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)

Due to the tremendous progress in technology and the methods used in its application to facilitate and refine human's life, Intelligent Tutoring System was created to contribute in this era. In this study, the Intelligent Tutoring System was adopted as a platform in linking the complex Technological fields for obtaining information smoothly, and highlighting the importance of water issues and in the Gaza strip. In the light of the absence and inability of the formal education system to raise awareness of (...) the water crisis and its consequences on the daily life of the Gazans, the current Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) has been utilized to disseminate knowledge and enhance awareness of water problems. The ITS aims to embrace a new water conservation practices and ensure the sustainability of fresh water. Basically the software of the tutoring system is used to create a program which could be easily used by the public population and specialists in the water field. The resulting program was fed with plenty of information about the current local water status and its related problems which are considerably useful for anyone interested to raise his/her level of knowledge and awareness about the local water status in addition to the researchers by reducing their dependency on human sources. The ITS system was presented to two groups of people: The first one consists of specialized water experts and the other consists of master student enrolled in Institute of Water and Environment in Al-Azhar University in Gaza who are interested in water problems. Both groups were requested to use the final version of the system and give their feedback by filling a questionnaire, and then the averages of the answered questions were measured for each group. It was found that the overall impressions of the users were positive. (shrink)

Accurate and reliable prediction of Perfobond Rib Shear Strength Connector is considered as a major issue in the structural engineering sector. Besides, selecting the most significant variables that have a major influence on PRSC in every important step for attaining economic and more accurate predictive models, this study investigates the capacity of deep learning neural network for shear strength prediction of PRSC. The proposed DLNN model is validated against support vector regression, artificial neural network, and M5 tree model. In the (...) second scenario, a comparable AI model hybridized with genetic algorithm as a robust bioinspired optimization approach for optimizing the related predictors for the PRSC is proposed. Hybridizing AI models with GA as a selector tool is an attempt to acquire the best accuracy of predictions with the fewest possible related parameters. In accordance with quantitative analysis, it can be observed that the GA-DLNN models required only 7 input parameters and yielded the best prediction accuracy with highest correlation coefficient and lowest value root mean square error. However, the other comparable models such as GA-M5Tree, GA-ANN, and GA-SVR required 10 input parameters to obtain a relatively acceptable level of accuracy. Employing GA as a feature parameter selection technique improves the precision of almost all hybrid models by optimally removing redundant variables which decrease the efficiency of the model. (shrink)

Background The consistency of codes governing disclosure of terminal illness to patients and families in Islamic countries has not been studied until now. Objectives To review available codes on disclosure of terminal illness in Islamic countries. Data source and extraction Data were extracted through searches on Google and PubMed. Codes related to disclosure of terminal illness to patients or families were abstracted, and then classified independently by the three authors. Data synthesis Codes for 14 Islamic countries were located. Five codes (...) were silent regarding informing the patient, seven allowed concealment, one mandated disclosure and one prohibited disclosure. Five codes were silent regarding informing the family, four allowed disclosure and five mandated/recommended disclosure. The Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences code was silent on both issues. Conclusion Codes regarding disclosure of terminal illness to patients and families differed markedly among Islamic countries. They were silent in one-third of the codes, and tended to favour a paternalistic/utilitarian, family-centred approach over an autonomous, patient-centred approach. (shrink)

The _Epic of Gilgamesh_, a 3600-year 12-tablet collection, was looted from an Iraqi museum during the 1991 Gulf War, and fraudulently imported into the United States. In September, 2021, UNESCO facilitated its repatriation to Iraq, which is seen as an occasion to consolidate Iraq’s efforts to rebuild its legacy, since the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ is of immense cultural, historical and religious value for Iraq The current study examines the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ in the light of the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian (...) traditions. This collection of tablets carries a great legacy of the contemporary Babylonian and Mesopotamian beliefs and socio-religious values, also evident in the use of cuneiform and clay tablets, being ancient forms of writings. The study made use of content analysis and historical and analytical approaches to retrieve data through a documentation research design. The study found that the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ is not only a work of religious literature, but a treatise on civilization. On one hand it narrates the stories engrained in the Mesopotamian mythology, such as those of Ninsun, Shamash and Utnapishtim; on the other hand, owing to its content, literary style and tone, characterization and symbolism, this study would be a great contribution to relive the story of Gilgamesh from current literary, and socio-religious perspective and provide a comprehensive account of the legacy and inheritance that it brings in for the modern generation. (shrink)

