Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

This comprehensive text on African Mathematics addresses some of the problematic issues in the field, such as attitudes, curriculum development, educational change, academic achievement, standardized and other tests, performance factors, student characteristics, cross-cultural differences and studies, literacy, native speakers, social class and differences, equal education, teaching methods, and more.

The 2008 financial crisis exposed the dark side of the financial sector in the UK. It brought attention to the contaminated culture of the business, which accommodated the systemic malpractices that largely contributed to the financial turmoil of 2008. In the wake of the crisis there seems to be a wide consensus that this contaminated culture can no longer be accepted and needs to change. This article examines the ills of the UK financial market, more specifically the cultural contamination problem, (...) which was uncovered by the 2008 financial crisis, in order to explore its genesis and the suitable solutions for it. In this regard, the article analyses the ethical finance sector from theoretical and practical perspectives in order to assess its role in addressing the cultural contamination problem of the UK financial market. (shrink)

The impetus for this book emerged from our belief that as Africans across the globe are confronted with a myriad of challenges that have been birthed by globalization (i.e. the process of going to a more interconnected world by diminishing the world's social dimension and expansion of overall global consciousness), they must turn to their own ideas for solutions. While many books exist on individual African Isms, such as Afrocentrism, Nasserism, and Pan-Africanism, none exists that has looked at a series (...) of these Isms together. This book is the first to do so and, thus, its justification. Consequently, through this edited volume, we address the applicability of different African Isms to various issues, particularly current issues, on the continent of Africa. Each chapter provides a theoretical framework and topics or issues concerning African people of the continent. It is therefore an innovative scholarly work as no other work has examined these Isms in this manner. Thus, the ideas are quite appealing. Reexamining and applying each of the African Ism in order to challenge Eurocentric myth and reality in current African political, economic, cultural and social matters is quite logical and clear. (shrink)

This book entails four clearly articulated rubrics and overarching concepts as the foundational basis for analyzing Toyin Falola's work: biography and knowledge production, Africa in the configuration of knowledge, the Yoruba in the configuration of knowledge, and the value of knowledge in terms of policies and politics. The chapters are located within broader epistemological perspectives and undertake critical interpretations and explanations of Falola's writings. Falola's ideas are extended into greater realms of meaning by employing analytical tools from the fields of (...) political science, economics, literature, linguistics, computer science, mathematics, and religious studies. Furthermore, the book situates Falola's ideas in their historical contexts. This approach involves examining related events occurring during the times of the main events of his studies, thereby allowing readers to grasp many subtle details and background information that account for the types of meanings embedded in his writings. The originality of this book therefore hinges upon the clarity with which familiar but unconnected facts about Falola's writings are marshaled into a simpler, pluridisciplinarily analytical unity. (shrink)

This article extends the combinatorial approach to support the determination of contextuality amidst causal influences. Contextuality is an active field of study in Quantum Cognition, in systems relating to mental phenomena, such as concepts in human memory. In the cognitive field of study, a contemporary challenge facing the determination of whether a phenomenon is contextual has been the identification and management of disturbances. Whether or not said disturbances are identified through the modeling approach, constitute causal influences, or are disregardableas as (...) noise is important, as contextuality cannot be adequately determined in the presence of causal influences. To address this challenge, we first provide a formalization of necessary elements of the combinatorial approach within the language of canonical causal models. Through this formalization, we extend the combinatorial approach to support a measurement and treatment of disturbance, and offer techniques to separately distinguish noise and causal influences. Thereafter, we develop a protocol through which these elements may be represented within a cognitive experiment. As human cognition seems rife with causal influences, cognitive modelers may apply the extended combinatorial approach to practically determine the contextuality of cognitive phenomena. (shrink)

Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early-Modern Capitalism. By Nelly Hanna. Middle East Studies beyond Dominant Paradigms. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011. Pp. ix + 244. $34.95.

