This study discusses the impact of different economic indicators on economic stability, including honest leadership, improved infrastructure, revenue generation, and CPEC taking into account the double mediating role of environmental sustainability and sustainable development, while considering the latest COVID-19 situation. This study adopted primary data collection methods and obtained data from the employees of CPEC by using questionnaires and smart-PLS for analysis purposes. The results revealed that honest leadership, improved infrastructure, revenue generation, and CPEC have a positive nexus with economic (...) stability. Despite the severe impact of COVID-19 on the country’s economy, the economic corridor plays a vital role in stabilizing the state’s economy and supports all those related to this phenomenal project either directly or indirectly. (shrink)

Currently, there is an increasing trend in the organizations towards examining the artificial intelligence and nonartificial intelligence for the innovation and success of the new product, as well as getting the intentions of the upcoming researchers. Thus, the purpose of the ongoing study is to examine the role of artificial and nonartificial intelligence in the new product success along with the moderating role of new product innovation in the manufacturing organizations of China. The quantitative methods have been followed by the (...) study and gathered the responses from the respondents using questionnaires, and analysis has been conducted by using the smart-PLS. The results exposed that artificial intelligence and nonartificial intelligence have positive and significant nexus with the new product success. The outcomes also revealed that the new product innovation significantly moderated the links among the nonartificial intelligence and new product success, but it insignificantly moderated the links among the artificial intelligence and new product success in the manufacturing organizations of China. These findings have provided the guidelines to the manufacturing companies and their policies developing authorities that they should be developed and implement the suitable policies regarding the adoption of artificial intelligence and nonartificial intelligence that enhance the success of the new product, which ultimately enhances the success of the organization. (shrink)

There is no consensus regarding whether Gilles Deleuze offers a cogent theory of the Other. Deleuze develops the notion of the Other-structure, but given his scarce remarks on this concept, his treatment of this issue is debated. This article argues that to elucidate Deleuze's philosophy of the Other, his notion of the Other-structure must be analyzed in parallel to Edmund Husserl's intersubjective theory. This comparison, made possible by Natalie Depraz's reading of the Husserlian alterity, reveals nuanced phenomenological traces in Deleuze's (...) Other-structure and its implicated structural moments while substantiating his affirmation of the Otherless world, as an impetus to surpass phenomenology. (shrink)

Political ideologies devoted either to the elimination or exclusion of religion from, or to its imposition on, the public sphere, and which are prepared in either case to capture State Power to achieve their vision for Society, must inexorably deny to citizens fundamental human rights and civil liberties – in a globalizing world where sustainable societies must become more culturally heterogeneous and where the continuing rise of religion is inevitable, so argues the author in this article. What is needed is (...) a polity that privileges tenets of democratic pluralism, human rights and multiculturalism over and above secularism or any of its various oppositional frameworks. The author posits that a Secular State is incapable of guaranteeing fundamental human rights to its citizens within a democratic framework. Secularism never triumphed as the ideology of state without important civil liberties being abjured. At the same time, any State applying Shari'ah as public law, must not only deny to non-Muslims fundamental human rights, but will also eventually deny Muslims their self-determination at both personal and collective levels and will in due course cease to be a State. The author calls for a re-thinking of human rights in order to make them more acceptable universally across diverse cultures. (shrink)

Psychological disorders such as depression are common. Many of these disorders can be evaluated and diagnosed, and above all they are preventable. This study was conducted with the aim of determining depression prevalence rate and its related factors among students of Quchan University of Technology, Quchan, Iran. In a cross-sectional study, 359 students were selected by using simple random sampling. Demographic characteristics were gathered and subjects were evaluated by the Beck’s Depression Inventory and the Beck’s Anxiety Inventory. SPSS software was (...) used for statistical analysis and logistic regression, Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests were utilized for this purpose. The age mean of students was 21.02±2.57. 93 subjects suffer from depression and 266 subjects are not depressed..There is no significant difference between depression and each of these variables: gender, body mass index, marital status, field of study, living in dormitory, and depression ; but there was significant difference between depressed and non-depressed students in terms of salary, anxiety, educational level, and satisfaction with field of study. According to the results, anxiety, educational level, satisfaction with field of study and monthly income impact depression. Improving the students' consultancy in universities can be helpful to decrease anxiety. In addition, consultants can prepare students for selecting their favorite field of study. Also, it is suggested that university officials provide financial facilities such as interest-free loan for students. (shrink)

