In this paper, we define the notion of PC-lattice, as a generalization of finite positive implicative BCK-algebras with condition and bounded commutative BCK-algebras. We investiate some results for Pc-lattices being a new class of BCK-lattices. Specially, we prove that any Boolean lattice is a PC-lattice and we show that if X is a PC-lattice with condition S, then X is an involutory BCK-algebra if and only if X is a commutative BCK-algebra. Finally, we prove that any PC-lattice with condition is (...) a distributive BCK-algebra. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungWas ist praktisches Wissen?Die Diskussion über diese Frage hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten darauf konzentriert, das praktische Wissen als ein Wissen- wie aufzufassen. Im Folgenden wird eine weitere Differenzierung dieser Ansicht vorgenommen, indem durch eine Analyse der Syntax des klinischpraktischen Wissens dafür geworben wird, dieses Wissen als eine Kategorie von bedingten Geboten für das ärztliche Handeln in der klinischen Entscheidungsfindung zu betrachten. Syntaktisch gesehen, sind diese Gebote deontische Normen („conditional obligations“). Da sie durch die diagnostisch-therapeutische Forschung (= klinische Forschung) (...) aufgestellt und erforscht werden, muss die klinische Forschung als eine deontische Disziplin angesehen werden. Sie ist deshalb dem Bereich der normativen Ethik zuzuordnen. Im direkten Zusammenhang damit ist die klinische Praxis – als eine überzeitliche Institution, nicht als das Handeln von Einzelpersonen – als praktizierte Moral im Dienste der Menschen („Karitas“) einzustufen, weil sie aus dem Versuch besteht, jene Gebote umzusetzen. (shrink)

This book is a collection of contributions written by philosophers and scientists active in different fields, such as mathematics, logics, social sciences, computer sciences and linguistics. They comment on and discuss various parts of and subjects and propositions introduced in the Handbook of Analytical Philosophy of Medicine from Kadem Sadegh-Zadeh, published by Springer in 2012. This volume reports on the fruitful exchange and debate that arose in the fuzzy community upon the publication of the Handbook. This was not only (...) very much appreciated by the community but also seen as a critical starting point for beginning a new discussion. The results of this discussion, which involved many different perspectives from science and the humanities and was warmly encouraged by Kadem Sadegh-Zadeh himself, are accurately reported in this volume, which is intended to be a critical companion to Kadem Sadegh-Zadeh ́s handbook. Rudolf Seising is currently an adjunct researcher at the European Centre for Soft Computing in Mieres, Asturias (Spain) and a college lecturer at the Faculty of History and Arts, at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (Germany). Marco Elio Tabacchi is currently the Scientific Director of the Italian National Research & Survey Organization Demopolis, and a research assistant in the Soft Computing Group at University of Palermo (Italy). (shrink)

Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, is considered as one of the prominent figures in African anti-colonial literature. What makes his works specific is the way he approaches the issues of colonization of Africa in an objective manner and through an innovative language which aims at providing a pathology; a pathological reading meant to draw on the pre-colonial and colonial history without any presumptions so as to present the readers with possible alternative African discourses in future. His first novel Things (...) Fall Apart can be taken as the best representative of such a penchant in Achebe. The present study seeks to approach Things Fall apart by reflecting on those discursive features which have provided the ground for constructing such a pathological reading and an alternative to the colonial discourse. To this end, some key terms introduced by Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin such as ‘hybridity’, ‘otherness’ and ‘polyphony’, constitute the cornerstone of this study. Presumably, such an innovative reading of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is to lead to a better understanding of his discourse and the efforts made by him to help the African readers figure out how to piece together what once fell apart; what they can rely on for building an independent future in the so-called postcolonial era. (shrink)

This article examines how migrant ‘illegality’ is experienced in the Swedish context. How do ‘illegal‘ migrants manage work, housing, healthcare, safety and a family life in the absence of access to formal provisions? What are their survival strategies? I use direct quotations from undocumented migrants themselves to build a multifaceted picture of migrant ‘illegality’. Following Willen's (2007) call for a ‘critical phenomenology of illegality’, I move beyond the socio-political situation of undocumented migrants to their embodied experiences of being ‘illegal’. I (...) conclude that undocumented migrants are not excluded but are excepted; they have not been thrown out, but neither are they considered participants. Undocumented migrants are included in society without being recognised as members. (shrink)

Should the regulation of production and distribution in a socialist society be based on the law of value? In this article we ask (1) Is this question not based on an ontological understanding of labour, on a rational and therefore conceptual understanding of abstract labour and, ultimately, a transhistorical understanding of value and the so-called ‘law of value’?; (2) is it not precisely this deception and power of the fetishism of commodities that, by eternalising value and the ‘law of value’, (...) limits the horizon and perspective of ‘realistic politics’ (Realpolitik)?; and (3) whether this question does not treat socialism as a political situation where the solution to its ‘economic’ problem is unrelated to its very identity? In order to answer these questions, we provide a novel understanding of Marx’s fundamental category of value, its substance, form and magnitude, with the help of the German expression Formgehalt, translated as form-content. (shrink)