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)

The Mediterranean region is facing major challenges for soil conservation and sustainable agriculture. Conservation agriculture (CA), including reduced soil disturbance, can help conserve soils and improve soil fertility, but its adoption in the Mediterranean region is limited. Examining farmers’ perceptions of soil and underlying sociocultural factors can help shed light on adoption of soil management practices. In this paper, we conducted a survey with 590 farmers across Morocco, Spain and Tunisia to explore concepts that are cognitively associated with soil and (...) perceptions of tillage. We also evaluated differences in perceptions of innovation, community, adaptive capacity, and responsibility for soil. We found that farmers’ cognitive associations with soil show awareness of soil as a living resource, go beyond agriculture and livelihoods to reveal cultural ties, and link to multiple levels of human needs. Beliefs about the benefits of tillage for water availability and yield persist among the surveyed farmers. We found that openness towards innovation, perceived adaptive capacity and responsibility for soil were associated with minimum tillage, whereas community integration was not. Education, age and farm lifestyle were also associated with differences in these perceptions. CA promotion in the Mediterranean should emphasize the multiple values of soil, should demonstrate how sufficient yields may be achieved alongside resilience to drought, and be tailored to differing levels of environmental awareness and economic needs across north and south. (shrink)

Background: Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home. Depression affects an estimated one in 15 adults (6.7%) in any given (...) year. And one in six people (16.6%) will experience depression at some time in their life. Depression can strike at any time, but on average, first appears during the late teens to mid-20s. Women are more likely than men to experience depression. Some studies show that one-third of women will experience a major depressive episode in their lifetime. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment and give the appropriate method of treatment through several tips that concern the disease and how to treat it and we will see it through the application on the expert system. Methods: in this paper the design of the proposed Expert System which was produced to help Psychologist in diagnosing depression disease through its symptoms such as: a loss of energy, a change in appetite, sleeping more or less, anxiety, reduced concentration, indecisiveness, restlessness, feelings of worthlessness, guilt or hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm or suicide. The proposed expert system presents an overview about depression disease is given, the cause of diseases is outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. SL5 Object Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed depression disease diagnosis expert system was evaluated by psychologist students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for psychologist, patients with depression and newly graduated psychologist. (shrink)

In this paper it is first investigated to what extent the institutional goal and basic principles of shared decision making are compatible with the aim and rules for critical discussion. Next, some techniques that doctors may use to present their own treatment preferences strategically in a shared decision making process are discussed and evaluated both from the perspective of the ideal of shared decision making and from that of critical discussion.

We are living in an era of multiple crises, multiple social resistances, and multiple cosmopolitanisms. The post-Cold War context has generated a plethora of movements, but no single unifying ideology or global political program has yet materialized. The historical confrontation between capital and its alternatives, however, continues to pose new possibilities for social and systemic transformations. Critical analysis of ideological divisions among today’s diverse emancipatory and transformative movements is important in order to understand past and present shortcomings, and many continuing (...) difficulties in imagining crisis-free alternative futures. Inspired by a multiplicity of responses from the Global South and the Global North, and by furthering Delanty’s critical cosmopolitanist approach, this article aims to create a new framework for interpreting ‘transformative visions’ that challenge systems of domination embedded in capitalist social relations. The framework is designed to enable the evaluative analysis of such visions, as well as the exploration of embedded ideological obstacles to dialogue and collaboration among them. (shrink)

