ABSTRACT Ethical leaders can influence followers’ ethical behaviors by establishing an ethical climate. However, followers’ responses to an ethical climate may also differ according to the amount of attention they devote to moral questions. This study analyzes whether moral attentiveness augments the positive effect of an ethical climate on employees’ ethical behaviors, as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employee ethical behavior through an ethical climate. Data from 270 employees in the Malaysian manufacturing industry indicate that the (...) positive impact of an ethical climate on ethical behavior is greater among employees who exhibit high rather than low moral attentiveness; this moderating role also applies to the relationship between ethical leadership and employee ethical behavior through the ethical climate. This study thus sheds new light on the notable role of moral attentiveness in ensuring that ethical leadership and ethical climate enhance ethical behavior in the workplace. (shrink)

Big Data is a large-sized and complex dataset, which cannot be managed using traditional data processing tools. Mining process of big data is the ability to extract valuable information from these large datasets. Association rule mining is a type of data mining process, which is indented to determine interesting associations between items and to establish a set of association rules whose support is greater than a specific threshold. The classical association rules can only be extracted from binary data where an (...) item exists in a transaction, but it fails to deal effectively with quantitative attributes, through decreasing the quality of generated association rules due to sharp boundary problems. In order to overcome the drawbacks of classical association rule mining, we propose in this research a new neutrosophic association rule algorithm. The algorithm uses a new approach for generating association rules by dealing with membership, indeterminacy, and non-membership functions of items, conducting to an efficient decision-making system by considering all vague association rules. To prove the validity of the method, we compare the fuzzy mining and the neutrosophic mining. The results show that the proposed approach increases the number of generated association rules. (shrink)

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi's Reform of Islam is an open indictment of prevailing conservative Islam which insists on the absolute subjugation of the body and mind of all Muslims. The author seeks a humanist understanding of Islam and aims to interpret Islam in today's terms. He argues against the historical alienation and transfiguration that still shape the collective consciousness of Muslims in the 21st Century. Using critical analysis and logic, the author aims to reveal the true core of Islam. His 40 (...) Theses include: The freedom of the individual to interpret the Qur'an No scholars as mediators between God and man Islam does not claim to possess the absolute truth Only a reformed and open Islam is a religion of peace The Qur'an as the basis of a contemporary humanist ethics. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. describe how a more complete measurement of the dynamic nature of culture could help us unmask the true richness of genetic effects on behaviour. I underscore this notion here by reflecting on the role that the dynamic relationship between culture and DNA has played in our evolutionary history and will play in our evolutionary future.

In this paper, we propose a new hybrid neutrosophic multi criteria decision making (MCDM) framework that employs a collection of neutrosophic analytical network process (ANP), and order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) under bipolar neutrosophic numbers. The MCDM framework is applied for chief executive officer (CEO) selection in a case study at the Elsewedy Electric Group, Egypt. The proposed approach allows us to assemble individual evaluations of the decision makers and therefore perform accurate personnel selection. The outcomes of (...) the proposed method are compared with those of the related works such as weight sum model (WSM), weight product model (WPM), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), multiobjective optimization based on simple ratio analysis (MOORA) and ANP methods to prove and validate the results. (shrink)

This article concerns with the existence and uniqueness theory of solutions for sequential fractional differential system involving Caputo fractional derivatives of order 1

Natural Sciences

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The teachings, style and impact of the Qur'an have always been matters of controversy, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. But in a modern context of intercultural sensitivity, what the Qur'an says and means are perhaps more urgent questions than ever before. This major new book by one of the world's finest Islamic scholars responds to that urgency. Building on his earlier groundbreaking work, the author challenges misinterpretations of particular Qur'anic verses from whatever quarter. He addresses the infamous 'sword' verse, frequently (...) cited as a justification for jihad. He also questions the 'tribute' verse, associated with the Muslim state subjugating Jews and Christians; and the idea of Paradise in the Qur'an, often viewed by the West as emphasising merely physical pleasures, or used by Islamic fighters as their just reward for holy war. The author argues that wrenching the verses out of the context of the whole has led to dangerous ideologies being built on isolated phrases which have then assumed afterlives of their own. This nuanced, holistic reading has vital interfaith ramifications. (shrink)

