This research study was aimed to examine the cross-national coverage and framing patterns about Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in international media through focusing on newspapers. Khashoggi; an internationally acclaimed US based Saudi journalist was brutally assassinated at Kingdom’s consulate in Turkey which created the global outcry. As this issue made headlines worldwide for several months, the media from USA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Turkey; the most substantially and politically involved countries presumably used certain framing patterns in their coverage. To find (...) out the difference in coverage intensity and media frames, a content analysis based comparative study of US, Saudi and Turkish newspapers was conducted which is guided by the framing theory of Mass Communication. The results showed that the media from three selected countries dealt the same issue with significant differences in coverage and framing patterns. We concluded based on our findings that such differences in cross-national coverage patterns were influenced by the respective state’s ideology, interests, governance system, public narrative, or media settings. This study also explored some facts regarding freedom of expression and about journalists who have been targeted in reprisal of their professional work all over the world. The findings of the study elaborate that most of the newspapers used anti-Saudi frames in their coverage. So far as overall coverage is concerned Turkish and US papers provided a significant coverage to the issue while newspapers from Saudi Arabia provided least coverage to the issue as their media are highly state bound. (shrink)

Most of the IoT-based smart systems require low latency and crisp response time for their applications. Achieving the demand of this high Quality of Service becomes quite challenging when computationally intensive tasks are offloaded to the cloud for execution. Edge computing therein plays an important role by introducing low network latency, quick response, and high bandwidth. However, offloading computations at a large scale overwhelms the edge server with many requests and the scalability issue originates. To address the above issues, an (...) efficient resource management technique is required to maintain the workload over the edge and ensure the reduction of response time for IoT applications. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a metaheuristic and nature-inspired Artificial Bee Colony optimization technique that effectively manages the workload over the edge server under the strict constraints of low network latency and quick response time. The numerical results show that the proposed ABC algorithm has outperformed Particle Swarm Optimization, Ant Colony Optimization, and Round-Robin Scheduling algorithms by producing low response time and effectively managing the workload over the edge server. Furthermore, the proposed technique scales the edge server to meet the demand of high QoS for IoT applications. (shrink)

This experiment investigated the effect of format (line vs. bar), viewers’ familiarity with variables, and viewers’ graphicacy (graphical literacy) skills on the comprehension of multivariate (three variable) data presented in graphs. Fifty-five undergraduates provided written descriptions of data for a set of 14 line or bar graphs, half of which depicted variables familiar to the population and half of which depicted variables unfamiliar to the population. Participants then took a test of graphicacy skills. As predicted, the format influenced viewers’ interpretations (...) of data. Specifically, viewers were more likely to describe x–y interactions when viewing line graphs than when viewing bar graphs, and they were more likely to describe main effects and “z–y” (the variable in the legend) interactions when viewing bar graphs than when viewing line graphs. Familiarity of data presented and individuals’ graphicacy skills interacted with the influence of graph format. Specifically, viewers were most likely to generate inferences only when they had high graphicacy skills, the data were familiar and thus the information inferred was expected, and the format supported those inferences. Implications for multivariate data display are discussed. (shrink)

Current formal dialectical models postulate normative rules that enable discussants to conduct dialogical interactions without committing fallacies. Though the rules for conducting a dialogue are supposed to apply to interactions between actual arguers, they are without exception theoretically motivated. This creates a gap between model and reality, because dialogue participants typically leave important content-related elements implicit. Therefore, analysts cannot readily relate normative rules to actual debates in ways that will be empirically confirmable. This paper details a new, data-driven method for (...) describing discussants’ actual reply structures, wherein corpus studies serve to acknowledge the complexity of natural argumentation. Rather than refer exclusively to propositional content as an indicator of arguing pro/contra a given claim, the proposed approach to dialogue structure tracks the sequence of dialogical moves itself. This arguably improves the applicability of theoretical dialectical models to empirical data, and thus advances the study of dialogue systems. (shrink)

The U.S. Federal regulations allow institutional review boards (IRBs) to approve non-beneficial pediatric research when the risks are a minor increase over minimal, provided that the research is likely to develop generalizable knowledge about the subjects' disorder or condition. This “subjects' condition” requirement is quite controversial; commentators have argued for a variety of interpretations. Despite this considerable disagreement in the literature, there have not been any attempts to apply principles of legal interpretation to determine how the subjects' condition requirement should (...) be understood. (shrink)

This important and comprehensive work of 18th-century Islamic religious thought written in Arabic by a pre-eminent South Asian scholar provides an extensive and detailed picture of Muslim theology and interpretive strategies on the eve of the modern period.

