Rehabilitating an argument originally proposed by Leibniz, Michael Della Rocca has offered a new argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason. A crucial element of this argument is that, for every x, the fact that x does not brutely fail to exist is an untrivial requisite of x’s existence. Criticising this claim, I show that the new argument for PSR fails.

The Iraqi constitution of 2005 grants freedom of religious thought, belief and practice for all religions. This study was also based on the premise that the constitutional rights are not adhered to in Iraq, even by government officials, which could be due to the absence of suitable legislations subsequent to the framing of the constitutional provisions. An analytical and descriptive research design was adopted for this study. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources through documentation research and evaluation of (...) historical sources. The primary data comprised Articles of the Iraqi constitution, and a few national and international legal instruments related to religious freedom. Secondary data included empirical research studies, books, articles and other published sources. This study therefore took the form of an empirical legal research as it involved the issues of constitutional reforms in the field of religious freedom. A comparative approach was adopted in analyzing the documents about religion and politics related to both the Arab region and the West. The focus was on the measures that should be adopted to advance the dialogues of religious freedom and maintain religious neutrality in all government policies. The study found out that there were apparent contradictions between the constitutional provisions and the State Laws. Similarly, the Iraqi civil and penal codes remain silent regarding legal remedies for the violation of constitutional provisions. (shrink)

With the rapid growth of informatics systems’ technology in this modern age, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become more valuable and vital to everyday life in many ways. IoT applications are now more popular than they used to be due to the availability of many gadgets that work as IoT enablers, including smartwatches, smartphones, security cameras, and smart sensors. However, the insecure nature of IoT devices has led to several difficulties, one of which is distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. IoT (...) systems have several security limitations due to their disreputability characteristics, like dynamic communication between IoT devices. The dynamic communications resulted from the limited resources of these devices, such as their data storage and processing units. Recently, many attempts have been made to develop intelligent models to protect IoT networks against DDoS attacks. The main ongoing research issue is developing a model capable of protecting the network from DDoS attacks that is sensitive to various classes of DDoS and can recognize legitimate traffic to avoid false alarms. Subsequently, this study proposes combining three deep learning algorithms, namely recurrent neural network (RNN), long short-term memory (LSTM)-RNN, and convolutional neural network (CNN), to build a bidirectional CNN-BiLSTM DDoS detection model. The RNN, CNN, LSTM, and CNN-BiLSTM are implemented and tested to determine the most effective model against DDoS attacks that can accurately detect and distinguish DDoS from legitimate traffic. The intrusion detection evaluation dataset (CICIDS2017) is used to provide more realistic detection. The CICIDS2017 dataset includes benign and up-to-date examples of typical attacks, closely matching real-world data of Packet Capture. The four models are tested and assessed using Confusion Metrix against four commonly used criteria: accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. The performance of the models is quite effective as they obtain an accuracy rate of around 99.00%, except for the CNN model, which achieves an accuracy of 98.82%. The CNN-BiLSTM achieves the best accuracy of 99.76% and precision of 98.90%. (shrink)

Avicenna believes that God must be understood in the first place as the Necessary Existent. In his various works, he provides different versions of an ingenious argument for the existence of the Necessary Existent—the so-called Proof of the Sincere —and argues that all the properties that are usually attributed to God can be extracted merely from God's having necessary existence. Considering the centrality of tawḥîd to Islam, the first thing Avicenna tries to extract from God's necessary existence is God's oneness. (...) The aim of the present Element is to provide a detailed discussion of Avicenna's arguments for the existence and unity of God. Through this project, the author hopes to clarify how, for Avicenna, the Islamic concept of monotheism is intertwined with the concept of essential existence. (shrink)

Appealing to some analytic tools developed by contemporary analytic philosophers, I discuss Avicenna’s views regarding the problem(s) of linguistic and mental reference to non-existents, also known as the problem(s) of ‘empty intentionality’. I argue that, according to Avicenna, being in an intentional state directed towards an existing thing involves three elements: (1) an indirect relation to that thing, (2) a direct relation to a mental representation of that thing, and (3) a direct relation to the essence of that thing. Empty (...) intentionality does not involve the first element. Moreover, depending on the nature of the non-existent we are thinking about, the third element may not be involved either. Thus, the necessary element of being in an intentional state towards something is to be related to a mental representation of that thing. The nature of this representation may vary depending on the nature of the non-existent towards which our thought is directed. (shrink)

