This study assessed quality assurance practices and students’ performance evaluation in universities of South-South Nigeria using an SEM approach. Three null hypotheses guided the study. Based on factorial research design, and using a stratified random sampling technique, a sample of 878 academic staff were drawn from a sampling frame of 15 universities in South-South Nigeria. Quality Assurance Practices Students’ Performance Evaluation Scale (QAPSPES) with split-half reliability estimates ranging from .86–.92, was used as the instruments for data collection. Multiple (...) regression and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were used for the analysis of data, model building, and testing of the hypotheses at .05 alpha level. Findings showed a significant composite and relative influence (F=48.19, P<.05) of school management, staff, and students’ quality assurance practices on students’ performance evaluation. The results also indicated that there were positive and significant covariances between the four variables of this study, with the CFI, RMSEA, TLI, and SRMR values indicating a good model fit. It was recommended, based on the findings of this study that, each school should organize quality assurance orientation campaigns for new students and set up quality assurance committees at the school, faculty and departmental levels for optimal performance in schools. (shrink)

This study evaluated school quality indicators and teachers job performance in Cross River State. One research question and four null hypotheses were raised following factorial research design. Proportionate random sampling technique was employed in selecting a sample of 1,463 teachers representing 30 percent from a population of 4,878 teachers distributed across 271 public secondary schools in Cross River State. “School Quality Indicators Questionnaire (SQIQ) and Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ)” were the instruments used for data collection. Prepared data (...) were analyzed using descriptive statistics; while the null hypotheses were all tested at .05 alpha level using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple regression analyses as appropriate with the aid of Minitab statistical software v18. Findings revealed that, quality of school facilities, leadership, and supervision jointly accounted for 90.6 percent (Pred. R2 = .9063) of the total variance of teachers’ job performance; there is significant relationship between quality of school facilities (r = .478, p< .05), quality of leadership (r = .928, p< .05) quality of supervision (r = .881, p< .05) respectively with secondary school teachers’ job performance; quality of school facilities, leadership, and supervision have significant composite influence (F=4800.58, p<.05) on secondary school teachers’ job performance; quality of leadership was the highest predictor (t=45.38, p< .05) of teachers’ job performance, followed by quality of school supervision (t = 27.29, p <.05). Based on these findings, conclusions and recommendations were made for improvement. Keywords:. (shrink)

This paper investigates the recurrent music ban on musical video broadcasting and the issues of quality of musical contents that have warranted such a phenomenon by the National Broadcasting Commission in Nigeria. The major contention was the justification or otherwise of the ban. The paper employed observational and analytical methodologies to examine the causes of the bans on musical videos in Nigeria by NBC, the reactions of the affected artistes and their fans and the negative effects of erotic lyrics, (...) nudity and suggestive dance steps by minors, ladydancers and the musicians on the youths and other categories of musical video audiences. The paper submits that the NBC’s gestures are commendable and should be sustained while quality assurance efforts should be intensified through promotion of quality musical videos produced more for the purpose of entertainment than education or information. The paper also calls for collaborative efforts among all stakeholders in the music industry to achieve quality in the musical videos produced for general public consumption. This paper encourages musicians to invite creativity into the musical industry in Nigeria by coming out with songs and performances that reflect the cultural values of the country rather than mere entertainment songs and acts that have a greater tendency to corrupt younger minds. (shrink)

The idea that qualities can be had partly or to an intermediate degree is controversial among contemporary metaphysicians, but also has a considerable pedigree among philosophers and scientists. In this paper, we first aim to show that metaphysical sense can be made of this idea by proposing a partial taxonomy of metaphysical accounts of graded qualities, focusing on three particular approaches: one which explicates having a quality to a degree in terms of having a property with an in-built degree, (...) another based on the idea that instantiation admits of degrees, and a third which derives the degree to which a quality is had from the aspects of multi-dimensional properties. Our second aim is to demonstrate that the choice between these accounts can make a substantial metaphysical difference. To make this point, we rely on two case studies (involving quantum observables and values) in which we apply the accounts in order to model apparent cases of metaphysical gradedness. (shrink)

Background Consent policies for post-mortem organ procurement (OP) vary throughout Europe, and yet no studies have empirically evaluated the ethical implications of contrasting consent models. To fill this gap, we introduce a novel indicator of governance quality based on the ideal of informed support, and examine national differences on this measure through a quantitative survey of OP policy informedness and preferences in seven European countries. -/- Methods Between 2017–2019, we conducted a convenience sample survey of students (n = 2006) (...) in Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Greece (GR), Slovenia (SI) and Spain (ES), asking participants about their donation preferences, as well as their beliefs and views about the policy in place. From these measures, we computed indices of informedness, policy support, and fulfilment of unexpressed preferences, which we compared across countries and consent systems. -/- Results Our study introduces a tool for analyzing policy governance in the context of OP. Wide variation in policy awareness was observed: Most respondents in DK, DE, AT and BE correctly identified the policy in place, while those in SI, GR and ES did not. Respondents in opt-out countries (AT, BE, ES and GR) tended to support the policy in place (with one exception, i.e., SI), whereas those in opt-in countries (DE and DK) overwhelmingly opposed it. These results reveal stark differences in governance quality across countries and consent policies: We found a preponderance of informed opposition in opt-in countries and a general tendency towards support–either informed or uninformed–in opt-out countries. We also found informed divergence in opt-in countries and a tendency for convergence–either informed or uninformed–among opt-out countries. -/- Conclusion Our study offers a novel tool for analyzing governance quality and illustrates, in the context of OP, how the strengths and weaknesses of different policy implementations can be estimated and compared using quantitative survey data. (shrink)

