A natural starting point for theories of perceptual states is ordinary perception, in which a subject is successfully related to her mind-independent surroundings. Correspondingly, the simplest theory of perceptual states models all such states on perception. Typically, this simple, common-factor relational view of perceptual states has received a perfunctory dismissal on the grounds that hallucinations are nonperceptual. But I argue that the nonperceptual view of hallucinations has been accepted too quickly. I consider three observations thought to support the view, and (...) argue that all three are dealt with equally well by an alternative view, illusionism, on which hallucinations do involve perception. Since this is so, adopting a common-factor relational view of all perceptual states remains a tenable option. (shrink)

The encounter of the medieval Muslims with Greek philosophy undeniably shaped the course of their philosophical and theological thought. This encounter led to the complex and contentious issue of ‘philosophy versus theology’. Medieval Muslim thinkers needed to develop a response to the issue of philosophy versus theology. The present article will first highlight the response of the Islamic theologians to their encounter with Greek philosophy in the form of three major trends in medieval Islamic theology: (1) strong opposition to the (...) application of reason and rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, and strict adherence to the actual text of the Qur’an and the Hadith, (2) the adoption of Greek philosophy, and the application of reason and rationalist approach to explain and defend Islamic religion and (3) acknowledging the significance of reason in exploring the matters related to the natural world but, at the same time, stressing the subordination of reason to revelation. This article will discuss Atharism, Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism as the representatives of the first, second and third trends, respectively. The response of the medieval Islamic theologians to the issue of philosophy versus theology serves as a context in which medieval Muslim philosophers carried out their philosophy–theology debate. The article will proceed to show that some medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Abu Bakr Al-Razi, subordinated religion or revelation to philosophy or reason. Other medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Ghazali, subordinated philosophy to theology. The third group of medieval Islamic philosophers represented by Alfarabi argued for the reconciliation and harmonious co-existence of philosophy and religion. Contribution: This article highlights the response of medieval Islamic theologians and philosophers to the issue of philosophy versus theology that was caused by their encounter with Greek philosophy. (shrink)

According to Zeilinger’s information interpretation of quantum mechanics ‘the distinction between reality and our knowledge of reality, between reality and information, cannot be made. They are in a deep sense indistinguishable’. This is what we call Zeilinger’s thesis. This thesis has been criticized as a lapse into ‘informational immaterialism’ and amounting to nothing more than a tautology. However, we will argue that this criticism is based on a pre-Kantian view of reality, namely metaphysical realism which could be questioned on the (...) basis of Putnam’s arguments. Furthermore, it will be argued that to understand Zeilinger’s thesis one should abandon the pre-Kantian perspective of metaphysical realism and adopt a post-Kantian perspective on the relationship between the mind and the world. (shrink)

There are two dominant approaches towards understanding medieval Muslim philosophy: Greek ancestry approach and religiopolitical context approach. In the Greek ancestry approach, medieval Muslim philosophy is interpreted in terms of its relation to classical Greek philosophy, particularly to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The religiopolitical context approach, however, views a thorough understanding of the religious and political situation of that time as the key to the proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy. Notwithstanding the immense significance of the two approaches (...) for understanding medieval Muslim philosophy, the question on the reason behind medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in political philosophy is not accurately answered. This preference is usually attributed either to the availability or unavailability of the text or to the suitability or unsuitability of the text for Islamic theological views. However, this article shows that neither the availability or unavailability of text nor its suitability or unsuitability for Islamic religious and theological views can appropriately explain medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in their political thought. This article proposes that the key to understand this preference lies in understanding the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim philosophers. Contribution: This study highlights the significance of the thorough understanding of the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim world as one of the important approaches towards proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy, particularly medieval Muslim political philosophy. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence represents a key technology being inbuilt into evermore products. Research investigating attitudes towards artificial intelligence surprisingly is still scarce, although it becomes apparent that artificial intelligence will shape societies around the globe. To better understand individual differences in attitudes towards artificial intelligence, the present study investigated in n = 351 participants associations between the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) and the Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence framework (ATAI). It could be observed that in particular higher levels of SADNESS were (...) associated with higher negative attitudes towards AI (fearing AI). The findings are discussed in this work from an evolutionary perspective because primary emotional systems—according to Affective Neuroscience Theory—represent tools for survival, which have been homologously conserved across mammalian species including homo sapiens. (shrink)

