Explores the philosophy of Mulla Sadra Shirazi.

L’herméneutique coranique de Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988) repose sur la recherche méthodique du sens objectif du texte. Inspiré par l’herméneutique romantique, telle qu’on peut la trouver chez E. Betti et qui nécessite pour le lecteur d’établir un lien intérieur avec l’esprit de l’auteur, Rahman considère que c’est l’intention divine qui est garante de l’objectivité du sens du Coran. L’empathie avec l’auteur est rendue possible par une conception historique de la révélation, selon laquelle la parole, qui est amenée par (...) un Esprit intérieur et immatériel, passe par le filtre de la conscience prophétique. La méthode historiciste d’interprétation de Rahman, qu’il appelle herméneutique du « double mouvement », repose sur les deux critères d’objectivité que sont le contexte historique de la révélation et la prise en compte de la totalité du livre sacré. Ainsi, l’interprète doit, dans un premier temps, aller à la période de révélation pour, à partir des circonstances particulières, comprendre les finalités objectives du texte, identifiées à l’intention divine. Puis, il doit appliquer ces principes, qui sont moraux et non juridiques, au présent en s’éloignant du sens littéral. Rahman illustre son propos en essayant de montrer que le souci de l’intention divine permet de voir que le Coran s’oppose à la polygamie et à l’esclavage, qui vont contre le principe moral d’une société juste et égalitaire. (shrink)

The science of Kalâm, expressed as Uṣûlü'd-dîn in Islamic thought, is a constructional science. This means that the science of Kalâm has a dynamic structure in social life as well as a theoretical beginning. Kalâm has played an important role in the implementation of the idea of tawhid and the justice-based life that will accompany it by taking into account the historical and geographical heritage of Muslim communities on how to understand the hopes of religion. It is known that the (...) political and social events that took place in Muslim society also took place in the history of Islamic thought as a theological sect in the later historical process. Muslims, part of a geography that has historically been the source of ancient cultures and thoughts, tried to protect the basic hopes of the religion they belonged to while also responding to the accusations of members of different faiths against Islam. Like other Islamic sciences, the science of Kalâm was formed later as a discipline. Depending on the method followed in understanding religious thought, theological sects were formed. Two basic approaches are dominant in the historical process and the general practice of the Muslim society. There is a rational trend that tends to use ta'wil to understand the verse based on nass and those qualified as Ahl-i hadith that do not accept ta'wil except for narration. The supporters of this method will later be described as Mu'tazila. There are dozens of theological sects shaped around these two basic ideas. This historical use of kalâm is rife with contradictions. They take a serious attitude towards those who use the kalâm method of the Ahl-i hadith. Although this is the case, the science of Kalâm as a discipline has played a very fundamental role in the Muslim society from the very beginning to the present. Unfortunately, the constructive function of the Science of Kalâm historically has not been continuous. As in other Islamic sciences, the Science of Kalâm became after a certain time a form of repetition or interpretation of what was written in the past, with commentaries and annotations instead of original copyright works. This naturally caused the Muslim community to imitate the past in every aspect of life and thus not be able to build a future. Muslim scholars have tried to address this over time and across geographies. A part of this early effort was the necessity of reinterpreting Islamic sciences. In the modern period (19th-20th century), a search for innovation has been made in all Islamic sciences. The main purpose of these efforts was the re-evaluation of Islamic sciences in accordance with the conditions of the age. One of those who was a part of this important and meaningful struggle is Fazlur Rahman (d.1988). He criticizes the science of Kalâm as well as other Islamic sciences and make suggestions to make Kalâm gain a dynamic structure. While Fazlur Rahman's criticism of Kalâm is included, the early period criticism of Kalâm will also be briefly mentioned in order to provide a better understanding of the subject. A comparison will be made between the thoughts of those who criticized Kalâm in the early period and those of Fazlur Rahman in the modern period. While there is an opposition to Kalâm in the form of the rejection of the science of Kalâm as a discipline, especially in the thought of Ahl al-Hadith, the science of Kalâm was considered as a constructional science in Fazlur Rahman. In addition to arguing that the Science of Kalâm should be reorganized as a discipline in terms of the method and content, Fazlur Rahman emphasizes the necessity of considering the past as an experience that must be understood according to the conditions of the day. For Fazlur Rahman, one of the reasons made Muslim thought inert is because the discipline of Kalâm does not consider present social life. In the 20th century, with modernism, theological debates gained a new dimension, and developments in all areas of social life gave birth to a brand new culture very different from the past. As a result of this, new value judgments have been formed to revisit and criticize the culture and values of the past. (shrink)