BackgroundValue-driven career attitude is considered a dimension of a protean career attitude. Individuals with this attitude seek out personally meaningful experiences and set their own psychological career success standards. This study investigates the association between value-driven career attitude and job performance. It looks at how organizational citizenship behavior affects the relationship between value-driven career attitudes and job performance.MethodsA self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 random employees of SMEs in Pakistan during the early pandemic. We chose Cochran’s formula (...) to determine the appropriate sample size, and PLS-SEM was used to analyze the model. P-O fit and self-determination theory is the theoretical lenses used in this study. The underpinning theories to this study enable the researchers to establish a link between VDCA, OCB, and job performance.ResultsBy analyzing a sample of 400 employees from active enterprises, we discover that VDCA contributes to an improvement in job performance. Furthermore, OCB plays an intervening effect in the relationship between VDCA and job performance. Thus, the study provided evidence for the underpinning models of P-O fit and self-determination theory.ConclusionThis study adds to the body of knowledge by investigating the connections between VDCA, OCB, and job performance in SMEs. The existing literature sheds scant light on these linkages, leaving a gap that this study will address. The current study expands on other themes to provide an in-depth analysis of many under-explored PCA outcomes, which may open up new avenues for future researchers to broaden and strengthen PCA with other constructs. (shrink)

Intelligent big data analysis is an evolving pattern in the age of big data science and artificial intelligence. Analysis of organized data has been very successful, but analyzing human behavior using social media data becomes challenging. The social media data comprises a vast and unstructured format of data sources that can include likes, comments, tweets, shares, and views. Data analytics of social media data became a challenging task for companies, such as Dailymotion, that have billions of daily users and vast (...) numbers of comments, likes, and views. Social media data is created in a significant amount and at a tremendous pace. There is a very high volume to store, sort, process, and carefully study the data for making possible decisions. This article proposes an architecture using a big data analytics mechanism to efficiently and logically process the huge social media datasets. The proposed architecture is composed of three layers. The main objective of the project is to demonstrate Apache Spark parallel processing and distributed framework technologies with other storage and processing mechanisms. The social media data generated from Dailymotion is used in this article to demonstrate the benefits of this architecture. The project utilized the application programming interface of Dailymotion, allowing it to incorporate functions suitable to fetch and view information. The API key is generated to fetch information of public channel data in the form of text files. Hive storage machinist is utilized with Apache Spark for efficient data processing. The effectiveness of the proposed architecture is also highlighted. (shrink)

This essay begins by focusing on four cultural characters that signify different but associated aspects of the changing destiny of the human figure at the end of the twentieth century and beyond. These characters embody the human figure, in the double sense of form and metaphor, at work, at leisure and at war, and as gendered cultural and philosophical ideal. It is our suggestion that they provide excellent images of a general economy of the future present. Their significance as indices (...) of the destiny of the human resides in the way that they disclose the effects of a restricted economy that overflows its boundaries to incorporate, utilise and restrict every element of its generalised expenditure, to use the categories of Georges Bataille: its sumptuary excess, its sacred forms, its abjected waste, its modes of eroticism, its violence. The essay continues by discussing the implications of, and consequences for, human life in the face of the corporate or techno‐bureaucratic drive to incorporate the ‘impossible‐real’. For Paul Virilio, the technological desire to overwrite the temporal and spatial dimensions of ‘the actual’ discloses something of the ‘divine’ in this new technology. In conclusion, then, the essay questions what resistance there might be to the law of the machine‐God who lies, impossibly, as the immanent being of machinic efficiency, operativity and becoming excellence. (shrink)

