The current research targets naive realism among university students, self-awareness among university students, and the relationship between naive realism and self-awareness among university students. The researcher suggests the following studies: Like the current research on other samples such as (employees in senior positions, professors, returnees, and displaced persons), and addressing other demographic variables such as (age, education, culture, and social status). It addresses the relationship of naive realism with a number of psychological variables such as (positive work, joint rumination, confirmation (...) bias, cognitive biases, and attentional bias). It addresses the relationship of self-awareness and its relationship with a number of psychological variables such as (reflective thinking, emotional creativity, psychological adjustment, cognitive styles, and parental treatment styles). (shrink)

We might worry that our seamless reliance on AI systems makes us prone to adopting the strange errors that these systems commit. One proposed solution is to design AI systems so that they are not phenomenally transparent to their users. This stops cognitive extension and the automatic uptake of errors. Although we acknowledge that some aspects of AI extension are concerning, we can address these concerns without discouraging transparent employment altogether. First, we believe that the potential danger should be put (...) into perspective – many unreliable technologies are unlikely to be used transparently precisely because they are unreliable. Second, an agent who transparently employs a resource may also reflect (opaquely) on its reliability. Finally, agents can rely on a process transparently and be yanked out of their transparent use when it turns unreliable. When an agent is responsive to the reliability of their process in this way, they have epistemically integrated it, and the beliefs they form with it are formed responsibly. This prevents the agent from automatically incorporating problematic beliefs. Responsible (and transparent) use of AI resources – and consequently responsible AI extension – is hence possible. We end the paper with several design and policy recommendations that encourage epistemic integration of AI-involving belief-forming processes. (shrink)

Pain is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon. Pain research documents cases where our disregard of diverse pain experiences leads to epistemic injustices against those who suffer from pain. Automated pain detection technologies use limited behavioural and physiological indicators and are trained on insufficiently diverse datasets. These technologies can potentially exacerbate existing epistemic harms against pain sufferers, particularly marginalised groups. I argue that we must carefully consider the diverse presentations of pain and their neurological, biological, psychological, and social dimensions when implementing AI-based (...) pain assessment tools. To prevent deepening epistemic injustices in pain care, we must develop AI systems by collecting diverse datasets, implementing explainable algorithms, maintaining transparency in data and algorithms, and incorporating flexibility for ongoing improvements. Preserving pain’s complexity when developing these technologies helps prevent further marginalising those who experience pain, particularly vulnerable populations. -/- . (shrink)

Education aims to improve our innate abilities, teach new skills and habits, and nurture intellectual virtues. Poorly designed or misused generative AI disrupts these educational goals. I propose strategies to design generative AI that aligns with education's aims. The paper proposes a design for a generative AI tutor that teaches students to question well. I argue that such an AI can also help students learn to lead noble inquiries, achieve deeper understanding, and experience a sense of curiosity and fascination. Students (...) who learn to question effectively through such an AI tutor may also develop crucial intellectual virtues. (shrink)

I argue that we should ameliorate the concept of pain. The currently predominant concept, focused primarily or solely on treatment, is too narrow to accommodate the complexity of pain. This concept, when applied in clinical practice and medical research, causes epistemic harms that fall disproportionately on already marginalised groups. I argue that the primary purpose for which we need the concept is recognition, not treatment. To recognise someone in pain is to treat them as the primary epistemic authority regarding their (...) pain experience and to emphatically see them in their pain experience and its impact. Ameliorating the concept of pain in this way allows us to make space for complex presentations of pain and pains that we do not want or expect to be treated. (shrink)

Virtue reliabilists argue that an agent can only gain knowledge if she responsibly employs a reliable belief-forming process. This in turn demands that she is either aware that her process is reliable or is sensitive to her process’s reliability in some other way. According to a recent argument in the philosophy of mind, sometimes a cognitive mechanism (i.e. precision estimation) can ensure that a belief-forming process is only employed when it’s reliable. If this is correct, epistemic responsibility can sometimes be (...) explained entirely on the subpersonal level. In this paper, I argue that the mechanism of precision estimation–the alleged new variety of epistemic responsibility–is a more ubiquitous phenomenon than epistemic responsibility. I show that precision estimation operates at levels that are not always concerned with the epistemic domain. Lastly, I broaden this argument to explain how all subpersonal epistemologies are likely to fall prey to the problem of demarcating cognitive agency and the problem of attributing beliefs. (shrink)

