Juridical councils that render rulings on bioethical issues for Muslims living in non-Muslim lands may have limited familiarity with the foundational concept of wilāyah (authority and governance) and its implications for their authority and functioning. This paper delineates a Sunni Māturīdi perspective on the concept of wilāyah, describes how levels of wilāyah correlate to levels of responsibility and enforceability, and describes the implications of wilāyah when applied to Islamic bioethical decision making. Muslim health practitioners and patients living in the absence (...) of political wilāyah may be tempted to apply pragmatic and context-focused approaches to address bioethical dilemmas without a full appreciation of significant implications in the afterlife. Academic wilāyah requires believers to seek authentication of uncertain actions through scholarly opinions. Fulfilling this academic obligation naturally leads to additional mutually beneficial discussions between Islamic scholars, healthcare professionals, and patients. Furthermore, an understanding derived from a Māturīdi perspective provides a framework for Islamic scholars and Muslim health care professionals to generate original contributions to mainstream bioethics and public policy discussions. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has led governments worldwide to make ethically controversial decisions. As a result, healthcare professionals are facing several ethical dilemmas, especially in terms of healthcare services provided to senior citizens. Thus, the aim of this review is to identify and categorize ethical dilemmas as well as propose solutions regarding health care services for elderly individuals. A qualitative systematic review of the literature was undertaken in the first tier of the pandemic. All identified scientific and editorial articles published in (...) English or French between December 2019 and October 2021 were included. An article was excluded if it was commercial, did not address an issue in the care of the elderly or present any qualitative data. Article eligibility was determined through a process of triangulation among three independent reviewers. Initially, 69 articles met our inclusion criteria and were selected for this review. These studies can be divided into 2 distinct categories: scientific articles (17 studies) and expert opinion articles (52 articles). However, due to the large quantity of qualitative data that was extracted, only the results from the scientific literature are presented here. The analysis of the data of 17 studies has allowed the emergence of 2 main themes of ethical dilemmas: 1) access to care (3 subthemes: A) triage decisions for admission, B) access to the intensive care unit and C) vaccine allocation) and 2) infection control decisions (2 subthemes: (D) isolation and E) autonomy). Our results also revealed 4 categories of potential solutions to the encountered ethical dilemmas, namely, optimal protocols, enhanced communication, caregiver support and technological assistance (virtual team-based, AI). The ethical dilemmas that emerged from our results highlight the interest of a serious international discussion around the phenomena of ageism and its potential ethical implications for health care workers (be it under normal circumstances or exceptional circumstances such as those of a pandemic). We highly recommend that future research be undertaken to test the efficacy of the proposed solutions in providing age-friendly, dilemma-free health care and environments. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage a pour objectif principal de présenter une étude originale d'inspiration marxienne sur la théorie révolutionnaire d'Alain Badiou et de Toni Negri. Il comprend une généalogie de la pensée politique révolutionnaire, ainsi que la définition des principaux concepts théoriques utilisés par les deux auteurs. Il intègre également une recherche historico-politique sur le parcours de Negri et Badiou. Ceci permet d'établir le lien entre le travail théorique de ces auteurs et leur engagement politique.

The investigation of users' satisfactions and intentions in using the services provided by commercial banks needs to be focused on internet banking, since this is the widely used banking service. This paper analyzed the satisfactions and behavioral intentions of Malaysian customers in using Internet Banking, applying the Information System Success Model by the integration of adoption and application technology theory. Some criteria, which were taken into consideration, are as follows: perceived Risk, facilitating Conditions, Price, Performance expectancy, Information Quality, Service Quality, (...) and System Quality. These aspects are important to measure customers' satisfaction and behavior toward Internet and Online Banking. A sample of 362 valid responses, consisting of Malaysian customers who used E-Banking, was used for the purpose of data collection. The relationship between customers' satisfaction and factors influencing their contentment in using Online Banking was investigated. In order to evaluate this, a model called “Structural Equation Model ” was developed and used. Findings showed that most of the Online Banking users were satisfied with the system. Hence, it proves that Online Banking System was generally accepted in the Malaysian community. However, this current research is solely focused on the Malaysian community. Therefore, it may provide the necessary grounds for the study of internet banking accreditation, some useful information for the practitioners, policy makers, and the researchers to improve the system of online banking in Malaysia only. For a future study, a more well-structured research, which can accommodate the global need, would be required. (shrink)

