Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms generally come on slowly over time. Early in the disease, the most obvious are shaking, rigidity, slowness of movement, and difficulty with walking. Doctors do not know what causes it and finds difficulty in early diagnosing the presence of Parkinson’s disease. An artificial neural network system with back propagation algorithm is presented in this paper for helping doctors in identifying (...) PD. Previous research with regards to predict the presence of the PD has shown accuracy rates up to 93% [1]; however, accuracy of prediction for small classes is reduced. The proposed design of the neural network system causes a significant increase of robustness. It is also has shown that networks recognition rates reached 100%. (shrink)

Based on case studies of religious Muslim and Christian family firms operating in a religiously diverse country, we explain the multiplicity of family, business, religion, and community logics in the family firm. In particular, we give attention to the religion logic and how it interacts with other logics when family firms are considering ethical issues. We show that religion has a rule-based approach in Muslim family firms and a principle-based approach in Christian family firms. We also draw attention to the (...) fluidity characteristic of the religion logic, through which family firms interpret the role of religion among other logics in influencing ethical decisions. Our study advances institutional logics literature in highlighting the plurality between and within logics in family firms, and contributes to the growing recognition of the influence of religious beliefs on the ethical behaviors of family firms. (shrink)

A constantly changing social reality means economic theories, even if correct today, need to be constantly revised, updated, or abandoned. To maintain an up-to-date understanding of its subject matter, economists have to continuously assess their theories even those that appear to be empirically corroborated. Economics could gain from a method that describes and is capable of generating novel explanatory hypotheses. A pessimistic view on the existence of such a method was famously articulated by Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific (...) Discovery. He wrote ‘there is no such a thing as a logical method of having ideas or a logical reconstruction of this process.’ Herbert Simon responded to Popper and argued the opposite, namely, that there is a model of discovery and its name is abduction. Simon acknowledges his debt to Charles Peirce – the first modern logician to explicitly formulate a theory of abduction – and explains that abduction is a model of discovery that works as a problem-solving heuristic encoded.. (shrink)

The main aim of this study is to undertake a critical examination of the ethical and developmental performance of an Islamic bank as communicated in its annual reports over a period of 28 years. Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited’s ethical performance and disclosures are further analyzed through interviews conducted with the bank’s senior management. The key findings include an overall increase in ethical disclosures during the study period. However, the focus on various stakeholders’ needs has varied over time reflecting the evolving (...) nature of the Islamic finance industry over the last three decades. Based on a secular economy, IBBL focused in the first two decades on the “Particular” Shariah compliance disclosure as a way of establishing its reputation and differentiating itself from conventional banks in a dual banking system. Post 2005, the ethical performance and disclosure shifted to more “Universal” disclosures such as sustainability, charity, employees, and community related disclosures signaling responsible conduct and the bank’s adoption of a “wider stakeholder approach.” However the bank is still failing to provide full disclosure on certain significant categories such as sources and uses of disposable income, thereby contradicting the principles of full and comprehensive disclosure and accountability. In addition, the structure of IBBL’s investment portfolio reveals an overreliance on debt-based financial instruments and a shortcoming in fulfilling the developmental and social objectives of Islamic finance. This is evidenced by the “qualified” Shariah Supervisory Board reports that the bank consistently received. This research provides further evidence that Islamic banking and Finance in its current practices reflect the “global” and the “local” influences in an era dominated by global conventional finance. (shrink)

We focus on two aspects: First, we argue that it is necessary to include implicit forgiveness as an additional adaptive behavioral option to the perception of interpersonal transgressions. Second, we present one possible way to investigate the cognitive-affective underpinnings of revenge and forgiveness: a functional MRI (fMRI) approach aiming at integrating forgiveness and revenge mechanisms into a single paradigm.

ABSTRACTThis paper is about a little known part of Allais’ oeuvre, namely his restatement of the quantity theory of money. It shows that this restatement contains an original refinement of the notion of stability of the relative demand for money. To explain this refinement, this essay investigates Allais’ concept of psychological time – a concept strongly emphasised but not duly examined by most of his commentators. It shows how Allais’ restatement of the quantity theory amounts – in the final analysis (...) – to a theory of time. It explores an analogy, Allais mentioned, between his quantity theory and the theory of relativity in physics, revealing thereby the ontological nature of this restatement. (shrink)

Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler's [. Experimental tests of the endowment effect and the Coase theorem. Journal of Political Economy, 98, 1325–1348] experiment on the Coase theorem disrupted a s...

