The proposed work describes an approach for segmentation of activated sludge flocs from the microscopic images for monitoring wastewater treatment. The morphological features of flocs and filaments are related to the state of an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant and must be monitored for proper functioning. Hence, image processing and analysis could be a time-saving monitoring tool. To address this challenge, we propose a novel framework involving a multiphase edge detection algorithm based on information theory. The proposed framework is evaluated (...) and scrutinized critically considering the artifacts found in the photographs tested. To evaluate the segmentations, gold approximation of estimated truth images is created. In addition, the performance was subjectively evaluated for its potential for segmenting activated sludge images. Experimental results show that the proposed framework exhibits the good results and demonstrates its effectiveness. (shrink)

The aim of this article is twofold. First is to demonstrate that most values that underpin public health policy are a source of reasonable disagreement amongst citizens to whom said policy applies....

Abstract The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) we will argue that formal semantics might have faltered due to its failure in distinguishing between two fundamentally very different types of concepts, namely ontological concepts, that should be types in a strongly-typed ontology, and logical concepts, that are predicates corresponding to properties of, and relations between, objects of various ontological types; and (ii) we show that accounting for these differences amounts to a new formal semantics; one that integrates lexical and (...) compositional semantics in one coherent framework and one where formal semantics is embedded with a strongly typed ontology; an ontology that reflects our commonsense knowledge of the world and the way we talk about it in ordinary language. We will show how in such a framework a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language are adequately and systematically treated. (shrink)

The paper analyses the behaviour of French corporate executives towards the adoption of Internet voting at shareholders’ general meetings. The research extends the studies of legitimation strategies and institutional theory to a new topic and a new instrument of corporate governance. Taking a qualitative approach, the paper examines the particular case of a technology that is adopted by a company for the benefit of its shareholders. It contributes theoretically by showing how executives respond to institutional pressures when responding could affect (...) their own interests. The findings illustrate the nature and extent of six legitimation strategies used by executives when confronted by Internet shareholder voting. Interestingly, the results highlight the prevalence of manipulation and coalition-building strategies. A typology of adoption behaviours is also proposed. Interestingly, the results show how executives worry about the risk that Internet voting may lead to a loss of control. Overall, the paper argues that the relationship between shareholders and executives with regard to corporate governance is partially reversed by the adoption of Internet voting. Some theoretical and managerial implications of the paper for the literature on corporate governance and business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Egypt focused on organ transplantation, this paper examines the ways in which the “scientific” criteria of determining death in terms of brain function are contested by Egyptian doctors. Whereas in North American medical practice, the death of the “person” is associated with the cessation of brain function, in Egypt, any sign of biological life is evidence of the persistence, even if fleeting, of the soul. I argue that this difference does not exemplify (...) an irresolvable culture clash but points to an unsettling aspect of cadaveric organ procurement that has emerged wherever organ transplantation is practiced. Further, I argue that a misdiagnosis of the problem, as one about “religious extremism” or a “civilizational clash,” has obfuscated unresolved concerns about fairness, access, and justice within Egyptian medical spheres. This misdiagnosis has led to the suspension of a cadaveric procurement program for over 30 years, despite Egypt’s pioneering efforts in kidney transplantation. (shrink)

There is an increasing interest in the possibility of using nudges to promote people's health. Following the advances in developmental biology and epigenetics, it is clear that one's health is not always the result of one's own choices. In the period surrounding pregnancy, maternal choice behaviour has a significant influence on perinatal morbidity and mortality as well as the development of chronic diseases later in life. One's health is thus a matter of one's own as well as one's maternal choices. (...) Therefore, self-regarding and other-regarding nudges should be considered as viable strategies to promote health. In this article, we introduce the concept of other-regarding nudges. We use the harm principle and the principle of beneficence to justify these other-regarding nudges. We conclude by stressing the importance of a fair assessment of expectations towards the nudgee, when determining whether a nudge is aimed at preventing harm or promoting a good. (shrink)