L’herméneutique coranique de Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988) repose sur la recherche méthodique du sens objectif du texte. Inspiré par l’herméneutique romantique, telle qu’on peut la trouver chez E. Betti et qui nécessite pour le lecteur d’établir un lien intérieur avec l’esprit de l’auteur, Rahman considère que c’est l’intention divine qui est garante de l’objectivité du sens du Coran. L’empathie avec l’auteur est rendue possible par une conception historique de la révélation, selon laquelle la parole, qui est amenée par (...) un Esprit intérieur et immatériel, passe par le filtre de la conscience prophétique. La méthode historiciste d’interprétation de Rahman, qu’il appelle herméneutique du « double mouvement », repose sur les deux critères d’objectivité que sont le contexte historique de la révélation et la prise en compte de la totalité du livre sacré. Ainsi, l’interprète doit, dans un premier temps, aller à la période de révélation pour, à partir des circonstances particulières, comprendre les finalités objectives du texte, identifiées à l’intention divine. Puis, il doit appliquer ces principes, qui sont moraux et non juridiques, au présent en s’éloignant du sens littéral. Rahman illustre son propos en essayant de montrer que le souci de l’intention divine permet de voir que le Coran s’oppose à la polygamie et à l’esclavage, qui vont contre le principe moral d’une société juste et égalitaire. (shrink)

Martin Buber has always made it clear that his dialogic principle is not to be treated as an abstract conception but an ontological reality. But admittedly, in I And Thou he could only point to such reality and could not properly present it in discursive prose. However there are instances in the text where he strives to do the latter. One particular instance is where he elaborates the emergence of consciousness of “I”. Through this elaboration, what Buber has tried to (...) point at is the bringing forth of the primary word ‘I-It’ forming part of his dialogic principle, as it ‘emerges round about’ the perceptual consciousness realised in body as some sort of a ‘primitive function of knowledge’. However, this still amounts only to an abstract conception, and not to a description of ontological reality as Buber would have aspired for. Hence the thought: what if there exists an endeavour carried out independently of Buber’s work, nevertheless in the same spirit as Buber but without his notorious mixing up of philosophy and religion? There indeed has been such an Existential-phenomenological take on embodiment and perception by the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as is laid out in his magnum opus Phenomenology of Perception. In the present paper we will explicate this interesting coincidence, thereby honouring Buber’s aspiration for ontological status to his dialogic principle, at the same time demonstrating how existentially resonating and ontologically converging the thought of these two great thinkers’ have been, though they had totally different intellectual pursuits and concerns. (shrink)

The dialogical approach to paraconsistency as developed by Rahman and Camielli ([1]), Rahman and Roetti ([2]) and Rahman ([3], [4] and [5]) suggests a way ofstudying the dynamic process ofarguing with inconsistencies. In his paper on Paraconsistency and Dialogue Logic ([6]) Van Bendegem suggests that an adaptive version of paraconsistency is the natuml way of capturing the inherent dynamics of dialogues. The aim of this paper is to develop a fomulation of dialogical paraconsistent logic in the spirit (...) of an adaptive approach and 'Which explores the possibility of eliminating inconsistencies by tœans oflogicalpreference stmtegies. (shrink)

Lincoln and Guba provided some principles and four evaluative criteria called “trustworthiness” to guide social science research naturalistically. However, drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature, a field engaged with methods and practices of science for several decades, one can argue that this approach is not still fully naturalistic. In this paper, we review Lincoln and Guba’s four criteria of trustworthiness from an STS perspective. We argue that the STS literature can challenge these criteria, but at the same time (...) they have the potential to be reconstructed with the help of the materials STS provides. (shrink)

