Procedures were designed to test for the effects of working-memory training on children at risk of fluency difficulty that apply to English and to many of the languages spoken by children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in UK schools. Working-memory training should: (1) improve speech fluency in high-risk children; (2) enhance non-word repetition (NWR) (phonological) skills for all children; (3) not affect word-finding abilities. Children starting general education (N = 232) were screened to identify those at risk of (...) fluency difficulty. Children were selected who were at high-risk (12), or low-risk (27) of fluency difficulty. For the low-risk children 10 received, and 17 did not receive, the working-memory training. All children in the treatment groups received working-memory training over a 2-week period. For the high-risk group, fluency improved and lasted for at least a week after the end of the study. Phonological skills improved in this group and in the low-risk group who received the training and the improvements continued for at least a week. The low-risk group who did not receive working-memory training showed no improvements, and no group improved word-finding ability. (shrink)

While positive psychology has drawn increasing interests among researchers in the SLA literature recently, little is known with respect to the relationship between positive psychology and mental processes during L2 reading. To bridge the gap, the present study investigated whether and how positive psychology (self-efficacy) influences word reading strategies during L2 sentence reading. Based on previous studies, eye-movement patterns with first-fixation locations closer to the beginning of a word can be characterized as an attempt to process the word with a (...) local strategy, whereas first-fixation locations farther away from the beginning and closer to the center of a word can be considered as an attempt to use a global strategy. Eye movements of a group of Japanese learners of English (N = 59) were monitored, and L2 reading self-efficacy was used to assess the participants’ positive belief towards their L2 reading skills. Based on B. L. Fredrickson’s (1998) broaden-and-build theory, we predicted an effect of L2 reading self-efficacy on participants’ first-fixation locations. Results from mixed-effects regression showed that while reading strategies depended in part on other factors such as L2 reading proficiency and word properties, L2 self-efficacy influenced reading strategy. The present data suggest that while more self-efficacious L2 readers prefer a more efficient global strategy, attempting to read the word as a whole word, less self-efficacious L2 readers tend to employ a local strategy, focusing more on sublexical information. These findings lend support to the broaden-and-build theory in the context of L2 processing. The present study has implications for how positive psychology works along with L2 proficiency in the development of strategic selection during reading. (shrink)

daftar-i avval. Mabāḥis̲-i maʻrifatʹshinākhtī va ravishʹshinākhtī --.

The author recounts major personal and moral tensions that arose during an 11-month period living in Ghana and shares how she has since learned to reconcile those tensions.

N. M. L. Nathan; VI*—Scepticism and the Regress of Justification, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 77–88, https:/.

The aim of this paper is to give a characterisation of religion and the Religious Spirit, basing itself on the Platonic assumption that there are Forms, salient jewels of simplicity and affinity, to be dug out from the soil of vague experience and cut clear from the confusedly shifting patterns of usage, which will give us conceptual mastery over the changeable detail in a given sector. It will further be Platonic in that it will not seek to discount the deep (...) gulfs between the species into which religion qua genus divides itself, i.e. its theistic, polytheistic and atheistic subvarieties, taking it to be of the essence of a true genus to extend itself over mutually exclusive species, only being what it is by including in its sense the alternatives which are thus mutually exclusive. And my treatment will be Platonic, thirdly, in that it will endeavour to delimit the Religious Spirit by, on the one hand, setting it over against what it excludes, all purely this-world talk and life which is quite irreligious, and by, on the other hand, opposing it to forms of talk and life which fall short of it in various ways or which deviate from it variously, thereby likewise contributing to our understanding of what it is. The practice of Plato, which could study the deviations from his ideal city in order to confirm his notion of its structure and excellence, and which also paired every ideal pattern with its opposite— piety with impiety, justice with self-interested tyranny, etc.—is plainly one to be followed: Plato, as we know from a citation from his contemporary Hermodorus in one of the Aristotelian commentators, always set beside the ‘in itself’ of the pure Form the deviant and the wholly negative which were nonetheless part of its sense. Religion will therefore stand before us as a target that it is possible to fall short of or miss altogether as well as to hit squarely, and we shall try by a series of glancing darts to end by hitting it squarely. (shrink)

On Buddhist philosophies and forecasting.

