Developing countries need to reform legislation to ensure the global supply firms in ready-made garment industry is adequately addressing obligations of social responsibility. Literature typically focuses on strategies for raising responsible standards in global buying firms within the RMG industry, but fails to focus on implementing strategies for suppliers in developing countries. This article addresses this gap by specifically focusing on the RMG industry in Bangladesh, the home of the third largest RMG supplier in the world. It concentrates on analysing (...) how and to what extent the law can assist in developing social responsibility performance of the RMG manufacturing firms in developing countries. It ultimately concludes that a new governance approach in laws can effectively increase the social responsibility practice standards of an industry where global buying firms are profit-driven and governmental agencies are either inadequate or corrupt. (shrink)

COVID‐19 caused an imbalance between medical resources and the number of patients in Türkiye like in many countries. There was not pandemic‐triage system, and this situation led to decision making based on experience, intuition, and judgment of allocation of scarce resources. The research explains the guiding criteria that healthcare professionals used to prioritize the distribution of scarce medical resources during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The criteria preferred by 928 healthcare professionals were evaluated when preventive measures for COVID‐19 were reduced and so (...) the number of cases increased rapidly. The results indicate that Turkish healthcare professionals largely support the utilitarian approach, which focuses on medical benefit in pandemic. The main problem was that some criteria not approved in COVID‐19 triage guidelines were considered important by healthcare professionals. These criteria, which cause discrimination by preventing the provision of fair and equal medical care to patients, are a prominent issue in the study. (shrink)

How is a philosophical tradition created? What role does literary biography play in the formation of intellectual reception history? Through a detailed analysis of the lives and works of post-Avicennan philosophers, this monograph traces the intellectual history and development of the Avicennan tradition from the fifth/eleventh to the eighth/fourteenth century. Section 1 investigates the genres of Arabo-Islamic biobibliographical and prosopographical writings as a source for the history of Arabic philosophy, delineating their literary topoi, the construction of philosophical authority, and the (...) relationship of Sunnī and Twelver-Šīī Islam to Aristotelian logic and philosophy. Section 2 presents fourteen discrete biobibliographical studies with a critical inventory of the works, including those written in the neglected exegetical genres of commentary, supercommentary, gloss, and supergloss, of Avicenna's immediate disciples and the following generations of philosophers who created the Avicennan philosophical heritage in the Islamicate world.--Provided by Publisher. (shrink)

Remember Who You Are is a practical handbook of spiritual teachings based on 28 core verses from the Quran. Each verse is translated into simple English and accompanied by a teaching / reflection / commentary / examples that show you how to apply that verse in your daily life. These core verses represent the essential ideas of a universal spirituality. Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all seekers of knowledge can use them to go deeper into their own practice.

Generalizing and unifying the known theorems for difference and differential fields, it is shown that for every finite free algebra scheme.

Even though Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a widely accepted concept promoted by different stakeholders, business corporations' internal strategies, known as corporate self-regulation in most of the weak economies, respond poorly to this responsibility. Major laws relating to corporate regulation and responsibilities of these economies do not possess adequate ongoing influence to insist on corporate self-regulation to create a socially responsible corporate culture. This book describes how the laws relating to CSR could contribute to the inclusion of CSR principles (...) at the core of the corporate self-regulation of these economies in general, without being intrusive in normal business practice. It formulates a meta-regulation approach to law, particularly by converging patterns of private ordering and state control in contemporary corporate law from the perspective of a weak economy. It proposes that this approach is suitable for alleviating regulators' limited access to information and expertise, inherent limitations of prescriptive rules, ensuring corporate commitment, and enhance the self-regulatory capacity of companies. This book describes various meta-regulation strategies for laws to link social values to economic incentives and disincentives, and to indirectly influence companies to incorporate CSR principles at the core of their self-regulation strategies. It investigates this phenomenon using Bangladesh as a case study. (shrink)

Objective To compare assessments of the decision-making competencies of psychiatric inpatients as provided by physicians, nurses, relatives and an assessment tool.Methods This study was carried out at the psychiatry clinic of Kocaeli University Hospital from June 2007 to February 2008. The decision-making competence of the 83 patients who participated in the study was assessed by physicians, nurses, relatives and MacCAT-T.Results Of the 83 patients, the relatives of 73.8% of them, including the parents of 47.7%, were interviewed during the study. A (...) moderately good consistency between the competency assessments of the nurses versus those of the physicians, but a poor consistency between the assessments of the physicians and nurses versus those of the patients’ relatives, was determined. The differences in the competency assessment obtained with the MacCAT-T versus the evaluations of the physicians, nurses and patients’ relatives were statistically significant.Conclusions Our findings demonstrate those physicians, nurses and the patients’ relatives have difficulty in identifying patients lacking decision-making competence. Therefore, an objective competence assessment tool should be used along with the assessments of physicians and nurses, both of whom can provide clinical data, as well as those of relatives, who can offer insights into the patient's moral values and expectations. (shrink)

