The attention to the deductive method began with Imam Al-Ash’ari and the establishment of the rules of theorizing from the first moment of the emergence of the Ash’ari school of thought at the hands of the founder of the school of thought, Abu Al-Hasan Al-Ash’ari, and the scholars who followed after him who wrote theological works. This reflects the great care of the Ash’arism in rooting and theorizing the methods of theory, and setting the methodological rules of reasoning, so he (...) dealt with The research examines the most important comprehensive theological rules through which the Ash’ari reasoned in the doctrinal issues on which Ash’ari theological thought was founded, taking into account the extent of stability or change that occurred in some of these rules along the path of the Ash’ari doctrine. The aim of this study was to answer an important methodological question in formulating the verbal thinking curriculum: It is: What is the impact of comprehensive verbal rules in achieving intellectual consistency and methodological consistency in the theory of verbal reasoning according to the Ash’arism between theory and application? The answer to the nature of this research required delving into the journey of exploring the idea of comprehensive verbal grammar in the theological heritage. It was appropriate for this task to adopt the historical approach in collecting the material and searching for comprehensive grammar in its context from the verbal works approved in the Ash’arite school. It was necessary to study the origins of the theory of verbal grammar. Comprehensive and anticipating the methodological features governing inference, adopting the analytical approach; The approach adopted in this study was a combined approach of the two approaches: historical and analytical, in order to reach the impact of comprehensive verbal rules in both theoretical and applied studies. (shrink)

The key problems and challenges connected with the Covid-19 pandemic in the field of education in sub-Saharan Africa are described in this paper. The study is based on the information collected from teachers and parents during the lockdown. The main problems connected with the organization of distance learning, such as the availability and accessibility of electricity and stable communications, were described. The main questions connected with the support of e-learning such as unequal access to distance education platforms and tools and (...) readiness of teachers of public and private schools were described. Key social and demographic challenges and threats to sustainable e-learning, such as critical overload of teachers, child mobilization for domestic tasks, age, ethnic and gender-based harassment and violence were analyzed. It was found that the main risks are the rapid and uncontrolled commercialization of education and the decline of public schools, which leads to a decrease in the quality of education and increasing inequality. It was concluded that pandemic-induced risks in education are non-linear and heterogeneously spatially, temporally, and socially distributed. The successful strategy of these risks reduction aimed at sustainable education should be based on transition plans, which must include not only the development of sustainable education but also the fighting against inequality. (shrink)

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of radiologists and paramedics regarding accident and emergency preparedness in hospitals in the southern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and how to improve their role. Materials and methods: This was a descriptive, cross‑sectional online survey that was carried out among radiologists and paramedics in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A self-structured, close-ended questionnaire that was administered that consisted of 19 questions was included. The questionnaire (...) validity and reliability were evaluated for vetting and remarks. The questions were circulated through Google Forms, and it was circulated among the study participants through online mode. The data were collected systematically, and SPSS Statistics version 26.0 was used for data analysis Results: There were 139 responses, (77 specialist's radiology and 62 paramedics) participated in the study through Google Forms. In the study group, 84 (61.4%) were know the main steps for emergency response in major emergencies (p-value 0.000). Among the 19 questions used to assess the KAP, 12 questions were significant with a p-value less than 0.05. More than 72.6% agree the Management must be adequately prepared when emergencies and accidents occur. The respondents’ attitude toward emergency preparedness was generally positiveو Only a minority, that is, 43 (30.9%) of the respondents think it is possible for cooperation between radiologists and paramedics to interpret emergency cases and develop treatment plans in the emergency department. Conclusion: The level of knowledge was satisfactory among the radiologists and paramedics with a neutral level of attitudes, practice and knowledge regarding disaster preparedness. Follow-up research is essential to maximize the preparedness of the accident and emergency department. (shrink)