W.L. Craig has argued that the universe has a beginning because (1) the infinitude of the past entails the existence of actual infinite multitudes of past intervals of time, and (2) the existence of actual infinite multitudes is impossible. Puryear has rejected (1) and argued that what the infinitude of the past entails is only the existence of an actual infinite magnitude of past time. But this does not preclude the infinitude of the past, Puryear claims, because there can be (...) no justification for the claim that actual infinite magnitudes are impossible. I argue, against Puryear, that there can be such a justification. I claim, nevertheless, that, for reasons entirely different from Puryear’s, the finitude of the past cannot be established based either on the impossibility of actual infinite multitudes or on the impossibility of actual infinite magnitudes. My arguments in this paper draw on insights from al-Kindī and Avicenna. (shrink)

The intuition that we can think about non-existent objects seems to be in tension with philosophical concerns about the relationality of intentionality. Tim Crane’s psychologism removes this tension by proposing a psychologistic account of intentionality according to which intentionality is a purely non-relational notion. I argue that his account has counterintuitive consequences regarding our thoughts about existing objects, and as such is insufficiently plausible to convince us to reject the relationality of intentionality.

The medieval Islamic solutions to the liar paradox can be categorized into three different families. According to the solutions of the first family, the liar sentences are not well-formed truth-apt sentences. The solutions of the second family are based on a violation of the classical principles of logic (e.g. the principle of non-contradiction). Finally, the solutions of the third family render the liar sentences as simply false without any contradiction. In the Islamic tradition, almost all the well-known solutions of the (...) third family are inspired by the solution proposed by At_īr al-Dīn al-Abharī (d. 1265). Providing a logical analysis of his discussion of the liar paradox, I show that his solution is based on a conception of truth according to which every sentence signifies, usually among other things, its own truth. This makes Abharī’s solution of the same spirit as certain solutions that were later developed in the Latin tradition, in particular by John Buridan (d. 1358) and Albert of Saxony (d. 1390). (shrink)

Some authors have proposed that Avicenna considers mathematical objects, i.e., geometric shapes and numbers, to be mental existents completely separated from matter. In this paper, I will show that this description, though not completely wrong, is misleading. Avicenna endorses, I will argue, some sort of literalism, potentialism, and finitism.

At face value, intentionality is a relational notion. There are, however, arguments intended to show that it is not. I categorize the strongest arguments against the relationality of intentionality into three major groups: Brentanian arguments, Fregean arguments, and Quinean arguments. I argue that, despite their prima facie plausibility, none of these arguments eventually succeeds. I then conclude that, in the absence of defeating evidence against what at face value looks correct, we are justified to consider intentionality as a relational notion.

RésuméSelon Avicenne, certains objets des mathématiques existent et d'autres non. Chaque objet mathématique existant est un attribut connotationnel non sensible d'un objet physique et peut être perçu par la faculté d'estimation. Les objets mathématiques non existants peuvent être représentés et perçus par la faculté d'imagination en séparant et en combinant des parties d'images d'objets mathématiques existants qui sont précédemment perçues par estimation. Dans tous les cas, même les objets mathématiques non existants doivent être considérés comme des propriétés d'entités matérielles. Ils (...) ne peuvent jamais être saisis comme des entités totalement immatérielles. Avicenne pense que nous ne pouvons saisir aucun concept mathématique à moins d'avoir au préalable des expériences perceptives spécifiques. Ce n'est que par l'opération non éliminable et irremplaçable des facultés d'estimation et d'imagination sur certaines données sensibles que nous pouvons saisir les concepts mathématiques. Cela montre qu'Avicenne approuve une sorte d'empirisme conceptuel sur les mathématiques. (shrink)

Avicenna believed in mathematical finitism. He argued that magnitudes and sets of ordered numbers and numbered things cannot be actually infinite. In this paper, I discuss his arguments against the actuality of mathematical infinity. A careful analysis of the subtleties of his main argument, i. e., The Mapping Argument, shows that, by employing the notion of correspondence as a tool for comparing the sizes of mathematical infinities, he arrived at a very deep and insightful understanding of the notion of mathematical (...) infinity, one that is much more modern than we might expect. I argue, moreover, that Avicenna’s mathematical finitism is interwoven with his literalist ontology of mathematics, according to which mathematical objects are properties of existing physical objects. (shrink)

AbstractṢadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī (d. 1498) has proposed a solution to the liar paradox according to which the liar sentence is a self-referential sentence in which the predicate ‘false’ is iterated. Discussing the conditions for the truth-aptness of the sentences with nested and iterated instances of the predicates ‘true’ and/or ‘false’, Dashtakī argued that the liar sentence is not truth-apt at all. In the tradition of Arabic logic, the central elements of Dashtakī's solution—the self-referentiality of the liar sentence and the implicit (...) iteration of the predicate ‘false’—were initially highlighted in two earlier solutions proposed by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274) and Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (d. 1322), respectively. Here I investigate all three solutions and show that Dashtakī's solution can be taken as a synthesis of the other two. None of these solutions seems to be convincing at the end of the day. Nevertheless, all of them include significant logical and philosophical insights. In particular, although Dashtakī's solution is not itself compelling, it is only a few steps away from a promising solution. The appendix to this paper includes translations of the relevant passages. (shrink)

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the arguments proposed by the defenders of the Kalām Cosmological Argument to support the claim that the universe has a beginning. The main premise of SAA states that a collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite. This premise is challenged by an argument originally proposed by Fred Dretske. According to Dretske’s Argument (DA), the scenario of a counter who starts counting numbers and never stops can provide a counterexample to (...) the main premise of SAA. I argue that neither DA nor its past-oriented counterpart—which discusses the scenario of a counter who has always been counting negative integers from the infinite past—can play a decisive role in our evaluation of the strength of the arguments that are intended to establish the finitude of the past based on the impossibility of an actually infinite number of successive additions. (shrink)

In an illuminating article, Dimitri Gutas has tried to show that Avicenna's theory of knowledge should be understood within a full-blown empiricist framework very similar to that of John Locke.1 Gutas' argument is based on an analysis of Avicennian 'principles of syllogism'2. The principles of syllogism are those judgments and propositions that form the irreducible and axiomatic foundations of syllogisms and definitions.3 Avicenna categorizes these principles based on how we accept and acknowledge the truth of them. This categorization appears, with (...) some slight modifications, in many places in Avicenna's oeuvre, for example in the Kitāb al-Burhān of al-Šifā',4 and the logic parts of... (shrink)

Defenders of the Kalām Cosmological Argument appeal to the so-called Hilbert’s Hotel Argument to establish the finitude of the past based on the impossibility of actual infinites. Some of their opponents argue that this proves too much because if the universe cannot be beginningless due to the impossibility of actual infinites, then, for the same reason, it cannot be endless either. Discussing four different senses of the existence of an actual infinite, I criticize both sides of the debate by showing, (...) on the one hand, that the Hilbert’s Hotel Argument is not powerful enough to rule out the possibility of the infinitude of the past and, on the other hand, that the soundness of the argument for the finitude of the past from the impossibility of actual infinites does not establish the soundness of the parallel argument for the finitude of the future. (shrink)

Criticizing Richard Swinburne’s conception of God, John Hick argues that God cannot be personal because infinity and personhood are mutually incompatible. An essential characteristic of a person, Hick claims, is having a boundary which distinguishes that person from other persons. But having a boundary is incompatible with being infinite. Infinite beings are unbounded. Hence God cannot be thought of as an infinite person. In this paper, I argue that the Hickian argument is flawed because boundedness is an equivocal notion: in (...) one sense it is not essential to personhood, and in another sense—which is essential to personhood—it is compatible with being infinite. (shrink)

This volume focuses on Islamic philosophy of religion with a range of contributions from analytic perspectives. It opens with methodological discussions on the relationship between the history of Islamic philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy. The book then offers a philosophical examination of some specific Islamic beliefs as well as some approaches to general beliefs that Islam shares with other religions. The chapters address a variety of topics from the existence and attributes of God through to debates on science and religion. (...) The authors are predominantly scholars from Muslim backgrounds who tackle philosophical issues concerning Islam as their own living religion, representing internal perspectives that have never been vocal in analytic philosophy of religion so far. This is valuable reading for scholars and students of philosophy, theology, and religious studies. (shrink)

In his "The Empiricism of Avicenna," Dimitri Gutas interprets Avicenna as an empiricist.1 He analyzes Avicennian 'principles of syllogism' and claims that none of them are a priori. Moreover, regarding awwalīyāt and fiṭrīyāt—which are two groups of such principles—Gutas suggests that "[i]t appears that both kinds of propositions would be analytic, in Kantian terms. As for Locke, they would be what he called 'trifling.'"2 In my first comment in this issue, I disagreed with this view and argued that these two (...) groups of propositions are a priori in the Kantian sense. Assenting to their truth is internal to the intellect and independent of empirical information. I also argued that at least some fiṭrīyāt are synthetic... (shrink)