In his political treatise, Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila, Abu Nasr Alfarabi, the medieval Muslim philosopher, proposes a theory of virtuous city which, according to prominent scholars, is modeled on Plato’s utopia of the Republic. No doubt that Alfarabi was well-versed in the philosophy of Plato and the basic framework of his theory of city is platonic. However, his theory of city is not an exact reproduction of the Republic’s theory and, despite glaring similarities, the two theories do differ in (...) many aspects. In both, Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila and Plato’s Republic, the theory of virtuous city is accompanied by a theory of the soul. Since the theory of soul plays a foundational role in both theories of the virtuous city, the present article intends to provide an explanation for the differences between the two theories of the city in terms of the differences between the two theories of the soul. (shrink)

Ethical considerations, especially those religiously driven, play a significant role in shaping business conduct and priorities. Profit levels and earnings constitute an integral part of business considerations and are relevant and closely linked to prevailing ethics. In this paper, Islamic prescriptions on profit maximization are introduced. Islamic business ethics are outlined as well. It is suggested that while Islamic teaching treats profits as reward for engaging in vital activities necessary for serving societal interests, profit maximization is not sanctioned and therefore (...) should not be the goal of ethically guided business ventures. (shrink)

This article examines the role of Islamic ethics in the marketing field. It presents Islamic contributions to the field by referencing original sources and concepts that are often not easily available to researchers and practitioners alike. In foundational texts, Islamic ethics have their own marketing practice prescriptions, practices that are driven by a discipline which shuns any dichotomy between organizational and societal interests. The paper underscores the role of marketers in improving the well-being of individuals and the community and presents (...) a framework for analyzing the link between Islamic ethics and societal welfare vis-a-vis marketing. Several marketing issues are identified and the contributions of Islamic teachings are presented. This paper, too, identifies emerging ethical dilemmas and the necessity to tackle them in a way that strengthens the role of marketing in societal affairs and ensures morally driven conduct. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in organizational trends to hire irregular workers. This inclination, in a time of great flux and uncertainty, exacerbates human resource issues faced by firms. We argue that corporate social responsibility can be an important antecedent to improve the workplace attitudes of irregular workers and as a result reduce the negative impact on organizations of the increased use of an irregular workforce. Hence, we explore the relationship between perceived CSR and unfairness perception (...) and social relations of subcontracted workers with regular workers. We further attempt to explain these relationships through the mediating effects of psychological contract violation and organizational identity, respectively. Our analysis supports a negative effect of composite and external CSR on unfairness perception and positive effect on social relations. Additionally, our results support partial mediating roles of psychological contract violation and organizational identity. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are also discussed. (shrink)

In this article, I present a critique of Robert Geraci's Apocalyptic artificial intelligence (AI) discourse, drawing attention to certain shortcomings which become apparent when the analytical lens shifts from religion to the race–religion nexus. Building on earlier work, I explore the phenomenon of existential risk associated with Apocalyptic AI in relation to “White Crisis,” a modern racial phenomenon with premodern religious origins. Adopting a critical race theoretical and decolonial perspective, I argue that all three phenomena are entangled and they should (...) be understood as a strategy, albeit perhaps merely rhetorical, for maintaining white hegemony under nonwhite contestation. I further suggest that this claim can be shown to be supported by the disclosure of continuity through change in the long‐durée entanglement of race and religion associated with the establishment, maintenance, expansion, and refinement of the modern/colonial world system if and when such phenomena are understood as iterative shifts in a programmatic trajectory of domination which might usefully be framed as “algorithmic racism.”. (shrink)

Experience with a group of mechanical engineering seniors at the University of Colorado led to an informal experiment with engineering students in India. An attempt was made to qualitatively gauge the students’ ability to appreciate a worldview different from the standard engineering worldview—that of a mechanical universe. Qualitative differences between organic and mechanical systems were used as a point of discussion. Both groups were found to exhibit distinct thought and behavior patterns which provide important clues for sensitizing engineers to environmental (...) issues in future educational initiatives. Cross-cultural and global dimensions of these initiatives are discussed. (shrink)

In Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-madīna al-fādila as well as other major political writings of al-Fārābī, politics is accompanied by metaphysics. However, the co-existence of politics and Neoplatonic metaphysics in al-Fārābī is usually refuted on the basis of two major arguments: one, the Neoplatonic argument, which denies al-Fārābī’s politics; and two, the Straussian argument, which denies al-Fārābī’s Neoplatonic metaphysics. However, this article would show that the two arguments against the co-existence of politics and Neoplatonic metaphysics in al-Fārābī are faulty, and that (...) politics and Neoplatonic metaphysics certainly co-exist in al-Fārābī’s philosophical thought. It would be shown that, in fact, Neoplatonic metaphysics plays an important role in al-Fārābī’s politics and distinguishes his theory of the virtuous city from that of Plato’s Republic. (shrink)

This work underscores the importance of answering the question: who are organizational stakeholders? It argues that stakeholder theory is a normative management theory, and there is a need to differentiate between stakeholder and non-stakeholder firms. It further argues that the overall organizational stakeholder orientation indicates how narrowly or broadly organizations define their stakeholders. Therefore, this work attempts to provide a stakeholder salience scheme for stakeholder organizations, i.e., organizations with accommodative and proactive stakeholder orientations. In the process, this work reviews key (...) scholarly contributions and points out some potential weaknesses in these contributions with an aim to develop a new stakeholder typology. This work contributes to the existing literature by: introducing a contingent variable, i.e., organizational strategy, in a stakeholder typology scheme; reaffirming the normative aspect of stakeholder theory by placing normative considerations at the center of stakeholder salience typology; and improving the descriptive validity of stakeholder theory by adding a new stakeholder variable, i.e., organization, in the presented stakeholder salience typology scheme. (shrink)

Background The global COVID-19 pandemic has challenged nurse leaders in ways that one could not imagine. Along with ongoing priorities of providing high quality, cost-effective and safe care, nurse leaders are also committed to promote an ethical climate that support nurses’ moral courage for sustaining excellence in patient and family care. Aim This study is directed to develop a structure equation model of crisis, ethical leadership and nurses’ moral courage: mediating effect of ethical climate during COVID-19. Ethical consideration Approval was (...) obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt. Methods A cross-sectional design was used to conduct this study using validated scales to measure the study variables. It was conducted in all units of two isolated hospitals in Damanhur, Egypt. A convenient sample of 235 nurses was recruited to be involved in this study. Results This study revealed that nurses perceived a moderate mean percent (55.49 ± 3.46) of overall crisis leadership, high mean percent (74.69 ± 6.15) of overall ethical leadership, high mean percent (72.09 ± 7.73) of their moral courage, and moderate mean percent of overall ethical climate (65.67 ± 12.04). Additionally, this study declared a strong positive statistical significant correlation between all study variables and indicated that the independent variable (crisis and ethical leadership) can predict a 0.96, 0.6, respectively, increasing in the dependent variable (nurses’ moral courage) through the mediating impact of ethical climate. Conclusion Nursing administrators should be conscious of the importance of crisis, ethical leadership competencies and the role of ethical climate to enhance nurses’ moral courage especially during pandemic. Therefore, these findings have significant contributions that support healthcare organizations to develop strategies that provide a supportive ethical climate. Develop ethical and crisis leadership competencies in order to improve nurses' moral courage by holding meetings, workshops, and allowing open dialogue with nurses to assess their moral courage. (shrink)

Islamic finance is gaining greater attention in the finance industry, and this paper analyses how Islamic financial institutions are responding to the welfare needs of society. Using interview data with managers and content analysis of the disclosures, this study attempts to understand management perceptions of corporate social responsibility in IFIs. A thorough understanding of CSR by managers, as evident in the interviews, has not been translated fully into practice. The partial use of IFIs’ potential role in social welfare would add (...) further challenges in the era of financialisation. (shrink)

Power and authority in terms of the Ten Commandments (TCs) are discussed. The paper reviews the TCs in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The treatment and basis for power and authority in each religion are clarified. Implications of power and authority using the perspective of the TCs are provided. The paper suggests that in today's business environment people tend to be selective in identifying only with certain elements of the TCs that fit their interest and that the TCs should be viewed (...) as general moral guidelines. (shrink)