Biobanks and biospecimen collections are becoming a primary means of delivering personalized diagnostics and tailoring individualized therapeutics. This shift towards precision medicine requires interactions among a variety of stakeholders, including the public, patients, healthcare providers, government, and donors. Very few studies have investigated the role of healthcare students in biobanking and biospecimen donations. The main aims of this study were to evaluate the knowledge of senior healthcare students about biobanks and to assess the students’ willingness to donate biospecimens and the (...) factors influencing their attitudes. A cross-sectional study was conducted among senior healthcare students at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. The data were obtained using a self-administered questionnaire in English. In addition to the respondents’ biographical data section, the questionnaire assessed the respondents’ general knowledge about biobanking, the factors influencing their willingness to donate biospecimens to biobanks and their general attitudes towards biomedical research. A total of 597 senior healthcare students were included in the study. The general knowledge score was 3.2 out of 7. Only approximately 44% and 27% of students were aware of the terms “Human Genome Project” and “biobank,” respectively. The majority of the students were willing to donate biospecimens to biobanks. Multiple factors were significantly associated with their willingness to donate, including their perceived general health, past experience with both tissue testing and tissue donation, biobanking knowledge score and biomedical research attitude score. The main reasons for students’ willingness to donate were advancement of medical research and societal benefits, whereas misuse of biospecimens and confidentiality breaches were the main reasons for a reluctance to donate. Despite their strong willingness to donate biospecimens, students exhibited a notable lack of knowledge about biobanking and the HGP. To expedite the transition towards PM, it is highly recommended to enhance healthcare curricula by including more educational and awareness programmes to familiarize students with OMICs technologies in addition to the scope of research and clinical applications. (shrink)

The Mycobacterium Tuberculosis complex is a group of species of Mycobacteria involved in a serious bacterial disease which infects the respiratory system and organs. Multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains have been produced as a result of the fast emergence of resistance against first-line anti-tuberculosis medicines in recent years worldwide. The objective of this study is to determine alternatives to anti-mycobacterial antibiotics, such as Manuka honey and Indian costus. MTB isolates (???? = 15) were evaluated for their susceptibility to Manuka honey graded (...) as +15 and Indian costus by using different concentrations. Among the TB isolates (???? = 15) tested, four (27%) isolates were resistant at 15% v/v honey, while, at 18% v/v of Manuka honey, two (13%) isolates were found to be resistant. Resistance was not seen at honey concentrations of 20% v/v. On the other hand, Indian costus had a slight effectiveness at concentrations of 20% and 25%, affecting only two and five isolates of Mycobacteria, respectively; however, all isolates were inhibited at a concentration of 33% v/v of Indian costus. The present study clearly demonstrates that supposed alternatives (Manuka honey graded as +15 and Indian costus) possess significant anti-mycobacterial activity in vitro; however, further clinical trials should be performed to corroborate our initial findings. (shrink)

Zunächst wird anhand von drei europäischen Schriftstellern, Ärzten und Historikern und in Form von zusammengesetzten Auszügen eine Zusammenfassung der arabisch-islamischen Medizin während 500 Jahren vorgelegt.Die Ethik im allgemeinen und dann in der Medizin der Araber im speziellen wird fortfahrend sehr klar dargestellt.Da im Islam die Wissenschaft sehr gelobt und vorangetrieben wird, ist die schnelle Entwicklung der modernen Medizin – Klonen, Organverpflanzung, Exitus, Sterbehilfe etc. – nicht in Kontradiktion mit der Religion, vorausgesetzt, daß die Einheit Gottes und die Würde seiner Propheten (...) – Moses, Jesus und Mohammed – nicht und die Würde des Menschen selbst nicht erniedrigt wird. (shrink)

