The study aimed to identify the relationship between correcting the deviations in the measurement of performance and achieving the objectives of control and the performance of the job at the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to collect information. The questionnaire consisted of (20) statements distributed to three categories of employees of the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the administrative board). (...) A random sample of 314 employees was selected and 276 responses were retrieved with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter, process, and analyze the data. The results of the study showed a positive relationship between correcting deviations in performance measurement and achieving the control objectives represented by the functional performance in the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, faculty and their assistants, and the administrative board), where the relative weight of all the paragraphs was (74.25%). The study recommended the need to ensure that the actual performance of the planned performance is matched and decisions are taken to correct the serious deviations and take the necessary measures in terms of retraining and change in regulations, wages and bonuses and punishment of the culprit, neglect and negligence by mistake. (shrink)

: Lately there is more attention paid to technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field is becoming an interesting topic to many researchers. In this paper, we are presenting an intelligent tutoring system for teaching DES Information Security Algorithm called DES-Tutor. The DES-Tutor target the students enrolled in cryptography course in the department Information Technology in Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through DES-Tutor the student will be able to study course material and try the exercises of each lesson. An evaluation (...) of the DES-Tutor was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

Abed Azzam offers a fresh interpretation of Nietzsche's engagement with the work of Paul the Apostle, reorienting the relationship between the two thinkers while embedding modern philosophy within early Christian theology. Paying careful attention to Nietzsche's dialectics, Azzam situates the philosopher's thought within the history of Christianity, specifically the Pauline dialectics of law and faith, and reveals how atheism is constructed in relation to Christianity. Countering Heidegger's characterization of Nietzsche as an anti-Platonist, Azzam brings the philosopher closer to Paul (...) through a radical rereading of his entire corpus against Christianity. This approach builds a compelling new history of the West resting on a logic of sublimation, from ancient Greece and early Judaism to the death of God. Azzam discovers in Nietzsche's philosophy a solid, tangible Pauline structure and virtual, fragile Greek content, positioning the thinker as a forerunner of the recent "return to Paul" led by Badiou, Agamben, Žižek, and Breton. By changing the focus of modern philosophical inquiry from "Nietzsche and philosophy" to "Nietzsche and Christianity," Azzam initiates a major challenge to the primacy of Plato in the history of Western philosophy and narrow certainties regarding Nietzsche's relationship to Christian thought. (shrink)

Efficient community detection in a complex network is considered an interesting issue due to its vast applications in many prevailing areas such as biology, chemistry, linguistics, social sciences, and others. There are several algorithms available for network community detection. This study proposed the Sigmoid Fish Swarm Optimization algorithm to discover efficient network communities. Our proposed algorithm uses the sigmoid function for various fish moves in a swarm, including Prey, Follow, Swarm, and Free Move, for better movement and community detection. The (...) proposed SiFSO algorithm’s performance is tested against state-of-the-art particle swarm optimization algorithms in Q-modularity and normalized mutual information. The results showed that the proposed SiFSO algorithm is 0.0014% better in terms of Q-modularity and 0.1187% better in terms of NMI than the other selected algorithms. (shrink)

Why do we, today’s people, owe a duty to future generations with whom we will not overlap? In my paper, I aim at answering this question step by step. The first step is to respond to the question why human beings should continue to exist. I try this by critically considering Karl-Otto Apel’s argument for the survival of human beings from the viewpoint of his own discourse ethics. This consideration, however, leads us to the second step where we are faced (...) with the following question : For what reason do we – this particular generation and no other – owe a duty to future people? In order to answer this, I will interpret John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and Book of Rites, a Chinese classic of Confucianism. From this interpretation, I would like to conclude that we are responsible for future people as far as we are responsible to past generations who delegated such future-oriented responsibility to us. (shrink)

The first century B.C. poet Lucretius put forth an argument for why death is not bad for the person who has died. This argument is commonly referred to as Lucretius’s “symmetry argument” because of its assumption that the period before we were born is symmetrical to the period after we die. Jeremy Simon objects to the symmetry argument, claiming that the two periods are not relevantly symmetrical: being born earlier than we actually are born would not guarantee us more life, (...) whereas extending our lifespan past the time we actually would die would guarantee us more life. Simon believes this difference between the two time periods also explains why it is reasonable for people to wish for a later death but not for an earlier birth. We raise several objections to Simon’s response. Our main objection is that insofar as people do not wish for an earlier birth, it is not because they fear losing more life, but rather is a result of being concerned about losing what is important about life, namely its unique content. (shrink)