Sport is viewed as a multidimensional phenomenon. Most countries,including Muslim nations, invest heavily in sports to ensure the participationof their citizens both for recreational and competitive purposes. Indeed, theinvolvement of Muslim countries in significant multi-sport events such as theCommonwealth, the Asian, and the Olympic Games are inevitable. Therefore,a proper projection should be given to Muslim athletes as their participationreflects the identity and culture of Muslim civilizations. To date, the issue ofMuslim athlete’s involvement in sports from the notion of Islamization hasyet (...) to be elucidated by any scholar. This paper aims to scrutinize the sportssociology as an academic discipline in the Muslim majority society context.It also views the philosophy of sports participation and the dilemma facedby Muslims in sports under the light of al- Qur’ān, and Hadith. In obtainingrelevant information for this paper, we employed qualitative content analysisfrom various literature. In conclusion, this discourse of sport, Islam, and society has potentially triggered the new social movement that accommodated the needs of the Muslim community towards sports participation and physical activity. (shrink)

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG) has changed the corporate accountability mechanism. This has developed a socially responsible ‘corporate self-regulation’, a synthesis of governance and responsibility in the companies of strong economies. However, unlike in the strong economies, this convergence has not been visible in the companies of weak economies, where the civil society groups are unorganised, regulatory agencies are either ineffective or corrupt and the media and non-governmental organisations do not mirror the corporate conscience. (...) Using the case of Bangladesh, this article investigates the convergence between CSR and CG in the self-regulation of companies in a less vigilant environment. (shrink)

The semantic of the terms “sustainable development” and “corporate social responsibility” have changed over time to a point where these concepts have become two interrelated processes for ensuring the far‐reaching development of society. Their convergence has given dimension to the environmental and corporate regulation mechanisms in strong economies. This article deals with the question of how the ethos of this convergence could be incorporated into the self‐regulation of businesses in weak economies where nonlegal drivers are either inadequate or inefficient. It (...) proposes that the policies for this incorporation should be based on the precepts of meta‐regulation that have the potential to hold force majeure, economic incentives, and assistance‐related strategies to reach an objective from the perspective of weak economies. (shrink)

A gossip protocolGossip protocol is a procedure for sharing secrets in a network. The basic action in a gossip protocolGossip protocol is a telephone call wherein the caller and the callee exchange all the secrets they know. An agent who knows all secrets is an expert. The usual termination condition is that all agents are experts. Instead, we explore some protocols wherein the termination condition is that all agents know that all agents are experts. We call such agents super experts. (...) Additionally, we model that agents who already know that all agents are experts, do not make and do not answer calls. We also model that such protocols are common knowledgeCommon knowledge among the agents. We investigate conditions under which such gossip protocolsGossip protocol terminate, both in the synchronous case, where there is a global clock, and in the asynchronous case, where there is not. We show that a protocol with missed calls can terminate faster than the same protocol without missed calls. (shrink)

This article aims to draw a theoretical framework to discuss the role of religion in utopia's appeal to transcendence in Turkish literature. This aim entails interrogating the intricate relation between utopia and religion in order to demonstrate how religious discourse functions as a transcendent organizing principle in Turkish utopian vision. The employment of religious discourse in utopia often generates problematic moments in which utopia attains a transcendent position and comes closest to its sibling term, dystopia. This article seeks to identify (...) and describe this position of transcendence in Turkish utopia by resorting to Deleuzian distinction between the two types of utopia: “utopia of transcendence,” oriented toward authoritarianism, and “utopia of immanence,” oriented toward revolution. In so doing, it will engage with three early works from the Second Constitutional Period, Ruşeni Barkın's Müslümanların Gaye-i Hayâliyesi, İsmail Gaspıralı's Darürrahat Müslümanları, and Molla Davudzade's Rüyada Terakki ve Medeniyet-i İslamiyeyi Rü‘yet. (shrink)