I will briefly argue that theological fatalism is not a genuine ‘theological’ problem, for it can be reduced to another alleged incompatibility that arises independently of the existence or non-existence of God. I will conclude that the way of arguing against the existence of God or His omniscience by appealing to theological fatalism is blocked for libertarian atheists.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a colossal burden in global health, its prevalence increases steadily throughout the world. This systematic review explores the pathophysiology and epidemiology of diabetes, which describes the interactions that implicate that is the result of the play between genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors in the development and progression of the disease. The review also describes a plethora of pharmacological treatments available to manage diabetes, with the oral agent, insulin regimens, and new approaches to therapy. Integrating the wisdom (...) of the best clinical guidelines, those are from American diabetes association (ADA), European association for the study of diabetes (EASD), and International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Since these reviews are consistent with normative standards for evidence-based recommendations of optimal care of diabetes. The review goes further to cover technological advances in the management of diabetes. They include Continuous Glucose Monitoring, advanced insulin delivery systems, and Artificial Pancreas Systems. Such technologies hold more promising routes to better glucose control and patient quality of life. All this comes along with challenges that their deployment and maintenance that run through economic, adherence issues, and unequal access to healthcare. The future research and innovation in the battle against DM will include the application of personalized medicine and the development of advanced digital health solutions. This article will become a treasure for health professionals, researchers, and policymakers who have dedicated themselves to battling the adversities of diabetes mellitus. (shrink)

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to investigate the relationship between dental anxiety amongst pregnant women and their dental attendance patterns, considering various sociodemographic factors, at health centers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: Participants in this cross-sectional descriptive study were 386 pregnant women seeking care at Saudi Ministry of Health centers. A validated version of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) was used to measure dental anxiety. Questionnaires including background data and dental anxiety were used (...) and clinical data were collected. The association between oral health literacy and dental anxiety was evaluated with Spearman’s correlation coefficient. A multiple linear regression model with dental anxiety (MDAS score) as the dependent variable was developed to investigate further the relationship dental anxiety amongst pregnant women and their dental attendance patterns. Results: The prevalence of dental anxiety was very anxious (3.595). According to a multiple binary logistic regression model, previous experiences with dentists, household income, educational level, number of times and months of pregnancy, and the perception that oral care should be avoided during pregnancy were independently associated with dental anxiety. Conclusions: Dental anxiety in pregnant women is linked to social and psychological factors, in addition to oral health. Specifically, prior experiences with dentists, attitudes toward dental care, and general fear appear to have the strongest influence on dental anxiety. The prevalence of dental anxiety was high among this sample of pregnant women. The study shows that dental care providers need to pay attention to providing a supportive dental care situation, where patients should not experience pain. There is a need to understand the psychological factors associated with dental care procedures. (shrink)

Leading scholars representing the world's five great religious traditions--Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--discuss fundamental philosophical questions on revelation and religious experience; analysis of faith; science and religion; the foundation of morality; and life and the afterlife.

Introduction There is a paramount need for moral development for pharmacists and pharmacy students to practice the patient-centered profession. We aimed to explore the current situational judgment utilizing ethical reasoning among undergraduate pharmacy students. Methods A set of ten ethical dilemmas, representing potential real-life situations that the students come across in the university and may face in the future as a pharmacist were developed by a team of students, academic staff, and stakeholders. These ethical dilemmas were validated, checked for accuracy, (...) and piloted. An online questionnaire was created consisting of these ten scenarios as open-ended questions and administered to fourth year and fifth year PharmD students in a public university located at the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, asking them how they would react in that situation. Responses of the participants were analyzed using thematic analysis independently by four researchers and inter-rater agreement were achieved through consensus. Results Out of 205, 186 students completed the questionnaire with a response rate of 90.7%. Analysis and resulted in the generation of 32 codes, which were then categorized into seven overarching themes: student engagement, social and professional responsibility, academic integrity, legal obligation, moral obligation, signposting, and moral engagement and patient safety. Conclusions Undergraduate pharmacy students experience complex state of mind in connection with ethical reasoning. The participants’ situational judgment were driven by cultural norm, authority, and responsibility. Student engagement is also affected by the state of mind and feelings of mutual trust, perceived cultural influence and peer pressure. The students were prone to seek help from university administrators or teachers when faced with situations in which they were helpless. (shrink)