Virtue reliabilism provides an account of epistemic integration that explains how a reliable-belief forming process can become a knowledge-conducive ability of one’s cognitive character. The univocal view suggests that this epistemic integration can also explain how an external process can extend one’s cognition into the environment. Andy Clark finds a problem with the univocal view. He claims that cognitive extension is a wholly subpersonal affair, whereas the epistemic integration that virtue reliabilism puts forward requires personal-level agential involvement. To adjust the (...) univocal view, Clark recommends a subpersonal epistemic integration account that also paves way for a wholly subpersonal epistemology. Accordingly, an epistemic agent can take responsibility for her reliable belief-forming process by way of entirely subpersonal mechanisms. The aim of this thesis is to argue against a subpersonal epistemology and the need for it. First, I bring into question the conditions that motivate extended cognition: the so-called ‘glue and trust’ requirements and the functional parity principle. Neither of these conditions demands that extension should be understood in entirely subpersonal terms. On the contrary, the glue and trust conditions suggest that agents should personally and actively engage with their external vehicles to extend cognition. Further, I consider an important disparity between the two kinds of integration. Integration that prompts extension can happen immediately, but the integration that makes a reliable belief-forming process knowledge-conducive is almost always a slow process. In light of this and other similar inconsistencies between the two integration accounts, I conclude that a type of univocal view is difficult to defend. And, since that type of univocal view is the main reason for a subpersonal epistemology, the need for it does not arise. Next, I locate Clark’s main motivation for his subpersonal epistemology in his account of the predictive brain. While the predictive brain provides useful insight into how an external process might extend one’s cognition, I show it runs into problems when it tries to account for epistemic integration. Then, I explore how the concept of epistemic defeaters informs epistemic integration. Agents have to meet a specific no-defeater condition to be sensitive to the reliability of their belief-forming processes and to employ them responsibly. In an entirely subpersonal epistemology, defeasibility theory has no means to explain how an agent is rendered sensitive to the reliability of her process. Subpersonal mechanisms can become sensitive to the new process, but that does not allow the agent to employ said process responsibly. Finally, I use an AI case, based on Amazon Alexa, to argue that all accounts of epistemic integration ought to explicitly describe how one’s subpersonal mechanisms link to one’s whole person, even if the link is weak and indirect. Without this connection between one’s subpersonal mechanisms and one’s person, it can become difficult to ascribe beliefs to the agent. This becomes apparent when Alexa leads to ever-increasing layers of cognitive, mental, and agential extension. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine how we can responsibly form beliefs with AI technologies while relying on them seamlessly. Generally, we use technology seamlessly when we employ it without paying direct attention to the technology or our use of it. Technologies we use regularly for a significant period can become seamless in this way. Consider, for example, how we seamlessly reach for our phones when we look up directions in a new city. Other examples are smartwatches and virtual reality goggles (...) that may be used seamlessly, even more quickly. (shrink)

Phenomenal transparency was once widely believed to be necessary for cognitive extension. Recently, this claim has come under attack, with a new consensus coalescing around the idea that transparency is neither necessary for internal nor extended cognitive processes. We take these recent critiques as an opportunity to refine the concept of transparency relevant for cognitive extension. In particular, we highlight that transparency concerns an agent’s employment of a resource – and that such employment is compatible with an agent consciously apprehending (...) (or attending to) a resource. This means it is possible for an object to be transparent and opaque to an agent, even at a single moment in time. Once we understand transparency in this way, the detractors’ claims lose their bite, and existing arguments for transparency’s necessity for cognitive extension return to apply with full force. (shrink)