In this eleventh book of scilogs – called in-turns and out-turns –, one may find new and old questions and solutions, referring mostly to topics on Neutrosophy, but also Multispace, with miscellaneous addition of topics on Physics, Mathematics, or Sociology – email messages to research colleagues, or replies, notes about authors, articles, or books, spontaneous ideas, and so on. -/- Exchanging ideas with Prem Kumar Singh, Feng Liu, Nicolae Bălașa, Jimmy Quellet, Minodora Rușchița, Frank Gelli, A. R. Vătuiu, Victor Christianto, (...) Vladimir I. Rogozhin, Robert Neil Boyd, Akira Kanda, Stefan Spaarmann, Oliver Consa, Yabin Shao, Junle Zhuo, Nivetha Martin, Said Broumi, Jean Dezert, Erick González, Tomasz Witczak, B. De Baets, I. Couso, D. Dubois, L. Good, Mihaela Colhon, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Ihsan, Edeline Nancy, Shawkat Alkhazaleh, Shazia Rana, Vasantha Kandasamy, Santanu Acharjee, Mohamed Al-Shmrani, Parimala Manie, Mehmet Unver, Murat Olgun, Adel Aleidhri, Akira Kanda, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, Mircea Zărnescu, R. Tayebi Khorami, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Maisam Jdid, M. Abobala, Riad Hamido, Rafael Rojas, Esmaeil Zarei, Faisal Khan, Rouzbeh Abbassi, Adel Al-Odhari, Henry Garrett, Ackbar Rezaei, Saeid Jafari, Karthika Muthusamy, Harish Garg, Huda E. Khalid, Gonca D. Güngör, Muslim A. Noah Zainal, Fakhry Asad Agusfrianto, Madeleine Al-Tahan, Mariam Hariri, Yudi Mahatma, Masoud Ghods, Marco Brigliadori, Luis Enrique Aponte Pérez, Amr Mohammed, M. Aslam (in order of reference in the book). (shrink)

This thirteenth volume of Collected Papers is an eclectic tome of 88 papers in various fields of sciences, such as astronomy, biology, calculus, economics, education and administration, game theory, geometry, graph theory, information fusion, decision making, instantaneous physics, quantum physics, neutrosophic logic and set, non-Euclidean geometry, number theory, paradoxes, philosophy of science, scientific research methods, statistics, and others, structured in 17 chapters (Neutrosophic Theory and Applications; Neutrosophic Algebra; Fuzzy Soft Sets; Neutrosophic Sets; Hypersoft Sets; Neutrosophic Semigroups; Neutrosophic Graphs; Superhypergraphs; Plithogeny; (...) Information Fusion; Statistics; Decision Making; Extenics; Instantaneous Physics; Paradoxism; Mathematica; Miscellanea), comprising 965 pages, published between 2005-2022 in different scientific journals, by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 110 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Abduallah Gamal, Sania Afzal, Firoz Ahmad, Muhammad Akram, Sheriful Alam, Ali Hamza, Ali H. M. Al-Obaidi, Madeleine Al-Tahan, Assia Bakali, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Bilal Hadjadji, Robert N. Boyd, Willem K.M. Brauers, Umit Cali, Youcef Chibani, Victor Christianto, Chunxin Bo, Shyamal Dalapati, Mario Dalcín, Arup Kumar Das, Elham Davneshvar, Bijan Davvaz, Irfan Deli, Muhammet Deveci, Mamouni Dhar, R. Dhavaseelan, Balasubramanian Elavarasan, Sara Farooq, Haipeng Wang, Ugur Halden, Le Hoang Son, Hongnian Yu, Qays Hatem Imran, Mayas Ismail, Saeid Jafari, Jun Ye, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Abdullah Kargın, Vasilios N. Katsikis, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, M. Khoshnevisan, Tapan Kumar Roy, Pinaki Majumdar, Sreepurna Malakar, Masoud Ghods, Minghao Hu, Mingming Chen, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Loey, Mihnea Alexandru Moisescu, Muhammad Ihsan, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Shabir, Mumtaz Ali, Muzzamal Sitara, Nassim Abbas, Munazza Naz, Giorgio Nordo, Mani Parimala, Ion Pătrașcu, Gabrijela Popović, K. Porselvi, Surapati Pramanik, D. Preethi, Qiang Guo, Riad K. Al-Hamido, Zahra Rostami, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Muzafer Saračević, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Selvaraj Ganesan, Shammya Shananda Saha, Marayanagaraj Shanmugapriya, Songtao Shao, Sori Tjandrah Simbolon, Florentin Smarandache, Predrag S. Stanimirović, Dragiša Stanujkić, Raman Sundareswaran, Mehmet Șahin, Ovidiu-Ilie Șandru, Abdulkadir Șengür, Mohamed Talea, Ferhat Taș, Selçuk Topal, Alptekin Ulutaș, Ramalingam Udhayakumar, Yunita Umniyati, J. Vimala, Luige Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Yaman Akbulut, Yanhui Guo, Yong Deng, You He, Young Bae Jun, Wangtao Yuan, Rong Xia, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zayen Azzouz Omar, Xiaohong Zhang, Zhirou Ma.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system developed to help students in learning Computer Theory. The Intelligent tutoring system was built using ITSB authoring tool. The system helps students to learn finite automata, pushdown automata, Turing machines and examines the relationship between these automata and formal languages, deterministic and nondeterministic machines, regular expressions, context free grammars, undecidability, and complexity. During the process the intelligent tutoring system gives assistance and feedback of many types in an intelligent manner according to (...) the behavior of the student. An evaluation of the intelligent tutoring system has revealed reasonably acceptable results in terms of its usability and learning abilities are concerned. (shrink)

