfaction are still very limited to the characteristics of disciplines attached to researchers. This resulted in the dimension being repeatedly used (redundancy) in various studies, resulting in the second dimension of the issue (i.e., religiosity and life satisfaction) being less developed. Therefore, it contributes to the issues as a foundation of new directions, i.e., emic perspectives, in understanding the relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has badly affected the social, physical, and emotional health of workers, especially those working in the healthcare sectors. Drawing on social exchange theory, we investigated the effects of participative leadership on employees’ workplace thriving and helping behaviors among frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we examined the moderating role of a leader’s behavioral integrity in strengthening the relationship between participative leadership, and employees’ workplace thriving and helping behaviors. By using a two-wave time-lagged design and (...) data collected from 244 healthcare workers, a moderated hierarchal regression was implemented to test the proposed hypotheses. As hypothesized, participative leadership predicted employees’ workplace thriving and helping behaviors. The leader’s behavioral integrity strengthened the relationship between participative leadership and employees’ thriving and moderated the relationship between participative leadership helping behaviors. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed. (shrink)

_One of the enduring queries in the development of human intellectual thought is, "What is human nature?" What does it mean to be a human tends to be defined by all disciplines, including religion? We all need theories about what makes people tick in order to predict how they will respond to their environment in various situations. Indeed, how we view human nature affects a number of things. People utilize it in their private lives to govern their daily routines, manage (...) their relationships, raise their children, and influence others. Additionally, our policies in areas of collective social life like politics, law, and education are influenced by how we view human nature. Steven Pinker critically explains the modern view of human nature and its theoretical presuppositions in his widely read book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Pinker contends that this contemporary account of human nature faces significant challenges in light of recent developments in the fields of biology, genetics, evolution, and the brain sciences. Because it is built on axioms that we cannot accept in light of the advancements in science over the past few decades, the current theory of human nature is conceptually unsound. This research performs a comparative analysis between Pinker’s View of Human Nature and Dupré’s Critique of Evolutionary Psychology on the principles which serve as the foundation for the influential idea of human nature, and contributes significantly in our contemporary intellectual life._. (shrink)

Despite the pervasive use of ethics training by companies, research in management accounting has not considered the effectiveness of such training in curtailing managers’ misreporting. This study examines the effect of ethics training on misreporting as a reminder to raise the awareness of employees’ ethical commitment. Furthermore, this study investigates the extent to which reciprocity in the workplace affects managers’ misreporting. The results from an experiment involving 124 managers show that in the absence of an ethical commitment reminder, managers are (...) more likely to engage in misreporting than when an ethical commitment reminder is present. The results suggest that ethical commitment reminder interacts with reciprocity in the workplace, affecting managers’ misreporting. Specifically, the results reveal that managers are more likely to engage in misreporting under the reciprocity in the workplace condition when the ethical commitment reminder is absent. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

In the past decade, a few countries have created a third gender category to legally recognize gender-nonconforming individuals. However, we know relatively little about the response of the gender-nonconforming individuals toward the legal third gender category. To address this gap, this article analyzes the different social, religious, and institutional discourses that have emerged around the recently created third gender category in Pakistan and their influence on the legal consciousness of the Khawaja Sira community, a marginalized gender-nonconforming group. Even though the (...) third gender category was created to address the unique gender identity of the Khawaja Sira community, most continue to legally register as men. My research indicates that the patriarchal stigma, high compliance costs, and limited material benefits associated with the legal third gender category dissuade the Khawaja Sira community from choosing to register. My findings point to the limitations of a legal third gender category within a patriarchal sociolegal order where important benefits associated with the masculine identity are forfeited by registering. In doing so, I caution against over emphasizing the symbolic value of legal recognition for gender-nonconforming groups. (shrink)

