According to the principles of transcendent philosophy, the human soul as a contingent existence after being created in this world has a continuous motion from an actuality to another one until becoming immaterial. This means that he leaves his body and continues to his evolution immaterially. According to the principle of “Impossibility of Return” it seems impossible for human being to return to the mundane life after his death. This belief is apparently inconsistent with the Islamic doctrine of “dead human (...) beings’ return to the life”. So, since transcendent philosophers reject the doctrine of reincarnation on the basis of the principle of “Impossibility of Return”, they should explain the doctrine of Raj’ah in a consistent way. Sayyed Abolhasan Rafī’ee-Qazvīnī is one of the few transcendent philosophers who have taken this issue into account. Although he validates the principle of Impossibility of Return, he asserts that it does not include the doctrine of Raj’ah. He tries to defend the doctrine of Raj’ah and differentiate it from the doctrine of reincarnation through a couple of philosophical principles. For example he accepts that Coercion does not last and every existent has its exclusive existential influence which is necessarily emergent. (shrink)

The present article is trying to study the alliance of religion and philosophy, from Farabi's view, by citing to his works. In this regard, first, we analyzed the historical reasons for the need for philosophy, then we will introduce the Farabi's purposes for constitution of this alliance, through which the necessity of this alliance becomes clear. The main claim of the article is that Farabi correlates the two through two different ways. The first depends upon the historical procedure of the (...) emergence of the language. Accordingly, philosophy would be chronologically prior to religion. And in the second way, he explains the relation between the two, by considering their methodological distinctions, toward pedagogy. Then we can claim that the first way is criticizable but the second is defensible. (shrink)

Phenomenal Conservatism is an approach to epistemological justification that, based on "appearances" and "seemings" and in line with the theory of common sense epistemology, attempt to set up an internal and non-inferential justification, at least for some kind of beliefs. According to this view, justification and non-justification have a direct relationship with the mental state of the agent. Based on this assumption that “Things are as they seem”, phenomenal conservatism offers its central idea that if, for an agent, something seems (...) to be true -and there is no defeater for that until doubting in - that agent thereby has at least some justification for believing that. In this article, we will interpret this new approach with an empathetic attitude and, in addition to explaining its main components, we will effort to answer the most important objections of phenomenal conservatism and show that this view is a significant approach to the justification and rationality of human beliefs. (shrink)

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental disorders. Present treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacological treatments show only moderate success, which emphasizes the importance for the development of new treatment protocols. Non-invasive brain stimulation methods such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation have been probed as therapeutic option for anxiety disorders in recent years. Mechanistic information about their mode of action, and most efficient protocols is however limited. Here the fear extinction model can (...) serve as a model of exposure therapies for studying therapeutic mechanisms, and development of appropriate intervention protocols. We systematically reviewed 30 research articles that investigated the impact of rTMS and tDCS on fear memory and extinction in animal models and humans, in clinical and healthy populations. The results of these studies suggest that tDCS and rTMS can be efficient methods to modulate fear memory and extinction. Furthermore, excitability-enhancing stimulation applied over the vmPFC showed the strongest potential to enhance fear extinction. We further discuss factors that determine the efficacy of rTMS and tDCS in the context of the fear extinction model and provide future directions to optimize parameters and protocols of stimulation for research and treatment. (shrink)

Divided into five parts, the book provides general background information on Biruni's time, his world, and his life. It includes the full names of the 183 books written by Biruni. The titles of these books are given in Arabic, Persian, transliteration of the Arabic title, and English, and they are all annotated and if available the number of folios is given for each one. A list of available references in English on Biruni, including articles, bibliographies, books, internet sites, a dissertation, (...) and even a film. A list of Persian reference sources is also included. (shrink)