Recently there is an increasing technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field has become interesting to many researchers. In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system for teaching information security. This intelligent tutoring systems target the students enrolled in Advanced Topics in Information Security in the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through which the student will be able to study the course and solve related problems. An evaluation of the intelligent tutoring systems (...) was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

Background: Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home. Depression affects an estimated one in 15 adults (6.7%) in any given (...) year. And one in six people (16.6%) will experience depression at some time in their life. Depression can strike at any time, but on average, first appears during the late teens to mid-20s. Women are more likely than men to experience depression. Some studies show that one-third of women will experience a major depressive episode in their lifetime. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment and give the appropriate method of treatment through several tips that concern the disease and how to treat it and we will see it through the application on the expert system. Methods: in this paper the design of the proposed Expert System which was produced to help Psychologist in diagnosing depression disease through its symptoms such as: a loss of energy, a change in appetite, sleeping more or less, anxiety, reduced concentration, indecisiveness, restlessness, feelings of worthlessness, guilt or hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm or suicide. The proposed expert system presents an overview about depression disease is given, the cause of diseases is outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. SL5 Object Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed depression disease diagnosis expert system was evaluated by psychologist students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for psychologist, patients with depression and newly graduated psychologist. (shrink)

The paper describes the design of an intelligent tutoring system for teaching Introduction to Computer Science-a compulsory curriculum in Al-Azhar University of Gaza to students who attend the university. The basic idea of this system is a systematic introduction into computer science. The system presents topics with examples. The system is dynamically checks student's individual progress. An initial evaluation study was done to investigate the effect of using the intelligent tutoring system on the performance of students enrolled in computer science (...) curriculum at Al-Azhar University, Gaza. The results showed a positive impact on the evaluators. (shrink)

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has forced rapid and widespread change to standards of patient care and nursing practice, inevitably leading to unprecedented shifts in the moral conditions of nursing work. Less is known about how these challenges have affected nurses’ capacity to meet their ethical responsibilities and what has helped to sustain their efforts to continue to care. Research objectives 1) To explore nurses’ experiences of striving to fulfill their ethical responsibilities of care during the COVID-19 pandemic and 2) to (...) explore what has fostered nurses’ capacity to fulfill these responsibilities. Research Design A generic qualitative approach was used incorporating concepts coming from fundamental features of care. Participants Twenty-four Canadian Registered Nurses from a variety of practice settings were interviewed. Ethical Considerations After receiving ethics approval, signed informed consent was obtained before participants were interviewed. Findings Four themes were identified. 1) Challenges providing good care in response to sudden changes in practice. 2) Tensions in juggling the responsibility to prevent COVID-19 infections with other competing moral responsibilities. 3) Supports to foster nurses’ capacity to meet their caring responsibilities. 4) The preservation of nurses’ moral identity through expressions of gratitude and health improvement. Discussion Infection control measures and priorities set in response to the pandemic made at distant population and organizational levels impacted nurses who continued to try to meet the ideals of care in close proximity to patients and their families. Despite the challenges that nurses encountered, the care they received themselves enabled them to continue to care for others. Nurses benefited most from the moral communities they had with their colleagues and occasionally nurse leaders, especially when they were supported in a face-to-face manner. Conclusion: Moral community can only be sustained if nurses are afforded the working conditions that make it possible for them to support each other. (shrink)

