Objective: to evaluate CANLPH score and systemic immune inflammation index (SII) in patients with symptomatic rheumatic mitral stenosis (MS) undergoing percutaneous mitral balloon valvuloplasty (PMBV). -/- Methods: 62 patients who underwent PMBV in our clinic between 2018 and 2021 were included retrospectively. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to echo score. The CANLPH score was calculated from the cut-off values of C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CAR), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to hemoglobin ratio (PHR), determined (...) with the Youden index and SII by the formula platelet x neutrophil/lymphocyte. P <0.05 was considered statistically significant. -/- Results: The mean age of the patients was 44.5±10.4 years (40 female, 64.5%). The mean values of SII and CANLPH scores were higher in the Echo score >8 group (p <0.001, both). The mean mitral gradient before and after PMBV was 12.6±5.7mm Hg and 5.0±2.4 mm Hg, and the mean valve area was 1.12±0.27 cm2 and 1.85±0.29 cm2. A statistically significant and negative correlation was observed between the gradient decrease after the procedure and the CANLPH score and SII (r=-0.426, p=0.001 and r=-0.418, p=0.001, respectively). In receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, it was concluded that the ability of CANPLH score to predict the higher Echo scores was noninferior to SII with an area under curve (AUC:0.820 (0.701-0.906) and AUC:0.786 (0.664-0.880), z statistics 0.576 and p=0.564. -/- Conclusion: SII and CANLPH scores are correlated with Echo score. A significant negative relationship was found with both biomarkers and gradient decrease after the PMBV. (shrink)

Amyand’s hernia refers to the condition in which an inflamed, perforated, or normal appendix is present in the hernia sac. It accounts for 1% of all inguinal hernias and its preoperative diagnosis in patients is difficult. A 67-year-old male patient who underwent right-sided inguinal hernia repair with a mesh approximately 2 years before at another healthcare center was referred to our clinic with complaints of pain in his right inguinal area and swelling, which became evident while coughing or straining, for (...) approximately 2 months. A surgical procedure to repair his recurrent inguinal hernia was planned, and appendiceal tissue was observed in the hernia sac during the procedure. Appendectomy was not performed because the appendix was observed to be normal. Tension-free mesh hernioplasty was performed. The patient was discharged on postoperative day 1, without any complications. Amyand’s hernia is generally intraoperatively diagnosed and is a rare form of hernia with no specific symptoms. In this case report, we showed that despite the patient undergoing a surgical procedure, the appendix was present in the hernia sac because of recurrence, and we aimed at reviewing Amyand’s hernia with the literature. (shrink)

Today the world is suffering from coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic illness, and people all around the world stay at home due to its rapid spread. People including students gather information and government instructions through TVs, social media and others around them. Since the classes were canceled in many countries, the novel coronavirus affects students’ interest in coursework. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of TV news, social media and communication with people on interest in coursework, and mediating (...) roles of fear of contamination, depression, and anxiety on these effects. A path analysis was carried out with the data collected from 773 college students. The results showed that interest in coursework was most strongly affected by communication with people. This was due to its direct and indirect effects. Social media and TV News did not directly affect interest in coursework, but indirectly affected. The study also found that among the three mediator variables, the mediator roles of anxiety was bigger than the others. Understanding the findings of this research has become very important to us, especially at a time when face-to-face lessons have been canceled all over the world and transitioned to online education. Specific recommendations for practitioners and limitations for future research were also provided in the study. (shrink)

This paper argues that the historical conception of knowing as a presentational factive mental state (‘presentationalism’) is not best understood as an alternative to belief-based and knowledge-first epistemology, but rather as an account of epistemic architecture that is compatible with these paradigms. To defend this claim, the paper focuses on a challenge to presentationalism raised by inferential knowledge and argues that the problem can be solved only if presentationalism is understood as I suggest. The paper is structured as follows. §1 (...) explains presentationalism and its recent revival. §2 considers a flat-footed argument that presentationalism cannot get any cases of inferential knowledge right. §3 suggests that this problem can and should be solved by drawing a distinction between two kinds of epistemic priority, and by holding that inferential knowledge can be immediate in an epistemologically significant sense. But §4 argues that this only goes so far, since not all inferential knowledge is alike. This further problem can also be solved, but only if presentationalism is reframed as a proposal about epistemic architecture that does not compete with belief-based and knowledge-first accounts, §5 concludes. (shrink)

