This eighth volume of Collected Papers includes 75 papers comprising 973 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2010-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 102 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 24 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abduallah Gamal, Firoz Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Akbar Rezaei, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, Azeddine Elhassouny, Durga Banerjee, Romualdas Bausys, Mircea Boșcoianu, Traian Alexandru Buda, Bui Cong Cuong, Emilia Calefariu, Ahmet Çevik, Chang Su Kim, Victor (...) Christianto, Dae Wan Kim, Daud Ahmad, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Mamouni Dhar, H. A. Elagamy, Ahmed K. Essa, Sudipta Gayen, Bibhas C. Giri, Daniela Gîfu, Noel Batista Hernández, Hojjatollah Farahani, Huda E. Khalid, Irfan Deli, Saeid Jafari, Tèmítópé Gbóláhàn Jaíyéolá, Sripati Jha, Sudan Jha, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, M. Karthika, Kawther F. Alhasan, Giruta Kazakeviciute-Januskeviciene, Qaisar Khan, Kishore Kumar P K, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Maikel Leyva-Vázquez, Mahmoud Ismail, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa Masood Malik, Mohammad Abobala, Mai Mohamed, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Seema Mehra, Kalyan Mondal, Mohamed Talea, Mullai Murugappan, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Aslam Malik, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Nivetha Martin, Durga Nagarajan, Nguyen Van Dinh, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Lewis Nkenyereya, Jagan M. Obbineni, M. Parimala, S. K. Patro, Peide Liu, Pham Hong Phong, Surapati Pramanik, Gyanendra Prasad Joshi, Quek Shio Gai, R. Radha, A.A. Salama, S. Satham Hussain, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Selvaraj Ganesan, Shahbaz Ali, Shouzhen Zeng, Manjeet Singh, A. Stanis Arul Mary, Dragiša Stanujkić, Yusuf Șubaș, Rui-Pu Tan, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Zenonas Turskis, Vakkas Uluçay, Norberto Valcárcel Izquierdo, V. Venkateswara Rao, Volkan Duran, Ying Li, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Jian-qiang Wang, Lihshing Leigh Wang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas. (shrink)

According to Palazzo and Scherer, the changing role of business corporations in society requires that we take new measures to integrate these organizations into society-wide processes of democratic governance. We argue that their model of integration has a fundamental problem. Instead of treating business corporations as agents that must be held accountable to the democratic reasoning of affected parties, it treats corporations as agents who can hold others accountable. In our terminology, it treats business corporations as “supervising authorities” rather than (...) “functionaries.” The result is that Palazzo and Scherer’s model does not actually address the democratic deficit that it is meant to solve. In order to fix the problem, we advocate removing business corporations from any policymaking role in political CSR and limiting participation to political NGOs and other groups that meet the standards we set out for a politically representative organization (PRO). (shrink)

Purpose: The cost of capital is a critical factor influencing investment decisions and company financing. Sustainability reporting also enhances the strategic and organizational legitimacy of companies. Therefore, it is expected that sustainability reporting can influence company legitimacy with enhancing trust of companies, their capital costs is reduced. Based on this premise, the objective of this research is to investigate the impact of sustainability reporting on the cost of capital of companies listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange. Method: for testing of (...) hypothesis Data from 33 listed companies on the Iraq Stock Exchange during the company's period of 2012-2022 was collected and analyzed using a multiple linear regression approach with a combination of panel data analysis. Result: Our findings indicate that Iraqi firms experience higher costs of capital due to their weak implementation of sustainability reporting. Conclusion: reporting on corporate sustainability activities can enhance reputation of companies and, by gaining legitimacy for the companies, their cost of capital is reduced. Implication: These findings can inform policymakers about the need to strengthen requirements for sustainability reporting. Also help investor to form an optimal portfolio based on the policy of companies in compliance with the sustainability reporting. (shrink)

