The present study aims at explaining how the Relevance Theory could be a viable approach to weigh up the main functions of some concessive Pragmatic Operators in Jordanian Arabic at the production and interpretation levels. A sample of twenty-two speeches delivered by members of the Jordanian Parliament the 16th was randomly selected for scrutiny. Three POs detected in their speeches were analyzed at the token level in light of three elementary RT assumptions about discourse connectives in general, namely connectivity, the (...) conceptual-procedural distinction, and monosemy. The major finding of this study was that concessive POs, as a subset of contrastives, are used to optimize relevance: highlight certain dimensions and/or suppress others of the scenario to the background. However, the point of departure from possibly all previous treatments is that the speakers, as politicians, still used them more strategically because total ambiguity resolution should not be a viable alternative in social settings laden with politics. (shrink)

This article presents a theory of how the consumption of Islamic products may promote morally consistent behavior over time. We identify and examine three unique meta-characteristics of Islamic ethics: ubudiyah, akhirah, and tawado. In four experiments, we show that after consumption of an Islamic banking product, MCs produce moral consistency or repeat ethical behavior, which is one major objective of an ethical system. We also show that the absence of MCs results in moral inconsistency, that is, unethical behavior follows earlier (...) consumption of an Islamic banking product due to the mediating psychological mechanism of moral licensing. Hence, it is not only the enactment of general ethical practices, rather the enactment of ethical practices in the specific context set by the MCs through which Islamic ethical system promotes ethical conduct and prevents unethical conduct. The findings have implications for Islamic ethical system and Islamic banking. (shrink)

An attempt has been made to find some valuable information for particle detection with the help of Solid State Nuclear Track Detectors. The detector is characterized by a critical value of the energy-loss rate by the charged particle. Only those charged particles which give up energy exceeding the critical value alone can produce teachable tracks. The detection thresholds of nuclear track detectors can be specified in terms of their energy loss rates. The findings have been found within a good agreement (...) with the other works. (shrink)

One of the most important threats to today’s civilization is terrorism. Terrorism not only disturbs the law and order situations in a society but also affects the quality of lives of humans and makes them suppressed physically and emotionally and deprives them of enjoying life. The more the civilizations have advanced, the more the people are working towards exploring different mechanisms to protect the mankind from terrorism. Different techniques have been used as counterterrorism to protect the lives of individuals in (...) society and to improve the quality of life in general. Machine learning methods have been recently explored to develop techniques for counterterrorism based on artificial intelligence. Since deep learning has recently gained more popularity in machine learning domain, in this paper, these techniques are explored to understand the behavior of terrorist activities. Five different models based on deep neural network are created to understand the behavior of terrorist activities such as is the attack going to be successful or not? Or whether the attack is going to be suicide or not? Or what type of weapon is going to be used in the attack? Or what type of attack is going to be carried out? Or what region is going to be attacked? The models are implemented in single-layer neural network, five-layer DNN, and three traditional machine learning algorithms, i.e., logistic regression, SVM, and Naïve Bayes. The performance of the DNN is compared with NN and the three machine learning algorithms, and it is demonstrated that the performance in DNN is more than 95% in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-Score, while ANN and traditional machine learning algorithms have achieved a maximum of 83% accuracy. This concludes that DNN is a suitable model to be used for predicting the behavior of terrorist activities. Our experiments also demonstrate that the dataset for terrorist activities is big data; therefore, a DNN is a suitable model to process big data and understand the underlying patterns in the dataset. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the knowledge management processes and their role in achieving competitive advantage at Al-Quds Open University. The study was based on the descriptive analytical method, and the study population consists of academic and administrative staff in each of the branches of Al-Quds Open University in (Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin). The researchers selected a sample of the study population by the intentional non-probability method, the size of (70) employees. A questionnaire was prepared and supervised by a number (...) of specialists in order to obtain the results of the study. The study concluded that there is a positive direct relationship, that is, the higher the degree of application of knowledge management processes, the greater the degree of competitive advantage. Knowledge Technology came first with a score of 80.02% on all items. Competitive advantage came second with 81.74%. In the third place came "knowledge generation" where the total score on all paragraphs in this area (78.24%). In the fourth place, "knowledge transfer" (77.21%). "Developing and storing knowledge" came in fifth place (77.13%). "Acquisition of knowledge" came in sixth place (76.45%). Knowledge Organization ranked seventh (74.26%). The study recommended that the university should enable the employees to benefit from the experiences and expertise available to help generate knowledge. The University encourages the creation of knowledge through the system of incentives and open the way for creators to apply their creations and spread and invest in excellence and creativity. The university should design work performance levels based on the integration of knowledge and organize it according to policies that support freedom of research. The need for Palestinian universities to adopt a knowledge management approach. The need to adopt a system of incentives that rewards cognitive efforts, and give workers enough freedom to enable them to apply their knowledge. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Introduction Future HIV vaccine efficacy trials with adolescents will need to ensure that participants comprehend study concepts in order to confer true informed assent. A Hepatitis B vaccine trial with adolescents offers valuable opportunity to test youth understanding of vaccine trial requirements in general. Methods Youth reviewed a simplified assent form with study investigators and then completed a comprehension questionnaire. Once enrolled, all youth were tested for HIV and confirmed to be HIV-negative. Results 123 youth completed the questionnaire (mean age=15 (...) years; 63% male; 70% Hispanic). Overall, only 69 (56%) youth answered all six questions correctly. Conclusions Youth enrolled in a Hepatitis B vaccine trial demonstrated variable comprehension of the study design and various methodological concepts, such as treatment group masking. (shrink)