In this paper an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model, for predicting the category of a tumor was developed and tested. Taking patients’ tests, a number of information gained that influence the classification of the tumor. Such information as age, sex, histologic-type, degree-of-diffe, status of bone, bone-marrow, lung, pleura, peritoneum, liver, brain, skin, neck, supraclavicular, axillar, mediastinum, and abdominal. They were used as input variables for the ANN model. A model based on the Multilayer Perceptron Topology was established and trained using (...) data set which its title is “primary tumor” and was obtained from the University Medical Centre, Institute of Oncology, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia Test data evaluation shows that the ANN model is able to correctly predict the tumor category with 76.67 % accuracy. (shrink)

Despite the recent backlash against epistemic consequentialism, an explicit systematic alternative has yet to emerge. This paper articulates and defends a novel alternative, Epistemic Kantianism, which rests on a requirement of respect for the truth. §1 tackles some preliminaries concerning the proper formulation of the epistemic consequentialism / non-consequentialism divide, explains where Epistemic Kantianism falls in the dialectical landscape, and shows how it can capture what seems attractive about epistemic consequentialism while yielding predictions that are harder for the latter to (...) secure in a principled way. §2 presents Epistemic Kantianism. §3 argues that it is uniquely poised to satisfy the desiderata set out in §1 on an ideal theory of epistemic justification. §4 gives three further arguments, suggesting that it (i) best explains the objective normative significance of the subject's perspective in epistemology, (ii) follows from the kind of axiology needed to solve the swamping problem together with modest assumptions about the relation between the evaluative and the deontic, and (iii) illuminates certain asymmetries in epistemic value and obligation. §5 takes stock and reassesses the score in the debate. (shrink)

Abstract Heart Attack is the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) which causes the most deaths among CVDs. We collected a dataset from Kaggle website. In this paper, we propose an ANN model for the predicting whether a patient has a heart attack or not that. The dataset set consists of 9 features with 1000 samples. We split the dataset into training, validation, and testing. After training and validating the proposed model, we tested it with testing dataset. The proposed model reached an accuracy (...) of 98.01% on the Heart Disease Dataset. (shrink)

In this paper, Taylor series is used to solve neutrosophic multi-objective programming problem (NMOPP). In the proposed approach, the truth membership, Indeterminacy membership, falsity membership functions associated with each objective of multi-objective programming problems are transformed into a single objective linear programming problem by using a first order Taylor polynomial series. Finally, to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method, a numerical experiment for supplier selection is given as an application of Taylor series method for solving neutrosophic multi-objective programming problem (...) at end of this paper. (shrink)

According to a view I’ll call Epistemic Normativism, knowledge is normative in the same sense in which paradigmatically normative properties like justification are normative. This paper argues against EN in two stages and defends a positive non-normativist alternative. After clarifying the target in §1, I consider in §2 some arguments for EN from the premise that knowledge entails justification. I first raise some worries about inferring constitution from entailment. I then rehearse the reasons why some epistemologists reject the Entailment Thesis (...) and argue that a non-normativist picture provides the best explanation of all the intuitions surrounding this thesis, favorable and unfavorable. On this picture, human knowledge is a structured non-normative complex that has as one of its parts a justification-making property, analogous in role to good-making properties like pleasurableness. After giving three arguments against EN in §3 and answering an objection in §4, I turn in §5 to further develop the positive view sketched in §2. In §6, I take stock and conclude. (shrink)

In this paper, we developed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for detect the absence or presence of lung cancer in human body. Symptoms were used to diagnose the lung cancer, these symptoms such as Yellow fingers, Anxiety, Chronic Disease, Fatigue, Allergy, Wheezing, Coughing, Shortness of Breath, Swallowing Difficulty and Chest pain. They were used and other information about the person as input variables for our ANN. Our ANN established, trained, and validated using data set, which its title is “survey lung (...) cancer”. Model evaluation showed that the ANN model is able to detect the absence or presence of lung cancer with 96.67 % accuracy. (shrink)