In the period preceding the establishment of the first sociology department at the University of Baghdad, the works of Abdul Fattah Ibrahim and Abdul Jabbar Arim played a significant role. These scholars are regarded as pioneers of this pre-foundational phase. Although they did not conduct any field research, the methodologies they advocated for analysing and critiquing Iraqi social reality were well-defined. In Abdul Fattah Ibrahim's first specialised book on sociology, he presents Darwin's theory of evolution as "the foundational principle upon (...) which modern sociology is based." He defines sociology as "the study of society in its evolution according to the law of the survival of the fittest, with the goal of enhancing its ability to endure.". (shrink)

Concept originalism, recently introduced and defended by Sainsbury and Tye, Tye, and Sainsbury, holds that “atomic concepts are to be individuated by their historical origins, as opposed to their semantic or epistemic properties”. The view is immune to Gareth Evans’s “Madagascar” objection to the Causal Theory of Reference since it allows a concept to change its reference over time without losing its identity. The possibility of reference-shift, however, raises the problem of misleading belief reports. S&T try to tackle the problem (...) by strengthening the sufficient condition for a truthful belief report. We will argue that, first, their solution fails, second, and more importantly, their diagnosis of the root of the problem is misguided, third, two initially appealing ways out of the problem fail, and fourth, the prospect of finding a solution to the problem within CO is dim. The view opens the Pandora’s box of reference-shift, in a wide range of cases, without providing the necessary semantic means to take care of them. (shrink)

The current study sought to examine emotional manipulation and its connection to symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder among couples, and whether there are statistically, significant differences based on the variables such as gender, age, duration of marriage, and educational level. The study involved a sample of 924 married couples, selected through the descriptive correlational approach. The findings revealed a moderate level of emotional manipulation and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder among couples. They also showed statistically significant differences in emotional manipulation (...) and narcissistic personality disorder symptoms based on gender, favoring males; duration of marriage, favoring those married for less than (10) years; and educational level favoring those with secondary or less. No statistically significant differences were found based on age. Moreover, a positive and statistically significant relationship was identified between emotional manipulation and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder in couples. Based on these findings, the researchers recommend organizing lectures and seminars to educate couples about the negative effects of emotional manipulation and various types of symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder appearing in the marital relationship. (shrink)

Hospital administrators play an essential role in the implementation of Antibiotic Stewardship Programs, which is instrumental in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. The foundation and sustenance of such programs has been made possible through leadership; this is through interdisciplinary collaboration that is done with policy formulation and stewardship inclusion into the institutional systems. Indeed, it is immense strength where ID physicians and clinical pharmacists with special training proactively involve themselves in the program. Beyond that, the accreditation standards that incorporate ASPs (...) really enhance compliance and institutional commitment. Obstacles to movement include an absence of resources, unwilling prescriber, and other competing health conditions for priority. To achieve such success, the hospital administrators must ensure adequate staffing, proper utilization of advanced technologies, and instillation of accountability through focused education and participation. Besides the reduction of resistance, ASPs contribute to such improvements in patient outcomes, efficient consumption of resources, and significant reductions in costs. As this narrative review indicates, leadership at the hospital level plays an important role in augmenting antibiotic stewardship. Addressing major barriers, along with strategic implementation, means that administrators may play an important role in further maximizing effectiveness while truly adding to the world-wide effort against antimicrobial resistance. (shrink)

BackgroundOrgan donation has become one of the most effective ways to save lives and improve the quality of life for patients with end-stage organ failure. No previous studies have investigated the preferences for the different consenting options for organ donation in Egypt. This study aims to assess Egyptians’ preferences regarding consenting options for posthumous organ donation, and measure their awareness and acceptance of the Egyptian law articles regulating organ donation.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted among 2743 participants over two years. (...) Each participant was required to rank eleven consenting options from 1 to 11, and to report his awareness and acceptance of the seven articles of the Egyptian law of organ donation.Results47% of the participants expressed willingness to donate their organs after death. This percentage increased to 78% when consenting options were explained to participants. “Informed consent by donor only” was the most preferred type of consent for one third of respondents. Awareness of the law articles regulating organ donation was relatively low ranging from 56% to 23%.ConclusionCurrently, around half of the Egyptian population agree to posthumous organ donation. This percentage could be increased significantly by raising the awareness about how the process of donation could be regulated and how the patient’s right of decision could be protected. (shrink)