In mobile ad hoc networks, the topology differs very often due to mobile nodes. The flat network organization has high topology maintenance messages overload. To reduce this message overload in MANET, clustering organizations are recommended. Grouping MANET into MNs has the advantage of controlling congestion and easily repairing the topology. When the MANET size is large, clustered MN partitioning is a multiobjective optimization problem. Several evolutionary algorithms such as genetic algorithms are used to divide MANET into clusters. GAs suffer from (...) premature convergence. In this article, a clustering algorithm based on a memetic algorithm is proposed. MA uses local exploration techniques to reduce the likelihood of early convergence. The local search function in MA is to find the optimal local solution before other evolutionary algorithms. The optimal clusters in MANET can be achieved using MA for dynamic load balancing. In this work, the network is considered a graph G, where V represents MN and E represent the communication links of the neighboring MNs. The aim of this study is to find the cluster headset as early as possible when needed. High-quality individuals are selected for the new population in the next generation. New individuals are generated using the crossover mechanism on the chromosome once the two parents have been selected. Data are communicated via CHs between other clusters. The proposed technique is compared with existing techniques such as DGAC, MobHiD, and EMPSO. The proposed technique overcomes the state-of-the-art clustering schemes in terms of cluster counting, reaffiliation rate, cluster life, and overload of control messages. (shrink)

This article considers the four eyewitness threshold for zinā’ in Islamic criminal law. In some Muslim-majority countries where zinā’ remains an offence, judiciaries have by-passed the threshold by accepting singular confessions from male fornicators or, otherwise, inferring fornication from pregnancy outside of marriage. As a result, a disproportionate number of women have been prosecuted, convicted, and even punished for zinā’. I assert that the four-eyewitness threshold allows for an alternative way to view zinā’ that can result in a different set (...) of consequences. If the threshold is taken seriously such that it becomes the only evidentiary basis upon which a zinā’ conviction can be entered, it will create an effective or de facto exemption where alleged perpetrators can never be convicted, except in the rarest cases where four independent eyewitnesses can be corralled. If adopted, this approach would provide a principled basis to reject opportunistic confessions that deflect punishment to accused female fornicators. And as an ‘internal’ solution that arises within the framework of the sharī’a, a de facto exemption approach is more likely to be perceived as legitimate when compared with proposed solutions that find their basis in international human rights legal instruments. (shrink)

This study aimed to analyse the contribution of the Sufi order in stemming religion-based violence as a form of the Sufis’ response to rampant violence, extremism and religious radicalism. This study used a qualitative method in which the data were obtained through interviews, observation and documentation. Then they were analysed by using an interactive model. This study was carried out in three Sufi communities of the Sufi order Qadariyah wan Naqshabandiyah in Indonesia, namely in Suryalaya Islamic Boarding School, Futuhiyyah Islamic (...) Boarding School Mranggen and Darul Ulum Islamic Boarding School Jombang. The results of the study show that the three TQN orders have the concepts of dhikr and love, which are internalised in the act of Sufism. The Sufi order has the doctrines of love of God, mutual love, discourse of moderation and tolerance towards religion and other groups as the main instruments in the fight against religious radicalism. The resistance of the Sufis to religious radicalism shows that the Sufi order is cornered from attacks by formalist groups in religion. This fact reopens the historical archive of contradictions between the two major currents of Islamic thought and movement, Salafi versus Sufi. The counter-radicalism narrated by the Sufis of the three TQN communities represents their defensive attitude towards the aggressiveness of the textual and radical Salafis.Contribution: This article contributes to prevent and reduce the rise of religious radicalism in Indonesia. The doctrines of tanbih, mahabbah, tolerance and moderatism developed by the Sufis in the three TQN communities became a source of reference and inspiration for resistance to violence and religious radicalism. (shrink)