This collection of specially commissioned essays is the first of its kind in English on the work of Antonio Negri, the Italian philosopher and political theorist. The spectacular success of Empire , Negri's collaboration with Michael Hardt, has brought Negri's writing to a new, wider audience. A substantial body of his writing is now available to an English-speaking readership. Outstanding contributors—including Michael Hardt, Sergio Bologna, Kathi Weeks and Nick Dyer-Witheford—reveal the variety and complexity of Negri's thought and explores its unique (...) relevance to modern politics. Negri is one of the most sophisticated analyists of modern political philosophy. Philosophers and critics alike find his work both difficult and exhilarating, engaging as it does with Marx, Spinoza, Deleuze, Guattari, Tronti and others. This book is ideal for readers who want to get to grips with Negri's key themes, in particular his theories on labour, capital, power, the state and revolution. It makes a great introduction to his work for students of political philosophy, as well as providing a comprehensive critical approach for Negri enthusiasts. (shrink)

The spectacular success of Empire and Multitude has brought Antonio Negri's writing to a new and wider audience. Negri'as work is singular in its depth and expression. It can be difficult to grasp the complexity of his ideas as they are rooted in the history of philosophy. This book offers an introduction to his thinking and is ideal for readers who want to come to grips with his key themes. Contributors include Pierre Macherey, Daniel Bensai;d, Charles Wolfe, Alex Callinicos, Miguel (...) Vatter, Jason Read, Alberto Toscano, Mamut Mutman, Ted Stolze, and Judith Revel. Written with dynamism and originality, the book will appeal to anyone interested in the evolution of Negri's thought, and especially to students of political philosophy, international studies, and literary theory. This book is the sequel to The Philosophy of Antonio Negri, Volume One: Resistance in Practice , but can be read entirely independently. (shrink)

Purpose While online classes have enabled many universities to carry out their regular academic activities, they have also given rise to new and unanticipated ethical concerns. We focus on the “dark side” of online class settings and attempt to illuminate the ethical problems associated with them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the affordances stemming from the technology-user interaction that can result in negative outcomes. We also attempt to understand the context in which these deleterious affordances are actualized. (...) Design/methodology/approach We obtain the data from narratives written by students at a top private university in Bangladesh about their experiences of online classes and exams and from focus group discussions with them. We use the lens of affordance theory to identify the abilities that goal-oriented actors – primarily students – obtain from the technology-user interactions, which result in negative outcomes. We also attempt to understand the contextual actualization of those affordances through the lens of Routine Activity Theory (RAT). Findings We find three deleterious affordances and three associated deviant outcomes. Non-monitorability which results in academic dishonesty, disguiseability which results in cyber-truancy, and intrudeability which results in embarrassment and harassment. Our findings reveal a deeper underlying problem with the existing educational approach in the universities of Bangladesh and suggest that there is a need to introduce more modern teaching techniques focused on issues such as student engagement and interactive learning. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that combines affordance theory with RAT to identify unethical practices observed in online class settings in the context of a least developed country like Bangladesh and to examine the environmental components that give rise to the pre-conditions for the unethical practices to surface. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to reveal the underlying structure of issues of university students taking online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The overall design of the study includes a review of contemporary literature and field survey for data collection and analysis. Discourse of literature coupled with expert opinion has been employed for identification of issues. Interpretive Structural Modeling is used for the determination of intra-issue relationships and analyzing the underlying structure. Cross impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (...) is used as a technique for classifying issues on the basis of driving–dependence power. Results of the literature show that there are 21 major issues faced by the students taking online classes. ISM shows that lack of institutional guidelines, lack of regulators’ guidelines, stress of pandemic situation, and abrupt start of online classes are the most critical issues. MICMAC analysis reveals that there is no autonomous issue, 4 are independent, 6 other issues are dependent, and the remaining 11 are linking. This is a valuable study having practical implications for regulators, students, parents, and society to understand the current problem. It is an original attempt that contributes toward literature in the form of a structural model and a diagram of classification of issues. (shrink)

