Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity of (...) the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)

Monetary Intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the bright side of Monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics, frames money attitude in the context of pay and life satisfaction, and controls money at the macro-level and micro-level. We theorize: Managers with low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior will have high subjective well-being: pay satisfaction and (...) quality of life. Data collected from 6586 managers in 32 cultures across six continents support our theory. Interestingly, GDP per capita is related to life satisfaction, but not to pay satisfaction. Individual income is related to both life and pay satisfaction. Neither GDP nor income is related to Happiness. Our theoretical model across three GDP groups offers new discoveries: In high GDP entities, “high income” not only reduces aspirations—“Rich, Motivator, and Power,” but also promotes stewardship behavior—“Budget, Give/Donate, and Contribute” and appreciation of “Achievement.” After controlling income, we demonstrate the bright side of Monetary Intelligence: Low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior define Monetary Intelligence. “Good apples enjoy good quality of life in good barrels.” This notion adds another explanation to managers’ low magnitude of dishonesty in entities with high Corruption Perceptions Index. In low GDP entities, high income is related to poor Budgeting skills and escalated Happiness. These managers experience equal satisfaction with pay and life. We add a new vocabulary to the conversation of monetary intelligence, income, GDP, happiness, subjective well-being, good and bad apples and barrels, corruption, and behavioral ethics. (shrink)

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

Recently there is an increasing technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field has become interesting to many researchers. In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system for teaching information security. This intelligent tutoring systems target the students enrolled in Advanced Topics in Information Security in the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through which the student will be able to study the course and solve related problems. An evaluation of the intelligent tutoring systems (...) was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

The Yazidi community is one of the largest minority groups in Iraq, who have suffered the most. They have been subjected to marginalization and trauma for decades, which has not been documented adequately in the past. The study adopted a descriptive exploratory research to collect and investigate historical evidence regarding the marginalization and traumatic experience of the Yazidi minority in Iraq and explore whether the western secularism could be helpful in achieving restorative justice and rehabilitation. Through the study of available (...) data in interdisciplinary sources, an attempt was made to fill the literature gap. The current study perceived whether the western so-called secularism could be effective in bringing reconciliation of the Yazidi minority with the Government of Iraq and the KRG. The study also found out that the Yazidi community does not need a European-style revolutionary and atheistic secularism which does not recognize any social, religious or political affiliation in the name of democratic principles. What the Yazidi community needs is a region specific, US-led political-religious initiative, equipped with principles of non-violence, peaceful coexistence, justice, and accessibility to equal human rights and a shared vision along with the majority of the Iraqi population and recognition by the KRG, failing which the Yezidi will continue to be considering themselves as a separate ethnic group and represent as the failure of western secularism. (shrink)

It is necessary to study the various dimensions of health and their affecting factors during the coronavirus disease-19 pandemic to identify the necessary interventions. The study aims to determine the relationship between spiritual health and happiness in medical students during the COVID-19 outbreak. In this analytical cross-sectional design study, 409 medical students were examined for the state of happiness and spiritual health and the relationship between them. Student information was collected through Web-based sampling by using standard tools from 20 April (...) to 20 June 2020. Medical students completed the demographic questionnaire as well as Oxford Happiness Questionnaire and Paloutzian and Ellison spiritual health questionnaire. The results showed that while the score of spiritual health and happiness was related to factors such as marriage, interest in a field of study, and socioeconomic status, the relationship between spiritual health and happiness was significant. This study showed that students’ happiness scores were not optimal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the strong relationship between spiritual health and happiness scores, spiritual health promotion, in conjunction with other interventions, can be used to improve happiness in this group. (shrink)