This article shows how Arab students at an Arab college in Israel, majoring in teaching of mathematics, English, and science, rely on metaphor as an important rhetorical tool for the advancement of their ideological positions and for criticism of the policies of the Israeli government, which discriminates against and disenfranchises Arab Israelis. The underlying hypothesis of the article is that the way Arab students in Israel use metaphor in their writing has unique rhetorical aspects that help to sharpen their message (...) in pursuit of the broader goal of emphasizing Arab Israelis’ suffering and changing for the better the Israeli government’s discriminatory patterns of action against them. (shrink)

A personalized recommender system is broadly accepted as a helpful tool to handle the information overload issue while recommending a related piece of information. This work proposes a hybrid personalized recommender system based on affinity propagation, namely, APHPRS. Affinity propagation is a semisupervised machine learning algorithm used to cluster items based on similarities among them. In our approach, we first calculate the cluster quality and density and then combine their outputs to generate a new ranking score among clusters for the (...) personalized recommendation. In the first phase, user preferences are collected and normalized as items rating matrix. This generated matrix is then clustered offline using affinity propagation and kept in a database for future recommendations. In the second phase, online recommendations are generated by applying the offline model. Negative Euclidian similarity and the quality of clusters are used together to select the best clusters for recommendations. The proposed APHPRS system alleviates problems such as sparsity and cold-start problems. The use of affinity propagation and the hybrid recommendation technique used in the proposed approach helps in improving results against sparsity. Experiments reveal that the proposed APHPRS performs better than most of the existing recommender systems. (shrink)

Historically, education has largely been used for political gains and to strengthen positions of power. Similarly, ruling elites in Pakistan achieve their political interests by using education as a tool. This study problematised the religious content in the secondary school science textbooks of the national curriculum. This was illustrated in the context of the post-conflict scenario of 11 September 2001 (9/11) in the newly merged tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A thematic analysis of the content of the science textbooks (...) (physics and biology) was used to develop the findings of this study. This was supported by field data gathered from students’ experiences and interactions with the sample textbooks. By incorporating Foucault’s concept of the ‘regime of truth’ and Talbani’s conceptualisation of Islamisation, the study found the use of the Qur’anic verses in the sampled textbooks to be influential ‘technologies of power and self’ to Islamise science and scientify Islam to prove it as a scientific religion. In addition, it makes education increasingly irrelevant to changing socio-economic realities and aspirations among students. Contribution: The study can contribute both to theory and practice. By Islamising science education and instilling obscurantism in textbooks for schools, there is a substantial sociopolitical impact, as well as a negative impact on students’ critical thinking skills. The policymakers and actors in the Pakistani education system should therefore pay close attention to this issue. Unless the current educational system is changed, a number of generations will experience stunted growth that will be nearly impossible to reverse in the future. (shrink)

Data mining’s primary clustering method has several uses, including gene analysis. A set of unlabeled data is divided into clusters using data features in a clustering study, which is an unsupervised learning problem. Data in a cluster are more comparable to one another than to those in other groups. However, the number of clusters has a direct impact on how well the K-means algorithm performs. In order to find the best solutions for these real-world optimization issues, it is necessary to (...) use techniques that properly explore the search spaces. In this research, an enhancement of K-means clustering is proposed by applying an equilibrium optimization approach. The suggested approach adjusts the number of clusters while simultaneously choosing the best attributes to find the optimal answer. The findings establish the usefulness of the suggested method in comparison to existing algorithms in terms of intra-cluster distances and Rand index based on five datasets. Through the results shown and a comparison of the proposed method with the rest of the traditional methods, it was found that the proposal is better in terms of the internal dimension of the elements within the same cluster, as well as the Rand index. In conclusion, the suggested technique can be successfully employed for data clustering and can offer significant support. (shrink)

In the Indian context; contributed articles.

What is difficult to imagine is also surprising to perceive. This indicates that active visual imagery is an integral part of active visual perception. Erroneous mental transformations provide clues to prior assumptions in visual imagery, just as visual illusions provide clues to perceptual assumptions. Visual imagery and perception share generic assumptions about invariants in images of rigid objects.