Causal finitism, the view that the causal history of any event must be finite, has garnered much philosophical interest recently—especially because of its applicability to the Kalām cosmological argument. The most prominent argument for causal finitism is the Grim Reaper argument, which attempts to show that, if infinite causal histories are possible, then other paradoxical states of affairs must also be possible. However, this style of argument has been criticized on the grounds of (i) relying on controversial modal principles, and (...) (ii) providing a false diagnosis of the paradoxes involved. In this paper, I develop a new kind of Grim Reaper argument immune to these criticisms. I show that, by using insights from the literature on time travel, causal finitists should instead argue that infinite causal histories are problematically inexplicable, as they entail the possibility of unexplained foiling mechanisms. The fruits of this paper are that (i) a novel supporting argument for the Kalām is developed, and (ii) along the way of building this argument, it is shown that the literatures on time travel and causal finitism are deeply and intimately connected. (shrink)

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the key arguments espoused by William Lane Craig for the thesis that the universe began to exist. Recently, Malpass, Mind, 131(523), 786–804 (2021) has developed a challenge to the SAA by way of constructing a counterexample that originates in the work of Fred Dretske. In this paper, I show that the Malpass-Dretske counterexample is in fact no counterexample to the argument. Utilizing a distinction between properties of members and properties of collections, I (...) argue that Malpass’ counterexample has no bearing on the soundness of the SAA. I also develop a novel parity argument against Malpass’ argument that I demonstrate can only be resolved by way of the aforementioned analysis. (shrink)

This paper considers the place of reasons in the metaphysics of epistemic normativity and defends a middle ground between two popular extremes in the literature. Against members of the ‘reasons first’ movement, we argue that reasons are not the sole fundamental constituents of epistemic normativity. We suggest instead that the virtue-theoretic property of competence is the key building block. To support this approach, we note that reasons must be possessed to play a role in the analysis of central epistemically normative (...) properties, and argue that the relation of possession must be analyzed in terms of competence. But while we diverge with reasons-firsters on this score, we also distance ourselves from those who deny reasons any important role in epistemology. For we maintain that possessed reasons do help to ground deontic facts in the epistemic domain (e.g., facts about what one epistemically ought to believe, may believe, or is justified in believing). Indeed, we present an argument that the possession of sufficient epistemic reasons is necessary and sufficient for propositional justification, and that proper basing on such reasons yields doxastic justification. But since possession and proper basing are themselves grounded in competence, reasons are not the end of the explanatory road: competence enables them to do their work, putting them—and us—in the middle. (shrink)

Although the issue of Imāmate was not initially seen as being one of the central subjects of Kalām, by the time it has gained importance especially after the Shīʿa started debating the matter in terms of credential aspects and as a result, it came to be covered as a specific chapter in Kalām books. The Muʿtazilite scholars on the other hand, did not lag from the relevant debates and included the matters that were related to Imāmate, in their works. Abū (...) l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī who was portrayed among one of the most influential figures of late Muʿtazila and was also recognized as the founder of Ḥusayniyya branch within the school, wrote extensively on the subject at stake. From among his works, Imāmate chapter of Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-Khamsa has managed to survive. Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s work is crucial not only because it included Imāmate discussions prior to him, but also it determined the directions in which the relevant debates took place since many refutations were written against it. Considering that Baṣrī’s work reflects the issues of his time in terms of both content and classification, it plays a significant role in the development of Islamic political thought and Imāmate discussions. Including the debates on Imāmate, this work extensively discusses the rational defenses of 10th century Shite Imāmate theory. The only extant copy of al-Baṣrī’s work is preserved at Glaser collection from VI/XIII. century under the heading number 114 at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. This study provides an examination regarding the authorship of Imāmate fragment of Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-Khamsa, analyses the main characteristics of the manuscript, its contents and its approach to the Imāmate discussions; and finally provides the critical edition of al-Baṣrī’s mentioned work to the attention of researchers. (shrink)

This paper describes an Intelligent Tutoring System for helping users with ADO NET called ADO-Tutor. The IntellTutoring System was designed and developed using (ITSB) authoring tool for building intelligent educational systems. The user learns through the intelligent tutoring system ADO NET, the technology used by Microsoft NET to connect to databases. The material includes lessons, examples, and questions. Through the feedback provided by the intelligent tutoring system, the user's understanding of the material is assessed, and accordingly can be guided to (...) different difficulty level of exercises and/or the lessons. The Intelligent Tutoring System was evaluated by a group of users and the results were more than satisfactory in terms of the quality of the material and the design of the system. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This paper is an opinionated guide to the literature on normative epistemic reasons. After making some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of normative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states, and concluding that they are not mental states. In §3, I examine the distinction between normative epistemic reasons there are and normative epistemic reasons we possess. I offer a novel account of this distinction and argue that we (...) in fact ought to acknowledge a threefold distinction between objective, possessed, and apparent normative epistemic reasons. In §4, I discuss the question of which normative reasons for doxastic attitudes are the epistemic ones, evaluating reasons against a simple evidentialist answer. Finally, in §5, I look at the role of reasons in epistemology, considering challenges to viewing reasons as the building blocks of epistemic normativity and maintaining that the challenges recommend a novel bi-level epistemology rather than a marginalization of reasons in epistemology. (shrink)