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

jild-i 1. Az ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd Kātib (59 Sh.) tā Abū al-Ḥasan Masʻūdī (336 Sh.) -- jild-i 2. Az Abū al-Ḥasan ʻĀmirī (291 Sh.) tā Abū al-Faz̤l Bayhaqī (465 Sh.) -- jild-i 3. Az Nāṣir Khusraw (383 Sh.) tā Sadīd al-Dīn ʻAwfī (616 Sh.) -- jild-i 4. Az Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (553 Sh.) tā Fakhr al-Muḥaqqiqīn (748 Sh.) -- jild-i 5. Az ʻUbayd Zākānī (670 Sh.) tā Jalāl al-Dīn Sayūṭī (884 Sh.) -- jild-i 6. Az Rūzbihān Khunjī (825 Sh.) tā Shaykh (...) Ḥurr ʻĀmilī (1071 Sh.) -- jild-i 7. Az ʻAlāmah Majlisī (1006 Sh.) tā Muḥammad Bāqir Shafaq (1223 Sh.) -- jild-i 8. Az Muḥammad Ṣādiq Marvazī (1147 Sh.) tā Mīrzā Fatḥʻalī Ākhūndzādah (1289 Sh.) -- jild-i 9. Az Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī Avval (1194 Sh.) tā Ākhūnd Khurāsānī (1290 Sh.) -- jild-i 10. Az ʻAbd Allāh Māzandarānī (1219 Sh.) tā Saʻd Zaghlūl (1306 Sh.) -- jild-i 11. Az ʻImād al-ʻUlamāʼ Khalkhālī (1237 Sh.) tā ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz S̲aʻālibī (1323 Sh.) -- jild-i 12. Az Āyat Allāh Burūjirdī (1254 Sh.) tā Muḥammad Amīn Rasūlʹzādah (1333 Sh.) -- jild-i 13. Az ʻAbd al-Karīm Zanjānī (1263 Sh.) tā Amīn al-Ḥusaynī (1353 Sh.) -- jild-i 14. Az Jamālzādah (1274 Sh.) tā Mahdī Bāzargān (1373) -- jild-i 15. Az Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh (1286 Sh.) tā Muṭahharī (1358 Sh.) -- jild-i 16. Az Farīdūn Ādamīyat (1299 Sh.) tā Muṣṭafá Khumaynī (1356 Sh.) -- jild-i 17. Az Samīr Amīn (1310 Sh.) tā Ḥasan Ḥanafī -- jild-i 18. Az Sayyid Muḥammad Bāqir Ṣadr (1314 Sh.) tā Rāshid al-Ghanūshī -- jild-i 19. Az ʻAlī Awmlīl (1321 Sh.) tā Ṭāriq Ramaz̤ān. (shrink)

Muḥammad Mahdī ibn Abī Z̲arr Narāqī, -1794 or 1795. Jāmiʻ al-saʻādāt - Criticism and interpretation; Islamic ethics.

Although there are fundamental differences between Ahl al-Sunnah and Shī‘a on the issue of Mahdī, one of the controversial issues among Islamic sects, Shī‘a has attached much greater importance to the issue. In this study, after the information about Mahdiship in the primary sources of Islam is conveyed, the opinions of the Ahl al-Sunnah and Shī‘a will be given and an evaluation will be made about the evidence and opinions put forward by the two sects. The Shiites, who formed the (...) principles of belief based on the theory of imamate, explained the issue of Mahdism in the axis of imamate and gave it a religious dimension, but the Shi‘ī sects disagreed on the subject of Mahdī. Shi‘ī sources tried to show that the claim of Mahdiship is an important issue, which has preoccupied Muslims, by dating the claim of Mahdiship back to Ali ibn Abi Talib's son, Muhammad ibn Hanafiyah. In a very early period, it was claimed that Muhammad ibn Hanafiyya did not die but was still living on a mountain called Razva in Madinah, and he was the anticipated (muntaẓar) Mahdī. Most of the Zaydiyya did not consider the issue of Mahdiship an important fundamental basis of belief. Ismailiyya maintain that Muhammad ibn Ismail did not die and will come and amend the world one day. Imāmiyya believe that Hasan, whom they accept as the last imam, will reappear as the Mahdī in the latest days of the world, and in line with this belief, they have made great efforts to find proof from the Qur’ānic verses and hadiths and interpreted them. In this way, they attached more importance to the understanding of Mahdiship on the axis of imamate than the other Shi‘ī sects. According to Imāmiyya, since the world cannot be left without a prophet, an open, or a secret imam, Muhammad b. Hasan will remain hidden as long as he wants and appear as the Mahdī near the Doomsday. Based on the clear statement of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) that twelve caliphs would come after him, the Imāmiyya restricted the number of Imams from Ahl al-Bayt to twelve and claimed that the twelfth imam would come again as Mahdī. Although the Imāmiyya believe that the Mahdī will be from the Ahl al-Bayt, just like the other imams, they have not been able to provide valid evidence for the belief that the twelfth imam will be hidden and appear near Judgment Day. Although Imāmiya tried/have been trying to prove that it is possible for a person to live for centuries (more than a thousand years), which is called al-Ghaybat al-Kubrā by Imamiyya, it cannot be said that they have succeeded in doing so. (shrink)