Birth order has been examined over a wide variety of dimensions in the context of modern populations. A consistent message has been that it is better to be born first. The analysis of birth order in this paper is different in several ways from other investigations into birth order effects. First, we examine the effect of birth order in an egalitarian, small-scale, kin-based society, which has not been done before. Second, we use a different outcome measure, fertility, rather than outcome (...) measures of social, psychological, or economic success. We find, third, that being born late in an egalitarian, technologically simple society rather than being born early has a positive outcome on fertility, and fourth, that number of older siblings and sibling set size are even stronger predictors of fertility, especially for males. (shrink)

The tsunami effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many aspects of scientific activities. Multidisciplinary experimental studies with international collaborators are hindered by the closing of the national borders, logistic issues due to lockdown, quarantine restrictions, and social distancing requirements. The full impact of this crisis on science is not clear yet, but the above-mentioned issues have most certainly restrained academic research activities. Sharing innovative solutions between researchers is in high demand in this situation. The aim of this paper is (...) to share our successful practice of using web-based communication and remote control software for real-time long-distance control of brain stimulation. This solution may guide and encourage researchers to cope with restrictions and has the potential to help expanding international collaborations by lowering travel time and costs. (shrink)

There is a research programme in linguistics that is founded on describing language as an emergent phenomenon. This paper clarifies how the core concept of emergence is deployed in this emergentist programme. We show that if one adopts the weak understandings of the concept of language emergence, the emergentist programme is not fundamentally different from the other non-emergentist research programmes in linguistics. On the other hand, if one adopts the stronger understandings of emergence then the programme would have a unique (...) character, but at the cost of some corollaries (philosophical, but not only) which the emergentist linguists would seemingly want to avoid. We show that if the emergentists accept those corollaries, the resulting hypothetical emergentist programme would be totally different from the emergentist programme in its present shape. We conclude that the emergentist programme, as it stands, should be either abandoned or reshaped in both theory and methodology. (shrink)

In Cognitive science and philosophy of consciousness, the explanatory gap, following Joseph Levine, refers to the unintelligible link between our conscious mental life and its corresponding objective physical explanation; the gap in our understanding of how consciousness is related to a physical or a physiological substrate :354–361, 1983). David Chalmers holds the explanatory gap as the evidence for a form of metaphysical dualism between consciousness and physical reality. On the other hand, McGinn takes it as an epistemic rather than an (...) ontological gap. Considering the recent advances in neuroscience, however, the reductionist approaches have become replete, which attempt to reduce consciousness and subjectivity to neurobiological accounts. On this view, consciousness mirrors the brain mechanisms, and the self is formulated as an illusory product or construct of neuronal processes. Thomas Fuchs, who is committed to embodied and enactive approaches toward cognition, in Ecology of the Brain, espouses an enactive-ecological perspective concerning the problem of the explanatory gap. He develops an account of human’s life in its dual aspects of the living body and lived body which, on the one hand, defies the ontological dualism and, on the other hand, avoids drifting towards any form of reductionism. Often, the ontologically monistic approaches to the explanatory gap have inclined to a form of reductionism because they conceive consciousness as either identical with its physiological substrate or caused by it, where in both cases, consciousness is claimed to be explainable within the framework of physicalism. Fuchs, however, defends an ontological monism which remains irreconcilable with reductionism. In his account of dual aspects, there is no interaction or impact between the sphere of subjectivity and nature; however, these two aspects imply one another. In this essay, I will develop the philosophical justification of the above reformulation of the mind–body problem and employing the analogy of light will canvass the paradoxical relationship between dual aspects in a phenomenological framework. (shrink)