Norms provide a valuable mechanism for establishing coherent cooperative behaviour in decentralised systems in which there is no central authority. One of the most influential formulations of norm emergence was proposed by Axelrod :1095–1111, 1986). This paper provides an empirical analysis of aspects of Axelrod’s approach, by exploring some of the key assumptions made in previous evaluations of the model. We explore the dynamics of norm emergence and the occurrence of norm collapse when applying the model over extended durations. It (...) is this phenomenon of norm collapse that can motivate the emergence of a central authority to enforce laws and so preserve the norms, rather than relying on individuals to punish defection. Our findings identify characteristics that significantly influence norm establishment using Axelrod’s formulation, but are likely to be of importance for norm establishment more generally. Moreover, Axelrod’s model suffers from significant limitations in assuming that private strategies of individuals are available to others, and that agents are omniscient in being aware of all norm violations and punishments. Because this is an unreasonable expectation, the approach does not lend itself to modelling real-world systems such as online networks or electronic markets. In response, the paper proposes alternatives to Axelrod’s model, by replacing the evolutionary approach, enabling agents to learn, and by restricting the metapunishment of agents to cases where the original defection is observed, in order to be able to apply the model to real-world domains. This work can also help explain the formation of a “social contract” to legitimate enforcement by a central authority. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 48, Issue 1, Page 79-113, Winter 2020.

In the past decade, the use of the Chapter XI has soared to the detriment of many creditors, workers, and consumers. A good number of cases were not based on imminent insolvency, but on firms attempts to avoid litigation claims against them, to terminate labor or other contractual obligations, or to gain new financing.These filings for Chapter XI highlight the use of bank-ruptcy as a strategic option used by management in running a viable organization. This usage is even advised by (...) some academics and management consultants. (shrink)

The question of the meaning of life is one of the fundamental issues that humanity was asking since the beginning of its creation. Among various approaches to addressing the issue of meaning of existence, one of the primary methods is the philosophical approach. Meanwhile, Islamic philosophy, when confronted with the question of the meaning of life, establishes its foundation upon the understanding of human capacities and capabilities. It asserts that the answer to the question of the origin of life can (...) only be achieved through recognizing human nature, which with its faculty of intellect, tends to discover truth and the meaning of life. Islamic philosophy does not view human life as separate from the system of the universe. Instead, it seeks to find the meaning of lifewithin this framework and a specific context. The significance, value, and credibility of human life are based on its interpretation of the universe and its connection to the ultimate purpose. Therefore, meaningfulness is contingent upon the humans' relationship with the ultimate purpose of the universe. In this article, I examine the perspective of Islamic philosophy on the meaning of life based on its definition of the human being and the universe. (shrink)

One of the main issues concerning different versions of content externalism is whether or not they are compatible with the privileged access thesis. According to the so-called ‘illusion version’ of externalism, in reference failure cases (such as cases in which an empty proper name is involved) the subject suffers an illusion of entertaining a thought. In this paper, I shall concentrate on a recent argument offered by Jessica Brown, which she calls the “illusion argument”, to the effect that the illusion (...) version of externalism undermines the privileged access thesis (Brown, 2004). After criticizing Brown's argument, I shall try to reconstruct the illusion argument in a more defensible and straightforward way. I will exploit, in my argument, solutions proposed by Goldman and Alston for the so-called ‘generality problem’ (Goldman, 1986; Alston, 1995). Moreover, I shall offer a stronger formulation of the global reliability condition for knowledge, upon which my reconstruction of the illusion argument is based. (shrink)

Mansour Fahmy, one of the dramatic figures in modern Arab philosophical and social thought. He was the reformist and enlightenment figure in modern Arab history. He is also the owner of a notable current that was subjected to a violent attack that silenced him for a long time and forced him to "hide" physically. However, this did not eliminate the new opinions and positions that came at the beginning of the twentieth century towards the issue of women. He is the (...) first to write with a scientific methodology - from the point of view of sociology - on Islamic discourse and its dealings with women. he sought to differentiate between religion and the religious establishment, between the personality of the Prophet Muhammad and what later prevailed in the books of jurisprudence and others. When he discussed the headscarf issue, he concluded that it was the product of traditions and customs that the Hijab is not from the Islamic religion. Islamic law has nothing to do with the Hijab. Mansour Fahmy's creativity was at one of the sensitive stages in Egypt's modern history in which the political, social, national, cultural, and revolution clashed in each one. All this, in turn, identified the problem of Mansour Fahmy's intellectual personality in the battles of thought and politics. This research's main task is to redraw the features of his actual personality and the reality of his intellectual, social, and political positions. Besides, this study seeks to uncover the effect of philosophy on crystallizing Mansour Fahmy's critical personality and its role in laying the foundations of the critical vision with its practical, reformist, and enlightening dimensions. (shrink)