The influence of popular management gurus derives from two factors: the willingness of their management audience to outsource or subcontract thinking and the ability of gurus to deliver apparently relatively simple messages to an audience that probably does not want or need to think deeply, while retaining their leadership status. As managers look to management gurus to provide them only with reasons to be, to behave or act as opposed to reasons to think, per se, the nature of a popular (...) guru’s output can never address the unseen innovating process which true leadership demands. As a result, popular management gurus are not in a position to promote insights, awakening or higher consciousness in others and cannot fulfil the traditional raison d’être of a guru as an enlightened being. The output of popular management gurus probably communicates more about their audience than it usefully communicates about the guru’s thinking. (shrink)

Even though health care provider reporting of diseases to public health authorities is common, often there is under-reporting by providers, including for notifiable diseases; frequently, under-reporting occurs by wide margins. Two causal factors for this under-reporting by providers have been that: disclosing data may violate their patients’ privacy, and disclosed data may be used to evaluate their performance. A reluctance to disclose information due to privacy concerns exists despite the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule permitting disclosures (...) of personal health information for public health purposes without patient authorization. On the other hand, such patient privacy concerns are somewhat justified: there have been documented breaches of patient information from public health data custodians.A common way to address this privacy issue is to de-identify patient data before it is disclosed to public health. (shrink)

This article provides the findings of a quantitative and qualitative study of participants from the prematurely cancelled Ontario Basic Income Pilot in the Hamilton region. We compare our evidence with those of other large-scale experiments from the high-income countries between 1968 and 2019 to place OBIP’s findings in the context of evidence from randomized control experiments with similar policy conditions to Ontario’s. Our study identified a small decline in labour market participation, but improvements on a variety of quality-of-life measurements. We (...) hypothesize that OBIPs comparatively positive results on general well-being can be attributed to its: i) generous benefit rates relative to social assistance rates; ii) 50 percent take back rate; and iii) unconditionality; iv) broad well-being/welfare design. (shrink)

It is well known that the notion of transcendental logic has a prominent role in both Kant’s and Husserl’s theories of knowledge. The main aim of the present paper is to study the links between formal and transcendental logic in Husserl on the one hand, and the links between general logic and transcendental logic in Kant on the other. There is a debate about the proper relation between transcendental logic and general logic in Kant’s philosophy. By means of our definition (...) of transcendental logic, mainly drawn from Husserl’s analyses, we will try to offer an appropriate interpretation of Kant’s view. (shrink)

Background:Emergency care providers are frequently faces with situations in which they have to make decisions quickly in stressful situations. They face barriers to ethical decision-making and recognizing and finding solutions to these barriers helps them to make ethical decision.Objectives:The purpose of this study was to identify barriers of ethical decision-making in Iranian Emergency Medical Service personnel.Methods:In this qualitative research, the participants (n = 15) were selected using the purposive sampling method, and the data were collected by deep and semi-structured interviews. (...) Finally, the data are analyzed using the content analysis approach.Ethical considerations:Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. The objectives of the study were explained to the participants and written consent was received from them. Also, participants were assured that necessary measures were taken to protect their anonymity and confidentiality.Findings:The results of the analysis are classified in five main categories. It encompasses the following areas: perception of situation, patient-related factors, input and output imbalance, uncoordinated health system, and paradoxes.Conclusion:Emergency Medical Service personnel make ethical decisions every day. It is important that prehospital personnel know how to manage those decisions properly so that clients’ moral rights are respected. Hence, by identifying the dimensions and obstacles of ethical decision-making in Emergency Medical Service personnel, it is possible to enhance the moral judgment and ethical accountability of the personnel and develop the strategies necessary for ethical decision-making in them. (shrink)