I motivate and defend a previously underdeveloped functionalist account of the metaphysics of color, a view that I call ‘quality-space functionalism’ about color. Although other theorists have proposed varieties of color functionalism, this view differs from such accounts insofar as it identifies and individuates colors by their relative locations within a particular kind of so-called ‘quality space’ that reflects creatures’ capacities to discriminate visually among stimuli. My arguments for this view of color are abductive: I propose that (...) class='Hi'>quality-space functionalism best captures our commonsense conception of color, fits with many experimental findings, coheres with the phenomenology of color experience, and avoids many issues for standard theories of color such as color physicalism and color relationalism. (shrink)

Some philosophers oppose recent arguments for the Knowledge Norm of Assertion by claiming that assertion, being an act much like any other, will be subject to norms governing acts generally, such as those articulated by Grice for the purpose of successful, cooperative endeavours. But in fact, Grice is a traitor to their cause; or rather, they are his dissenters, not his disciples. Drawing on Grice's unpublished papers, I show that he thought of asserting as a special linguistic act in need (...) of its own norm, and he tied his maxim of Quality to knowledge. I also develop a simple Gricean-inspired argument showing that the Quality maxim is not dependent on the Cooperative Principle. If it is not thus dependent, then the Cooperative Principle cannot be the explanation of, or source of normativity for, the Quality maxim. Thus, leveraging the insights informing the maxim of Quality actually provides the resources for a distinctive positive case that knowledge is the constitutive norm of assertion. (shrink)

According to the powerful qualities view, properties are both powerful and qualitative. Indeed, on this view the powerfulness of a property is identical to its qualitativity. Proponents claim that this view provides an attractive alternative to both the view that properties are pure powers and the view that they are pure qualities. It remains unclear, however, whether the claimed identity between powerfulness and qualitativity can be made coherent in a way that allows the powerful qualities view to constitute this sort (...) of alternative. I argue here that this can be done, given a particular conception of both the qualitativity and powerfulness of properties. On this conception, a property is qualitative just in the sense that its essence is fixed independently of any distinct properties, and it is powerful just if its essence grounds its dispositional role. (shrink)

Difficulty is often treated as blame-mitigating, and even exculpating. But on some occasions difficulty seems to have little or no bearing on our assessments of moral responsibility, and can even exacerbate it. In this paper, I argue that the relevance (and irrelevance) of difficulty with regard to assessments of moral responsibility is best understood via Quality of Will accounts. I look at various ways of characterising difficulty – including via sacrifice, effort, skill and ‘trying’ – and set out to (...) demonstrate that these factors are only blame-mitigating where, and to the extent that, they complicate ascriptions of insufficient concern. Matters become more complex, however, when we turn to difficult circumstances that seem to generate such objectionable attitudes. This is arguably the case with epistemic difficulty and certain instances of moral ignorance. Here I argue that certain difficult circumstances diminish the sense in which false moral beliefs are genuinely revelatory of the agents who hold them. In particular, I draw on the distinction between difficulty that generates objectionable attitudes, and objectionable attitudes that generate difficulty. I argue that the former, but not the latter, can plausibly be viewed as blame mitigating, and that this would apply to (limited) cases of moral ignorance. (shrink)

The odds of encountering a senior citizen selling on the street have increased. The claim that they have no choice but to work and sell on the street, despite the dangers, illnesses, and psychological issues they may face, to provide for their family’s needs is very evident. Therefore, this study explores the quality of life, lived experiences, challenges, and coping mechanisms of senior citizen street vendors in Bulacan, Philippines. The study employed Heideggerian Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Moreover, (...) the following themes arise (1) Golden years, (2) Socially connected, and (3) Unknown journey. These themes highlighted the experiences and challenges faced by the participants. Moreover, it is highly suggested that local government agencies enhance and strictly monitor the existing program that alleviates mental and physical health concerns and senior citizens' safety and financial assistance. (shrink)

Powers are popularly assumed to be distinct from, and dependent upon, inert qualities, mainly because it is believed that qualities have their nature independently of other properties while powers have their nature in virtue of a relation to distinct manifestation property. George Molnar and Alexander Bird, on the other hand, characterize powers as intrinsic and relational. The difficulties of reconciling the characteristics of being intrinsic and at the same time essentially related are illustrated in this paper and it is argued (...) that the reasons for thinking of powers as essentially relational are based on misguided epistemological consideration. Finally, I present a way of thinking of fundamental properties as primitive natures that we can only understand in virtue of what they do but which we should not think of as being ontologically constituted by these doings. According to this view, properties are both qualities and powers. (shrink)

Quality Space Theory is a holistic model of qualitative states. On this view, individual mental qualities are defined by their locations in a space of relations, which reflects a similar space of relations among perceptible properties. This paper offers an extension of Quality Space Theory to temporal perception. Unconscious segmentation of events, the involvement of early sensory areas, and asymmetries of dominance in multi-modal perception of time are presented as evidence for the view.