The quality of the products coming from different lines of production requires some tests called comparative life tests. For lines having the same facility, the lifetime of the product is distributed by Burr XII, the lifetime distribution, and units are tested under type-I generalized hybrid censoring scheme. The observed censoring data are used under maximum likelihood and the Bayes method to estimate the model parameters. The theoretical results are discussed and assessed through data analysis and Monte Carlo simulation study. Finally, (...) we reported some brief comments obtained from numerical computation. (shrink)

This report seeks to discuss the threats to liberal democracy and explore how to devise a new path towards democratic transition and the challenges faced: civil war, sectarian and religious conflicts, ethnic and national tensions, international terrorism and regional wars, and societal violence. The impact on democratic transformation, especially the sense of threat, whether literal or theoretical, led to the tendency of demagogic towards a populist outlook in pluralistic societies, generating reactions across other societies suffering from external alienation and internal (...) tyranny. The world is currently faced with the decline of the core values of the concept of democracy at the global level which has led us to the following questions: the principle of the rule of law, peaceful trading of power, human rights, the principles of equality and sovereignty. The populists attempt to exploit the ideas of the stereotypical, especially on hatred of the other, and the xenophobia against foreigners when faced with the wave of asylum and migration seekers, diminishing freedoms and citizenship rights, coupled with the rejection of economic globalization, to the implementation of a protectionist policy. Victories such as Brexit or Donald Trump’s in the United States have brought forward scenes of fear and hatred of ‘the other’, encouraging intolerance and extremism. This led to a rise in policies against foreigners, migration, terrorism, Islam and protectionist economics. This report will look at a future beyond traditional democracy, discovering what the next stage in democracy will be, in terms of the survival of society, raising problematic questions: Is democracy, by virtue of their dynamics, able to respond to the changing realities, and whether it can renew itself and overcome some of its issues to invent new methods and literature? (shrink)

Physicist Percy Bridgman has been taken by Heather Douglas to be an exemplar defender of an untenable value-free ideal for science. This picture is complicated by a detailed study of Bridgman's philosophical views of the relation between science and society. The normative autonomy of science, a version of the value-free ideal, is defended. This restriction on the provenance of permissible values in science is given a basis in Bridgman's broader philosophical commitments, most importantly, his view that science is primarily an (...) individual commitment to a set of epistemic norms and values. Considerations of external moral or social values are not, on this view, intrinsic to scientific practice, though they have a broader pragmatic significance. What Bridgman takes as the proper relation between science and society is shown through analysis of his many writings on the topic and consideration of his rarely remarked upon involvement in the most problematic example of "Big Science" of his day: the atomic bomb. A reevaluation of Bridgman's views provides a unique characterization of what is at stake in the values in science debate: the normative autonomy of science. (shrink)

Ibadiyya is one of the earliest Islamic sects and one of the few to have survived to the present day. The Ibadiyya sect is still active in many places, including Tanzania, the Sultanate of Oman, and North Africa. Despite all of this information, fewer studies on Ibadis exist than on other extant and non-member sects. An Islamic group known as the Ibadiyya first appeared following the so-called “great acts of sedition” (büyük fitne) in the first century AH. This group initially (...) supported the Kharijites, but over time, it gradually shifted away from them in terms of politics and mindset. Even though the Kharijites were exterminated from the historical scene at an early age, the Ibadis have survived until the present. However, according to many researchers, the Ibadis still exist as a branch of the Kharijites. In this study, the theological thoughts of North African Ibadis are discussed. Since the Ibadis and Kharijites generally held different ideological and political perspectives. And the North African Ibadis in particular are distinguished from the Kharijites as well as from the general Ibadis by their differences. And it is essential to understand the underlying and guiding thinking behind these differences in order to understand their essence. (shrink)

I provide an account of the physical appropriate to the task of the physicalist while remaining faithful to the usage of “physical” natural to physicists. Physicalism is the thesis that everything in the world is physical, or reducible to the physical. I presuppose that some version of this position is a live epistemic possibility. The physicalist is confronted with Hempel’s dilemma: that physicalism is either false or contentless. The proposed account of the physical avoids both horns and generalizes a recent (...) proposal by Vicente (2011). My account defines physicalism as the thesis that there are no objects that cannot be described by physical quantities. A dimensional account of physical quantities is given: quantities are determined by measurement procedures. (shrink)