It is a common intuition in scientific practice that positive instances confirm. This confirmation, at least based purely on syntactic considerations, is what Nelson Goodman’s ‘Grue Problem’, and more generally the ‘New Riddle’ of Induction, attempt to defeat. One treatment of the Grue Problem has been made along Bayesian lines, wherein the riddle reduces to a question of probability assignments. In this paper, I consider this so-called Bayesian Grue Problem and evaluate how one might proffer a solution to this problem (...) utilizing what I call a phenomenological approach. I argue that this approach to the problem can be successful on the Bayesian framework. (shrink)

Categorization and memory for specific items are fundamental processes that allow us to apply knowledge to novel stimuli. This study directly compares categorization and memory using delay match to category (DMC) and delay match to sample (DMS) tasks. In DMC participants view and categorize a stimulus, maintain the category across a delay, and at the probe phase view another stimulus and indicate whether it is in the same category or not. In DMS, a standard item working memory task, participants encode (...) and maintain a specific individual item, and at probe decide if the stimulus is an exact match or not. Constrained Principal Components Analysis was used to identify and compare activity within neural networks associated with these tasks, and we relate these networks to those that have been identified with resting state-fMRI. We found that two frontoparietal networks of particular interest. The first network included regions associated with the dorsal attention network and frontoparietal salience network; this network showed patterns of activity consistent with a role in rapid orienting to and processing of complex stimuli. The second uniquely involved regions of the frontoparietal central executive network; this network responded more slowly following each stimulus and showed a pattern of activity consistent with a general role in role in decision-making across tasks. Additional components were identified that were associated with visual, somatomotor and default mode networks. (shrink)

According to Veritism, true belief is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Epistemologists often take Veritism to entail that all other epistemic items can only have value by standing in certain instrumental relations—namely, by tending to produce a high ratio of true to false beliefs or by being products of sources with this tendency. Yet many value theorists outside epistemology deny that all derivative value is grounded in instrumental relations to fundamental value. Veritists, I believe, can and should follow suit. After (...) setting the stage in §1, I explain in §2 why Veritism should not take an Instrumentalist form. Instrumentalist Veritism faces a generalized version of the swamping problem. But this problem undermines Instrumentalism, not Veritism: granting Instrumentalism, similar problems arise for any economical epistemic axiology. I show in §3 how Veritism can take a less narrow form and solve the swamping problem. After answering some objections in §4, I consider in §5 what some would regard as a less radical alternative solution and argue that it either fails or collapses into mine. I close in §6 by taking stock and re-evaluating the overall prospects for Veritism, suggesting that it is a highly promising epistemic axiology when divorced from Instrumentalism. (shrink)

The nature of the soul and its relationship with the body have always been a matter of concern for philosophers throughout the history of philosophy. Today, this and other related issues are discussed within the philosophy of mind under the name of mind-body problem. The issue of the mind-body problem, or the soul and its relation to the body, has received special attention in Islamic philosophy. One of the Muslim philosophers who extensively wrote on this issue was Sadraddin Shirazi, widely (...) known as Mulla Sadra. This paper examines Sadraddin Shirazi’s approach to the mind-body problem. It is known that historically, most philosophers regarded human beings as a composition of a material body and an immaterial soul. Although this dualistic approach to human beings has a long history, it became more popular due to French philosopher René Descartes’ endeavors. Generally, Muslim philosophers were also dualists, like Descartes. However, Sadraddin Shirazi, who was Descartes’ contemporary, rejects earlier philosophers’ theories on human nature. He claims that a human being, when it comes into existence, is material, while this material being gradually evolves into an immaterial being. The soul’s journey from material being to immaterial one becomes possible thanks to substantial motion. Shirazi’s famous theory on this issue is known as the soul’s corporeal origination and spiritual subsistence. Though this paper acknowledges Shirazi’s theory’s originality and coherence, it remains skeptical about the issue that whether his theory corresponds to dualism or monism. Now, after discussing Sadraddin Shirazi’s view on the issue, I can make the case that his corporeal origin soul theory is quite a revolutionary idea. In terms of the mind-body problem, even at the beginning, it solves the issue. Shirazi considers the soul bodily at its early stage. If the soul is not spiritual, then there is a material body and a material soul, and they can interact and unify. Therefore, there is no mind-body problem. However, then spirituality emerges, as do the mind-body problem. (shrink)