The Johns Hopkins‐Fogarty African Bioethics Training Program (FABTP) has offered a fully‐funded, one‐year, non‐degree training opportunity in research ethics to health professionals, ethics committee members, scholars, journalists and scientists from countries across sub‐Saharan Africa. In the first 9 years of operation, 28 trainees from 13 African countries have trained with FABTP. Any capacity building investment requires periodic critical evaluation of the impact that training dollars produce. In this paper we describe and evaluate FABTP and the efforts of its trainees.Our data (...) show that since 2001, the 28 former FABTP trainees have authored or co‐authored 105 new bioethics‐related publications; were awarded 33 bioethics‐related grants; played key roles on 78 bioethics‐related research studies; and participated in 198 bioethics workshops or conferences. Over the past nine years, trainees have collectively taught 48 separate courses related to bioethics and have given 170 presentations on various topics in the field. Many former trainees have pursued and completed doctoral degrees in bioethics; some have become editorial board members for bioethics journals. Female trainees were, on average, less experienced at matriculation and produced fewer post‐training outputs than their male counterparts. More comprehensive studies are needed to determine the relationships between age, sex, previous experience and training program outputs. (shrink)

The innovation systems approach has swiftly spread out worldwide in the last three decades and stood as an important framework for policy-making in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. At the same time, there have been serious and untreated concerns in the literature about the theoretical soundness of this approach. Our discussion in this paper is based on the belief that a detailed analysis on epistemological foundations of the approach could shed a judgmental light on the aforementioned concerns. To (...) provide that analysis, we reconstructed and studied the nature and evolution of innovation systems approach as a case of conceptual revolution against the more established traditions in economics of innovation. Our analyses show that the rise of the systemic view of innovation include radical changes in conceptual structures pertaining to orthodox view of innovation. These developments also go so far as to include significant shifts in epistemological foundations of the old paradigm. These later shifts provide us with an epistemological base from which we can shelter the innovation systems approach from the hard criticisms rooted in a quasi-positivist point of view. That epistemological base also shows the path for the future development of the approach towards more robustness and precision. (shrink)

This article explores the various ways in which Muslims, in the past and the present, think about God. The article canvasses a range of views on questions and puzzles pertaining to the essence and attributes of God, the basis of God's Justice, the transcendence of God, and our ability to know and understand God. We encounter a diverse, and at times radically divergent range of views on how best to understand divinity within the tradition of Islam. Given the various conceptions (...) of divinity, available within the tradition, I develop an argument for the view that God is best understood as love. The view that God is love, I contend, emerges directly from the Quran, which is a document that sits at the very heart of the Islamic tradition. (shrink)

Work values and the loyalty (commitment to hard work, profession, and principles) of 762 managers in Kuwait were investigated. The results indicated that managers scored high on work values and loyalty. Furthermore, there was a high positive correlation between the two measures. Demographic and organizational variables had significant influence on managerial orientations. Specifically, expatriates and female managers showed a high commitment to work values and loyalty.

BackgroundObstetrics and gynaecology always has reputation for being a highly litigious. The field of obstetrics and gynaecology is surrounded by different circumstances that stimulate the doctors to practice defensive medicine.MethodsThis study was directed to assess the extent and the possible effect of defensive medicine phenomenon on medical decision making among different grades of obstetric and gynaecologic Sudanese doctors, and to determine any experience of medical litigations with respect to sources and factors associated with it.ResultsA total of 117 doctors were approached, (...) their distribution according to job description was as follow: consultants registrars and specialists. The majority 89.7 % had the impression that litigation against doctors are increasing and 27.6 % had a direct experience of litigation. In this study less than one half of the surveyed doctors knew the concept of defensive medicine and 71.8 % reported practicing one or another form of defensive medicine. The different sources of the litigations reported by the doctors included: maternal death, perinatal death, other {misdiagnosis, intra-uterine fetal death, uterine perforation, rupture uterus}, fetal distress, injury to viscera and shoulder dystocia. In this study the experience of medical litigation was significantly observed among those who worked in area of blame culture. In logistic regression model, there was no significant difference between those who knew the concept of defence medicine and those who didn’t.ConclusionThere should be strategic plan to reduce the practice of defensive medicine and medical litigation against doctors. (shrink)