The removal of Beall’s blog may result in increased numbers of predatory journals and their subsequent victims. Recognizing this, the World Association of Medical Editors suggested criteria for identifying predatory journals in a statement issued on February 18, 2017. These criteria may be helpful in the current scenario of scientific publishing. However, a few lapses and limitations need to be taken into account when translating these policies to the situation in developing countries. This letter presents several cases of legitimate journals (...) and platforms from the developing world that may be erroneously categorized as predatory according to the WAME criteria. We also suggest some improvements in these journals’ policies. (shrink)

Recently, due to the rapid progress of computer technology, researchers develop an effective computer program to enhance the achievement of the student in learning process, which is Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Science is important because it influences most aspects of everyday life, including food, energy, medicine, leisure activities and more. So learning science subject at school is very useful, but the students face some problem in learning it. So we designed an ITS system to help them understand this subject easily (...) and smoothly by analyzing it and explaining it in a systematic way. In this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching science for grade seven to help students know the 7 characteristics for living things smoothly. The system provides all topics of living things and generates some questions for each topic and the students should answer these questions correctly to move to the next level. In the result of an evaluation of the ITS, students like the system and they said that it is very useful for them and for their studies. (shrink)

To understand how individuals adapt to and anticipate each other in joint tasks, we employ a bidirectional delay–coupled dynamical system that allows for mutual adaptation and anticipation. In delay–coupled systems, anticipation is achieved when one system compares its own time‐delayed behavior, which implicitly includes past information about the other system’s behavior, with the other system’s instantaneous behavior. Applied to joint music performance, the model allows each system to adapt its behavior to the dynamics of the other. Model predictions of asynchrony (...) between two simultaneously produced musical voices were compared with duet pianists’ behavior; each partner performed one voice while auditory feedback perturbations occurred at unpredictable times during live performance. As the model predicted, when auditory feedback from one musical voice was removed, the asynchrony changed: The pianist’s voice that was removed anticipated (preceded) the actions of their partner. When the auditory feedback returned and both musicians could hear each other, they rapidly returned to baseline levels of asynchrony. To understand how the pianists anticipated each other, their performances were fitted by the model to examine change in model parameters (coupling strength, time‐delay). When auditory feedback for one or both voices was removed, the fits showed the expected decrease in coupling strength and time‐delay between the systems. When feedback about the voice(s) returned, the coupling strength and time‐delay returned to baseline. These findings support the idea that when people perform actions together, they do so as a coupled bidirectional anticipatory system. (shrink)

_Yanomami_ raises questions central to the field of anthropology—questions concerning the practice of fieldwork, the production of knowledge, and anthropology's intellectual and ethical vision of itself. Using the Yanomami controversy—one of anthropology's most famous and explosive imbroglios—as its starting point, this book draws readers into not only reflecting on but refashioning the very heart and soul of the discipline. It is both the most up-to-date and thorough public discussion of the Yanomami controversy available and an innovative and searching assessment of (...) the current state of anthropology. The Yanomami controversy came to public attention through the publication of Patrick Tierney's best-selling book, _Darkness in El Dorado,_ in which he accuses James Neel, a prominent geneticist who belonged to the National Academy of Sciences, as well as Napoleon Chagnon, whose introductory text on the Yanomami is perhaps the best-selling anthropological monograph of all time, of serious human rights violations. This book identifies the ethical dilemmas of the controversy and raises deeper, structural questions about the discipline. A portion of the book is devoted to a unique roundtable in which important scholars on different sides of the issues debate back and forth with each other. This format draws readers into deciding, for themselves, where they stand on the controversy’s—and many of anthropology’s—central concerns. All of the royalties from this book will be donated to helping the Yanomami improve their healthcare. (shrink)