The psychological cost on emotional well-being due to the collateral damage brought about by COVID-19 in accessing oncological services for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment has been documented by recent studies in the United Kingdom. The current study set out to examine the effect of delays to scheduled oncology services on emotional and cognitive vulnerability in women with a breast cancer diagnosis in Iran, one of the very first countries to be heavily impacted by COVID-19. One hundred thirty-nine women with (...) a diagnosis of primary breast cancer answered a series of online questionnaires to assess the current state of rumination, worry, and cognitive vulnerability as well as the emotional impact of COVID-19 on their mental health. Results indicated that delays in accessing oncology services significantly increased COVID related emotional vulnerability. Regression analyses revealed that after controlling for the effects of sociodemographic and clinical variables, women’s COVID related emotional vulnerability explained higher levels of ruminative response and chronic worry as well as poorer cognitive function. This study is the first in Iran to demonstrate that the effects of COVID-19 on emotional health amongst women affected by breast cancer can exaggerate anxiety and depressive related symptoms increasing risks for clinical levels of these disorders. Our findings call for an urgent need to address these risks using targeted interventions exercising resilience. (shrink)

The influence of popular management gurus derives from two factors: the willingness of their management audience to outsource or subcontract thinking and the ability of gurus to deliver apparently relatively simple messages to an audience that probably does not want or need to think deeply, while retaining their leadership status. As managers look to management gurus to provide them only with reasons to be, to behave or act as opposed to reasons to think, per se, the nature of a popular (...) guru’s output can never address the unseen innovating process which true leadership demands. As a result, popular management gurus are not in a position to promote insights, awakening or higher consciousness in others and cannot fulfil the traditional raison d’être of a guru as an enlightened being. The output of popular management gurus probably communicates more about their audience than it usefully communicates about the guru’s thinking. (shrink)

This study examines the contestability of “relevance” as an abstract construction with no fixed meaning when applied, and questions its usage in the research quality debate. It finds that different research agendas and approaches have their own idiosyncratic logic and that any logic has its own criteria for assessing quality which cannot be applied to assess the quality of others. This is illustrated by delineating practitioner-led research from academic-led research and by comparing and contrasting research perspectives as examples. The research (...) quality debate becomes meaningless when it is limited to a singular research agenda or approach as in practice these are invariably combined. Having said this, however, every agenda and approach can be argued to be legitimate as potentially each can find what otherwise cannot be noticed. As a result, this study challenges the conventional unitarist wisdom that conceptualises knowledge as commodity, and suggests instead that heterogeneity, linked to tolerance and relative independence of means and mind, free from the control or influence of others to enable critical distance from context and status quo and facilitate judgement, is the key to those seeking a meaningful research quality debate that acknowledges tolerance of the diversity of knowledge, difference, contestation and struggle. Although such heterogeneity may at first appear to add confusion rather than clarity, without first looking at this heterogeneity it is not possible to develop a dialogue, in the context of the present neo-liberal post-political drift that emphasises consensus, the annulment of dissensus and diverts attention from relationships of power, through which a positive contribution can be made to the research quality debate. (shrink)

Organisations are socially constructed in that their members are socialised in a world of language that enables them to understand, communicate and share. They use language to create patterns that help them make choices and relate their actions to the patterns they create and the choices they make. The world of organisations and their management is, therefore, a matter of language. In this world, rationality plays a fundamental role in legitimising choices together with the actions that express them. This study (...) suggests that the limited expressive resources of a dominant version of rationality limit the world of management in a way that undermines its legitimacy and that it is possible for management to break free from this limited world by learning to think in other languages that express contrasting versions of rationality. (shrink)

Background:Experiencing moral distress is traumatic for nurses. Ignoring moral distress can lead to job dissatisfaction, improper handling in the care of patients, or even leaving the job. Thus, it is crucial to use valid and reliable instruments to measure moral distress.Objective:The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability and the validity of the Persian version of the Moral Distress Scale–Revised among a sample of Iranian nurses.Research design:In this methodological study, 310 nurses were recruited from all hospitals affiliated with (...) the Qazvin University of Medical Sciences from February 2014 to April 2015. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and the Moral Distress Scale–Revised. The construct validity of the Moral Distress Scale–Revised was evaluated using principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Internal consistency reliability was assessed with Cronbach’s alpha.Ethical considerations:This study was approved by the Regional Committee of Medical Research Ethics. The ethical principles of voluntary participation, anonymity, and confidentiality were considered.Findings:The construct validity of the scale showed four factors with eigenvalues greater than one. The model had a good fit ( χ2(162) = 307.561, χ2/ df = 1.899, goodness-of-fit index =.904, comparative fit index =.927, incremental fit index =.929, and root mean square error of approximation (90% confidence interval) =.049 (.040–.057)) with all factor loadings greater than.5 and statistically significant. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were.853,.686,.685, and.711for the four factors. Moreover, the model structure was invariant across different income groups.Discussion and conclusion:The Persian version of the Moral Distress Scale–Revised demonstrated suitable validity and reliability among nurses. The factor analysis also revealed that the Moral Distress Scale–Revised has a multidimensional structure. Regarding the proper psychometric characteristics, the validated scale can be used to further research about moral distress in this population. (shrink)