In this research, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was developed and tested to predict Birth Weight. A number of factors were identified that may affect birth weight. Factors such as smoke, race, age, weight (lbs) at last menstrual period, hypertension, uterine irritability, number of physician visits in 1st trimester, among others, as input variables for the ANN model. A model based on multi-layer concept topology was developed and trained using the data from some birth cases in hospitals. The evaluation (...) of testing the dataset shows that the ANN model is capable of correctly predicting the birth weight with 100% accuracy. (shrink)

This work intends to apprehend and emphasize the contribution of image-processing techniques and computer vision in the treatment of clay-based material known in Meknes region. One of the various characteristics used to describe clay in a qualitative manner is porosity, as it is considered one of the properties that with “kill or cure” effectiveness. For this purpose, we use scanning electron microscopy images, as they are considered the most powerful tool for characterising the quality of the microscopic pore structure of (...) porous materials. We present various existing methods of segmentation, as we are interested only in pore regions. The results show good matching between physical estimation and Voronoi diagram-based porosity estimation. (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)

Internet based process control usage has grown in the past years. Industry field demands were behind this, and it ranges from factory, office and home automation to tasks simplifications and cost reduction. In this book a hardware interface circuit and a software system used to control the temperature and level of a liquid tank is described. The advantage of the designed interface circuit is its simplicity and low cost. The same can be true for the software system in which we (...) used C and Java programs to accomplish the communication. Both C and Java can be obtained freely and the development cost could be small. C language has been used to communicate with the designed interface circuit due to its strength in low level operations and communication with ports and hardware. In Java we have used mainly the Servlet for communication between the Client and the Server, which is a new approach and more reliable approach than the CGI based method that has common problems of speed and data persistence. This book is useful for people and researchers working in the field of control, remote access and computer based control. (shrink)

Drawing on frame semantics as a framework, the current article studies metaphoric and metonymic pseudonyms. The corpus is made up of 128 pseudonyms produced by Saudis over mass and social media. The argument runs as follows: Pseudonym Bearers use metaphor and/or metonymy as an Instrument to construct a pseudonymous frame to mask their identity. Sociocultural reality, which is called the Trigger of the frame, is the motivation behind conceptualizing the self via a pseudonym. The Goal of the pseudonym is to (...) change the Trigger and Benefit psychologically from this change. To measure this change of reality, the researchers submit the pseudonyms under study to Lakoff and Turner’s Great Chain of Being Metaphor. The findings of the article point to a scaling of the Bearer down the Chain, thus re-categorizing the self as less than human. These findings will be shown to occasion possible theoretical implications for the contemporary theory of metaphor. (shrink)