Recording and manipulating neuronal ensemble activity is a key requirement in advanced neuromodulatory and behavior studies. Devices capable of both recording and manipulating neuronal activity brain-computer interfaces should ideally operate un-tethered and allow chronic longitudinal manipulations in the freely moving animal. In this study, we designed a new intracortical BCI feasible of telemetric recording and stimulating local gray and white matter of visual neural circuit after irradiation exposure. To increase the translational reliance, we put forward a Göttingen minipig model. The (...) animal was stereotactically irradiated at the level of the visual cortex upon defining the target by a fused cerebral MRI and CT scan. A fully implantable neural telemetry system consisting of a 64 channel intracortical multielectrode array, a telemetry capsule, and an inductive rechargeable battery was then implanted into the visual cortex to record and manipulate local field potentials, and multi-unit activity. We achieved a 3-month stability of the functionality of the un-tethered BCI in terms of telemetric radio-communication, inductive battery charging, and device biocompatibility for 3 months. Finally, we could reliably record the local signature of sub- and suprathreshold neuronal activity in the visual cortex with high bandwidth without complications. The ability to wireless induction charging combined with the entirely implantable design, the rather high recording bandwidth, and the ability to record and stimulate simultaneously put forward a wireless BCI capable of long-term un-tethered real-time communication for causal preclinical circuit-based closed-loop interventions. (shrink)

Impoliteness in student emails to faculty can have negative consequences. However, the nuances of perceived impoliteness by faculty with different language backgrounds have not been thoroughly studied in the literature. This paper explores how emails written by non-native English-speaking students are perceived impolite by faculty depending on social identity variables such as native speaker status, gender, and seniority. Participants read six emails and rated their perceptions of the emails on a questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were about lack of (...) face enhancement, use of face threat, acknowledgment of imposition, and not giving a choice in complying with requests. Results suggest that in their perceptions of the lack of face enhancement, senior faculty seemed to be more tolerant than their junior counterparts. Further, non-native speakers of English were found to be more tolerant of the lack of acknowledgment of imposition. However, no significant association was observed between the social identity of the faculty and their perception of face threat nor between social identity and giving a choice in complying with requests. The paper has implications for raising the awareness of the faculty and students about their potential biases in academic correspondence. (shrink)

The suspension system is referred to as the set of springs, shock absorbers, and linkages that connect the car to the wheel system. The main purpose of the suspension system is to provide comfort for the passengers, which is created by reducing the effects of road bumpiness. It is worth noting that reducing the effects of such vibrations also diminishes the noise and undesirable sound as well as the effects of fatigue on mechanical parts of the vehicle. Due to the (...) importance of the abovementioned issues, the objective of this article is to reduce such vibrations on the car by implementing an active control method on the suspension system. For this purpose, a conventional first-order sliding mode controller has been designed for stochastic control of the quarter-car model. It is noteworthy that this controller has a significant ability to overcome the stochastic effects, uncertainty, and deal with nonlinear factors. To design a controller, the governing dynamical equation of the quarter-car system has been presented by considering the nonlinear terms in the springs and shock absorber, as well as taking into account the uncertainty factors in the system and the actuator. The design process of the sliding mode controller has been presented and its stability has been investigated in terms of the Lyapunov stability. In the current research, road surface variations are considered as Gaussian white noise. The dynamical system behavior for controlled and uncontrolled situations has been simulated and the extracted results have been presented. Besides, the effects of existing uncertainty in the suspension system and actuator have been evaluated and controller robustness has been checked. Also, the obtained quantitative and qualitative compressions have been presented. Moreover, the effect of controller parameters on the basin of attraction set and its extensiveness has been assessed. The achieved results have indicated the good performance and significant robustness of the designed controller to stabilize the suspension system and mitigate the effects of road bumpiness in the presence of uncertainty and noise factors. (shrink)

Religious freedoms of minorities in Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan are compromised due to structural issues as well as social and historical concerns. For instance, the abuse of the blasphemy law has led to minority communities facing threats and violence. And in a country where religious scholars are often absent from, if not against, discourses about human rights, the religious rights of minorities remain a secular and hence culturally unsound discourse. There is thus a need for two parallel movements. One, (...) an awareness within Muslim communities about the need to engage with religious freedoms, and hence the modern human rights regime, as an essentially Islamic process requiring reform from within. And two, the human rights structure also giving religion its due since religious freedoms are part of, and engender, many other rights as well. In this article, a case is made for this dual process, by exploring the work of scholars of Islam such as Abdullahi An-Na’im and Khaled Abou El Fadl as well as the insecurities of religious scholars in Pakistan who have reacted to human rights as a western agenda. (shrink)