It is often assumed that believing that p for a normative reason consists in nothing more than (i) believing that p for a reason and (ii) that reason’s corresponding to a normative reason to believe that p, where (i) and (ii) are independent factors. This is the Composite View. In this paper, we argue against the Composite View on extensional and theoretical grounds. We advocate an alternative that we call the Prime View. On this view, believing for a normative reason (...) is a distinctive achievement that isn’t exhausted by the mere conjunction of (i) and (ii). Its being an achievement entails that (i) and (ii) are not independent when one believes for a normative reason: minimally, (i) must hold because (ii) holds. Apart from its intrinsic interest, our discussion has important upshots for central issues in epistemology, including the analysis of doxastic justification, the epistemology of perception, and the place of competence in epistemology. (shrink)

Many prominent proponents of Old and New Natural Law morally condemn sexual acts between people of the same sex because those acts are incapable of reproduction; they each offer a distinct set of supporting reasons. While some New Natural Law philosophers have begun to distance themselves from this moral condemnation, there are not many similarly ameliorative efforts within Old Natural Law. I argue for the bold conclusion that Old Natural Law philosophers can accept the basic premises of Old Natural Law (...) without also being committed to morally condemning sexual activity between people of the same sex. I develop an argument from analogy that shows how we can draw metaphysically distinct sub‐categories based on someone's capacity to experience the unitive goods of sex. This unitive capacity constitutes the sub‐category and provides a distinct principle for evaluating how members of that sub‐category (X) act as members of that sub‐category, rather than as acting as defective members of another category (Y). Even though my argument is ‘internal’ to Old Natural Law, I conclude by showing how these conclusions can also address some of the objections to same‐sex sex in New Natural Law. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to discuss Safavid period Islamic philosopher Sadraddin Shirazi’s philosophical methodology and the sources of the school founded by him. The article relies on research conducted on Shirazi philosophy. It shows that Shirazi through synthesizing the methods of the earlier schools that existed in Islam to acquire knowledge devised a new mechanism for acquiring knowledge. Before coming to Shirazi, intellectual movements formed during Islam’s classical period, such as peripateticism, illuminationism, theology and Gnosticism, were of different (...) views regarding the best way to reach the truth. For example, for peripatetics reason, for theologians revelation, for gnostics/mystics intuition or personal experience were important, but ishraqi school was somewhere between peripatetic and Gnostic schools. Sadraddin Shirazi, though, considered all these agents necessary, for they complement each other, and said they should be utilized altogether to obtain ultimate reality. Similarly, considering his philosophical sources, we see that he is influenced almost by all philosophical schools as well as religious sources. However, Ibn Sina and Ibn Arabi’s influence on him was more profound compared to other philosophers. (shrink)

Some say the swamping problem confronts all who believe that true belief is the sole fundamental epistemic value. This, I say, is mistaken. The problem only confronts T-Monists if they grant two teleological claims: that all derived epistemic value is instrumental, and that it is the state of believing truly rather than the standard of truth in belief that is fundamentally epistemically valuable. T-Monists should reject and, and appeal to a non-teleological form of value derivation I call Fitting Response Derivation (...) that obviates swamping. Since, alas, simple reliabilists can’t apply this model to knowledge, the problem remains for them, and is local. (shrink)