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)

Keyword extraction refers to the process of selecting most significant, relevant, and descriptive terms as keywords, which are present inside a single document. Keyword extraction has major applications in the information retrieval domain, such as analysis, summarization, indexing, and search, of documents. In this paper, we present a novel supervised technique for extraction of keywords from medium-sized documents, namely Corpus-based Contextual Semantic Smoothing. CCSS extends the concept of Contextual Semantic Smoothing, which considers term usage patterns in similar texts to improve (...) term relevance information. We introduce four more features beyond CSS as our novel contributions in this work. We systematically compare the performance of CCSS with other techniques, when implemented over INSPEC dataset, where CCSS outperforms all state-of-the-art keyphrase extraction techniques presented in the literature. (shrink)

Landslide is a critical natural geological hazard that causes severe damage to property, infrastructure, and humans. In general, some location-specific factors trigger a landslide. Wireless sensor network is an enabling technology to monitor most of the parameters associated with these factors. A challenge in landslide monitoring through WSN is that each sensed data item might be critical whereas the underlying wireless communication is often unreliable. In case of landslides, the terrains have irregular shapes, providing harsh conditions for wireless communication thereby (...) more data loss may be expected. This study focuses on the effect of lossy communication in WSN on the efficiency and accuracy of landslide monitoring systems. To this end, collaborative local data analysis is used to enable each node to decide locally whether its sensed data corresponds to a potential event-of-interest. Through extensive simulations, the performance of various landslide prediction and detection models has been evaluated. By and large, the study lets a significant insight into landslide monitoring before implementing a parameterized application for real-world deployment. (shrink)

This study aims to elaborate on how work-life balance practices influence organizational cynicism through the mediation effects of person-job fit. We collected data from 331 nurses through a self-administered survey, and we tested our hypothesized model through partial least square structural equation modeling techniques using SmartPLS software. The findings revealed that WLB practices influenced OC negatively and PJF positively. We further found that PJF negatively influenced OC and mediated WLB practices’ effect on OC. These findings imply that nurses should be (...) provided WLB practices to meet their job and home responsibilities and thus have a less cynical attitude toward the organization. (shrink)

Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logics are used to model events with imprecise, incomplete, and uncertain information. Researchers have developed numerous methods and techniques to cope with fuzziness or uncertainty. This research intends to introduce the novel concepts of complex neutrosophic relations and its types based on the idea of complex neutrosophic sets. In addition, these concepts are supported by suitable examples. A CNR discusses the quality of a relationship using the degree of membership, the degree of abstinence, and the degree (...) of nonmembership. Each of these degrees is a complex number from the unit circle in a complex plane. The real part of complex-valued degrees represents the amplitude term, while the imaginary part represents the phase term. This property empowers CNRs to model multidimensional variables. Moreover, some interesting properties and useful results have also been proved. Furthermore, the practicality of the proposed concepts is verified by an application, which discusses the use of the proposed concepts in statistical decision-making. Additionally, a comparative analysis between the novel concepts of CNRs and the existing methods is carried out. (shrink)

Considering the current global trend in the digital economy, Facebook commerce is an indispensable component of today’s digital commerce. The purpose of this research is to test the proposed model to validate current theories that evaluate the relationships between online trust and customer f-commerce usage intentions. It has also been proposed to improve usage intention by integrating the relationship between perceived value and trust in electronic commerce. The data was gathered using a structured questionnaire and analyzed with structural equation modeling. (...) In this study, gender has been discussed as a moderating factor. The findings describe the positive relationships that exist between antecedents of trust and user intentions toward f-commerce. Furthermore, according to the findings of the study, females are more concerned than males about developing their intentions to utilize f-commerce for online shopping. Theoretical and practical implications are also presented in this study. (shrink)