(2013). A Review of Evidence on Consent Bias in Research. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 42-44. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.767958.

Background Moral distress is a complex and challenging issue in the nursing profession that can negatively affect the nurses’ job satisfaction and retention and the quality of patient care. This study focused on describing the resources and constraints, consequences, and interventions of moral distress in nurses. Methods In a literature review, an extensive electronic search was conducted in databases including PubMed, ISI, Scopus as well as Google Scholar search engine using the keywords including “moral distress” and “nurses” to identify resources, (...) constraints, consequences, and interventions about moral distress in nurses, from the earliest records up to 26 December 2020. The required data were extracted from 61 relevant studies by two independent reviewers. Results Resources and constraints in the occurrence of moral distress among nurses can be divided into three general categories including internal factors, clinical factors, and external factors. The consequences of moral distress on nurses and the medical system reduced moral sensitivity, development of psychological and physical health problems, and the intention to leave the profession. The potential effective interventions were the implementation of integrated communication programs, strengthening physician–nurse collaboration, nursing involvement in clinical decision-making and end-of-life issues, social support, using a resiliency bundle, interdisciplinary discussion, and promoting nurses’ ethical and communication skills. Conclusion There are a wide range of resources and constraints impacting moral distress in nurses that could lead to negative consequences. Further studies are necessary to identify, evaluate, and implement a range of potential effective interventions for the management of moral distress in nurses. (shrink)

Some authors have proposed that Avicenna considers mathematical objects, i.e., geometric shapes and numbers, to be mental existents completely separated from matter. In this paper, I will show that this description, though not completely wrong, is misleading. Avicenna endorses, I will argue, some sort of literalism, potentialism, and finitism.

There has recently been a surge of development in augmented reality (AR) technologies that has led to an ecosystem of hardware and software for AR, including tools for artists and designers to accelerate the design of AR content and experiences without requiring complex programming. AR is viewed as a key “disruptive technology” and future display technologies (such as digital eyewear) will provide seamless continuity between reality and the digitally augmented. This article will argue that the technologization of human perception and (...) experience of reality, coupled with the development of artificial intelligence (AI)–based natural language assistants, may lead to a secular re‐enchantment of the world, in the sense outlined by Charles Taylor, where human existence is shaped through AR inhabited by advanced personal and social AI agents in the form of digital avatars and daemons, and that enchantment has been persistent throughout the formation of modernity and is being rekindled by the integration of AI in the plane of AR. (shrink)

Decision-makers in governments, enterprises, businesses and agencies or individuals, typically, make decisions according to various regulations, guidelines and policies based on existing records stored in various databases, in particular, relational databases. To assist decision-makers, an expert system, encompasses interactive computer-based systems or subsystems to support the decision-making process. Typically, most expert systems are built on top of transaction systems, databases, and data models and restricted in decision-making to the analysis, processing and presenting data and information, and they do not provide (...) support for the normative layer. This paper will provide a solution to one specific problem that arises from this situation, namely the lack of tool/mechanism to demonstrate how an expert system is well-suited for supporting decision-making activities drawn from existing records and relevant legal requirements aligned existing records stored in various databases.We present a Rule-based reporting systems architecture, which is intended to integrate databases, in particular, relational databases, with a logic-based reasoner and rule engine to assist in decision-making or create reports according to legal norms. We argue that the resulting RuleRS provides an efficient and flexible solution to the problem at hand using defeasible inference. To this end, we have also conducted empirical evaluations of RuleRS performance. (shrink)

This paper introduces the novel concept of Neutro-BCK-algebra. In Neutro-BCK-algebra, the outcome of any given two elements under an underlying operation (neutro-sophication procedure) has three cases, such as: appurtenance, non-appurtenance, or indeterminate.