One way to compare different theoretical approaches to the study of technologies is to see what the difference is between their narratives of the construction of a particular technology. In this paper, we re-narrate the bicycle construction from the perspective of actor-network theory (ANT), comparing to SCOT’s first account of the construction. Although SCOT has moved closer to actor-network theory later by paying more attention to co-construction and materliaty, Pinch and Biker have not modified their account of the bicycle development (...) according to these theoretical changes, despite the fact that one decade later Bijker allocated one chapter, ‘king of the road’, to Safety bicycle development again. An ANT’s narrative of bicycle development can provide a basis for a concrete comparison between ANT and the classic version of SCOT. Or it could be argued that this narrative could complement the story of Pinch and Biker of bicycle development. While we present a new narrative of bicycle development in comparison with SCOT’s one, we offer a methodological framework in the ANT literature that can be considered as a methodological procedure to the study of artefacts in general; this framework has three elements: 1. Phenomenal Bracketing, 2. Collective construction, and 3. Co-construction. (shrink)

Starting with two supercompact cardinals we produce a generic extension of the universe in which a principle that we call GM+ holds. This principle implies ISP and ISP, and hence th...

A growing body of work suggests that the presence of women and of independent directors on boards of directors is associated with higher corporate environmental performance. However, the mechanisms linking board composition to corporate environmental performance are not well understood. This study proposes and empirically tests the mediating role of sustainability-themed alliances in the relationship between board composition and corporate environmental performance. Using the population of public oil and gas firms in the United States as the sample, the study relies (...) on renewable energy alliances to measure sustainability-themed alliances and longitudinally analyzes lagged data for independent and control variables. The study found that the higher the representation of women on a firm’s board, the more likely the firm is to form sustainability-themed alliances, and the higher the representation of independent directors on a firm’s board, the more likely the firm is to form sustainability-themed alliances. Such alliances, in turn, positively contribute to corporate environmental performance. This paper discusses the study’s contributions to the board composition-social performance literature. (shrink)

Cet article s’attache à définir la nation, en Afrique, par la notion de « révolution », c’est-à-dire d’une transformation totale de conditions anciennes – aussi bien précoloniales que coloniales – en vue de fonder des structures nationales progressistes et démocratiques. Usant de l’exemple des pays du Sahel, en particulier le Burkina Faso, le Mali et le Niger, l’article analyse cette révolution nationale comme un phénomène de cycle long, qui se déploie dans une contradiction entre un leadership politique de moins en (...) moins en adéquation avec elle, et des peuples de plus en plus conscients et exigeants quant à leurs droits civiques. Cette contradiction est par ailleurs déterminée différemment par les problèmes politiques propres au cadre urbain et au cadre rural. Elle aboutit à des luttes et contestations opposant peuples et élites qui indiquent que, si la révolution nationale est loin d’être accomplie, elle n’a pas non plus simplement avorté. (shrink)