This article offers an account of the responsibility that individuals bear by virtue of their national belonging alone. Via their national pride, the living connect themselves actively with select actions performed by others who might long be dead. They imagine themselves as having won past wars, built ancient empires and the like. This same feat of their imagination imposes on them a responsibility for the bad outcomes that were brought about through their imagined exploits. Their national responsibility for the "sins (...) of the fathers" however lends itself only to the kinds of responses that these living agents can demand of themselves. While their national responsibility can be captured by either the vocabulary of guilt or that of shame, the latter turns out to be more promising as it better accounts for the strong hold that the national idea has on contemporary political thinking. (shrink)

Sporadic efforts have been made to introduce computational thinking methods into K-12 education in Palestine, but these have been held back by the challenging educational environment. However, a recent in-service training initiative, funded and organized by the Ministry or Education of Palestine, constitutes a significant effort to embed computational thinking in K-12 practice. The middle school teachers who participated in the training course were invited to participate in the present study, and 38 did so. A qualitative approach involving both interviews (...) with teachers and classroom observations was used in data collection. All the teachers agreed to be observed in their classrooms, while 20 of the 38 also agreed to participate in the interviews. The findings showed that teachers of a range of topics, including social sciences and languages, employed computational thinking skills in teaching their students, but they were confronted by a number of challenges, including technical infrastructure and support, and a lack of time to prepare CT classes and space in the curriculum to deliver them. The results indicate that the most appropriate action to support teachers’ delivery of CT would be to provide peer exchanges and expert coaching in the integration of CT in the curriculum. (shrink)

al-kitāb 1. Madkhal li-ʻilm al-qānūn (2. v.).

This dissertation engages the following question: how, in the absence of an uncontroversial source of moral guidance, can liberals make political and moral claims across cultural divides? While committed to toleration, liberals cannot escape the compulsion to apply basic standards of equal individual human rights and liberties universally. Under postmetaphysical conditions, however, they no longer find credible arguments that assure them of the sources of these standards in "natural law," "human nature," or "practical reason." Aware that individual rights have their (...) provenance in modern "Western" history, liberals fear being intolerant when they apply these standards universally, and experience as a result a problem of cross-cultural judgement. ;In this project I engage in a sympathetic critique of Richard Rorty's, Jurgen Habermas's and John Rawls's attempts at addressing this problem and provide a fourth alternative that cannot be absorbed by any of their frameworks. Rorty offers liberals the comforts of ethnocentrism. He assures them that political and moral judgements are always made by someone from somewhere. For this comfort, however, he extracts the exorbitant ethical price of other-disregard. Habermas derives individual rights from the universal practice of argumentation. By relying on the overly exacting standard of "rational consensus," however, he limits the applicability of his answer to liberal secular contexts. In his free-standing answer, Rawls offers the promising standard of an "overlapping consensus." His overly static use of this concept, however, drains it of its promise. ;Drawing on each of these attempts as well as on Aristotle's Rhetoric, I offer the alternative of a political project of moral persuasion. Instead of seeking to address the problem of cross-cultural judgement by coup de plume, liberals' best hope is to obviate it in practice, by forging a global, minimally liberal, overlapping consensus. As moral persuaders liberals would intrude actively in nonliberal debates and would seek to convince nonliberals from within their various lights, of the worthiness of the commitment to the freedom and equality of persons. (shrink)

In her book, Geraldine Brooks fails to distinguish between what Islam says and what Muslims do.

