COVID-19 has crowned1 a number of other disasters (wildfires in Australia, Desert Locusts in Kenya, an imminent WWIII merging Iran and the US), causing panic to click into place and horror to become our global predicament, making us realize that we live in the illusion of the permanence of things, of mastery, and of immortality. People’s turning to social media for trans-local news on COVID-19 has stirred great ire in the world. This led to the proliferation of dark images that (...) associate the viral catastrophe with the end as we know it. To problematize the idea of the apocalypse (or the end) this paper speaks of three moments of survival in human existence: the beneath, the behind and the beyond. We argue that the apocalyptic nature of the pandemic and its global horrorism are part of a congeries of apocalyptic simulations that have always been part of the narrative with which we try to define ourexistence on earth. This paper masks itself against perfunctory examinations of the term apocalypse, and offers instead an understanding that runs along the lines of its Greek etymological sense as apokalyptein (revelation). It offers what Foucault calls an ontology of the present, that interrogates the history of COVID -19 with an emphasis neither on its origin nor on its telos. As beyondists, the COVID-19 catastrophe has revealed to us that 1) we have ‘access to knowledge beyond knowledge’ (see Gumpert Citation2012), and therefore that 2) our modern predicament is not very modern. The end, (not) to be sure, has been lived and relived in the boundary between reality and simulation. After all, the end of something comprises the beginning (in reverse) of that which “endeth”, throwing the beyond, behind and beneath in the Ferris wheel of epistemological and existential entanglement. (shrink)

The objective of this research is to assess the impact of ethics on research productivity within laboratories of public universities. To achieve this objective, neural networks’ method is used to highlight impacting and impacted variable modalities. Findings show ethical variables having the greatest impact on research productivity are ethics supporting document and transparency, while the variables most impacted by ethics are publications and scientific projects. Finally, the originality of this work lies in the reconciliation of two dimensions that appear to (...) be irreconcilable a priori, namely, ethics which has a social connotation and productivity which has an economic connotation. It also resides in employing neural networks’ method, with is rarely used in social sciences. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 214 Seiten: 159-172.

Africain d'origine, Européen d'adoption, Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-1753) ne s'est guère préoccupé des considérations anthropologiques, ethniques et culturalistes qui ont pu marquer le XVIIIe siècle. Cet Aufklärer a au contraire souhaité assurer le perfectionnement du genre humain, grâce au développement d'une méthode du « bien philosopher » particulièrement élaborée, au point que son universalité et son intemporalité ne puissent désormais plus être négligées. Cet ouvrage se concentre sur les apports de ce philosophe oublié, dont la contemporanéité nous invite à réconcilier (...) les Hommes avec l'universel porté par les Lumières, tout en offrant à son oeuvre la possibilité de retrouver sa place dans ce mouvement. L'étude de la pensée amiste (ie animiste) constitue un moyen de saisir l'ontos de l'humanité, de construire un ethos partagé, y compris sur la question de l'établissement d'un dialogue dé-émotionnalisé, entre l'Europe et l'Afrique. (shrink)

This study provides novel evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on investment sensitivity to cash flows. We posit that CSR affects investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) through information asymmetry and agency costs, commonly viewed as the two channels through which investment responds to the availability of internal cash flows. We find that CSR performance leads to a decrease in ICFS. We further find that ICFS decreases (increases) when CSR strengths (concerns) increase. Finally, we find that the effect of (...) CSR on ICFS is driven by the areas Community, Diversity, and Human Rights. In sum, the findings of this study stress the relevance of CSR—in particular, of CSR activities that extend beyond compliance behavior and reflect what is desired by society—in reducing market frictions and improving firms’ access to financial capital. (shrink)