Although managers spend over twenty percent of their time in conflict management, organization theorists have provided very few guidelines to help them do their job ethically. This paper attempts to provide some guidelines so that organizational members can use the styles of handling interpersonal conflict, such as integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising, with their superiors, subordinates, and peers ethically and effectively. It has been argued in this paper that, in general, each style of handling interpersonal conflict is appropriate if (...) it is used to attain organization''s proper end. (shrink)

İyi bir yaşamın nasıl mümkün olabileceğinin erdemle açıklanması, erdemin insan yaşamındaki önemini göstermektedir. Dolayısıyla insan fenomenlerini konu alan felsefede geniş bir yer tutan erdem kavramı özellikle etik alanında önemli bir araştırma konusudur. Etiğin tarihi geçmişinde, etik sorunlara kararmayan bir ışık tutmuş olan Kant’ın etik görüşüne genel olarak bakıldığında, erdem kavramının pek ön planda olmadığı görülmektedir. Bununla birlikte, Kant’ın erdem ile ilgili söyledikleri, erdemin ahlak yasasından daha az önemli olmadığını göstermektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Kant’ın erdem temelli bir etik kurmadığı için klasik (...) bir erdem etikçisi olmadığı veya etiğinde erdemin yerini ve önemini göstererek bir erdem etikçisi olduğu tartışmasının pek de anlamlı olmadığını göstermektir. Çünkü bu tartışma, Kant etiğini bir yere taşımaz. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, Kant’ı, bir erdem etikçisi olduğu ya da olmadığı tartışmasına sokarak kategorize etmeden, Kant etiğinde erdemin yeri ve önemini ortaya koymak amacıyla, Ahlak Metafiziği adlı eserinin _Erdem Öğretisi_ bölümünde yapılan erdem tanımlamaları ve açıklamaları ile “en yüksek iyi” (_summum bonum_) kavramı ve erdem ödevleri ele alınacaktır. (shrink)

Singapore's long-serving People's Action Party government suffered from a major electoral setback in the 2011 general election and subsequent by-elections. The high-growth population policy, underpinned by the influx of migrants and foreign workers, has strongly fuelled the groundswell of public discontent and is commonly perceived to have contributed to widening income disparities, wage stagnation, and cost of living pressures. This article attempts to make sense of the PAP leadership's dogged commitment to the high-growth population policy despite the electoral backlashes and (...) policy criticisms by prominent public intellectuals and others closely connected to the PAP establishment. It considers Singapore's high-growth population policy and widening income disparity within the context of the authoritarian developmental state's shift away from the social compact. The article also examines the impact of widening income inequality and other policy lapses on the legitimacy of the PAP government as the clamor for a renewed social compact based on gathers momentum in the repoliticized polity. (shrink)

An amalgamation base p in a simple theory is stably definable if its canonical base is interdefinable with the set of canonical parameters for the ϕ-definitions of p as ϕ ranges through all stable formulae. A necessary condition for stably definability is given and used to produce an example of a supersimple theory with stable forking having types that are not stably definable. This answers negatively a question posed in [8]. A criterion for and example of a stably definable amalgamation (...) base whose restriction to the canonical base is not axiomatised by stable formulae are also given. The examples involve generic relations over non CM-trivial stable theories. (shrink)