The political unaccountability of ordinary citizens in classical Athens was originally raised as a challenge by ancient critics of democracy. In tension with that criticism, the authors argue that attention to the above challenge is consistent with a defence of Athenian democratic politics. In fact, ordinary citizens' function in the Assembly and courts implicitly included the burden of justifying their own political decisions to an imagined authority, as if they could be brought to account. Byeans of practices that encouraged this (...) self-scrutiny, Athenians marked the challenge of citizens' political unaccountability as an unavoidable but manageable aspect of their democracy. (shrink)

This article explains how we ordinary subjects of a state who are neither political leaders nor functionaries are responsible for outcomes that are properly attributed to that state and that took place during our adult lifetime. Its focus is on the connection we forge to those outcomes via our obedience alone. If our responsibility as subjects is justified, it would apply under all regime types including oppressive and authoritarian ones. The argument is that this responsibility can only be justified within (...) a minimal account of agency and a bare-bones account of responsibility. Thus, while we incur a burden of responsibility for the state via our obedience alone, that burden does not suffice to either blame us or extract remedies from us for state injustices. For us obedient subjects, however, it is important that we be cognizant of this burden as it marks the most minimal agency we exercise in the state. (shrink)

Using intelligent software agents in the world of e-commerce may give rise to many difficulties especially with regard to the validity of agent-based contracts and the attribution of liability for the actions of such agents. This paper thus critically examines the main approaches that have been advanced to deal with software agents, and proposes the gradual approach as a way of overcoming the difficulties of such agents by adopting different standards of responsibility depending whether the action is done autonomously by (...) an unattended software, or whether it is done automatically by an attended software. Throughout this paper, it is argued that the introduction of “one size” regulation without sufficient consideration of the nature of software agents or the environments in which they communicate might lead to a divorce between the legal theory and technological practice. It is also concluded that it is incorrect to deal with software agents as if they were either legal persons or nothing without in any way accounting for the fact that there are various kinds of such agents endowed with different levels of autonomy, mobility, intelligence, and sophistication. However, this paper is not intended to provide the final answer to all problematic questions posed by the emergence of intelligent software agents, but is designed to provide some kind of temporary relief until such agents reach a more reliable and autonomous level whereby law begins to regard them, rather than their users, as the source of the relevant action. (shrink)

Una de las actividades religiosas e intelectuales más importantes del pensamiento islámico es el iytihad. Supone la libre interpretación de los textos y de las cuestiones religiosas relacionadas con el derecho civil y religioso, basándose en El Corán, la Sunna y el hadit, entre otras fuentes islámicas.The iytihad, in one of the most important religious and intellectual activities of the Islamic thought, that suposses the free interpretation of the texts and religious questions related to the civil and religious law, being (...) based on the sources of Islamic jurisprudence: The Koran, the Sunna and The hadiz and the other sources. There are two types of interpreters, the firsts are disciples of the imams founders of the four rites or official schools of the Islam, and the seconds are the intellectuals, philosophers and writers that enjoy prestige, confidence and authoity among a great mass of the civil society. (shrink)

This article investigates the origin of editorial images, with a focus on the mental processes that enable cartoonists and illustrators across cultures to come up with novel ideas. It provides the most compelling evidence to date that recycling, where artists regularly recycle pictorial and compositional ideas they have developed earlier, is the origin of ideas. Recycling theory is thus compatible with a variety of ongoing research programs. Among these are Turner’s work on blending (2014), Musolff’s research on scenarios (2016), Langacker’s (...) ideas on constructional schemas (1991), Johnson’s work on image schemas (1987), and van Dijk’s proposals concerning discourse complexes and intertextuality (2014). More specifically, the present study gives cognitively plausible answers to the perennial questions: To what extent does recycling shape and constrain the human way of thinking? Is it bound to certain cultural traditions? Does it characterize the style of certain artists or artistic movements? How does it contribute to discourse? Are the products of recycling always imaginative and creative? Is it a mode of efficiency? The theoretical insights are applied to 440 editorial images of Egyptian and British origin. This investigation will aid both semiotics scholarship and cognition studies based on multimodal stimuli. (shrink)