Background: In disaster situations, nurses may face new and unfamiliar ethical and legal challenges not common in their everyday practice. Research question/objectives/hypothesis: The aim of this study was to explore Iranian nurses’ experience of disaster response and their perception of the competencies required by nurses in this environment. Research design: This article discusses the findings of a descriptive study conducted in Iran in 2012. Participants and research context: This research was conducted in Iran in 2012. Participants included 35 nurses who (...) had experience in healthcare delivery following a disaster event in the past 10 years, either in a hospital or out-of-hospital context. Ethical considerations: This research study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Findings: From this study, five themes emerged as areas that nurses require competence in to work effectively in the disaster setting. This article focusses on one theme, the ethical and legal issues that arise during disaster response. Within the theme of ethical and legal issues, two sub-themes emerged. (1) Professional ethics explores professional responsibility of nurses as well as sense of ethical obligation. (2) Adherence to law refers to nurses’ familiarity with and observation of legal requirements. Discussion: This article adds to a growing pool of literature which explores the role of nurses in disasters. The findings of this study emphasize the need for nurses working in the disaster setting to be aware of professional responsibilities and familiar with legal requirements and the challenges related to observing ethical responsibilities. Conclusion: In highlighting these issues, this article may provide a useful starting point for the development of an educational framework for preparing nurses and other health professionals to work in the disaster setting. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to explore the process linking participative leadership to organizational identification. The study examines the relationship between participative leadership and internal CSR perceptions of employees and also investigates the role that pride in membership plays in the affiliation of CSR perceptions with organizational identification. By studying these relationships, the paper aspires to contemplate new presumed mediators in the association of participative leadership with organizational identification as well as determine a possible novel antecedent of employee CSR (...) perceptions. Empirical evidence is provided from data that was collected through a survey distributed to employees working for small- and medium-sized enterprises in three countries in the Middle East and North Africa regions, particularly the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Findings show that participative leadership leads to positive internal CSR perceptions of employees and that these CSR perceptions lead to pride in membership which, in turn, results in organizational identification. Implications of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)

This study focuses on discussing the choices of lessee in Jordan legislation because of a Defense Order in Curfew to face Corona Virus Disease 2019 and the impact of Corona virus disease 2019 on the lessor obligation. The study finds out that the lessee has two options: to cancel the contract regarding force majeure or refuge to court and to reduce the fare amount regarding exceptional circumstances. The study also recommended issuing a Defense Order specifying the exact percentage to be (...) reduced. In the absence of a Defense Order, the study of a friendly agreement should be recommended between the lessor and the tenant on the reduced percentage. (shrink)

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

Virtual screening is the most critical process in drug discovery, and it relies on machine learning to facilitate the screening process. It enables the discovery of molecules that bind to a specific protein to form a drug. Despite its benefits, virtual screening generates enormous data and suffers from drawbacks such as high dimensions and imbalance. This paper tackles data imbalance and aims to improve virtual screening accuracy, especially for a minority dataset. For a dataset identified without considering the data’s imbalanced (...) nature, most classification methods tend to have high predictive accuracy for the majority category. However, the accuracy was significantly poor for the minority category. The paper proposes a K-mean algorithm coupled with Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique to overcome the problem of imbalanced datasets. The proposed algorithm is named as KSMOTE. Using KSMOTE, minority data can be identified at high accuracy and can be detected at high precision. A large set of experiments were implemented on Apache Spark using numeric PaDEL and fingerprint descriptors. The proposed solution was compared to both no-sampling method and SMOTE on the same datasets. Experimental results showed that the proposed solution outperformed other methods. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have sought to investigate the impact that ethical leaders can have within organisations. Yet, only a few theoretical perspectives have been adopted to explain how ethical leaders influence subordinate outcomes. This study therefore draws on social rules theory (SRT) to extend our understanding of the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to employee attitudes. We argue that ethical leaders reduce disengagement, which in turn promotes higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, as well as lower turnover intentions. (...) Co-worker social undermining is examined as a moderator of the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement, as we suggest that it is difficult for ethical leaders to be effective when co-worker undermining prevails. To test the proposed model, questionnaires were administered to 460 nurses in Romanian hospital settings over three time points separated by two-week intervals and the hypotheses were tested using generalised multilevel structural equation modeling (GSEM) with STATA. The findings revealed that ethical leadership has a beneficial effect on employee attitudes by reducing disengagement. However, the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement was moderated by co-worker social undermining, such that when undermining was higher, the significance of the mediated relationships disappeared. These results suggest that while ethical leaders can promote positive employee attitudes, their effectiveness is reduced in situations where co-worker undermining exists. (shrink)