This study compares Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' conceptions of God, theological language, the nature of creative action and the beginning of the universe.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAquinas on Being. By Anthony Kenny. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Pp. x + 212. Price not given.Before and after Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group. Edited by David C. Reisman, with the assistance of Ahmed H. al Rahim. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Pp. xix + 302. Price not given.Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha. Edited by Harold Kasimow, (...) John P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger Keenan. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 284. Paper $14.95.The Buddhist Unconscious: The ālaya-vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought. By William S. Waldron. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pp. xvi + 269. Price not given.Comparative Political Philosophy: Studies under the Upas Tree. Edited by Anthony J. Parel and Ronald C. Keith. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2003. Pp. xxxviii + 260. Paper $26.95.The Confucian Quest for Order: The Origin and Formation of the Political Thought of Xun Zi. By Masayuki Sato. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Pp. xviii + 500. Price not given.Gathering the Meanings: The Compendium of Categories: The Arthaviniścaya Sūtra and Its Commentary Nibandhana. Translated from the Sanskrit by N. H. Samtani. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 2002. Pp. xxxiv + 390. Price not given.I Have Arrived, I Am Home: Celebrating Twenty Years of Plum Village Life. By Thich Nhat Hanh. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2003. Pp. 253. Paper $25.00.Identity and the Moral Life. By Mrinal Miri. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xvii + 132. Hardcover Rs 645.00.Indian Philosophers and Postmodern Thinkers: Dialogues on the Margins of Culture. By Carl Olson. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 331. Hardcover Rs 950.00.Islamic Humanism. By Lenn E. Goodman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii + 273. Price not given.Letting Go: The Story of Zen Master Tōsui. Translated by Peter Haskel. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. Pp. xv + 167. Hardcover $45.00. Paper $16.95.A Life Journey to the East: Sinological Studies in Memory of Giuliano Bertuccioli (1923-2001). Edited by Antonino Forte and Federico Masini. Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale, 2002. Pp. xxxv + 280. Price not given.The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery. By David E. Cooper. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 372. Price not given. [End Page 277]Mencius, Hume and the Foundations of Ethics. By Xiusheng Liu. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003. Pp. vii + 204. Price not given.Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics. By Chen Jinhua. Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale, 2002. Pp. xiii + 310. Price not given.Music in the Sky: The Life, Art, and Teachings of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje. By Michele Martin. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. 351. Paper $18.95, U.K. £12.95.New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. Edited by John Makeham. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp. 262. Hardcover $55.00.On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abū Hāmid Al-Ghāzalī's Faysal al-Tafriqa Bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa. By Sherman A. Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 156. Hardcover Rs 295.00.Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter: The Peoples of the United States (1889). By Pandita Ramabai and translated and edited by Meera Kosambi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 284. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $29.95.Parmenides of Elea: A Verse Translation with Interpretative Essays and Commentary to the Text. By Martin J. Henn. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003. Pp. 147. Hardcover $59.95.Philosophes taoïstes, tome II: Huainan Zi, texte traduit, présenté et annoté sous la direction de Charles le Blanc et de Rémi Mathieu. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2003. Pp. lxxxiii + 1182. Hardcover €56,90.The Philosophy and Ethics of the Vīraśaiva Community. By Dan A. Chekki. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003. Pp. xxv + 287. Hardcover $119.95.Poems of Hanshan. Translated by Peter Hobson with introduction by T. H. Barrett. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 151. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $19.95.Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An Unfolding Dialogue. Edited by Jeremy D. Safran. Boston... (shrink)

Conceptual metaphors have received much attention in research on discourse about infectious diseases in recent years. Most studies found that conceptual metaphors of war dominate media discourse about disease. Similarly, a great deal of research has been undertaken on the new coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, especially in the English news discourse as opposed to other languages. The present study, in contrast, analyses the conceptual metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse in French-language newspapers. The study explored the linguistic metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse (...) in these newspapers and conceptual metaphors that underlie and motivate them, using a conceptual metaphor theory framework (CMT). Therefore, two North African French-language newspapers, namely Libération, published in Morocco, and La Presse de Tunisie, published in Tunisia, formed the corpus of the current study. The results showed that the most frequent framing of COVID-19 was in terms of WAR, followed by DISASTER and KILLER, respectively. (shrink)

Using intelligent software agents in the world of e-commerce may give rise to many difficulties especially with regard to the validity of agent-based contracts and the attribution of liability for the actions of such agents. This paper thus critically examines the main approaches that have been advanced to deal with software agents, and proposes the gradual approach as a way of overcoming the difficulties of such agents by adopting different standards of responsibility depending whether the action is done autonomously by (...) an unattended software, or whether it is done automatically by an attended software. Throughout this paper, it is argued that the introduction of “one size” regulation without sufficient consideration of the nature of software agents or the environments in which they communicate might lead to a divorce between the legal theory and technological practice. It is also concluded that it is incorrect to deal with software agents as if they were either legal persons or nothing without in any way accounting for the fact that there are various kinds of such agents endowed with different levels of autonomy, mobility, intelligence, and sophistication. However, this paper is not intended to provide the final answer to all problematic questions posed by the emergence of intelligent software agents, but is designed to provide some kind of temporary relief until such agents reach a more reliable and autonomous level whereby law begins to regard them, rather than their users, as the source of the relevant action. (shrink)

We characterise strongly minimal groups interpretable in elementary extensions of compact complex analytic spaces.

