The design, implementation, and outcome of game-based learning for learners with disabilities have not been sufficiently examined systematically. Particularly, learner-based and contextual factors, as well as the essential roles played by various stakeholders, have not been addressed when game-based learning applications are used in special education. Therefore, a systematic literature review using the Activity Theory was conducted to analyse studies about game-based learning for learners with disabilities. Content analysis of 96 studies reported relevant information with respect to each activity component— (...) subject, technology, object, rules, community, division of labour and outcome. Furthermore, this study identified existing gaps from the reviewed studies, including occasional lack of parental engagement, difficulty of standardising performance measures due to the heterogeneity of learner profiles and contradictions. Finally, recommendations were made under each activity component. The study concluded that both general and domain-specific guidelines should be created for each disability category proposed in this review to assist practitioners who wish to use game-based learning with learners with disabilities. (shrink)

Open Education opens up learning opportunities to, potentially, every person in the world. Additionally, it allows teachers, researchers, and practitioners to find, share, reuse, and improve existing resources under a dependable legal framework. Aiming to spread and foster the introduction of open policies in Higher Education institutions, the gamified interactive learning experience Catch the Open! was developed. Catch the Open! targets HE educators who wish to learn, or who wish to deepen their existing knowledge, about OE and Open Educational Practices. (...) Within the gamified learning experience, the user becomes an educator, Alex, the game character, who receives a task from the Rector: to investigate how to best include OE and OEP in teaching and learning practice within the institution. Alex proceeds to explore and gather information in a web-based 2D virtual HE institution where students, colleagues, and guest researchers will help her to develop a comprehensive understanding of OE and the practical application of OEP. The educational content within Catch the Open! is underpinned by an OE competences framework for HE educators, developed in a previous phase of the Erasmus+ OpenGame project. In this paper, the design process to link pedagogical and technological approaches, which results in the Catch the Open! gamified web-based interactive application, is presented as well as the application itself. Moreover, two phases of piloting with 153 HE educators from six different HE institutions are presented. The obtained findings showed that the gamified environment helped in learning about OE. On the other hand, learners also suggested several improvement aspects of the gamified environment, such as the length of finishing a learning mission while playing. (shrink)

Causal decision theory (CDT) cares only about the effects of a contemplated act, not its causes. The article constructs a case in which CDT consequently recommends a bet that the agent is certain to lose, rather than a bet that she is certain to win. CDT is plainly giving wrong advice in this case. It therefore stands refuted. 1 The Argument2 The Argument in More Detail2.1 The betting mechanism2.2 Soft determinism2.3 The content of P 2.4 The argument again3 The Descriptive (...) Premise3.1 Causal decision theory3.2 Causal decision theory prefers A14 The Normative Premise5 Objections5.1 Table 1 and Table 2 are misleading5.2 The agency theory of causation5.3 The payment mechanism5.4 Newcomb’s problem5.5 Against the normative premise5.6 Drop soft determinism. (shrink)

The two faces of a puzzle -- Two approaches to the enigma of consciousness -- Methodology, terminology, and the missed point -- Freud's project and the conception of consciousness -- A concise of the theory of the aconscious -- The unconscious and the aconscious.

In What's the Use? Sara Ahmed continues the work she began in The Promise of Happiness and Willful Subjects by taking up a single word--in this case, use--and following it around. She shows how use became associated with life and strength in nineteenth century biological and social thought and considers how utilitarianism offered a set of educational techniques for shaping individuals by directing them toward useful ends. Ahmed also explores how spaces become restricted to some uses and users (...) with specific reference to universities. She notes, however, the potential for queer use: how things can be used in ways that were not intended or by those for whom they were not intended. Ahmed posits queer use as way of reanimating the project of diversity work as the ordinary and painstaking work of opening up institutions to those who have historically been excluded from them. (shrink)

Abstract: Background: In spite of the fact that computers continue to improve in speed and functions operation, they remain complex to use. Problems frequently happen, and it is hard to resolve or find solutions for them. This paper outlines the significance and feasibility of building a desktop PC problems diagnosis system. The system gathers problem symptoms from users’ desktops, rather than the user describes his/her problems to primary search engines. It automatically searches global databases of problem symptoms and solutions, and (...) also allows ordinary users to contribute exact problem reports in a structured manner. Objectives: The main goal of this Knowledge Based System is to get the suitable problem desktop PC symptoms and the correct way to solve the errors. Methods: In this paper the design of the proposed Knowledge Based System which was produced to help users of desktop PC in knowing many of the problems and error such as : Power supply problems, CPU errors, RAM dumping error, hard disk errors and bad sectors and suddenly restarting PC. The proposed Knowledge Based System presents an overview about desktop PC hardware errors are given, the cause of fault are outlined and the solution to the problems whenever possible is given out. CLIPS Knowledge Based System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed PC desktop troubleshooting Knowledge Based System was evaluated by IT students and they were satisfied with its performance. (shrink)