In this paper, first we discuss an old problem in teaching electron configuration of transition metals and the order in which the orbitals are filled. Then we propose two simple computational experiments, in order to show that in the case of first row transition metals and the main group elements after them, the electrons occupy the 3d subshell before the 4s. It is shown that if we begin with the bare nucleus of above elements in the vacuum and then continue (...) with adding the electrons the 19th electron firstly occupies the 3d subshell and not the 4s. Indeed, the 4s subshell in the third row of periodic table only fills first in the case of K and Ca atoms. However, the 3d subshell in transition metals and the main group elements after them is more stable than 4s and so fills first. Thus there is no scientific reason to write the electron configuration of transition elements as [Ar] 4s 3d and the correct form is [Ar] 3d 4s.Graphical. (shrink)

Medical practice is practiced morality, and clinical research belongs to normative ethics. The present book elucidates and advances this thesis by: 1. analyzing the structure of medical language, knowledge, and theories; 2. inquiring into the foundations of the clinical encounter; 3. introducing the logic and methodology of clinical decision-making, including artificial intelligence in medicine; 4. suggesting comprehensive theories of organism, life, and psyche; of health, illness, and disease; of etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, and therapy; and 5. investigating the moral and (...) metaphysical issues central to medical practice and research. Many systems of (classical, modal, non-classical, probability, and fuzzy) logic are introduced and applied. Fuzzy medical deontics, fuzzy medical ontology, fuzzy medical concept formation, fuzzy medical decision-making and biomedicine and many other techniques of fuzzification in medicine are introduced for the first time. -/- . (shrink)

Pascal’s Wager is one of the most important and challenging arguments for the existence of God and the rationality of religious believes. According to this argument, where the rational and theoretical arguments for the existence of God are not satisfying, still in practice and decision-making, living on the basis of belief in God and other religious doctrines like life after death, is the most prudential and rational option and the best bet; although these believes are not rationally and certainly provable; (...) Avoiding the probable loss of atheism, namely eternal and infinite damnation in afterlife – that is more important than certain utility and restricted and finite pleasure of life in this world, is the ground of rationality of this decision-making. The psychological use of this argument is very effective, but the justificatory use of it have many difficulties; This article is concerned with the most important criticisms of this argument in terms of plurality of religions, rationalism, evidentialism, ethics of belief, voluntarism and probabilities calculus. (shrink)

Patrick Suppes' set-theoretical approach to the analysis of theories, and Joseph D. Sneed's metatheory are briefly outlined. The notions of observation, illusion and hallucination are reconstructed according to these approaches. It is argued that the terms ‘perception’ and ‘truth’ are theoretical with respect to observation but nontheoretical with respect to illusion and hallucination. Hallucination is construed as a special kind of illusion.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between authentic leadership and the three dimensions of employee well-being. Furthermore, attachment insecurity was considered as a mediating factor between authentic leadership and the three dimensions of employee well-being. Data were obtained from a field sample of 212 health care providers with patient contact at five hospitals in the North East of Iran. Initially, collected data were analyzed with multiple confirmatory factor analyses. Then, structural equation modeling was applied to test (...) proposed hypotheses. First, it was shown that authentic leadership negatively impacted attachment insecurity. Second, attachment insecurity proved to be a factor impinging upon job satisfaction. On the contrary, higher levels of attachment insecurity was associated with higher levels of perceived stress and stress symptoms. Third, it was revealed that attachment insecurity partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction and fully mediated the relationship between authentic leadership, perceived stress, and stress symptoms. According to the literature of authentic leadership, this is one of the first research studies, and literally the first in the East exploring the effects of authentic leadership on the exclusive combination of dimensions offered in this paper. Moreover, researchers in the field of management have not delved enough into attachment and its antecedents and consequences in leader–follower relationship. This is one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between authentic leadership, attachment security and employee well-being. As a further analysis, the final model was separately put under the two different lens of gender and some interesting findings were discussed in the discussion. (shrink)

Ras proteins function as critical relay switches that regulate diverse signaling pathways between cell surface receptors and the nucleus. Over the past 2‐3 years researchers have identified many components of these pathways that mediate Ras activation and effector function. Among these proteins are several guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs), which are responsible for directly interacting with and activating Ras in response to extracellular stimuli. Analogous GEFs regulate Ras‐related proteins that serve other diverse cellular functions. In particular, a growing family of (...) proteins (Dbl homology proteins) has recently been identified, which may function as GEFs for the Rho family of Ras‐related proteins. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the structure, biochemistry and biology of Ras and Rho family GEFs. Additionally, we describe mechanisms of GEF activation of Ras in signal transduction and address the potential that deregulated GEFs might contribute to malignant transformation through chronic Ras protein activation. (shrink)