This text examines the socio-professional guidance of Comorian migrants residing on La Réunion Island. It mainly questions the process whereby guidance is constructed as a professional situation. To apprehend the complexity of the process, we have drawn on an ethnographical procedure (Woods, 1990) based on a dual source of data—that of the guide and that of the guided—as well as a micro-sociological approach (Thomas, 1923 ; Goffman, 1993 ; Lapassade, 1997) allowing us to link the concepts of situation definition and (...) conflict in situation definition. Finally, the article mobilizes an intercultural approach (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2003 ; Clanet, 1990 ; Camilleri, 1993) which, in reference to a threefold subjectivist, interactionist and situational perspective, aims to shed light on the dimensions of guidance that are otherness and heterogeneity. Ce texte traite de l’accompagnement socioprofessionnel des migrants comoriens résidant dans l’île de La Réunion. Il questionne principalement le processus de construction de l’accompagnement en tant que situation professionnelle. Pour appréhender la complexité de ce processus, nous avons convoqué une démarche ethnographique (Woods, 1990) privilégiant une double entrée : celle de l’accompagnateur et celle de l’accompagné, une approche microsociologique (Thomas, 1923 ; Goffman, 1993 ; Lapassade, 1997) permettant d’articuler les concepts de définition de la situation et de conflit de définition de la situation et enfin une approche interculturelle (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2003 ; Clanet, 1990 ; Camilleri, 1993) visant à élucider, en référence à une triple perspective : subjectiviste, interactionniste et situationnelle, les dimensions altéritaire et hétérogène de l’accompagnement. (shrink)

This study provides evidence on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and firms’ credit ratings. We find that credit rating agencies tend to award relatively high ratings to firms with good social performance. This pattern is robust to controlling for key firm characteristics as well as endogeneity between CSR and credit ratings. We also find that CSR strengths and concerns influence credit ratings and that the individual components of CSR that relate to primary stakeholder management matter most in explaining firms’ (...) creditworthiness. Overall, our results suggest that CSR performance conveys important non-financial information that rating agencies are likely to use in their evaluation of firms’ creditworthiness, and that CSR investments—particularly those that extend beyond compliance behavior to reflect what is desired by society—can lead to lower financing costs resulting from higher credit ratings. (shrink)

The current research aims at improving the skills of producing digital stories using the tools of generative artificial intelligence Chat GPT and Google Bard, which are necessary for female student teachers’ specialization: Kindergarten. The current research has used the descriptive approach and the experimental approach with a quasi-experimental design through a design based on one group and comparing the differences between the pre and post-evaluation. The study sample was randomly selected from female students teachers specializing in kindergarten, and their number (...) reached (25) students. A list of producing digital stories standards was prepared and controlled, and a graded performance rating scale was prepared to evaluate the skills of producing digital stories among female student teachers specializing in kindergarten. The results indicate the effectiveness of using the generative AI tools in improving digital stories production skills according to the criteria that were built in the current research. (shrink)

Abstract: The study aimed to identify the creative behavior in the Palestinian civil organizations between reality and expectations, and the study used the descriptive analytical approach and the questionnaire as a main tool for collecting data from employees of associations operating in the governorates of Gaza Strip, and the cluster sample method was used and the sample size was (343) individuals and has been recovered (298) Resolution. The following results were reached: The relative weight of the measure of creative behavior (...) was 78.99 (%), and there were no statistically significant differences in creative behavior according to the gender variable, age group, educational qualification, specialization, while the results indicated that there were differences according to the number of years of service. The study presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: the necessity of working to follow up the strategic plan for NGOs using electronic messages as it paves the way for achieving excellence and creativity in the field of work, the need to hold meetings and workshops with the local community and this helps them determine the needs of the community. (shrink)

In this paper, DSEK model with fractional derivatives of the Atangana-Baleanu Caputo is proposed. This paper gives a brief overview of the ABC fractional derivative and its attributes. Fixed point theory has been used to establish the uniqueness and existence of solutions for the fractional DSEK model. According to this theory, we will define two operators based on Lipschitzian and prove that they are contraction mapping and relatively compact. Ulam-Hyers stability theorem is implemented to prove the fractional DSEK model’s stability (...) in Banach space. Also, fractional Euler’s numerical method is derived for initial value problems with ABC fractional derivative and implemented on fractional DSEK model. The symmetric properties contribute to determining the appropriate method for finding the correct solution to fractional differential equations. The numerical solutions generated using fractional Euler’s method have been plotted for different values of α where α ∈ 0,1 and different step sizes h. Result discussion will be given, describing the changes that occur due to the step size h. (shrink)