A generic extension of the constructible universe by reals is defined, in which the union of ‐classes of x and y is a lightface set, but neither of these two ‐classes is separately ordinal‐definable.

Religiosity has been linked with prosocial behavior and a preference for religious ingroups over outgroups. Yet, there are important differences in religious people’s beliefs, values, and practices. Fundamental and quest orientation toward religion may differentially predict intergroup bias in prosociality. Also, individualizing and binding moral foundations may have diverse effects on ingroup and outgroup bias in helping, as moral foundations theory suggests that individualizing and binding foundations differ in how much they focus on ingroup and outgroup moral considerations. In this (...) study, we examined the relationship between religious dimensions, moral foundations, prosocial behavior, and intergroup bias in helping. We found evidence for the effect of individualizing foundations, religious fundamentalism, and quest religion above and beyond demographics and other religious dimensions on intergroup bias in helping. Furthermore, there were independent positive effects of individualizing foundations, religious activity, and age, and independent negative effects of female gender and religious fundamentalism on prosocial behavior. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of the relations between religion, prosociality, and moral intuitions in a Muslim context. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss ethical issues related to using and disclosing artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT and other systems based on large language models (LLMs), to write or edit scholarly manuscripts. Some journals, such as Science, have banned the use of LLMs because of the ethical problems they raise concerning responsible authorship. We argue that this is not a reasonable response to the moral conundrums created by the use of LLMs because bans are unenforceable and would encourage (...) undisclosed use of LLMs. Furthermore, LLMs can be useful in writing, reviewing and editing text, and promote equity in science. Others have argued that LLMs should be mentioned in the acknowledgments since they do not meet all the authorship criteria. We argue that naming LLMs as authors or mentioning them in the acknowledgments are both inappropriate forms of recognition because LLMs do not have free will and therefore cannot be held morally or legally responsible for what they do. Tools in general, and software in particular, are usually cited in-text, followed by being mentioned in the references. We provide suggestions to improve APA Style for referencing ChatGPT to specifically indicate the contributor who used LLMs (because interactions are stored on personal user accounts), the used version and model (because the same version could use different language models and generate dissimilar responses, e.g., ChatGPT May 12 Version GPT3.5 or GPT4), and the time of usage (because LLMs evolve fast and generate dissimilar responses over time). We recommend that researchers who use LLMs: (1) disclose their use in the introduction or methods section to transparently describe details such as used prompts and note which parts of the text are affected, (2) use in-text citations and references (to recognize their used applications and improve findability and indexing), and (3) record and submit their relevant interactions with LLMs as supplementary material or appendices. (shrink)

Background:The concept of patient advocacy is still poorly understood and not clearly conceptualized. Therefore, there is a gap between the ideal of patient advocacy and the reality of practice. In order to increase nursing actions as a patient advocate, a comprehensive and clear definition of this concept is necessary.Research objective:This study aimed to offer a comprehensive and clear definition of patient advocacy.Research design:A total of 46 articles and 2 books published between 1850 and 2016 and related to the concept of (...) patient advocacy were selected from six databases and considered for concept analysis based on Rodgers’ evolutionary approach.Ethical considerations:This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tarbiat Modares University.Findings:The attributes of patient advocacy are safeguarding (track medical errors, and protecting patients from incompetency or misconduct of co-workers and other members of healthcare team), apprising (providing information about the patient’s diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, suggesting alternatives of healthcare, and providing information about discharge program), valuing (maintaining self-control, enabling patients to make decisions freely, maintaining individualization and humanity, maintaining patient privacy, and acting in the patients’ values, culture, beliefs, and preferences), mediating (liaison between patients, families, and healthcare professionals, being patients’ voice, and communicate patient preferences and cultural values to members of the healthcare team), and championing social justice in the provision of healthcare (confronting inappropriate policies or rules in the healthcare system, identifying and correcting inequalities in delivery of health services, and facilitating access to community health services and health resources).Discussion and conclusion:The analysis of this concept can help to develop educational or managerial theories, design instruments for evaluating the performance of nurses in patient advocacy, develop strategies for enhancing patient advocacy, and improve the safety and quality of nursing care in the community and healthcare system. (shrink)