Various domains of life widely recognise the concept of human rights. Regardless of one's spiritual beliefs or background, individuals possess an inherent understanding of their fundamental rights. This knowledge of human rights originates from Allah, who has communicated it through various messengers, including the esteemed Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. This study focuses on examining the religious perspective on basic human rights in order to establish a comprehensive understanding of these rights. There are two revelations: This study employs a linguistic descriptive analysis (...) approach to evaluate the Holy Quran and the guidance of the Prophet. The study primarily focuses on conducting a content analysis and descriptive analysis of case studies and literary insights found in the Holy Quran and the Prophet's ﷺ guidance. The goal is to extract as much content as possible about human rights. The study has identified four major themes defined by the Holy Quran and the Prophet's ﷺ guidance. The study has improved our understanding of key human rights concepts and suggests that future scholars concentrate on assessing other fundamental rights that the two revelations under investigation have illuminated. (shrink)

In his recent work, Jürgen Habermas signals the abandonment of his earlier claims to justify human rights and universalist morality. This paper explains the above shift, arguing that it is the inescapable result of his attempts in recent years to accommodate pluralism. The paper demonstrates how Habermas’s universal pragmatic justification of modern normative standards was inextricably tied to his consensus theory of validity. He was compelled by the structure of that argument to count on the current or future availability of (...) a unified framework within which all can potentially articulate their needs and interests. With his abandonment of the justification Habermas has rid discourse theory of this controversial assumption. In weakening its defense of human rights and universalist morality against the charge of ethnocentrism, he has strengthened his theory’s foothold in the lived pluralist world. Key Words: argumentation • ethnocentrism • Habermas • human rights • justification • legitimacy • pluralism • rational consensus • Rehg. (shrink)

This study aims to use geographic information systems to analyze the spatial distribution of ATMs in Abha city. This is based on the most important applied aspects of geographic information systems, namely spatial analysis, to reveal the characteristics of the spatial distribution of ATMs and their distribution pattern, and to evaluate the efficiency of their distribution according to spatial variables. The study came out with a number of results and recommendations, the most important of which is increasing the number of (...) ATMs in high-density neighborhoods that are deprived of service, which reduces the pressure on them, in a way that ensures their sustainability, and in a manner that is proportional to both the area and the number of residents in the city's neighborhoods. (shrink)

Service geography is one of the branches of applied geography that has emerged as an applied intellectual interest to engage with the immediate direct needs of both urban and rural communities. The importance of studying services is due to their connection to economic planning, so geographical interest in them increases, as applied geography is based on a specific approach and philosophy of relevance or social benefit that focuses on the application of geographical knowledge and skills. To come up with solutions (...) to real-world social, economic and environmental problems. The study focused on the use of geographic information systems in analyzing the geographic calendar of rental offices in the city of Abha, relying on the most important applied aspects of geographic information systems represented in spatial analysis. To reveal the characteristics of the spatial distribution of rental offices and their distribution pattern, and to evaluate the efficiency of their distribution according to the local standard. The study came out with a number of results and recommendations, and also verified the hypotheses assumed by the researchers. (shrink)

Background: The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test is one of the most widely used measures of family dynamics seen from a child’s perspective. However, the most common issue surrounding this test is the lack of accurate normative scores for use with non-white ethnic groups. The purpose of this study was to examine the BAFRT’s reliability and validity for use with Arab children, as well as to provide normative data for this group. Methods: The BAFRT was translated into Arabic and back-translated to (...) ensure accuracy. The test was administered to a cohort of 394 Arab children, consisting of both cognitively normal children and children diagnosed with a psychological disorder, all aged 5–8 years old. Test-retest reliability was assessed using a sub-set of children and validity was tested against clinical status as well as CBCL and SDQ measures. Normative measures were calculated after examining the impact of influencing variables such as age and gender. Results: Statistical analyses showed that in our cohort of Arab children the BAFRT has good test-retest reliability, correlates well with measures of emotional and behavioral adjustment, and discriminates accurately between clinical and non-clinical children. Age, gender, and clinical status all significantly impacted upon BAFRT scores and therefore normative values are presented from our cohort when considering these variables. Conclusion: The normative scores we present will provide researchers and clinicians an appropriate reference point for the comparison of scores from Arab children and a starting point for future research into this area. (shrink)