Relationships with one's employees, co-workers, or superiors create ethical dilemmas. Employees' judgments and ethical perceptions have been extensively studied in Western cultures, but not in developing countries. The purpose of this investigation is to examine employees' self-reported work-related ethics and compare them to their perceptions of co-workers' and top managements' along various morally challenging situations in three developing countries' organizations. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman, known as the Gulf countries, were selected as the research setting - and provided the sampling (...) frame - for this study. The results suggest that respondents perceived all ethically challenging situations as unethical and had significant differences among themselves regarding the ethical perceptions of self, as compared to perceptions of peers', and top managements'. Discussion of the results and implications are provided. (shrink)

Background: Arthritis is very common but is not well understood. Actually, “arthritis” is not a single disease; it is an informal way of referring to joint pain or joint disease. There are more than 100 different types of arthritis and related conditions. People of all ages, sexes and races can and do have arthritis, and it is the leading cause of disability in America. More than 50 million adults and 300,000 children have some type of arthritis. It is most common (...) among women and occurs more frequently as people get older. Common arthritis joint symptoms include swelling, pain, stiffness and decreased range of motion. Symptoms may come and go. They can be mild, moderate or severe. They may stay about the same for years, but may progress or get worse over time. Severe arthritis can result in chronic pain, inability to do daily activities and make it difficult to walk or climb stairs. Arthritis can cause permanent joint changes. These changes may be visible, such as knobby finger joints, but often the damage can only be seen on X-ray. Some types of arthritis also affect the heart, eyes, lungs, kidneys and skin as well as the joints. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment and give the appropriate method of treatment through several tips that concern the disease and how to treat it and we will see it through the application on the expert system. Methods: in this paper the design of the proposed Expert System which was produced to help Orthopedist in diagnosing Arthritis disease through its symptoms such as: pain on pressure in a joint , Inflammation indicated by joint swelling, Stiffness especially in the morning , Loss of flexibility of joint, Limited, joint movement, Deformity of the joints , Weight loss and fatigue , Non-specific fever and Crepitus. The proposed expert system presents an overview about Arthritis disease is given, the cause of diseases is outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. SL5 Object Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed Arthritis disease diagnosis expert system was evaluated by Orthopedics students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for Orthopedist, patients with arthritis and newly graduated Orthopedics students. (shrink)

Errors have been the concern of providers and consumers of health care services. However, consumers' perception of medical errors in developing countries is rarely explored. The aim of this study is to assess community members' perceptions about medical errors and to analyse the factors affecting this perception in one Middle East country, Oman.

In this global village, easy access to news has resulted in many changes in the preferences and patterns of people for accessing news. Therefore, the present study has attempted to investigate the effects of news relevance, perceived quality, and news overloading on people’s news curation preferences. This study has also examined the mediating role of news avoidance between the news relevance, perceived quality, and news overloading on the news curation. A quantitative technique has been employed to check the relationships proposed (...) in the study. A sample size of 217 has been analyzed to check these hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed that news relevance has a negative impact while news overload positively and significantly impact the news curation. However, the news avoidance only mediated the relationship of news quality and news curation. Theoretically, the study has contributed to the literature of journalism and social media by finding that relevance of news has a negative significant impact on the news curation behavior of people, such that if they do not find the news relevant, they happily curate it. Practically, the study implies that the people are more prone to the quality of news rather than quantity; therefore, it is important for the news agencies to ensure that they produce and deliver the quality based news considering the accuracy to penetrate the Theoretic lass level. (shrink)

This article seeks to address and dispel some of the popular myths and misconceptions surrounding authorship of a scientific publication as this is often misconstrued by beginners in academia especially those in the developing world. While ethical issues in publishing related to authorship have been increasingly discussed, not much has been written about the myths and misconceptions of who might be an author. Dispelling these myths and misconceptions would go a long way in shaping the thoughts and plans of students, (...) junior faculty and researchers in academia especially in the developing world. (shrink)