ABSTRACT The war of al-Basūs is among the most renowned wars of pre-Islamic Arabia. It was said to have been fought between two sister-tribes, and to have lasted allegedly for forty years. Its story, especially since the eighteenth century ce, became rich material that nurtured epic and non-epic literary works. This article examines the influence of that war on early Arabic poetry, based on every reference in a corpus of some 27,000 poems, dating from the pre-Islamic era to the fifteenth (...) century. The verses are identified using the Rhetorical Element Identifier database (REI), a web-based tool developed by Ali Ahmad Hussein et al. It considers how the theme of the war developed and compares the mark it made on the earlier poetry with its significant imprint on modern and pre-modern Arabic literature. The main conclusion is that the influence and/or importance of the war in the classical period differed from that of later times. It seems that in this early period it was no more than a local incident, its importance restricted to those involved, and its influence on the wider Arabian community minimal. This study emphasizes the hypothesis that a significant portion of this war is embedded in Arab folklore rather than Arab history. (shrink)

Through case studies that highlight the type of information that is seldom reported in the news, Faces of Environmental Racism exposes the type and magnitude of environmental racism, both domestic and international. The essays explore the justice of current environmental practices, asking such questions as whether cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate analytic technique and whether there are alternate routes to sustainable development in the South.

We examine the relationships among religious governance, especially Islamic governance quality (IGQ), national governance quality (NGQ), and risk management and disclosure practices (RDPs), and consequently ascertain whether NGQ has a moderating influence on the IGQ–RDPs nexus. Using one of the largest data sets relating to Islamic banks from 10 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries from 2006 to 2013, our findings are threefold. First, we find that RDPs are higher in banks with higher IGQ. Second, we find that RDPs (...) are higher in banks from countries with higher NGQ. Finally, we find that NGQ has a moderating effect on the IGQ–RDPs nexus. Our findings are robust to alternative RDP measures and estimation techniques. These results imply that the quality of disclosure depends on the nature of the macro-social-level factors, such as religion that have remained largely unexplored in business and society research, and, therefore, have important implications for policy makers. (shrink)

Background Nurses are challenged with many situations that require them to solve ethical dilemmas and make moral decisions based on professional values and a sense of accountability and responsibility. To support their decisions, it is important to know how they perceive and relate their ethical ideology, professional values, and clinical accountability in their workplace. Purpose The study’s aim was twofold: to investigate the ethical ideology and perceived importance of professional values and accountability among nurses. Further, explore the relationship between each (...) of ethical ideology and professional values with nurses’ work accountability. Methods A correlational study was conducted in an Egyptian hospital. All nurses were invited to participate = 192, and 150 nurses (78.3%) completed the study questionnaires. The Ethical Position Questionnaire, the Professional Values Scale, and the Clinical Vignettes Assessment for Clinical Accountability were proven to be reliable study measures. Ethical considerations Ethics Committee approval, written informed consent, data privacy and confidentiality, and participants’ right to voluntary participation and withdrawal were maintained. Results Nurses showed good ethical ideology (75 ± 6.2) and are more idealistic while maintaining professional values (108 ± 10.8). Most nurses believed they were accountable for documenting errors, completing incident reports, and calling physicians to discuss or manage the situations. Ethical ideology and the idealism subscale were positively correlated with overall nurses’ professional values (r = 0.321, p < 0.004, r =0.464, p 0.000), respectively. On the other hand, work accountability showed a partial correlation in some areas with ethical ideology and professional values. Discussion Professional values and nurses' accountability appear to be influenced by ethical positions and ideology. Conclusion Healthcare organizations should provide a supportive work environment to help nurses develop self-awareness, and knowledge of their ethical ideologies, which improve professional values and clinical accountability in their practice. Ethical ideology and professional values should be emphasized more in nursing curricula. (shrink)