Cette monographie porte sur la question de la connaissance dans le commentaire coranique de Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Ahmed Oulddali y étudie, à travers plusieurs sources, les théories psychologiques et épistémologiques sur lesquelles cet exégète sunnite fonde son interprétation du Coran. This monograph addresses the question of knowledge in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's Qurʾān commentary. Utilizing a variety of sources, Ahmed Oulddali presents the psychological and epistemological theories on which this Sunni exegete bases his interpretation of the Qurʾān.

In this paper we critically review recent developments in policies, practices and philosophies pertaining to the mediation between science and the public within the EU and the UK, focusing in particular on the current paradigm of Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PEST) which seeks to depart from the science information-transmission associated with previous paradigms, and enact a deliberative democracy model. We first outline the features of the current crisis in democracy and discuss deliberative democracy as a response to this (...) crisis. We then map out and critically review the broad outlines of recent policy developments in public-science mediation in the EU and UK contexts, focusing on the shift towards the deliberative-democratic model. We conclude with some critical thoughts on the complex interrelationships between democracy, equality, science and informal pedagogies in public-science mediations. We argue that science and democracy operate within distinct value-spheres that are not necessarily consonant with each other. We also problematize the now common dismissal of information-transmission of science as inimical to democratic engagement, and argue for a reassessment of the role and importance of informal science learning for the lay public, provided within the framework of a deliberative democracy that is not reducible to consensus building or the mere expression of opinions rooted in social and cultural givens. This, we argue, can be delivered by a model of PEST that is creative and experimental, with both educational and democratic functions. (shrink)

Buildings energy consumption is growing gradually and put away around 40% of total energy use. Predicting heating and cooling loads of a building in the initial phase of the design to find out optimal solutions amongst different designs is very important, as ell as in the operating phase after the building has been finished for efficient energy. In this study, an artificial neural network model was designed and developed for predicting heating and cooling loads of a building based on a (...) dataset for building energy performance. The main factors for input variables are: relative compactness, roof area, overall height, surface area, glazing are a, wall area, glazing area distribution of a building, orientation, and the output variables: heating and cooling loads of the building. The dataset used for training are the data published in the literature for various 768 residential buildings. The model was trained and validated, most important factors affecting heating load and cooling load are identified, and the accuracy for the validation was 99.60%. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the meaning and scope of social responsibility in a state-owned enterprise. Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) a meaningful concept for a state-owned enterprise, as opposed to a privately-owned corporation, given that it is created with social as well as economic aims? To try to answer to this question, the case of Sonatrach, an Algerian oil company, is examined. The lack of statistical data does not allow an assessment of CSR actions undertaken by (...) this company since 2004. The analysis identifies two main obstacles to the effectiveness of CSR in state-owned enterprises: (a) the system of internal governance ischaracterized by a lack of control; (b) the competitive and social environment is characterized by a partial application of the logic of the market, which does not allow the optimal allocation of means. (shrink)

Dresser le portrait de l'homme, selon une lecture platonico-platonicienne, est la fin de ce livre.

El presente artículo empieza con una breve exposición de los datos más significativos sobre la vida y obra del sufí almeriense Ibn al-‘Arīf. A continuación se habla de su formación filosófica y sufí. Finalmente, se reúnen y traducen diversos pasajes de Miftāḥ al-sa‘āda que hacen referencia a la filosofía y la mística. Se contrastan a la vez sus opiniones con anteriores sufíes andalusíes como Ibn Masarra e Ibn Jamīs de Évora.