In this work, we study a several species aerobic chemostat model with constant recycle sludge concentration in continuous culture. We reduce the number of parameters by considering a dimensionless model. First, the existence of a global positive uniform attractor for the model with different removal rates is proved using the theory of dissipative dynamical systems. Hence, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of the model under small perturbations using methods of singular perturbation theory and we prove that, in the case of (...) two species in competition, the unique equilibrium which is positive is globally asymptotically stable. Finally, we establish the link between the open problem of the chemostat with different removal rates and monotone functional responses, and our model when two species compete on the same nutrient. We give some numerical simulations to illustrate the results. (shrink)

Older racialized minorities were particularly vulnerable during the last pandemic due to the interlocking influences of structural racism and ageism, which are often disregarded in public health planning. This oversight not only compromises the social justice and health equity goals of public health efforts but it also calls for a more inclusive approach that systematically addresses these deficiencies at every stage of a public health response. To achieve this, we propose Age- and Race-conscious Interventions done Equitably (ARIE), a novel analytical (...) framework grounded in critical race theory and critical gerontology. ARIE is based on a four-step approach, which aligns with different stages of public health interventions. It will help ensure that structural discrimination influencing access to healthcare resources during a biological event is not ignored, and that public health authorities work actively toward identifying and addressing ageist and racist biases in their response plans and interventions. (shrink)

In 2017, the blockade of Qatar Gulf states caused a plethora of effects on the country. This paper sought to examine the resulting threat effects of this blockade in terms of lowered self-esteem and well-being, and the potential buffering effects of an overarching identity. Using self-report questionnaire data from Qatari secondary school students, multiple moderated mediation models investigated the predictive effects of youngsters’ perceived threat, via self-esteem, on their well-being, and the mitigating roles herein of, respectively, national, Gulf region, and (...) Arab identity. Perceived threat was indeed related to lower well-being via lower self-esteem, and this relationship was equally strong for those low and high in social identity. In terms of the three facets of identity, the overarching Gulf identity seems the most predictive, and it even buffers the negative relationship between threat and reduced self-esteem. (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 Malaysian government recognises the potential contribution of biotechnology to the national economy. However, ongoing controversy persists regarding its ethical status and no specific ethical guidelines have been published relating to its use. In developing such guidelines, it is important to identify the underlying principles that are acceptable to Malaysian society. This paper discusses the process of determining relevant secular and Islamic ethical principles and establishing their similarities before harmonising them. To achieve this, a series of focus group discussions were (...) conducted with 23 knowledge experts representing various stakeholders in the biotechnology community. Notably, several principles between the secular and Islamic perspectives are indirectly or directly similar. All the experts agreed with the predominant six ethical principles of secular and Islamic philosophy and their importance and relevance in modern biotechnology. These are beneficence and non-maleficence as the main or overarching principles, the preservation of religious and moral values, the preservation of the intellect and the mind, the protection of human safety, the protection of future generations, and protection of the environment and biological diversity. Several adjustments were made to the terminologies and definitions of these six principles to formulate acceptable guiding principles for the ethics of modern biotechnology in Malaysia. These can then be adopted as core values to underpin future national guidelines on modern biotechnology ethics. These principles will be particularly important in guiding the policy makers, enforcers, industries and researchers to streamline their activities. In so doing, modern biotechnology and its products can be properly managed without jeopardising the interests of the Muslim community as well as the general public. Importantly, they are expansive and inclusive enough to embrace the religious sensitivity of diverse quarters of Malaysia. (shrink)