This edited volume offers expert insights into core questions of ethics, education, and religion during what is often termed the "Golden Age" of Islamic culture and intellectual history. It focuses on the scholarly oeuvre of the Muslim philosopher and historian Miskawayh (d. 1030), who is known in the contemporary Muslim world as the "founder of Islamic ethics". Written by internationally renowned scholars in Islamic studies, the chapters trace the significance of ancient Greek, Iranian, and Arabic intellectual traditions, among others, in (...) the Islamic educational discourse. They also show how historical research on concepts of education and ethics specific to religion and culture can help find answers to key issues in contemporary societies. (shrink)

Punishment as part of modern criminal law theory -- General purposes of punishment -- General considerations of punishment -- General structure of doctrinal sentencing -- Physical punishments -- Economic punishments.

This paper investigates the typology of copulative predication in Tarifit Berber. Three main copulas are identified: (1) verbal, (2) nominal and (3) locative. Given that these elements can all be used as predicates, a uniform configuration which accounts for their derivation is proposed. The structure consists of a lower lexical layer occupied by the predicate (VP, NP etc.) and a higher functional projection represented by the Predicate Phrase (PredP). The Pred – head then enters into an agreement relation with the (...) lower head in the complement position, yielding a predicational copula sentence. Since these constructions are all marked for tense/aspect, the derivation is extended further to a TP projection where the relevant feature is valued. In view of the unified syntactic analysis, the difference between various copula predicates is optimally reduced to the categorial status of the basic predicate occupying the lower lexical projection. The paper identifies another copula construction, which correlates with the proxemics-locative. An examination of this configuration from a close range reveals that this particular locative occupies the subject position whereas the Pred – head is only filled with a bare syntactic feature but encodes no phonological information. (shrink)

Poliseli, L. & El-Hani, C.N. Imagination in Science. In L. Tateo, A theory of Imagining, Knowing and Understanding, SpringerBriefs in Psychology. -/- This chapter comments on the book from the perspective of the developments in philosophy of science and intercultural communication. It raises a number of issues to be further discussed in order to continue inquiry into Tateo’s approach. It discusses how imaginative processes are engaged in modeling work in science. It also shows how, facing the environmental challenges that require (...) an innovative thinking, relational empathy can play a rather important role in co-construction of knowledge and understanding through transdisciplinary processes. (shrink)

Background Nurses play an integral role in the care of children hospitalised with a serious illness. Although information about diagnostics, treatments, and prognosis are generally conveyed to parents and caregivers of seriously ill children by physicians, nurses spend a significant amount of time at the child’s bedside and have an acknowledged role in helping patients and families understand the information that they have been given by a doctor. Hence, the ethical role of the nurse in truth disclosure to children is (...) worth exploring. Methods A systematic academic database and grey literature search strategy was conducted using CINAHL, Medline Psych Info, and Google Scholar. Keywords used included truth, children, nurse, disclosure, serious illness, and communication. A total of 17 publications of varying types were included in the final data set. Ethical Considerations As this was a review of the literature, there were no direct human participants. Empirical studies included in the review had received ethics approval. Results Of the 17 articles included in the review, only one directly reported on the experiences of nurses asked to withhold the truth from patients. Empirical studies were limited to HIV-positive children and children diagnosed with cancer and the dying child. Conclusion A paucity of literature exploring the experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of nurses with regard to truth-telling to seriously ill children is evident. Little consideration has been given to the role nurses play in communicating medical information to children in a hospital setting. The 17 articles included in the review focused on cancer, and HIV, diagnosis, and end-of-life care. Further research should be undertaken to explore the experiences and attitudes of nurses to clinical information sharing to children hospitalised with a wide range of serious illnesses and in diverse clinical scenarios. (shrink)