The first century B.C. poet Lucretius put forth an argument for why death is not bad for the person who has died. This argument is commonly referred to as Lucretius’s “symmetry argument” because of its assumption that the period before we were born is symmetrical to the period after we die. Jeremy Simon objects to the symmetry argument, claiming that the two periods are not relevantly symmetrical: being born earlier than we actually are born would not guarantee us more life, (...) whereas extending our lifespan past the time we actually would die would guarantee us more life. Simon believes this difference between the two time periods also explains why it is reasonable for people to wish for a later death but not for an earlier birth. We raise several objections to Simon’s response. Our main objection is that insofar as people do not wish for an earlier birth, it is not because they fear losing more life, but rather is a result of being concerned about losing what is important about life, namely its unique content. (shrink)

In “Justice at the Margins: The Social Contract and the Challenge of Marginal Cases” (Southern Journal of Philosophy, 55.1), Nathan Bauer and David Svolba appeal to a concept of recognition found in social contract theory to argue that all humans, including humans who lack certain unique cognitive abilities, so‐called marginal cases, have rights that nonhuman animals lack. The main reason is that we can recognize ourselves in all humans, but not in nonhuman animals. I argue (i) that it is unclear (...) that we can recognize ourselves in certain types of marginal cases, such as corpses and embryos; (ii) that Bauer and Svolba’s reason for why we cannot recognize ourselves in nonhuman animals is questionable; and (iii) if we can recognize ourselves in any types of marginal cases, then we should be able to recognize ourselves in nonhuman animals. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 59, Issue 3, Page 460-469, September 2021.

The hazard of postharvest pest losses is ubiquitous in peasant farming systems; as a result, farmers invariably have some response to the threat of these losses. Responses to postharvest pests may be more extensive than to field pests, even when, by statistical measures, the usual levels of losses are comparable. In studies of pest management practices in three contrasting areas in Kenya, it was found that farmers virtually always rely on an array of techniques and strategies, usually including both older (...) and more modern practices. There is considerable variation among regions in the techniques used, due not only to climatic and socioeconomic factors, but also to variations in cultural history and preferences. The ways in which management practices have changed over time also vary by region. The major changes have been related to overall system change. Four main sources of change have been paramount: (1) population growth and the intensification of land use; (2) the introduction of new cash crops; (3) the introduction of new marketing infrastructure; and (4) the perception of increased environmental risk. Their effect on the replacement of older practices by newer ones is often interrelated. Traditional techniques are often based on materials derived from bushland, but increasing population density makes these difficult to continue as bushland and its common property resources disappear. Simultaneously, tolerance for losses is reduced as land availability is constrained. With the introduction of a cash crop infrastructure, new methods of pest management, especially pesticide use, become more readily available and may spread rapidly. Areas with good market infrastructure but varying population density may still differ considerably because with abundant land it is possible to compensate for expected losses by additional planting.A study of an FAO project to improve postharvest management through earlier harvesting and a redesigned storage crib indicate some reasons for its lack of widespread acceptance. Little or no attempt was made to adapt techniques to varying circumstances; instead, a single “solution” was meant to be applied across areas of vastly different conditions. In many cases, this project represented a radical response to a problem farmers considered they were coping with acceptably using existing methods. Although it probably represents an improvement over traditional storage methods in purely technical terms, the new technique also often involved major costs, readjustments, and cultural disruptions that may not have been anticipated by its designers. More likely to succeed would be a strategy that begins with some of farmers' existing practices and whose objective is to develop and offer a range of possible improvements from which farmers could select individual components appropriate to their conditions and needs. (shrink)

This article questions the degree to which ecological theory can be used as justification for protection of ‘natural environments’ as well as in determining which portions or features of those envi...