Reform is a call for renewal and modernity, therefore. Much study and refutation were attributed to it, in comparison with others, it always needs to be set and defined, that’s not for its difficulty but it’s connected to its concept with the ideologies of its advocates and their projection of its connotations and meanings on the contents of their projects and visions. For this reason, reform advocates had a dilemma in defining this concept accurately. This dilemma has dimensions that made (...) it more obvious, by shedding light on the Ideology of reform and historical criticism. The research focused on two great thinkers with different ideologies. Ahmad Amin began his journey through research and exploration of the historical, religious, and intellectual life of the Arabs and produced several historical writings that reflect his ideology in the field of reform and historical criticism. But Sayyid Qutb had a classical fundamentalist tendency that was later translated into Qutbist thought, which was adopted by some Islamic groups, and from whose texts they took ideas for building their structure. The different vision between secular, "rational" Islam and fundamentalist, "extremist" Islam lies in the reformist and critical visions of each of the two trends. It can be said that historical reform and criticism of Ahmad Amin had a character that relied on reason before transmission and sifting through historical and classical texts. As for reform in Sayyid Qutb, it was a longing for the era of early Islam and a view of society as ignorant and far from monotheism, and that it must be reformed by reviving faith in it once again. Qutb showed this clearly in his writings and followed this approach in the process of historical criticism. (shrink)

This seventh volume of Collected Papers includes 70 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2013-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 122 co-authors from 22 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel-Nasser Hussian, C. Alexander, Mumtaz Ali, Yaman Akbulut, Amir Abdullah, Amira S. Ashour, Assia Bakali, Kousik Bhattacharya, Kainat Bibi, R. N. Boyd, Ümit Budak, Lulu Cai, Cenap Özel, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Chunlai Du, Chunxin Bo, Rituparna Chutia, Cu Nguyen Giap, Dao The (...) Son, Vinayak Devvrat, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Fahad Alsharari, Feng Yongfei, S. Ganesan, Shivam Ghildiyal, Bibhas C. Giri, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ahmed Refaat Hawas, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, Hongbo Wang, Hongnian Yu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Saeid Jafari, Temitope Gbolahan Jaiyeola, Naeem Jan, R. Jeevitha, Jun Ye, Anup Khan, Madad Khan, Salma Khan, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Kifayat Ullah, Kishore Kumar P.K., Sujit Kumar De, Prasun Kumar Nayak, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Anam Luqman, Luu Quoc Dat, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa M. Malik, Nivetha Martin, Mai Mohamed, Parimala Mani, Mingcong Deng, Mohammed A. Al Shumrani, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Farshid Mofidnakhaei, Muhammad Shoaib, Muhammad Riaz, Karthika Muthusamy, Nabeela Ishfaq, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Sumera Naz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Noor ul Amin, Dragan Pamučar, Gabrijela Popović, S. Krishna Prabha, Surapati Pramanik, Priya R, Qiaoyan Li, Yaser Saber, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Saleem Abdullah, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Abdulkadir Sengür, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahzaib Ashraf, Shouzhen Zeng, Shio Gai Quek, Shuangwu Zhu, Shumaiza, Sidra Sayed, Sohail Iqbal, Songtao Shao, Sundas Shahzadi, Dragiša Stanujkić, Željko Stević, Udhayakumar Ramalingam, Zunaira Rashid, Hossein Rashmanlou, Rajkumar Verma, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Desmond Jun Yi Tey, Selçuk Topal, Naveed Yaqoob, Yanhui Guo, Yee Fei Gan, Yingcang Ma, Young Bae Jun, Yuping Lai, Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Wei Yang, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Lemnaouar Zedam. (shrink)