Textile is one of the largest export and source of foreign exchange in Pakistan. For the last two decades, Textile sector is serving as the backbone for Pakistan economy. Several foreign retailers including Target, Jessie Penny, Wal-Mart, and Kohl’s are outsourcing textile and garments from Pakistan. Along with the quality, these retailers are highly concerned with the ethical and social issues of their suppliers, including child labor, forced labor, compensation, working hours and environment health, and safety. My current study is (...) an applied research, based on the problem, regarding the working hours and its proper management in textile factories, mismanagement of which lead to serious issues during social and ethical standard audits. Repetition of which may consequent in termination of business with suppliers and factories. The research hypothesis is that working off the clock will lead to overtime premium not paid and double book record keeping. As far as ethical and social compliance is concerned both overtime premiums not paid and double book records are critical issues during SC audit. A sample of 40 suppliers of Pakistan was randomly selected working with foreign buyers. Secondary data were used to verify the findings based on Audits finding conducted by different third party during a period of 2 years, i.e. Feb., 2010 to Jan., 2012. The results and research findings reflect that during the last 2 years out of 40 factories audit reports 25 factories were found having working off the clock that also lead to overtime premium not paid. However, double book records were not witnessed in all 40 factories SC audit reports as parallel records were not maintained by any factories. The above findings will help the suppliers, factories, and buyers to develop a proactive approach and proper production planning to avoid critical issues and smooth business activities. (shrink)

Much recent discussion of the epistemology of religious belief has focused on justification of belief in the existence of God. Religious belief, however, includes much more than belief in God. In this paper, it is argued that the justification of belief in God is best seen in the context of other interrelated religious beliefs and practices. Philosophers of religion argue about whether religious belief requires evidence and on the sorts of arguments that have been presented. In this paper, a dialectical (...) approach to the justification of religious belief is suggested that draws upon Hegel, Peirce, and W. E. Hocking. Rational reflection on the nature of experience that provides the solution to the problems of skepticism and solipsism in the Hegelian tradition, a tradition self-consciously developed by both Peirce and Hocking. If reason itself is only manifest in social exchanges, then the rationality of religious belief cannot be a private affair restricted to the subject of experience; rather it is the process of communicative interactions in accord with the overlapping norms of those who participate in them. Finally, some implications of this approach for the problem of religious diversity are sketched. * Professor of Philosophy, The Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, Qom, Iran. (shrink)

The research addresses the effect of sense of control on perceived stress by controlling for the intervening effects of Religiosity and Materialism. A total of 609 emerging adults living in Dhaka city participated in the survey; surveyors used a 48-item structural closed-ended questionnaire to collect the responses. The elicited responses were quantified, and structural equation models were formulated to identify any associations among the variables of interest. The findings suggest that sense of control is a strong determinant of perceived stress; (...) neither religiosity nor materialism mediate the association. The study advances the transactional model of stress and coping. (shrink)

In the post-Trump era, the Black lived experience continues to come under assault. Emerging from the suffering imposed on Black bodies comes Black Existential Philosophy, an umbrella term encompassing the multiple depictions of Black life under White subjugation. Whether taking the form of first hand narratives of the lives of enslaved Blacks, the racialized theological discourse of the Nation of Islam, or the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon, the works comprising Black Existentialism offer a look into both (...) the world of the racialized Black "Other" as well as the never-ending quest to recapture and reassert Black humanity. In Discovering Black Existentialism, E. Anthony Muhammad documents his personal and academic journey to Black Existentialism. In doing so, the book illuminates the power of curriculum as a shaping agent in the life of an educator and researcher. As a combination of autobiography, theory, and pedagogy, this work gives the reader an intimate view into the developmental arc of a Black Existentialist scholar. This book offers valuable insights to students searching for direction, to researchers attempting to find meaning in their work, and to educators striving to make their pedagogy relevant to the lives of their students. (shrink)

The number of scientific publications is growing exponentially. Research articles cite other work for various reasons and, therefore, have been studied extensively to associate documents. It is argued that not all references carry the same level of importance. It is essential to understand the reason for citation, called citation intent or function. Text information can contribute well if new natural language processing techniques are applied to capture the context of text data. In this paper, we have used contextualized word embedding (...) to find the numerical representation of text features. We further investigated the performance of various machine-learning techniques on the numerical representation of text. The performance of each of the classifiers was evaluated on two state-of-the-art datasets containing the text features. In the case of the unbalanced dataset, we observed that the linear Support Vector Machine achieved 86% accuracy for the “background” class, where the training was extensive. For the rest of the classes, including “motivation,” “extension,” and “future,” the machine was trained on less than 100 records; therefore, the accuracy was only 57 to 64%. In the case of a balanced dataset, each of the classes has the same accuracy as trained on the same size of training data. Overall, SVM performed best on both of the datasets, followed by the stochastic gradient descent classifier; therefore, SVM can produce good results as text classification on top of contextual word embedding. (shrink)