In a previous paper the concept of disease was fuzzy-logically analyzed and a sketch was given of a prototype resemblance theory of disease (Sadegh-Zadeh (2000). J. Med. Philos., 25:605–38). This theory is outlined in the present paper. It demonstrates what it means to say that the concept of disease is a nonclassical one and, therefore, not amenable to traditional methods of inquiry. The theory undertakes a reconstruction of disease as a category that in contradistinction to traditional views is not (...) based on a set of common features of its members, that is individual diseases, but on a few best examples of the category, called its prototypes, and a similarity relationship such that a human condition is considered a disease if it resembles a prototype. It enables new approaches to resolving many of the stubborn problems associated with the concept of disease. (shrink)

Our world suffers. Some people suffer more than others. Since the first part of 2020, ours is justly described as a time of uncertainty, threat, and upheaval. In this article, we offer reflections threaded narratively, told from the specificity of our societal contexts in Iran, Canada, and Australia. What might we learn in the present and anticipated future from people living chronically within conditions of uncertainty and immobility and also those experiencing uncertainty and immobility for the first time? We argue (...) that reflexive comparative analysis bridging social and visual analysis, anchored in embodied conditions of such people, offers a way to learn from responses to COVID-19 while also being an exercise in ethical research practice. This reflection builds on and extends from our scholarly collaborations that have been ongoing since 2015. Our title recognizes this specific virus as stealthy. Importantly, our choice of words identifies resident Iranians—whose experiences were the original impetuses for this paper, and whose lives provide its empirical basis —as equally steely. (shrink)

The notions of health, illness, and disease are fuzzy-theoretically analyzed. They present themselves as non-Aristotelian concepts violating basic principles of classical logic. A recursive scheme for defining the controversial notion of disease is proposed that also supports a concept of fuzzy disease. A sketch is given of the prototype resemblance theory of disease.

What follows is a brief comment on Ludwik Fleck's paper on the foundations of medical knowledge translated by Thaddeus J. Trenn in this issue. Since the original is much older than I am, I have some scruples in presenting the critical thoughts which occurred to me when I read it a few years ago. Despite the criticism, I am very sympathetic to most of what Fleck has told us in his tragically neglected work. Two facts make Fleck's tragedy even more (...) disturbing: (i) others have given rise to post-Fleck revolutions in epistemology by exploiting his ideas while omitting proper references to him, and (ii) sociology of science, precisely what Fleck wanted to promote, has emerged without his work being operative in any sense. In my commentary, I shall examine his concept of social conditioning of knowledge. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

As systems based on opaque Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to flourish in diverse real-world applications, understanding these black box models has become paramount. In response, Explainable AI (XAI) has emerged as a field of research with practical and ethical benefits across various domains. This paper not only highlights the advancements in XAI and its application in real-world scenarios but also addresses the ongoing challenges within XAI, emphasizing the need for broader perspectives and collaborative efforts. We bring together experts from diverse (...) fields to identify open problems, striving to synchronize research agendas and accelerate XAI in practical applications. By fostering collaborative discussion and interdisciplinary cooperation, we aim to propel XAI forward, contributing to its continued success. Our goal is to put forward a comprehensive proposal for advancing XAI. To achieve this goal, we present a manifesto of 27 open problems categorized into nine categories. These challenges encapsulate the complexities and nuances of XAI and offer a road map for future research. For each problem, we provide promising research directions in the hope of harnessing the collective intelligence of interested stakeholders. (shrink)

On the basis of a ten-place comparative value relation, artificially reduced to a binary relation, some human value structures are studied and a concept of value kinematics is proposed. A miniature value logic is outlined, making it possible with precision to handle several explicated value notions and to analyze interrelations between them. Finally, the question is discussed whether health can be said to be an absolute and an intrinsic value.