Modelling data in applied areas particularly in reliability engineering is a prominent research topic. Statistical models play a vital role in modelling reliability data and are useful for further decision-making policies. In this paper, we study a new class of distributions with one additional shape parameter, called a new generalized exponential-X family. Some of its properties are taken into account. The maximum likelihood approach is adopted to obtain the estimates of the model parameters. For assessing the performance of these estimators, (...) a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation study is carried out. The usefulness of the proposed family is demonstrated by means of a real-life application representing the failure times of electronic components. The fitted results show that the new generalized exponential-X family provides a close fit to data. Finally, considering the failure times data, the Bayesian analysis and performance of Gibbs sampling are discussed. The diagnostics measures such as the Raftery–Lewis, Geweke, and Gelman–Rubin are applied to check the convergence of the algorithm. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia un corto tratado de polémica en contra del judaísmo escrito por el conocido erudito otomano Aḥmad Muṣṭafā Ṭāšhkubrīzāde. El autor utiliza los mismos argumentos que conocemos de la polémica religiosa medieval, tales como que la Torah, abrogada por el Islam, contenía referencias al Profeta Muḥammad a pesar de que su texto fue corrompido por los judíos. Además de la Biblia, Ṭāšhkubrīzāde cita una serie de fuentes judías tardías que añaden una importante dimensión a este trabajo. Después de (...) una breve introducción en que se discute la posibilidad de la deuda del autor respecto a la obra de Ibn Abī ‘Abd al-Dayyān, un converso del judaísmo al Islam, se presenta una edición y traducción del texto. (shrink)

Text clustering problem is a leading process in many key areas such as information retrieval, text mining, and natural language processing. This presents the need for a potent document clustering algorithm that can be used effectively to navigate, summarize, and arrange information to congregate large data sets. This paper encompasses an adaptation of the grey wolf optimizer for TCP, referred to as TCP-GWO. The TCP demands a degree of accuracy beyond that which is possible with metaheuristic swarm-based algorithms. The main (...) issue to be addressed is how to split text documents on the basis of GWO into homogeneous clusters that are sufficiently precise and functional. Specifically, TCP-GWO, or referred to as the document clustering algorithm, used the average distance of documents to the cluster centroid as an objective function to repeatedly optimize the distance between the clusters of the documents. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed TCP-GWO was demonstrated on a sufficiently large number of documents of variable sizes, documents that were randomly selected from a set of six publicly available data sets. Documents of high complexity were also included in the evaluation process to assess the recall detection rate of the document clustering algorithm. The experimental results for a test set of over a part of 1300 documents showed that failure to correctly cluster a document occurred in less than 20% of cases with a recall rate of more than 65% for a highly complex data set. The high F-measure rate and ability to cluster documents in an effective manner are important advances resulting from this research. The proposed TCP-GWO method was compared to the other well-established text clustering methods using randomly selected data sets. Interestingly, TCP-GWO outperforms the comparative methods in terms of precision, recall, and F-measure rates. In a nutshell, the results illustrate that the proposed TCP-GWO is able to excel compared to the other comparative clustering methods in terms of measurement criteria, whereby more than 55% of the documents were correctly clustered with a high level of accuracy. (shrink)

Statistical distributions play a prominent role for modeling data in applied fields, particularly in actuarial, financial sciences, and risk management fields. Among the statistical distributions, the heavy-tailed distributions have proven the best choice to use for modeling heavy-tailed financial data. The actuaries are often in search of such types of distributions to provide the best description of the actuarial and financial data. This study presents a new power transformation to introduce a new family of heavy-tailed distributions useful for modeling heavy-tailed (...) financial data. A submodel, namely, heavy-tailed beta-power transformed Weibull model is considered to demonstrate the adequacy of the proposed method. Some actuarial measures such as value at risk, tail value at risk, tail variance, and tail variance premium are calculated. A brief simulation study based on these measures is provided. Finally, an application to the insurance loss dataset is analyzed, which revealed that the proposed distribution is a superior model among the competitors and could potentially be very adequate in describing and modeling actuarial and financial data. (shrink)

The uses of statistical distributions for modeling real phenomena of nature have received considerable attention in the literature. The recent studies have pointed out the potential of statistical distributions in modeling data in applied sciences, particularly in financial sciences. Among them, the two-parameter Lomax distribution is one of the prominent models that can be used quite effectively for modeling data in management sciences, banking, finance, and actuarial sciences, among others. In the present article, we introduce a new three-parameter extension of (...) the Lomax distribution via using a class of claim distributions. The new model may be called the Lomax-Claim distribution. The parameters of the Lomax-Claim model are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation method. The behaviors of the maximum likelihood estimators are examined by conducting a brief Monte Carlo study. The potentiality and applicability of the Lomax claim model are illustrated by analyzing a dataset taken from financial sciences representing the vehicle insurance loss data. For this dataset, the proposed model is compared with the Lomax, power Lomax, transmuted Lomax, and exponentiated Lomax distributions. To show the best fit of the competing distributions, we consider certain analytical tools such as the Anderson–Darling test statistic, Cramer–Von Mises test statistic, and Kolmogorov–Smirnov test statistic. Based on these analytical measures, we observed that the new model outperforms the competitive models. Furthermore, a bivariate extension of the proposed model called the Farlie–Gumble–Morgenstern bivariate Lomax-Claim distribution is also introduced, and different shapes for the density function are plotted. An application of the bivariate model to GDP and export of goods and services is provided. (shrink)