Abusive supervision, defined as subordinates’ perception of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviors, excluding physical contact, is associated with various negative outcomes. This has made it easy for researchers to overlook the possibility that some supervisors regret their bad behavior and express remorse for their actions. Hence, we know little about how subordinates react to the perception that their supervisor is remorseful and how this perception affects the outcomes of supervisors’ (...) undesired behavior. Specifically, drawing on the social exchange theory and displace revenge literature, this study explains how abusive supervision leads to victims’ service sabotage behavior. In addition, this study also investigates how perceived supervisors’ remorse mitigates the adverse effects of abusive supervision. Based on time-lagged, dyadic data from Chinese individuals, this study found support for all the proposed relationships, i.e., abusive supervision leads to service sabotage through the mediating effect of revenge desire. The findings also conclude that PSR lessens the detrimental effects of abusive supervision on victims’ behavior with their customers. Finally, this research contributes to service sabotage literature by highlighting the possibility where abusive supervisors cause service sabotage behavior among victims. This study also shows the importance of PSR’s role in decreasing service sabotage behavior exhibited by victims of abusive supervisors in the service sector. (shrink)

Service workers are more prone to experience customer mistreatment because of their frequent interactions with them. Hence, it compels them to the level where their performance is compromised. Employees who face customer mistreatment feel ill-treated and develop the desire for revenge. Based on the social exchange and displaced revenge perspective, this study examined the relationship between customer mistreatment and coworker undermining, and individual-level resource-based moderator service rule commitment for this relationship. An analysis of time-lagged, dyadic data from the Chinese service (...) industry confirmed that customer mistreatment significantly predicted coworker undermining. In addition, in support of the resource perspective, employees’ SRC effectively restricts an effect of customer mistreatment on coworker undermining. Finally, this study contributes to the customer mistreatment and coworker undermining literature by highlighting their relationship. This study also shows the importance of SRC in restraining the adverse effects of customer mistreatment. (shrink)

We have identified a sample of 53 societies outside of the classical Himalayan and Marquesean area that permit polyandrous unions. Our goal is to broadly describe the demographic, social, marital, and economic characteristics of these societies and to evaluate some hypotheses of the causes of polyandry. We demonstrate that although polyandry is rare it is not as rare as commonly believed, is found worldwide, and is most common in egalitarian societies. We also argue that polyandry likely existed during early human (...) history and should be examined from an evolutionary perspective. Our analysis reveals that it may be a predictable response to a high operational sex ratio favoring males and may also be a response to high rates of male mortality and, possibly, male absenteeism. Other factors may contribute, but our within-polyandry sample limits analysis. (shrink)

Conducting clinical research on subjects admitted to intensive care units is challenging, as they frequently lack the capacity to provide informed consent due to multiple factors including intensive care unit acquired delirium, coma, the need for sedation, or underlying critical illness. However, the presence of one or more of these characteristics does not automatically designate a potential subject as lacking capacity to provide their own informed consent. We review the ethical issues involved in obtaining informed consent for medical research from (...) mechanically ventilated, critically ill patients, in addition to the concerns that may arise when a legally authorized representative is asked to provide informed consent on behalf of these patients. (shrink)

There is a well-entrenched schism on the frequency, intensity, and evolutionary significance of warfare among hunter-gatherers compared with large-scale societies. To simplify, Rousseauians argue that warfare among prehistoric and contemporary hunter-gatherers was nearly absent and, if present, was a late cultural invention. In contrast, so-called Hobbesians argue that violence was relatively common but variable among hunter-gatherers. To defend their views, Rousseauians resort to a variety of tactics to diminish the apparent frequency and intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare. These tactics include redefining (...) war, censoring ethnographic accounts of warfare in comparative analyses, misconstruing archaeological evidence, and claiming that outside contact inflates the intensity of warfare among hunter-gatherers. These tactics are subject to critical analysis and are mostly found to be wanting. Furthermore, Hobbesians with empirical data have already established that the frequency and intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare is greater compared with large-scale societies even though horticultural societies engage in warfare more intensively than hunter-gatherers. In the end I argue that although war is a primitive trait we may share with chimpanzees and/or our last common ancestor, the ability of hunter-gatherer bands to live peaceably with their neighbors, even though war may occur, is a derived trait that fundamentally distinguishes us socially and politically from chimpanzee societies. It is a point often lost in these debates. (shrink)