One of the main arguments intended to show that content externalism undermines the privileged access thesis is the ‘slow switching argument’, originally proposed by Boghossian. In this argument, it is supposed that a subject is unknowingly switched back and forth between Earth and Twin Earth: then it is claimed that, given externalism, when the subject is on Earth thinking that water is wet, he cannot know the content of his thought a priori, for he cannot, by mere reflection, rule out (...) the relevant alternative hypothesis that he is on Twin Earth thinking that twater is wet. One of the controversies surrounding this argument stems from the fact that it is not clear which epistemological principle underlies it. Here, I examine two suggestions made in the literature as to what that underlying principle might be. I argue that neither of these suggested principles is plausible, and thus that the slow switching argument never gets off the ground. (shrink)

Imagination has always been a mysterious issue for modern philosophy and psychology. In this paper, however, I will not deal with modern theories of imagination; instead, I will suggest an alternative notion of imaginal power by stepping back toward Persian illuminative thought within which we may glimpse a hint of a transcendent concept of imagination as the source of human subjectivity and its power to create the object and the world. My objective here is to extend some noetic aspects of (...) this concept and extract further conclusions theoretically. To this end, I will first introduce a brief account of the noetic characteristic of the Illuminationist perspective of the imagination, then I outline aspects of its efficiency which may shed some light on the modern debate on the subject and its relation to the object. (shrink)

Consanguineous marriages are strongly preferred in much of West and South Asia. This paper examines the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of consanguineous unions in Pakistan using local and national data. Information from 1011 ever-married women living in four multi-ethnic and multi-lingual squatter settlements of Karachi, the main commercial centre of the country, are compared with data from the national 1990/91 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS), based on information provided by 6611 women. Both sets of results indicate that approximately 60% (...) of marriages were consanguineous, over 80% of which were between first cousins. The mean coefficients of inbreeding (F) in the present generation were 0·0316 and 0·0331 for the Karachi and PDHS data respectively. In both surveys the prevalence of consanguineous unions appeared to be unchanged over the past three to four decades. Consanguineous unions were more common among women who were illiterate or had only primary level education, were first or second generation migrants from rural areas of Pakistan or, in the PDHS, lived in rural areas, and whose parents were also consanguineously married. (shrink)

تحول العالم في الواقع المعاصر إلى قرية صغيرة بفعل الثورة التقنية في الاتصال والتواصل، وهذا منح النظام الغربي القدرة على بسط سيطرته على مجال الإعلام المعاصر من خلال ابتكار أدوات ووسائل معينة الغلبة فيها للمادة على حساب الروح والدنيا على حساب الآخرة، وهو ما يحتم على القائمين على الإعلام الإسلامي إعادة النظر في أولويات الخطاب، خاصة مع تصاعد الخطاب المعادي للإسلام وتزايد الهجمات على قطعيات الدين، وتنامي محاربة المحتوى الإسلامي، لتضاف هذه التحديات إلى إشكاليات سابقة عانى منها الإعلام الإسلامي ولا (...) يزال، وإن المناهج التي يمكن الولوج من خلالها إلى دراسة الإعلام كثيرة، بيد أن أكثرها ندرة هو النظر الأولوي والمنهج المقاصدي، وهو الذي تخيره الباحث في هذه الدراسة. وهذا الاختيار مبني على فرضيات عديدة أهمها: معيارية علم المقاصد وفقه الأولويات، وصفة المعيارية من أهم الصفات التي تتوخاها النظريات المعرفية، وإن المكنة المنهجية والإجرائية التي تبحث عنها هذه النظريات ويبحث عنه رواد الإعلام المعاصر موجودة في هذا المنهج. وبناء عليه تحدد سؤال الورقة على النحو الآتي: كيف يمكن تنزيل قواعد فقه الأولويات المستندة إلى مقاصد الشريعة على مجال الإعلام المعاصر بما يحقق نهضة الأمة وريادتها وشهودها على الأمم؟ وقد قسم الباحث الورقة إلى مطلبين تناول أولهما مفهوم الأولويات في مجال الإعلام وأدلة اعتبار هذا الفقه في هذا المجال، فيما تناول المطلب الثاني تنزيل قواعد فقه الأولويات على مجال الإعلام المعاصر مع التمثيل لكل مرتبة من المراتب بحسب ثلاث أصناف من القواعد: قواعد المقاصد، وقواعد فقه الواقع، وقواعد الوسائل. وقد تعددت زوايا تأصيل هذه الفكرة، فطرقها الباحث من زاويتين: إعلامية حيث تناول نظرية ترتيب الأولويات في علم الإعلام المعاصر، ومقاصدية حيث تناول قواعد الأولويات المستندة إلى علم مقاصد الشريعة، واستعمل في سبيل ذلك مناهج الوصف والتحليل والاستنباط مع قليل من منهج المقارنة. وقد خلصت الورقة فيما خلصت إليه من نتائج إلى ضرورة إعمال علم المقاصد في النظر الاجتهادي المتعلق بمجال الإعلام، وأنه ضرورة وليس ترفاً معرفياً، كما خلصت إلى ضرورة ترشيد إعلام الفكرة الإسلامية المعاصر بمعايير مقاصد الشريعة أولاً، ومعايير مقاصد الخطاب والإعلام ثانياً. وأوصت الدراسة بضرورة تفعيل فقه الأولويات من خلال تطوير استراتيجيات إعلامية قريبة ومتوسطة وبعيدة تبنى عليه، كما أوصت الباحثين والمشتغلين في حقلي الإعلام ومقاصد الشريعة بالعمل الجاد المشترك على تأطير الإعلام بفقه المقاصد، وتفعيل المقاصد في مجال الإعلام. (shrink)