The aim of this article is to trace some lines of thinking towards a conceptualization of the uniqueness of the creative work of museums, the mode of creativeness that belongs exclusively to museums, or at least that museums are capable of by virtue of the types of materials and forms as well as activities unique to what will be referred to as museography. This is linked to the question of what it is that constitutes the uniqueness of museum work as (...) a professional field. The article characterizes the uniqueness of museum professional knowledge primarily in terms of a mode of creativeness, or bricolage in Levi-Strauss’s sense, mediated through the museographic form, and applied to the chance assemblies of materials to generate museum-specific modes of engaging questions—across science, culture, and society—particularly through creating unique temporal arrangements, or durations, that provoke thought, learning, and engagement on museographic terms. Museography’s originality, it is argued, consists in a bricolage that works through the museum’s unique material and form to create learning resources and encounters, museographic assemblages that depart from a conception of linear time as the space of evolutionary narrative to facilitate the experience of Bergsonian durations. (shrink)

We revisit the flight-to-quality and flight-from-quality occurrences vis-à-vis the stock-bond nexus across differing investment time scales in the COVID-19 era, using a novel technique hinged on a denoised frequency-domain transfer entropy. Our findings divulge that flights, both FTQ and FFQ, could be attained during stress periods. Generally, in the intermediate term of the COVID-19 pandemic, both Islamic and conventional bonds could act as safe havens, diversifiers, and hedges for international equities, and the same could be observed for international equities. We (...) reiterate empirically that flights may improve the financial system’s stability and robustness by allowing diversity to be effective when it is most required. The findings have financial and portfolio implications for investors considering how to deploy their investments in the COVID-19 era. Our findings may impact policymakers’ responses to changes in various asset classes, allowing them to better monitor financial markets and adjust macroeconomic policies. (shrink)

La traducción de la obra principal de Maimónides, la Guía de los descarriados, del árabe al hebreo tuvo repercusiones amplias y prolongadas. Provocó una crisis social en el seno de las comunidades judías en dominios cristianos, abrió las puertas al conocimiento de la filosofía de Averroes y de Aristóteles entre los judíos, y dio lugar a una corriente averroísta judía, y a su oposición. Dado que Algacel representa una posición tradicional contraria a la filosofía, y combatida por Averroes, hahlane sostiene (...) que el interés dentro de la comunidad judía por Algacel es debido su utilidad en la polémica interna contra Averroes y Maimónides. (shrink)

ObjectiveWe aimed to provide an overview of the psychological status and behavioral consequences of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in Libya.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among the Libyan population through May and June 2020 in more than 20 cities. The survey comprised basic demographic data of the participants and anxiety symptoms measured using the seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale with ≥15 as the cut-off score for clinically significant anxiety symptoms. Additionally, a survey regarding the lockdown effect was administered, which (...) consisted of several parts, to measure the lockdown status.ResultsA total of 8084 responses were recorded, of which, 5090 were women and 2994 were men. The mean age for study participants was 27.2 years. Among the participants, 1145 reached the cut-off score to detect anxiety symptoms; however, of the study variables, only five were predictors of clinically significant anxiety: age, gender, marital status, work status, being a financial supporter for the family, and being infected with COVID-19. Women had 1.19 times higher odds to exhibit anxiety symptoms than men. Increasing age was significantly associated with reduced likelihood of exhibiting anxiety symptoms, whereas being married was significantly associated with higher likelihood of anxiety symptoms, compared to not being married. Being suspended from work was associated with an increase in the likelihood of anxiety symptoms. However, we found that being infected with COVID-19 was associated with a 9.59 times higher risk of exhibiting severe anxiety symptoms. Among the study participants, 1451 reported a physical and/or verbal abuse episode from family members, 958 reported abuse outside the family, and 641 reported abuse from enforcers, during the lockdown.ConclusionOur study provided an overview of the psychological and behavioral status, among those who resided in Libya during the civil war and COVID-19 pandemic. The study demonstrates a concerningly high level of clinically significant anxiety during lockdown among the Libyan population during Libya’s lockdown period. (shrink)

The risk of cigarette smoking plays a pivotal role in increasing the incidence rates of lung cancer. This paper sheds new light on modeling the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer evolution, especially genetic instability and the number of gene mutations in the genome of stem cells. To handle this issue, we have set up stochastic multi-stage models to fit the data set of the probabilities of current and former smokers from the Nurses’ Health Study cohort of females and (...) the Health Professionals Follow up Study cohort of men. Throughout this paper, we consider both mutation rates and clonal expansion rates as parameters in each compartment. For current and former smokers, three-driver mutations are most likely to take place in the progression of lung cancer under smoking risk. For current smokers, our findings reveal that two to sixteen gene mutations are required to obtain a cancerous cell among men and women in US. Moreover, two to six cancer-mutations are available in the pathway to lung cancer among former smokers who have quit smoking for more than ten years for both male and female patients. This highlights that cigarette smoking stimulates the number of driver mutations during lung tumorigenesis in both sexes. It is very crucial to examine the role of cigarette smoking in determining whether genomic instability is an early stage or late stage in the process of lung carcinogenesis. (shrink)