The backward induction controversy in game theory flared up and then practically ended within a decade – the 1990s. The protagonists, however, did not converge on an agreement about the source of the controversy. Why was this the case, if opposing sides had access to the same modelling techniques and empirical facts? In this paper I offer an explanation for this controversy and its unsettled end. The answer is not to be found in the modelling claims made by the opposing (...) protagonists, but in the tacit metaphors they operate under. Aristotle defined metaphor as giving a 'thing a name that belongs to something else'. The meaning of metaphors has not changed much since then – in contrast to models which are comparatively new, and still not well-understood, scientific tools. The controversy of backward induction in game theory provides a test bed for the explanatory power of metaphors. This paper frames the controversy in terms of metaphor choice to provide a common framework for the protagonists. This results in the identification of three different domains – mathematical logic, game theory and the world – each connected to the other via different metaphors. The controversy around backward induction is placed in, and tentatively explained by, this framework. (shrink)

My main argument is that the advice offered to experimental psychologists by Hertwig & Ortmann overlooks fundamental differences between the goals of researchers in psychology and economics. Furthermore, it is argued that the reduction of data variability is not always an end to be sought by psychologists. Variability that originates in individual differences constitutes valuable data for psychological research.

Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent who may be (...) uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. (shrink)

Using as a springboard a three-way debate between theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright and myself, I address in layman’s terms the issues of why we need a unified theory of the fundamental interactions and why, in my opinion, string and M-theory currently offer the best hope. The focus will be on responding more generally to the various criticisms. I also describe the diverse application of string/M-theory techniques to other branches of physics and mathematics which render the (...) whole enterprise worthwhile whether or not “a theory of everything” is forthcoming. (shrink)

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

Recently two distinct forms of rule-utilitarianism have been introduced that differ on how to measure the consequences of rules. Brad Hooker advocates fixed-rate rule-utilitarianism, while Michael Ridge advocates variable-rate rule-utilitarianism. I argue that both of these are inferior to a new proposal, optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism. According to optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism, an ideal code is the code whose optimum acceptance level is no lower than that of any alternative code. I then argue that all three forms of rule-utilitarianism fall prey to two fatal (...) problems that leave us without any viable form of rule-utilitarianism. (shrink)

Listening to someone from some distance in a crowded room you may experience the following phenomenon: when looking at them speak, you may both hear and see where the source of the sounds is; but when your eyes are turned elsewhere, you may no longer be able to detect exactly where the voice must be coming from. With your eyes again fixed on the speaker, and the movement of her lips a clear sense of the source of the sound will (...) return. This ‘ventriloquist’ effect reflects the ways in which visual cognition can dominate auditory perception. And this phenomenological observation is one what you can verify or disconfirm in your own case just by the slightest reflection on what it is like for you to listen to someone with or without visual contact with them. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a deterministic time discrete mathematical model based on multiregional periodic matrices to describe the dynamics of Sardina pilchardus in the Central Atlantic area of the Moroccan coast. This model deals with two stages (immature and mature) and three spatial zones where sardines are supposed to migrate from one zone to another. The population dynamics is described by an autonomous recurrence equation N ( t + 1) = A . N ( t ), where A is (...) a positive matrix whose entries are estimated using data collected during biannual acoustic surveys carried out from 2001 to 2003 onboard the Norwegian research vessel “Dr Fridtjof Nansen”. The dominant eigenvalue λ of A that gives the long-term growth rate of fish population is smaller than one. This agrees with the stock decrease observed in the data collected. We show that λ is highly sensitive to the recruitment rate and much less sensitive to the reproduction rate. These results can clearly be used to define an efficient scenario in order to fight for instance against a stock decrease. (shrink)

A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects, to determine whether some components are more impaired than others. We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia (...) and a matching control group. Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R. The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM. Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM. (shrink)

In the years 1878 and 1879 the American physicist Alfred Marshall Mayer published his experiments with floating magnets as a didactic illustration of molecular actions and forms. A number of physicists made use of this analogy of molecular structure. For William Thomson they were a mechanical illustration of the kinetic equilibrium of groups of columnar vortices revolving in circles round their common centre of gravity . A number of modifications of Mayer's experiments were described, which gave configurations which were more (...) or less analogous to Mayer's arrangements. It was Joseph John Thomson who, in publications between 1897 and 1907, used Mayer's results to obtain a good deal of insight into the general laws which govern the configuration of the electrons in his atomic model. This article is mainly concerned with Mayer's experiments with floating magnets and their use by a number of physicists. Through his experiments Mayer made a significant, although small, contribution to the theory of atomic structure. (shrink)

In his article ‘Saints and Heroes’, Urmson argues that traditional moral theories allow at most for a threefold classification of actions in terms of their worth, and that they are therefore unsatisfactory. Since the conclusion of his argument has led to the widespread use of the term ‘acts of supererogation’, and since I do not believe that such acts exist, I propose to argue that the actions with which he is concerned not only can, but should, be contained within the (...) traditional classification. (shrink)