Phenomenal Conservatism is an approach to epistemological justification that, based on "appearances" and "seemings" and in line with the theory of common sense epistemology, attempt to set up an internal and non-inferential justification, at least for some kind of beliefs. According to this view, justification and non-justification have a direct relationship with the mental state of the agent. Based on this assumption that “Things are as they seem”, phenomenal conservatism offers its central idea that if, for an agent, something seems (...) to be true -and there is no defeater for that until doubting in - that agent thereby has at least some justification for believing that. In this article, we will interpret this new approach with an empathetic attitude and, in addition to explaining its main components, we will effort to answer the most important objections of phenomenal conservatism and show that this view is a significant approach to the justification and rationality of human beliefs. (shrink)

The influence of popular management gurus derives from two factors: the willingness of their management audience to outsource or subcontract thinking and the ability of gurus to deliver apparently relatively simple messages to an audience that probably does not want or need to think deeply, while retaining their leadership status. As managers look to management gurus to provide them only with reasons to be, to behave or act as opposed to reasons to think, per se, the nature of a popular (...) guru’s output can never address the unseen innovating process which true leadership demands. As a result, popular management gurus are not in a position to promote insights, awakening or higher consciousness in others and cannot fulfil the traditional raison d’être of a guru as an enlightened being. The output of popular management gurus probably communicates more about their audience than it usefully communicates about the guru’s thinking. (shrink)

In his engagement with Kantian philosophy, Wilfrid Sellars offers both exegetical readings of Kant and suggestions for refining or adapting Kantian ideas. Two interrelated proposals include reconsidering categories not as a priori and innate concepts but as evolutionary inheritances, and introducing sense impressions as intermediaries between physical objects and our conceptualisations. Sellars sees these proposals as consistent with Kantian philosophy, although Kant himself does not take these steps. However, a careful examination of §27 of the “Transcendental Deduction” in the second (...) edition of the Critique of Pure Reason reveals that Kant not only does not entertain these ideas, but explicitly refutes them, warning against their tendency to Humean skepticism. While this does not conclusively determine the validity of either position, it does show that Sellars’s position is fundamentally different from Kant’s and more in line with a Humean perspective. (shrink)

This paper will offer a systematic reconstruction of al-Ġazālī’s Sceptical Argument in his celebrated Deliverer/Delivered from Going Astray (al-Munqiḏ/al-Munqaḏ min al-Ḍalāl). Based on textual evidence, I will argue that the concept of certainty (yaqīn) in play in this argument is that of the philosophers—most notably Ibn Sīnā—and that it is firmly tied to demonstration (burhān) and hence to the materials of syllogism (mawwād al-qiyās). This will show that contrary to what many scholars believe, this Sceptical Argument is al-Ġazālī’s discovery of (...) a latent sceptical problem in Muslim philosophers’ epistemological theories based on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics that escaped even the agile mind of aš-šayḫ ar-raʾīs Ibn Sīnā. This reconstruction will also shed some light on the widespread assumption that al-Ġazālī anticipates Descartes’s sceptical considerations in the First Meditation. I will argue that not only do the two thinkers use incompatible strategies to reach their respective sceptical conclusions, but both their conclusions and their use of God in refuting them are also essentially non-identical. The conclusion is that the two sceptical arguments are essentially different. (shrink)