Nursing, a scientific and practical discipline, faces continuing challenges of finding new direction in order to decipher its core values and develop current ethical codes for nursing practice. In 2009–10, 28 nurses were purposely selected and interviewed using a semi-structured format in focus groups and individually. Thematic Content Analysis helped explore the perception of Iranian nurses on ethical values in patient care. Seven major themes emerged: respect for dignity, professional integrity, professional commitment, developing human relationships, justice, honesty, and promoting individuals (...) and the nursing profession. Iranian nurses revealed a unique and culture-based set of ethical values. This study found that Iranian nurses place a greater emphasis on preserving the dignity of those accompanying the patient and in showing regard for patients' religious beliefs in a gender appropriate environment. (shrink)

The goal of this study is to examine the argumentative functions of concessive yes, but… constructions. Based on interview transcripts, we examine the ways environmental activists negotiate their agreements and disagreements over climate change through yes, but… constructions. Starting from conversational analyses of such concessive sequences, we develop an account grounded in argumentative discourse analysis, notably pragma-dialectics. The analysis focuses on how in conceding arguments speakers re-present others’ discourse, what types of criticism they exercise through particular sequential patterns and which (...) argumentative techniques they saliently use. We show in particular that, in disputing the standpoints supported by the complex argumentation they encounter, speakers raise different types of criticism. We discuss how examining not only the sequencing of agreements and disagreements, but also the argumentative relations that generate these, may extend our understanding of such concessive constructions. (shrink)

Ubuntu has been defined as a moral quality of human beings, as a philosophy or an ethic, as African humanism, and as a worldview. This paper explores these definitions as conceptual tools for understanding the cultural, educational, and philosophical landscape of post-apartheid South Africa. Key to this understanding is the Althusserian concept of state apparatus. Louis Althusser divides the state apparatus into two forces: the repressive state apparatus (RSA); and the ideological state apparatus (ISA). RSAs curtail the working classes, predominately (...) through direct violence or the threat of violence, whereas ISAs function primarily by ideology, including forms of organised religion, the education system, family units, legal systems, trade unions, political parties, and media. This paper discusses the link between increasing inequality in post-apartheid South Africa and education, with specific reference to Althusser’s ISAs and the abuse of Ubuntu as a subterfuge for socio-economic inequality. (shrink)

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study examines a mechanism, namely organizational social capital, through which self-sacrificial leadership is related to two types of employee behaviours: organizational citizenship behaviours and counterproductive behaviours. The results of two different studies in Egypt showed that self-sacrificial leadership is positively related to OSC which, in turn, is positively related to OCBs and negatively related to CPBs. Overall, the findings suggest that self-sacrificial leaders are more likely to achieve desirable employee behaviours through improving the quality (...) of social relationships among employees. (shrink)

An exciting development in the field of assisted reproductive technologies is In Vitro Gametogenesis (IVG) that enables production of functional gametes from stem cells in the laboratory. Currently, development of this technology is still at an early stage and has demonstrated to work only in rodents. Upon critically examining the ethical dimensions of various possible IVG applications in human fertility treatment from a Sunni Islamic perspective, together with benefit-harm (maslahah-mafsadah) assessment; it is concluded that utilization of IVG, once its efficacy (...) and safety are guaranteed, could be permissible by strictly adhering to Islamic ethical principles related to marriage, biological/genetic relatedness, sexual intercourse, and moral status of the embryo/fetus versus that of the gamete. As a result, IVG will be acceptable for treating primary infertility, age-related infertility, and preventing genetic diseases. However, it will be unacceptable for application in posthumous reproduction, donor gametes, genetic enhancement, and procreation in same-sex couples. (shrink)