تشخيص فكري ومعرفي لمفهوم الأسرة ومكانتها في الفكر الإسلامي، وتفحّصٌ علمي ومنهجي لأسس البناء الأسري ومقاصده، وكشفٌ عن تأثير التحوّلات الاجتماعية في الأسرة والتحديات التي تواجهها، وتتبعٌ لانعكاسات الفكر الغربي في المنظومة القيمية للأسرة، وتبيّنٌ لبعض التجارب والخبرات في مجال المحافظة على دور الأسرة، لا سيما بعد هيمنة النموذج المعرفي الغربي، ومحاولة طمسه للخصوصيات الثقافية والمجتمعية. حاولت بحوث هذا الكتاب أن تجيب عن تساؤلات معرفية ومجتمعية مهمة مثل: ما أهم التحديات التي تواجه الأسرة المسلمة في الراهن المعاصر وكيفية مواجهتها، وما (...) التغيرات التي طرأت على الأسرة المسلمة في ظل التطورات والتسارعات المجتمعية والاقتصادية والتقنية إلخ، وما التصوّر الإسلامي لدور الأسرة في بناء المجتمع، وما دور مؤسسات المجتمع المدني في الحد من تأثير الاستلاب الثقافي، وما الإسهام الذي قدمته حركات الإصلاح الإسلامية في مجال المحافظة على الدور المحوري للأسرة في تشكيل الشخصية الإسلامية القادرة على تفعيل النهوض الحضاري؟ وقد أسهم المشاركون في هذا العمل الجماعي، الذين بلغ عددهم واحداً وعشرين باحثاً، في محاورة هذه الأسئلة المعرفية، وفي التأسيس لمنظومة معرفية مجتمعية قادرة على الإسهام في البناء الحضاري، وفي توجيه دفة الأسرة بما ينسجم مع التوجيهات الربانية والفطرة الإنسانية. (shrink)

This paper proposes two formal models for understanding real-life dialogues, aimed at capturing argumentative structures performatively enacted during conversations. In the course of the investigation, two types of discourse with a high degree of well-structured argumentation were chosen: moral debate and financial communication. The research project found itself confronted by a need to analyse, structure and formally describe large volumes of textual data, where this called for the application of computational tools. It is expected that the results of the proposed (...) research will make a contribution to formal systems modelling and the evaluation of communication from the point of view of argument soundness. (shrink)

Research teams have made considerable progress in treating absolute uterine factor infertility through uterus transplantation, though studies have differed on the choice of either deceased or living donors. While researchers continue to analyze the medical feasibility of both approaches, little attention has been paid to the ethics of using deceased versus living donors as well as the protections that must be in place for each. Both types of uterus donation also pose unique regulatory challenges, including how to allocate donated organs; (...) whether the donor / donor's family has any rights to the uterus and resulting child; how to manage contact between the donor / donor's family, recipient, and resulting child; and how to track outcomes moving forward. (shrink)

Writing the Mughal World: Studies on Culture and Politics. Muzzafar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Pp. xviii + 516. $89.50, £62 ; $29.50, £20.50.

Visual masking of primes lowers prime visibility but spares processing of primes as reflected in prime–target congruence and prime–response compatibility effects. However, the question is how to appropriately measure prime visibility. Here, we tested the influence of three procedural variables on prime visibility measures: prime–target similarity, prime–response similarity, and the variability of prime–response mappings. Our results show that a low prime–target similarity is a favorable condition for a prime visibility measure because it increases the sensitivity of this measure in comparison (...) to a high prime–target similarity. (shrink)