Relying on the notion of “overlapping perspectives,” this paper argues that entity realism and perspectivism are complementary. According to entity realism, it is justified to maintain a positive attitude toward the existence of unobservable entities with which multiple experimental interactions are possible. Perspectivism also explains that our beliefs about these entities are bounded by historically contingent theoretical and instrumental perspectives. The argument of the paper is developed through a discussion of Ronald Giere’s versions of realism: entity realism, constructive realism, and (...) perspectival realism. (shrink)

This paper concerns the recent revival of entity realism. Having been started with the work of Ian Hacking, Nancy Cartwright and Ronald Giere, the project of entity realism has recently been developed by Matthias Egg, Markus Eronen, and Bence Nanay. The paper opens a dialogue among these recent views on entity realism and integrates them into a more advanced view. The result is an epistemological criterion for reality: the property-tokens of a certain type may be taken as real insofar as (...) only they can be materially inferred from the evidence obtained in a variety of independent ways of detection. (shrink)

Previous empirical studies have suggested that language is primarily used to exchange social information, but our evidence on this derives mainly from English speakers. We present data from a study of natural conversations among Farsi speakers in Iran and show that not only are conversation groups the same size as those observed in Europe and North America, but people also talk predominantly about social topics. We argue that these results reinforce the suggestion that language most likely evolved for the transmission (...) of information about the social world. We also explore sex differences in conversational behavior: while the pattern is broadly similar between the sexes, men may be more sensitive than women are to discussing some topics in the presence of many other people. (shrink)

Nous étudions un traité scientifique en langue arabe, achevé à Belgrade en 1779. Son titre est L’Offrande du converti pour ranimer la flamme éteinte. Il ne fut jamais imprimé, mais dix copies, d’aspect semblable à celui des manuscrits arabes traditionnels, attestent de sa circulation dans l’Empire ottoman. L’auteur, un converti à l’islam qu’on appelait Osman Efendi, y aborde la géométrie euclidienne, la géométrie d’arpentage, la dynamique galiléenne et leurs applications aux sciences militaires. Il affiche son ambition de « faire revivre (...) et renouveler » la géométrie, « science oubliée et délaissée », et révèle in fine avoir pour cela traduit des livres allemands et français. Après un essai de reconstruction de la biographie d’Osman Efendi, nous montrerons que son ouvrage est en réalité une production élaborée, dépassant largement la simple démarche de traduction. Montage soigneux de différentes sources européennes que nous identifierons, il incorpore aussi un grand nombre d’éléments directement empruntés au savoir islamique de la tradition vivante. Il est ainsi le témoin remarquable d’une tentative de constitution d’un savoir hybride euro-islamique. (shrink)

Nous étudions un traité scientifique en langue arabe, achevé à Belgrade en 1779. Son titre est L’Offrande du converti pour ranimer la flamme éteinte. Il ne fut jamais imprimé, mais dix copies, d’aspect semblable à celui des manuscrits arabes traditionnels, attestent de sa circulation dans l’Empire ottoman. L’auteur, un converti à l’islam qu’on appelait Osman Efendi, y aborde la géométrie euclidienne, la géométrie d’arpentage, la dynamique galiléenne et leurs applications aux sciences militaires. Il affiche son ambition de « faire revivre (...) et renouveler » la géométrie, « science oubliée et délaissée », et révèle in fine avoir pour cela traduit des livres allemands et français. Après un essai de reconstruction de la biographie d’Osman Efendi, nous montrerons que son ouvrage est en réalité une production élaborée, dépassant largement la simple démarche de traduction. Montage soigneux de différentes sources européennes que nous identifierons, il incorpore aussi un grand nombre d’éléments directement empruntés au savoir islamique de la tradition vivante. Il est ainsi le témoin remarquable d’une tentative de constitution d’un savoir hybride euro-islamique. (shrink)