To help ensure the ethical conduct of research, many have recommended educational efforts in research ethics to investigators and members of research ethics committees (RECs). One type of education activity involves multi-day workshops in research ethics. To be effective, such workshops should contain the appropriate content and teaching techniques geared towards the learning styles of the targeted audiences. To ensure consistency in content and quality, we describe the development of a curriculum guide, core competencies and associated learning objectives and activities (...) to help educators organize research ethics workshops in their respective institutions. The curriculum guide is divided into modular units to enable planners to develop workshops of different lengths and choose content materials that match the needs, abilities, and prior experiences of the target audiences. The content material in the curriculum guide is relevant for audiences in the Middle East, because individuals from the Middle East who participated in a Certificate Program in research ethics selected and developed the training materials (e.g., articles, powerpoint slides, case studies, protocols). Also, many of the activities incorporate active-learning methods, consisting of group work activities analyzing case studies and reviewing protocols. The development of such a workshop training curriculum guide represents a sustainable educational resource to enhance research ethics capacity in the Middle East. (shrink)

The current study aimed at identifying the effect of strategic control on customer satisfaction with e-marketing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study used the descriptive approach. A questionnaire was prepared and administered to a sample of (315) customers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study found a statistically significant correlation at the significance level of (0.05) between all strategic control dimensions, customer satisfaction with e-marketing, and customer approval of the positivity towards the practices and advantages of strategic (...) control in e-marketing. There is also a statistically significant effect at the significance level of (0.05) for strategic control dimensions: (management information systems, strategic control methods, strategic evaluation) on customers' satisfaction in e-marketing. The current study recommended the need to pay attention to the strategic control function and benefit from its philosophy and the benefits that accrue to supporting customer satisfaction with e-marketing, and raising the efficiency and awareness of employees about strategic control in an organized manner in order to build their capabilities to support and implement control mechanisms and make the necessary improvements. (shrink)

Background: Pembrolizumab, an inhibitory anti-PD-1 antibody, has led to significantly meaningful improvements in advanced melanoma. This meta-analysis discusses and presents the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab versus control treatments in randomized controlled trials. Methods: Electronic databases were searched systematically for RCTs using pembrolizumab in advanced melanomas. Pooled estimates were calculated under random-effect models for overall response rates, PFS, OS, and TRAEs. Results: Nine RCTs including 5132 patients were analyzed. Pembrolizumab significantly realized better results in ORR, PFS and OS HR 0.62, (...) 95% CI 0.54, 0.71, P < 0.001 and HR 0.70, 95% CI 0.63, 0.78, P < 0.001 for control. PFS and OS were consistently better in first, second, and further lines and in groups stratified for PD-L1 status. Grade 3–5 TRAEs were lower with pembrolizumab than with chemotherapy 13.3% vs. 25.9% and ipilimumab 16.9% vs. 27.3%. Conclusions: Pembrolizumab monotherapy meaningfully improves ORRs, delays progression, and prolongs survival in advanced melanoma compared to current standard regimens, with the latter given its favorable toxicity profile. As such, pembrolizumab should be considered the new standard of care for treatment-naïve and previously treated subjects. (shrink)

This article discusses the national identity of the Yemenite Jews as portrayed in Majdi Saleh’s novel The Journey of Buried Secrets. The novel, in addition to being a journey to the ancient past of Yemen, is a journey to the secret life of the Yemenite Jews as well. It is an exploration of their customs, traditions, worries, passions and identity. The writer has been able to dive deep into the depths of Yemeni society, both Muslim and Jewish, depicting the (...) beauty of Yemen architecture, ancient inscriptions and living styles of bygone days. Saleh’s novel presents a new perspective of the Yemenite Jew, one who identifies himself with Yemen and feels proud of this attachment to the land of his birth. The article argues that Yemenite Jews have been emotionally and cognitively attached to their motherland and perceived themselves as being Yemenites belonging to the country where they were born and grew up. It asserts that such a sense of belonging is the outcome of religious tolerance and coexistence of the larger Muslim community. (shrink)