The Theme. Strong forcing axioms like Martin’s Maximum give a reasonably satisfactory structural analysis of $H(\omega _2)$. A broad program in modern Set Theory is searching for strong forcing axioms beyond $\omega _1$. In other words, one would like to figure out the structural properties of taller initial segments of the universe. However, the classical techniques of forcing iterations seem unable to bypass the obstacles, as the resulting forcings axioms beyond $\omega _1$ have not thus far been strong enough! However, (...) with his celebrated work on generalised side conditions, I. Neeman introduced us to a novel paradigm to iterate forcings. In particular, he could, among other things, reprove the consistency of the Proper Forcing Axiom using an iterated forcing with finite supports. In 2015, using his technology of virtual models, Veličković built up an iteration of semi-proper forcings with finite supports, hence reproving the consistency of Martin’s Maximum, an achievement leading to the notion of a virtual model.In this thesis, we are interested in constructing forcing notions with finitely many virtual models as side conditions to preserve three uncountable cardinals. The thesis constitutes six chapters and three appendices that amount to 118 pages, where Section 1 is devoted to preliminaries, and Section 2 is a warm-up about the scaffolding poset of a proper forcing. In Section 3, we present the general theory of virtual models in the context of forcing with sets of models of two types, where we, e.g., define the “meet” between two virtual models and prove its properties.The main results are joint with Boban Veličković, and partly appeared in Guessing models and the approachability ideal, J. Math. Log. 21 (2021).Pure Side Conditions. In Section 4, we use two types of virtual models (countable and large non-transitive ones induced by a supercompact cardinal, which we call Magidor models) to construct our forcing with pure side conditions. The forcing covertly uses a third type of models that are transitive. We also add decorations to the conditions to add many clubs in the generic $\omega _2$. In contrast to Neeman’s method, we do not have a single chain, but $\alpha $ -chains, for an ordinal $\alpha $ with $V_\alpha \prec V_\lambda $. Thus, starting from suitable large cardinals $\kappa <\lambda $, we construct a forcing notion whose conditions are finite sets of virtual models described earlier. The forcing is strongly proper, preserves $\kappa $, and has the $\lambda $ -Knaster property. The relevant quotients of the forcing are strongly proper, which helps us prove strong guessing model principles. The construction is generalisable to a ${<}\mu $ -closed forcing, for any given cardinal $\mu $ with $\mu ^{<\mu }=\mu <\kappa $.The Iteration Theorem. In Section 5, we use the forcing with pure side conditions to iterate a subclass of proper and $\aleph _2$ -c.c. forcings and obtain a forcing axiom at the level of $\aleph _2$. The iterable class is closely related to Asperó–Mota’s forcing axiom for finitely proper forcings.Guessing Model Principles. Section 6 encompasses the main parts of the thesis. We prove the consistency of the guessing principle $\mathrm {GMP}^+(\omega _3,\omega _1)$ that states for any cardinal ${\theta \geq \omega _3}$, the set of $\aleph _2$ -sized elementary submodels M of $H(\theta )$, which are the union of an $\omega _1$ -continuous $\in $ -chain of $\omega _1$ -guessing, I.C. models is stationary in $\mathcal P_{\omega _3}(H(\theta ))$. The consistency and consequences of this principle are demonstrated in the following diagram. We also prove that one can obtain the above guessing models in a way that the $\omega _1$ -sized $\omega _1$ -guessing models remain $\omega _1$ -guessing model in any outer transitive model with the same $\omega _1$, and we denote this principle by $\rm{SGMP}^+(\omega_3,\omega_1)$.In the following diagram, $\mathrm{TP}$ stands for the tree property; $w\mathrm{KH}$ stands for the weak Kurepa Hypothesis; $\mathrm{MP}$ stands for Mitchell property, i.e., the approachability ideal is trivial modulo the nonstationary ideal; $\mathrm{AP}$ stands for the approachability property; $\mathrm {AMTP}(\kappa ^+)$ states that if $2^\kappa <\aleph _{\kappa ^+}$, then every forcing which adds a new subset of $\kappa ^+$ whose initial segments are in the ground model, collapses some cardinal $\leq 2^{\kappa }$. The dotted arrow denotes the relative consistency, while others are logical implications.Appendices. Appendix A includes merely the above diagram. Appendix B presents a proof of the Mapping Reflection Principle with finite conditions under $\mathrm {PFA}$. Appendix C contains open problems. Finally, the thesis’s bibliography consists of 42 items.Abstract prepared by Rahman MohammadpourE-mail: [email protected]: https://theses.hal.science/tel-03209264. (shrink)

Assuming $\mathrm{PFA}$, we shall use internally club $\omega _1$ -guessing models as side conditions to show that for every tree T of height $\omega _2$ without cofinal branches, there is a proper and $\aleph _2$ -preserving forcing notion with finite conditions which specialises T. Moreover, the forcing has the $\omega _1$ -approximation property.

