Predicting the defect-prone modules when the previous defect labels of modules are limited is a challenging problem encountered in the software industry. Supervised classification approaches cannot build high-performance prediction models with few defect data, leading to the need for new methods, techniques, and tools. One solution is to combine labeled data points with unlabeled data points during learning phase. Semi-supervised classification methods use not only labeled data points but also unlabeled ones to improve the generalization capability. In this study, we (...) evaluated four semi-supervised classification methods for semi-supervised defect prediction. Low-density separation, support vector machine, expectation-maximization, and class mass normalization methods have been investigated on NASA data sets, which are CM1, KC1, KC2, and PC1. Experimental results showed that SVM and LDS algorithms outperform CMN and EM-SEMI algorithms. In addition, LDS algorithm performs much better than SVM when the data set is large. In this study, the LDS-based prediction approach is suggested for software defect prediction when there are limited fault data. (shrink)

In 1980s, neuroscientists joined philosophers and psychologists in the investigation of volitional actions and freedom of will. In a series of experiments pioneered by Benjamin Libet, it was observed that some neural activities correlated with volitional action regularly precedes the conscious will to perform it, which suggests that what appears to be a free action may actually be predetermined by some neural activities, even before the conscious intention to act arises. Shortly after publication of that study, Libet’s findings and interpretations (...) were started to be criticized on philosophical and methodological grounds. In this study, the legitimacy of the criticisms directed to Libet’s and his successors’ experiments is discussed by taking recent neuroscience studies on volition into account and it is argued that these criticisms are not sufficient to eliminate the doubt that these experiments casted on the freedom of the will.Keywords: Free will, Benjamin Libet, neuroscience, unconscious intentions. (shrink)

A famous puzzle called “Grandmother Paradox” is used to argue against the feasibility of traveling backward in time because of the logical and nomological problems such travel involves, and not only because we don’t have the technology to make it reality. The same kind of problems would be encountered in leaping forward in time and then returning to the time of departure. We argue that a similar family of problems also arise in our having foreknowledge of the future without making (...) any time travel. We point to the mysterious consequences of having access to a being, say a machine or a psychic, that can have infallible knowledge of the future and conveys this foreknowledge to human beings truthfully, without any lies or distortions. The cause of these mysterious consequences is the fact that such machines or psychics will raise logical and nomological complications reminiscent of the ones we encounter in time travel scenarios, and that is a strong reason why infallible foretellers cannot exist. We conclude that we can have foreknowledge of the future, in principle, only within certain narrow limits, if at all. (shrink)

Academic ethical values, having the well-deserved place by nursing and other scientific fields, and developing of the nursing science are proportionate to obeying the academic ethical values and internalizing those values. This study was carried out to determine the nurse academicians’ attitudes related to ethical values and related factors. The descriptive research was carried out between the dates of May and June 2017. The scope of the research consisted of nurse academicians working for two universities in Turkey and the sample (...) of the study consisted of 103 nurse academicians who had accepted to participate in the research. Data were collected by using “Descriptive Characteristics Information Form” and “Academic Ethics Values Scale”. Ethical considerations: Ethic approval from the institution, the Training and Research Hospital Noninvasive Clinical Studies Ethics Committee at the University of İzmir Katip Çelebi, and written approval from the owner of the scale were taken in order to carry out the study. The average age of the participants was 35.7 ± 9.6, 95% of them were female, and 51.5% of them were working as research assistants. The nurse academicians’ total item point average was 177,99 ± 11,01 and the attitudes of nurse academicians towards academic ethical values were positively. When the sub-dimension item point averages of the scale were examined, the lowest item point average was determined for the sub-dimension of “Scientific Research” as the highest item point average were being determined for the sub-dimension of “Teaching Process”. In this study that the participants’ attitudes towards academic ethical values were found meaningful at a high level, it was seen that academic assignment and age were important factors for the nurse academicians’ attitudes towards the colleagues and the teaching process. (shrink)

Music is part of the cultural practice and, at the same time, is interwoven with biology through its effects on the brain and its likely evolutionary origin. Studies on music, however, are traditionally based on the humanities and often carried out in a purely historical context, without much input from neuroscience and biology. Here, we argue that lullabies are a particularly suited test case to study the biological versus cultural aspects of music.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 581-583.