Despite the large number of studies conducted on polysemy, they mostly compare the different methods and techniques to learn a language and establish the extent to which particular sense relations facilitate the learning of second language vocabulary. To our best knowledge, no research has been conducted to determine whether or not polysemy is emphasized in non-native English textbooks. The objective of the present research was to determine the degree to which polysemy is incorporated in English textbooks. Thus, the research question (...) guiding the current study is: To what extent is polysemy incorporated in non-native English textbooks? The study is corpus-based research that used a data set of 500 words, i.e., 250 words from each of the two books, utilizing the Sketch Engine word list tool and concordance. The polysemy of the resulting words in the concordance lines generated was semantically annotated manually using WordNet and English dictionaries. The results indicated that polysemy is barely stressed in the textbooks under investigation. The study’s results have substantial implications for polysemy in particular and second or foreign language teaching in general. (shrink)

This paper exemplifies a theoretical and methodological evaluation of IT Initiatives. It discusses post-implementation modifications (ERP-PIM) to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for the purpose of business process optimization (BPO) from a Context-Initiative-Mechanism-Outcome (CIMO) perspective. CIMO suggests that context and mechanisms are factors triggering causal effects responsible for outcomes derived from technology initiatives. Through conceptualization, data collection/analysis, and retroduction, the paper proposes a middle-range theory to facilitate the explanation of outcomes from diverse post-implementation initiatives. Data from multiple case study identifies (...) situational and action-formation mechanisms, and actions as essential to realizing the desired outcomes. The proposed ERP-PIM-CIMO theory encapsulates: (i) Business Process Optimization (BPO) as context, (ii) ERP-PIM as structure, (iii) Business Process Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Flexibility as observable events, (iv) ERP capability as causal mechanism, (v) actions as necessary for the actualization of mechanism, and finally (vi) effort and cost, knowledge, and training as factors influencing actualization. (shrink)

Background:Moral distress and workplace bullying are important issues in the nursing workplace that appear to affect nurse’s burnout.Aim:To investigate the relationship between moral distress and burnout in Iranian nurses, as mediated by their perceptions of workplace bullying.Ethical considerations:The research was approved by the committee of ethics in research of the Urmia University of Medical Sciences.Method:This is a correlation study using a cross-sectional design with anonymous questionnaires as study instruments (i.e. Moral Distress Scale-Revised, Maslach Burnout Inventory and The Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised). (...) Data were collected from 278 nurses from five teaching hospitals in Urmia, the capital of Western Azerbaijan, northwest of Iran. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping procedures were employed to recognize the mediating role of their perceptions of workplace bullying.Results:The mean score of moral distress, burnout, and the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised Scale among the participants were 91.02 ± 35.26, 79.9 ± 18.27, and 45.4 ± 15.39, respectively. The results confirmed our hypothesized model. All the latent variables of study were significantly correlated in the predicted directions. The moral distress and bullying were significant predictors of burnout. Perception of bullying partially mediated the relationship between moral distress and burnout. The mediating role of the bullying suggests that moral distress increases burnout, directly and indirectly.Conclusion:Nursing administrators should be conscious of the role of moral distress and bullying in the nursing workplace in increasing burnout. (shrink)

ObjectiveDignified care protects the patient’s rights and provides appropriate ethical care while improving the quality of nursing care. In this context, the opinions of nurses and patients who receive nursing care about dignified care are important. The aim of this study was to explore the opinions and experiences of Turkish patients and nurses about respectful care of human dignity.MethodsThis descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Turkey. Participants were inpatients at cardiology, neurology and neurosurgery clinics and nurses working in these clinics. (...) The data for the study were collected from face-to-face interviews using questionnaires. The percentages of characteristics and preferences of the participants were calculated, and the results were analysed using statistical tests.ResultsA total of 150 patients and 78 nurses participated in the study. The patients stated that the protection of their rights was the most important factor for dignified nursing care. The nurses stated that being careful to not expose the patients’ body and being respectful of the patients’ privacy were important in dignified nursing care. The age of the patient, duration of the disease, number of hospitalisations and length of time the nurses had been working at the clinic caused significant changes in the factors considered important in dignified care.ConclusionsOur findings provide a perspective on dignified care in the Turkish healthcare setting. There were some differences between patients and nurses in the factors considered important for dignified care. The discussion with patients and nurses related to care and practices that protect or detract from human dignity can provide insights to ethics. (shrink)

This book takes the concept of social audit and lifts it beyond the role of functioning largely as a management tool. The book proposes a system in which social audit is regulated so as to provide a mechanism for effectively promoting corporate accountability in society. Taking this as its theme, this book provides both a conceptual explanation of the developmental perspectives of social audit regulation and empirical evidence of the impact of social audit practice from different parts of the world. (...) It is the first book to explore the issues and challenges related to the development of effective social audit regulation. (shrink)