Religious thinking, including among Muslims, connects food and sex, as well as women and animals; both food practices and gender norms are significant for communal identity and boundary construction. Female bodies and animal bodies serve as potent signifiers of Muslim identity, as patriarchal thought sustains the hierarchical cosmologies that affirm male dominance in family and society and allow humans to view animals as legitimately subject to human violence. I argue that Muslims in the industrialized West—especially those concerned with gender justice—ought (...) to be vegetarians and that feminist ethics provides underutilized resources for Muslim thinking about ethics generally and food ethics in particular. Much contemporary Muslim thought about meat is at least as concerned with demonstrating the primacy of “Islamic” identity as with general questions about the formation of virtuous subjects and the development of good societies. This defensive concern with religious authenticity poses a stumbling block to richer thinking. Engagement with non-Islamic ethics provides a model for productive dialogue and engagement among parties who disagree about basic presumptions but agree on desirable outcomes, including the development of individuals' ethical sensibilities and the construction of societies conducive to human flourishing. (shrink)

The current debate on “free agency” seems to highlight the romantic aspects of free agent and considers it a genuine response to changing economic conditions (e.g., high-unemployment rate, importance of knowledge in the labor market, the eclipse of organizational loyalty, and self pride). Little attention, if any, has been given to the religious root of the free agency concept and its persistent existence across history. In this paper, the current discourse on free agency and the conditions that have led to (...) its emergence are briefly discussed. The paper focuses on the theological perspectives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the concept. Implications for management and business organizations are provided. (shrink)

Although scholars have long known that entrepreneurship involves the interaction of countless individuals beyond the entrepreneur, traditional performance metrics are limited to capturing the economic value that is created for shareholders. Multiple scholars have suggested that it should be possible to develop a more complete assessment that is able to simultaneously capture both the economic and non-economic consequences of entrepreneurship that exist for the broader network of firm stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to provide a more nuanced understanding (...) of entrepreneurial performance by operationalizing the concept of stakeholder capabilities. Building on concepts from stakeholder theory and the human development and capability approach in welfare economics, we argue that the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities can either create or destroy value for multiple stakeholders, and that this value is best conceived in terms of increases and decreases in individual capabilities. Approaching entrepreneurial performance from a stakeholder capabilities lens has implications for how we view entrepreneurs’ impact on society, what we mean by the creation and destruction of “value,” and how we define failure and success in entrepreneurship. (shrink)

To determine the knowledge and ethical perception regarding organ donation amongst medical students in Karachi- Pakistan.

To determine the attitude of general practitioners towards continuing medical education and reasons motivating or hindering them from attending CME procedures, we conducted a cross-sectional survey from November 2013 to April 2014 in Karachi. Three hundred general practitioners who possessed a medical license for practice in Pakistan filled a pre-designed questionnaire consisting of questions pertaining to attitudes towards CME. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS v16.0. 70.3% of the participants were males. Mean age was 47.75 ± 9.47 years. Only (...) 67.33% knew about CME and only 52% had attended a CME session. Reasons for attending CME procedures reported were: need for updating knowledge, skills and competencies, opportunity to meet colleagues and presenting scientific papers. Mean Likert score was 1.67 for those who thought CME is worthwhile and 1.44 for those who consider their clinical duties as the major hurdle in attending CME procedures. Most common cause for not attending CME was lack of knowledge followed by time constraint. Most physicians were not sufficiently informed about the potential benefits of CME and had never attended a CME session. Most common reason for attending CME procedures reported was need for updating knowledge, skills and competencies while reasons hindering physicians from attending CME were lack of knowledge and time constraint. (shrink)