This eleventh volume of Collected Papers includes 90 papers comprising 988 pages on Physics, Artificial Intelligence, Health Issues, Decision Making, Economics, Statistics, written between 2001-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 84 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 19 countries: Abhijit Saha, Abu Sufian, Jack Allen, Shahbaz Ali, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Aliya Fahmi, Atiqa Fakhar, Atiqa Firdous, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Robert N. Boyd, Victor Chang, Victor Christianto, V. Christy, Dao The Son, Debjit Dutta, Azeddine Elhassouny, Fazal Ghani, Fazli (...) class='Hi'>Amin, Anirudha Ghosha, Nasruddin Hassan, Hoang Viet Long, Jhulaneswar Baidya, Jin Kim, Jun Ye, Darjan Karabašević, Vasilios N. Katsikis, Ieva Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, F. Kaymarm, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Qaisar Khan, M. Khoshnevisan, Kifayat Ullah,, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, Mukesh Kumar, Le Hoang Son, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Tahir Mahmood, Mahmoud Ismail, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Siti Nurul Fitriah Mohamad, Mohamed Loey, Mai Mohamed, K. Mohana, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Gulfam, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Muhammad Jamil, Muhammad Yaqub Khan, Muhammad Riaz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Cu Nguyen Giap, Nguyen Tho Thong, Peide Liu, Pham Huy Thong, Gabrijela Popović‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Surapati Pramanik, Dmitri Rabounski, Roslan Hasni, Rumi Roy, Tapan Kumar Roy, Said Broumi, Saleem Abdullah, Muzafer Saračević, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Shariful Alam, Shyamal Dalapati, Housila P. Singh, R. Singh, Rajesh Singh, Predrag S. Stanimirović, Kasan Susilo, Dragiša Stanujkić, Alexandra Şandru, Ovidiu Ilie Şandru, Zenonas Turskis, Yunita Umniyati, Alptekin Ulutaș, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez, Binyamin Yusoff, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zhao Loon Wang.‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion has a particularly strong influence on attention, especially modulating the selectivity of attention as well as motivating action and behavior. This attentional and executive control is intimately linked to learning processes, as intrinsically limited attentional capacities are better focused on relevant information. Emotion also facilitates encoding and helps retrieval of information efficiently. However, the effects of emotion on learning and (...) memory are not always univalent, as studies have reported that emotion either enhances or impairs learning and long-term memory retention, depending on a range of factors. Recent neuroimaging findings have indicated that the amygdala and prefrontal cortex cooperate with the medial temporal lobe in an integrated manner that affords (i) the amygdala modulating memory consolidation; (ii) the prefrontal cortex mediating memory encoding and formation; and (iii) the hippocampus for successful learning and long-term memory retention. We also review the nested hierarchies of circular emotional control and cognitive regulation (bottom-up and top-down influences) within the brain to achieve optimal integration of emotional and cognitive processing. This review highlights a basic evolutionary approach to emotion to understand the effects of emotion on learning and memory and the functional roles played by various brain regions and their mutual interactions in relation to emotional processing. We also summarize the current state of knowledge on the impact of emotion on memory and map implications for educational settings. In addition to elucidating the memory-enhancing effects of emotion, neuroimaging findings extend our understanding of emotional influences on learning and memory processes; this knowledge may be useful for the design of effective educational curricula to provide a conducive learning environment for both traditional “live” learning in classrooms and “virtual” learning through online-based educational technologies. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Corporate social responsibility research has mainly focused on understanding the antecedents and outcomes of CSR adoption. Yet, little is known about the organisational process of ‘CSR engagement’ and how this would affect organisational identity. We mobilise Basu and Palazzo’s cognitive and linguistic notions of sense-making and Brickson’s organisational identity orientation to frame how rural community banks in Ghana engage with CSR. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with RCB directors, managers and other stakeholders, we conceive of the CSR engagement process as one (...) that allows for the communication and orientation of organisational identity through an ‘informal co-creation’ involving organisational actors and stakeholders. Our findings also emphasise the ‘cultural/political’ modes of justification put forward by RCBs in their CSR engagement. Lastly, we tentatively propose the notion of an ‘opaque context’ to highlight settings that are less concerned about public visibility, and where the focus is instead on the direct interactions between organisations and stakeholders in a given social context. (shrink)

This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. The (...) contributors to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today's political challenges in the region. (shrink)