In this note I discuss some issues around the law of Identity of Indiscernibles and, above all, its difference with the so-called law of indiscernibilty of identicals. In this way I distinguish between the notions identity, sameness and equality, through a phenomenological discussion and using the key idea of intentionality. In order to formulate the Leibnizian law of Identity of Indiscernibles, and examine its validity, we need higher order logic. I will give semantic rules for a second-order logic with identity (...) in the framework of the dialogical logic, introduced by P. Lorenzen. Then I will demonstrate the validity of the law of Identity of Indiscernibles by means of the introduced logic. (shrink)

During the fifth to the seventh centuries after Hegira, the Shiites did not have significant political power in the Islamic World and had a minority population. Yet despite these limitations, the Shiites left behind numerous works a large part of which is destroyed by religious prejudices or negligence leaving the Islamic Civilization bereft of these scientific treasures. By introducing the historiographical works of the Imami Shiites, this study attempts to clarify their station in historiography and to demonstrate that Shia has (...) had valuable works in different historiographical fields in proportion with sociopolitical circumstances and thereby address the richness of Islamic culture and civilization and show that deprivations have had no influence on Shia’s creation of scientific works. Furthermore, Shiites’ attention to historiography in different fields including Rejaal (Note 1) and Taraajom (Note 2), Dala’el (Note 3), history and lives of the Innocent Ones (Ma’sumin) and historical-theological books and using Hadiths have been very important in compiling these works. (shrink)

This article explores the impact of an Increase in the average Number of Authors per Publication on known ethical issues of authorship. For this purpose, the ten most common ethical issues associated with scholarly authorship are used to set up a taxonomy of existing issues and raise awareness among the community to take precautionary measures and adopt best practices to minimize the negative impact of INAP. We confirm that intense international, interdisciplinary and complex collaborations are necessary, and INAP is an (...) expression of this trend. However, perverse incentives aimed to increase institutional and personal publication counts and egregious instances of guest or honorary authorship are problematic. We argue that whether INAP is due to increased complexity and scale of science, perverse incentives or undeserved authorship, it could negatively affect known ethical issues of authorship at some level. In the long run, INAP depreciates the value of authorship status and may disproportionately impact junior researchers and those who contribute to technical and routine tasks. We provide two suggestions that could reduce the long-term impact of INAP on the reward system of science. First, we suggest further refinement of the CRediT taxonomy including better integration into current systems of attribution and acknowledgement, and better harmony with major authorship guidelines such as those suggested by the ICMJE. Second, we propose adjustments to the academic recognition and promotion systems at an institutional level as well as the introduction of best practices. (shrink)

The study contributes to building an understanding of the impact of political forces on the information environment of listed firms in a developing economy. Specifically, it investigates the tensions between politico-institutional factors and accounting regulation on the prolonged and incomplete implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards in Bangladesh from 1998 to 2010. Two phases of interviews were conducted in 2010–2011 and IFRS-related enforcement documents from 1998 to 2010 were evaluated. The study contributes that IFRSs are being diffused to developing (...) countries like Bangladesh, but they invariably interact with local institutions, with variable outcomes. Coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphisms are low in Bangladesh. Notably, political forces have been undermining mimetic isomorphism because of the high level of government intervention and the high level of political lobbying. Political institutional pressures stand in the way of mimetic isomorphism and constitute negative forces that add further tension to accounting regulation in Bangladesh. Regarding the low level of normative isomorphism, there is evidence of a ‘blame culture’, with state institutions and professional accountancy institutions in the country blaming each other for the poor progress in IFRS implementation. Although the study focuses on Bangladesh, its results have implications for international policy makers, as well as the governments and regulators of other developing economies facing similar challenges in implementing IFRS. (shrink)