This research aims at exploring the status of integrating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in higher management education in the Arab region. The universities in the Arab region have lately emphasized internationalization in their educational policies, aiming at improving their regional and global presence, as a major part of their national reforms. Such transformations will never take hold if education systems are not reformed to foster citizenship, ethics, and social responsibility. Therefore, the study adopted qualitative content analysis of the top (...) 40 business schools that are ranked based on the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) University Rankings in the Arab Region in 2016, as well as schools acting as signatories of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). To analyze the integration of ESD at all educational levels, the relevant literature commonly emphasized upon the adoption of Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability (ECSRS). Hence, the content analysis involved critical identification of pre-selected keywords under the ECSRS theme throughout the sampled universities’ online content and “Sharing Information on Progress” reports, in light of institutional, curricular, and instrumental levels, expanding the work of Setó-Pamies and Papaoikomomou (2016). The results revealed that ECSRS is outlined in the sampled universities’ strategies mainly through their mission statements. ECSRS is incorporated to a great extent in the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate programs in the form of obligatory and elective courses. Yet, student extracurricular activities did not receive equivalent devotion. As for ECSRS research, over half of sampled universities had dedicated research centers mainly focusing on environmental sustainability, in addition to issuing sporadic publications on various ECSRS topics. Integrating ECSRS in university outreach is still considered marginalized. (shrink)

Revisiting Fanon’s classic theory of violence and relying on some of his case studies, this article detects the propensity to see the world in abstract formats as the source of the most malignant forms of revolutionary violence. Based on this, the article explores how abstraction may still be a healthy way of thinking, especially in a globalized and postcolonial world. Two mechanisms for handling abstraction in humane ways are proposed, both of which exclude loyalties to principles or communities so long (...) as those could only be imagined in abstract forms. The two mechanisms of humanizing abstractions proposed here include the capacity to see local stories as manifestations or episodes of universal tales, and the ability to see one’s concrete cause in relationship to a multiplicity of world causes being acted upon in the same forum. (shrink)

The ethical climate in Turkey is beset by ethical problems. Bribery, environmental pollution, tax frauds, deceptive advertising, production of unsafe products, and the ethical violations that involved politicians and business professionals are just a few examples. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the ethical beliefs of American and Turkish consumers using the Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) of Forsyth (1980), the Machiavellianism scale, and the Consumer Ethical Practices of Muncy and Vitell questionnaire (MVQ). A sample of 376 (...) subjects that consists of American consumers (n = 188) and Turkish consumers (n = 199) was used to compare the ethical beliefs and practices of the two samples. The MANOVA results for the two nationality groups found that five out of six criterion variables differed between the two groups. The implications of this study are intended to assist marketers to develop strategies that suit a particular market and lessen their risk of entry. (shrink)

Lifeworlds of Islam shows that Islam has typically operated not in the form of standard dogmas, but more often as a compass for practical individual orientations or lifeworlds. Mohammed Bamyeh develops a sociology of Islam that maps out how Muslims have employed the faith to foster global networks, public philosophies, and engaged civic lives both historically and in the present.

This study was designed to examine the determinants of and differences between the ethical beliefs of two groups of Japanese students in religious and secular universities. Multiple regression analysis revealed that students of the Japanese religious university perceived that young, male, relativistic, and opportunistic students tended to behave less ethically than did older, female, and idealistic students. Students of the Japanese secular university perceived that male, achievement-oriented, and opportunistic students tended to behave less ethically than did female and experience-oriented students. (...) Opportunism was found to be one of the most important determinants in explaining misconduct. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) revealed that students of the Japanese secular university tended to score higher on achievement and humanism, and lower on theism and positivism than did students of the Japanese religious university. In addition, students of the Japanese secular university were somewhat more sensitive to academic dishonesty practices than were students of the Japanese religious university. (shrink)

Death is the opposite not of life, but of power. And as such, Mohammed Bamyeh argues in this original work, death has had a great and largely unexplored impact on the thinking of governance throughout history, right down to our day. In Of Death and Dominion Bamyeh pursues the idea that a deep concern with death is, in fact, the basis of the ideological foundations of all political systems. Concentrating on four types of political systems—polis, empire, theocracy, and modern mass (...) society systems—Bamyeh shows how each follows a specific strategy designed to pit power against the equalizing specter of death. Each of these strategies—consolation, expansion, preparation, and repression—produces a certain style of political behavior, as well as particular psychic traumas. In making his argument, Bamyeh revisits a wide range of empirical and theoretical discussions in existentialist philosophy, psychoanalysis, comparative historical sociology, literary studies, and anthropology. By demonstrating how schemes of power are by definition also schemes for defying death—despite their claims to the contrary—his book encourages us to think of a new style of politics, one oriented toward life. (shrink)