In the past decade, Ethiopia has demonstrated a strong ideological convention to the East-Asian model of ‘developmental state’, which stands for state-led industrialisation as its underlying industrial policy premise. Nevertheless, the labour rights externalities of this industrial policymaking have been overlooked in the existing academic and practical policy debates. Hence, using qualitative empirical data, the article attempts to address the research gap by analysing why and how Ethiopia’s state-led industrialisation and the corporate behaviours of apparel-exporting firms, as well as their (...) respective global brand buyers, have contributed to the existing poverty wages and repressive practices against the associational rights of local industrial workers at those selected apparel-exporting industrial parks of the country. The maxim of industrialisation with a human face has increasingly become a promising alternative to the neoclassical intellectual view of labour relations following its fundamentals towards achieving a more sustainable industrial development in a given state. In light of this human right imperative, the finding revealed Ethiopia’s stateled industrialisation has firmly embraced strong business-state alliances, thereby curbing the power of local industrial workers. The Ethiopian government employs diverse de facto or de jure labour control mechanisms across those selected apparel-exporting industrial parks of the country. This is manifested through poverty wages and repressive measures todeny the associational rights of workers. Further, the flawed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of employing firms and their respective global brands have contributed to the ongoing labour abuses across those selected apparel-exporting firms. Hence, Ethiopia’s industrial policy is expected to navigate a reasonable balance between facilitating industrial catch-up and ensuring labour standards for more viable and sustainable labour relations. (shrink)

This essay introduces a special issue on the history of kāmaśāstra in medieval India. It briefly reviews the secondary scholarship on the subject from the publication of the first translations of the genre at the end of the nineteenth century. It highlights the relatively unexplored history of later kāmaśāstra, and stresses the need for contexualized and detailed studies of the many kāmaśāstra treatises produced in the second millennium CE. The introduction, and the essays that follow, also argue for an expanded (...) interpretive framework for the genre, moving beyond ‘sex’ and ‘sexuality,’ to a more widely defined notion of a ‘kāma world’, in which sensual pleasure is understood as being deeply enmeshed with aesthetic, ethical and cosmopolitan cultures. (shrink)

Drawing on social cognitive theory and social information processing theory, this study investigated how organizations' efforts to embody environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) shape consumer perception of a green corporate image through employees' environmental passion and pro-environmental behavior (PEB). To test our hypotheses, we collected multisource time-lagged data from 214 employee–customer dyads from hotel and banking sector organizations in Pakistan. The findings show that organizations' green corporate image is a function of their efforts to engage in ECSR activities as demonstrated (...) through employees' environmental passion and PEB. These findings have important implications in the environment and management domains because it can help organizations draft useful strategies to counter environmental degradation and generate a green corporate image in customers' minds through employees' green behavior. (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)

Neutrosophic LA-semigroup is a midway structure between a neutrosophic groupoid and a commutative neutrosophic semigroup. Rings are the old concept in algebraic structures. We combine the neutrosophic LA-semigroup and ring together to form the notion of neutrosophic LA-semigroup ring. Neutrosophic LAsemigroup ring is defined analogously to neutrosophic group ring and neutrosophic semigroup ring.

This study concentrates on adaptive event-triggered control of complex dynamical networks with unpredictable coupling delays and stochastic deception attacks. The adaptive event-triggered mechanism is used to avoid the wasting of limited bandwidth. The probability of data communicated by the network is established by statistical properties and Bernoulli stochastic variables with an uncertain occurrence probability. Stability analysis based on Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional and the stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed. Using the LMI technique, we obtain triggered parameters. To demonstrate the feasibility (...) and usefulness of the suggested methodology, two examples are shown. (shrink)

This article turns to the theoretical and practical aspects of recent abolitionist praxis to illuminate an expanded notion of politics that is attentive to lived experience and concerns for self-preservation, on the one hand, and to state- and citizen-oriented forms of political action, on the other. The incorporation of healing justice practices and self-care within movement spaces, the mutual-aid of homecoming rituals for those bailed out of jail, the development of transformative justice processes, link what Stefano Harney and Fred Moten (...) call the fugitive sociality of these spaces as opposed to direct political action. Challenging an opposition between sociality and politics, I argue that abolitionist praxis recognizes how restorative activities and fugitive spaces are not opposed to politics but are rather important and necessary ways of stimulating and sustaining activism. By incorporating and making these practices central, I argue that contemporary abolitionist praxis challenges theorists, debating the questions of whether and how racial repair might be possible, to reconsider their notions of politics. Specifically, this repair praxis suggests the limits of both state-centered and insurgent accounts of politics, absent practices focused on survival, to “make ready” citizens and institutions for abolition democracy. (shrink)