Museum professionalism remains an unexplored area in museum studies, particularly with regard to what is arguably the core generic question of a sui generis professional knowledge base, and its necessary and sufficient conditions. The need to examine this question becomes all the more important with the increasing expansion of the museum’s roles and functions. This paper starts by mapping out the policy and organizational context within which the roles of museums have expanded in the UK. It then situates the discussion (...) of museum professional knowledge within a cross-disciplinary matrix bearing on the question of what is professional about occupations classified—or classifiable—as professions. Against the backdrop of the current organizational context of the museum as well as theories of professional knowledge, it highlights the ways in which museum work, more specifically museography, poses a distinctive set of questions compared to other ‘professional’ fields; the paper thus homes in on the question of what it is that constitutes the uniqueness of museum professional knowledge in relation to museographic practice and the type of professional knowledge and expertise that can sustain it and enact its creative and educational potentials and affordances. (shrink)

(1996). Science and technology in the discourse of Sayyid Qutb. Social Epistemology: Vol. 10, Islamic Social Epistemology, pp. 289-304. doi: 10.1080/02691729608578820.

Despite the persistence of the theoretical model of the cathartic theory in psychoanalysis, it is not what we practice clinically. Freud’s Other Theory of Psychoanalysis deals with eliciting that other unarticulated theory from the Freudian text to replace the catharsis theory and open the theoretical impasse it created.

Islamic legal historiography has dealt extensively with questions of continuity and change, as epitomized by the relationship between ijtihād and taqlīd. This paper offers a new conceptualization of the ijtihād–taqlīd modes of law-making in the Sunni legal tradition. I argue that the institutional transformation from ijtihād to taqlīd required that jurists transform the views of the founding authorities of the schools over the course of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. They achieved this by stratifying legal knowledge in their typologies of (...) muftis and judges in ways that had not been envisioned earlier, justifying their typologies by invoking tropes of decline and the extinction of mujtahids. This longue-durée view will shed light on the institutional significance of the taqlīdification of Islamic law, where legal security and stability were privileged over judicial discretion. (shrink)

The market relationships are being contested. This can be seen in the increasing number of alternative social experiments in the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ which propose to think out the present market relationships in a different way, in particular in establishing exchange value and in facilitating access to trade. These practical alternatives are supported by trends in academic circles that over the past three decades have opposed neoliberal capitalism and individualism in today's commercialised society. Calling for greater solidarity and social (...) justice in economic relationships, in particular, partisans of social and solidarity economics, identifying with these trends, demand new forms of exchange. The objective of this article is to re-examine these demands. What exactly do the SSE mean by ‘solidarity’ and ‘solidarity-based economy'? We would like to trace the contours of this theoretical and political project and to assess the practicability of the proposed alternative to neoliberal capitalism. (shrink)

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical (...) recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world. (shrink)

The issue of the employment of graduates in Algeria was born with the decoupling between training and employment in the state public sector. She became very acute in the late 80s with the transition to economic liberalism and is the subject of a new employment policy for at least twenty years. In this context, the reform of higher education introduced in 2004 under the name of “LMD reform” aims to “modernize” higher education and training to match the needs of employers. (...) This article specifically examines the devices to youth employment implemented by various government departments and the implementation of the “LMD”, especially in view of using it is supposed to provide young graduates to better be inserted in the labor market. (shrink)

Considerable evidence supports that preschool education is a milestone stage for children. Nonetheless, systematic preschool gifted education programs rarely exist in public elementary schools. The current study explored the perceptions of 16 preschool teachers from seven public schools in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates regarding their views about various components of gifted education for preschool children. Qualitative analyses, using the inductive data analysis method, revealed several themes such as the concept and identification of giftedness, characteristics of gifted preschoolers, preschoolers’ problem-solving (...) skills, the communication and social skills of gifted preschoolers, resources/services offered by the school to serve gifted preschoolers, enrichment programs available for gifted preschoolers, inclusive education for gifted preschoolers, twice-exceptional preschoolers, and governmental support. The results of this study may help advocate for infusing more services and programs related to the identification and education of gifted preschoolers in public schools. The findings identified the need to have an abundance of assessment tools and enrichment programs that can empower preschool teachers to cater for giftedness. (shrink)