Is it morally justifiable to force non-consenting pregnant women to submit to caesarean surgery to save their fetus in distress? Even though proponents and opponents largely agree on the interests at stake, such as the health and life of the fetus and the respect for bodily integrity and autonomy of pregnant women, they disagree on which moral weight to attach to these interests. This is why disagreements about the justifiability of forced caesareans tend to be pervasive and intractable. To sidestep (...) this deadlock, we will focus on conditions that give rise to the ‘caesarean dilemma’ in the first place, namely the conflict between inherent norms and values medical professionals are committed to by virtue of being a medical professional. Using the reflective equilibrium, we will test the opponents’ and proponents’ considered judgments about forced caesareans against the norms and values they—as medical professionals—are committed to and determine whether they are coherent. Subsequently we will identify the proponents’ incoherencies between the considered judgments and norms and values they are committed to and conclude that as long as these incoherencies are in place, forced caesareans are morally impermissible. (shrink)

The concept of reincarnation is believed to be the rebirth of humans in the world as a form of part of their life journey in accordance with their actions during life with various forms of reincarnation—including being able to be reborn as humans or animals. This article aims to discuss Mullā Ṣadrā’s eschatological thoughts, especially his criticism of the concept of reincarnation which has been believed by Hindus and Buddhists. Reincarnation is a topic of discussion for philosophers including Islamic philosophers (...) in discussing the spirit, soul, body, death, and resurrection. Ṣadrā’s rejection of the concept of reincarnation is found in one of his main works entitled al-Asfār al-Arba‘ah. By using analytical and descriptive methods, it was concluded that Mullā Ṣadrā rejected the concept of reincarnation with his five philosophical arguments, including the natural unity argument, the material and form needs argument, Kawn and Fasād’s argument, the vacuum argument, and the argument with five premises. These philosophical arguments are based on Ṣadrā’s main philosophical principle, namely the substantial movement of the soul. Even though he rejects the concept of reincarnation, Ṣadrā still believes in the resurrection of the soul and body after death, which will continue the journey towards the highest perfection in the afterlife. (shrink)

Entretien avec Hamdy Reda, artiste qui a créé un lieu d’art, Art-el-Lewa, dans le quartier informel très densément peuplé d’Ard-el-Lewa, situé entre deux autres grands quartiers informels Imbiba and Boulak El Dakrour. Art-el-Lewa est un espace de mise en œuvre de dialogue entre artistes et société. Cet espace indépendant aide les projets artistiques à se réaliser, offre des workshops aux membres de la communauté et aux artistes émergents ; il organise des expositions et reçoit des artistes en résidence ; (...) il encourage les projets qui enrichissent la vie civique et culturelle d’Ard-el-Lewa ; il utilise l’art pour faire avancer les questions d’environnement. Hamdy Reda nous raconte pourquoi et comment il a ouvert cet espace, et quels projets le lieu a hébergés. (shrink)

We argue for a compositional semantics grounded in a strongly typed ontology that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about it. Assuming such a structure we show that the semantics of various natural language phenomena may become nearly trivial.

Despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that quantifier scope is a phenomenon that must be treated at the pragmatic level, most computational treatments of scope ambiguities have thus far been a collection of syntactically motivated preference rules. This might be in part due to the prevailing wisdom that a commonsense inferencing strategy would require the storage of and reasoning with a vast amount of background knowledge. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that the challenge in developing a commonsense inferencing strategy is (...) in the discovery of the relevant commonsense data and in a proper formulation of the inferencing strategy itself, and that a massive amount of background knowledge is not always required. In particular, we present a very effective procedure for resolving quantifier scope ambiguities at the pragmatic level using simple quantitative data that is readily available in most database environments. (shrink)

On political epistemology of Muhammadiyah, an Islamic organization in Indonesia.

Islamic banking is based on moral foundations that make it distinct from conventional banking. Some argue that because of its foundation in Islam, Islamic banking may represent a more morally appealing alternative. Yet, evidence shows that this is not the case. Indeed, the current practice of Islamic banking has not been able to achieve its goals which are based on Islam's moral values: to enhance justice, equitability, and social well-being. This essay examines the extent to which Islamic banking is ethical (...) and concludes that the practice of the industry does not seem to be de facto ethical from the Islamic perspective of ethical values. It only consists in trading the same instruments of conventional banks without genuinely enforcing Islam's ethical vision. The practice of Islamic banking misrepresents Islam and does not contribute to solving social problems. The interaction between maqasid al-shari᾽a and qiyās provides a supplementary tool for interpreting the failure of the prior in terms of the practical misuse of the latter by Islamic banks. This essay provides an interpretive approach to the current debate about why Islamic banking has failed and suggests ways to move cautiously in the future. (shrink)