Armed conflict in Darfur, west Sudan since 2003 has led to the influx of about 100 international humanitarian UN and non-governmental organizations to help the affected population. Many of their humanitarian interventions included the collection of human personal data and/or biosamples, and these activities are often associated with ethical issues. A systematic review was conducted to assess the proportion of publicly available online reports of the research activities undertaken on humans in Darfur between 2004 and 2012 that mention obtaining ethical (...) approval and/or informed consent. This systematic review is based on a systematic literature search of Complex Emergency Database, ReliefWeb, PubMed), followed by a hand search for the hardcopies of the eligible reports archived in the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels. The online search showed that out of the 68 eligible studies, 13.2% reported gaining ethical approval and 42.6% that an informed consent was obtained from the participants. The CRED search included 138 eligible reports. None of these reports mentioned gaining ethical approval and 17 mentioned obtaining informed consent from their participants. The proportion of studies reporting ethical review and informed consent was smaller than might be expected, so we suggest five possible explanations for these findings. This review provides empirical evidence that can help in planning ethical conduct of research in humanitarian settings. (shrink)

In a world facing hunger and limited natural resources, food waste represents a major environmental and economic challenge. Large quantities of food are wasted annually, leading to the inefficient use of water, energy, and agricultural land, while intensifying climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. In Iraq, food waste has emerged as a pressing issue, with waste levels exceeding global averages, particularly within the restaurant and hospitality sector. In recent years, a growing proportion of the Iraqi population consumes a significant share (...) of their meals outside the home, alongside the rapid expansion of fast-food restaurants. Most excess food is disposed of in landfills, where it decomposes anaerobically and generates methane, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases. Addressing food waste requires coordinated efforts among individuals, businesses, and governmental institutions to promote more sustainable consumption and management practices. This study is a narrative review that aims to analyze the causes and environmental and economic impacts of food waste in Iraq, as well as to evaluate international strategies that could be adapted to the Iraqi context. (shrink)

The world of synthesizers and synthesists is historically male-dominated. Women in synthesis tend to be obscured by males, and their contribution suffers from erasure. This article considers Suzanne Ciani within the contexts of art, technology, science and culture and her work in composition, performance and media. In particular, her National Endowment for the Arts report of 1976 is a groundbreaking document detailing her composition and performance process using synthesizers. Her composition approach has parallels with techniques drawn from serialism, performed and (...) improvised live using machines. Her performances utilize quadraphonic techniques for spatialized performance as part of the composition and performance. She was the first woman to score a major Hollywood film in 1981. Her work in media and technology highlights a space that women have always worked in but have frequently not been acknowledged as doing so. Ciani’s story reveals tenacity in the face of bias and rejection. It is a tale of someone who always has to claim her credentials, always legitimate her mode of expression, and always counter the assumption that somewhere in her work, there is a man. (shrink)

Background Armed conflicts are associated with multiple factors that may deem applying the ethical standards of research conducted in war-affected areas hard to achieve, compared to research conducted in peace time. Objective Using the example of studies conducted by the humanitarian agencies in the war-troubled region of Darfur, west Sudan between 2004 and 2012, a qualitative study was pursued to have a deeper understanding of the factors that affected the reporting of gaining the ethical approval in the published reports of (...) these studies. Methods A qualitative study was used that involved conducting interviews and focus groups with the relevant stakeholders, namely the representatives of the national and international non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, and the national humanitarian and research governance bodies in Sudan. Results 38 participants were involved (5 interviewees and 33 participants in the focus groups). The participants expressed a consensus on the need for an ethical oversight for research in the humanitarian settings in Sudan and particularly Darfur. Following a thematic analysis, four main themes were identified to explain why the humanitarian studies in Darfur were not submitted to formal ethical approval. These are (1) Inconsistent definitions of research, (2) Perceptions of low-risk, (3) Perceived urgency due to emergency context, (4) Prior study or tool approval, and (5) Lack of knowledge about ethics review procedures. Conclusion Institutional gaps in humanitarian governance structures are identified, urging the need for specialized ethics oversight mechanisms. The dynamic nature of humanitarian crises prompts nuanced approaches to ethical scrutiny, emphasizing policy initiatives to harmonize research and humanitarian governance frameworks and learning lessons from research ethics oversight in public health emergencies. (shrink)