Purpose This study aims to analyze how English-language versions of e-newspapers in the first two countries affected, China and Japan, which are non-English-speaking countries and have different socio-economic and political settings, have highlighted Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic news and informed the global community. Design/methodology/approach A text-mining approach was used to explore experts’ thoughts as published by the two leading English-language newspapers in China and Japan from January to March 2020. This study analyzes the Opinion section, which mainly comprises editorial and (...) the op-ed section. The current study groups all editorial discussions and highlights into ten major aspects, which cover health, economy, politics, culture and others. Findings Within the first three months, the media in both China and Japan shifted their focus from health and preparedness to the economy, politics and social welfare. Governance and social welfare were key concerns in China’s news media, while, in contrast, global politics received the highest level of attention from experts in Japan’s news media. Environment and technologies aspects did not receive much attention by the expert’s columns. Originality/value At the initial stage of a world crisis, how leading nations and initially affected nations deal with the problem, how media play their role and guide mass population with experts’ thoughts are highlighted here. The understanding developed in this study can provide guidance to news media in other countries in playing effective roles in the management of this health crisis and catastrophes. (shrink)

This article explores how the diversity of board resources and the number of women on boards affect firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings, and how, in turn, CSR influences corporate reputation. In addition, this article examines whether CSR ratings mediate the relationships among board resource diversity, gender composition, and corporate reputation. The OLS regression results using lagged data for independent and control variables were statistically significant for the gender composition hypotheses, but not for the resource diversitybased hypotheses. CSR ratings had (...) a positive impact on reputation and mediated the relationship between the number of women on the board and corporate reputation. (shrink)

Prior studies have provided explanations for the presence, use and dissemination of codes of corporate ethics or codes of corporate conduct of business corporations. Most such explanations are functional in nature, and are descriptive as they are derived from the codes and their associated documents. We search for more underlying explanations using two complementary theories: first, social contract theories explaining the exogenous and endogenous reasons of organizational behavior, and then institutional theory explaining why organizations take similar measures in response to (...) institutional pressures. Based on our explanations, we contend that the codes and their use and dissemination are arising from underlying social and institutional pressures for firms to continuously validate their existence in the face of increasing changes and recurrent uncertainties. (shrink)

Maqasid al-Shariah based Islamic bioethics is an Islamic bioethics concept which uses the objectives of the Shariah as its approach in analysing and assessing bioethical issues. Analysis based on maqasid al-Shariah based Islamic bioethics will examine any bioethical issues from three main aspects namely intention, method, and output or final goal of the studied issues. Then, the evaluation will be analysed from human interest hierarchy, inclusivity, and degree of certainty. The Islamic bioethics concept is a manifestation of dynamic Islamic jurisprudence (...) which can overcome new complex and complicated bioethical issues such as tri-parent baby technology issues. Therefore, this article will introduce and explain the concept of maqasid al-Shariah based Islamic bioethics and outline a general guidance of maqasid al-Shariah based Islamic bioethics to determine a maqṣad based on standards of human good or well-being and harm. (shrink)

The concept of the ‘material’ was the focus of much feminist work in the 1970s. It has always been a deeply contested one, even for feminists working within a broadly materialist paradigm of the social. Materialist feminists stretched the concept of the material beyond the narrowly economic in their attempts to develop a social ontology of gender and sexuality.Nonetheless, the quality of the social asserted by an expanded sense of thematerial – its ‘materiality’ – remains ambiguous. New terminologies of materiality (...) and materialization have been developed within post-structuralist feminist thought and the literature on embodiment. The quality of ‘materiality’ is no longer asserted – as inmaterialist feminisms – but is problematized through an implicit deferral of ontology in these more contemporary usages, forcing us to interrogate the limits of both materialist and post-structuralist forms of constructionism. What really matters is how these newer terminologies of ‘materiality’ and ‘materialization’ induce us to develop a fuller social ontology of gender and sexuality; one that weaves together social, cultural, experiential and embodied practices. (shrink)