Expedition of the growth of a country’s economy in the wake of entrepreneurial activity is significant. As skills are utilized and knowledge is applied, the entrepreneurs establish new businesses, and the enhancement of the latter is brought about through their sagacious decision-making and ingenuity. At one end, where entrepreneurial activities have been a boon to the societal progress; they have sped up development of economies worldwide. This can be attributed to a gamut of factors, which include, societies’ expansion on the (...) grounds of industrialization and urbanization; nurture of a culture of more information and awareness; formal training of the entrepreneurs; and, relaxed legal procedures. This study lays down emphasis on how upholding stable business policies can positively impact an entrepreneurial venture. Employing a well-developed and verified scale, data collection from 230 respondents was done on a convenience basis. The respondents chosen for this survey among whom the distribution of questionnaires was conducted were all situated in various localities of the District Central of Karachi, Pakistan; and descriptive statistics were applied on the variables pertinent for this study such as the establishment of stable business policies, continuation of the existing business policies, and achievement of the business targets based on the stable policies. It is intended that this research article shall serve to augment the scholarly literature that already exists on the subject matter that pinpoints the significance of the stable and continuous policies for an entrepreneurial business involved in the primary schooling businesses across the District Central of Karachi, Pakistan. This research paper addresses the need of having stable business policies for Pakistani entrepreneurs, and envisions itself to be one of the blueprints that can be considered by the relevant regulatory bodies while they make informed decisions. A well sketched out itinerary of initiatives could then be composed, which can assist in the meeting of the targets of entrepreneurial ventures, and eventually help in eradicating poverty from Pakistan. (shrink)

Firms have traditionally responded to environmental violations by increasing information disclosure and/or communication to manage stakeholder perceptions. As such, these approaches may be symbolic in nature, with no genuine intention to improve the environment. We draw from restorative justice grounded in stakeholder theory and explore a relatively new approach in the form of supplemental environmental projects aimed at restoring the environment, and empirically examine the role of corporate governance in firms’ decisions to undertake reparative actions. Using environmental violations and SEPs (...) data from the US Environmental Protection Agency between 2002 and 2015, we find that firms with smaller boards are more likely to undertake SEPs. We also find that firms with higher board independence and CEO duality undertake SEPs more frequently; however, board gender diversity and the existence of a sustainability committee appear to have no impacts. These results are robust to propensity score matching and an alternative data source. We extend the scope of stakeholder theory by emphasizing a new approach—restorative justice—by which corporations can repair damaged relationships and also improve the environment. We also contribute to corporate governance and environmentalism literature by identifying governance structures that promote environmental restorative justice. Thus, our study will inform different stakeholders, including regulators, shareholders, and boards of directors, and will open new avenues for business ethics scholarship. (shrink)

This article provides a brief background of how Comparative Theology is understood today, to point out features of how it is practiced that are responsive to issues peculiar to contemporary Catholicism, and to suggest how a version of CT might be developed that is more consistent with Islamic traditions of thought on related issues. In order to accomplish this last goal, a brief introduction to the traditional “Islamic sciences” is provided. It will be suggested that an Islamic Comparative Theology (ICT) (...) can be understood as a multidisciplinary field that draws on several Islamic sciences, as well as research in religious studies. I argue in favor of a blurring of the distinction between Comparative Religion and Comparative Theology, and point out that relevant discussions are to be found across a variety of traditional Islamic sciences, but that it would be advantageous to collect these discussions together and to augment them with information gleaned from both secular and Islamic approaches to the teachings of Muslim thinkers about theological issues, broadly understood, in comparison with what is found in non-Islamic traditions in such a manner to enrich our own understandings of the issues and those with whom we engage in dialogue. (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.