Background Home care nurses are central in providing holistic and compassionate care to patients in home-based palliative care. Ethical caring competency is essential for home care to sustain nurses’ integrity in the face of moral adversity. Interprofessional collaboration is vital for ensuring ethical decision-making and providing patient-centered care in home-based palliative care settings. Aim This study explored the predictive roles of interprofessional collaboration and moral resilience on ethical caring competency among home care nurses in home-based palliative care. Methods A cross-sectional (...) survey of 400 nurses was conducted from October to December 2023, utilizing standardized scales to measure interprofessional collaboration, moral resilience, and ethical caring competency. A convenience sample of 400 home care nurses was also included in this study. Correlation and linear regression analysis were used to clarify the associative and predictive findings. Ethical Considerations Ethical approval from the ethics committee, institutional permission, and informed consent from the participants were obtained for data collection. Results Correlation analysis showed significant positive correlations between the ethical caring competency, interprofessional collaboration, and moral resilience constructs, with coefficients ranging from 0.482 to 0.967. Linear regression revealed that management of collaborative systems and total moral resilience significantly predict ethical caring competency, explaining 14.6% and 36.6% of its variance, respectively. Other variables, such as the effects of collaboration and communication, did not significantly influence ethical caring competency. Conclusion The study highlights the significant impact of interprofessional collaboration, particularly the management of collaborative systems and moral resilience, on enhancing ethical caring competency among nurses. Implications Enhancing interprofessional collaboration and moral resilience through targeted strategies in nursing practice and education can significantly improve ethical caring competencies. These efforts are essential for delivering high-quality, patient-centered care and for fostering a healthcare environment that respects the ethical principles guiding nursing practice. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the reality of technical education in Palestine. The analytical descriptive method was used in the study. A questionnaire which consisted of 41 paragraphs was distributed randomly to the technical colleges in Gaza Strip. Random sample of (275) employees of these colleges were used, and the response rate was (74.5%). The results showed a high degree of approval for the dimensions of technical education with a relative weight of 76.07%. The ranking and relative weight was as (...) follows: Technical education institutions: 79.51%, graduates of technical education 75.75%, Labor market and local community 72.96%. The researchers propose a number of recommendations, the most important of which is: the need to pay attention to technical education in line with the National Strategic Plan for Higher Education by moving towards technical education. The importance of offering special courses in all technical education programs in these colleges. The researchers urged more future studies that address the same variables as the current study and apply them to other sectors. (shrink)

Shaʻar derekh ha-limud: she-k. e. ṿe-e. yakhol li-zekhot li-ketarah shel Torah -- Shaʻar ʻAṭeret rosh: ʻaśarah maʼamarim - ḥizuḳ ʻetsot ṿe-hadrakhah -- Sefer Ashirah ʻuzekha: perush ʻal Pereḳ shirah.

In this research, the authors present a model that demonstrates that motivating managers to change unpopular or irresponsible corporate behavior may be required when the stakeholders desire such a change. Using agency theory, they then test part of the model and demonstrate why it may be necessary for an organized protest to impact on share prices before managers choose to change the behavior. Investors' reactions to announcements of product boycotts and stock divestitures made over the 23-year period 1969-1991 were examined. (...) Announcements about boycotts were associated with significant negative market reactions, whereas divestiture announcements resulted in no significant market responses. From a pure stock market perspective, boycotts appear to be a more effective tool in influencing managers to change a company's behavior. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungEines der medizinischen Felder, in dem die ethische Diskussion um die „wunscherfüllende Medizin“ am intensivsten geführt wird, ist die Reproduktionsmedizin, die die Erfüllung des „Kinderwunsches“ verspricht. Strittig ist besonders, ob Sterilität als Krankheit definiert wird, die eine medizinische Intervention rechtfertigt, ob sich aus der Sterilität oder Infertilität lediglich ein Abwehr- oder auch ein positives Anspruchsrecht auf medizinische Ressourcen ergibt, ob legitime Fortpflanzungsmedizin Grenzen hat. Nach einer Übersicht über Eckpunkte der nationalen und internationalen Debatte beschreiben wir im zweiten Teil Ansichten zum (...) Status ungewollter Kinderlosigkeit, zum Recht auf Fortpflanzungsmedizin und zur möglichen Legitimität ihrer Begrenzung anhand der Ergebnisse unserer vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung geförderten Studien. Während der letzten fünf Jahre haben wir u. a. Paare mit und ohne Sterilitätsproblematik sowie verschiedene Expertengruppen qualitativ und standardisiert befragt. Die stark divergierenden Auffassungen konfrontieren wir im dritten Abschnitt mit internationalen Standards, zum anderen mit dem „Capability-Ansatz“ und dem freiheitsfunktionalen Liberalismus von Sen und Pauer-Studer. Dies ergibt, dass die Bereitstellung verschiedener Möglichkeiten der In-vitro-Fertilisations-Behandlung nicht lediglich einen Wunsch auf Elternschaft erfüllt sondern als die gesollte Erfüllung eines normativen Bedürfnissanspruchs begriffen werden muss. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative issues such as climate change adaptation, forest management, and sustainable agriculture. Applied ethnobiology emphasizes the practical importance of local and traditional knowledge in tackling these issues but thereby also raises complex theoretical questions about the integration of heterogeneous knowledge systems. The aim of this article is to develop a framework for addressing questions of integration through four core domains of philosophy -epistemology, ontology, value theory, and political theory. In each of these (...) dimensions, we argue for a model of “partial overlaps” that acknowledges both substantial similarities and differences between knowledge systems. While overlaps can ground successful collaboration, their partiality requires reflectivity about the limitations of collaboration and co-creation. By outlining such a general and programmatic framework, the article aims to contribute to developing “philosophy of ethnobiology” as a field of interdisciplinary exchange that provides new resources for addressing foundational issues in ethnobiology and also expands the agenda of philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Śiḥot maran ha-Mashgiaḥ Mohari Leṿinshṭain, zatsal -- Ḥidushe torato ʻa. Mas. B.ḳ. ṿe-liḳuṭim -- Leḳeṭ mi-maʼamraṿ mi-moreshet Daṿid Heber ṿe-ʻinyene ha-shaʻah.