Maybe God doesn’t have to do anything in order to bring it about that there be light. Most of us, however, have to perform some sort of act like flicking a switch to do so. But some of the things we bring about do not require such mediating acts. For example, it appears that I don’t have to do anything in order to bring about or cause the arm movements I perform in flicking the switch. I just move my arm. (...) Of course, a number of things will happen when I move my arm: neurons fire, muscles flex. But these are not acts in and of themselves. The only act we have here is the moving of the arm. So my arm movement in this instance is basic in a sense in which my illumination of the room is not. (shrink)

Since its inception, Stakeholder Management Capability (SMC) has constituted a powerful hermeneutic through which business organizations have understood and leveraged stakeholder relationships. On this model, achieving a high level of capability largely depends on managerial ability to effectively bargain with stakeholders and establish solidarity vis-à-vis the successful negotiation, implementation, and execution of "win–win" transactional exchanges. Against this account, it is rightly pointed out that a transactional explanation of stakeholder relationships, regarded by many as the bottom line for stakeholder management, fails (...) to provide managerial direction regarding how to resolve a variety of normative stakeholder claims that resist commoditization. In response to this issue, this paper has two overlapping goals. It seeks to elaborate a discourse theoretical approach to the problem by first drawing out Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action and delineating the various types of rational discourse. Second, the paper attempts to present concrete implications for SMC relative to reshaping the contours of rational, process, and transactional analysis in light of central discourse theoretical conclusions. (shrink)

v. 1. Arabic text -- v. 2. English translation.

The term ‘sporting integrity’ is widely used in the normative assessment of sports. The term, however, suffers from a lack of conceptual precision. Alfred Archer’s ‘coherence-view’ of sporting integrity goes a long way to help clarify what ‘sporting integrity’ actually means and the specific institutional and individual obligations that it generates. Archer argues that ‘sporting integrity’ essentially means that the constraints athletes face ‘cohere’, in the sense of applying consistent inefficiencies between athletic competitors. For example, those who use performance enhancing (...) drugs are less constrained than those who do not use PEDs, and thus PED use undermines sporting integrity. This paper presents the argument that over and above competitive coherence, sporting integrity means living up to the ‘spirit’ or ‘ethos’ of a game. The implications of this view are that a sport could have ‘coherent’ competitive constraints and still lack sporting integrity; additionally, a sport could have ‘i... (shrink)

Recognizing the importance of health‐promoting relationships in engaging people who are experiencing homelessness in care, most research on health clinics for homeless persons has involved some recognition of client–provider relationships. However, what has been lacking is the inclusion of a critical analysis of the policy context in which relationships are enacted. In this paper, we question how client–provider relationships are enacted within the culture of community care with people who are experiencing homelessness and how clinic‐level and broader social and health (...) policies shape relationships in this context. We explore these questions within a critical theoretical perspective utilizing a critical ethnographic methodology. Data were collected using multiple methods of document review, participant observation, in‐depth interviews and focus groups. The participants include both clients at a community health clinic, and all clinic service providers. We explore how clients and providers characterized each other as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For providers, this served as a means by which they policed behaviours and enforced social norms. The means by which both providers’ and clients’ negotiated relationships are explored, but this is couched within both local and system‐level policies. This study highlights the importance of healthcare providers and clients being involved in broader policy and systemic change. (shrink)

This paper describes and argues for the inclusion of a modified form of Venn diagrams in critical thinking courses and textbooks. The modified Venn Diagrams, it is argued, are easier to learn as they more clearly show the meanings of inclusion and exclusion, easier to use when solving problems (including those found on LSAT exams), are often included in LSAT preparatory material, and students tend to have a more thorough understanding of the concept of logical possibility after having used modified (...) Venn diagrams. (shrink)

Using poststructural criticism, we explore how the book of Job deconstructs the deed/consequence nexus that stands at the core of the Hebrew Bible’s theological framework – i.e. the doctrine of reward and punishment. Building on both Derridean deconstruction and Foucauldian resistance, we show that the book of Job refuses to comply with the opposite binary of reward and punishment. First, we demonstrate how the friends in their speeches enforce the binary and, thereby, exercise power over Job. Secondly, we consider Job’s (...) resistance and deconstruction of this binary through both his lived experience and desire to argue with God. Finally, we argue how Job’s desire to argue with God challenges God to defend themself in court. In God’s answer, however, one is introduced to a different God than as portrayed by Job’s friends. Moreover, God’s boastful reply, which lacks any justification for Job’s suffering, makes God appear fragile and weak. As such, this article argues that the book of Job may not merely deconstruct dominant ideology, but also God itself. (shrink)