Michel Seymour fills an important gap in Rawlsian theory. In fact, his Rawls inspired normative theory of collective rights is unprecedented. Likewise, his ideal theory of a primary right to internal self-determination (ISD) is a welcome contribution to the issue of collective rights. That said, his non-ideal theory – a remedial right only to secession – seems rather toothless in cases of noncompliance. In particular, Seymour leaves us with no guidance in the case of transition countries and situations of tension (...) where we need to know whether the ISD of the minority (the stateless) people is enabling or disabling for the ISD of the majority (the state owning) people. The paper concludes that borrowing from Aristotle, as Rawls does, offers more in the way of guidance when it comes to these issues. (shrink)

As a generalization of Zhan’s method, the present paper aims to define the family of complementary fuzzy β -neighborhoods and thus three kinds of covering-based multigranulation -fuzzy rough sets models are established. Their axiomatic properties are investigated. Also, six kinds of covering-based variable precision multigranulation -fuzzy rough sets are defined and some of their properties are studied. Furthermore, the relationships among our given types are discussed. Finally, a decision-making algorithm is presented based on the proposed operations and illustrates with a (...) numerical example to describe its performance. (shrink)

This article discusses the discursive strategies used in some newspaper campaign advertisements for Nigeria’s 2011 elections with a view to unveiling the socio-political motifs and messages of the adverts. Data for the study comprised 60 full-page newspaper election campaign adverts of the two strongest political parties in the country: the People’s Democratic Party and Action Congress of Nigeria published between February and April 2011, a period that can be referred to as the peak period of electioneering campaigns for the 2011 (...) elections in Nigeria. The data gathered were analysed using the analytical tools of critical discourse analysis, with emphasis on Fairclough’s discourse as a social practice approach to the theory. Findings reveal that the text producers employed discursive strategies such as the metaphorization of party symbols, the use of deictic pronouns for inclusion and exclusion, deployment of rhetorical questions for persuasion, identification with the youth culture, employment of historical allusions, giving appeal to good luck, and negative other representation. In addition, the packaging of the information, graphological foregrounding, imagery, repetition and lexical choice reveal the intent of the campaign advertiser to persuade, appeal to sentiments, legitimize and delegitimize their positions in the discourse. (shrink)

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) has a wide influence on the exchange rate, education, health, training, and educational programs. In this paper we describe an intelligent tutoring system that helps student study computer networks. The current ITS provides intelligent presentation of educational content appropriate for students, such as the degree of knowledge, the desired level of detail, assessment, student level, and familiarity with the subject. Our Intelligent tutoring system was developed using ITSB authoring tool for building ITS. A preliminary evaluation of (...) the ITS was done by a group of students and teachers. The results were acceptable. (shrink)

У статті запропоновано новий аналітико-алгоритмічний підхід до оцінки техніко-економічних показників варіанту розробки нафтогазового родовища з урахуванням ефекту отримання економічних зисків за рахунок впливу технологічних інновацій інтенсифікації видобування вуглеводнів та супутньої продукції. При цьому під технологічними інноваціями розуміють змішаний комплекс нових засобів праці, техніки, технологічних вузлів, нових режимних та сировинних карт, логістики, інших загальних позитивних технологічних змін. Наголошується потреба зміни алгоритмів при техніко-економічних розрахунках варіантів розробки нафтогазових родовищ для врахування продажу результатів супутньої видобуванню вуглеводнів генерації та зберігання енергоносіїв, забору цінних порід (...) або мінералів, води. Рекомендується розроблена аналітика та алгоритмічна схема для наближеної оцінки дисконтованого приведеного вільного грошового потоку на кожному розрахунковому кроці при обраній тривалості звітного хронологічного періоду, обраному комплексі фактажу параметричних змін від інновацій, урахуванні прямого прогнозування та залежності вихідних даних одне від іншого. Наукова новизна роботи полягає в одночасному врахуванні динаміки локального та загального економічного ефекту, що створює адаптаційний вплив остаточного економічного результату від попередніх прогнозів і результатів за періоди, зокрема, у контрольно-розрахункових точках. (shrink)