Terms Of Certainty Research Articles

Towards moral teleology — a comparative study of Kant and Zhu Xi

Kant’s coining of «reflective judgment» in the third Critique by a conceptual clarification of the third higher cognitive faculty has long been criticized as redundant for his philosophical system and deemed a typical Kantian architectonic failure. Zhu Xi’s vital development of the doctrine «gewu» in his commentary on The Great Learning has been attacked for centuries for committing a hermeneutic fallacy. I argue that a comparative study shows that both conceptions steered a metaphysical transition towards «the supersensible» in each philosophy, leading to a similar construction of moral teleology. Zhu Xi’s «li» is comparable to Kant’s «purpose» as a moral teleological property. The Neo-Confucian li-qi dichotomy provides a counterpart of the Kantian double causality. Nevertheless, Neo-Confucian moral teleology does not rely on a Kantian-type rationalistic deduction concerning the idea of highest good (as final purpose) nor on the so-called intellectual intuition. Gewu looks outwards for the moral coherence between humans and things, while Kant ultimately rejects the natural world for the sake of moral certainty in terms of freedom and identifies what is unique within us.

Deklaracje interpretacyjne jako instrument transformacji międzynarodowego prawa inwestycyjnego. Ku ograniczeniu aktywizmu sędziowskiego

Międzynarodowe prawo inwestycyjne przynajmniej od dekady jest przedmiotem znaczącej krytyki z powodu sposobu orzekania trybunałów arbitrażowych. W rezultacie zarówno państwa, jak i organizacje międzynarodowe poszukują środków ograniczenia aktywizmu sędziowskiego tych trybunałów. Do najczęściej stosowanych mechanizmów w tym zakresie zalicza się renegocjacje istniejących traktatów inwestycyjnych, zawieranie nowych porozumień, jak również wypowiadanie istniejących traktatów. Mechanizmy te, zasadniczo najbardziej pożądane i gwarantujące największą pewność w zakresie praw i obowiązków stron umów, posiadają również istotne mankamenty, przede wszystkim związane z czasem wymaganym, aby osiągnąć pożądany rezultat. Niniejszy artykuł postuluje, że dla ograniczenia aktywizmu sędziowskiego w międzynarodowym prawie inwestycyjnym stosunkowo optymalnym rozwiązaniem mogą być deklaracje interpretacyjne. Mimo że nie zapewniają one takiej pewności prawnej, jak nowy traktat, to jednak z uwagi na relatywną łatwość ich uzgodnienia i akceptacji deklaracje te pozwalają znacznie szybciej osiągnąć skutek prawny w zakresie rozumienia traktatu zgodnie z intencją jego stron.

Consistency of Judicial Practice as an Element of Legal Certainty: Approach of the ECtHR

The article is devoted to the analysis of the consistency of judicial practice as an essential element of the legal certainty principle in terms of the evaluative interpretation of par. 1 art. 6 ECHR devoted to the right to a fair trial in civil procedure. The author describes an algorithm which is used by the ECtHR in order to confirm the violation of the right to a fair trial because of the lack of the consistency of judicial practice at national level. In order to identify whether conflicting decisions in similar cases violate the principle of legal certainty in terms of the par. 1 art. 6 ECHR, ECtHR has to find out: a) whether “profound and long-standing divergences” in the case-law exist; b) whether domestic law provides for a mechanism capable of removing the judicial inconsistency; and c) whether this mechanism was applied and, if so, what its effects were. Different types of the inconsistency of judicial practice can be distinguished, for example, inconsistency in practice of lower courts, inconsistency in case-law of the highest court, inconsistency in case-law of different highest courts which are not subordinated to each other. Different standards should be applied for such kinds of divergence: the ECtHR doesn’t analyze the divergence of case-law in the level of lower court, because it’s the higher court which should fix this inconsistency, the main attention should be paid to the divergence of the highest courts. There are two main types of such divergence: a) inconsistency of the case-law of the one and only highest court; b) inconsistency in case-law of several courts which are not subordinated one to another. In first situation the ECtHR applies stricter standards according to which the highest court at the national level should guarantee the consistent interpretation of the law avoiding divergence of interpretation. Nevertheless, in the second situation the ECtHR follows less strict approach according to which inconsistency of case-law of several independent can be tolerated.