Dominant publishing workflows took shape under conditions of relative epistemic stability: slower problem cycles, bounded corpora, and institutions better able to absorb delay. Those conditions now hold unevenly, and in many fast-moving fields they no longer match the tempo of the object itself. Claims can become decision-relevant within days or weeks, while formal validation still unfolds over months. The result is a widening gap between what begins to circulate with authority and what has actually been epistemically stabilised. This article treats (...) generative AI not as the origin of that problem, nor as a substitute for scholarly judgement, but as an intensifier of pressures already building within contemporary systems of validation. Using conceptual-design research, it identifies recurring breakdown patterns in scholarly publishing and translates them into explicit design requirements. From there, it proposes Living Knowledge Infrastructure (LKI) as a redesign of scholarly validation for an era in which generative AI accelerates knowledge production faster than existing publishing systems can verify it. It advances a sociotechnical framework for sustaining cumulative verification beyond the version of record. The contribution is architectural and testable: LKI links pedagogical review, executable knowledge, journals as knowledge stewards, and epistemic care into a model designed to preserve review continuity, lower verification costs, and strengthen corrigibility under accelerated conditions. Rather than calling simply for faster or more open dissemination, the article argues for a linked redesign of how scholarly judgement is recorded, carried across versions, and made publicly accountable when uptake begins to outrun validation. (shrink)

The Sufi saints, in their texts, successfully ingrained Love as the destination of spiritual path, to accomplish the Divine. The objective of this study was to focus on the cult of Sufism, in general, and on the Sufi poetry of Fakhr al-Din ʿIrāqī, in particular as reflected in his anthology, Kitāb al-lamaʿāt. Adopting a historical approach, the study analyzed the evolution of Sufi poetry since the beginning, and examined the poetry of ʿIrāqī in the context of Islamic mysticism. This qualitative (...) study adopted an exploratory content analysis method and documentation research to examine the Sufi philosophy as reflected in the sampled poetry of ʿIrāqī. For the realization of this goal, a research was conducted on the available published resources. The documentation survey helped discover the truth of ʿIrāqī ’s poetry in the context of Spiritual love. It was discovered that ʿIrāqī ’s philosophy of Love was based on metaphysical transcendentalism, where spiritual attainment was achieved through formlessness mirrored in the form of Beauty as the manifestation of Love. (shrink)

The fact that the jurists of the formative/classical period of Islamic law did not explicitly articulate a general theory of contract has given rise to two radically different yet equally mistaken conclusions. The first conclusion, associated mainly with non‐Muslim scholars of Islamic law, has argued that this failure to develop a general theory of contract law (and other categories of law) is evidence of conceptual primitiveness. The second conclusion is a reaction to the first and is held mainly by Muslim (...) scholars trying to prove that there is in fact a general theory of contract law. This general theory, it is argued, is mainly based on the ability of Islamic law to enforce innominate contracts. This article points out that both these conclusions are unwarranted. There is no general theory of contract law in Islamic law. What there are are principles, which the jurists applied in deriving both the structure and content of the contract law. The two main principles (though by no means the only principles) are the principles (or virtues) of commutative justive and liberality. These principles inform Islamic contract law just as they informed the Aristotelian understanding before them and the Thomistic, Roman and Civilian understanding of contract law after them. The construction of contract law on the basis of these principles is evidence of conceptual sophistication. (shrink)