Does CEO tolerance to risk affect a firm’s long-run sustainability? Using CEO insider debt holding, we show that CEO’s risk-aversion encourages immoral yet rational decisions of emitting more greenhouse gas thereby adversely affecting the firm’s long-run sustainability. Our result is robust to several endogeneity tests including a quasi-natural experiment. Our finding also suggest that to mitigate potential adverse reactions from stakeholders, carbon emitting firms with risk-averse CEOs tend to spend more on CSR activities. Much of the heterogeneity in our results (...) are attributed to companies with weaker governance, powerful CEOs, and operating in a competitive product market. Overall, contrary to conventional wisdom, CEO preference toward risk-aversion can often lead to unethical outcomes (environmental degradation) and especially appears to be a key determinant for firm-level carbon emissions. (shrink)

The evolution of Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) is the result of the amount of research in the field of education and artificial intelligence in recent years. English is the third most common languages in the world and also is the internationally dominant in the telecommunications, science and trade, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomatic language as most of the areas of work now taught in English. Therefore, the demand for learning English has increased. In this paper, we describe the design of (...) an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching English language grammar to help students learn English grammar easily and smoothly. The system provides all topics of English grammar and generates a series of questions automatically for each topic for the students to solve. The system adapts with all the individual differences of students and begins gradually with students from easier to harder level. The intelligent tutoring system was given to a group of students of all age groups to try it and to see the impact of the system on students. The results showed a good satisfaction of the students toward the system. (shrink)

El sufismo es una corriente estrictamente islámica cuyos seguidores se entregan a la práctica de un misticismo de base ascética en un ambiente religioso de gran ritualidad. Es característica fundamental del sufismo la imprescindible participación de un maestro de espíritu que asume el papel de guía en la formación del novicio devoto, facilitando su progresión en el Camino. Algunos de estos personajes, poseedores de gran carisma y detentadores de virtudes extraordinarias y ejemplares, llegaron a despertar, primero en sus educandos y (...) luego en los seguidores de sus doctrinas y enseñanzas, tal nivel de admiración que llegaron a ser considerados santos. El artículo analiza las características y circunstancias que concurrían en estas singulares personas, así como la esencia de la cualidad que las adornaba, la santidad. Además, también se aborda un fenómeno relacionado con lo anterior, que se produjo en las zonas rurales y suburbanas de Marruecos y otros lugares del Magreb, el santonismo. Este último sería el culto que se daría a una determinada persona, el santón, por parte de sectores de la población poco islamizados en los que sobrevivirían ciertos atavismos preislámicos. (shrink)

Retractions of scientific papers published by some Iran-affiliated scientists in the preceding decade have attracted much attention and publicity; however, the reasons for these retractions have not been documented. We searched the Retraction Watch Database to enumerate the retracted Iran-affiliated papers from December 2001 to December 2019 and aimed to outline the predominant reasons for retractions. The reasons included fake peer-review, authorship dispute, fabricated data, plagiarism, conflict of interest, erroneous data, and duplication. The Fisher’s exact test was used to investigate (...) the associations between retractions and their underlying reasons. We selected P < 0.05 to indicate the statistically significant differences. We found 697 retracted papers. Duplication, plagiarism, and fake peer-review were the most frequent reasons for retractions. Our study highlights the importance of urgent intervention to prevent the misconduct and questionable research practices that lead to retractions in Iran. Continually educating the scientists and postgraduate students about the ethics and norms of scientific publishing is an important measure to ensure publication of reliable, worthy, and impactful papers. (shrink)

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 22, Issue 2, Page 76-85, June 2022.