Mâtürîdî’nin Tefsir-Te’vîl Ayrımı ve Bunun Te’vîlât’taki Pratik Değeri Üzerine Bir İnceleme

Mâtürîdî’nin Tefsir-Te’vîl Ayrımı ve Bunun Te’vîlât’taki Pratik Değeri Üzerine Bir İnceleme

Assessing the Suitability of The Adapted Scientific Epistemic Beliefs Questionnaire in Namibia

This study adapted and validated a questionnaire for assessing Namibian students’ scientific epistemic beliefs and explore their relation to achievement in science, gender, grade and socioeconomic status. The study was correlational, with a sample of 944 (45% male; 55% female) Grades 11 and 12 students with the mean age M=17.9, SD= 1.4. A Likert scale questionnaire comprised of four dimensions of beliefs: source; certainty; development; and justification of scientific knowledge. The adapted questionnaire had good reliability with the Cronbach’s alpha of subscales ranging from .80 to .83 and the overall reliability of .70. Model fit analysis yielded good statistical fit with Chi-square ratio to degrees of freedom= 2.71, RMSEA= 0.043, CFI= 0.95, TLI= 0.94, SRMR= .032. The overall regression model was significant F (4, 939) =8.218, p <.001, R2= .034. Two dimensions, certainty (b=.154, p<.001) and justification (b=.100, p<.05) statistically significantly predicted achievement in science. There was statistically significant difference in beliefs about source in terms of gender and grade and about certainty in terms of grade. The results show that the questionnaire works well with the Namibian sample used given the good model fit for the data and reliability. Results are discussed in terms of 21st century skills development.

Granulated deep learning and Z-numbers in motion detection and object recognition

The article deals with the problems of motion detection, object recognition, and scene description using deep learning in the framework of granular computing and Z-numbers. Since deep learning is computationally intensive, whereas granular computing, on the other hand, leads to computation gain, a judicious integration of their merits is made so as to make the learning mechanism computationally efficient. Further, it is shown how the concept of z-numbers can be used to quantify the abstraction of semantic information in interpreting a scene, where subjectivity is of major concern, through recognition of its constituting objects. The system, thus developed, involves recognition of both static objects in the background and moving objects in foreground separately. Rough set theoretic granular computing is adopted where rough lower and upper approximations are used in defining object and background models. During deep learning, instead of scanning the entire image pixel by pixel in the convolution layer, we scan only the representative pixel of each granule. This results in a significant gain in computation time. Arbitrary-shaped and sized granules, as expected, perform better than regular-shaped rectangular granules or fixed-sized granules. The method of tracking is able to deal efficiently with various challenging cases, e.g., tracking partially overlapped objects and suddenly appeared objects. Overall, the granulated system shows a balanced trade-off between speed and accuracy as compared to pixel level learning in tracking and recognition. The concept of using Z-numbers, in providing a granulated linguistic description of a scene, is unique. This gives a more natural interpretation of object recognition in terms of certainty toward scene understanding.

Are unemployment rates stationary for SEE10 countries? Evidence from linear and nonlinear dynamics

This article aims to answer the questions concerning the dynamics of unemployment rates, including whether there is a subsequent hysteresis in the selected sample of ten countries of the South East Europe. The linear and nonlinear tests have been used to determine the stationarity of unemployment rates. The findings show that in eight out of ten countries, unemployment is a stationary process which implies that the hysteresis hypothesis has not been confirmed. The unemployment rates in Albania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Greece, Montenegro and Turkey manifest mean reverting behaviour. The movements of unemployment rates in the next period can be forecasted with a relatively high degree of certainty in terms of the mentioned countries. The unemployment in FYR Macedonia and Serbia is a non-stationary process. The results further emphasize the importance of allowing asymmetric adjustment and structural breaks, especially in the case of Romania, Montenegro and Turkey.

Corruption Intentions Among Prospective Elites in Ghana: An Economy of Esteem

Besides its multiple harms, corruption undermines the rule of law and impedes the effective functioning of criminal justice institutions. It involves both elites in bending rules and laws as well as police at the bottom of the hierarchy asking for bribes. We analyze corruption intentions within the framework of Brennan and Pettit’s “economy of esteem,” using three main conceptual frameworks: attachment to kinship groups, materialistic orientations, and deterrence. We draw on data from a survey of 530 university students in Ghana to examine predictors of corruption intentions of prospective elites. Our prospective elites were more inclined to resort to influence peddling rather than to pay bribes directly. We find that attitudinal patterns indicative of esteem predict intentions to engage in corrupt exchanges across different agencies and contexts—police, procurement for government, and abuse of power—as well as different types of action, whether bribe payment or nepotism. In contrast, citizenly pride (and self-esteem) motivates integrity across all types of corrupt exchange. Deterrence, in terms of certainty, had a more consistently negative impact on intentions to engage in nepotism than in bribe paying and acceptance, with public procurement being the exception; no effect was found for stigma, and only police nepotism was an exception to the otherwise non-significant effects of severity.