Reasons fundamentalists maintain that we can analyze all derivative normative properties in terms of normative reasons. These theorists famously encounter the Wrong Kind of Reasons problem, since not all reasons for reactions seem relevant for reasons-based analyses. Some have argued that this problem is a general one for many theorists, and claim that this lightens the burden for reasons fundamentalists. We argue in this paper that the reverse is true: the generality of the problem makes life harder for reasons fundamentalists. (...) We do this in two stages. First, we show that reflection on the generality of the distinction between wrong-kind reasons and right-kind reasons shows that not all right-kind reasons are normative reasons. So, not only do reasons-based analyses require a distinction between right-kind reasons and wrong-kind reasons, they also need a distinction between normative right-kind reasons from nonnormative right-kind reasons. We call this the Right Kind of Reasons Problem. In the second stage of the paper, we argue that reasons fundamentalism places tight constraints on its proper solution: in particular, it forbids one from appealing to anything normative to distinguish normative RKRs from nonnormative RKRs. It hence seems that reasons fundamentalists can only appeal to natural facts to solve the problem, but it is unclear which ones can do the job. So, reflection on the generality of the distinction only multiplies the fundamentalist’s problems. We end by exploring several solutions to these problems, and recommend a form of constitutivism as the best. (shrink)

The computer science (CS) graduated students suffered from documenting their projects and specially from coordinating it. In addition, students’ supervisors faced difficulties with guiding their students to an efficient process of documenting. In this paper, we will offer a suggestion as a solution to the mentioned problems; that is an application to make the process of documenting computer science (CS) student graduation project easy and time-cost efficient. This solution will decrease the possibility of human mistakes and reduce the effort of (...) documenting process. (shrink)

The paper is an opinionated tour of the literature on the reasons for which we hold beliefs and other doxastic attitudes, which I call ‘operative epistemic reasons’. After drawing some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of operative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states. I recommend a pluralist non-mentalist view that takes seriously the variety of operative epistemic reasons ascriptions and allows these reasons to be both propositions (...) and truth-making facts. In §3, I turn to consider what it takes for a consideration to be an operative epistemic reason, examining three conditions – the representational, treating, and explanatory conditions – that have been proposed. I offer a novel view about the explanatory condition. In §4, I discuss the special case of inferential operative reasons and examine attempts to understand them in terms of rule-following, sketching a competence-based spinoff of dispositionalism. Finally, in §5, I consider whether there are non-inferential operative reasons, observing that one needn't countenance them to be a foundationalist but then developing a view about what they are and how they do and don't differ from inferential reasons. (shrink)

Rationality requires us to respond to apparent normative reasons. Given the independence of appearance and reality, why think that apparent normative reasons necessarily provide real normative reasons? And if they do not, why think that mistakes of rationality are necessarily real mistakes? This paper gives a novel answer to these questions. I argue first that in the moral domain, there are objective duties of respect that we violate whenever we do what appears to violate our first-order duties. The existence of (...) these duties of respect, I argue, ensures that apparent moral reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. I then extend these arguments to the domain of overall reason. Just as there are objective duties of respect for moral reasons that explain moral blameworthiness, so there are objective duties of respect for reasons that explain blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. The existence of these duties ensures that apparent reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. (shrink)

This thesis analyses Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of becoming through certain performative encounters in contemporary political art, and re-conceptualizes them as “art(s) of becoming”. Art(s) of becoming are actualizations of a non-representational –minoritarian– mode of becoming and creation as well as the political actions of fleeing quanta. The theoretical aim of the study is, on the one hand, to explain how Platonic Idealism is overturned by Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche and Leibniz, and on the other hand, how Cartesian dualism of (...) mind and body is surpassed by following a Spinozistic theory of affects. In this respect, the dissertation has both theoretical and practical dimensions. Since art(s) of becoming are bodies without organs which constitute their own lines of flight through a process of minoration, the concepts of body, affect, becoming, and intensity are central to this study. For the same reason, this is an attempt to show the intersections of philosophical, political and aesthetic domains in Deleuze’s theory of sensation which is part of his general practice of philosophy, that is, a quest for establishing an ontology of immanence as opposed to identitarian metaphysics. (shrink)

Deleuze’ün Spinozacı yaşam tahayyülünde ‘ne yapmalıyız?’ sorusuna normatif, ahlaki ya da siyasi bir yanıt bulamıyoruz ama varoluşu düşünmenin içkin bir olanağını keşfediyoruz. Düşünmeye 'dışarıdan' yani dünyadan başlamak insani (kurgusal) bir dünyaya değil, içinde yaşadığımız gerçek dünyaya inanmak demektir. İçkinliğin politik anlamı düşünceyi dünyaya getirmektir.