Published data and studies on research misconduct, which focuses on researchers in Malaysia, is still lacking, therefore, we decided that this was an area for investigation. This study provides qualitative results for the examined issues through series of in-depth interviews with 21 researchers and lecturers in various universities in Malaysia. The aims of this study were to investigate the researchers’ opinions and perceptions regarding what they considered to be research misconduct, their experience with such misconduct, and the factors that contribute (...) to research misconduct. Our findings suggest that the most common research misconducts that are currently being witnessed in Malaysian universities are plagiarism and authorship disputes, however, researchers seldom report incidents of research misconduct because it takes too much time, effort and work to report them, and some are just afraid of repercussions when they do report it. This suggests possible loopholes in the monitoring system, which may allow some researchers to bypass it and engage in misconduct. This study also highlights the structural and individual factors as the most influential factors when it comes to research misconduct besides organizational, situational and cultural factors. Finally, this study highlights the concerns of all participants regarding the ‘publish or perish’ pressure that they believe would lead to a hostile working environment, thus enhancing research misconduct, as researchers tend to think about their own performance rather than that of whole team or faculty. Consequently this weakens the interpersonal relationships among researchers, which may compromise the teaching and supervision of junior researchers and research students. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to encourage and highlight discussion on how to improve the teaching of research ethics in institutions of higher education in Malaysia. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 21 academics in a research-intensive university in Malaysia, interviewees agreed on the importance of emphasizing the subject of research ethics among students, as well as academics or researchers. This study reveals that participants felt that there is an urgent need to improve the current awareness and knowledge of issues (...) related to misconduct in research among students and academics. The results of this study indicate a need for better teaching on the subject of research ethics in order to prevent misconduct in research. Finally, it concludes with suggestions that there should be a clear definition of research misconduct, to include consequences when engaging in misconduct; a separate research ethics syllabus for pure and social sciences should be conducted; research ethics should be implemented as a core subject, and there should be an early intervention and continuous learning of research ethics, with an emphasis on ethics training. (shrink)

A longstanding orthodoxy holds that the Mohists regard the promotion of li (benefit, 利) as their ultimate normative criterion, meaning that they measure what is yi (just, 義) or buyi (unjust, 不義) depending on whether it maximizes li or not. This orthodoxy dates back at least to Joseph Edkins (1859), who saw Mozi as a utilitarian and an ally of Bentham. In this paper, we will argue that this orthodoxy should be reconsidered because it does not square with several passages (...) from the Mozi. That the Mohists place a strong weight on the promotion of ‘li for the whole world (tianxia zhi li, 天下之利)’ is uncontroversial. We argue, however, that in certain cases the Mohist moral calculus diverges in its rationale or outcome from li-promotionalism. This position rejects the orthodoxy by showing that Mohism and li-promotionalism are not entirely coterminous. (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)

This paper investigates whether online news that are shared onFacebook set the agenda for its readers. In response to the importance ofsocial networking sites as sources of information, news media organizationshave set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links toarticles. This allows for a wider news reach as well as audience participation.When audience members read and subsequently comment on news articles onFacebook, it becomes possible to identify public opinions and sentiments on theissues being covered. To investigate (...) whether user comments mirror the issuesand sentiments presented in the news articles, the agenda-setting approachwas applied. Content analysis was used to analyse audience comments onover 450 news articles from 4 major newspapers written during the Rantauby-election in Malaysia. The findings showed that while thenewspapers and the readers do share some issue salience, the relationshipdoes not typify a traditional agenda-setting dynamic. The news readers are notjust the ones receiving the news and issues. Rather, they are also commenterswho are influencing how others receive news and issues hence disrupting theconventional public opinion model. (shrink)

IntroductionTo explore academia perceptions and experience with unethical authorship practices in their respective institutions.Method21 in‐depth interviews were carried out.ResultsOur analysis revealed variability in experiences with various types of unethical authorship practices among the interviewees. Second, we found that unethical authorship practices are not so unusual among academia although the exact numbers of incidents are unknown due to the fact that such practices are seldom reported. Third, our interviewees revealed that the culture of ‘publish or perish’ could be the main contributor (...) to unethical practices of authorship because publication records are the main criteria for researcher's career evaluation besides, others, which are set by the university.ConclusionIt was suggested that the institution must play a proactive role in educating and promoting awareness on authorship guidelines, through education and training, ethical leadership as well as promoting the importance of publication ethics. (shrink)

. In the wake of the February 1997 announcement that Dolly the sheep had been cloned, Muslim religious scholars together with Muslim scientists held two conferences to discuss cloning from an Islamic perspective. They were organized by two influential Islamic international religioscientific institutions: the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences and the International Islamic Fiqh Academy. Both institutions comprise a large number of prominent religious scholars and well‐known scientists who participated in the discussions at the conferences. This article gives a comprehensive (...) analysis of these conferences, the relation between science and religion as reflected in the discussions there, and the further influence of these discussions on Muslims living in the West. Modern discussions on Islamic bioethics show that formulating an Islamic perspective on these issues is not the exclusive prerogative of religious scholars. Formulating such perspectives has become a collective process in which scientists play an essential role. Such a collective approach strengthens the religious authority of Muslim scholars and makes it more influential rather than undermining it. (shrink)

The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies has resulted in a variety of maintenance support systems and tools covering all sub-domains of maintenance. Most of these systems...