While there has been much discussion of how the scientific establishment’s culture can engender research misconduct and scientific irreproducibility, this has been discussed much less frequently with respect to the medical profession. Here the authors posit that a lack of self-criticism, an encouragement of novel scientific research generated by the recruitment policies of the UK Royal Training Colleges along with insufficient training in the sciences are core reasons as to why research misconduct and dishonesty prevail within the medical community. Furthermore, (...) the UK General Medical Council’s own data demonstrates a historic inattentiveness to the ease with which doctors can engage in research misconduct. Suggestions are made as to how these issues can be investigated and alternative incentives for career advancement are adumbrated. (shrink)

This article explores the changing nature of twenty-first-century capitalism with an emphasis on illuminating the political coalitions and institutional conditions that support and sustain it. Most of the existing literature attributes the changing nature of the firm to developments in markets and technology. By contrast, this article emphasizes the political forces that have driven the transformation of the twentieth-century consolidated firm through the firm as a “network of contracts” and toward the platform firm. Moreover, situating the United States in a (...) comparative perspective highlights the distinctive ways US political-economic institutions have facilitated that transformation and exacerbated the associated inequalities. (shrink)

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the interactive effect of employees’ family-to-work conflict and Islamic work ethic on their helping behavior, theorizing that the negative relationship between family-to-work conflict and helping behavior is buffered by Islamic ethical values. Data from Pakistan reveal empirical support for this effect. Organizations whose employees suffer resource depletion at work because of family obligations can still enjoy productive helping behaviors within their ranks, to the extent that they support relevant work ethics.

Mitochondrial replacement technology (MRT) is an emerging and complex bioethical issue. This treatment aims to eliminate maternal inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) disorders. For Muslims, its introduction affects every aspect of human life, especially the five essential interests of human beings—namely, religion, life, lineage, intellect, and property. Thus, this technology must be assessed using a comprehensive and holistic approach addressing these human essential interests. Consequently, this article analyses and assesses tri-parent baby technology from the perspective of Maqasidic bioethics—that is, Islamic bioethics (...) based on the framework of Maqasid al-Shariah. Using this analysis, this article suggests that tri-parent baby technology should not be permitted for Muslims due to the existence of third-party cell gametes which lead to lineage mixing and due to the uncertain safety of the therapy itself and because the major aim of the technology is to fulfil the affected couples interest to conceive their own genetically healthy child, not to treat and cure mtDNA disorders sufferers. (shrink)

In written and spoken communications, metaphors are often used as an aid to help convey abstract or less tangible concepts. However, the benefits of using visual metaphors in visualization have so far been inconclusive. In this work, we report an empirical study to evaluate hypotheses that visual metaphors may aid memorization, visual search and concept comprehension. One major departure from previous metaphor-related experiments in the literature is that we make use of a dual-task methodology in our experiment. This design offers (...) an abstraction of typical situations where viewers do not have their full attention focused on visualization (e.g., in meetings and classes). The use of the secondary task introduces “divided attention”, and makes the effects of visual metaphors more observable. In addition, it also serves as additional masking in memory-based trials. The results of this study show that visual metaphors can help participants better remember the information depicted in visualization. On the other hand, visual metaphors can have a negative impact on the speed of visual search. The results also show a complex pattern as to the benefits of visual metaphors in helping participants grasp key concepts from visualization. (shrink)

With the rapid advancements made in biotechnology, bioethical discourse has become increasingly important. Bioethics is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field that goes beyond the realm of natural sciences, and has involved fields in the domain of the social sciences. One of the important areas in bioethical discourse is religion. In a country like Malaysia, where Muslims make up the majority of the population, Islam plays a crucial role in providing the essential guidelines on the permissibility and acceptability of biotechnological applications (...) in various fields such as medicine, agriculture, and food processing. This article looks at the framework of a complementary model of bioethics derived from the perspective of Islam. The framework is based on ‘maqasid al-shariah’ (purposes or objectives of Islamic law) which aims to protect and preserve mankind’s faith, life, intellect, progeny, and property. It is proposed that ‘maqasid al-shariah’ be used as a pragmatic checklist that can be utilized in tackling bioethical issues and dilemmas. (shrink)