Incorporating Humor to Develop EFL Learner's Speaking Ability and Willingness to Communicate

The present research attempted at finding out whether using humor techniques in the classroom is effective in developing EFL learner`s speaking ability, and second to investigate the effectiveness of these techniques in developing EFL learner`s willingness to communicate. For reaching the aims of this study, Iranian adult intermediate EFL learners were chosen based on intact group sampling. First, all the participants took The Oxford Placement test as a homogeneity test. Then, a speaking ability and willingness to communicate pre-test was administered to measure the participants’ initial level of speaking ability and willingness to communicate. After that, when the experimental group learnt the speaking ability using humor techniques, the control group just experienced their routine method of teaching. After conducting 8 sessions of the course treatment, a post-test with the same content as the pre-test was conducted one by one for all the participants in order to measure their achievement in English speaking ability. For data analysis, SPSS software was used to run independent samples t-test to make comparisons between the experimental and the control groups’ test scores. The results indicated that there is a significant difference in level of 95% certainty in terms of speaking ability and 99% certainty in terms of willingness to communicate between the learners’ scores in experimental group which incorporate techniques of humor in EFL classrooms and the learners of the control group.

Quantifying the uncertainty in the ultimate recoverable oil reserves using the Monte Carlo simulation techniques from ‘OWA’ Marginal Field, Onshore Niger Delta, Nigeria

A review on the development of marginal oil fields in Nigeria has now become an important strategic issue if it is to remain amongst the top producers in the global market, and these fields are vast, available all over the Niger Delta. One of the factors that makes a field marginal is the size of its reserves. Stochastic estimation gives a certainty in terms of the possible number of outcomes within the range of input parameters. In this work, four (4) deviated wells and 3D seismic volume (362 inlines and 401 traces) were interpreted for the evaluation of the field. The petrophysical evaluations were interpreted using the Power Log software and the Seismic, Geographix and Petrel softwares. Stochastic reserve estimation was done using Monte Carlo sampling techniques and subjected to uncertainty quantification using the Crystal Ball software by varying distributions and measuring sensitivity impact on the overall reserves. The production profile was predicted based on some assumptions and history matching which result in the overall Expected Ultimate Recovery (EUR). The petrophysical analysis shows the reservoirs to be within the unconsolidated continental Benin Formation denoted as ‘Intra-Benin’ sands, an unconventional reservoir as supposed the normal reservoir rocks within the Agbada Formation. This indicated high porosity (0.28), water resistivity (7 Ω∙m), and water saturation and also inferred Heavy Oil (low API). Nine hydrocarbon sands were identified but only three (B1, D and E), representing shallow, mid and deep reservoirs were further evaluated. 1P and 2P reserve estimates were 4.8 MMBO and 5.7 MMBO for B1; 15.2 MMMscf and 16.4 MMMscf for D; 8.4 MMMscf and 8.8 MMMscf for E respectively. The Monte Carlo simulation of 1,000,000 trials with mainly triangular distribution assumption generated P10, P50, P90 were 6.5 MMBO, 5.6 MMBO and 4.4 MMBO for B1; 17.5 MMMscf, 13.7 MMMscf and 10.8 MMMscf for D; 10.4 MMMscf, 8 MMMscf and 6.1 MMMscf for E respectively. The sensitivity impact of the input parameters were estimated and ranked, and the coefficient of variability ranges within 15% to 20% for the reservoirs indicating that there is a very low level uncertainty of reserve estimation around the P10, P50 and P90 percentiles which could be positive for investment decisions. ‘OWA’ marginal field reflects a typical low reserve (EUR) category found within the Niger Delta basin.

ARAP GRAMERİNDE HÂL

This work focuses on one of the important elements of Arabic grammar. In the study, the meaning of the dictionary and the term were given, and the criterion of the definition of what the linguistis were saying for the situation was made. However, the state was evaluated in different categories in terms of meaning and form, and according to this, the parts of the state were revealed. In this regard, considering the semantic connection between the state and the real owner, it is discussed in two categories as explanatory and reinforcer. In terms of figure, the state (hâl) is divided into fragments which are derived, frozen, infinitive, singular, sentence and semi-sentence. In addition, the connexion in the state of a sentence has been examined. In addition, the possessor of the factual element which is considered in terms of certainty and uncertainty has been evaluated from this point of view. and the harmony with the state owner, the introduction to the state ownerand factor, the deletion of the state and the factor, and the issue of number in the factor.