Hicri I ve II. asırlarda meydana gelen bir takım olaylar, Müslümanların düşünce dünyalarına da bazı tartışmaları beraberinde getirmiştir. Tartışmalı ortamın gerektirdiği sahih bir inanç sisteminin ortaya konulması, akâid türü metinlerin yazılmasına sebep olmuştur. Mâtürîdî ekolünde, Ebû Hanife (ö. 150/767)’nin Fıkhu’l-ekber’i ile başlatılan bu tür metinler içerisinde Hakîm es-Semerkandî (ö. 324/953)’nin es-Sevâdü’l-a‘zam’ı da önemli bir yer tutmaktadır. Bu metnin ayırt edici özelliği ise akâid eseri olmasına rağmen içerisinde birçok fıkhî meseleler barındırmasıdır. Genelde akâid metinlerinde özelde de es-Sevâdü’l-a‘zam isimli eserde fıkhî meselelerin (...) yer almasının muhtemel sebeplerini incelemeye yönelik olan bu çalışmada; Akâid ve fıkıh arasındaki sağlam ilişki, müellifin hanefi-matürîdî geleneğine bağlılığı, muhalif fırkaların görüşlerine tepkisel bir söylem ve dönemin güncel sorunlarına cevap bulma gayesi üzerinde durulacaktır. (shrink)

Abstract Global climate change will have a strong impact on Nigeria, particularly on agricultural production and associated livelihoods. Although there is a growing scientific consensus about the impact of climate change, efforts so far in Nigeria to deal with these impacts are still rudimentary and not properly coordinated. There is little evidence of any pragmatic approach towards tracking climate change in order to develop an evidence base on which to formulate national adaptation strategies. Although Nigeria is not alone in this (...) regard, the paper asserts that National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy could help address this situation by guiding the integration of climate change adaptation into government policies, strategies, and programs, with particular focus on the most vulnerable groups and the agricultural sectors. There is an urgent need to adopt abatement strategies that will provide economic incentives to reduce the risk from disasters, such as developing agricultural practices that are more resilient to a changing climate. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9336-0 Authors N. A. Onyekuru, Ecosystems and Society Research Cluster, Department of Environment, University of York, York, UK Rob Marchant, Ecosystems and Society Research Cluster, Department of Environment, University of York, York, UK Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Study of the religious and philosophical views of Sir Muḥammad Iqbal, 1877-1938.

Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 3 Mart 1924’te, Şeriye ve Evkaf Vekaleti’nin yerine kurulmuştur. Bu düzenleme ile dini konular, siyasal alanın dışına çıkarılıp idari bir işleve indirgenmek istenmiştir. Ancak bu tercihin aksine kurumun görev ve yetkilerinde ve teşkilatında artan ve büyüyen bir seyir ortaya çıkmıştır. Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı’na kurulduğundan bu yana birçok misyon yüklenmiştir. Dinin devlet tarafından kontrol edilmesi, daha çok kurucu iradenin ve militan laiklik taraftarlarının beklentilerini yansıtırken, dini nitelikli hizmetlerin karşılanması ise daha çok muhafazakâr kesimin beklentisi olmuştur. Her iki taraf (...) da kurumu, Türkiye’nin sosyal, tarihsel ve siyasal dokusunun sui generis niteliğiyle meşrulaştırmaya çalışmıştır. Özellikle 633 Sayılı Kanun’dan (1965) sonra Başkanlık, sosyal hayatın daha çok içinde olmaya başlamış ve 1980 sonrası dönemde sosyal ve milli dayanışmanın sağlanması için bir araç olarak görülmüştür. Bu durum, 1982 Anayasası’nın korporatist ve solidarist özelliklerinin bir yansımasıdır. Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı’nın bu şekilde araçsallaştırılması onun yıllar içinde bu derece büyümesinin temel itici gücü olmuştur. (shrink)