Physicalism is the idea that everything either is physical or is nothing over and above the physical. For this formulation of physicalism to have determinate content, it should be identified what the “physical” refers to; i.e. the body problem. Some other closely related theses, especially the ones employed in the causal arguments for different versions of physicalism, and more especially the causal closure thesis, are also subject to the body problem. In this paper, I do two things. First, I explore (...) the structure of causal arguments for physicalism that represents a general argument. To do this, the premises and the conclusion of the general argument are given exact formulations. Second, drawing on those premises, especially the causal closure thesis, I propose a naturalistic formulation of the physical that satisfies the requirements any formulation of the physical is expected to fulfill. Following this proposal, we also have a recursive algorithm to recognize the set of all physical events. (shrink)

Research suggests that ethical leadership influences employees’ behavior and organizational functioning. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of ethical leadership in the improvement of employees’ innovative performance. Specifically, this research developed and tested a framework about the intermediating mechanism of social capital in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative performance. The current study integrated assumptions of social learning and social exchange theories, which postulate that the leadership has a direct effect on the employees’ (...) conduct, principally through role modeling and the reciprocal landscape. Data were collected through in-person administered questionnaire-based survey from 297 employees working in the manufacturing sectors of Pakistan. The conceptual model of our research was analyzed applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results exhibited that the ethical leadership plays an important role in fostering employees’ innovative performance. The present study also found that social capital plays an intermediating role between the ethical leadership and employees’ innovative performance relationship. The current study contributed to the leadership and innovation literature and provided insights in examining the ethical leadership-employees’ innovative performance relationship through the intermediating mechanism of social capital. (shrink)

A phenomenon resulting from a computationally irreducible (or computationally incompressible) process is supposedly unpredictable except via simulation. This notion of unpredictability has been deployed to formulate recent accounts of computational emergence. Via a technical analysis, I show that computational irreducibility can establish the impossibility of prediction only with respect to maximum standards of precision. By articulating the graded nature of prediction, I show that unpredictability to maximum standards is not equivalent to being unpredictable in general. I conclude that computational irreducibility (...) fails to fulfill its assigned philosophical roles in theories of computational emergence. (shrink)

Taking support from ego-depletion theory, this study examines ego depletion as a mechanism that explains how employees’ organizational citizenship behavior leads to antagonistic consequences, i.e., service sabotage. Employees’ positive psychological capital is considered a moderator. PROCESS macro was used to test all the hypotheses using time-lagged, dyadic data collected from 420 employees and their 112 their supervisors associated with the service industry in China. This study finds that employees’ exhibition of OCB is positively linked to ego depletion, which in turn (...) drives service sabotage behavior. Furthermore, employees’ PsyCap weakens the effect of OCB on employees’ ego depletion. This study highlights the dark side of OCB, the mechanism through which it causes adverse effects, and the moderating effect of PsyCap. It also provides insights to the organizations for managing service sector employees to effectively interact with customers. (shrink)

Considerable research on helpers-at-the-nest demonstrates the positive effects of firstborn daughters on a mother’s reproductive success and the survival of her children compared with women who have firstborn sons. This research is largely restricted to agricultural settings. In the present study we ask: “Does ‘daughter first’ improve mothers’ reproductive success in a hunting and gathering context?” Through an analysis of 84 postreproductive women in this population we find that the sex of the first- or second-born child has no effect on (...) a mother’s fertility or the survival of her offspring. We conclude that specific environmental and economic factors underlay the helpers-at-the-nest phenomenon. (shrink)