In this paper a symmetry argument against quantity absolutism is amended. Rather than arguing against the fundamentality of intrinsic quantities on the basis of transformations of basic quantities, a class of symmetries defined by the Π-theorem is used. This theorem is a fundamental result of dimensional analysis and shows that all unit-invariant equations which adequately represent physical systems can be put into the form of a function of dimensionless quantities. Quantity transformations that leave those dimensionless quantities invariant are empirical and (...) dynamical symmetries. The proposed symmetries of the original argument fail to be both dynamical and empirical symmetries and are open to counterexamples. The amendment of the original argument requires consideration of the relationships between quantity dimensions. The discussion raises a pertinent issue: what is the modal status of the constants of nature which figure in the laws? Two positions, constant necessitism and constant contingentism, are introduced and their relationships to absolutism and comparativism undergo preliminary investigation. It is argued that the absolutist can only reject the amended symmetry argument by accepting constant necessitism. I argue that the truth of an epistemically open empirical hypothesis would make the acceptance of constant necessitism costly: together they entail that the facts are nomically necessary. (shrink)

The Coronavirus pandemic has been ongoing for almost two years now. Not only did it surprise the whole world in the initial stages of its occurrence, but also the world left it in shock. Therefore, the instant solution strategies included complete lockdowns in order to prevent the spread of such a disease. However, as the lockdowns lasted longer, it generated negative psychological effects on people globally. This being the case, collective endeavors and efforts were performed, in the hope of achieving (...) a concrete solution in order to overcome the bad repercussions that seemed visible on societal levels, which of course, included religious aspects; and in some cases resulted in social separation as well as a dramatic rise in suicide rates. On the one hand, this caused a retraction from the religion and religiously oriented rituals, but on the other hand, it also made people turn more to religion as it provided a psychological relief from the heavy burdens of the pandemic. These psychological conditions had theological resonances that made already complicated issues even more complex. Among them, the nature of God’s actions and the human position in this matter can be given as examples. This article is an attempt to place and define the issue of the pandemics and plagues from the perspective of Islamic theology, in particular, to shed light on three main points. The first is the problem of pains and aches, and how it was mentioned in theological literaturey and discussed by Islamic theologians (Mutakallimūn), as the issue of pandemics and plagues indisputably fall under this matter. The second point tackles the problem of whether “such calamities as pandemics and plagues come from God's Decree, or not?”. The last point focuses on the issue of fatalism and tries to show whether the de facto acceptance that pandemics are from God’s Decree would require the servant to stop taking measures in response to them. To answer the questions at stake, this paper will focus on four different perspectives of the Mu’tazila, Ash‛arī s, Māturīdis, and Ahl al-Hadīth, by using a selective methodology and focusing on their prominent and pioneering theologians (Mutakallimūn) of these schools. (shrink)

The study empirically investigates the relationship between corporate governance and the triple bottom line sustainability performance through the lens of agency theory and stakeholder theory. We claim, in fact, that no single theory fully accounts for all the hypothesised relationships. We measure sustainability performance through manual content analysis on sustainability reports of the US-based companies. The study extends the existing literature by investigating the impact of selected corporate governance mechanisms on each dimension of sustainability performance, as defined by the GRI (...) framework. Our approach allows to identify which governance mechanisms foster triple bottom line performance, also revealing that some mechanisms fit only specific dimension of sustainability. The fact-based findings provide support for a new beginning in the theorising process in which the theories must try not only to provide rationale for the impact of corporate governance on sustainability, but also to explain which dimension of sustainability might be more affected. The most important implication for practitioners is the support for sustainability practices, which may be gained through implementation of particular corporate governance mechanisms. The findings contribute also to the improvement of the ongoing standard setting process, in particular as it concerns the in-depth revision of the economic dimension of sustainability carried out under the new GRI framework. (shrink)