Knowledge, belief, normality, and introspection

We study two logics of knowledge and belief stemming from the work of Stalnaker (2006), omitting positive introspection for knowledge. The two systems are equivalent with positive introspection, but not without. We show that while the logic of beliefs remains unaffected by omitting introspection for knowledge in one system, it brings significant changes to the other. The resulting logic of belief is non-normal, and its complete axiomatization uses an infinite hierarchy of coherence constraints. We conclude by returning to the philosophical interpretation underlying both models of belief, showing that neither is strong enough to support a probabilistic interpretation, nor an interpretation in terms of certainty or the “mental component” of knowledge.

Generality in student and expert epistemic stance: A corpus analysis of first-year, upper-level, and published academic writing

Research highlights the importance of stance in academic writing, and recent research shows increasing emphasis on stance in undergraduate writing. Most studies of student writing focus on epistemic stance in terms of certainty and not generality; yet instructional materials suggest that developing writers need to learn to limit generalizations. This study examines the use of certain indefinite pronouns and extreme amplifiers that help indicate generality as a part of stance in three corpora: new college writing, advanced student writing, and published academic writing. The study shows two specific and shared rhetorical uses of generalization markers, emphasizing the wide applicability of a claim and projecting shared ideas. The study also shows clear differences in the frequency of generalizations used and the breadth or scope of generalizations made. Published academic writing contains the fewest generalization markers, while new college writing shows the most generalizations as well as generalizations that span large groups and periods of time. The findings suggest that in non-discipline specific essay writing, new college students' frequent use of generalization markers contrasts the more circumspect stance features in advanced student and published discipline-specific writing, posing questions for writing instruction as well as essay-based writing assessment.

The Cost of the Dismissal, and the Predictability of Firing Costs: an Employment Solution to the Financial Crisis?

AbstractThis paper seeks to contrast the prevailing economic justifications in favour of the ongoing deregulatory reforms (based on the need for greater certainty in terms of firing costs for businesses) with an alternative “liability based” economic approach. Eventually the scope is to ascertain whether, from a purely juridical viewpoint (and also from a Law and Economics perspective), the current legislative trend in labour law is consistent with the initially declared purposes or not. More specifically, the comparison between two very different employment protection systems (i. e., the Italian and the British ones) can show how the current legislative trend based on the predictability of firing costs is only partially consistent with the declared objectives, whereas it could play a much larger role as a hermeneutical tool used in a more business-oriented interpretation of traditional legal notions (among Italian scholars, so-called “categorie”), such as the one of dismissal on “subjective” grounds.

Transsexuality as Aesthetic Experience

Transsexuality as Aesthetic Experience

Communicating risk for issues that involve ‘uncertainty bias’: what can the Israeli case of water fluoridation teach us?

Water fluoridation is a controversial issue in public health. Despite the uncertainty regarding its efficacy and safety, health officials continue to communicate it as ‘unequivocally’ safe and effective. Our focus is on how health officials and policy-makers in Israel frame the issue of water fluoridation in terms of certainty while promoting a mandatory fluoridation policy. According to van Asselt and Vos, the uncertainty paradox describes situations in which uncertainty is acknowledged, but the role of science is framed as providing certainty. Our study is an analysis of documents and media articles emphasizing the paradoxical language used by official representatives on the controversial topic of fluoridation. A central contribution of this study is that we coin the term ‘uncertainty bias,’ in which policy-makers do exactly what they accuse laypeople of doing, framing uncertainty in biased terms. We found that in order to establish mandatory regulation, health ministry officials expressed information in an unbalanced format, promoting the topic of fluoridation by framing it in exclusively positive terms. This study does not focus on the practice of water fluoridation per se, and is not intended to decide for or against it, but rather, to explore how the debate regarding it is communicated. Understanding this particular case can shed light on how other controversial topics are transformed into health policy that is characterized in equivocal terms.