Strong emergentists about mental properties of conscious experience typically hold that these are ontologically “over and above” and distinct in kind as compared to physical properties. Powers-based account of strong emergence offer a promising framework for elucidating the ontological “over and above”-ness of strongly emergent properties. However, they do not automatically ensure the desired non-physicality. In this paper, I argue that a conception of properties as powerful qualities has in-built resources for capturing both the ontological “over and above”-ness and the (...) kind distinctness in a unified way. I begin by illustrating powers-based accounts of strong emergence. Then I defend the superiority of a powerful qualities-based account of strong emergence over two standard approaches recovering the distinctness in kind of strongly emergent mental properties: the via negativa strategy, and the anti-materialist strategy. I conclude that a conception of powerful qualities is a surprising yet natural ally for the proponent of strongly emergent mental properties. (shrink)

While the term “reactivity” has come to be associated with specific phenomena in the social sciences, having to do with subjects’ awareness of being studied, this paper takes a broader stance on this concept. I argue that reactivity is a ubiquitous feature of the psychological subject matter and that this fact is a precondition of experimental research, while also posing potential problems for the experimenter. The latter are connected to the worry about distorted data and experimental artifacts. But what are (...) experimental artifacts and what is the most productive way of dealing with them? In this paper, I approach these questions by exploring the ways in which experimenters in psychology simultaneously exploit and suppress the reactivity of their subject matter in order to produce experimental data that speak to the question or subject matter at hand. Highlighting the artificiality of experimental data, I raise the question of what distinguishes a genuine experimental result from an experimental artifact. My analysis construes experimental results as the outcomes of inferences from the data that take material background assumptions as auxiliary premises. Artifacts occur when one or more of these background assumptions are false, such that the data do not reliably serve the purposes they were generated for. I conclude by laying out the ways in which my analysis of data quality is relevant to, and informed by, recent debates about the replicability of experimental results. (shrink)

Abstract: The aim of the research is to identify the reality of the quality of health services in light of the Corona Pandemic, and in order to achieve the research objectives, the researchers used the descriptive and analytical approach using a comprehensive survey method for the total research community, whose number reached (110) individuals, while (90) were recovered: The level of health service quality is of relative weight (76%). Among the most important recommendations made by the research: Work (...) to pay a health risk premium to all workers in health centers, in addition to paying attention to training and building work teams in various fields to improve the quality of health services provided. (shrink)

Wine quality prediction is a significant task in the wine industry, as it helps producers and consumers determine the quality of a wine based on its chemical properties. Traditional methods of evaluating wine quality are subjective and time-consuming, relying on human tasters. However, with the advancement of machine learning (ML), it is now possible to predict wine quality in a more objective, scalable, and efficient manner. This paper explores various machine learning algorithms for predicting wine (...) class='Hi'>quality, evaluates their performance, and demonstrates how these models can be applied to improve wine classification systems. (shrink)

This article proposes a novel strategy, one that draws on insights from antidiscrimination law, for addressing a persistent challenge in medical ethics and the philosophy of disability: whether health systems can consider quality of life without unjustly discriminating against individuals with disabilities. It argues that rather than uniformly considering or ignoring quality of life, health systems should take a more nuanced approach. Under the article's proposal, health systems should treat cases where quality of life suffers because of (...) disability-focused exclusion or injustice differently from cases where lower quality of life results from laws of nature, resource scarcity, or appropriate tradeoffs. Decisionmakers should ignore quality-of-life losses that result from injustice or exclusion when ignoring them would improve the prospects of individuals with disabilities; in contrast, they should consider quality-of-life losses that are unavoidable or stem from resource scarcity or permissible tradeoffs. On this proposal, while health systems should not amplify existing injustice against individuals with disabilities, they are not required to altogether ignore the potential effects of disability on quality of life. (shrink)

As the quality movement in health care now enters its fourth decade, the language of quality is ubiquitous. Practitioners, organizations, and government agencies alike vociferously testify their commitments to quality and accept numerous forms of governance aimed at improving quality of care. Remarkably, the powerful phrase ‘‘quality of care’’ is rarely defined in the health care literature. Instead it operates as an accepted and assumed goal worth pursuing. The status of evidence-based medicine, for instance, hinges (...) on its ability to improve quality of care, and efforts are made by both proponents and detractors to unpack the contents and outcomes of evidence-based practice while the contents of ‘‘quality of care’’ are presumed to be understood. Because the goals of medicine are far from obvious, this paper investigates the neglected term, ‘‘quality of care,’’ in an effort to understand what it is that health care practices are so uncritically assumed to be striving for. Finding lack of consensus on the terminology in the quality literature, I propose that the term operates rhetorically by way of persuasive appeal (and lack of descriptive meaning). Unsatisfied that ‘‘quality of care’’ operates as a mere buzzword in morally contentious debates over resource allocation and duties of care, I implore health care communities to go beyond mere commitments to quality and, instead, to focus attention on the difficult task of specifying what counts as quality care within an economically constrained health care system. (shrink)