The past few years have witnessed a growing interest among scholars in the study of both the urban contour of the Andalusi cities and the estates called almunias. Almunia is a complex model of agricultural exploitation linked to elites and power, which also served other functions such as to provide space for solace. Ever since Joaquina Eguaras conducted the edition and translation of the Treatise of Agriculture of Ibn Luyūn in the seventies of the last century, her translation of the (...) last chapter about the organization of an almunia has been repeatedly reproduced and used to understand the archaeological remains of these properties or to interpret the information provided by the documentary sources. This article offers a new and more comprehensible translation of the text that attempts to correct some of the confusions Eguaras translation presents. For the purpose of comparability, the same manuscript, used earlier by Eguaras and currently preserved in the School of Arabic Studies, CSIC in Granada, has been used in the article. Additionally, the six marginal notes attached to the chapter, that have never been hitherto used in any study, have been included in this paper. The data provided by the 29 verses and six marginal notes, have been exhaustively analyzed and grounded in the existing knowledge about these estates along with the Andalusi agricultural practices of the time. Finally, this paper offers a hypothetical graphic reconstruction in which the ideas that Ibn Luyūn wanted to convey are visually translated. (shrink)

En critiquant les philosophes qui défendent ce que nous pouvons appeler un certain " nominalisme modal" vis-à-vis des mathématiques, et en admettant l'existence des objets mathématiques qui sont indispensables pour l'activité des ...

Religious fundamentalism has been suspected as a product of simple cognitive structuring. On the other hand, recent publications have shown that cognitive structure formation is not as simple as was previously thought. The concept of the Ability to Achieve Cognitive Structure revealed that not everyone was able to form simple cognitive structure. This study employed a total of 187 Indonesian university students as participants. By the mean of Structural Equation Modeling, this study treated the desire for simple cognitive structure as (...) a “new” latent variable and examined its relation with intratextual fundamentalism using AACS as moderator. The desire for simple structure was reflected by the Need for Cognitive Structure, the Dogmatism, and the RWA. The fundamentalism was reflected by the Intratextual Fundamentalism Scale. The result showed that fundamentalism, among other things, was a product of desire for simple cognitive structure. This study also showed that AACS moderated the relation in which high AACS would lead to higher fundamentalism while low AACS would not. Implications of the findings for social psychology and cross-cultural understanding of religious fundamentalism were discussed. (shrink)

Foucault, dans son Histoire de la sexualité, esquissa une anthropologie du plaisir dans l'Antiquité gréco-romaine. Ce travail avait constitué un virage, car depuis Mai 68, l'intellectuel avait fait de l'engagement le vecteur des résistances modernes. Or, cette approche fut l'objet d'une critique acerbe de la part de Baudrillard. Dans son Oublier Foucault (1976), le sociologue reprochait au philosophe de garder intacte l'instance du pouvoir comme grille d'intelligibilité ultime. Dès lors, la façon dont Foucault a orienté sa recherche, en se focalisant (...) sur la subjectivité, l'éthique de soi, l'esthétique de l'existence et le style de vie, ne serait-elle pas une manière de concéder à la critique de Baudrillard une part de vérité? Les mouvements de libération avaient provoqué chez Foucault l'espoir d'un agencement fructueux entre une sexualité renouvelée et une nouvelle culture. Or, l'évolution des sociétés a montré une adéquation entre cette nouvelle culture socio-sexuelle et la société de consommation. Cette culture n'est-elle pas devenue un modèle d'intégration à la société post-moderne, une matrice du "nouvel esprit du capitalisme", et le garant d'un nouvel ordre établi? (shrink)

This article investigates the efficacy of a form of electoral innovation unique to the island-state of Singapore, the Nominated Member of Parliament scheme, and its impact on democratic governance, in light of the changing political landscape. A comparative perspective will be employed and broader conclusions on electoral engineering will be reached, especially for democratizing countries. Contrary to conventional scholarly wisdom, I argue that the NMP scheme can actually boost democratic representation in the country, considering the changing political landscape in the (...) state previously dominated by a hegemonic party. This is via two ways: firstly, NMPs could better represent the voices of the people at the margins of society and, secondly, they could be better positioned to raise issues that are deemed too to be raised by opposition parties. NMPs can enhance democratic governance by promoting deliberation, accountability, and representation. (shrink)