What has been noticed during the history of human thought and human life is that forms, figure, feelings of pleasure and aesthetic perception, are not the only subjects that belong to the sphere of art. In fact, art includes other aspects, such as themes and content. As a matter of fact, each art work could be considered as outstanding, not only because of its form, but because of its theme and content, as well. However, art works in the western classical (...) art, were inspired by mythology and religion and their form has been a reflection of that content. In this paper art is going to be discussed through its religious themes and contents. Therefore, first, I will analyze some approaches to religious themes and content in art works through discussion of religion as its background. And, second, I will try to establish a method which will distinguish between religious and non-religious themes and contents in the works of art. (shrink)

The influence of popular management gurus derives from two factors: the willingness of their management audience to outsource or subcontract thinking and the ability of gurus to deliver apparently relatively simple messages to an audience that probably does not want or need to think deeply, while retaining their leadership status. As managers look to management gurus to provide them only with reasons to be, to behave or act as opposed to reasons to think, per se, the nature of a popular (...) guru’s output can never address the unseen innovating process which true leadership demands. As a result, popular management gurus are not in a position to promote insights, awakening or higher consciousness in others and cannot fulfil the traditional raison d’être of a guru as an enlightened being. The output of popular management gurus probably communicates more about their audience than it usefully communicates about the guru’s thinking. (shrink)

This study examines the contestability of “relevance” as an abstract construction with no fixed meaning when applied, and questions its usage in the research quality debate. It finds that different research agendas and approaches have their own idiosyncratic logic and that any logic has its own criteria for assessing quality which cannot be applied to assess the quality of others. This is illustrated by delineating practitioner-led research from academic-led research and by comparing and contrasting research perspectives as examples. The research (...) quality debate becomes meaningless when it is limited to a singular research agenda or approach as in practice these are invariably combined. Having said this, however, every agenda and approach can be argued to be legitimate as potentially each can find what otherwise cannot be noticed. As a result, this study challenges the conventional unitarist wisdom that conceptualises knowledge as commodity, and suggests instead that heterogeneity, linked to tolerance and relative independence of means and mind, free from the control or influence of others to enable critical distance from context and status quo and facilitate judgement, is the key to those seeking a meaningful research quality debate that acknowledges tolerance of the diversity of knowledge, difference, contestation and struggle. Although such heterogeneity may at first appear to add confusion rather than clarity, without first looking at this heterogeneity it is not possible to develop a dialogue, in the context of the present neo-liberal post-political drift that emphasises consensus, the annulment of dissensus and diverts attention from relationships of power, through which a positive contribution can be made to the research quality debate. (shrink)

Organisations are socially constructed in that their members are socialised in a world of language that enables them to understand, communicate and share. They use language to create patterns that help them make choices and relate their actions to the patterns they create and the choices they make. The world of organisations and their management is, therefore, a matter of language. In this world, rationality plays a fundamental role in legitimising choices together with the actions that express them. This study (...) suggests that the limited expressive resources of a dominant version of rationality limit the world of management in a way that undermines its legitimacy and that it is possible for management to break free from this limited world by learning to think in other languages that express contrasting versions of rationality. (shrink)

This paper draws on the phenomenological-hermeneutical approaches to philosophy of science to develop realist perspectivism, an integration of experimental realism and perspectivism. Specifically, the paper employs the distinction between “manifestation” and “phenomenon” and it advances the view that the evidence of a real entity is “explorable” in order to argue that instrumentally-mediated robust evidence indicates real entities. Furthermore, it underpins the phenomenological notion of the horizonal nature of scientific observation with perspectivism, so accounting for scientific pluralism even in the cases (...) of inconsistent models. Overall, realist perspectivism is proposed as the way to go for (phenomenologically-hermeneutically minded) philosophers of science. (shrink)