The ‘dignity and worth of the human person’ emphasised in international human rights instruments resonate strongly in relation to the world’s ageing population, which is projected to be the fastest growing population group in the world and often among the most vulnerable. While elderly persons as a group are heterogeneous and their socio-economic life situation varies significantly between individuals, the need for universal support mechanisms such as non-contributory old-age benefits have been recognised by many states, and currently, over 100 countries (...) around the world provide some form of social pension targeted towards the elderly populations. This article appraises a sample of these old-age pension schemes from the perspective of the right to social security, with particular emphasis on the dignity and worth of the human person as espoused within the international human rights regime. (shrink)

Study that try to expose and to define the different types of the language as the juridical, theological, and ascetic-mystical in Miftāḥ al-sa‘āda [Key of Happiness] of Ibn al-‘Arīf. Types that are analyzed in details, to conclude with the influence of the Sufi language of Ibn al-‘Arīf in Ibn ‘Arabī’s work, supporting on considerations of semantic as well as mystical nature.

This paper argues that chance (risk or opportunity) discovery is challenging, from a reasoning point of view, because it represents a dilemma for inductive reasoning. Chance discovery shares many features with the grue paradox. Consequently, Bayesian approaches represent a potential solution. The Bayesian solution evaluates alternative models generated using a temporal logic planner to manage the chance. Surprise indices are used in monitoring the conformity of the real world and the assessed probabilities. Game theoretic approaches are proposed to deal with (...) multi-agent interaction in chance management. (shrink)

The paper argues against Bob Hale's (1999) argument that enquirers must regard some truths as necessary truths. Hale's argument against Quinean skepticism. like many similar arguments due to McFetridge, Wright and others, involves a quantifier shift fallacy.

The proposed work describes an approach for segmentation of activated sludge flocs from the microscopic images for monitoring wastewater treatment. The morphological features of flocs and filaments are related to the state of an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant and must be monitored for proper functioning. Hence, image processing and analysis could be a time-saving monitoring tool. To address this challenge, we propose a novel framework involving a multiphase edge detection algorithm based on information theory. The proposed framework is evaluated (...) and scrutinized critically considering the artifacts found in the photographs tested. To evaluate the segmentations, gold approximation of estimated truth images is created. In addition, the performance was subjectively evaluated for its potential for segmenting activated sludge images. Experimental results show that the proposed framework exhibits the good results and demonstrates its effectiveness. (shrink)

"The Uncertain Science" argues that sociology has not freed itself from the influence of philosophy, and specifically from the search for certainty. This "foundationalism" which is characteristic of Western thought has influenced both the method adopted by sociologists, and their research practices. The authors criticize sociology for its formalism, arguing that this blunts the radicalism of its project. To regain the radical and critical edge implicit in sociology, it is necessary to adopt a comparative and historical approach which interprets social (...) science as part of societal learning. In the first part of the book the authors trace formalism to central positions in Western philosophy and examine its impact on historiography, evolutionary social thought and positivist sociology. In the second part they examine the tensions between formalism and social theory in the work of Levi Strauss and Habermas. In part three they compare modernization theory to more recent descussions of "modernity" and "postmodernity", and show the elements of continuity between these apparently contrary positions. This book should be of interest to undergraduates in sociology and philosophy. (shrink)

The United Nations has been holding the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) annually since 2015, where countries meet to discuss the progress, they have made in achieving the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Vision, and to identify the challenges they face, their areas of focus in the future, and to evaluate their efforts in achieving and submitting voluntary reports on this. The research seeks to analyze Arabic translation of the speech of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; as a special type (...) of political communication to reveal the most prominent strategies that have formed it, and to identify the mechanisms that have been achieved; which has given the speech its uniqueness and efficacy, as each speech carries with it its strategies and mechanisms that lead to its success or failure. The study adopted the pragmatic approach imposed by the nature of this work. It came up with a set of results, the most prominent of which is that the solidarity strategy is the most effective in achieving the goals of the Kingdom’s speech, and thus this strategy was an introduction to other strategies, especially the persuasive and directive strategies. (shrink)

Résumé L’histoire récente montre que les deuxièmes générations rencontrent aussi un problème d’intégration. Les immigrations post-coloniales sont maintenant mondialisées, et les quartiers dortoirs d’immigration sont devenus des places de commerce cosmopolites. L’espace public dans lequel se meut l’immigration s’est différencié. L’émigré devient l’immigré, la famille se regroupe. La nouvelle génération veut incarner la tradition et n’a plus peur de marquer l’espace public des signes ostentatoires d’une présence singulière.