The Mohists develop the concept of yi 義 to denote what is morally right in a normative sense. We argue that this concept has, as one of its necessary conditions, a requirement to not harm others. Additionally, we will show that the motivation of developing this concept is that it can be both universalized and publicly agreed upon, thus serving the Mohists’ endeavor to overcome human conflicts that make the world chaotic and unlivable. We argue therefore that the Mohist notion (...) of gongyi 公義 is best captured by the requirement of “not harming.” Moreover, we shall show that the Mohists themselves committed to this requirement as the first principle of all their core doctrines. Finally, we argue that due to the justifiability and universalizability of the requirement of “not harming,” the Mohists’ commitment to it as a prerequisite normatively justifies their other values in a way that was unprecedented at the time. (shrink)

This paper explores the important role of critical science, and in particular of post-colonial and decolonial theories, in understanding and shaping the ongoing advances in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is viewed as amongst the technological advances that will reshape modern societies and their relations. While the design and deployment of systems that continually adapt holds the promise of far-reaching positive change, they simultaneously pose significant risks, especially to already vulnerable peoples. Values and power are central to this discussion. Decolonial theories (...) use historical hindsight to explain patterns of power that shape our intellectual, political, economic, and social world. By embedding a decolonial critical approach within its technical practice, AI communities can develop foresight and tactics that can better align research and technology development with established ethical principles, centring vulnerable peoples who continue to bear the brunt of negative impacts of innovation and scientific progress. We highlight problematic applications that are instances of coloniality, and using a decolonial lens, submit three tactics that can form a decolonial field of artificial intelligence: creating a critical technical practice of AI, seeking reverse tutelage and reverse pedagogies, and the renewal of affective and political communities. The years ahead will usher in a wave of new scientific breakthroughs and technologies driven by AI research, making it incumbent upon AI communities to strengthen the social contract through ethical foresight and the multiplicity of intellectual perspectives available to us, ultimately supporting future technologies that enable greater well-being, with the goal of beneficence and justice for all. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to better understand how sustainability rating agencies, through discourse, promote an “ideology of numbers” that ultimately aims to establish a regime of normalization governing social and environmental performance. Drawing on Thompson’s (Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication, 1990 ) modes of operation of ideology, we examine the extent to which, and how, the ideology of numbers is reflected on websites and public documents published by a range (...) of sustainability rating agencies. Our analysis indicates that the ideology of numbers promotes a relatively narrow vision of corporate social and environmental responsibility. That is, it establishes some areas of visibility while leaving in the shadow certain aspects of the ways in which companies fulfill, or fail to meet, their social and environmental responsibilities. The ideology of numbers also exerts power by identifying those companies that are deemed to be worthy of inclusion, or not, in a supposedly socially responsible corporate elite. (shrink)

What is the role of measurement in the sociology of culture and how can we sort out the complexities that distinguish qualitative from quantitative approaches to this domain? In this article, we compare the issues and concerns of contemporary scholars who work on matters of culture with the writings of a group of scholars who had prepared papers for a special symposium on scientific measurement held at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) back (...) in 1956. We focus on three issues—the recurring need to reinvent measurement (as illustrated by the career of the psychologist S.S. Stevens), the linkage between qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis (as articulated in the writings of the sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld), and the assertion (by philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Peter Caws) that theorizing necessarily precedes measuring. We review a number of important advances in the way that measurement is theorized and implemented in the sociology of culture and we also point to a number of enduring dilemmas and conundrums that continue to occupy researchers in the field today. (shrink)