This article critically studies coronavirus pandemic news in the press. The article attempts to study the way the news of COVID-19 is used for political and ideological purposes. In order to achieve the aim, two newspapers namely, The New York Times from the United States of America and Global Times from China are selected. Van Dijk’s news schemata framework is used for the analysis of the reports selected from the two newspapers. Van Dijk’s news schemata is crucial for the analysis (...) of any news story whether such a news story is taken from a news channel or a newspaper and whether broadcasted or printed. Based on data analysis, the article found out that the news of COVID-19 has been politicized and used for ideological interests. The article recommends that pandemics should not be politicized, instead we should work together to save our lives and live peacefully. (shrink)

This study is designed to delve into the issue of culture from the lens of pragmatics as far as the translation of Persian expressions is concerned. To this end, the researchers explored two problematic areas in translation: the first one is a universally challenging element of language, i.e. metaphor, while the other one is an Iranian culture-specific element of language, i.e. Taarof. To uncover the reason behind such difficulty and various techniques to handle such culturally dependent concepts in the act (...) of translation, the researchers sampled a few English subtitles of Iranian films and examined them both qualitatively and quantitatively drawing on the Gricean maxims. The results revealed a high number of infringements both in the translated instances of metaphor and Taarof as far as the maxim of manner, i.e. being perspicuous, is concerned. This highly-frequent flaw in the openness in translation could be mainly attributed to a vast cultural chasm between the source and target language, which makes such culturally-oriented translations a tall order even on the part of the most accomplished translators. (shrink)

The role of culture in a field as vast as applied linguistics is so pronounced and vital that even a highly selective overview might not be sufficient to be comprehensive. What follows might be a synoptic account of the role of culture in the realm of applied linguistics. The enigmatic point which even makes the vast field of applied linguistics goes to unbeaten tracks is the similar nature of culture. Due to the aforementioned point, here the canonical overlap of them (...) is emphasised. Moreover, as culture and language are intrinsically intertwined, we decided to have a more cultural stance rather than a linguistic one. Therefore, first, we go through the major studies in connection with language and culture. These studies might fall into three broad categories, namely those relating to epistemology of culture, those relating to its relation to language, and finally those relating to its presentation through a given language. Then, we touch on the trends, and in the end we try sum up and to unravel, or better to say, to come to grips with this enigmatic riddle, culture. In other words, in conclusion, we attempt to portray what culture will be. (shrink)

In pursuit of moralities and beliefs in the grey area of culture, the researchers carried out a study on Top Notch series to pinpoint the trace of ethics. This paper seeks to unfold the representation of ethics as an indubitable part of culture in Top Notch series. After having extracted all culturally and ethically-related topics and texts of Top Notch Series, 25 instances, featuring 6 patterns, were collected. Later these 6 patterns were dubbed as: violence, superstition, modesty,individualised ethics, religion, and (...) modernity. Having analysed these 6 themes, well representing beliefs and moralities, the researchers came to the conclusion that both misrepresentation of ethics and underrepresentation and overrepresentation of different cultures are at work. The results show a reconsideration of therepresentation of ethics, or better to say reconsideration of misrepresentation of ethics which might find its root in wrong dominance of culture over ethics. (shrink)

Financial risks are among the most important risks in the construction industry projects, which significantly impact project objectives, including project cost. Besides, financial risks have many interactions with each other and project parameters, which must be taken into account to analyze risks correctly. In addition, a source of financial risks in a project is the contract, which is the most important project document. Identifying terms related to financial risks in a contract and considering their effects on the risk management process (...) is an essential issue that has been neglected. Hence, an integrated model for evaluating financial risks and their related contractual clauses were presented. To this end, the effect of financial risks on the project cost was simulated using a system dynamics model. Moreover, terms related to financial risks in a contract text were identified and extracted using text mining, and their effect was included in the system dynamics model. The model was implemented in a hospital construction project in Tehran as a case study, and its results were analyzed. The innovation of the research is integrating text mining and the system dynamics model to investigate the effect of financial risks and related contractual clauses on the project cost. (shrink)