This study develops a conceptual framework and investigates green human resource practices —green recruitment and selection, green training and development, and green reward and compensation? effects on pro-environmental psychological climate and pro-environmental behavior, which cause green corporate social responsibility. We employ information technology capabilities as a moderator between the GHRM and pro-environmental behavior. It applies a convenience sampling technique and survey questionnaire to collect data from 388 employees at CPEC projects. Results demonstrate that GHRM positively influences pro-environmental psychological climate and (...) pro-environmental behavior that significantly develops GCSR. IT capabilities significantly moderate the relationships between GHRM and pro-environmental behavior. The study findings add to the body of green HRM practices, strategic management, and information processing and policy makers better postulate, align, and exercise their green HRM practices for its synergetic effects for green CSR and sustainability. We also acknowledge some limitations and provide future directions. (shrink)

Evolution of fintech services and the adoption of new emerging technology is what is seen in today’s world. Very few researchers have studies on the factors that affect the adoption of fintech services and how human behavior varies as technology changes. Apart from this, the advancement in mobile phones and the increase in the usage of them have increased the demand of the online financial services. In this paper we have considered and studied factors that have an impact of the (...) adoption of fintech services through convenient sampling. We have studied perceived ease of use, innovation, trust and government support. Through SPSS we have concluded that each of these factors have a positive impact on the adoption of fintech services. Our model is based on TAM and was adopted from our base article. The finding of this research can be used to make improvements in the existing fintech services and also in the development of new services. (shrink)

This study investigates structural influence of the Madrassah system on effectiveness of its students in terms of civic health, system thinking and professional development. The researchers constructed the instrument of survey after rigorous literature review, frequent interaction with scholars, clerics and policy makers. The survey was administrated to 600 Madrassah’s students from different schools of thought. By applying T-test and Kruskal Waliss Rank Test for measurement of effectiveness and Structural Equation Modeling methodology the researchers has explored the relationship between the (...) variables, and later analyzed with the help of selected model. Findings of the study demonstrate that education system followed in Madrassahs does not seem to be effective and need-based in contemporary times. Indicators of Madrassah structure such as curriculum and openness negatively influences the students while peda­gogy positively influences the effectiveness of students of Madrasah in Pakistan. In the end, it is recommended that curriculum and pedagogy of Madrassah should be reformed and updated in accordance with knowledge-based economy. This will not only upgrade the poor segment of society but also bring together the variety of individuals close enough to understand each other. (shrink)

Based on upper echelons, paradox, and social capital theory, this study extends the association of CEO vision articulation and feedback-seeking behavior with firm sustainability by identifying the mediating role of eco-innovation and top management team boundary-spanning behavior as a moderator. By analyzing the data of mid-sized to large Chinese firms using hierarchical regression and bootstrapping-based moderated path analysis, we found that product and process eco-innovation mediates the link between CEO vision articulation and firm sustainability while CEO feedback-seeking behavior enhances firm’s (...) sustainability through product eco-innovation only. Finally, conditional indirect effects show the vital role of TMT boundary-spanning behavior in facilitating CEOs to improve the firm’s long-term sustainability through eco-innovation. (shrink)

This study was carried out to investigate the roles of epistemic beliefs and writing self-efficacy in predicting second language writing anxiety among learners of English as a foreign language. To this end, three validated scales were distributed among 240 EFL students. They were asked to complete the questionnaires during their regular courses. A structural equation modeling approach was utilized to analyze the hypothesized SEM model and the causal paths among the constructs. The direct and indirect path analyses of the hypothesized (...) model indicated that EBs and WSE accounted for 43% of the variance in L2WA. Although both constructs had a significant effect on L2WA, EBs turned out to be a robust predictor of increasing L2WA. Notably, it was revealed that learners’ EBs directly and significantly influenced their L2WA. Besides, the results indicated that WSE had a unique effect in reducing L2WA. More precisely, students who had a higher level of EBs seemed to have a greater L2WA, and those who had a higher level of WSE experienced less L2WA. The findings of this explanatory study suggest that L2 teachers and material developers should pay serious attention to the Students’ cognitive and affective variables as they were known to be significant factors in influencing L2WA. (shrink)

We simulate trial data to test speculative claims about research methods, such as the impact of publication bias.