K. Lüscher, A. Klimczuk, Generations, intergenerational relationships, generational policy: A multilingual compendium, 17 languages, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz 2017, 428pp. TS - BibTeX M4 - Citavi.

Sometimes, people who are otherwise eligible to donate blood are unduly deferred from donating. “Unduly” indicates a gap where a deferral policy misstates what exposes potential donors to risk and so defers more donors than is justified. Since the error is at the policy-level, it’s natural and understandable to focus criticism on reformulating or eliminating the offending policies. Policy change is undoubtedly the right goal because the policy is what prevents otherwise safe eligible donors from donating needed blood. But focusing (...) exclusively at the policy-level passes over a largely undiscussed question: if policy change takes time and there is an urgent need for blood now, then what should unduly deferred donors do in the meanwhile? Blood banks and federal agencies recommend that deferred donors donate their time or money until they become eligible, but blood is a non-fungible good: donated cash or volunteered time cannot replace a transfusion. Further, this request ignores that otherwise eligible donors could safely donate their blood in addition to their time and money. Here is the central question I will focus on in this paper: is a donor morally justified in lying on a questionnaire to donate blood if they justifiably believe that their blood poses no risk to a recipient and knows that honestly answering a donor questionnaire would unduly defer them from donating? (shrink)

K. Lüscher, M. Sánchez, A. Klimczuk, Generations, intergenerational relationships, generational policy: A multilingual compendium, 12 languages, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz 2016, 300pp.

There is an emerging consensus within Natural Law that explains transgender identity as an “embodied misunderstanding.” The basic line of argument is that our sexual identity as male or female refers to our possible reproductive roles of begetting or conceiving. Since these two possibilities are determined early on by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, our sexual identity cannot be changed or reassigned. I develop an argument from analogy, comparing gender and language, to show that this consensus is (...) premature. Language and gender imbue our body with further social meaning and so, I conclude, that just as we can learn multiple languages, so too can we learn multiple genders. Since language and gender each constitutively contribute to our wellbeing as a “second nature,” I argue against this consensus to show that the reason people who are transgender struggle to flourish is not because of a “troubled trans psyche,” but because there are conceptual, interpersonal, and institutional obstacles stacked against them. (shrink)

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed fifteen people at their high school in Columbine, Colorado. National media dubbed the event a “school shooting.” The term grimly expanded over the next several years to include similar events at army bases, movie theaters, churches, and nightclubs. Today, we commonly use the categories “mass shooter” and “mass shooting” to organize and classify information about gun violence. I will argue that neither category is an effective tool for reducing (...) gun violence and use empirical data to show how these categories perpetuate a moral panic that harms already vulnerable demographics. I conclude that we should instead favor a narrower description of individuals and events, (e.g., “X shot Y people at Z”) because we can talk about all of the relevant cases without contributing the undue harms. (shrink)

This paper describes an Intelligent Tutoring System for helping users with ADO.NET called ADO-Tutor. The Intelligent Tutoring System was designed and developed using (ITSB) authoring tool for building intelligent educational systems. The user learns through the intelligent tutoring system ADO.NET, the technology used by Microsoft.NET to connect to databases. The material includes lessons, examples, and questions. Through the feedback provided by the intelligent tutoring system, the user's understanding of the material is assessed, and accordingly can be guided to different difficulty (...) level of exercises and/or the lessons. The Intelligent Tutoring System was evaluated by a group of users and the results were more than satisfactory in terms of the quality of the material and the design of the system. (shrink)

How people understand the fundamental dynamics of stock and flow is an important basic theoretical question with many practical applications. In this paper, we present a universal frame for understanding stock-flow reasoning in terms of the theory of force dynamics. This deep-level analysis is then applied to two different presentation formats of SF tasks in the context of climate change. We can explain why in a coordinate-graphic presentation misunderstandings occur, whereas in a verbal presentation a better understanding is found. We (...) end up with recommendations for presentation formats that will help people to better understand SF dynamics. Better public SF understanding might in turn also enhance corresponding public action – such as enhancing pro-environmental actions in relation to climate change. (shrink)