Zihin felsefesindeki güçlü temsilci kuramlara göre, bilinç durumlarının fenomenal yönü, temsil içeriklerine tam olarak indirgenerek açıklanabilir olduğu kabul edilmektedir. Özellikle ağrı gibi nesnesi tam olarak belirlenemeyen algı deneyimleri, güçlü temsilci teorilere karşı argümanların geliştirilmesinde sıkça kullanılmaktadır. Güçlü temsilci teorilere göre, bilincin fenomenal özellikleri temsil içeriklerine indirgenir ve temsil içerikleri izlenme teorileri aracılığıyla dışsal fiziksel süreçlerle bağlantı kurularak fizikalist kuramlara uygun bir şekilde açıklanır. Bu makalede, ağrı deneyimi özelinde vücutsal duyuların şeffaflık argümanı temelinde güçlü temsilci teorilere çıkardığı zorluklar ele alınacaktır. Ağrı (...) deneyiminin özgünlüğünü vurgulamak için öne sürülen gerçeklik/görünüş ayrımı argümanının, nesne/algı/edim ayrımının örtük bir kabulüne dayandığı öne sürülecek ve makalenin sonunda bilişsel bilimlerin deneysel verileri ile ağrı deneyimi özelinde gerçeklik/görünüş ayrımı argümanının sağlam bir temele dayanamayacağı savunulacaktır. (shrink)

Juzʼ 1. al-Falsafah al-Yūnānīyah minṬālīs ilá Aflāṭūn al-Ṭabʻah 2. 1965 -- juzʼ 2. Arisṭū. 1966 -- juzʼ 6. al-Falsafah al-ḥadīthah. al-Ṭabʻah 1. 1969 --.

Believers regularly refer to God as “forgiving and merciful” when praying for divine forgiveness. If one is committed to divine immutability and impassability, as Maimonides is, one must deny that God is capable, in principle, of acting in a forgiving manner. If one rejects divine impassability, maintaining that God has a psychology, as Muffs does, one must reckon with biblical depictions of divine vengeance and rage. Such depictions suggest that while being capable, in principle, of acting in a forgiving way, (...) God has a difficulty to manage God’s anger and do so in practice. Employing a Wittgensteinian perspective, I argue that utterances, e.g., “God merciful and gracious, slow to anger. . . forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”, need not be understood as involving mistaken or confused descriptions of God’s nature and manner of acting. Rather, they can be understood as speech-acts of various types and functions: mystical, theurgic and others, that purport to bring about or transform various states of affairs in this world and/or beyond it. As such, they can function as non-semantic instruments that purport to elevate the believer to the “upper worlds”, or as anger-management devices that purport to help God implement His second order desire to act in a forgiving manner, despite His difficulty to do so. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the question of the existence of moral dilemmas, conceived of as situations involving a subject in a conflict of non‐overridden moral obligations. I reject some of the presuppositions underlying discussions of this question and argue that certain morally relevant choices cannot be evaluated in relation to an all‐things‐considered moral obligation as permissible or impermissible, right or wrong. In arguing for the inadequacy of our ordinary moral predicates for fully capturing the nature of such choices, I (...) argue that they are, in certain respects, inexpressible. (shrink)

It seems that the choice for the subject "Christian Ethics in Ukrainian Culture" was made by everyone: the so-called "traditional Churches" and the authorities. The move, however, leaves much room for thought. First, who will teach this subject in educational institutions? We propose to use the experience not only of the western regions of Ukraine, including Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, etc., but also of the Ostroh Academy National University. When on March 24, 2000, the Rivne Regional Council decided to introduce the subject (...) of Christian ethics in Rivne schools, the National University "Ostroh Academy" became one of the basic training centers for teachers of Christian ethics. The creation of a faculty for the training of teachers of Christian ethics caused, accordingly, the recruitment of students. (shrink)