This paper addresses the job shop scheduling problem including time lag constraints. This is an extension of the job shop scheduling problem with many applications in real production environments, where extra delays can be introduced between successive operations of the same job. It belongs to a category of problems known as NP-hard problem due to large solution space. Biogeography-based optimization is an evolutionary algorithm which is inspired by the migration of species between habitats, recently proposed by Simon in 2008 to (...) optimize hard combinatorial optimization problems. We propose a hybrid biogeography-based optimization algorithm for solving the job shop scheduling problem with additional time lag constraints with minimization of total completion time. In the proposed HBBO, the effective greedy constructive heuristic is adapted to generate the initial population of habitat. Moreover, a local search metaheuristic is investigated in the mutation step in order to ameliorate the solution quality and enhance the diversity of the population. To assess the performance of HBBO, a series of experiments on well-known benchmark instances for job shop scheduling problem with time lag constraints is performed. (shrink)

Le Politique est généralement conçu comme un dialogue décousu et manquant d'unité, au mieux comme une succession de méthodes et de voies de recherche différentes (division dichotomique, mythe, paradigme) visant chacune à définir le politique. Le présent article vise au contraire à montrer que l'unité du dialogue est coextensive au développement d'une unique diaíresis, et ce en soulignant, à partir de ce que le texte dit lui-même, que le mythe, la méthode par paradigme et l'analyse des constitutions existantes ne sont (...) que des moyens permettant à la division de tracer le sentier qui mène au politique tel qu'il devrait être. L'ensemble des passages méthodologiques du dialogue permet ainsi d'expliquer comment le Politique explore les possibilités et souligne les limites de la méthode diairétique. Plato's Statesman is usually read as a tedious and carelessly written exercise in dialectic, or, more charitably, as a patchwork of loosely connected applications of different methods of definition of statesmanship (division, myth and paradigm). In this paper, I argue that this much disputed problem of the unity of the dialogue can be solved, provided one reads the whole dialogue as what it claims to be, i.e. the developpment of a single diaíresis. It can be shown that the Eleatic Visitor makes use of the myth, of the analysis of paradigms and of the treatment of non-ideal constitutions as means to following a single path, throughout the whole dialogue, that leads to the definition of statesmanship as it should be. The Statesman emerges as Plato's most profound reflection on the possibilities and the limits of the diairetic method. (shrink)