Modality with Past Time Reference in English-into-Arabic Fiction Translation

Modality is a semantic medium that colors the way the language user views the world around him/ her in terms of certainty, necessity and obligation; hence, it places extra effort on the translator while attempting to capture modalistic shades of meaning. The task may become more challenging when the translator is dealing with a language pair where modality is grammar-oriented in one member (English, for example) and lexis-oriented in the other (Arabic, for example). The present paper aims to investigate the rendering of speaker participation in the speech event as embodied in modality when translating English fiction into Arabic. In particular, it will examine the corpus of two sets of data involving past modality (modal + have + past participle) extracted from two English novels which will be compared with their counterparts in the Arabic translations. Four main issues will be discussed. The first is to see whether the distinction between epistemic and deontic modality is maintained in translation. The second is to check whether the translators are sensitive to the import of modality in discourse as manifested in the speaker’s attitudes toward what is happening. The third is to check whether English modalized propositions are sometimes erroneously rendered into modality-free Arabic propositions. Last, the study discusses the Arabic modality markers employed to capture past modality. Both a quantitative account (focusing on form and function) and a qualitative analysis (focusing on adequacy of translation procedures) are furnished.

Modality with Past Time Reference in English-into-Arabic Fiction Translation

Modality is a semantic medium that colors the way the language user views the world around him/ her in terms of certainty, necessity and obligation; hence, it places extra effort on the translator while attempting to capture modalistic shades of meaning. The task may become more challenging when the translator is dealing with a language pair where modality is grammar-oriented in one member (English, for example) and lexis-oriented in the other (Arabic, for example). The present paper aims to investigate the rendering of speaker participation in the speech event as embodied in modality when translating English fiction into Arabic. In particular, it will examine the corpus of two sets of data involving past modality (modal + have + past participle) extracted from two English novels which will be compared with their counterparts in the Arabic translations. Four main issues will be discussed. The first is to see whether the distinction between epistemic and deontic modality is maintained in translation. The second is to check whether the translators are sensitive to the import of modality in discourse as manifested in the speaker’s attitudes toward what is happening. The third is to check whether English modalized propositions are sometimes erroneously rendered into modality-free Arabic propositions. Last, the study discusses the Arabic modality markers employed to capture past modality. Both a quantitative account (focusing on form and function) and a qualitative analysis (focusing on adequacy of translation procedures) are furnished.

MENINGKATKAN PARIWISATA BALI MELALUI KEPASTIAN PENEGAKAN HUKUM ATAS PELANGGARAN KAWASAN TANPA ROKOK DALAM PERATURAN DAERAH PROPINSI BALI NOMOR 10 TAHUN 2011

To obtain a good and healthy environment is a part of human rights, as stated in the constitution of the Republic of Indonesia and the global principles of human rights. Tourism in Indonesia held on the principle of upholding human rights, especially Bali which engaged in the tourism sector. In response to the Bali Provincial Government policies governing the protection of human rights to obtain a good and healthy environment, through the Bali Local Regulation No. 10 Year 2011 on No Smoking Area, but the policy can not work effectively due to the lack of certainty in terms of law enforcement that is set in the substance of the local regulation (vagueness of legal norms), as well as penalties for violations that have not been able to provide a deterrent effect. This research uses normative legal research with the rationality that this study will examine the substance of the local regulation of Bali Province perceived No Smoking Area considered as vagueness of legal norm. The approach used to solve the problem is through the statute approach, analitical legal and conceptual approach, as well as the comparative approach to do a comparison of the rules banning smoking in Singapore and Queensland Australia. The results showed that a good alternative No Smoking Area policy in Bali is reforming the Bali Local Regulation by inserting a clear formulation of the law enforcement authorities, as well as the formulation of assertive sanctions to provide a deterrent effect. Through law enforcement certainty No Smoking Area, it will be able to improve the quality of tourism in Bali, especially in terms of Cleanliness Personality and Comfort.

A Theory of Evidence-based method for assessing frequent patterns

Frequent itemset (or frequent pattern) mining is a very important issue within the data mining field. Both, syntactic simplicity and descriptive potential, are the key features of the itemset-based pattern which have led to its widespread use in a growing number of real-life domains. Some of the most representative algorithms for mining this kind of pattern are Apriori-like algorithms and, therefore, the number of patterns obtained under normal conditions is very large, making the process of evaluation and interpretation quite difficult. This problem is compounded if we consider that knowledge discovery is an iterative process, and the change in the parameters of the preprocessing techniques or the mining algorithm can lead to significant changes in the result. In this paper, we propose a method based on Shafer's Theory of Evidence which uses two information measures for the quality evaluation of the set of frequent patterns. From a practical point of view, the main goal is to select, for a given database, the best preprocessing technique that lead to the discovery of useful knowledge. Nevertheless, the underlying idea is to propose a formal method to assess, objectively, sets of frequent patterns, seen as belief structures, in terms of certainty in the information they represent.