Stock markets accurately reflect countries’ economic health, and stock returns are tightly related to economic indices. One popular area of financial research is the factors that influence stock returns. Several investigations have frequently cited macroeconomic factors, among numerous elements. Therefore, this study focuses on the empirical analysis of the relationship between macroeconomic factors and stock market returns. When a stock market becomes increasingly volatile, it becomes susceptible to economic uncertainty news, and information on social media platforms. Thus, we incorporated a (...) new dimension of economic uncertainty news sentiment for stock return predictions. We employed the daily data ofgold index, crude oil price, interest rate, exchange rate, and stock returns for a set of countries from January 2010 to December 2020. Subsequently, to compute coefficients, we conducted a regression analysis using one of the more sophisticated approaches: single-layer neural networks and ordinary least square regression. In addition, we only computed EUNS for the period of the fiscal budget announcement for the US, Turkey, and Hong Kong. The results indicate that the gold index, interest rate, and exchange rate are highly significant and negative macroeconomic factors for all analyzed countries. These findings also indicate that EUNS is important and detrimental for projecting stock returns. (shrink)

Nowadays, due to restrictions on fossil fuels, the use of renewable energies is increasing day by day. Among renewable energies, solar energy has received more attraction due to its availability in all places. Among solar energy technologies, the solar tower has been welcomed due to its high power generation of electrical energy. For accurate modeling of the studied system, each component of the system has been evaluated and modeling has been done. Therefore, in this research, solar tower modeling has been (...) conducted to achieve high electrical energy production, and to better compare the production rate, 5 cities in Iran with different weather conditions have been considered. According to the results, it can be mentioned that the highest production power by the studied system is related to Shiraz city with an average production of 20 kW/m2, and among the cities studied, the lowest rate is related to Mashhad with a production power of 15 kW/m2. (shrink)

“Collective impact problems” refer to situations where there is a collective harm or benefit, but where no single action seems to make a difference one way or the other. Collective impact problems arise when considering several pressing ethical issues in business, such as shareholder and consumer activism, business and climate change, factory farming and animal welfare, fair-trade and sweatshop labor, and corporate philanthropy. Unfortunately, business ethics textbooks do not explicitly deal with collective impact problems and, as such, students may be (...) lacking the theoretical and practical skills necessary to deal with issues of significant moral concern. This paper helps to address this gap by introducing the reader to some collective impact cases in business ethics, detailing the challenges that collective impact problems pose for consequentialist and non-consequentialists alike, and highlighting some of the promising pedagogical benefits of using collective impact cases in a business ethics class. (shrink)

Storsletten and Jakobsen (2015) try to integrate the instrumental, responsible, and spiritual positions in leadership studies with Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, ethical, and religious modes of existence. Their combination of leadership theory and Kierkegaardian thought, however, seems deeply problematic. In particular, the instrumental-aesthetic and responsible-ethical connections appear weak or at least significantly underdeveloped, and the spiritual-religious connection seems logically inconsistent.

Violence in sports is under intense public scrutiny. One hotly disputed issue concerns the acceptability of violent retaliation in sports, particular in the form of fighting in the National Hockey League. The question posed here is: Can fighting in the NHL be virtuous? Some think not, maintaining that fighting is undisciplined and ostensibly at odds with the virtues of good temper and justice. Contrary to this conclusion, this paper presents arguments that support the view that fighting in the NHL can (...) be virtuous and clearly and consistently action guiding if certain conditions are met. These conditions require that fighting as a practice helps to provide an education in the virtues, is reasonably safe, is good for the community of participants, and is part of a morally sensitive and progressive tradition and organizational structure. Yet in the end, while fighting in the NHL can be morally justified, recognizing and instilling the virtues of a good fight would require some rather significant formal.. (shrink)