This sixth volume of Collected Papers includes 74 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2015-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 121 co-authors from 19 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Abduallah Gamal, Amir Abdullah, Firoz Ahmad, Nadeem Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed Aboelfetouh, Ahmed Mostafa Khalil, Shariful Alam, W. Alharbi, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Amira S. Ashour, Asmaa Atef, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, A. A. Azzam, Willem K.M. Brauers, Bui (...) Cong Cuong, Fausto Cavallaro, Ahmet Çevik, Robby I. Chandra, Kalaivani Chandran, Victor Chang, Chang Su Kim, Jyotir Moy Chatterjee, Victor Christianto, Chunxin Bo, Mihaela Colhon, Shyamal Dalapati, Arindam Dey, Dunqian Cao, Fahad Alsharari, Faruk Karaaslan, Aleksandra Fedajev, Daniela Gîfu, Hina Gulzar, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Hewayda El-Ghawalby, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, F. Nirmala Irudayam, Branislav Ivanov, S. Jafari, Jeong Gon Lee, Milena Jevtić, Sudan Jha, Junhui Kim, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Songül Karabatak, Abdullah Kargın, M. Karthika, Ieva Meidute-Kavaliauskiene, Madad Khan, Majid Khan, Manju Khari, Kifayat Ullah, K. Kishore, Kul Hur, Santanu Kumar Patro, Prem Kumar Singh, Raghvendra Kumar, Tapan Kumar Roy, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luu Quoc Dat, T. Madhumathi, Tahir Mahmood, Mladjan Maksimovic, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Nivetha Martin, M. Kasi Mayan, Mai Mohamed, Mohamed Talea, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Raja Muhammad Hashim, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Nada A. Nabeeh, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Xenia Negrea, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Jagan M. Obbineni, Angelo de Oliveira, M. Parimala, Gabrijela Popovic, Ishaani Priyadarshini, Yaser Saber, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, A. A. Salama, M. Saleh, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Dönüș Șengür, Shio Gai Quek, Songtao Shao, Dragiša Stanujkić, Surapati Pramanik, Swathi Sundari Sundaramoorthy, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Muhammed Turhan, Alptekin Ulutaș, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Dan Valeriu Voinea, Volkan Duran, Navneet Yadav, Yanhui Guo, Naveed Yaqoob, Yongquan Zhou, Young Bae Jun, Xiaohong Zhang, Xiao Long Xin, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas. (shrink)

AGGA (Academic Guidelines for Generative AIs) is a dataset of 80 academic guidelines for the usage of generative AIs and large language models in academia, selected systematically and collected from official university websites across six continents. Comprising 181,225 words, the dataset supports natural language processing tasks such as language modeling, sentiment and semantic analysis, model synthesis, classification, and topic labeling. It can also serve as a benchmark for ambiguity detection and requirements categorization. This resource aims to facilitate research on AI (...) governance in educational contexts, promoting a deeper understanding of the integration of AI technologies in academia. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 has taken the world by surprise and has impacted the lives of many, including the business sector and its stakeholders. Although studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the organizational structure, job design, and employee well-being have been on the rise, fewer studies examined the role of leadership and what it takes to be an effective leader during such times. This study integrates social cognitive theory and conservation of resources theory to argue for the importance of (...) adaptive personality in the emergence of effective leaders during crisis times, utilizing the crisis of COVID-19 as the context for the study. We argue that managers with an adaptive personality tend to have increased self-efficacy levels to lead during a crisis, resulting in increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, managers with increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis are argued to have enhanced adaptive performance, thereby suggesting a serial mediation model where crisis leader self-efficacy and motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis act as explanatory mechanisms of the relationship between the adaptive personality and performance of the manager. In order to test our hypotheses, we collected data from 116 full-time managers in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 crisis and used hierarchical linear regression as the method of analysis. The findings support all of the hypotheses. A discussion of the results, contributions, limitations, and future directions is included. (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 study explored the impact of financial literacy on potential entrepreneurs' intent in Saudi Arabia. It also examined saving behavior as a mediator in the relationship between financial literacy and entrepreneurial intention. The study's data were collected by an online questionnaire sent to a sample of 270 potential entrepreneurs at Abqaiq Applied College, affiliated with King Faisal University. Data analysis was done using partial least squares structural equation modeling. According to the findings, there is no direct relationship between financial literacy (...) and entrepreneurial intent. However, it has been reported that saving behavior can mediate between financial literacy and entrepreneurial intent. (shrink)