Over two decades ago a "quite revolution" overwhelmingly replaced knowledgebased approaches in natural language processing (NLP) by quantitative (e.g., statistical, corpus-based, machine learning) methods. Although it is our firm belief that purely quantitative approaches cannot be the only paradigm for NLP, dissatisfaction with purely engineering approaches to the construction of large knowledge bases for NLP are somewhat justified. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that both trends are partly misguided and that the time has come to enrich logical semantics (...) with an ontological structure that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about in ordinary language. In this paper it will be demonstrated that assuming such an ontological structure a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language (e.g., metonymy, intensionality, copredication, nominal compounds, etc.) can be properly and uniformly addressed. (shrink)

Parity games are combinatorial representations of closed Boolean μ-terms. By adding to them draw positions, they have been organized by Arnold and Santocanale [3] and [27] into a μ-calculus whose standard interpretation is over the class of all complete lattices. As done by Berwanger et al. [8] and [9] for the propositional modal μ-calculus, it is possible to classify parity games into levels of a hierarchy according to the number of fixed-point variables. We ask whether this hierarchy collapses w.r.t. the (...) standard interpretation. We answer this question negatively by providing, for each n≥1, a parity game Gn with these properties: it unravels to a μ-term built up with n fixed-point variables, it is not semantically equivalent to any game with strictly less than n−2 fixed-point variables. (shrink)

The post-New Order Indonesian politics has provided a political opportunity structure for the state towards democratization. It has a double-edged sword whatsoever: on the one hand democratization could lead to the civic engagement, but on the other hand, it provides a hot bed for the flourishing of anti-civic organization. As for the latter, following the fall of authoritarian regime of new Order in 1998, Indonesians have also witnessed the birth of transnational Islamist and radical organizations threatening the state’s integrity and (...) peaceful coexistence of the citizens. Amid the public appearance of these radical organization, an issue of ideological infiltration and sabotage of radical organization upon mainstreaming moderate Muslim organizations, such as Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah do exist. This article tries to reveal the impacts of a such infiltration practices and the extent that radical narratives win the minds and hearts of important Muslim leaders. Taking a closer a look to Muslim leaders in Sampang district in the island of Madura, the centrum of traditionalist Muslim in Indonesian Islamo-landscape, finds out that intolerant and radical ideologies do resonate clearly among the leaders. This finding resort as an alarm and counter-narrative to the long-admired Islamic traditionalism as an important backbone for moderate Islam in Indonesia. (shrink)

In the present paper, I assume that the notion of “truth” in philosophy would not have been clarified and tackled properly, if philosophers did not take into account earlier Arabic Medieval research contributions and build upon previous research findings. In the first place, I embark on the scrutiny of the rich aspect (or nature) of the Arabic Lexicon in terms of the “truth” meaning. In the second place, I take on the assumption that Arabic linguistic traditions imply different kinds of (...) truths, depending on various spheres of human thoughts and actions based on the logical approach to “truth” (from Al-Kindi up to Averroes via Al-Farabi and Avicenna) and the term “al-haqiqha” as transliterated from Arabic, remain central. In conclusion, I take on an approach to “truth” that gives worth to logical perspectives at the very heart of Medieval Arab traditions in the light of what I would label as the “Omni-cultural Universality of Logic and Science”. (shrink)

_Autonome Praxis und intelligible Welt_ provides a reconstruction of Kant’s theory of freedom including the concept of transcendental-practical freedom as a specific type of action based on principles and reasons.