The primary aim was to assess the role of mental and physical health of COVID-19 and its psychological impact in the general population of Pakistan during the first wave of COVID-19. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant predictive association among socio-demographic variables, psychological impact and mental health status resulting from COVID-19, and poor self-reported physical health would be significantly associated with adverse psychological impact and poor mental health status because of COVID-19. A cross-sectional survey research design was (...) used in which 1,361 respondents were sampled online during lockdown imposed in the country. The Impact of Events Scale-Revised was used to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales was used to assess participants’ mental health status. 18% of the respondents reported moderate to severe event-specific distress, 22.6% reported moderate to severely extreme depression, 29% reported moderate to extreme anxiety, and 12.1% reported moderate to extreme stress. Female gender, having graduate-level education, currently studying, and self-reported physical symptoms were significantly associated with higher levels of psychological impact exhibited through higher scores on the IES-R and poorer mental health status exhibited through higher scores on the DASS-21. (shrink)

The current research examines the possible outcomes of cronyism like organizational deviance, organizational cynicism, and counterproductive work behavior and also investigates the mediating variable violation of psychological contract among cronyism and its possible outcomes. Many studies have investigated the presence of organizational cronyism at the workplace and its impacts on certain variables. However, the outcomes observed in this study, i.e., OD, OCy, and counter-productive work behavior were not empirically investigated previously as per researchers’ knowledge. The second gap this study fills (...) is the mediating effect of VPC between the studied variables. Thirdly, the study was conducted in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan, which is almost the first attempt to investigate this phenomenon in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Data were collected from the employees working under different ministries of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan like education, forest, sports, information, local government, finance, and tourism. The data from 350 employees were collected through convenience sampling. The data collection process was conducted at two distinct time lags. Results show that OC significantly and positively relates with OD, OCy, and counter-productive work behavior, whereas VPC mediates the relationship among OC and OD, OC, and counter-productive work behavior. Employees enjoying special favors from the leadership seem to be more dedicated toward the organization than the employees who do not have this favor, and the ultimate result is negative for the organization. (shrink)

In this paper we extend the theory of neutrosophic rings and neutrosophic fields to soft sets and construct soft neutrosophic rings and soft neutrosophic fields. We also extend neutrosophic ideal theory to form soft neutrosophic ideal over a neutrosophic ring and soft neutrosophic ideal of a soft neutrosophic ring . We have given many examples to illustrate the theory of soft neutrosophic rings and soft neutrosophic fields and display many properties of of these. At the end of this paper we (...) gave soft neutrosophic ring homomorphism. (shrink)

In this paper we define neutrosophic bi-LAsemigroup and neutrosophic N-LA-semigroup. Infact this paper is an extension of our previous paper neutrosophic left almost semigroup shortly neutrosophic LAsemigroup. We also extend the neutrosophic ideal to neutrosophic biideal and neutrosophic N-ideal. We also find some new type of neutrosophic ideal which is related to the strong or pure part of neutrosophy. We have given sufficient amount of examples to illustrate the theory of neutrosophic bi-LA-semigroup, neutrosophic N-LAsemigroup and display many properties of them (...) this paper. (shrink)

The issue of relativism has recently become a vital concern in sociology and politics, along with globalization. This book studies ethical relativism in its most profound and recent forms, and argues that a non-relativist account of morality is capable of validating our moral experiences without undesirable implications. Ethical Relativism brings a fresh-perspective to the on-going debate on post-modernism and relativism, and should be of interest to all who study philosophy, theology, and cultural studies, and those interested in spirituality.

This study investigates the pivotal policy question of whether a firm’s corporate governance influences its political spending disclosures. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms from 2011 to 2019, we find empirical evidence that a board of directors’ monitoring and resource provision roles affect a firm’s political spending disclosure. Extending agency theory-driven expectations, we provide evidence that measures of a board’s monitoring role such as female monitoring directors, shorter board tenure, audit committee size, audit committee meetings, and audit committee education (...) enhance a firm’s political spending disclosures. Second, drawing from resource dependence theory and examining a board’s resource provisions, we find evidence that female advisory directors, CEO duality, additional directorships, and audit committee characteristics (i.e., size, number of meetings, age, and education) promote political spending disclosures. The study contributes to corporate governance and corporate political activity literatures by outlining different types of governance that may drive a firm’s political spending disclosures, a key component of a firm’s political responsibility. (shrink)