We present an axiomatization for Basic Propositional Calculus BPC and give a completeness theorem for the class of transitive Kripke structures. We present several refinements, including a completeness theorem for irreflexive trees. The class of intermediate logics includes two maximal nodes, one being Classical Propositional Calculus CPC, the other being E1, a theory axiomatized by T → ⊥. The intersection CPC ∩ E1 is axiomatizable by the Principle of the Excluded Middle A V ∨ ⌝A. If B is a formula (...) such that → B is not derivable, then the lattice of formulas built from one propositional variable p using only the binary connectives, is isomorphically preserved if B is substituted for p. A formula → B is derivable exactly when B is provably equivalent to a formula of the form → A) →. (shrink)

This article is concerned with ‘how’ newsworthiness is constructed linguistically/discursively in a sample of Iranian crime and misbehaviour reports. This is new as both linguistic analysis of ‘crime reports’ and the context of ‘Iranian journalism’ are among under-researched areas. One-month worth editions of two Iranian/farsi language newspapers were collected, and the data were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively with reference to the analytical framework of Bednarek and Caple. While the quantitative analysis showed the construction of Eliteness as the most frequent (...) news value in both newspapers, there were differences in the construction of news values between the newspapers. Qualitative analysis of the data also showed the construction of news values in line with the sociocultural values prevalent in the society as well as the possible role of state and political authorities. (shrink)

This intriguing work offers a new perspective on Islamic Peripatetic philosophy, critiquing modern receptions of such thought and highlighting the contribution it can make to contemporary Western philosophy. Mohammad Azadpur focuses on the thought of Alfarabi and Avicenna, who, like ancient Greek philosophers and some of their successors, viewed philosophy as a series of spiritual exercises. However, Muslim Peripatetics differed from their Greek counterparts in assigning importance to prophecy. The Islamic philosophical account of the cultivation of the soul to (...) the point of prophecy unfolds new vistas of intellectual and imaginative experience and accords the philosopher an exceptional dignity and freedom. With reference to both Islamic and Western philosophers, Azadpur discusses how Islamic Peripatetic thought can provide an antidote to some of modernity’s philosophical problems. A discussion of the development of later Islamic Peripatetic thought is also included. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: BUILDING DEMOCRATIC STATES ON NATIONAL DIVERSITY Mohammad-Saïd Darviche & William Genieys Juan J. Linz is one of the most famous scholars in ...

The study is based on the author’s first-hand experiences with Muslim residents of Old Delhi. It examines how Muslim responses to their circumstances enable the.

Assuming the existence of a proper class of supercompact cardinals, we force a generic extension in which, for every regular cardinal [Formula: see text], there are [Formula: see text]-Aronszajn trees, and all such trees are special.

The article at hand presents the results of a literature review on the ethical issues related to scientific authorship. These issues are understood as questions and/or concerns about obligations, values or virtues in relation to reporting, authorship and publication of research results. For this purpose, the Web of Science core collection was searched for English resources published between 1945 and 2018, and a total of 324 items were analyzed. Based on the review of the documents, ten ethical themes have been (...) identified, some of which entail several ethical issues. Ranked on the basis of their frequency of occurrence these themes are: 1) attribution, 2) violations of the norms of authorship, 3) bias, 4) responsibility and accountability, 5) authorship order, 6) citations and referencing, 7) definition of authorship, 8) publication strategy, 9) originality, and 10) sanctions. In mapping these themes, the current article explores major ethical issue and provides a critical discussion about the application of codes of conduct, various understandings of culture, and contributing factors to unethical behavior. (shrink)