Believing that p, assuming that p, and imagining that p involve regarding p as true—or, as we shall call it, accepting p. What distinguishes belief from the other modes of acceptance? We claim that conceiving of an attitude as a belief, rather than an assumption or an instance of imagining, entails conceiving of it as an acceptance that is regulated for truth, while also applying to it the standard of being correct if and only if it is true. We argue (...) that the second half of this claim, according to which the concept of belief includes a standard of correctness, is required to explain the fact that the deliberative question whether to believe that p is transparent to the question whether p. This argument raises various questions. Is there such a thing as deliberating whether to believe? Is the transparency of the deliberative question whether to believe that p the same as the transparency of the factual question whether I do believe that p? We will begin by answering these questions and then turn to a series of possible objections to our argument. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare providers who are accountable for patient care safety and quality but who are not empowered to actualize them experience moral distress. Interventions to mitigate moral distress in the healthcare organization are needed. Objective: To evaluate the effect on moral distress and clinician empowerment of an established, health-system-wide intervention, Moral Distress Consultation. Methods: A quasi-experimental, mixed methods study using pre/post surveys, structured interviews, and evaluation of consult themes was used. Consults were requested by staff when moral distress was present. (...) The purpose of consultation is to identify the causes of moral distress, barriers to action, and strategies to improve the situation. Intervention participants were those who attended a moral distress consult. Control participants were staff surveyed prior to the consult. Interviews were conducted after the consult with willing participants and unit managers. Moral distress was measured using the Moral Distress Thermometer. Empowerment was measured using the Global Empowerment Scale. Results: Twenty-one consults were conducted. Analysis included 116 intervention and 30 control surveys, and 11 interviews. A small but significant decrease was found among intervention participants, especially intensive care staff. Empowerment was unchanged. Interview themes support the consult service as an effective mode for open discussion of difficult circumstances and an important aspect of a healthy work environment. Conclusions: Moral distress consultation is an organization-wide mechanism for addressing moral distress. Consultation does not resolve moral distress but helps staff identify strategies to improve the situation. Further studies including follow up may elucidate consultation effectiveness. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to define some new operation laws for the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy number and Hamming distance. Furthermore, we define and use the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy TOPSIS method to solve the multi criteria decision making (MCDM) method. The new ranking method for trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy numbers (TrLCFNs) are used to rank the alternatives. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify and prove the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Examining the coverage of the 2016 US Presidential election of the highest circulating New Zealand newspaper—the New Zealand Herald (NZH)—this study argues that this newspaper sets agenda against Donald Trump—the Republican Party candidate in the 2016 US election. Examining all news, editorials and photographs published in NZH, it discursively argues that this newspaper overshadowed and dehumanized Trump and especially his leadership ability. The other major candidate—the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton—was applauded in the coverage. The NZH repeatedly focused upon the (...) activities of Trump through news, views and images to dehumanize him. The repetition, therefore, does not necessarily mean that a particular media outlet favors a particular candidate. It also argues that the media outlet of a distant nation that cannot influence its reader to vote for a particular candidate may still set the agenda in favor of a candidate. (shrink)

Why, when asking oneself whether to believe that p, must one immediately recognize that this question is settled by, and only by, answering the question whether p is true? Truth is not an optional end for first-personal doxastic deliberation, providing an instrumental or extrinsic reason that an agent may take or leave at will. Otherwise there would be an inferential step between discovering the truth with respect to p and determining whether to believe that p, involving a bridge premise that (...) it is good (in whichever sense of good one likes, moral, prudential, aesthetic, allthings-considered, etc.) to believe the truth with respect to p. But there is no such gap between the two questions within the first-personal deliberative perspective; the question whether to believe that p seems to collapse into the question whether p is true. (shrink)

This study aims to draw a gender based analysis of social and economic conditions of child labourers living in Karachi. Globally the issue of child labour is growing constantly and children are engaged in all sorts of hazardous forms of work, like adults, which deprives them from education, healthy life, child hood activities and balanced diet. In Pakistan the child labour is very common in all economic sectors, but it is mainly found in the informal sector and the household sector. (...) Purposive and convenience sampling techniques of non-probability sampling are used to collect data through structured questionnaire from 900 respondents from eighteen administrative districts of Karachi, which is based upon primarily quantitative and narrowly focused qualitative research methods. The findings of the study reveal that mostly children between the ages of 12 to 14 years are commonly inducted in different economic sectors. This clear violation of child rights makes them vulnerable to health and safety threats and putting them forcefully in hazardous occupations to earn bread and butter for their family by compromising their education. (shrink)

Allocating access to unapproved COVID-19 drugs available via Pre-Approval Access pathways or Emergency Use Authorization raises unique challenges at the intersection of clinical care and research....

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 17-19.

When we deliberate whether to believe some proposition, we feel immediately compelled to look for evidence of its truth. Philosophers have labelled this feature of doxastic deliberation 'transparency'. I argue that resolving the disagreement in the ethics of belief between evidentialists and pragmatists turns on the correct explanation of transparency. My hypothesis is that it reflects a conceptual truth about belief: a belief that p is correct if and only if p. This normative truth entails that only evidence can be (...) a reason for belief. Although evidentialism does not follow directly from the mere psychological truth that we cannot believe for non-evidential reasons, it does follow directly from the normative conceptual truth about belief which explains why we cannot do so. (shrink)