Abstract: The study aimed to determine the quality of services and its role in enhancing strategic flexibility, from the point of view of the internal beneficiary in non-governmental hospitals in Gaza Strip. The study relied on the descriptive and analytical approach, and the questionnaire was designed as a tool to collect data and consisted of (39) items, and the researchers used the comprehensive survey method, and the number of the study population was (536) individuals, where (434) questionnaires were retrieved, (...) and the recovery rate was (80.97%). The study revealed many results, the most important of which were: the existence of a high degree of approval by the study sample regarding the quality of services, as it was evident through the field of service quality obtaining a relative weight (79.90%), and the results of the study indicated that there is a moderate degree of approval by the members of the study sample. On the strategic flexibility, as it was evident by obtaining the area of strategic flexibility as a whole on a relative weight (60.44%). The results of the study revealed a statistically significant relationship between the quality of services and the strategic flexibility in non-governmental hospitals in Gaza Strip, with a correlation coefficient of 0.490). The results of the study also revealed a statistically significant effect of the quality of services on the strategic flexibility in non-governmental hospitals in Gaza Strip. The study reached many recommendations, the most important of which were: Establishing an effective system to receive patients' complaints in a manner that ensures rapid response and treatment, to achieve continuous communication between patients and the hospital administration, to notify patients of dealing with the complaints they submit, and to work to provide all medical and health specialties in hospitals in place. The study, by making use of medical delegations visiting Gaza Strip, involving them in therapeutic operations, bringing in doctors and specialists from abroad, updating the criteria for measuring services provided to patients on an ongoing basis, based on patients' suggestions and complaints, developing facilities in hospitals, as well as updating medical devices and equipment Used in hospitals periodically and the need to work on appointing young people and people of energy, for vacancies in the hospitals under study, and the need to seek the help of an administrative staff that is distinguished by scientific and practical qualifications, and to work on updating information systems, archiving and networks through which data and information are transferred between departments, and finding mechanisms to be done from During which the information stored can be used to enhance the decision-making process. (shrink)

This chapter explores how far one can go accounting for the moral responsibility implications of several unusual mental conditions using a parsimonious quality-of-will account that relies on the way we talk about moral responsibility in more mundane situations. By contrasting situations involving epistemic irrationality versus cognitive impairment, it becomes clear that the presence of those often (but not always) excuses actions performed by unusual agents. The discussion turns to cases of clinical depression and sketches a way for quality-of-will (...) accounts to approach them. It is also argued that of some of these mental conditions, there is no particular reason to think that they excuse. There is also an argument against regarding the concept "mental disorder" and current DSM categories as critical to agency theory. (shrink)

In this opening chapter, we review the literature on information quality. Our major aim is to introduce the issues, and trace some of the history of the debates, with a view to situating the chapters in this volume – whose authors come from different disciplines – to help make them accessible to readers with different backgrounds and expertise. We begin in this section by tracing some influential analyses of IQ in computer science. This is a useful basis for examining (...) some examples of developing work on IQ in section two. We look at some cases for applying IQ in section three, and conclude with some discussion points in section four. (shrink)

“Strong AI” is the view that it is possible for an artificial agent to be mentally indistinguishable from human agents. Because the behavioral dispositions of artificial agents are determined by underlying dispositional systems, Strong AI seems to entail human behavioral dispositions are also determined by dispositional systems. It is, however, highly intuitive that non-dispositional, phenomenal properties, such as being in pain, at least partially determine certain human behavioral dispositions, like the disposition to take a pain killer. Consequently, Strong AI seems (...) to conflict with an intuitive view of phenomenal properties’ role in determining human behavioral dispositions. My goal here is not directly to evaluate this tension, but rather to clarify how dispositionalism in the metaphysics of properties bears on it. While a tempting thought is that dispositionalism fits well with Strong AI’s thoroughly dispositional account of human behavior, I argue that this thought does not hold for dispositionalism in general. In particular, I argue that combining a version of the “powerful qualities view” with certain dispositionalist conceptions of the will leads to a version of the intuitive view of phenomenal properties that is radically incompatible with Strong AI. I argue further that this view also raises a challenge for the weaker claim that an artificial agent could be behaviorally indistinguishable from a human agent. (shrink)

For Humean atomists, cosmic contents supervene on a spatiotemporal mosaic of modally insulated, freely recombinable local qualities. One piecemeal subspecies of Humean atomism promises more than global supervenience—somehow or other—on a separable base; it constrains how exactly elemental inputs yield everything else. Roughly, the distribution of basic local qualities across elements in one part of our cosmos metaphysically suffices for the complete local physical state of that part: anything sharing this part’s basic elemental decoration should share its more complete contents, (...) regardless of what may be happening elsewhere. On a non-piecemeal alternative, derivative contents can be recognizably local to, or manifest within, one part of our cosmos while reflecting some more global elemental base. To develop this alternative, non-piecemeal Humeans can borrow inspiration from some critics of Humean supervenience, who already distinguish a broader notion of locality from strict Humean intrinsicality. (shrink)

It is often thought that sensible qualities such as colours do not exist as properties of physical objects. Focusing on the case of colour, I discuss two views: the Galilean view, according to which colours do not exist as qualities of physical objects, and the naive view, according to which colours are, as our perception presents them to be, qualities instantiated by physical objects. I argue that it is far from clear that the Galilean view is better than the naive (...) view. Given the arguments in this paper, the naive view ought to be taken seriously. The discussion here appeals especially to theorists who, like Goff, are already convinced that the quantitative language of physical science fails to capture all qualities. (shrink)