Drawing on social cognitive theory and social information processing theory, this study investigated how organizations' efforts to embody environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) shape consumer perception of a green corporate image through employees' environmental passion and pro-environmental behavior (PEB). To test our hypotheses, we collected multisource time-lagged data from 214 employee–customer dyads from hotel and banking sector organizations in Pakistan. The findings show that organizations' green corporate image is a function of their efforts to engage in ECSR activities as demonstrated (...) through employees' environmental passion and PEB. These findings have important implications in the environment and management domains because it can help organizations draft useful strategies to counter environmental degradation and generate a green corporate image in customers' minds through employees' green behavior. (shrink)

Energy poverty is a problem that affects developed and developing economies, and its mitigation is of great significance to social welfare. EP affects Latin American countries, and policymakers have recently attempted to address this issue, particularly in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis. It is essential to measure and evaluate EP to implement strategies and policies effectively. Using a panel quantile regression approach, we investigate the heterogeneous impact of green finance, renewable energy, and energy efficiency on EP for 33 (...) Latin American countries from 2000 to 2018. Furthermore, certain associated control variables are incorporated into our model to avoid an omitted variable bias. According to empirical results, the impact of independent variables on EP is heterogeneous. Specifically, green finance is an essential source of alleviating EP, and it has a significant positive effect across all quantiles, but it is especially strong in the middle quantiles. RE and EE significantly mitigate EP, with the strongest effects occurring at higher quantiles. By including green finance, RE, and EE as the main explanatory determinants of EP, the findings urge policymakers in Latin American countries to design a comprehensive energy conservation policy to minimize the effects of massive EP. (shrink)

Acute Myeloid Leukemia is a kind of fatal blood cancer with a high death rate caused by abnormal cells’ rapid growth in the human body. The usual method to detect AML is the manual microscopic examination of the blood sample, which is tedious and time-consuming and requires a skilled medical operator for accurate detection. In this work, we proposed an AlexNet-based classification model to detect Acute Myeloid Leukemia in microscopic blood images and compared its performance with LeNet-5-based model in Precision, (...) Recall, Accuracy, and Quadratic Loss. The experiments are conducted on a dataset of four thousand blood smear samples. The results show that AlexNet was able to identify 88.9% of images correctly with 87.4% precision and 98.58% accuracy, whereas LeNet-5 correctly identified 85.3% of images with 83.6% precision and 96.25% accuracy. (shrink)

Not only in philosophy but in religion as well, concepts such as God, World and Man are discussed quite considerably. Nevertheless, an understanding of these concepts requires careful, detailed and systematic analyses. One of the methods of achieving the same is to use a comparative framework. Within Islam, Wahdatul-Wujud is an important mystical and philosophical perspective that has witnessed a tumultuous journey. It has however played a dominant role in Islamic thought. Within Indian philosophy, Vedānta has played a very influential (...) role. Visistādvaita as a school of thought has also played a great role to interpret core philosophical concepts of Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutras. In this research paper, we attempt to provide a comparative analysis of Visistādvaita and Wahdatul-Wujud marking out the aspects of similarity and departures. What stands out as relevant and insightful as an implication of the comparative method is an understanding of these two approaches. Wahdatul-Wujud is redefined as a panentheistic philosophy which believes that God exists inside of everything, but is at the same time, transcendent of everything. In this type ofbelief, God is seen as an eternal spark of all things, the Prime Mover. Quite similarly, Visistādvaita, on the other hand is conceived as a Qualified Non- dualistic philosophy which believes in subsuming every diverse phenomena and experience under an underlying unity. (shrink)