In this study, we propose and test the relationship between CSR and firm financial performance, how this relationship differs between firms led by CEOs with political connections and those led by CEOs without political connections, and how this relationship differs between state-owned firms and nonstate-owned firms. Based on a sample of 1645 Chinese listed firms during the period 2011 and 2020 (inclusive), we find that CSR has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm financial performance. As the level of CSR increases (...) from slight to moderate, CSR is positively related to firm performance; as the level of CSR increases from moderate to great, CSR is negatively related to firm financial performance. Additionally, we find that this inverted U-shaped relationship differs between firms led by CEOs with political connections and those led by CEOs without political connections and differs between state-owned firms and nonstate-owned firms. That is, both the synergic effect (positive effect) of CSR on firm financial performance when the level of CSR is low and the competitive effect (negative effect) of CSR on firm financial performance when the CSR is high are more pronounced for firms led by CEOs without political connections and nonstate-owned firms than for firms led by CEOs with political connections and state-owned firms. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The aim of the research is to identify the relationship between the performance criteria and the achievement of the objectives of supervision which is represented in the performance of the job at the Islamic University in Gaza Strip. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to collect information. The questionnaire consisted of (22) paragraphs distributed to three categories of employees of the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the (...) administrative board). A random sample of 314 employees was selected, 276 responses were retrieved with a return rate of 88.1%. The SPSS program was used to enter, process, and analyze the data. The results of the study showed a positive relationship between the performance criteria and the achievement of the control objectives represented by the job performance in the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, faculty and their assistants and the administrative board). The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, including the provision of an appropriate level of control system components today through the continuous updating and development of performance standards and the need to provide the necessary physical and financial resources to continue the development and achievement within the university. Expand the development of technology in the various activities of the university through the construction of a complete and integrated system to support the control systems in the university to suit its size. The researchers also recommended the follow-up, review of the performance standards and work to modify them in line with the mission of the university and the goals that the university seeks to reach. (shrink)

Whether an action is morally right depends upon the alternative acts available to the agent. Actualists hold that what an agent would actually do determines her moral obligations. Possibilists hold that what an agent could possibly do determines her moral obligations. Both views face compelling criticisms. Despite the fact that actualist and possibilist assumptions are at the heart of seminal arguments in business ethics, there has been no explicit discussion of actualism and possibilism in the business ethics literature. This paper (...) has two primary goals. First, it aims to rectify this omission by bringing to light the importance of the actualism/possibilism debate for business ethics through questions about the ethics of sweatshops. Second, it aims to make some progress in the sweatshop debate by examining and defending an alternative view, hybridism, and describing the moral and practical implications of hybridism for the sweatshop debate. (shrink)

It is proved that $\Pi^1_1$ -indescribability in $P_{\kappa}\lambda$ can be characterized by combinatorial properties without taking care of cofinality of $\lambda$ . We extend Carr's theorem proving that the hypothesis $\kappa$ is $2^{\lambda^{<\kappa}}$ -Shelah is rather stronger than $\kappa$ is $\lambda$ -supercompact.

A substantial body of theoretical literature testifies to the evolutionary functions of emotions. Relatively little has been written about their developmental functions. This article discusses the developmental functions of emotions from the perspective of differential emotions theory (DET; Izard, 1977, 1991). According to DET, although all the emotions retain their adaptive and motivational functions across the lifespan, different sets of emotions may become relatively more prominent in the different stages of life as they serve stage-related developmental processes. In the first (...) section, we present a brief overview of relevant aspects of the theory. In the second section, we discuss how emotions play a central role in helping the individual achieve developmental milestones and tasks during four major periods of life: Infancy, toddler through preschool years, middle to late childhood, and adolescence. The underlying thesis of this article is that emotions play a central role in stimulating social cognitive attainments at each stage of development. (shrink)

Maybe God doesn’t have to do anything in order to bring it about that there be light. Most of us, however, have to perform some sort of act like flicking a switch to do so. But some of the things we bring about do not require such mediating acts. For example, it appears that I don’t have to do anything in order to bring about or cause the arm movements I perform in flicking the switch. I just move my arm. (...) Of course, a number of things will happen when I move my arm: neurons fire, muscles flex. But these are not acts in and of themselves. The only act we have here is the moving of the arm. So my arm movement in this instance is basic in a sense in which my illumination of the room is not. (shrink)