Purpose: This article aims to highlight key indicators of residents' quality of life in a specific contemporary building in Kruja, Albania. -/- Design/Method/Approach: A questionnaire with 30 questions was prepared for the inhabitance, and the Binary or Tobit probabilistic models were taken into consideration as part of the methodology, to conclude. The study will further analyze the implications of the inhabitants and their behavior in a specific contemporary building in the city of Kruja. It was examined the statistical significance (...) of each variable (questions) in the models elaborated with EViews 8 software. The stable models that are associated with the “Log-likelihood” statistics were statistically significant at a significance level of p < 5%, or with 95% confidence, based on the model tests. -/- Findings: The study concluded that the most statistically significant quality of life indicators part of the questionnaire is related to the typology of the apartments, methods of cooling during summer, present living conditions, apartment improvement, apartment orientation, and time spent in the living room. Furthermore, the study reveals that most of the quality-of-life indicators (part of the questionnaire) are not statistically important, so they will not be considered part of the models created in the article. The study reveals that increasing the living space and improving orientation is crucial to enhance the satisfaction of apartment inhabitants. When apartment sizes increase and orientation is improved, residents are more likely to opt for fans over air conditioners to reduce electricity costs and avoid installing additional cooling facilities during summer. They believe that better living conditions require larger apartments, additional water supply, increased electrical costs, and more time spent in the living room. The inhabitants also emphasize the importance of reducing moisture levels, decreasing window opening frequency, and increasing time spent with family. Interestingly, a one-degree improvement in summer cooling methods (e.g., switching from air blowers to air conditioning) corresponds to a one-degree improvement in winter heating methods (e.g., switching from gas to electricity), leading to a heightened need for clean electric heating. Overall, the study emphasizes the importance of meeting the physical and spatial needs of the residents to enhance their overall satisfaction and quality of life. Urban policies significantly impact housing affordability, quality, transport systems, environmental sustainability, and social equity, affecting overall living standards and economic growth. Cities must create well-designed policies that consider residents' needs and study findings to ensure sustainable development and citizen welfare. -/- Theoretical Implications: Gujarati’s (Basic Economics) theory was developed in the article. -/- Practical Implications: This study will serve as an indicator to analyze the further improvements that might occur in the specific building (not just in the city of Kruja), considering the main quality of life indicators. -/- Originality/Value: The article will serve as a base for further analysis of resident’s behavior and their social impact in the community in order to be aware of their needs for further developments in the construction field. -/- Research Limitations/Future Research: The findings depend profoundly on the type of building the residents are living in. The research stream that can be inspired by the research is strongly related to mathematical regression models, statistics, and probability. -/- Paper Type: Empirical . (shrink)

Information, and information and communication technologies (ICTs) are critical for most developed post-industrial societies. It follows, therefore, that the better the quality of the information exchanged, the more likely such societies and their members may prosper. But what is information quality (IQ) exactly? This paper discusses current definitions, problems and approaches to IQ and the question of how we should, and could, evaluate IQ in the future.

Philosophical work on the concept of consent in the past few decades has got to grips with it as a rich notion. We are increasingly sensitive to consent not as a momentary, atomic, transactional thing, but as a complex idea admitting of various qualities and dimensions. In this paper we note that the recognition of this complexity demands a theoretical framework quite different to those presently extant, and we suggest that the enactive approach is one which offers significant value in (...) this regard. In consonance with arguments made by Laurie Penny about how consent is a continuous and dynamic process, we outline how an enactive approach identifies consent as temporally extended (rather than momentarily transactional), and as affected by the skilfulness of the agents involved, the fitness of community provided resources to negotiate the consensual relationship over time, and the unfolding of circumstances in the situation in which the joint action is taking place. We argue that the value of an enactive perspective on consent is in highlighting these complexities, and providing resources to articulate and theorise them in ways that are not open to other current approaches. (shrink)

Our conscious experiences are qualitative and unitary. The qualitative universals given in particular experiences, i.e. qualia, combine into the seamless unity of our conscious experience. The problematics of quality and cohesion are not unique to consciousness studies. In mathematics, the study of qualities (e.g., shape) resulting from quantitative variations in cohesive spaces led to the axiomatization of cohesion and quality. Using the mathematical definition of quality, herein we model qualia space as a categorical product of qualities. Thus (...) modeled qualia space is a codomain space wherein composite qualities (e.g. shape AND color) of conscious experiences can be valued. As part of characterizing the qualia space, we provide a detailed exemplification of the mathematics of quality and cohesion in terms of the categories of idempotents and reflexive graphs. More specifically, with qualities as commutative triangles formed of cohesion-preserving functors, first we calculate the product of commutative triangles. Next, we explicitly show that the category of idempotents is a quality type. Lastly, as part of showing that the category of reflexive graphs is cohesive, we characterize the adjointness between functors relating cohesive graphs to discrete sets. In conclusion, our category theoretic construction of qualia space is a formalization of the binding of qualitative features (colors and shapes) into the cohesive objects (colored-shapes) of conscious experiences. Compared to the feature-vector accounts of conscious experiences, our product-of-qualities account of consciousness is a substantial theoretical advance. (shrink)

Water quality assessment is critical for environmental sustainability and public health. This research employs neural networks to predict water quality, utilizing a dataset of 21 diverse features, including metals, chemicals, and biological indicators. With 8000 samples, our neural network model, consisting of four layers, achieved an impressive 94.22% accuracy with an average error of 0.031. Feature importance analysis revealed arsenic, perchlorate, cadmium, and others as pivotal factors in water quality prediction. This study offers a valuable contribution to (...) enhancing water quality monitoring and decision-making for stakeholders and policymakers. (shrink)