The search for cultural sociology -- New intellectual concepts for cultural sociology -- Social sciences need for the HS paradigm -- Theory of HS and the rules of collective behavioural patterns of influence on people's behaviors -- Culture profile from a different Islamic view -- The Aql-Naql theory of human symbols and the making of cultural sociology -- HS behind human longer lifespan -- Social science illiteracy of the other underdevelopment in post-colonial societies -- The Arab Muslim world set to (...) dialogue with the West : a cultural perspective. (shrink)

Boghossian’s discrimination argument aims to show that content externalism undermines the privileged access thesis. Simon Dierig has recently proposed a new objection to Boghossian’s argument according to which having a “twater thought” is not an alternative, and a fortiori not a relevant alternative, to possessing a “water thought”. Dierig also considers, and criticizes, a modified version of the discrimination argument which would be immune to his objection. I shall argue, first, that he fails to advance a successful objection to the (...) original version of the argument; and, second, that his criticism of the modified version is misconceived. (shrink)

This book explores the spiritual potential of faith, mysticism and transcendence in answer to the dangers of a mythologised state and the sacro-sanctification of (liberal) democracy and its rule of law. It searches for a curative for the pathological transformation of these institutions into--so called--political religions. Along this line, it explores the importance of spirituality and transcendence for political legitimacy, democratic participation and international cooperation, law and politics. There being no general agreed-upon definition of 'spirituality', the authors examine what may (...) be seen as 'spiritual' dimensions of the political. These dimensions have in common a focus on transcendence as a vanishing point of rationality and rational justification. This vanishing point may become manifest, for example, in a primordial requisite of becoming an individual person; in responding--in freedom--to the call of theocracy; in the phenomenon of prophecy or political wisdom; in the remaining shards of formerly all-pervasive religious institutions; in tenacious hope for a democracy-to-come; in the courageous resilience and resistance of citizens of 'non-' or 'un-democratic' states; etc."--Page 4 of back cover. (shrink)

Translated from Telugu by Adivi Radha Krishna and Seeta Rama Hanuma Kumari.

This study explores the realm of sustainability by examining the influence of female directors' foreign experience on green innovation across various industry sectors and corporate board structures. Specifically, the research focuses on the impact of female directors' foreign experience on green innovation in Chinese listed firms from 2004 to 2021. Our findings show that female directors with foreign experience have a positive and significant effect on green innovation. Further analysis indicates that this relationship is positively and significantly moderated by state-owned (...) enterprises, larger firms, firms operating in polluting industries, environments with low market competition, and the presence of foreign directors on the board. The robustness of our results is confirmed through the use of different econometric techniques, alternative measures of dependent and independent variables, and addressing endogeneity concerns. Overall, our study suggests that female directors with foreign experience enhance the transfer of environmental and sustainable knowledge and practices, thereby fostering green innovation within Chinese listed firms. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s favourable comments about science and the senses have recently been taken as evidence of naturalism. Others focus on his falsification thesis: our beliefs are falsifying interpretations of reality. Clark argues that Nietzsche eventually rejects this thesis. This article utilizes the multiple ways of being science friendly in Nietzsche’s context by focussing on Mach’s neutral monism. Mach’s positivism is a natural development of neo-Kantian positions Nietzsche was reacting to. Section 15 of Beyond Good and Evil is crucial to Clark’s interpretation. (...) The presented interpretation makes better sense of this passage and shows that Nietzsche can accept both falsification and empiricism. (shrink)