The Heisenberg-Gabor uncertainty principle defines the limits of information resolution in both time and frequency domains. The limit of resolution discloses unique properties of a time series by frequency decomposition. However, classical methods such as Fourier analysis are limited by spectral leakage, particularly in longitudinal data with shifting periodicity or unequal intervals. Wavelet transformation provides a workable compromise by decomposing the signal in both time and frequency through translation and scaling of a basis function followed by correlation or convolution with (...) the original signal. This study aimed to compare the accuracy of predictive models in mental arithmetic in time and frequency domains. Analysis of the author's response time at mental arithmetic using a soroban was modeled for two periods, an initial period, and a return period both separated by an interval of 370 days. The median response times in seconds was longer for all tasks during the TI compared to the TR period, for addition [CTAdd 62 vs 50 s] and summation [CTSum 68 vs 57 s]. Response times were longer for errors regardless of the study period or task. There was an increasing phase difference for the addition and summation tasks during the TI period toward the end of the series 49.65o compared to the TR period where the phase difference between the two tasks was only 2.05o, indicating that both tasks are likely demonstrating similar learning rates during the latter study period. A comparison between time and time/frequency domain forecasts for an additional 100 tasks demonstrated higher accuracy of the maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform model, where the mean absolute percentage error ranged between 5.48 and 8.19% and that for the time domain models [autoregressive integrated moving average, generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity ] was 6.16–10.80%. (shrink)

The present paper aims to shed light on some post-oedipal moments of the Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis. Going beyond the stereotypical opposition between the oedipal psychoanalysis and the anti-oedipal schizoanalysis, it endeavors to reinvestigate the semiotic nature of theknotenpunktand thesinthomeby applying some Deleuzian and Bakhtinian concepts. Thus, theknotenpunktis described as a grotesque knot bringing together some heterogeneous elements. The involved disparate components establish a rhizomatic multiplicity irreducible to a common determiner. As far as thesinthomeis concerned, it is also illustrated as a grotesque (...) knot quilting the disseminated heterogeneous orders. In contrast to the dominant conception of the symptom with a complex mode of signifying (that is mainly bound to the oedipal topography), theknotenpunktand thesinthomehold a kind of hyper-formative mode of signifying. As a result, the latter may be regarded as pure formators irreducible to a meaning or a certain interpretation. Finally, the paper sets out to analyze and evaluate the relationship between thesinthomeand the foreclosure from a semiotic perspective. Accordingly, thesinthomeis explained as a reply to foreclosure which is specifically a perceptive-imperative (retroactive) contemplation (in the light of law according to the Peircean phaneroscopy) on the rhizomatic multiplicity of psychosis (the case of schizophrenia). (shrink)

Pharmaceutical promotion is a negative influencing force for prescribing. However, very few regulatory initiatives are taken to overcome this unwarranted influence. The present research was conducted in such context with an attempt to review the regulatory documents related to pharmaceutical promotion in Bangladesh including Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (CPMP), and to compare CPMP with different global guidelines. The studied guidelines demonstrate effort to regulate promotion, though that varies to a great extent, particularly in enforcement aspects. Clearly defined ethical and (...) legal prohibitions, provisions of punishment for violations and entrusted agency with defined authority are crucial. (shrink)

On professional ethics of teachers and educational accountability for human development in Malaysia; collection of articles.

Tri-parent baby technology is an assisted reproductive treatment which aims to minimize or eliminate maternal inheritance of mutated mitochondrial DNA. The technology became popular following the move by the United Kingdom in granting license to a group of researchers from the Newcastle Fertility Centre, Newcastle University to conduct research on the symptoms of defective mtDNA. This technology differs from other assisted reproductive technology because it involves the use of gamete components retrieved from three different individuals. Indirectly, it affects the preservation (...) of lineage which is important from an Islamic point of view. This paper aims to analyze and discuss the implications of the tri-parent technology on preservation of lineage from the perspective of Maqasid al-Shari’ah based the Islamic bioethics. The analysis shows that there are a few violations of the preservation of lineage, hence the tri-parent baby technology should not be permitted. (shrink)