Galen's highly influential treatise On the Affected Parts is currently being critically edited by the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Over the last decade, a team of scholars, including the present authors as well as the late and lamented Aḥmad ʿEtmān, have worked on producing a critical edition of the Arabic translation of this text, and their efforts are now drawing to a close. Here we present new insights into how this Arabic translation relates to the (...) Greek textual tradition. (shrink)

This article presents a Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony for uncapacitated examination timetabling. The ABC algorithm is a recent metaheuristic population-based algorithm that belongs to the Swarm Intelligence technique. Examination timetabling is a hard combinatorial optimization problem of assigning examinations to timeslots based on the given hard and soft constraints. The proposed hybridization comes in two phases: the first phase hybridized a simple local search technique as a local refinement process within the employed bee operator of the original ABC, while the (...) second phase involves the replacement of the scout bee operator with the random consideration concept of harmony search algorithm. The former is to empower the exploitation capability of ABC, whereas the latter is used to control the diversity of the solution search space. The HABC is evaluated using a benchmark dataset defined by Carter, including 12 problem instances. The results show that the HABC is better than exiting ABC techniques and competes well with other techniques from the literature. (shrink)

The determination of death by neurological criteria remains controversial scientifically, culturally, and legally, worldwide. In the United Kingdom, although the determination of death by neurological criteria is not legally codified, the Code of Practice of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is customarily used for neurological death determination and treatment withdrawal. Unlike some states in the US, however, there are no provisions under the law requiring accommodation of and respect for residents' religious rights and commitments when secular conceptions of death (...) based on medical codes and practices conflict with a traditional concept well-grounded in religious and cultural values and practices. In this article, we analyse the medical, ethical, and legal issues that were generated by the recent judgement of the High Court of England and Wales in Re: A [2015] EWHC 443. Mechanical ventilation was withdrawn in this case despite parental religious objection to a determination of death based on the code of practice. We outline contemporary evidence that has refuted the reliability of tests of brainstem function to ascertain the two conjunctive clinical criteria for the determination of death that are stipulated in the code of practice: irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness and somatic integration of bodily biological functions. We argue that: the tests of brainstem function were not properly undertaken in this case; the two conjunctive clinical criteria set forth in the code of practice cannot be reliably confirmed by these tests in any event; and absent authentication of the clinical criteria of death, the code of practice wrongly invokes a secular definition of death based on the loss of personhood. Consequently, the moral obligation of a pluralistic society to honor and respect diverse religious convictions to the greatest extent possible is being violated. Re A is contrasted with the US case of Jahi McMath in which the court accommodated parental religious objection to the determination of neurological death codified in the Uniform Determination of Death Act. We conclude that the legal system in the United Kingdom should not favour a secular definition of death over a definition of death that is respectful of religious values about the inviolability and sanctity of life. We recommend the legal recognition of religious accommodation in death determination to facilitate cultural sensitivity and compassionate care to patients and families in a pluralistic society. (shrink)

The process of making ethical judgments is much more complex than studying only personal moral philosophy variables (idealism and relativism). The renewed interest in epistemic values (virtue and vice epistemology) in contemporary philosophy has shown significant relevance to understanding ethical behavior and such values may be better predictors than studying only idealism and relativism. The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine employees’ personal moral philosophies, optimism, epistemic values, and various organizational unethical practices as compared to their managers. We (...) used Rawwas’ items of epistemology in this study. The sample consisted of 262 managers and employees. The results revealed that managers were more sensitive to organizational unethical practices, scored less on epistemic vices, less on absolutism, and more on exceptionalism than employees were. However, there was no difference between managers and employees related to moderate and minor unethical organizational practices, situationism, subjectivism, optimism, and epistemic virtues. We provided discussion of the results and implications. (shrink)