This study aims to identify the electronic banking services in Palestine from the point of view of the customers of the banks, where researchers used the descriptive analytical method, through a questionnaire distributed electronically to the sample of beneficiaries of the electronic banking services provided by banks operating in Palestine. The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: There is a moderate degree of efficiency of electronic banking services provided in banks operating in Palestine from (...) the point of view of bank customers. Where the total score of electronic banking services received a relative weight of (64.37%), the results of the study confirmed that the ranking of electronic banking services as follows: Internet banking services ranked first with a relative weight (66.68%), a medium percentage, while ATM services came in Second place with a relative weight (64.30%), and mobile application services got the third and last place with a relative weight (62.12%). The results also showed that there are statistically significant differences between banks operating in Palestine according to the bank variable from the beneficiaries' point of view in favor of Bank of Palestine. The results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between banks operating in Palestine according to the variable number of years of dealing with the bank from the point of view of beneficiaries. The study made a number of recommendations, the most important of which are: The need for banks to enhance the use of electronic banking services and upgrade them. Conduct awareness campaigns on the importance of electronic banking services and give appropriate incentives to beneficiaries who deal with them. Direct customers use electronic banking services instead of traditional methods. Attention to quickly respond to customer problems sent via the website. (shrink)

Contributing to the efforts to foster business postgraduate students development toward becoming responsible business leaders is the goal of this study by examining the state of responsible management education in business postgraduate programs in Sudan. We examined perceptions and attitudes toward responsible management and its education among postgraduate-level students and constructed a comprehensive framework appropriate for developing responsible management education programs in under-developed countries. This study’s data were gathered via a structured questionnaire answered by 106 postgraduate business students from the (...) largest four Sudanese business schools and facilities. The students were distributed among the management, finance, and marketing fields. The students exhibited affirmative corporate social responsibility perceptions and attitudes with a heightened focus on acting ethically and a diminished focus on financial considerations. A key lesson learned from this study is the need for the continued development of CSR and general ethics across business school curriculums in Sudan. (shrink)

In this study, some new hypotheses and techniques are presented to obtain some new analytical solutions to the generalized Kawahara equation. As a particular case, some traveling wave solutions to both Kawahara equation and modified Kawahara equation are derived in detail. Periodic and soliton solutions to this family are obtained. The periodic solutions are expressed in terms of Weierstrass elliptic functions and Jacobian elliptic functions. For KE, some direct and indirect approaches are carried out to derive the periodic and localized (...) solutions. For mKE, two different hypotheses in the form of WSEFs are used to derive the periodic and localized solutions. Also, the cnoidal wave solutions in the form of JEFs are obtained. As a realistic physical application, the solutions obtained can be dedicated to studying many nonlinear waves that propagate in plasma. (shrink)

ḥeleḳ 1. Mitsṿot 1-41 -- ḥeleḳ 2. Mitsṿot 42-114.

Can we respond to the charge that human rights are a Western product without relinquishing human rights altogether? Can we be sensitive not only to the dominant voices in the non-Western world but also to the "margins of the margins"? Can the academic discussion on human rights be more attuned not only to scholarly arguments but also to "human rights activism and struggles for human rights"? Can it also be attuned to the fact of the new "globalizing modernity"? In Reframing (...) the Intercultural Dialogue on Human Rights, Jeffrey Flynn thoughtfully addresses these hugely important and challenging... (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. Artificial intelligence can be both a blessing and a curse, and potentially a double-edged sword if not carefully wielded. While it holds massive potential benefits to humans—particularly in healthcare by assisting in treatment of diseases, surgeries, record keeping, and easing the lives of both patients and doctors, its misuse has potential for harm through impact of biases, unemployment, breaches of (...) privacy, and lack of accountability to mention a few. In this article, we discuss the fourth industrial revolution, through a focus on the core of this phenomenon, artificial intelligence. We outline what the fourth industrial revolution is, its basis around AI, and how this infiltrates human lives and society, akin to a transcendence. We focus on the potential dangers of AI and the ethical concerns it brings about particularly in developing countries in general and conflict zones in particular, and we offer potential solutions to such dangers. While we acknowledge the importance and potential of AI, we also call for cautious reservations before plunging straight into the exciting world of the future, one which we long have heard of only in science fiction movies. (shrink)