The present study delves into the complex interplay between religion and secularism within the framework of contemporary European democracies. It explores how secularism is changing and how it is affecting public life, societal norms, and government. The purpose of the study is to clarify the difficulties and controversies surrounding secularism in Europe by examining the historical context and current dynamics. For measuring, the research used Smart PLS software and generated results, including descriptive statistics, which also present a smart PLS Algorithm (...) model between them. The discussion is on how secularism is interpreted and applied differently in different European nations, emphasizing the conflicts between the principles of religious freedom and governmental neutrality. It describes how secularism affects immigration, globalization, and cultural diversity and how these factors shape European cultures' social fabric. The article also critically assesses the charges made against secularism, such as the devaluation of moral principles and the marginalization of religious minorities. Concerns about the misapplication of secularism for discriminatory and cultural hegemony are also covered, especially in light of Islamophobia and clothing rules based on religion. The study argues for a nuanced view of religion's place in contemporary European democracies through this reevaluation. To promote inclusive forms of government that consider the diverse religious landscape of Europe, it highlights the significance of striking a balance between secular ideals and respect for religious plurality and freedom. (shrink)

This research focuses on the contributions of a non-Arab scholar who has significantly impacted the study of the language of the Qur'an, the most revered and miraculous of texts. Despite its eternal wonders and the mysteries of its miraculous nature remaining untapped, the language of the Qur'an continues to be a subject of intense study. After reviewing the works of al-Farahi, I was impressed by the boldness of this non-Arab scholar in critiquing many established theories of Arabic lexicographers, morphologists, and (...) grammarians from both earlier and later periods. His responses in linguistic matters, particularly in grammatical issues, will be the main focus of this research. The research will examine his responses in grammatical issues, which we have categorized into two sections: responses related to nouns and responses related to prepositions. The section on nouns is further divided into two main categories: responses concerning inflected nouns and responses concerning constructed nouns. This classification follows the approach of al-Zamakhshari in his book Al-Mufassal, and is organized as follows. (shrink)

BackgroundBioethics as a field related to the health system and health service delivery has grown in the second half of the 20th century, mainly in North America. This is attributed, the author argues, to mainly three kinds of development that took place in the developed countries at a pace different than the developing countries. They are namely: development of the health system; moral development; and political development.DiscussionThis article discusses the factors that impede the development of the field of bioethics from (...) an academic activity to a living field that is known and practiced by the people in the developing countries. They are quite many; however, the emphasis here is on role of the political structure in the developing countries and how it negatively affects the development of bioethics. It presents an argument that if bioethics is to grow within the system of health service, it should be accompanied by a parallel changes in the political mindsets in these countries.SummaryFor bioethics to flourish in developing countries, it needs an atmosphere of freedom where people can practice free moral reasoning and have full potential to take their life decisions by themselves. Moreover, bioethics could be a tool for political change through the empowerment of people, especially the vulnerable.To achieve that, the article is proposing a practical framework for facilitating the development of the field of bioethics in the developing countries. (shrink)

We study the governance of voice in digital platforms in light of contestations and struggles over meaning and resources among their stakeholders. In particular, we argue that social media platforms as fields are subject to power imbalances that might constrain the voices of marginalized and under-represented individuals and groups. Consequently, the governance decisions that private firms (i.e. platform owners) undertake are critical in providing users and communities with the capacity to self-present and identify. Through a qualitative longitudinal study of a (...) popular social media platform, we study the means through which a marginalized community leverages the governance tools at its disposal to overcome the contestation within the platform. We present implications for the governance of digital platforms and their evolution. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction Race as Type A New Paradigm The Survival of “Race” Conclusion Notes.

BackgroundSex and gender influence individuals’ psychology, but are often overlooked in psychological science. The sex and gender equity in research (SAGER) guidelines provide instruction for addressing sex and gender within five sections of a manuscript (i.e., title/abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion) (Heidari et al., Res Integr Peer Rev 1:1-9, 2016).MethodsWe examined whether the 89 journals published by the American Psychological Association provide explicit instruction for authors to address sex and gender within these five sections. Both authors reviewed the journal (...) instructions to authors for the words “sex,” and “gender,” and noted explicit instruction pertaining to these five sections.ResultsOnly 8 journals (9.0%) instructed authors to address sex/gender within the abstract, introduction, and/or methods sections. No journals instructed authors to address sex and gender in the results or discussion sections.ConclusionThese journals could increase sex/gender equity and improve the reproducibility of psychological science by instructing authors to follow the SAGER guidelines. (shrink)