Statistical distributions have great applicability for modeling data in almost every applied sector. Among the available classical distributions, the inverse Weibull distribution has received considerable attention. In the practice of distribution theory, numerous methods have been studied and suggested/introduced to increase the flexibility level of the traditional probability distributions. In this paper, we implement different distribution methods to obtain five new different versions of the inverse Weibull model. The new modifications of the inverse Weibull model are called the logarithm transformed-inverse (...) Weibull, a flexible reduced logarithmic-inverse Weibull, the weighted TX-inverse Weibull, a new generalized-inverse Weibull, and the alpha power transformed extended-inverse Weibull distributions. To illustrate the flexibility and applicability of the new modifications of the inverse Weibull model, a biomedical data set is analyzed. The data set consists of 108 observations and represents the mortality rate of the COVID-19-infected patients. The practical application shows that the new generalized-inverse Weibull is the best modification of the inverse Weibull distribution. (shrink)

The status of continuity in Deleuze’s metaphysics is a subject of debate. Deleuze calls the virtual, in Difference and Repetition, an Ideal continuum, and the differential relations that constitute the Ideal imply the continuity of this field. But, Deleuze does not hesitate to formulate the same field by the affirmation of divergence (incompossibility) that can be regarded as a form of discontinuity. It is, hence, unclear how these two ostensibly contradictory accounts might reconcile. This article attempts to reconstitute a Deleuzian (...) theory of continuity through Leibniz whose philosophy is equally subject to a tension between the law of continuity, prevalent in his mathematics and metaphysics, and the discontinuity or absolute individuality of monads. By reorienting The Fold around the motif of continuity a new conceptual space is opened for continuity qua heterogeneity-and-inseparability. Then, enfolding the conceptual personae of The Fold onto Difference and Repetition reveals the tacit though decisive presence of different types of continuity operational in Deleuze’s metaphysics that will be called divergent, intensive, torsional, and tenorsional continuities. (shrink)

Contrary to what is stated in Lemma 7.1 of [8], it is shown that some Boolean algebras of finitary logic admit finitely additive probabilities that are not σ-additive. Consequences of Lemma 7.1 are reconsidered. The concept of a C-σ-additive probability on B (where B and C are Boolean algebras, and $\mathscr{B} \subseteq \mathscr{C}$ ) is introduced, and a generalization of Hahn's extension theorem is proved. This and other results are employed to show that every S̄(L)-σ-additive probability on s̄(L) can be (...) extended (uniquely, under some conditions) to a σ-additive probability on S̄(L), where L belongs to a quite extensive family of first order languages, and S̄(L) and s̄(L) are, respectively, the Boolean algebras of sentences and quantifier free sentences of L. (shrink)

It aimed to identify the strategic creativity in Islamic banks in Palestine between reality and implementation. The study adopted the descriptive analytical approach. A questionnaire was designed as a tool for the study. The study community consisted of all employees in Islamic banks from the top and middle management and the study has been applied to the Palestinian Islamic bank and the Arab Islamic Bank. The comprehensive inventory method was used, given the small size of the study sample, as questionnaires (...) were distributed to (175) employees, and a number of (5) categories were chosen from each branch of the bank(general manager, deputy general manager, director Branch, department head, department manager). (164) questionnaires have been used Recovered with a recovery rate of (93.71%). The study showed a number of results, the most important of which is the availability of dimensions of strategic innovation at a high level in Islamic banks in Palestine with a relative weight of (82.22%). In addition, that there are no differences between the averages estimates about the reality of the study variables in Islamic banks due to (gender, age group, educational qualification, number of years of service, job title). The study also presented a set of recommendations, including that the bank should provide the environment and the appropriate climate for employees to invest their intellectual energy, urge them to strategic creativity, and deal fairly with all creative ideas regardless of their source. (shrink)