The relevance of transcreation skills goes beyond mere translation strategy to a more sought-after service, that help equip translators with relevant employability skills. Nevertheless, the concern for the high demands of translators who possess these skills calls for a thorough training of future translators to acquire these skills. On the other hand, this will be possible if translator educators are already equipped with these skills. As such, this study aims to explore how translation educators, specifically, university lecturers can be prepared (...) to effectively address the growing need for transcreation skills. The research further explores practical techniques and approaches aimed at teaching instructors to successfully impart transcreation abilities and adequately equip students for employment in creative translation. In order to achieve the objective of this research, a quantitative research methodology was adopted, and an online research questionnaire was also utilized. Moreover, a total of ninety-seven (97) study participants were included in the online survey to express their perspectives on how the university lecturers can be trained to address demands for creative translation. The participants' replies, which constitute the primary dataset for this study, were presented and subjected to thorough analysis. Additionally, these replies provided additional clarification on the two fundamental study hypotheses. The study results highlighted several fundamental elements connected with transcreation skills, including bilingual proficiency, creative writing, cultural sensitivity, and multimedia proficiency. Based on the analyzed data, the research revealed that adoption of practical strategies and methodologies such as professional development, inclusion of transcreation projects in translation training module, collaboration with industry experts, and technology integration helps to train translation educators to effectively teach transcreation skills. The study, however, recommends combination of these identified strategies for effective training of university lecturers. (shrink)

This book analyses the state of development of Muslims at the regional level. It explains the linkages between the findings of global, national, and state-level studies with regard to the current status of Muslims and broadens understanding of Muslims and their participation in virtually all major sectors, including the economy, housing, demography, health, migration, state policy, and affirmative action. The book presents the challenges faced by the community and reflects upon the socio-economic and educational conditions of Muslims in Telangana State. (...) It presents a comparative analysis of mortality data, maternal health, delivery care, and child immunization, as well as reproductive health aspects and children’s nutritional status. It shares valuable insights into the impacts of emigration and internal migration on health among local Muslims and presents a detailed analysis of data from the Census of India, NSSO, and Commission of Inquiry on Socio-Economic and Educational Status of Muslims regarding the social, economic, and demographic situation of Muslims in Telangana, as well as their opportunities for development under the newly formed state government. The book would be of great interest to scholars and researchers in development economics, sociology, politics, history, cultural studies, minority studies, Islamic studies, and policy studies, as well as policymakers, civil society activists, and those working in media and journalism. (shrink)

Workplace incivility has gotten a lot of attention in recent decades. Researchers have looked at many forms of aggressive conduct in the workplace and their negative impacts on individuals and businesses. The goal of this study was to see how incivility among supervisors leads to work withdrawal and when this link might be mitigated. We argued that supervisor incivility indirectly influences work withdrawal behavior through job insecurity, and that emotional intelligence moderates this connection. This study attempted to evaluate the influence (...) of supervisor incivility on the job withdrawal behavior of personnel working in several banks Lahore by drawing on affective events theory and conservation of resource theory. Data were gathered from 350 workers of banks in Lahore, Gujranwala, and Sheikhupura to test our assumptions, and SPSS 24 was used to generate and analyze data with Hayes Process. The findings revealed a strong link between supervisor incivility and job insecurity but no link between supervisor incivility and work withdrawal behavior. The idea of moderation was validated, since emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between job insecurity and job withdrawal behavior. There are also suggestions for more empirical studies and theoretical and practical ramifications. (shrink)

The neglect of psycho-spiritual needs of patients as they traverse the modern healthcare system has been a featured theme in medical literature over the past decade. This literature, which often highlights in-patient palliative care, as well as acute and critical care settings, influences practice guidelines and protocols of doctors and nurses. In this essay, I review some of the pertinent issues raised in the literature and examine the validity of placing an ethical perspective on this issue. I also compare Islamic (...) theocentric perspectives with secular, non-theistic perspectives on restoring psycho-spiritual care for patients. I then develop a framework for pastoral intervention based on aspects of the Islamic tradition and elaborate this framework by addressing clinical contexts and cases. The essay is an exposition based upon a review of the modern medical literature, an analysis of some of the traditional Islamic written sources, and the observations of the investigator, a practicing physician and an American Muslim. (shrink)