Consistency of choice is a fundamental and recurring theme in decision theory, social choice theory, behavioral economics, and psychological sciences. The purpose of this paper is to study the consistency of choice independent of the particular decision model at hand. Consistency is viewed as an inherently logical concept that is fundamentally void of connotation and is thus disentangled from traditional rationality or consistency conditions imposed on decision models. The proposed formalization of consistency takes two forms: internal consistency, which refers to (...) the property that a choice model does not generate contradictory statements; and semantic consistency, which refers to the idea that a theory’s predictions are valid with respect to some observed data. In addressing semantic consistency, the relationship between theory and data is analyzed in terms of so-called duality mappings, which allow a passage between the two universes in a way that consistency is preserved. The formalization of consistency concepts relies on adapting the revealed preference theory to the context-dependent setting. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the proposed framework and how it relates to classical revealed preference theory and other formalizations of the relationship between the theory and reality of choice. (shrink)

This article exploits the synergy of critical discourse studies and Corpus Linguistics to study the pervasive representation of Islam and Muslims in an approximate 670,000-word corpus of US news media stories published between 2001 and 2015. Following collocation and concordance analysis of the most frequent topics or categories which revolve around the representation of Islam and Muslims in US news stories, the Discourse-Historical Approach to critical discourse analysis was adopted to investigate how the discursive strategies of nomination and predication are (...) used in US news media stories. The findings indicated that, in general, Islam and Muslims are associated with violence, religious radicalism, and Islamic extremist militants. Finally, the article discusses the discursive themes resulting from the analysis of personal pronouns as well as the educational implications of the findings for social studies and multicultural education. (shrink)

Given the evolution of the public health (PH) and the changes from the phenomenon of globalization, this area has encountered new ethical challenges. In order to find a coherent approach to address ethical issues in PH policy, this study aimed to identify the evolution of public health ethics (PHE) frameworks and the main moral values and norms in PH practice and policy. According to the research questions, a systematic search of the literature, in English, with no time limit was performed (...) using the main keywords in databases Web of Science (ISI) and PubMed. Finally, the full text of 56 papers was analyzed. Most of the frameworks have common underpinning assumptions and beliefs, and the need to balance PH moral obligation to prevent harm and health promotion with respect for individual autonomy has been specified. As such, a clear shift from liberal values in biomedical ethics is seen toward the community’s collective values in PHE. The main moral norms in PH practice and policy included protecting the population against harm and improving PH benefits, utility and evidenced-based effectiveness, distributive justice and fairness, respect for all, privacy and confidentiality, solidarity, social responsibility, community empowerment and participation, transparency, accountability and trust. Systematic review of PHE frameworks indicates utilization of the aforementioned moral norms through an practical framework as an ethical guide for action in the PH policy. The validity of this process requires a systematic approach including procedural conditions. (shrink)

In this paper I present and evaluate van Inwagen’s famous Consequence Argument, as presented in An Essay on Free Will. The grounds for the incompatibility of freewill and determinism, as argued by van Inwagen, is dependent on our actions being logical consequences of events outside of our control. Particularly, his arguments depend upon, in one guise or another, the transference of the modal property of not being possibly rendered false through the logical consequence relation, i.e. the β-principle. I argue that, (...) due to the symmetric nature of determinism, van Inwagen is exposed to what I call “reversibility arguments” in the literature. Such arguments reverse the β-principle and start from our apparent control over our own actions to our control over the initial conditions. Since van Inwagen does not endorse a particular theory of laws or logical consequence, he is open to such counterarguments. The plausibility of such reversibility arguments depends on what would be called a Wittgensteinian conception of logical consequence. In the _Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics_, one of Wittgenstein’s main concerns is the normativity of logical inference i.e. proof. Such concerns with normativity and rule-following are generally a feature of his later philosophy. In the _Remarks_ Wittgenstein resists a conception of logical deduction which places the source of normativity outside of human practice. (shrink)

Social media advertisement is a growing phenomenon designed to reach and engage customers. However, despite their continued adoption, less remains known regarding the effectiveness of social media ads to co-create brand value. In response to this gap, this study aims to deepen the theoretical understanding of consumer value co-creation through social media advertising value. The data were collected using purposive sampling from 286 experienced social-media users, and the model was tested using partial least square -based structural equation modeling. The results (...) indicate that entertainment, aesthetic appeal, interactivity, and trendiness significantly affect the adverting value of social media ads. In turn, ad value affects consumers’ intention for value co-creation. Consequently, our findings suggest the importance of social media advertising value where marketers may enhance consumer-brand engagement by incorporating interesting content, which may encourage the customer’s interaction with the social media ads and strengthen value co-creation behavior. The results further contribute to nascent marketing literature by demonstrating that value co-creation acts as an antecedent to generating positive electronic word-of-mouth on social media platforms to drive consumers’ online brand purchase intention. (shrink)