While extensive scholarship has been dedicated to the emotional experiences of transplant patients, little is known about the emotional experiences of transplant co‐ordinators. Semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews conducted with ten transplant co‐ordinators who have worked for more than 20 years in this job. The transplant co‐ordinators spoke of negative feelings and moral distress with regard to futile care of deceased donor family members as well as of living donors. Transplant co‐ordinators experience intense negative feelings, emotional pain, and moral distress on a (...) daily basis. Transplant co‐ordinators play a pivotal role in the process of obtaining consent for live or dead donation of organ; however, their well‐being and job satisfaction are impaired by contradictions between their moral values and the tasks they are instructed to perform. The study exposes the silent emotional suffering of transplant co‐ordinators; main findings show that the transplant co‐ordinators are torn between contradictory expectations and a gap between values and praxis. It is recommended to offer them training and support for the sake of their retention. (shrink)

Religiosity has been linked with prosocial behavior and a preference for religious ingroups over outgroups. Yet, there are important differences in religious people’s beliefs, values, and practices. Fundamental and quest orientation toward religion may differentially predict intergroup bias in prosociality. Also, individualizing and binding moral foundations may have diverse effects on ingroup and outgroup bias in helping, as moral foundations theory suggests that individualizing and binding foundations differ in how much they focus on ingroup and outgroup moral considerations. In this (...) study, we examined the relationship between religious dimensions, moral foundations, prosocial behavior, and intergroup bias in helping. We found evidence for the effect of individualizing foundations, religious fundamentalism, and quest religion above and beyond demographics and other religious dimensions on intergroup bias in helping. Furthermore, there were independent positive effects of individualizing foundations, religious activity, and age, and independent negative effects of female gender and religious fundamentalism on prosocial behavior. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of the relations between religion, prosociality, and moral intuitions in a Muslim context. (shrink)

Paulo Freire’s philosophy of education, popularized via his magnum opus, The Pedagogy of the oppressed (2000 [1970]) ‘shocked’ the world, sort of constructively, with its trenchant, au courant and futuristic meditations on the onto-epistemological lives of the marginalized in Latin America, and by elliptical extension, across the world. The central tenets of Freire’s thought as reflectively (and reflexively) acting upon the world to transform it, are as current today as these were in the late 1960s, majorly because of the subjectively (...) active ways it interacts with our onto-epistemological locations and intentions. It is in appreciating such durable temporality about his philosophy that one can sense, indeed, thickly discern it trans-spatial and transcultural connections with the humanist African philosophy of Ubuntu and it educational foundations. Ubuntu in its across-Africa readings, represents both a practical and aspirational humanization of all people (more popularly, perceiving and practicing our personhoods through the personhoods of others) with the potential outcome, in the words of Desmond Tutu (in Battle, 2009), of the cessation of inter-people conflict and oppression. With these perspectives and prospects from Freire and Ubuntu, the intersecting subsets of the two are, I argue, thickly important with analytically discernible onto-epistemological and pedagogical connections and operations. (shrink)

Transplant coordinators play a pivotal role in the process of obtaining consent for live or dead donation of organs. The objective of the project is to unveil emotional experiences and ethical conduct of transplant coordinators using a qualitative research methodology. Ten transplant coordinators who have worked for more than 20 years in this job were recruited by using a purposive sampling technique. The transplant coordinators spoke of negative feelings and moral distress with regard to futile care of family members of (...) deceased donors as well as of living donors. Transplant coordinators experience moral distress on a daily basis; being compelled to compromise their integrity causes moral distress and moral residue, hence, training and support should be offered to them. (shrink)