At least as important as a particular item of medical knowledge itself is to know something about the relationships of that knowledge to the experiential world it is talking about. The reason is that the patients the physician is concerned with are parts of that experiential world. So, when using any knowledge in her practice, e.g., some knowledge on infectious diseases, a morally conscientious doctor will be interested in whether, and in what way, this knowledge relates to the ‘world out (...) there’. Does the medical knowledge she employs bear any relevance to the bodies and souls of her patients? Does it enable her to understand the patient’s suffering, illness experience, and illness narrative? Will it help her find useful diagnoses and treatments? Are there in fact any indicators of such qualities of medical knowledge? Why not use astrology, Ayurveda, or exorcism instead of the theory of infectious diseases? A prerequisite for dealing with such questions is the awareness of the relationships between medical knowledge and its referent, i.e., of the semantics of medical knowledge, on the one hand; and of the pragmatic factors beyond this semantics, which influence the role medical knowledge plays in health care, on the other, e.g., social and economic processes. In the present chapter, we shall look at these issues with an eye toward understanding why some particular information is allowed to enter the medical world as knowledge, whereas other information is considered unacceptable or quackery. Is there a clear line of demarcation between medical knowledge and self-deception? To begin with, we will discuss the issues of truth and justification because, as pointed out in Section 10.1 on page 402, knowledge is traditionally defined as justified true belief . These two defining features of knowledge, truth and justifiedness, are due to the classical conception of knowledge as the representation of some ‘reality’. This ancient, representational postulate brings with it that the predominant view on the semantics of medical knowledge is realism, i.e., the view that medical knowledge is concerned with and represents ‘the real world out there’. We shall therefore need to inquire into the philosophy and medical relevance of this doctrine before we proceed to alternative views. Our discussion thus divides into the following five parts: 12.1 Justified True Belief; 12.2 Realism; 12.3 Anti-Realism; 12.4 Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism in Medicine; 12.5 Social Epistemology. (shrink)

The question is raised whether it would be beneficial to establish a clinical praxiology for the sake of a multi-focused inquiry into the foundations of clinical pratice. Beginning with the concept of medical diagnosis, a framework is presented which makes it possible to view diagnosis as an element of a complex structure whose adequate analysis requires at least comparative diagnostic methodology and epistemology.

Background The principle of human dignity is woven into the ethical principles of the midwifery profession, noted as both an obligation and a human right. Research Objectives The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of midwifery students regarding threats to women's dignity during childbirth. Research Design This is a qualitative study with explorative design. Participants and Research Context: The research was carried out in 2022 at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, involving 32 midwifery students in individual interviews (...) that lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. These participants aged 21 to 28 years, with an average age of 23.5 years, provided their perspectives on the matter. Results Four key themes described the threats to women’s dignity during childbirth: 1) professional incompetence, 2) abuse of power imbalance, 3) caring only for physical and not mental health, and 4) structural issues within the healthcare system. Professional incompetence was characterized by outdated practices and lack of adherence to evidence-based medicine. Abuse of power imbalance was demonstrated in instances where the authoritative position of healthcare providers was misused, thereby disrupting the respectful care that women are entitled to receive. The disproportionate emphasis on physical health over mental health was evidenced by the disregard for mothers' psychological well-being during childbirth. Lastly, systemic structural issues emerged as significant impediments, revealing the need for system-wide changes. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Research Deputy at Kermanshah University. Participation was voluntary and the confidentiality were maintained. Conclusion The findings underscore the role that unprofessional behavior, ethical lapses in medical practices, and systemic challenges play in undermining maternal dignity during childbirth. These threats necessitate urgent attention and must be adequately addressed in policy development and program implementation to safeguard the dignity of mothers during childbirth. (shrink)

Patrick Suppes'' set-theoretical approach to the analysis of theories, and Joseph D. Sneed''s metatheory are briefly outlined. The notions of observation, illusion and hallucination are reconstructed according to these approaches. It is argued that the terms perception and truth are theoretical with respect to observation but nontheoretical with respect to illusion and hallucination. Hallucination is construed as a special kind of illusion.

Western (deductive) logic originated in Greek antiquity. It found its first expression in those works of the great philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) which have come to be known as the Organon, i.e., ‘instrument’. Aristotle’s logic, also known as syllogistics, was unsystematically concerned with patterns of reasoning and argumentation. It remained in this rudimentary state relatively unchanged and unchallenged until the second half of the nineteenth century. At that time, logic underwent a period of unprecedented reform and modernization, due in large (...) part to the German mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848– 1925) It thus became more and more a mathematical endeavor of studying the structure and peculiarities of artificial, formal languages. In this new form, logic gave rise in the twentieth century to disciplines such as theoretical informatics and programming languages, and transformed our lives through computation, information processing, and the Internet. A formal language consists, in effect, of a particular alphabet and some precise rules of forming, and transforming, strings over this alphabet. There exist several types of formal languages analyzed in logic. Depending on their structure, they are called first-order languages, second-order languages, and so on. Today a logic is considered a theory of such a language and is, correspondingly, referred to as a first-order logic, a second-order logic, and so on. In this chapter, we shall outline a first-order logic as a paragon of deductive logic. Its full name is: “Classical, first-order predicate logic with identity”. What all these expressions mean exactly, will become clear below. The logic we shall study first is termed classical logic because the idea to create such an instrument, or ‘organon’, is rooted in Greek antiquity. Owing to its origin, it is based on three time-honored Aristotelian doctrines. For these and several other reasons that we shall discuss later in this chapter, it is also called a logic of the Aristotelian style, or an Aristotelian logic for short. (shrink)