Main Objective of the Study -/- This study aims at describing the quality of Open High School Program based on the evaluation criteria popularized by Stufflebeam and Shinkfield (2014). It was contextualized to suit the needs of the researcher to investigate further on how well is OHSP doing so far. Brief Description of the Research Method -/- This study used quantitative method. The research design was descriptive-evaluative. Analyses of significant differences among the responses were done. There were 257 respondents (...) who were school administrators, OHSP coordinators, guidance counselors, class advisers and subject teachers. They came from 20 public secondary schools in Quezon Province. A real time online questionnaire via Google Form was used. Major Findings -/- Successful completion and cost per student were significant across all categories. When categorically assessed, their significant differences showed indications of quality, while eleven (11) others failed. Looking at slight differences, entails a critical point of analysis which suggests that quality is achieved when certain standards are clearly defined, complied, raised and continuously improved. Conclusions -/- OHSP meets some quality standards and it is not relative to SBM level of practice, type of institution, nature and classification of schools or even the years of implementing it. However, it can be achieved through time with the intention to improve effort, performance, adequacy, efficiency and process. Recommendations -/- Management of OHSP is recommended to follow maintenance and improvement activities focused on enrollment and mainstreaming process, quality assurance examination, fiscal management, curriculum, instruction and assessment, and partnership and networking. (shrink)

This study provides a unified theory of properties, relations, and propositions (PRPs). Two conceptions of PRPs have emerged in the history of philosophy. The author explores both of these traditional conceptions and shows how they can be captured by a single theory.

Conscious experiences are characterized by mental qualities, such as those involved in seeing red, feeling pain, or smelling cinnamon. The standard framework for modeling mental qualities represents them via points in geometrical spaces, where distances between points inversely correspond to degrees of phenomenal similarity. This paper argues that the standard framework is structurally inadequate and develops a new framework that is more powerful and flexible. The core problem for the standard framework is that it cannot capture precision structure: for example, (...) consider the phenomenal contrast between seeing an object as crimson in foveal vision versus merely as red in peripheral vision. The solution I favor is to model mental qualities using regions, rather than points. I explain how this seemingly simple formal innovation not only provides a natural way of modeling precision, but also yields a variety of further theoretical fruits: it enables us to formulate novel hypotheses about the space and structures of mental qualities, formally differentiate two dimensions of phenomenal similarity, generate a quantitative model of the phenomenal sorites, and define a measure of discriminatory grain. A noteworthy consequence is that the structure of the mental qualities of conscious experiences is fundamentally different from the structure of the perceptible qualities of external objects. (shrink)

In the past years, many students had problems with their finances, especially their expenses for education. Many of the students are affected by the crisis financially, emotionally, and by their wellbeing. That is why the government provides programs that will help the students with their problems with school expenses, and that is through the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). Further, the primary goal of this study is to explore the TES Grantees' lived experiences, challenges, (...) and coping mechanisms. Furthermore, these are the study's findings: (1) The grantees find the TES very helpful regarding finances that will tackle their academic needs, such as tuition fees and school learning materials. (2) Many students value government assistance that motivates them to maintain their grades. (shrink)

The notion of secondary qualities was first introduced by early modern philosophers. Since this concept’s inception speculation has been rife on the veracity and ontology of secondary qualities. With some claiming that secondary qualities don’t exist and others claiming that they do exist as qualia or properties of mind-independent objects (naïve realism). Considering this debate, my essay will aim to put forward a novel argument for the mere reality of secondary qualities in response to a position which denies their reality: (...) called secondary quality denialism. I will also argue that given the ontological assumptions of secondary quality denialists the best ontological position for them to hold is naïve realism about secondary qualities. (shrink)

For hospitality establishments like the House of Lechon to remain profitable and draw in new clients, maintaining high standards of service quality is essential. Despite this, satisfying and surpassing client expectations is a constant struggle given the dynamic nature of consumer preferences. To evaluate customer satisfaction at the House of Lechon, this study draws on previous research on service quality and examines customers' expectations and experiences in several areas, including responsiveness, tangibility, reliability, assurance, and empathy. This study, which (...) involved a purposive sample of 100 participants, used a descriptive-quantitative technique to identify areas for improvement and suggest strategic actions to improve service quality and close the gap between customer experiences and expectations. The results emphasize how crucial it is to give service quality factors top priority to increase client happiness and loyalty in the cutthroat hotel sector. (shrink)

What makes a high-quality biomarker experiment? The success of personalized medicine hinges on the answer to this question. In this paper, I argue that judgment about the quality of biomarker experiments is mediated by the problem of theoretical underdetermination. That is, the network of biological and pathophysiological theories motivating a biomarker experiment is sufficiently complicated that it often frustrates valid interpretation of the experimental results. Drawing on a case-study in biomarker diagnostic development from neurooncology, I argue that this (...) problem of underdetermination can be overcome with greater coordination across the biomarker research trajectory. I then sketch an account for how coordination across a research trajectory can be evaluated. I ultimate conclude that what makes a high-quality biomarker experiment must be judged by the epistemic contribution it makes to this coordinated research effort. (shrink)

The growth of individuals and society heavily relies on education. Certain hindrances may prompt some students to halt their academic pursuits temporarily. This is known as "Balik-aral." The exploration of the quality of life, lived experiences, and challenges of grade 12 Balik-aral students was undertaken by the authors to break their silence and help them by developing recommendations that could be presented to the school's key stakeholders. A phenomenological approach was used to understand the phenomenon in a study involving (...) five grade 12 balik-aral students from different strands currently enrolled in a public school in Cebu City, Philippines. A structured interview was used to collect data, and significant themes emerged during data analysis using Colaizzi's method. The study revealed several sub-themes, including age disparities and pressure to obtain the diploma while maintaining quality of life. Additionally, key informants emphasized the sense of community and an immersive learning environment in their lived experiences as balik-aral students. Finally, competing priorities and scarcity of resources emerged as significant challenges for those involved in the study. Consequently, the investigation has determined that balik-aral students must be treated equitably to foster their engagement with their peers and enhance their self-assurance, ultimately leading to academic success. (shrink)