This paper explores the representation of Laji’een and Muhajireen in Jordan News Agency. It uses the headlines of a 2.5 million word corpus of Arabic news articles in a time span of 5 years from 2012 to 2016. Chronologically analyzing the headlines shows a change in the representation of and attitudes towards refugees and migrants over the investigated period. The analysis of the headlines shows that 2012 starts with providing the assistance to the refugees then at a later stage of (...) 2012 and in 2013 and 2014, the language is shifted to calling for assistance to the country to contribute to solving the problem. In 2015, the language is changed to be more alerting about the scarce in funding. In 2016, the headlines have changed the focus to Europe due to the migration of the refugees. This motivates the National News Agency of Jordan to highlight the suffering of Europe because of the refugees despite having the capacity and resources to host the migrant refugees. The paper concludes that language in general, and the language of media in particular can change the attitudes of people and governments toward critical issues and phenomena like migration and asylum. (shrink)

IGGA (Industrial Guidelines/policy statements for Generative AIs) is a comprehensive dataset comprising 160 guidelines and policy statements pertaining to the use of generative AIs and large language models across 14 industry sectors. These guidelines were systematically selected and gathered from official company websites and reliable sources spanning six continents. The dataset, containing 295,692 words, is designed to support various natural language processing tasks, including language modeling, sentiment analysis, semantic analysis, model synthesis, classification, and topic labeling. Additionally, it serves as a (...) benchmark for tasks such as ambiguity detection and requirements categorization. This resource aims to advance research in AI governance within industrial settings, fostering a deeper understanding of how AI technologies are integrated into industry practices. (2024-11-17). (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)

MyJay is an open-source robot designed to facilitate play between children with and without physical disabilities. The robot acts as a proxy for children with upper limb challenges, allowing them to participate in physical games with their peers. Our design was inspired by the FIRST Robotics Competition, which involves teleoperating robots to manipulate objects. Taking a user-centred perspective, we consulted therapists and conducted remote interviews with children with disabilities and their guardians at various stages of the design process. We then (...) conducted an in-person feasibility study with 18 typically developing children in a school setting. The study involved children teleoperating the robot to pick up and throw balls into a designated goal, and the interaction was evaluated using the user experience questionnaire and the Robotic Social Attributes Scale. The results of the study show great potential for MyJay to act as a play mediator in various scenarios, and the response from the children was positive. The ultimate aim of our research agenda is to pave the way towards creating more inclusive play environments through robot-mediated interactions, breaking barriers posed by physical limitations. (shrink)

Rhythm is a poetic necessity for constructing a poem, which in turn gives us other rhythms and other phonemes in the background of the meter, and behind the words, and hence the meter does not constitute a major value in constructing a poem unless it is linked to other artistic elements of writing poetry. In this section, we address the rhythmic phenomenon in the introductions to poetry collections in various forms of Arabic poetry: classical, free metrical, and prose poetry, by (...) reading a number of diverse poetic models, starting from the fact that poetry is not poetry, and that poetic meters do not form a poem except to the extent that the poet invests in other elements of poetry, in the image, style, density and depth of language, and rhetorical diversification in performing the poem, and also departing from the pattern by renewing and developing and striving to create advanced innovations in the broad rhythmic horizon, and in the formative and linguistic horizon of poetic introductions, and in this section we have monitored a group of rhythmic phenomena such as: repetition, phonemes of language, the rhythm of the visual space of writing, and the relationship between effect and reception. In light of this awareness, poetic introductions may come in a multi-rhythmic form that does not necessarily stop at the inherited poetic form, but rather varies in its performance and in the methods of delivery, investing the space of the poetic page in conveying the poet’s semantic vision. (shrink)

This study aimed to assess the prevalence of gamophobia among unmarried graduate students at Yarmouk University, Jordan, and to explore its correlation with family communication patterns. The sample comprised 255 male and female students selected through convenience sampling. The results indicated that the overall level of gamophobia within the sample was moderate. Notably, gamophobia levels were significantly higher among females and employed students compared to their male and unemployed counterparts. No significant differences in gamophobia levels related to age or educational (...) level were found. Regarding the relationship between gamophobia and family communication patterns, the study identified a significant positive correlation with four specific family role patterns and a significant negative correlation with one family communication pattern. The analysis further showed that family communication patterns ranged from medium to high, with the balanced communication pattern being the most prevalent and the blaming pattern the least. Additionally, while no significant differences in family communication patterns were observed based on gender, differences were noted in the placating pattern in favor of doctoral students, in the placating and super-reasonable patterns favoring employed students, in the placating style for the 25–30 and 30+ age groups, and the irrelevant pattern for those under 25 years old. The balanced communication pattern was more prevalent among participants aged 30 years and older. (shrink)