Biometrics readers are deployed in many public sites and are used for user identification and verification. Nowadays, most biometrics readers can be connected to local area networks, and consequently, they are potential targets for network attacks. This article investigates the robustness of several fingerprint and iris readers against common denial of service attacks. This investigation has been conducted using a set of laboratory experiments and DoS attack generator tools. The experiments show clearly that the tested biometric readers are very vulnerable (...) to common DoS attacks, and their recognition performances deteriorate significantly once they are under DoS attacks. Finally, the article lists some security consideration that should be taken into consideration when designing secure biometrics readers. (shrink)

Millions of children who were born during the first decade after the Islamic revolution in Iran are now reaching the age of marriage and childbearing. Short spacing between marriage and the birth of the first child has the potential to cause an excessive and costly increase in the growth of population in Iran. Research into the motivations for the birth of first child among newly married couples can create a knowledge base that will enable health centres to help these couples (...) make better decisions about the timing of their first pregnancy. Using a consecutive sampling technique and administering Miller’s Childbearing Questionnaire, data were gathered regarding the childbearing motivations and desires of 300 couples who had been referred to the Shiraz Health Center for premarital counselling. The Childbearing Questionnaire, with some minor modifications, was found to be a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the childbearing motivations of newly married couples of Shiraz County, Fars Province, Iran. The utility of these findings for counselling in health centres is discussed. Based on the results, a longitudinal study is being designed that will allow the development of models for predicting the time of first pregnancy after marriage. (shrink)

For more than a decade, Iran has been referring to a fatwa issued by its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, proscribing nuclear weapons. The fatwa, however, not only failed to influence the process that led to the resolution of Iran’s nuclear crisis, but also has been met with a good deal of skepticism. The most commonly held suspicions about the credibility of the fatwa can be summed up in five central questions: Has the nuclear fatwa actually been issued? Does the fatwa (...) apply to all the aspects of nuclear weapons including their production, possession and use? What is the juridical status of the fatwa? Was the nuclear fatwa issued only to deceive other nations? Is the fatwa really irreversible? This article tries to answer these questions by providing a chronological review of the fatwa and analyzing all the relevant statements by Khamenei. The analysis is conducted against the background of Islamic principles, Shi’a jurisprudence and the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The article concludes that the fatwa is a credible religious decree and could indeed contribute to the cause of nuclear disarmament. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles (AV) offer promising benefits to society in terms of safety, environmental impact and increased mobility. However, acute challenges persist with any novel technology, inlcuding the perceived risks and trust underlying public acceptance. While research examining the current state of AV public perceptions and future challenges related to both societal and individual barriers to trust and risk perceptions is emerging, it is highly fragmented across disciplines. To address this research gap, by using the Web of Science database, our study (...) undertakes a bibliometric and performance analysis to identify the conceptual and intellectual structures of trust and risk narratives within the AV research field by investigating engineering, social sciences, marketing, and business and infrastructure domains to offer an interdisciplinary approach. Our analysis provides an overview of the key research area across the search categories of ‘trust’ and ‘risk’. Our results show three main clusters with regard to trust and risk, namely, behavioural aspects of AV interaction; uptake and acceptance; and modelling human–automation interaction. The synthesis of the literature allows a better understanding of the public perception of AV and its historical conception and development. It further offers a robust model of public perception in AV, outlining the key themes found in the literature and, in turn, offers critical directions for future research. (shrink)

Avicenna believes that God must be understood in the first place as the Necessary Existent. In his various works, he provides different versions of an ingenious argument for the existence of the Necessary Existent—the so-called Proof of the Sincere —and argues that all the properties that are usually attributed to God can be extracted merely from God's having necessary existence. Considering the centrality of tawḥîd to Islam, the first thing Avicenna tries to extract from God's necessary existence is God's oneness. (...) The aim of the present Element is to provide a detailed discussion of Avicenna's arguments for the existence and unity of God. Through this project, the author hopes to clarify how, for Avicenna, the Islamic concept of monotheism is intertwined with the concept of essential existence. (shrink)