The provision of health care service in resource-poor settings is associated with a broad set of ethical issues. Devakumar's case discusses the ethical issues related to the inability to treat in a cholera clinic patients who do not have cholera. This paper gives a closer look on the context in which Devakumar's case took place. It also analyses the potential local and organizational factors that gives rise to ethical dilemmas and aggravate them. It also proposes a framework to help in (...) the proactive handling of the factors that leads to ethical dilemmas and resolving the ethical issues as they appear. It adopts the four principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice as universal and prima facie principles, but with the inclusion of a local understanding of what of each of these principles means. It is based on a collaborative approach that involves the beneficiaries and other partners in the field to help share information and resources, as well as adopting the provision of a wider service to the whole community. This is done by asking three basic questions: (a) who are the relevant stakeholders? (b) what ought to be the ethical principles in place? and (c) how should we take, implement and follow the decision about service provision? (shrink)

Frequent itemset mining is the most important step of association rule mining. It plays a very important role in incremental data environments. The massive volume of data creates an imminent need to design incremental algorithms for the maximal frequent itemset mining in order to handle incremental data over time. In this study, we propose an incremental maximal frequent itemset mining algorithms that integrate subjective interestingness criterion during the process of mining. The proposed framework is designed to deal with incremental data, (...) which usually come at different times. It extends FP-Max algorithm, which is based on FP-Growth method by pushing interesting measures during maximal frequent itemset mining, and performs dynamic and early pruning to leave uninteresting frequent itemsets in order to avoid uninteresting rule generation. The framework was implemented and tested on public databases, and the results found are promising. (shrink)

The place of reason in the Islamic tradition has attracted much debate, among both classical scholars and modern researchers. One of the main areas of disagreement is the definition of reason, with scholars from various disciplines oftentimes offering different definitions, which, in turn, undergird their corresponding understanding of rationalism. Starting in the classical period, Muslim scholars have credited al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī with making a particularly powerful contribution to the discussion by defining reason as an “instinct” and elaborating on this definition; many (...) recent scholars concur with this assessment. This article studies al-Muḥāsibī’s theory of reason through his major work on the subject, Māʾiyyat al-ʿaql. More specifically, it examines the concluding, analytical section of this work, titled “Masʾala fī al-ʿaql”, which bears an unusual resemblance to a work by al-Muḥāsibī’s contemporary al-Jāḥiẓ, “Ḥujaj al-nubuwwa”. By analyzing the similarities between these texts through a detailed comparison, the article attempts to verify the authorship of this critical section of al-Muḥāsibī’s work, thereby casting light on other contributions to the study of reason in Islam that were eclipsed by the scholarly concentration on al-Muḥāsibī’s output. For this comparison, the text of “Masʾala fī al-ʿaql” is fully edited and translated. (shrink)

The research dealt with the concept of the content of the contract and the impact of a comparative study with French legislation through the definition of the content of the contract in Iraqi law and in French law and then identify the penalty resulting from the breach of the content of the contract in terms of the penalty resulting from the failure of the condition of legality and the penalty resulting from the failure of contractual terms.

Internet based process control usage has grown in the past years. Industry field demands were behind this, and it ranges from factory, office and home automation to tasks simplifications and cost reduction. In this book a hardware interface circuit and a software system used to control the temperature and level of a liquid tank is described. The advantage of the designed interface circuit is its simplicity and low cost. The same can be true for the software system in which we (...) used C and Java programs to accomplish the communication. Both C and Java can be obtained freely and the development cost could be small. C language has been used to communicate with the designed interface circuit due to its strength in low level operations and communication with ports and hardware. In Java we have used mainly the Servlet for communication between the Client and the Server, which is a new approach and more reliable approach than the CGI based method that has common problems of speed and data persistence. This book is useful for people and researchers working in the field of control, remote access and computer based control. (shrink)