Business and Marketing ethics have come to the forefront in recent years. While consumers have been surveyed regarding their perceptions of ethical business and marketing practices, research has been minimal with regard to their ethical beliefs and ideologies. In addition, no study has examined the ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers even though Austria maintains a unique status of political neutrality, nonalignment, stability, economic prosperity and geographical proximity to the East- and West-European countries. This research investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical (...) ideology and ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers. The results indicate that Austrian consumers are mostly situationists who, while rejecting moral rules, judge the ethics of a behavior by the consequences and outcomes of the situation. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt of proposing the processing approach of neutrosophic technique in image processing. As neutrosophic sets is a suitable tool to cope with imperfectly defined images, the properties, basic operations distance measure, entropy measures, of the neutrosophic sets method are presented here. İn this paper we, introduce the distances between neutrosophic sets: the Hamming distance, the normalized Hamming distance, the Euclidean distance and normalized Euclidean distance. We will extend the concepts of distances to the case of neutrosophic (...) hesitancy degree. Entropy plays an important role in image processing. In our further considertions on entropy for neutrosophic sets the concept of cardinality of a neutrosophic set will also be useful. Possible applications to image processing are touched upon. (shrink)

Past research has examined the ethical judgments of consumers in the U.S., but few studies have investigated such attitudes in foreign-market settings. The current study compares ethical attitudes of consumers in two countries (Ireland and Lebanon) which share a cultural similarity of ongoing war and terrorism. The findings reveal that both cultures exhibit low sensitivity to ethical issues. Furthermore, the findings show that the Irish consumers are less sensitive to consumer ethical practices, less idealistic, more relativistic, and more Machiavellian than (...) Lebanese consumers. The authors recommend that other researchers need to further investigate this perplexing issue because ethics is a research topic which often discourages survey respondents to be candid. (shrink)

Research investigating the consumer's ethical beliefs, ideologies and orientation has been limited. Additionally, despite the repeated call in the literature for cross cultural research, virtually no studies have examined the ethical beliefs and ideologies of consumers from cultures other than those in North America. This study partially fills this gap in the literature by investigating the ethical beliefs, preferred ethical ideology, and degree of Machiavellianism of consumers from Egypt and Lebanon. The results indicate that consumers in Lebanon, which has been (...) torn by civil unrest and terrorism, tend to be more Machiavellian, less idealistic, and more relativistic than their Egyptian counterparts. Additionally, the Lebanese consumers tend to be more accepting of questionable consumer practices. (shrink)

Exposure of the banking system to the Global Financial Crisis attracted attention to the study of riskiness and spillover. This paper studies the pattern of systemic risk and size effect in the Indian banking sector. Based on market capitalization, three public sector banks and three from the private sector were taken. Data are taken from the year 2007 to 2020. The analysis is done through quantile- CoVaR and TENET measure. State variables like Indian market volatility and global risk measures negatively (...) influence the Indian banks’ returns. Liquidity risk is a crucial aspect of private banks. Public banks experience public confidence even in the distress period. Large banks like HDFC and SBI bank offer the highest degree of systemic risk contribution. The role of private banks in transmitting systemic risk has been intensifying since 2015. Small-sized banks like PNB and BOB have become significant receivers and transmitters of risk. (shrink)

A vast majority of marketing theory and research has focused on relativism and idealism in order to understand ethical behavior. However, making ethical assessments that in turn influence behavior is much more complicated than it appears. One of the most important developments in contemporary philosophy has been the renewed interest in epistemic virtue. Epistemologists contend that belief is an ethical process that is susceptible to the intellectual virtue or vice of one’s own life and personal experiences. Open-mindedness, curiosity, careful thinking, (...) creativity, and intellectual courage are the foundations of epistemic virtues. Closed-mindedness, intellectual overconfidence, unimaginativeness, intellectual conformity, and wishful thinking are among epistemic vices. The purpose of this investigation is to introduce epistemology to marketing ethics by linking it to personal moral philosophies (idealism and relativism) and optimism to explain various ethically challenging organizational behaviors. The items of epistemology were developed and pretested by the lead author of this study. Structural equations (LISREL) analyses found that epistemic virtues and vices are better predictors of ethical behavior than were personal moral philosophies (idealism and relativism), and their influence on mild and severe levels of unethical behaviors was enhanced by the moderator variable, optimism. Implications are designed to develop suggestions for improving ethical behavior in the workplace. (shrink)