Political equality is in tension with political quality, and quality has recently been neglected. My thesis is that proper attention to the quality of democratic procedures and their outcomes requires that we accept substantive inequalities of political input in the interest of increasing input overall. Mainly, I hope to refute political egalitarianism, the view that justice or legitimacy requires substantive political equality, specifically equal availability of power or influence over collective choices that have legal force. I hope (...) to show that political egalitarianism exaggerates individual rights in the conduct of political procedures, and neglects the substantive justice of the decisions made through those procedures. Some unequal distributions of influence may better promote just decisions, and without reliance on any invidious comparisons such as the relative wisdom of the wealthy or the educated. (shrink)

In this paper I will defend the view that, according to Locke, secondary qualities are dispositions to produce sensations in us. Although this view is widely attributed to Locke, this interpretation needs defending for two reasons. First, commentators often assume that secondary qualities are dispositional properties because Locke calls them “powers” to produce sensations. However, primary qualities are also powers, so the powers locution is insufficient grounds for justifying the dispositionalist interpretation. Second, if secondary qualities are dispositional properties then objects (...) would retain secondary qualities while not being observed, but Locke says that colors “vanish” in the dark. Some commentators use this as evidence that Locke rejects the dispositionalist view of secondary qualities, and even those that are sympathetic to the traditional interpretation find these comments to be problematic. By contrast, I argue that even in these supposedly damning passages Locke shows an unwavering commitment to the view that the powers to produce sensations in us, i.e., the secondary qualities, remain in objects even when they are not being perceived. Thus the arguments against the traditional interpretation are unpersuasive, and we should conclude that Locke does indeed hold that secondary qualities are dispositions to cause sensations in us. (shrink)

Al Mele’s Manipulated Agents: A Window to Moral Responsibility (OUP 2019) is an extraordinarily careful and clear little book. A central recurring element is the use of examples of radical value reversals due to manipulation. In this commentary, I discuss the relevance of these examples to a simple quality of will account of blameworthiness without explicit historical conditions. Such an account, I suggest, can fairly straightforwardly explain how value reversals might mitigate blameworthiness. But I also suggest that the intuition (...) that they completely remove blameworthiness should instead be explained away. (shrink)

The first half of this review article on Locke on primary and secondary qualities leads up to a fairly straightforward reading of what Locke says about the distinction in Essay II.viii, one that, in its general outlines, represents a sympathetic understanding of Locke’s discussion. The second half of the paper turns to consider a few of the ways in which interpreting Locke on primary and secondary qualities has proven more complicated. Here we take up what is sometimes called the Berkeleyan (...) interpretation of Locke, the understanding of Locke’s resemblance thesis, and Locke’s views of qualities and their relationship to powers. (shrink)

Pure quality of will theories claim that ‘the ultimate object’ of our responsibility responses (i.e., praise and blame) is the quality of our will. Any such theory is false—or so I argue. There is a second dimension of (moral) responsibility, independent of quality of will, that our responsibility responses track and take as their object—namely, how adroitly we are able to translate our will into action; I call this competence of will. I offer a conjectural explanation of (...) the two dimensions of (moral) responsibility: it matters to us that people actually perform adequately well because of how much it matters to us that we are able to live and work together successfully. (shrink)

Social media platforms have been rapidly increasing the number of informational labels they are appending to user-generated content in order to indicate the disputed nature of messages or to provide context. The rise of this practice constitutes an important new chapter in social media governance, as companies are often choosing this new “middle way” between a laissez-faire approach and more drastic remedies such as removing or downranking content. Yet information labeling as a practice has, thus far, been mostly tactical, reactive, (...) and without strategic underpinnings. In this paper, we argue against defining success as merely the curbing of misinformation spread. The key to thinking about labeling strategically is to consider it from an epistemic perspective and to take as a starting point the “social” dimension of online social networks. The strategy we articulate emphasizes how the moderation system needs to improve the epistemic position and relationships of platform users — i.e., their ability to make good judgements about the sources and quality of the information with which they interact on the platform — while also appropriately respecting sources, seekers, and subjects of information. A systematic and normatively grounded approach can improve content moderation efforts by providing clearer accounts of what the goals are, how success should be defined and measured, and where ethical considerations should be taken into consideration. We consider implications for the policies of social media companies, propose new potential metrics for success, and review research and innovation agendas in this regard. (shrink)

Background: Ontologies and taxonomies are among the most important computational resources for molecular biology and bioinformatics. A series of recent papers has shown that the Gene Ontology (GO), the most prominent taxonomic resource in these fields, is marked by flaws of certain characteristic types, which flow from a failure to address basic ontological principles. As yet, no methods have been proposed which would allow ontology curators to pinpoint flawed terms or definitions in ontologies in a systematic way. Results: We present (...) computational methods that automatically identify terms and definitions which are defined in a circular or unintelligible way. We further demonstrate the potential of these methods by applying them to isolate a subset of 6001 problematic GO terms. By automatically aligning GO with other ontologies and taxonomies we were able to propose alternative synonyms and definitions for some of these problematic terms. This allows us to demonstrate that these other resources do not contain definitions superior to those supplied by GO. Conclusion: Our methods provide reliable indications of the quality of terms and definitions in ontologies and taxonomies. Further, they are well suited to assist ontology curators in drawing their attention to those terms that are ill-defined. We have further shown the limitations of ontology mapping and alignment in assisting ontology curators in rectifying problems, thus pointing to the need for manual curation. (shrink)