This study has examined the problems’ related to communicativeecology of pilgrim sojourners in Saudi Arabia and its impact on the levelsof their satisfaction with the services provided in a probability sample of439 Pakistani pilgrims. The sojourners’ communication ecology in problemsituations comprises eleven communication sources. Of these, contactswith family/friends and co-pilgrims made top of the list followed by suchcommunity organization sources like information counters, tour operators, andthe Pakistani Hajj mission officials. The mediated sources of contacts with theethnic newspaper, and the mainstream (...) Saudimass media ranked the 3rd and the 4th. The Internet and the digital billboardswere each cited in less than 10 percent of the responses. Stepwise multipleregressions revealed that the most important sources of impact on satisfactionwere: contact with community organizations, family/friends and co-pilgrims,the ethnic newspaper, and the digital screens. Implications of the impact onsatisfaction are discussed for communicating with the pilgrims. (shrink)

Segmentation of the medical image plays a significant role when it comes to diagnosis using computer aided system. This article focuses on the human corneal endothelium’s health, which is one of the filed research interests, especially in the human cornea. Various pathological environments fasten the extermination of the endothelial cells, which in turn decreases the cell density in an abnormal manner. Dead cells worsen the hexagonal design. The mutilated endothelial cells can no longer revive back and that gives room for (...) neighbouring cells to migrate and expand so that they can fill in the space. The latter results in cell elongation that is unpredictable as well as increase in size and thinning. Cell density and shape are therefore considered major parameters when it comes to explaining the health condition attributed to corneal endothelium. In this study, medical feature extraction was obtained depending on the segmentation of the endothelial cell boundary, and the task of segmentation of such objects especially the thin, transparent, and unclear cell boundary is considered challenging due to the nature of the image capture during endothelium layer examination by ophthalmologists using confocal or specular microscopy. The resulting image suffers from various issues that affect the quality of the image. Low quality is due to non-uniformity of illumination and the presence of a lot of noise and artefacts resulting from high amounts of distortion, and most of these limitations are present because of the nature of the imaging modality. Usually, images contain certain kind of noise and also continuous shadow. Furthermore, the cells are separated by poor border, thereby leading to great difficulty in the segmentation of the images. The irregular shape of cell and also the contrast of such images seem to be low as they possess blurry boundaries with diverse objects existing in addition to the lack of homogeneity. The main aim of the study is to propose and develop a totally automatic, robust, and real-time model for the segmentation of endothelial cells of the human cornea obtained by in vivo microscopy and computation of different clinical features of endothelial cells. To achieve the aim of this study a new scheme of image enhancement was proposed such as the Contrast-Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalisation technique to enhance contrast. After that, a new image denoising technique called Wavelet Transform Filter and Butterworth Bandpass for Segmentation is used. Subsequently, brightness level correction is applied by using the moving average filter and the CLAHE to reduce the effects of the non-uniform image lighting produced as a result of the previous step. The main aim of this article is the segmentation of endothelial cells, which involves precise detection of the endothelial contours. So a new segmentation model was proposed such that the shape of the cells will be extracted, and the contours were highlighted. This stage is followed by clinical feature extraction and uses the features for diagnosis. In this stage, several relevant clinical features such as pleomorphism mean cell perimeter, mean cell density, mean cell area, and polymegathism are extracted. The role of these clinical features is crucial for the early detection of corneal pathologies as well as the evaluation of the health of the corneal endothelium layer. The findings of this study were promising. (shrink)

Malaysia, in the Malaysia Urban Forum 2019 aims torealize the vision of the World Urban Forum 2018 theme of ‘Cities2030, Cities for All: Implementing the New Urban Agenda’ that is in line withSustainable Development Goals. The introduction of the MalaysianStandard started in 1990 but not acknowledged until the establishment of thePersons with Disabilities Act in 2008 and gazetted in the Uniform Building By-Laws amendments despite the slow pace of accessibility awarenessin urban development and implementation. The methodology compares theestablishment of notable (...) Inclusive and Accessible Cities with their planningstrategies of implementing Universal Design. Findings and results willdetermine inclusive city’s strategies from each case study documented anddevice a framework of projection for cities’ inclusivity. Conclusively, this studywould determine the anticipation of Malaysian urban cities to be Inclusive andAccessible in 2030 by strategising action plans and a framework for ten year planning. (shrink)