Abstract: A complex parasite such as human Plasmodium is likely to generate a variety of substances that injure the hosts directly or cause immunopathology. In malaria, a blood concentration of anti-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL-10) is increased. The present study was performed to analyze IL-10 levels in patients with malaria falciparum and healthy controls individuals and correlate with malaria density infection as well as age groups. It is a cross sectional study was carried out in Khartoum state /Sudan, a (...) total of 70 febrile patients and 20 healthy volunteers as controls were included in this study. Blood samples were collected from both patients and control candidates in (EDTA) containers for parasitological and immunological tests. Immunochromatography test and microscopic examination for both thick and thin blood films were used to detect the positive samples for Plasmodium falciparum. Enzyme linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA), was used for the determination of IL-10 levels. The result showed that of IL-10 levels in malaria patients were 1598.50 and SD 4771.64 while the levels in healthy participants the level was 10.39 and SD was 124.33 the difference was found to be statistically significant (P= 0.007). The levels of cytokines mentioned above were observed to be raised in malaria individual compared to healthy control candidates. (shrink)

K. Lüscher, M. Sánchez, A. Klimczuk, Generations, intergenerational relationships, generational policy: A multilingual compendium, 12 languages, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz 2016, 300pp.

Abstract: This research aims at the design and implementation of an automatic high-performance voltage stabilizer which helps to detect inappropriate voltage levels and correct them to produce a reasonably stable output. The system consists of five dependent architectural designs which involve the power supply, delay switching circuit, monitoring circuit and load changeover circuit using 555 ic which produces the required signal when switched on by a relay to activate the alarm. The system uses a relay to charge the batteries and (...) automatically switches on this supply to supply the loads. It is composed of switching transistors and relay to control the power provided to ac loads, and it has LEDs for indicating the state of the system, 240-220vac/120-110vac switch, voltmeter displaying load voltage, heatsink, and fans for cooling the system. The system protects electrical equipment and machine against voltage surge. (shrink)

This paper raises a dilemma for Skorupski’s meta-normative outlook in The Domain of Reasons and explores some escape routes, recommending a more thoroughgoing Kantianism as the best option. §1 argues that we cannot plausibly combine Skorupski’s spontaneity-based epistemology of normativity with his cognition-independent view of normative truth. §§2–4 consider whether we should keep the epistemology and revise the metaphysics, opting for constructivism. While Skorupski’s negative case for his spontaneity-based epistemology is found wanting, it is suggested that a better argument for (...) keeping the epistemology and switching to Kantian constructivism can be given from a thesis he finds appealing—viz., ‘cognitive internalism’. While this premise is not, it is argued, obviously true, the view it supports does provide a good way to undergird Skorupski’s most interesting rationale for his reasons-first approach. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigated multiple machine learning classifiers which are, Multinomial Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, K Nearest Neighbors, and Random Forest in a text classification problem. The data we used contains real and fake job posts. We cleaned and pre-processed our data, then we applied TF-IDF for feature extraction. After we implemented the classifiers, we trained and evaluated them. Evaluation metrics used are precision, recall, f-measure, and accuracy. For each classifier, results were summarized and compared with (...) others. (shrink)

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to global healthcare systems, necessitating accurate and timely forecasting of cases for effective mitigation strategies. In this research paper, we present a novel approach to predict COVID-19 cases using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), harnessing the power of machine learning for epidemiological forecasting. Our ANNs-based forecasting model has demonstrated remarkable efficacy, achieving an impressive accuracy rate of 97.87%. This achievement underscores the potential of ANNs in providing precise and data-driven insights into the dynamics (...) of the pandemic. However, this paper underscores the critical importance of a comprehensive evaluation beyond accuracy, including metrics such as sensitivity, specificity, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC-ROC), to assess the model's performance robustness. The research paper offers detailed insights into the architecture of the ANN model, encompassing critical hyperparameters, data preprocessing techniques, and regularization strategies employed to optimize model accuracy. Ethical considerations surrounding data privacy and potential biases within the COVID-19 dataset are also addressed. While the achieved accuracy is a significant milestone, this study underscores the dynamic and evolving nature of the pandemic, necessitating continuous model refinement and validation. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of considering false positives and false negatives in the context of public health decision-making. In conclusion, this research contributes to the arsenal of tools available for pandemic management by showcasing the potential of ANNs in COVID-19 case forecasting. It encourages ongoing exploration and adaptation of predictive models to enhance their applicability in real-world public health scenarios, ultimately contributing to more effective pandemic control and response efforts. (shrink)

K. Lüscher, M. Sánchez, A. Klimczuk, Generations, intergenerational relationships, generational policy: A multilingual compendium, 12 languages, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz 2016, 300pp.