We argue that logical semantics might have faltered due to its failure in distinguishing between two fundamentally very different types of concepts: ontological concepts, that should be types in a strongly-typed ontology, and logical concepts, that are predicates corresponding to properties of and relations between objects of various ontological types. We will then show that accounting for these differences amounts to the integration of lexical and compositional semantics in one coherent framework, and to an embedding in our logical semantics of (...) a strongly-typed ontology that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about it in ordinary language. We will show that in such a framework a number of challenges in natural language semantics can be adequately and systematically treated. (shrink)

Formulating sound and acceptable embryo research policy remains challenging especially in a pluralistic world. This challenge has acquired a new dimension of complexity with the advent of so-called embryo models, which are derived from stem cells. In this article, we present a normative strategy to facilitate the process of sound policy-making in the field of human embryology. This strategy involves seeking neutral agreements on higher level theories and doctrines as well as seeking agreements on the level of concrete policy proposals. (...) We call this strategy: going high and low. By going high and low, the plurality of reasonable moral and epistemic convictions of stakeholders involved in the domain of human embryology is respected while the process of policy-making in this area is improved. (shrink)

Extremism has been a problematic term to define and suggests different and opposing meanings. This study explores how Twitter users conceptualize extremism in Arabic and express their opinions/arguments to construct the term. A corpus of tweets was collected from Twitter API using the word ‘تطرف أو متطرف’ in Arabic for extremist/extremism. A topic modeling algorithm was then applied to the dataset to uncover latent associated concepts underlying extremism, followed by a critical discourse analysis using Van Dijk’s Sociocognitive approach. The discursive (...) and linguistic strategies used by Twitter users to support and justify their views of extremism were examined. The findings demonstrate an ideological influence that controls the concept of extremism, keeping it open to manipulation to serve shared interests and goals. Arab users of Twitter use extremism to promote their groups’ positive schema against others-negative schema. (shrink)

I would like to thank all who have taken the time to read and comment on my target article in which I compare state neutrality and perfectionism as approaches to justify public health policy and ar...

Dans cet article, je voudrais étudier la version dite réaliste de la thèse d’indispensabilité qui donne lieu aux arguments les plus sérieux en faveur du platonisme en philosophie des mathématiques. Comme le dit très clairement Hartry Field (université de New York City), le meilleur représentant de cette version dite réaliste de la thèse d’indispensabilité n’est autre que Quine (1908- 2000). Je vais essayer donc de démontrer, contre le philosophe de New York City, comment les arguments d’indispensabilité ne justifient la thèse (...) platonicienne en philosophie des mathématiques que s’ils sont mis en relation structurelle avec ce que j’appellerai « les arguments métascientifiques ». J’essaierai donc de comprendre la nature des relations entre les arguments d’indispensabilité et les arguments métascientifiques, qui constituent, de mon point de vue, avec le réalisme onto-logique, les bases sur lesquelles s’élabore la théorie pragmatico-platonicienne et extensionnelle des mathématiques de Quine. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over the (...) period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

This paper examines Hanafi’s concept of Occidentalism in the epistemological approach. It aims to investigate the character, study source, research method,validity, and objectives of Occidentalism. The paper findings demonstrate that Occidentalism is a science which aims to dismantle the myth of Western superiority and, in turn, to build an equal civilization. The study root of Occidentalism is the formation, structure, and fate of the European consciousness. The formation comprises the exposed and unexposed sources of the European consciousness. The structure en (...) compasses the ideologies of nationalism, Zionism, Nazism, Facism, and racialism. Fate relies on the model of the relationship between the East and the West. Afterward, Hanafi employs two research methods: historical-dialectical and phenomenology. Lastly, science can be recognized as Occidentalism if it has a five fold standard: there is the dialectic of the East and the West, positioning European consciousness as the study object, self-liberation as the spirit to liberate the East from Western hegemony, dismantling the myth of cosmopolite culture, and the accomplishment of an equal civilization. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) we argue that the structure of commonsense knowledge must be discovered, rather than invented; and (ii) we argue that natural language, which is the best known theory of our (shared) commonsense knowledge, should itself be used as a guide to discovering the structure of commonsense knowledge. In addition to suggesting a systematic method to the discovery of the structure of commonsense knowledge, the method we propose seems to also provide an explanation for (...) a number of phenomena in natural language, such as metaphor, intensionality, and the semantics of nominal compounds. Admittedly, our ultimate goal is quite ambitious, and it is no less than the systematic ‘discovery’ of a well-typed ontology of commonsense knowledge, and the subsequent formulation of the longawaited goal of a meaning algebra. (shrink)