In this essay I propose a new measure of social welfare. It captures the intuitive idea that quantity, quality, and equality of individual welfare all matter for social welfare. More precisely, it satisfies six conditions: Equivalence, Dominance, Quality, Strict Monotonicity, Equality and Asymmetry. These state that i) populations equivalent in individual welfare are equal in social welfare; ii) a population that dominates another in individual welfare is better; iii) a population that has a higher average welfare than another (...) population is better, other things being equal; iv) the addition of a well-faring individual makes a population better, whereas the addition of an ill-faring individual makes a population worse; v) a population that has a higher degree of equality than another population is better, other things being equal; and vi) individual illfare matters more for social welfare than individual welfare. By satisfying the six conditions, the measure improves on previously proposed measures, such as the utilitarian Total and Average measures, as well as different kinds of Prioritarian measures. (shrink)

In this paper I lay the foundations for the construction of an affective quality space. I begin by outlining what quality spaces are, and how they have been constructed for sensory qualities across different perceptual modalities. I then turn to tackle four obstacles that an affective quality space might face that would make an affective quality space unfeasible. After showing these obstacles to be surmountable, I propose a number of conditions and methodological constraints that should be (...) satisfied in attempts to construct an affective quality space. Before concluding, I detail the high explanatory pay-off such a project promises. (shrink)

This is a corrected version of the final proofs. I've fixed a number of typos, and corrected a blunder in chapter 4. In chapter 4 I say that 'this is this' is analytic, and 'this is not this' is antonymous. This is inconsistent with what I say in chapter 5, and not what I actually think. Rather, 'this is this' is taugologous, and 'this is not this' is contradictory. Analyticity and autnonmy are sense properties while tautologousness and contradictoriness are formal (...) logical properties. Heading, ToC and Index updated accordingly. (Oxford will make these corrections in their online version and in future print runs.). (shrink)

Descartes and Boyle were the most influential proponents of strict mechanist accounts of the physical world, accounts which carried with them a distinction between primary and secondary (or sensible) qualities. For both, the distinction is a piece of natural philosophy. Nevertheless the distinction is quite differently articulated, and, especially, differently grounded in the two thinkers. For Descartes, reasoned reflection reveals to us that bodies must consist in mere extension and its modifications, and that sensible qualities as we conceive of them (...) based on sense perception can pertain only to the mind. Just how we are supposed to arrive at this realization is, this essay will argue, a deep puzzle that brings us to the basic assumptions of Descartes' metaphysics. For Boyle, by contrast, while reflection can reveal the unique explanatory status of mechanism, and, thus, the primary/secondary quality distinction, only experience can confirm its truth. Our central focus will be on Descartes, and on the question: How does he intend to remove the sensible qualities from the physical world, how does he strip them from bodies? I will try to show that Descartes has an argument that he takes to show a priori that sensible qualities cannot be attributed to the material world (as foundational qualities, or, as we conceive of them based on sense experience). The argument fails, however, leaving him with at best a partly empirical case for removing the sensible qualities, based on the purported explanatory success of his physics. (shrink)

Descartes and Boyle were the most influential proponents of strict mechanist accounts of the physical world, accounts which carried with them a distinction between primary and secondary (or sensible) qualities. For both, the distinction is a piece of natural philosophy. Nevertheless the distinction is quite differently articulated, and, especially, differently grounded in the two thinkers. For Descartes, reasoned reflection reveals to us that bodies must consist in mere extension and its modifications, and that sensible qualities as we conceive of them (...) based on sense perception can pertain only to the mind. Just how we are supposed to arrive at this realization is, this essay will argue, a deep puzzle that brings us to the basic assumptions of Descartes' metaphysics. For Boyle, by contrast, while reflection can reveal the unique explanatory status of mechanism, and, thus, the primary/secondary quality distinction, only experience can confirm its truth. Our central focus will be on Descartes, and on the question: How does he intend to remove the sensible qualities from the physical world, how does he strip them from bodies? I will try to show that Descartes has an argument that he takes to show a priori that sensible qualities cannot be attributed to the material world (as foundational qualities, or, as we conceive of them based on sense experience). The argument fails, however, leaving him with at best a partly empirical case for removing the sensible qualities, based on the purported explanatory success of his physics. (shrink)

Introduction in chapter viii of book ii of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke provides various putative lists of primary qualities. Insofar as they have considered the variation across Locke's lists at all, commentators have usually been content simply either to consider a self-consciously abbreviated list (e.g., "Size, Shape, etc.") or a composite list as the list of Lockean primary qualities, truncating such a composite list only by omitting supposedly co-referential terms. Doing the latter with minimal judgment about what (...) terms are co-referential gives us the following list of eleven qualities (in the order in which they appear in this chapter of the Essay): solidity, extension, figure, mobility, motion or rest, number, bulk, texture, motion, size, and situation. Perhaps surprisingly given the attention to the primary/secondary distinction since Locke, Locke's primary qualities themselves have received little more than passing mention in the bulk of the subsequent literature. In particular, no discussion both offers an interpretation of Locke's conception of primary qualities and makes sense of Locke's various lists as lists of primary qualities. A central motivation for this paper is the idea that these two tasks are not independent. (shrink)