Based on content externalism, the question of whether self-knowledge is authoritative or not has launched a real controversy in the philosophy of mind. Boghossian proposed slow switching argument in defense of incompatibility of the two views. This argument has been criticized by some philosophers through different approaches. Vahid is one of them. He claimed that Boghossian's argument appeals to some controversial assumptions without which it cannot achieve its conclusion. In this article, I criticize Vahid's response to slow switching argument and (...) show that self-knowledge in Vahid's response differs in having authority and therefore in function from that of Boghossian. (shrink)

AbstractIslam's Quantum Question by Nidhal Guessoum offers a sophisticated approach to reconciling the results of modern science with Islamic tradition. The book provides a valuable critique of existing literature on Islam and science and advocates the promotion of good science and science education in the Muslim world. A central tension in the book revolves around Guessoum's efforts to promote a version of theistic science, while at the same establishing a clear boundary for science and scientific methodology. Although the latter works (...) very well, the project of theistic science presented in the book is, at the very least, contentious. However, Islam's Quantum Question is a milestone in the literature on Islam and science and should be valuable for anyone interested in the search for meaning in both science and religion. (shrink)

This paper offers a practical argument for metaphysical emergence. The main message is that the growing reliance on so-called irrational scientific methods provides evidence that objects of science are indecomposable and as such, are better described by metaphysical emergence as opposed to the prevalent reductionistic metaphysics. I show that a potential counterargument that science will eventually reduce everything to physics has little weight given where science is heading with its current methodological trend. I substantiate my arguments by detailed examples from (...) biological engineering, but the conclusions are extendable beyond that discipline. (shrink)

Most physicalists believe that physicalism is a thesis that denies the existence of fundamental mentality either as a substance or as a property. Therefore, since most physicalists also endorse a posteriori physicalism, according to them, if the future physical theory posits fundamental mentality as a fundamental physical concept, then physicalism will be falsified. In contrast, there are those who believe that the core idea of physicalism is an ontological deference to science (especially physics); the idea that is usually called scientism (...) and is closely related to methodological naturalism. According to them, if physicists posit fundamental mentality as an integral part of the future fundamental physical theory, physicalism will not be falsified, and physicalists may (or should) accept fundamental mentality as a genuine physical concept. In this paper, I argue that there is some historical evidence in support of the latter understanding of physicalism. First, I give some historical evidence that seems to suggest that the historical origin of physicalism is the failure of those explanations – or pseudo-explanations – that have appealed to supernatural non-physical entities. Second, I show that in some of the initial reflections on materialism – the predecessor of physicalism – in the first half of the twentieth century, philosophers understood materialism in terms of the very historical origin. (shrink)

In this study meal sharing is used as a way of quantifying food transfers between households. Traditional food-sharing studies measure the flow of resources between households. Meal sharing, in contrast, measures food consumption acts according to whether one is a host or a guest in the household as well as the movement of people between households in the context of food consumption. Our goal is to test a number of evolutionary models of food transfers, but first we argue that before (...) one tests models of who should receive food one must understand the adaptiveness of food transfers. For the Ye’kwana, economies of scale in food processing and preparation appear to set the stage for the utility of meal sharing. Evolutionary models of meal sharing, such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism, are evaluated along with non-evolutionary models, such as egalitarian exchange and residential propinquity. In addition, a modified measure of exchange balance—proportional balance—is developed. Reciprocal altruism is shown to be the strongest predictor of exchange intensity and balance. (shrink)

In their paper “Should Methodological Naturalists Commit to Metaphysical Naturalism?” Zargar et al. try to show that the correct answer to the question that the title of their paper poses is positive. They argue that methodological naturalism has a metaphysical presupposition, namely causal closure, and an epistemological consequence, namely evidentialism. Causal closure and evidentialism imply metaphysical naturalism. Thus, they conclude, one who believes in methodological naturalism should also endorse causal closure, evidentialism, and metaphysical naturalism as a result. In this paper, (...) I criticize their argument and argue that it is deficient in (at least) two different ways. First, what they consider to be methodological naturalism is in fact a strawman: that is another – more radical – thesis that may be called methodological anti-supernaturalism. Second, and most importantly, even methodological anti-supernaturalism does not in essence need causal closure for its justification. Then, methodological naturalists are not required to adhere to causal closure or metaphysical naturalism. (shrink)